“There are some things we can’t choose, but in being present we can choose how we want to relate to them.”

Where desire ends up causing suffering is when it fixates.

The muscles used to make a smile actually send a biochemical message to our nervous system that it is safe to relax the flight of freeze response.

Suffering is our call to attention, our call to investigate the truth of our beliefs.

We wait for things to be different in order to feel okay with life. As long as we keep attaching our happiness to the external events of our lives, which are ever changing, we’ll always be left waiting for it.

Telling each other the truth and being who we are, and having space for the other person’s vulnerability in being who they are, allows us to move in a kind of dance together that’s very fluid and graceful.

Whatever you encounter, may that be part of the path.

People don’t behave in angry ways unless they are feeling stressed and conflicted too.

The most powerful healing arises from the simple intention to love the life within you, unconditionally, with as much tenderness and presence as possible.

Observing desire without acting on it enlarges our freedom to choose how we live.

If our hearts are ready for anything, we are touched by the beauty and poetry and mystery that fill our world.

There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.

Self-judgment continues to arise – it’s a strong habit – but the fact that I made a conscious commitment to recognize it has helped me stop feeding the story of being unworthy.

The trance of unworthiness keeps the sweetness of belonging out of reach. The path to “the sweetness of belonging,” is acceptance – acceptance of ourselves and acceptance of others without judgment.

But this revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can begin to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime.

With mindfulness training we are able to recognize when we get lost in our mental dramas, and bring a kind and nonreactive presence to the feelings that accompany them.

Extend an act of kindness each day. No one has to know. It can be a smile, reassuring words, a small favor – without expecting something in return.

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.

I love producing, writing. I rarely write with other writers unless I have a real great respect for them. Like Burt Bacharach, or Carole Sager, or Stevie Wonder. Somebody like Smokey – like that. Otherwise, I choose to write alone.

I don’t pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.

I’ll be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty!

The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words; for whosoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both.

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.