“We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.”

“He defined me first, as parents do. Those early characterizations can become the shimmering self-image we embrace or the limited, stifling perception we rail against for a lifetime.”

“We must hold our secrets to ourselves. They define us. They are all we have.”

“Those early characterizations (Our parents give us) can become the shimmering self-image we embrace or the limited, stifling perception we rail against for a lifetime”

“Such reciprocity is the very structure of perception. We experience the sensuous world only by rendering ourselves vulnerable to that world. Sensory perception is this ongoing interweavement: the terrain enters into us only to the extent that we allow ourselves to be taken up within that terrain.”

“Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes and the rest of us have to be other people.”