Prayer is vastly superior to worry. With worry, we are helpless; with prayer, we are interceding. When I hear sad news, I try to say a prayer for the victims. When I am troubled, I will say a prayer that asks for relief for myself and for all those who suffer as I do. When I am concerned about my relatives or friends I say a short prayer to myself - "May they be happy and free of suffering."

I want to write. I have always wanted to write. I do not care it I am not good at it. I just want to try.

Most parents of adolescent girls have the goal of keeping their daughters safe while they grow up and explore the world. The parents' job is to protect, the daughter's job is to explore.

Girls have long been evaluated on the basis of appearance and caught in myriad double binds: achieve, but not too much, be polite,but be yourself, be feminine and adult; be aware of our cultural heritage, but don't comment on the sexism. . . . Girls are trained to be less than who they really are. They are trained to be what the culture wants of its young women, not what they themselves want to become.

we are a small, interconnected world; that we are all safe or none of us are; that we are all well cared for or all at risk.

When one of us tells the truth, he makes it easier for all of us to open our hearts to our pain and that of others.

If there's a therapist who wants a writing project, I think there's a need for a book about how the culture affects the mental health of boys.