The causes of familial discord and distance are countless, but the results are often the same: secrecy, blame, sadness, hurt, confusion, and feelings of loss and grief.

Smiling at someone can have significant health consequences.

Seeking happiness is not the problem. The problem is that we often do not know where and how to find genuine happiness and so make the mistakes that cause suffering for ourselves & others.

When you recognize and reflect on even one good thing about yourself, you are building a bridge to a place of kindness and caring.

Never feel ashamed of your longing for happiness.

Clinging to our ideas of perfection isolates us from life and is a barrier.

For any marginalized group to change the story that society tells about them takes courage and perseverance.

The idea that traumatic residues—or unresolved stories—can be inherited is groundbreaking.

The unconscious mind is a vast repository of experiences and associations that sorts things out much faster than the slow-moving conscious mind.

Buddhism has a term for the happiness we feel at someone else’s success or good fortune. Sympathetic joy, as it is known, invites us to celebrate for others.

Even as we recognize our resentment, bitterness, or jealousy, we can also honor our own wish to be happy, to feel free.

The most effective form of creation is an act of cooperation, not force.

Suffering becomes beautiful whenever a person bears great calamities with cheerfulness.

The United States will not be in Afghanistan forever.

What is dark within me, illumine.

As long as you remember what you love and why you love it, it will never be far from your heart - or your plate.

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back.

I could never swim in the ocean after seeing Jaws.

I'm just so grateful and astonished that I'm still respected and listened to.

Save me, Shahara. Save me from the lonely nights that never end. (Syn)

For I see that then I was still all in a state of innocence, but that innocence, once lost, is lost forever.