At that point, Frank seemed to run out of words. There was somebody that he'd reminded me of, as he was spinning out his story and struggling to explain himself. Then I realized: it was myself...when...
The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world, says an old Buddhist teaching. In other words: Get used to it.
He was powerful and I died of love in his shadow.
The philosopher Odo Marquard has noted a correlation in the German language between the word zwei, which means 'two,' and the word zweifel, which means 'doubt' - suggesting that two of anything brings...
In Venice in the Middle Ages there was once a profession for a man called a codega--a fellow you hired to walk in front of you at night with a lit lantern, showing you the way, scaring off thieves and...
I am so consumed by wonder at their bravery. These people have left their families and lives behind for a few weeks to go into silent retreat amidst a crowd of perfect strangers in India. Not everybod...
Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, po...
My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced, so I thought I was 40. It was...
What I think is amazing is not that 85% of people who get married under the age of 25 get divorced, it's that 15% of them stay together. How did they manage to pull that off? You almost can't wait too...
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...
In return, Giovanni told me that empathizing Italians say L'ho provato sulla mia pelle, which means 'I have experienced that on my own skin.' Meaning, I have also been burned or scarred in this way, a...
I've had to keep defining and defending myself as a writer every single day of my adult life -- constantly reminding and re-reminding my soul and the cosmos that I'm very serious about the business of...
I saw the apartment almost as a sanatorium, a hospice clinic for my own recovery. I painted the walls in the warmest colors I could find and bought myself flowers every week, as if I were visiting mys...
Humor is hard to catch in a second language. Especially when you're as serious a young man as Giovanni. He said to me the other night, 'When you are ironic, I am always behind you. I am slower. It is...
But the Greeks and the Romans both believed in the idea of an external daemon of creativity—a sort of house elf, if you will, who lived within the walls of your home and who sometimes aided you in you...
Because I know something that you don't know. I know that this is the worst experience of your life, but I also know that someday you'll move past it and you'll be fine. And helping somebody likej you...
Bel far niente has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exqui...
Her solitary nature means she needs a family to keep her from loneliness my gregarious nature means I will never have to worry about being alone...
You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures
I think it's unfortunate that there exists only one path in America to complete social legitimacy, and that is marriage. I think, for instance, that it would be far easier for Americans to elect a bla...