Kathleen Norris

Intimacy is what makes a marriage, not a ceremony, not a piece of paper from the state.

If we are lucky, we can give in and rest without feeling guilty. We can stop doing and concentrate on being.

Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past. It loses the future.

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. If you could see them clearly, naturally you could do a great deal to get rid of them but you can't. You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.

Life is easier than you'd think; all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable.

There are men I could spend eternity with. but not this life.

Changing husbands is only changing troubles.

When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot?