“...In the right hands, everything that you give, you get.”

“It takes something to get married: nerve, hope, a strong desire to make a certain statement—and it takes something to stay married: more hope, determination, a sense of humor, and needs that are best met by being in a pair.”

“Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy.”

“To love yourself as you are is a miracle, and to seek yourself is to have found yourself, for now. And now is all we have, and love is who we are.”

“Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other.”

“Love is that micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being.”

“Commitment to truth telling lays the groundwork for the openness and honesty that is the heartbeat of love.”

“The giving of love is an education in itself.”

“The purpose of life, after all, is to love it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.”

“I know of no greater happiness than to be with you all the time, without interruption, without end.”

“If you don’t have the urge to jump his bones, if you don’t find him hot-ta-ta, you’re looking at someone who can be a friend but not a partner. Don’t for a minute think it doesn’t matter. It’s the underpinning for everything else. If it’s not there, move on.”

“In the same way that people who want to eat better have a better shot at succeeding when they hang out with people who eat well, spending time with couples who are making their marriages work ups the odds that you’ll make yours work, too.”

“Bad things happen fast. This is true in combat, rodeo events, and marriage.”

“I don’t know whether we work ourselves into an eye twitch and a marriage counselor because it makes us feel virtuous, or because we believe somehow that if every night we collapse from exhaustion the universe will reward us with happy, productive children and a husband who sticks around.”

“Resentment is the kudzu of the heart.”

“One modest way to help us stay sane is to do things that help us develop and maintain a sense of who we are, apart from our family. You’ve got to be anchored in yourself. In a lot of ways it’s a daily practice.”

“Nothing teaches selflessness like being a stepmother. Blended families are an instant grow-up pill for every adult involved.”

“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.”

“Sorrow comes in great waves...but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot and we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain.”