"My mother had to justify the fact that she had heart pills."

“The role of the storyteller is to awaken the storyteller in others.”

“All religious leaders and spiritual teachers emphasize finding a place within us that is true. People who obsessively follow these leaders instead of their own purpose attach to the spiritual leader and become fanatical and controlling. That's why Jesus tried to tell his followers not to get attached to outward form.”

“The corporate outings were fun, but after doing them for 25 years, they got to be a little old hat.”

“I absolutely do not need a salary or a job, that's the last thing I need.”

“In a true you-and-I relationship, we are present mindfully, nonintrusively, the way we are present with things in nature.We do not tell a birch tree it should be more like an elm. We face it with no agenda, only an appreciation that becomes participation: 'I love looking at this birch' becomes 'I am this birch' and then 'I and this birch are opening to a mystery that transcends and holds us both.”

“I'd rather regret doing something than not doing something.”

“In Google's world, public space is just something that stands between your house and the well-reviewed restaurant that you are dying to get to.”

“I loved you madly; in the distasteful work of the day, in the wakeful misery of the night, girded by sordid realities, or wandering through Paradises and Hells of visions into which I rushed, carrying your image in my arms, I loved you madly.”