Quotes from Bruce Feiler

Primed to expect that our lives will follow a predictable path, we're thrown when they don't. We have linear expectations but nonlinear realities. Even people who are linear in one area (a stable career, say, or long-running marriage) are nonlinear in others (recurrent health problems or frequent changes in their religious identity).

The messy middle is all about what happens when we're in the state of in between. It involves a complicated alchemy of giving up old ways and experimenting with new ones, moving beyond what's past and beginning to define what's coming. In butterfly-speak, it's cocooning; in hero-speak, it's getting lost.

Twelve-step programs have long stressed that the key is giving up any illusion of control—to admit that we're wrong, weak, or full of it, and then relinquish authority to a higher power.

No one aspires to be the person who handles this kind of situation well. And we don't always handle it well.

Man's Search for Meaning has gone on to sell over twelve million copies. Frankl's message was that even in the face of unimaginable bleakness, humans can find hope. "You do not have to suffer to learn, but if you don't learn from suffering . . . then your life becomes truly meaningless." The key, he said, is to imagine a better time, to have a reason to live. He quotes Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

A recent wave of research shows that children who eat dinner with their families are less likely to drink, smoke, do drugs, get pregnant, commit suicide, and develop eating disorders. Additional research found that children who enjoy family meals have larger vocabularies, better manners, healthier diets, and higher self-esteem.

The bottom line: If you want a happier family, bring those skeletons out of the closet.

I grew up in the age of discount air fare, and for me, the act of joining a culture was a great way about learning about that different culture. So I grew up in the South, and went to college in the North, and found out that I learned about myself as a Southerner by leaving the South and going to the Northeast.

Moses is our true founding father.

There's a reason the Exodus story has inspired so many Americans. It's a narrative of hope.

Abraham is the shared ancestor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He stands at the heart of these three faiths. And yet you know almost nothing about him.

Everybody has heard that family dinner is great for kids. But unfortunately, it doesn't work in many of our lives.

Children who plan their own goals, set weekly schedules, evaluate their own work build up their frontal cortex and take more control over their lives.

One question hovers over all of us who choose to spend our lives writing: why keep doing this in a world where so many forces are aligned against us?

Moses became Americas true founding father because he evangelized action; he justified risk. He gave ordinary people the courage to live with uncertainty.

Fathers can find great inspiration in faith.

After a while, a surprising theme emerged. The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: Develop a strong family narrative.

Knowing more about family history is the single biggest predictor of a child's emotional well-being. Grandparents can play a special role in this process, too.

The most successful families embrace and elevate their family history, particularly their failures, setbacks and other missteps.