Each of us is ultimately alone.

The unlived life isn't worth examining.

Sometimes it seems to me that in this absurdly random life there is some inherent justice in the outcome of personal relationships. In the long run, we get no more than we have been willing to give.

Often things are as bad as they seem.

Transformations require that we let go of familiar ways of doing things, without yet knowing what we will do next.

And so, it is not astonishing that, though the patient enters therapy insisting that he wants to change, more often than not, what he really wants is to remain the same and to get the therapist to make him feel better. (4)

When a patient says he feels stuck and confused, and through good intentions he struggles to become loose and clear, he only remains chronically trapped in the mire of his own stubbornness. If instead he will go with where he is, only then is there hope. If he will let himself get deeply into the experience of being stuck, only then will he reclaim that part of himself that is holding him. Only if he will give up trying to control his thinking, and let himself sink into his confusion, only then will things become clear. (64)