I learned that healing and cure are active processes in which I myself needed to participate.

Recall how often in human history the saint and the rebel have be the same person. (p. 35)

When we are dealing with human beings, no truth has reality by itself; it is always dependent upon the reality of the immediate relationship.

It requires greater courage to preserve inner freedom, to move on in one's inward journey into new realms, than to stand defiantly for outer freedom. It is often easier to play the martyr, as it is to be rash in battle.

The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.

Vanity and narcissism — the compulsive need to be admired and praised — undermine one's courage, for one then fights on someone else's conviction rather than one's own.

The creative act arises out of the struggle of human beings with and against that which limits them.