I asked, often out loud: Who is tougher than me? The answer was always the same, and even when I knew absolutely there was no way on this earth that it was true, I said it anyway: No one.

But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.

Be about ten times more magnanimous than you believe yourself capable of. Your life will be a hundred times better for it.

The wanting was a wilderness and I had to find my own way out of the woods.

The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

I love music and listen to music all the time, but I didn't realize how much my body needed music. I needed it more than sex.

If there's one thing I believe more than I believe anything else, it's that you can't fake the core. The truth that lives there will eventually win out. It's a god we must obey, a force that brings us all inevitably to our knees.