Love is short, forgetting is long, and understanding longer still.

The job of a friend is not to decide what should be done, not to run interference or pick up the slack. The job of a friend is to understand, and to supply energy and hope, and in doing so to keep those they value on their feet a little longer, so that they can fight another round and grow strong in themselves.

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

Loving someone means helping them to be more themselves, which can be different from being what you’d like them to be, although often they turn out the same

Until you divest yourself of the notion that you are a collection of needs, an empty vessel that someone else must fill up, there will be no safe place to harbor yourself, no safe shore to reach. As long as you think mostly of getting, you will have nothing real to give.

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

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