• "Forgiveness is spontaneous and does not require 'good judgment.' Never is it best to consider whether to forgive. Never is it best to wait to see if someone else is doing his or her part. Forgiveness is an act of self-preservation and should be an instinctual response to the damage anger is doing to my mind."

• "A judgmental feeling about another person is based on the same belief as my fear of making mistakes: I think what someone once did is more important than how the person is now. The work before me is to practice fully absorbing people as they are this instant. Taking them in as for the first time. Obviously, I won't accomplish this if their past dominates my perception."

• "Forgive, but do not wonder how you must act. Forgive, but do not try to convince another to forgive. Forgive, but do not hold yourself superior that you have done so. Simply forgive. Wrap your forgiveness around you like a cloak of light, a spiritual barrier that protects your happiness and your peace, but closes no one out."

• "The root meaning of the verb 'to forgive' is 'to let go, to give back, to cease to harbor.' Looked at it this way, forgiveness is a restful activity. Far more work is required to cling to a judgment than to let go of it. What is relinquished is not valuable, and what at first may seem like a sacrifice is soon experienced as a gift."

• "The only way we become convinced of the benefits of forgiveness is to start forgiving. Teaching or studying forgiveness without actually doing it is like studying or teaching breathing without taking a breath. Life shifts so dramatically once forgiveness becomes habitual that one's old life is looked back on as empty and meaningless."