Pico Iyer

If we lack the patience for dependent clauses, we’re losing the capacity for subtle truths.

“The lover of life makes the whole world his family”—even disenchanted bad-boy Baudelaire could recognize.

I’m not in a hurry to quarrel with the heavens, because the heavens always win.

“Each of us has a soul,” Teresa of Avila observed, “but we forget to value it.”

“The ceaseless passage of years,” notes Marcus Aurelius, “makes eternity ever young.”

The true second home in any life is seldom a piece of real estate, and usually a piece of unreal expansiveness, the place one recognizes before one ever sees it.

The largest single entry for any person in the Library of Congress is for Francis of Assisi.

Reciting your accomplishments is a great way of drawing closer to precsiely the people you’d never want to be close to.

“No man can be free,” observed Admiral Byrd, after many days alone, “who lingers within reach of familiar habits and urgencies.”

The world is like our stepmother, Marcus Aurelius notes, the soul is like our mother. Of course one tries to respect and make one’s peace with one’s stepmother--but that seldom takes us away from recalling who our mother really is.

Our task, always, is to see that having a good time is not necessarily a good thing—and nor is having a bad time.

“You cannot heal what you do not acknowledge”—the book of treasures, Things Hidden.

I am not harmed by anything, Marcus Aurelius reminds himself, unless I judge it bad.

If someone in India hears voices, she's advised to clean the house.

“Jesus himself is never upset at sinners,” writes Richard Rohr, the sage priest. “He’s only upset with people who don’t think they’re sinners.”

“I thank the nameless one,” wrote Leonard Cohen, “and I thank the nameless many.”

“At first we want life to be romantic,” writes Louise Bogan, “later, to be bearable; finally, to be understandable.”

It’s dwelling on things that takes away our heart (by possessing our mind). Hence getting to El Salvador is much less dangerous than lying in bed in the dark.

“Throughout the day we ask, `Where are my kids? Where are my keys? Where is my phone?’ “ notes Yongey Mingur Rinpoche. “We tend not to ask, `Where is my mind?’ “

In life, as in many living-rooms, the window’s always there, so long as we draw the curtains.