“Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great and powerful one.”

Very few people changed the world by sitting on their couch.

It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?

I know that knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing – but they do live in the same neighborhood. I know once again, firsthand, the joy of learning.

Giulia Melucci has written a wonderfully funny and moving book. It’s like Eat, Pray, Love, with recipes.

I have little shame, no dignity – all in the name of a better cause.

I don’t believe that prayers actually change God’s mind – if there is a God – but I liked praying for people in need. It was like moral weightlifting. I tend to be self-obsessed, and it was nice to get out of my brain once in a while.

Behavior shapes emotions.

Med students panic their first year when they learn all the diseases. It’s not until the second year that they learn the cures.

Taking the Bible too literally is a mistake. It should be read as a guidebook of wisdom and insight.

I was what they call ‘skinny fat’ – a body that resembled a python after swallowing a goat.

I grew up in a very secular home with no religion at all, so I was starting from zero.

I prefer the earlier birth control techniques, which ranged from the delicious (using honey as a spermicide) to the aerobic (jumping backward seven times after coitus).

I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.

I’ve never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.

I love to live things, so I wanted to immerse myself and get into the mindset – and sandals – of my forefathers.

My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it’ll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It’s like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.

And in between a guilty laughter that pretended to move on, her eyes shed tears of reality and broke all her delusions.

We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.

The illusion that you could hold to yourself the things you most want and lose the things you least wanted to keep is the struggle of life.

Do not be misled by what you see around you, or be influenced by what you see. You live in a world which is a playground of illusion, full of false paths, false values and false ideals. But you are not part of that world.

I’ve spent a lot of time holding onto things and people that brought me misery because I was afraid of the void that may be there once I let go. I know now my voids were just as illusionary as the fear and insecurities that created them.

A house must be built on solid foundations if it is to last. The same principle applies to man, otherwise he too will sink back into the soft ground and becomes swallowed up by the world of illusion.

You know how in football, guys throw defenses, and the defense throws you a look, but the look is not really what it is – it’s only made to fool you. It’s the same thing with drugs. The drug is only an illusion to draw you in.

I brought color to bridal. There was one whole season of blush. If you think about the bareness, the illusion (fabric), the corsets that I did in bridal, they were trends in ready-to-wear, too.