Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?

A priest friend of mine has cautioned me away from the standard God of our childhoods, who loves you and guides you and then, if you are bad, roasts you: God as a high school principal in a gray suit who never remembered your name but is always leafing unhappily through your files.

I spend most of my time alone, because I so value and thrive in the quiet. Heaven.

In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare.

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.

There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time.