"Sureness is something like a neck brace, which we clamp around our lives, hoping to somehow protect ourselves from the frightening, constant whiplash of change. Sadly, the brace doesn't always hold."

"I was a bartender for a long time, so I know how to make drinks, but I'm more likely to offer them than to have them. I think this is one of the reasons why I get to live longer than my great-grandmother did, and why I get to produce more writing than she did, and why my marriage isn't in dire straits."

"Nobody until very recently would have thought that their husband was supposed to be their best friend, confidante, intellectual soul mate, co-parent, inspiration."

"I know I'm not a self-indulgent idiot I also know I'm not the second coming of Deepak Chopra. If I had believed either of those, or both, as some people do when they get famous, that's when the mental illness arrives."

"A humble soul understands that the bonds of friendship are the true treasures of existence."

"Great leaders cultivate leaders, not merely followers. In this truth lies the bedrock of all virtue — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"It is a timeless truth that he who inspires courage in a single soul has led a monumental campaign — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"It is a quiet truth that he who inspires courage in a single soul has led a monumental campaign."