“When we cling to pain, we end up punishing ourselves.”

“When we give ourselves in love we become our most vulnerable. We are never safe. We become open to disappointment and hurt.”

“If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.”

“Most of us remain strangers to ourselves, hiding who we are, and ask other strangers, hiding who they are, to love us.”

“What we need to know about loving is no great mystery. We all know what constitutes loving behavior; we need but act upon it, not continually question it. Over-analysis often confuses the issue and in the end brings us no closer to insight. We sometimes become too busy classifying, separating, and examining, to remember that love is easy. It's we who make it complicated.”

“Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means.”

“Loving relationships, though necessary for life, health, and growth, are among the most complicated skills. Before we can be successful at achieving relationships, it is necessary that we broaden our understanding of how they work, what they mean and how what we do and believe can enhance or destroy them. We can accomplish this only if we are willing to put in the energy and take the time to study failed relationships as well as examine successful ones. Loving relationships cannot be taken lightly. Unless we are looking for pain, they must not be forever approached in a trial and error fashion. Too many of us have experienced the cost of these lackadaisical approaches in terms of tears, confusion and guilt.”