All the couples therapy and communication seminars in the world won't save you if you aren't prepared to close your eyes and hug the mainmast through a storm.

So what's the secret to staying together?" I asked her. "Be nice?" she offered. I laughed, but that may be it, the way a secret to losing weight is to eat less. Be nice. Don't leave. That's all.

I want to say that at various points in your marriage, may it last forever, you will look at this person and feel only rage.

...there is so much beauty in the trying, and in the failing, and in the trying again.

The romantic fairy tales we grew up with -- where marriage is the happy ending rather than the opening scene -- are not useful for grown-ups.

(Personally, I have avoided many fights by going to bed angry and waking up to realize that I'd just been tired.)

...even good marriages sometimes involve flinging a remote control at the wall.

People who don't marry miss both the pelting hardships of marriage and its warm rewards.

As married people, we dwell on a spectrum between happy and unhappy, in love and out of love, and we move back and forth on that line decade by decade, year by year, week by week, even hour by hour.

Failure is part of being human, and it is definitely part of being married.

...that's part of what marriage means: sometimes hating this other person but staying together because you promised you would.

Well, visual language is another boring discussion about the nature of film.

I hope I will be a calm mother; I do yoga and I meditate, and those should help.

The best and most important part of every man's education is that which he gives himself.

I don't use scientific data as a foundation for believing in God - I use it as an enrichment of my knowledge of God.

Obviously my best strategy is to wait, listen, and learn.

You can have the best vaccines for a woman or her child, but if you can't get her to come and get them then they won't work.

A dream ignored is like a letter unopened.

I think I'm more approachable with long hair. When it's short, I come across as being artsy and weird.

It is just as important, perhaps more important, for the teacher to have the benefit of personal counseling when he needs it as it is for the student.

Thought is a force - a manifestation of energy - having a magnet-like power of attraction.