"I'm not sure if selfless love really exists: you have to have a sense of receiving something back. A person just cannot give - whether to work and career or to other people - unless they have a sense of being loved. When I have a need to give, I can become the doormat. That's different from people who have a deep inner freedom to give.

I go to the Montreal Children's Hospital to volunteer. You see children there in different states of normality, or abnormality. And I remember seeing this little boy of about 5. One side of his face was not developed at all. His eye was not open, his ear was just a little stub, and so on. It was tough to look at this child. But the mother and dad were there. And what struck me was the love ot the parents. They were in a public area, and they didn't show the slightest embarrassment. It was beautiful. The boy was still too young to realize he was different.

I also remember a day when my sister and I were visiting my mum in a chronic-care hospital. There were two beds in the room. The woman in the next bed was not all that old - in her early 60s, probably - but she was paralyzed from a stroke. She could hardly speak. Her husband came in every day, or every other day, with a pile of her dainty nightgowns, all neatly folded. And when he came in, she perked right up. He sang to her. And she started singing with him - so often, stroke victims can't speak but they can sing. My sister an I were in tears watching this beautiful love scene. The woman managed to say to us, "I have a wonderful husband". It was such a beautiful sight.

I'm talking to you out of my own belief in Christ, and what love means in the Christian faith. We do it imperfectly, of course. But I saw an interesting poster one day, that showed how all the religions in the world express the golden rule: the idea of loving your neighbour. Love is the essence of being human, whatever way it's interpreted."