Once, I thought happiness was the sizzle in the pan. But it’s not. Happiness is the spice – that fragile speck, beholden to the heat, always and forever tempered by our environment.

Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid. Doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” – Joseph Campbell.

By the age of nine, I felt like a plant, constantly being repotted without enough time for my roots to recover, ever weakening.

When one is in love, a cliff becomes a meadow.” – Ethiopian proverb.

Happiness is not a destination: Being happy takes constant weeding, a tending of emotions and circumstances as they arise. There’s no happily ever after, or any one person or place that can bring happiness. It takes work to be calm in the midst of turmoil. But releasing the need to control it – well, that’s a start.

When I don’t know what to do about something,” she tells me, “I just leave the idea alone for a while. A good idea will feed itself and grow. A bad one will disappear – as it should.

All you can be is you. Your true self shines with more beauty than your mind can ever know.

The better part of wisdom is turning failure into victory. You have to complete the transition.

You need a name for every stage of your life. Butterflies don’t go by ‘caterpillar’ forever.And they certainly don’t go by ‘pupa’ one second longer than they have to. You, my dear, are no longer a pupa.

A name alone cannot keep a heritage alive.