...mindfulness - it isn't a trick or a gimmick. It's being present in the moment. When I'm with you, I'm with you. Right now. That's all. No more and no less.

If I'd waited until I was well rested to read, I never would have read anything.

I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.

That's one of the amazing things great books like this do - they don't just get you to see the world differently, they get you to look at people, the people all around you, differently.

It was the women of afghanistan, my mother believed, who-once they’d been granted access to books and education- would be the salvation of the country

I think it's because it shows that people--or hobbits, as the case may be--can find strength they didn't know they had.

...two different kinds of Japanese psychotherapies, one based on getting people to stop using feelings as an excuse for their actions and the other based on getting people to practice gratitude.

You can only do what you can, and what doesn't get done, just doesn't get done.

Oh, dear--did I forget to mention that you can, indeed, have it all, but you need a lot of help!

The thing about Americans, ” she said, “is that you’re very concerned about everything all the time.

The greatest gift you can give anyone is your undivided attention...

All my problems bow before my stubbornness.

You can only prove your love to God when you love people that do not deserve your love

Weapons master is giving me special lessons." she (Amily) chuckled. " He calls then How Not To Get Killed lessons.

Magda was reading a book by a Trappist, in a better mood, and I was sitting on the edge of the bed, fingering my useless map.

I may have been lucky with some sort of intuition, but I believe in training a great deal.

Feeding a child at school is such a simple thing - but it works miracles.

Mankind has been punished long and heavily for having created its gods; nothing but pain and persecution have been man's lot since gods began.

Punk is just like any other sub culture or music. Straight rock music has those elements. I grew up in a place where the punk rock kids fed the homeless in the town square.

Seasickness: at first you are so sick you are afraid you will die, and then you are so sick you are afraid you won't die.

The war we have to wage today has only one goal, and that is to make the world safe for diversity.