I'm not sure there can be loving without commitment, although commitment takes all kinds of forms, and there can be commitment for the moment as well as commitment for all time. The kind that is essential for loving marriages - and love affairs, as well - is a commitment to preserving the essential quality of your partner's soul, adding to them as a person rather than taking away.

But who would rush at a benighted man, and give him two black eyes for being blind?

The answer doesn't lie in learning how to protect ourselves from life-it lies in learning how to become strong enough to let a bit more of it in.

when you put something good into the world, something good comes back to you.

There are no perfect men of course, but some are more perfect than others, and we can use all of those we can get.

The day you spend hoping, the day you spend waiting, the day you spend in despair, is a day in your life as much as the tomorrow you hope for, but which may never come, so betting today on tomorrow is always a bad bet.

You can tell a lot about what a man lacks by watching what he is cynical about, and many of us are cynical about love.