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.

A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another.

Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain. It is a sorting process. One by one you let go of the things that are gone and you mourn for them. One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again.

The choice people have to make is never between slavery and freedom. We will always have to choose between slavery and the unknown.

How strange to think that great pain may be impermanent. Something in us all seems to want to carve it in granite, as if only this would do full honor to its terrible significance. But even pain is blessed with impermanence... p 259

If you carry someone else's fears and live by someone else's values, you may find that you have lived their lives.

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