Krista Tippett

If we can't face our losses, we can't be present either fully to everything that is. When people have cut off or not made peace with some part of themselves, they miss out on other aspects of life.

Structure is something that calms our nature; we know this of toddlers.

I don't accept the idea that there are two sides to any issue. I think that the middle ground is to be found within most of us.

Recently, I was in Bernalda, my dad's ancestral home town in Italy. He has just refurbished a palazzo and turned it into a hotel, so we had my sister's wedding there. It was beautiful.

I was feeling a strong need to change, grow, and break with particular things that were going on in my life and my history, and the material was the perfect answer for that.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.