Desire is a teacher: When we immerse ourselves in it without guilt, shame, or clinging, it can show us something special about our own minds that allows us to embrace life fully.

Depressed people think they know themselves, but maybe they only know depression.

Uncovering your real desires can be terrifying. It can also set you spectacularly free.

Meditation is not a means of forgetting the ego; it is a method of using the ego to observe and tame its own manifestations.

Trauma never goes away completely, it changes perhaps, softens some with time, but never completely goes away.

We are what we think, having become what we thought.

To be free, to come to terms with our lives, we have to have a direct experience of ourselves as we really are, warts and all.

We are looking for a way to feel more real, but we do not realize that to feel more real we have to push ourselves further into the unknown.

Anger is sign that something needs to change.

The picture we present to ourselves of who we think we ought to be obscures who we really are.

It is exceedingly difficult to maintain a sense of absence without turning that absence into some kind of presence

Stop blaming outside circumstances for your inside chaos.

When we write, we discover answers, though the key is not in the discovery but in the timing of the implementation.

Sooner or later even the most ambitious glutton must crawl away and seek the solace of the vomitorium.

I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win. I would also reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result.

Difference is always the biggest challenge for humans. That's why we do enjoy reading or watching movies or watching TV. It's a personal challenge to get close to people that we never get close to.

It is the enemy you underestimate who kills you.

I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.

Remarkable work often comes from making choices when everyone else feels as though there is no choice.

Only with maturity did I come to appreciate my own Chinese roots: not just the food and the ancient history, but also the philosophy of child-rearing and the respect for education and knowledge.