God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

One brave person has to stand up, to be exposed to the limelight, go through the trauma of a sex harassment or rape case. But the force of an actual individual case can be very strong indeed, a bargaining tool, a powerful influence for change.

After the fire it was a silent forest for many months. The first time I walked through the forest and heard the first bird that lifted the soul absolutely. It is like there are two courses running parallel – as the community goes through its recovery; the forest is doing the same in the background.

The climacteric marks the end of apologising. The chrysalis of conditioning has once for all to break and the female woman finally to emerge.

The older woman's love is not love of herself, nor of herself mirrored in a lover's eyes, nor is it corrupted by need. It is a feeling of tenderness so still and deep and warm that it gilds every grass blade and blesses every fly. It includes the ones who have a claim on it, and a great deal else besides. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

There have to be changes in life. If it were static there would be no growth, nothing. Even though we sometimes feel a bit glum at how the world changes around us we know that’s how it’s got to be, it can’t stay the same. If you don’t continue to change ? then you stop still, and if you stop still you’re dead, or might as well be.

We have the choice whether we are beaten by change, or whether we use it as a positive force for new experience. We should neve underestimate our capacity to change society.

I now have a stronger sense of it being possible to make a start with individual people. Make a change in yourself, so some work on yourself, and it might make a difference in the world.

When cancer strikes it changes your life, but it doesn’t change who you are. Your essence remains. The paradox is that although you are the same person you are indelibly and irrevocably changed.

But change never happens with one insight or one decision or one event. I think good habits are the greatest tool for character building and bad habits are the greatest weapon for the dissipation of ourselves.