Sitting with Rita, I was reminded that the heart is just as fragile at seventy as it is at seventeen. The vulnerability, the longing, the passion – they’re all there in full force. Falling in love never gets old.

You won’t get today back.

I’m smiling, Sherlock, because I know exactly what’s bothering my wife!” “Ah!” I reply. “So – ” “Wait, wait. I’m getting to the best part,” he interrupts. “So, like I said, I really do know what’s wrong, but I’m not that interested in hearing another complaint. So this time, instead of asking, I decide I’m going to –.

You’ll turn thirty or forty or fifty anyway, whether your hours are finished or not,” she said. “What does it matter what age you are when that happens? Either way, you won’t get today back.

Which all boils down to: Happiness equals reality minus expectations.

The nature of life is change, but the nature of people is to resist change.

Our notion of the future can be just as powerful a roadblock to change as our notion of the past.

Right now it’s all about one foot, then the other. That’s one thing I tell patients who are in the midst of crippling depression, the kind that makes them think, There’s the bathroom. It’s about five feet away. I see it, but I can’t get there. One foot, then the other.

John lowers himself onto the couch, kicks off his shoes, then stretches out, lies down, and adjusts his head on the pillows. Usually he sits cross-legged on the sofa, so this is a first. I notice, too, that there’s no food today. “Okay, you win,” he begins with a sigh. “Win what?” I ask. “The pleasure of my company,” he deadpans. I raise my eyebrows.

During an initial burst of pain, people tend to lash out either at others or at themselves, to turn the anger outward or inward.