“don't ask me what good and what evil are, we knewwhat it was each time we had to act when blindness was an ex-ception, what is right and what is wrong are simply differentways of understanding our relationships with the others, not thatwhich we have with ourselves, one should not trust the latter”

“honor our sense of right and wrong-- our sense of what others need from us and how we ought to act towards them... Because we go against this sense-- because we fail to act as we feel we should-- that we grow resentful and feel alienated. We convince ourselves that others are making our lives intolerable. On the other hand, when we treat them as we feel we should, we have no occasion to feel this way. We can care openly for them because caring, not selfishness, is our "natural" condition (in computer jargon, our "default setting"). We alienate ourselves from theirs when we compromise our integrity, and we care for them when we don't.”

“God knows what is my greatest happiness, but I do not. There is no rule about what is happy and good; what suits one would not suit another. And the ways by which perfection is reached vary very much; the medicines necessary for our souls are very different from each other. Thus God leads us by strange ways; we know He wills our happiness, but we neither know what our happiness is, nor the way. We are blind; left to ourselves we should take the wrong way; we must leave it to Him.”

“we can learn to trust our maternal selves and to have faith in the innate goodness and purity of our children - even when we feel overwhelmed and the kids are pushing all our buttons. we can support one another....we can be understanding of each other and easier on ourselves.”

“What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours.”

“When we talk about ourselves, about others, or simply about things, we want- it could be said – to reveal ourselves in our words: We want to show what we think and feel. We let other have a glimpse into our soul.”