Life is full of tough decisions, and nothing makes them easy. But the worst ones are really your personal koans, and tormenting ambivalence is just the sense of satori rising. Try, trust, try, and trust again, and eventually you'll feel your mind change its focus to a new level of understanding.

- Martha Beck

It takes about four days of virtuous living to create a little weight loss. That also happens to be the time required to get used to eating less. In other words, if you can get past day three of a fitness regimen, things improve.

- Martha Beck

No one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life's slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone.

- Martha Beck

Ten years ago, I still feared loss enough to abandon myself in order to keep things stable. I'd smile when I was sad, pretend to like people who appalled me. What I now know is that losses aren't cataclysmic if they teach the heart and soul their natural cycle of breaking and healing.

- Martha Beck

Hopeful thinking can get you out of your fear zone and into your appreciation zone.

- Martha Beck

Anger elicits anger, fear elicits fear, no matter how well meaning we may be.

- Martha Beck

The way we can allow ourselves to do what we need to, no matter what others may say or do, is to choose love and defy fear.

- Martha Beck

Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury.

- Martha Beck

Something in the human psyche confuses beauty with the right to be loved. The briefest glance at human folly reveals that good looks and worthiness operate independently. Yet countless socializing forces, from Aunt Clara to the latest perfume ad, reinforce beliefs like 'If I were pretty enough, I would be loved.'

- Martha Beck

Allowing children to show their guilt, show their grief, show their anger, takes the sting out of the situation.

- Martha Beck