I had to do something about my longing, so I got up, went to the kitchen in my nightgown, peeled a pound of potatoes, boiled them up, sliced them, fried them in butter, salted them...

I’ve spent so much time these last years wondering what I’m supposed to be. A wife? A lover? A celibate? An Italian? A glutton? A traveler? An artist? A Yogi? But I’m not any of...

Fear–who cares?

The philosopher Odo Marquard has noted a correlation in the German language between the word zwei, which means ‘two,’ and the word zweifel, which means ‘doubt’ – suggesting that two of anything brings the automatic...

In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first...

One must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.

I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward...

We need courage to take ourselves seriously, to look closely and without flinching, to regard the things that frighten us in life and art with wonder.

Struggle was the explanation behind all the most troubling biological mysteries: species differentiation, species extinction, and species transmutation. Struggle explained everything

Where did you get the idea you aren’t allowed to petition the universe with prayer? You are part of this universe, Liz. You’re a constituent–you have every entitlement to participate in the actions of the...

… to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.

This is what intimacy does to us over time. That’s what a long marriage can do: It causes us to inherit and trade each other’s stories. (p.237)

Il bel far niente.

Who will ever kiss this encyclopedia of a head?

Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school—is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.

This is what we are like. Collectively as a species, this is our emotional landscape. I met an old lady once, almost 100 years old, and she told me, “There are only two questions that...

Simply put, I got pulled through the wormhole of the Absolute, and in that rush I suddenly understood the workings of the universe completely. I left my body, I left the room, I left the...

The sentences still form in my mind, and thoughts still do their little show-off dance, but I know my thought patterns so well now that they don’t bother me anymore. My thoughts have become like...

… the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one’s humanity.

My heart was broken so badly last time that it still hurts. Isn’t that crazy? To still have a broken heart almost two years after a love story ends? 

We gallop through our lives like circus performers balancing on two speeding side-by-side horses–one foot is on the horse called “fate,” the other on the horse called “free will.” And the question you have to...

noble” – be willing to someday join a larger conversation about how we might work together as a society to construct a world where healthy children can be raised and healthy families can prosper without...

I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn’t wake him to share in my distress.

At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.

Parla come magni,’ It means, ‘Speak the way you eat,’ or in my personal translation: ‘Say it like you eat it.’ It’s a reminder – when you’re making a big deal out of explaining something,...

I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but...

I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water.

My friend Kate once went to a concert of Mongolian throat singers who were traveling through New York City on a rare world tour. Although she couldn’t understand the words to their songs, she found...

Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don’t need to show me thier badges. I know these guys very well.

Tiramisu for desert.

When Catherine told me about this (tragedy nearby), I could only say, shocked, “Dear God, that family needs grace.”She replied firmly, “That family needs casseroles,” and then proceeded to organize the entire neighborhood into bringing...

nor shall such an outbreak ever be welcomed in the eyes of your family. If you have sentiments within you that are unpleasant or uncharitable, let them fall stillborn to the ground.

All too often, those of us who choose to remain childless are accused of being somehow unwomanly or unnatural or selfish, but history teaches us that there have always been women who went through life...

People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever...

If I am truly to become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian…I not only have to become my own husband, but I need to be my...

Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: ‘You bear God within you, poor wretch,...

Indeed, when I came to Italy, I expected to encounter a certain amount of resentment, but have received instead empathy from most Italians. In any reference to George Bush, people only nod to Berlusconi, saying”,”We...

I live in nature where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular, and so is the planet around the sun. The course of water over the earth is circular coming...

But the very fact that this world is so challenging is exactly why you sometimes must reach out of its jurisdiction for help, appealing to a higher authority in order to find your comfort.

What is it about the American obsession with productivity and responsibility that makes it so difficult for us to allow ourselves a little time to solve the puzzle of our own lives, before it’s too...

Like most humanoids, I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the “monkey mind”–the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. From the distant past to the...

Don’t we have the right to not stop seeking until we get as close to the source of wonder as possible? Even if it means coming to India and kissing trees in the moonlight for...

Yeah, baby! And you are the magnet and I’m the steel! Bring to me your leather, take from me my lace!

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so...

True wisdom gives the only possible answer at any given moment, and that night, going back to bed was the only possible answer.

Of course God already knows what I need. The question is – do I know?

To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver.

Though I suppose people do reproduce sometimes for that reason – for insurance against later regret. I think people have children for all manner of reasons – sometimes out of a pure desire to nurture...

But I explained that deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could...

Liz: What’s it like in hell?Ketut: Same like heaven. Universe is a circle, Liss. To up, to down — all same, at end.Liz: Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?Ketut: Because...