“Happiness of heart can never be measured out and bundled up, it's intangible. We keep running after it, grasping for it, and the heat of our running so seldom brings it closer. But now and then there may be a moment. We look at something and know it is good and beautiful. Those moments are happiness.”

“Happiness isn’t the reward we retrieve after a long struggle. It arrives daily, in those clear moments when our hearts are tender, pricked by the embrace of a loved one, the beauty of a single flower, the majesty of the world in which we are central. Look over your shoulder at how far you’ve come and all the good things you’ve experienced and that is when you will see the smiling face of happiness.”

“These emotions, this love, this fear, this gratitude, this relief, the grief – none of it reallyexists. None of it has mass or location, none of it can be weighed or photographed. None ofthese emotions last, none of them can be measured – except in that very moment when we'refeeling them. They're like music – once the notes are played, they disappear. They only existin that moment in time. Love isn't merely something we feel, it's something we create –something we have to keep creating in each and every moment. It's a song we have to keepplaying.Because we know it doesn't really exist. We can't hold it. We can't lock it away. We can'tinsure it. It's just a melody we play on and on. Our own Songline. We can only go on playingit, moment by moment, until we're all out of moments.It seems sort of pointless, striving so hard for perfection in something that doesn't reallyexist. But, my, what a symphony it is.And it's funny really, because for something that doesn't exist, it seems to be the onlything that human beings never run out of. As long as we have faith in its magic, love is theonly thing that lasts.”

“What was the one moment we lost our way? Or was it a series of moments that snowballed into something larger, something intangible, something careeining forward with too much acceleration for us to stop it now?”

“There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.”

“There is no happily-ever-after to run to. We have to work for happiness.”