The kindest thing I ever did for that young woman, in the end, was to stop giving her money, because it forced her, at last, to discover that she was capable of earning her own.

Real generosity has a hand on the valve.

It gives by choice, which means it can also, by choice, decline to give, and that ability to decline is not the opposite of generosity but the very thing that keeps it generosity rather than servitude.

I closed the valve on people who had mistaken it for a right.

I keep it open, still, for people who understand it is a gift.

Chapter 19 — What Family Actually Means