Every healthy marriage is composed of walls and windows. The windows are the aspects of your relationship that are open to the world—that is, the necessary gaps through which you interact with family and friends; the walls are the barriers of trust behind which you guard the most intimatesecrets of your marriage.

I asked, 'You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell - the destinations - are the same thing anyway?'Same - same,' he said. 'Same in end, so better to be happy on journey.'I said, 'So, if heaven is love, then hell is...'Love, too,' he said.

Richard didn't even have time to ask if I thought I'd ever amount to anything in this life before I looked him eye to eye and said, 'I already have, mister.

For if there is one thing I have learned over the years about men, it is that feelings of powerlessness do not usually bring forth their finest qualities.

During my first few weeks in Italy, all my Protestant synapses were zinging in distress, looking for a task. I wanted to take on pleasure like a homework assignment, or a giant science fair project.

True wisdom gives the only possible answer at any given moment, and that night, going back to bed was the only possible answer.