He argues that when we listen too closely to our Self 1, we become distracted, anxious, and hesitant, which impairs our ability to access our natural abilities and perform instinctively.

Even in the most gentle, intimate moments, when people are offering us their most acute (and helpful) snapshots of ourselves, we can’t help passing judgment.

All my discoveries have been made in answer to prayer.

A story needs a sense of oneness — unity — to feel like a satisfying and complete expression. It needs a single theme — a spine — something to unite it into a coherent work. But a story also needs a level of two-ness, a dimension of duality, to create tension and the possibility of movement.

The child has a primary need from the very beginning of her life to be regarded and respected as the person she really is at any given time.

Contempt as a rule will cease with the beginning of mourning for the irreversible that cannot be changed, for contempt, too, has in its own way served to deny the reality of the past.

Self-awareness prompts us to start where we are—no illusions, no excuses—and helps us to set realistic goals.

Rather than asking whether another person has a given quality, we need to ask how we would react to that other person if he or she did… asking the leader about what he would do, or how he would feel.

Success is largely a matter of holding on after others have let go.

You must decide at the outset what degree of risk you are willing to assume and what kinds of investments are most suitable to your tax bracket. Finding your sleeping point is one of the most important investment steps you must take.