I had a tumor. But it was great.

Just think, the shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in.

There are many things in this world that are an outrage, to be sure, but death at our current life expectancy doesn’t strike me as one of them. Maybe I sound like some Victorian who felt that forty years ought to be enough for any man, but one of the marks of a life well lived has to be reaching a state of finally getting it, of not needing more, and of being able to sign off with something approaching peace of mind.

Simplicity, it seems, has always been wasted on those who simply cannot appreciate it

Everybody's got something. In the end, what choice does one really have but to understand that truth, to really take it in, and then shop for groceries, get a haircut, do one's work; get on with the business of one's life. That's the hope, anyway.

Being a stranger was like being dead, and brought to mind how, in a book he had read that most folks misunderstood one common state: The flip side of love is indifference, not hate.

I have managed to establish an identity that is based on my internal self, and for that I feel tremendously lucky.