Bruce Black

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.”
― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

“The true and not despairing Friend will address his Friend in some such terms as these.

"I never asked thy leave to let me love thee,--I have a right. I love thee not as something private and personal, which is your own, but as something universal and worthy of love, which I have found. O, how I think of you! You are purely good, --you are infinitely good. I can trust you forever. I did not think that humanity was so rich. Give me an opportunity to live.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Henry David Thoreau: A Week, Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod

“None of us is ever OK, but we all get through everything just fine.”
― Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living