"The trouble with life is that it isn't cozy enough. In the baby part of ourselves, which every one of us still has, we all need to be hugged and cuddled, to be sweetly curled up with and kissed, to be lovingly and tenderly held.

"Cuddling is nurturing of the body and the spirit and we all profoundly need it. To be touched and held, to have our skin — that miraculous fine thin silken wrapper of our being — caressed, addressed, remembered, and cherished, is one of the greatest human requirements. It's a leftover need from childhood, when most of us didn't get cuddled enough, didn't get held, or kissed, or dearly nestled nearly enough. That's why, now, we need to cuddle up, why we long to feel the gigantic embrace that grown-up cuddling is. We want to feel protected and safe. We want to feel nurtured and loved. We want to feel that there's more to life than just our chores and our work. We want to believe that having a body in a world full of bodies isn't a sad, lonely joke. Cuddling, therefore, being cozily with — on the couch, in the bed, in the kitchen, in the car and at the beach, in restaurants and subways, during the credits at the movies and in long lines at the bank — is an unadulterated pleasure that fills a giant human need.

"Cuddling isn't a stand-in for any other thing — like sex, or a great conversation, or a night out on the town, or a trip to the lake, or your favorite baseball game. Cuddling is wonderful, helpful, healing, delicious, delightful, soothing, yummy, cuddly, and scrumptious all by itself. So cuddle up!"