“If you're living completely on your own, break out of solitary confinement. Seek to understand others, and help them understand you.”

“Theres a Chinese word that means soul sister, and that is the word I would use to address you in my heart. Listen to me, soul sister: Fate or luck or destiny already put you through hell once. Plea...”

“Martha," she said. "Just let it go." "I'm trying," I said. I want to explain to her that this was like telling someone who has been mauled to death by a bear to let the animal go while it was still...”

“Fact: From quitting smoking to skiing, we succeed to the degree we try, fail, and learn. Studies show that people who worry about mistakes shut down, but those who are relaxed about doing badly soo...”

“Cheerfully fessing up to our failures turns crazy mind off, humility and compassion on. I learned this in a karate dojo that had a strange tradition. Everyone there loved recounting failure stories...”

“No one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life's slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone.”

“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.”

“I knew right then that I wanted to be a part of something that meaningful. I wanted to have something I was so passionate about that I'd be willing to risk everything for it. I wanted to know that ...”

“Do it with passion or not at all.”

“They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked high...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”

“Visionary decision-making happens at the intersection of intuition and logic.”

“Even the juncture in history and the zeitgeist we live in is something we choose, setting the scene for the spiritual fodder we need to grow and achieve deeper elevation of our souls.”

“Choose your love. Love your choice.”