We tend to feel most comfortable, "most at home", with people whose self esteem level resembles our own.

... there is an irrational, cultish tendency in many intellectual movements, and Objectivism, alas, is no exception. Ayn Rand's personal obsession with loyalty did little to discourage this trend.... Rand had often protested, 'Protect me from my followers!'

Accepting does not necessarily mean liking, enjoying, condoning. I can accept what is-and be determined to evolve from there. It is not acceptance but denial that leaves me stuck.

What is guilt? It is moral self-reproach-I did wrong when it was possible to have done otherwise.

Romantic love can be terrifying. We experience another human being as enormously important to us. So there is surrender -not a surrender to the other person so much as to our feeling for the other person. What is the obstacle? The possibility of loss.

Suffering is just about the easiest of all human activities; being happy is just about the hardest. And happiness requires, not surrender to guilt, but emancipation from guilt.

Even when our life is most difficult, it is important to remember that something within us is keeping us alive- the life force-that lift us, energizes us, pulls us back sometimes from the abyss of despair. True spirituality does not exist without love of life.