Worrying about how you'll be remembered is pointless. Better to try to live your life in such a way that people will respect you while you're still alive.
There's no original evil left in the world. Everyone's just recycling pain. (257)
Maybe the trying is the thing. Maybe it doesn't get better than that. Maybe you never quite get there. And maybe that's okay.
Most children would rather preserve the fantasy of a loving connection with their fathers and mothers, at all costs, even if it costs them their self-esteem. When you're three or seven years old, it's less frightening to think of yourself as an unlovable, disappointing screwup than to recognize the fact that you're living with a monster.
We are, all of us, crippled and twisted. Most of us strive desperately to keep our grotesqueries out of sight and mind. Our suffering is transformed by an alchemy of the soul into addiction, ulcers, strokes, hatred, even war.
If you take the teachings of Jesus, whether you consider yourself saved or you don't, those teachings are pristine. They're wonderful guides for life. And there's nothing in them that says hurt other people.
God is not attracted to mountaintops or church steeples. God is drawn to suffering, and the dark places it surfaces, which is why sharing pain freely feels very much like love, and may be the same thing. (207)
A third myth is that men think that women like guys who are dangerous. As a result, guys will often smoke cigarettes, drink too much, and ride a motorcycle without a helmet. The reality? Women don't like guys who are dangerous. Women want us to think that because women are trying to kill us.
. . . . . . so called “composition” becomes a personal thing, to be developed along with technique, as a personal way of seeing.
Fate gave to man the courage of endurance.
All my clear-eyed fish, Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish, Vermilion-tail'd, or finn'd with silvery gauze. . . My charming rod, my potent river spells.