The happiest people are focused on living their own life (not someone else's) as well as possible.

We'll always be disappointed if we believe that we can plan for a peak experience and make it happen. True joy can't be anticipated or planned. It just strikes.

The bolder and more courageous you are, the more you will learn about yourself.

Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to.

You can't evaluate a prospective partner if you insulate your relationship from your family and friends and his.

Feeling essentially superior to other people is as sure a sign of poor self-esteem as feeling essentially inferior.

Don't count on the power of your love or your nagging to create something that wasn't there to begin with.

No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human.

If you pursue a distancer, he or she will distance more. Consider it a fundamental law of physics.

We all fear change, even as we seek it.

The first world we find ourselves in is a family that is not of our choosing.

Your children are not little mirrors reflecting back the good or bad job you've done.

Differences don’t just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us.

Many of our problems with anger occur when we choose between having a relationship and having a self.

Nothing you say can ensure that the other person will get it, or respond the way you want. You may never exceed his threshold of deafness.

The miracle is that your children will love you with all your imperfections if you can do the same for them.

Underground issues from one relationship or context invariably fuel our fires in another.

Anxiety is extremely contagious, but so is calm.

Silence can pose a greater threat than the difficult truth.