A human life has seasons much as the earth has seasons, each time with its own particular beauty and power. And gift. By focusing on springtime and summer, we have turned the natural process of life into a process of loss rather than a process of celebration and appreciation. Life is neither linear nor stagnant. It is movement from mystery to mystery. Just as a year includes autumn and winter, life includes death, not as an opposite but as an integral part of the way life is made.

Fear is the friction in all transitions.

I have no idea about what death is, but because I have been in association with it so intimately, I have a much greater sense of the value of life and of what life can be.

An unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road.

Facts bring us to knowledge, but stories lead to wisdom.

When you listen generously to people they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time.

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.