“If we lose sight of pleasures and luxuries that intoxicate the senses in the most sensuous and beautiful and simplest of ways, then we`ve lost a lot.”

“Luxury as beauty" has nothing to do with a particular place or an object's price tag. It is seeing with eyes for beauty. Once we cut the automatic but learned connection between buying stuff and pleasure, we can actively cultivate new connections - a sense of freedom as we shed draining habits and discover new pleasures in seeing and creating beauty all around us.”

“Without imagination, we merely see or hear, and even if we see or hear that the objects of the senses are beautiful, we cannot feel that they are so. The difference is this: in feeling the beauty of objects, we enjoy not only the common, shared pleasures of the senses, but also the private pleasures of the imagination, peculiar to ourselves, and such that we have to struggle to articulate them.”

“Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost; a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11.”

“Most of the time, beauty lies in the simplest of things.”

“ It is difficult to see ourselves as we are. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have good friends, lovers or others who will do us the good service of telling us the truth about ourselves. When we don't, we can so easily delude ourselves, lose a sense of truth about ourselves, and our conscience loses power and purpose. Mostly, we tell ourselves what we would like to hear. We lose our way.”