“One of our group said that a lot of people in church spend a lot of time correcting each other these days, but in order to correct another person in love, you really have to know that person. Only then, she told us, can you practice the kind of community that the Didache teaches.”

“What the Didache doesn’t say is that the community should shun or excommunicate those who commit the forbidden sins. In fact, “correct some, pray for others, and some you should love more than your own life” makes plain that the worst sinners should be showered with the most love.”

“Here's another piece of advice, only date people who have read a different set of books than you have read, it will save you lots of time in the library.”

“There are two ways,” he told me, “and they are love and not love. I choose love.”

“True negotiation takes place when each side respects the other, and their point of view, and enters into the discussion positively. If you are determined that your solution, and your particular solution only, is the correct one – to be imposed on the other side if necessary – that is not negotiation; it is dictatorship”

“Cancer seems a high price to pay for an innocuous-looking habit. You get into smoking and you are robbed of the last 25 years of your life. Some cocky souls will say, 'Ah yes, but they are the worst 25 years.' Nobody feels like that in a cancer ward. There are no cocky souls in a cancer ward. But there's a lot of pain, not just of the excruciating physical kind that they shoot you full of morphine to smother. There are a lot of tears. All round. It is hard to say goodbye to the people you love. And it's scary. Cancer wards have a way of knocking the cockiness out of you. And for what? Another cigarette?”

“There is another Brain Principle to go with ‘First Things First’: that of‘Last Things Too’. This states that, all other things being equal, you willrecall more easily the ‘last’ things. Check your own memory banks andsee if this principle holds for the following.You will probably recall:� -The last new person you met� -The last time you saw the person you love the most� -The last social event you attended”