I believe that words can help us move or keep us paralyzed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something - a great deal - to do with how we live our lives.

It's exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.

We assume that politicians are without honor. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandals of their politics: not so much that men in high places lie, only that they do so with such indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.

A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.'”

The liar often suffers from amnesia. Amnesia is the silence of the unconscious.

The [Vietnam War Memorial] Wall became a magnet for citizens of every generation, class, race, and relationship to the war perhaps because it is the only great public monument that allows the anesthetized holes in the heart to fill with a truly national grief.

The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.