“We can only choose whether we will feel and not what we will feel.”
“I try to steer away from high metaphysical belief because I think we humans do best when we realize that we don't know all that much.”
“Good men and good women have fire in the belly. We are fierce. Don't mess with us if you're looking for someone who will always be 'nice' to you. Nice gets you a C+ in life. We don't always smile, talk in a soft voice, or engage in indiscriminate hugs. In the loving struggle between the sexes we thrust and parry.”
“Our inner dialogue is frequently composed of old tape loops that we run again and again... The normal personality marshals sufficient defense mechanisms to exclude dangerous and unknown stimuli and just enough windows to let in an occasional wandering minstrel. Neurotic identity crises come when our defense mechanisms have been too successful and we're encapsulated in the fortress we have constructed with nothing to refresh us in our solitary confinement. So we play the old movies with their stale fears and their unrealistic hopes until we become bored enough to risk disarmament and engagement. ”
“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”
“Chronological time is what we measure by clocks and calendars; it is always linear, orderly, quantifiable, and mechanical. Kairotic time is organic, rhythmic, bodily, leisurely, and aperiodic; it is the inner cadence that brings fruit to ripeness, a woman to childbirth, a man to change the direction of his life. ”
“Soul grows in communion. Word by word, story by story, for better or worse, we build our world. From true conversation - speaking and listening - communication deepens into compassion and creates community.”