“The older I get, the more convinced I am that the space between people who are trying their best to understand each other is hallowed ground.”

When we treat children’s play as seriously as it deserves, we are helping them feel the joy that’s to be found in the creative spirit. It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives.

Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.

Like all of life’s important coping skills, the ability to forgive and the capacity to let go of resentments most likely take root very early in our lives.

People have said ‘don’t cry’ to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is ‘I’m too uncomfortable when you show feelings.

A love of learning has a lot to do with learning that we are loved.

Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing.

Whatever we choose to imagine can be as private as we want it to be. Nobody knows what you’re thinking or feeling unless you share it.

You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you.

The only thing evil can’t stand is forgiveness.

I don’t think anyone can grow unless he’s loved exactly as he is now, appreciated for what he is rather than what he will be.

It’s a mistake to think that we have to be lovely to be loved by human beings or by God.

Peace means far more than the opposite of war.

Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.

There is no normal life that is free of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.

I hope you’re proud of yourself for the times you’ve said “yes,” when all it meant was extra work for you and was seemingly helpful only to someone else.

The connections we make in the course of a life, maybe that’s what heaven is.

Let’s face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.

Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms – you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.

I think, as you get older, that’s when your ambitions become “peculiar”.

A veil of insanity everywhere: Oh why I was born in this age? It is a terrible age.