“We suffered failures of imagination just like everyone else, our daring was wanting, and our daily contentment too nearly adequate for us to give it up.”

“The weaknesses, failures, and sins of our family are the places where we learn that we need grace too. It is there, in those dark mercies, that God teaches us to be humbly dependent. It is there that He draws near to us and sweetly reveals His grace. Paul's suffering teaches us to reinterpret our thorn. Instead of seeing it as a curse, we are to see it as the very thing that keeps us "pinned close to the Lord.”

“Keep in mind too, our failures serve to teach us, and usually teach us more than our successes do. What we may perceive as a failure is also an opportunity for someone else to rise to the occasion and perform a mitzvah, or mitzvot. Do not begrudge someone their joyous performance of mitzvot. Sometimes, perhaps even more often then you may think, what we consider our failures were blessings in disguise for ourselves, or others, or everyone. Abraham did not change the world just because he himself changed, and followed his own destiny. He changed the world through his giving others opportunities to rise to their own greatness.”

“Nothing is therefore more dangerous than solitude. Our imagination, forced by its very nature to unfold, nourished by the fantastic visions of poetry, gives shape to a whole order of creatures of which we are the lowliest, and everything around us seems to be more glorious, everyone else more perfect...If, on the other hand, we can make up our minds to go about our daily tasks, resigned to our feelings, and hardships, we often find that, in spite of our meanderings and procrastinations, we have gone farther than quite a few others have gone with their sails unfurled and steering gear functioning.”

“Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted.”

“If we keep our eyes open and our hearts clear, we can realize that life gives us adequate opportunities to experience both love and hope”