“When does a job feel meaningful? Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in others. Though we are often taught to think of ourselves as inherently selfish, the longing to act ...”

“After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the couch, he remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see hi...”

“The challenge lies in knowing how to bring this sort of day to a close. His mind has been wound to a pitch of concentration by the interactions of the office. Now there are only silence and the fla...”

“Our exertions generally find no enduring physical correlatives. We are diluted in gigantic intangible collective projects, which leave us wondering what we did last year and, more profoundly, where...”

“It is according to how we are able to answer the question of what we do (normally the first enquiry we will have to field in any new acquaintance) that the quality of our reception is likely to be ...”

“A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.”

“One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.”

“Everybody has a home team: Its the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens. Its the people who, near or far, know everything thats wrong with you and love you an...”

“The more you condemn yourself for thinking or feeling a certain way, the more you feel stuck within your own body and mind.. What if you went the other way and embraced it so totally that it was as...”

“Ma was heavy, but not fat; thick with child-bearing and work. She wore a loose Mother Hubbard of gray cloth in which there had once been colored flowers, but the color was washed out now, so that t...”

“As Romeo and Juliet found to their cost, marriage is never just about two people falling in love, it is about families.”

“Families share relationships based not only blood, but also the unique affiliation of a terribly long cord when measured in comparison with any other undertaking in a persons life, from cradle to t...”