“joy is not just about being happy. Joy is a rigorous spiritual practice of saying yes to life on lifes terms,”

“As one widow put it to me, Strength doesnt mean being able to stand up to anything, but being able to crawl on your belly a long, long time before you can stand up again.”

“Survival requires a dose of madnesswhat cynics call hoping against hopejust like art does; you conjure your future from white space, locate the hidden person, yourself, against this unfamiliar back...”

“You go on with your life, because life goes on, says Isabel. You see this in anyone who has survived a traumatic situation. My own daughter died, for example. Her only daughter, Paula Frias, died o...”

“The French have a term for this brazenness: je men foutisme, the brave art of not giving a damn.”

“Reinvention is my philosophy, if you want to call it that, he says, looking out the window. Imagination is the key to creating a life that is ever new. Stanley turns his eyes to me. We are each of ...”

“If you're not making someone else's life better, then you're wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other lives better.”

“You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!”

“Life becomes easier and more beautiful when we can see the good in other people.”

“Nothing forces us to knowWhat we do not want to knowExcept pain”

“Doesn't it seem that it is always by chance that these things happen, or is it because of the generosity of a shared knowledge of suffering that allows for it?”

“Wisdom is not making life any harder than it has to be.”