My list of things I never pictured myself saying when I pictured myself as a parent has grown over the years.

A sense of worthiness is a child's most important need.

The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.

The secret is to learn to sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it.

Everything that happens is either a blessing, which is also a lesson, or a lesson which is also a blessing.

The child does not begin to fall until she becomes seriously interested in walking, until she actually begins walking. Falling is thus more an indication of learning than a sign of failure.

Parenthood always comes as a shock. Postpartum blues? Postpartum panic is more like it. We set out to have a baby; what we get is a total take-over of our lives.

Whenever the child is given the notion that he needs to be entertained, learning comes almost to a halt.

More than what we say or do, the way we are expresses what we think it means to be alive. So the articulate parent is less a telling than a listening individual.

We can see that the baby is as much an instrument of nourishment to us, as we are for him.

Most of us would do more for our babies than we have ever been willing to do for anyone, even ourselves.

Listen to what the sky is telling you.

In mindfulness, acceptance always comes first, change comes after.

To stay sane in a mad world is the real victory.

What do you call a woman who knows where her husband is at all times? A widow.

To damage the sovereignty of the individual is to replace a community inspired by love, benevolence, and beauty by another based solely on power.

Courage is the first virtue that makes all other virtues possible.

At least the girls in stories were alive before they died.

If knowledge is power, clandestine knowledge is power squared; it can be withheld, exchanged, and leveraged.

If one uses music that one does not really love, then one will not succeed in making it one's own.

People have no morals, I swear to God. The things that people do for ratings! It's unforgivable.