“A great friend can act like a trash can with a hole in the bottom. To listen to someone else's personal garbage with the same empathy you would spend listening to their joy, and then release that garbage just as quickly as you hear it, without absorbing it, makes you a wonderful friend to that person--and an even better one to yourself.”

“Interpreters package and then sell, rent, or impose upon us artificially flavored illusions of truth, salvation, enlightenment, and happiness that are built upon their goals. That twisted information and those errant goals and are often very different from those of the original teachers that these interpreters are borrowing moral authority from. Following our own inner guidance would yield better results than following the village idiot. Neither Buddha nor Jesus was waiting for a Buddha or a Jesus to come solve their personal problems or those of humanity. The key to whatever we need is within us. The job of uncovering it is ours to do.”

“Can you meet me?" "Sure I can. What else are friends for but swooping in to the rescue when their girlfriends are are being stalked by creepy strangers?”

“If you can make one person listen to you, you can make the world Hear you.”

“It's not so much that the old friend is a better friend. It's just that you know the person better, and you know they don't really care if you're acting like a poor, grovelling idiot. They know you would do the same for them.”

“Sometimes an adventure is a mundane thing. A trip to the shore with your best friend. Learning you can laugh in unearthly ways.”

“When you’re old nobody touches you nobody listens to you—not in this bloody country.so that’s what I do. I touch and I listen.”