The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.
We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.
Insight, I believe, refers to the depth of understanding that comes by setting experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side, learning by letting them speak to one another.
Fear is not a good teacher. The lessons of fear are quickly forgotten.
Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.
Improvisation and new learning are not private processes; they are shared with others at every age. We are called to join in a dance whose steps must be learned along the way, so it is important to attend and respond. Even in uncertainty, we are responsible for our steps.
The caretaking has to be done. “Somebody’s got to be the mommy.” Individually, we underestimate this need, and as a society we make inadequate provision for it. Women take up the slack, making the need invisible as we step in to fill it.
Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.
The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.
The capacity to combine commitment with skepticism is essential to democracy.
Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.
Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.