…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.

The idea is that if you practice the Naikan part of Constructive Living, life becomes a series of small miracles, and you may start to notice everything that goes right in a typical life and...

books are the most powerful tool in the human arsenal, that reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose – electronic (even though that wasn’t for her) or printed, or audio – is...

In Gilead, the narrator’s friend’s son describes himself not as an atheist but in “state of categorical unbelief.” He says, “I don’t even believe God doesn’t exist, if you see what I mean.” I pointed...

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

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.

Of course you could do more – you can always do more, and you should do more – but still, the important things is to do what you can, whenever you can. You just do...

…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.

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

She felt whatever emotions she felt, but feeling was never a useful substitute for doing, and she never let the former get in the way of the latter. If anything, she used her emotions to...

One of Mom’s favorite passages from Gilead was: “This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another...

If our family was an airline, Mom was the hub and we were the spokes. You rarely went anywhere nonstop; you went via Mom, who directed the traffic flow and determined the priorities: which family...

All readers have reading in common.

Why is it important?” Because when you read about it, it’s easier to recognize. That was always the hardest thing in the refugee camps—to hear the stories of the people who had been raped or...

There was one sure way to avoid being assigned an impromptu chore in our house – be it taking out the trash or cleaning your room – and that was to have your face buried...

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

The truth is that people never realize their lives are about to change in unforeseen ways–that’s just the nature of unforeseen ways.

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.

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

I think women should have choices and should be able to do what they like, and I think it’s a great choice to stay at home and raise kids, just as it’s a great choice...

It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right...