Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention

The worst thing that happens in life is not death. The worst thing would be to miss it. . . . I think the great danger in life is not showing up.

When people are blessed they discover that their lives matter, that there is something in them worthy of blessing.

I spent the first forty years of my life making major interventions into other people's lives, and I have an idea of the limitations of that method. I see a major event as rather like major surgery. It is a moment, but whether people use it, whether people go with it, needs to be seen.

Being alive is being aware, being able to be touched and moved and changed, being able to respond rather than to react, being able to see and hear.

Is it possible to live so defensively that you never get to live at all?

The wisdom in the story of the most educated and powerful person is often not greater than the wisdom in the story of a child, and the life of a child can teach us as much as the life of a sage.