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Knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.

The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart;

Wise people don’t just possess information; they possess a compassionate understanding of other people. They know about life.

That took a third form of courage- not just embracing and seeking discomfort, but amplifying it by being brave enough to make more mistakes.

Accelerating learning requires a second form of courage: being brave enough to use your knowledge as you acquire it.

This is the first form of courage: being brave enough to embrace discomfort and throw your learning style out of the window.

The key to learning is finding a single bead of a lesson to take with you. As you go through life, that bead will turn into a rosary of knowledge, guiding you toward the right path.

When quiet people open their mouths the whole word listens.

and I’ve spent three years looking in phone books and now I have found you.

Meanwhile, women wait. The more in love they are and the fewer options they have, the longer they wait, hoping that he will return with a smashed phone, with a smashed face, and say, I’m sorry, I was buried alive and the only thing I thought of was you, and feared that you would think I’d forsaken you when the truth is only that I lost your number, it was stolen from me by the men who buried me alive,

Throughout history, men have broken women’s hearts in a particular way. They love them or half-love them and then grow weary and spend weeks and months extricating themselves soundlessly, pulling their tails back into their doorways, drying themselves off, and never calling again.

Sometimes people think if they love a broken person enough, they can be what finally repairs them, but the problem with that is the other person just ends up broken, too.

My choice helped me realize that sometimes the hardest decisions a person can make will most likely lead to the best outcomes.

The moment you have an instinct to act on a goal you must 5-4-3-2-1 and physically move or your brain will stop you.

When you set a goal, your brain opens up a task list. Whenever you are near things that can help you achieve those goals, your brain fires up your instincts to signal to get that goal completed.

That’s an instinct reminding you of the goal. That’s your inner wisdom, and it’s important to pay attention to it, no matter how small or silly that instinct may seem.

Let’s say you have a goal to get healthier. If you walk into a living room, nothing happens. If you walk past a gym, however, your prefrontal cortex lights up because you are near something related to getting healthier. As you pass the gym, you’ll feel like you should exercise.

Whenever you are near things that can help you achieve those goals, your brain fires up your instincts to signal to get that goal completed.

It eased our pain ever so slightly to honor every last thing about him.

It’s like going to a party when you’ve had a bad day. You don’t want to go, but you know you should. You know that even if you don’t enjoy it, it will do you good to get out of the house.

She liked working, she told Lena, ad if it was a confession, and Lena, feeling an opening, told her that she understood, that being home with a baby was more difficult than it looked from the outside, more difficult than it seemed like it should be.