After a stroke we can re-learn how to talk, because by practicing we can establish different pathways in the brain, circumnavigating the damaged part.

A relapse doesn't mean you'll never walk down the path you prefer. But I think relapses are almost an inevitable part of any course of self-development.

If we think of our brains as a map, those early roads are like grooves, tram tracks, easy to fall into.

In order to stretch ourselves we do need to experience the vulnerability of not knowing the outcome.

Our emotional map is laid down mainly in relationship with our earliest caregiver in the first couple of years of life.

If we are not using our brains' capacity for challenge it feels to me as though it atrophies like an unused muscle.

A sense of achievement improves general confidence and self-esteem.

I am talking about being optimistic enough to sow some seeds in the hope that some of them will germinate and grow into flowers.

There are probably times where the creative process is not helped by collaboration.

Two brains are better than one. You've twice the brain capacity and you have two sets of experiences and genes to bring to any challenge.

The trouble is if we take no new steps to try a new challenge, our comfort zone doesn't seem just to stay still, but retract.

The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity and one's knowledge of human life.

Simply expanding Medicaid does not improve health care outcomes. In Louisiana, instead we're helping people getting better paying jobs so they can provide for their own health care.

The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible.

Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

I have three words for you," EMT Guy said. "Possible internal bleeding." I turned back to him. "Don't you think if I was bleeding internally, I'd know somewhere deep inside? Like, internally?

It had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.

I was born with the gift.

In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made

A man who cannot seduce men cannot save them either.

States should pass laws making it illegal to own or trade wild animals; the phony 'educational' permits that many private owners have used to skirt those laws should be eliminated.