A corner is important. It provides privacy and an anchor and lets you exist independently of the room.

We have probably wondered in our many lonesome moments if there is one corner in this competitive, demanding world where it is safe to be relaxed, to expose ourselves to someone else, and to give unconditionally. It might be very small and hidden, but if this corner exists, it calls for a search through the complexities of our human relationships in order to find it.

...by the time we understand the pattern we are in, the definition we are making for ourselves, it's too late to break out of the box. We can only live in terms of the definition, like the prisoner in the cage in which he cannot lie or stand or sit, hung up in justice to be viewed by the populace. Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selfness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made?

With her own hand she'd painted herself into a corner, and then out of the picture altogether.

Desire to talk about ourselves and to show our failings from the viewpoint we ourselves would choose, accounts for a great deal of our candour

We're so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, incessantly editing who we are until we fit in.

We defend ourselves with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.

we both fitted. If our corners were not rubbed off they were at least pulled in. But deep in us both was something that made us require more for happiness. I didn't know what I wanted

Knowing who we are is hard. Eliminate who we’re not first, and we’ll find ourselves where we need to be.

Sometimes we reveal ourselves when we are least like ourselves.

We reveal ourselves in the metaphors we choose for depicting the cosmos in miniature.

Backing yourself into a corner is a terrible strategy, in that it leaves you nowhere to run. But it’s brilliant in that it brings out the fierce in you, because you are forced to fight.

Chance makes us known to others and to ourselves.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is your own self. So you have to begin there, not outside, not on other people. That comes afterwards, when you have worked on your own corner.