You come to love not by discovering the ideal individual, yet by figuring out how to see a blemished individual flawlessly.

Neurotic identity crises come when our defense mechanisms have been too successful and we're encapsulated in the fortress we have constructed with nothing to refresh us in our solitary confinement. So we play the old movies with their stale fears and their unrealistic hopes until we become bored enough to risk disarmament and engagement.

The deepest mystery comes not when we don't know somebody well, but when we do.

If we had a better understanding of the ways we think about enemies, we might be able to think of more rational ways of settling conflict.

In the degree that we remember and retell our stories and create new ones we become the authors, the authorities, of our own lives.

I suspect that we are all recipients of cosmic love notes. Messages, omens, voices, cries, revelations, and appeals are homogenized into each day's events. If only we knew how to listen, to read the signs.

The spiritual journey is one that we must take "alone together," in the same way that a good marriage involves a dance between solitude and communion. The life of the spirit entails a continuous alternation between retreating into oneself and going out into the world: it's an inward-outward journey. There is a solitary part to it, but that solitude helps us to develop richer and more in-depth relationships with our friends, our children, our community, and the political world.