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.

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

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.

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.

Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to stop trying to be helpful.

Whole-hearted listening is the greatest spiritual gift you can give to the other person.

If you want a recipe for relationship failure, just wait for the other person to change first.

Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others.

If we only listened with the same passion that we feel about being heard.