A house that does not have one warm, comfy chair in it is soulless.

letters are so much easier than living. One can give one's best.

Solitude is one thing and loneliness is another.

Routine is not a prison, but the way into freedom from time.

Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.

The more our bodies fail us, the more naked and more demanding is the spirit, the more open and loving we can become if we are not afraid of what we are and of what we feel. I am not a phoenix yet, but here among the ashes, it may be that the pain is chiefly that of new wings trying to push through.

When we speak of being vulnerable, it suggests being especially vulnerable to pain. People for whom personal dignity and self-sufficiency are everything, do all they can to shut it out. Noli mi tangere. They are well aware that any intimate relationship has pain in it, forces a special kind of awareness, is costly, and so they try to keep themselves unencumbered by shutting pain out as far as it is possible to do so.