My life would be constrained by the horror and fierce rage that my appearance inspired, but I would know peace as well as fear, tenderness as well as brutality, and even love in a time of cruelty.

After once having made the mistake of watching television news, I had worried for a while about an asteroid hitting the earth and wiping out human civilization. The anchorwoman had said it was not merely possible but probable. At the end of the report, she smiled.

It's only life. We all get through it. Not all of us complete the journey in the same condition. Along the way, some lose their legs or eyes in acidents or altercations, while others skate through the years with nothing worse to worry about than an occassional bad-hair day. I still possessed both legs and both eyes, and even my hair looked all right when I rose that Wednesday morning in late January. If I returned to bed sixteen hours later, having lost all my hair but nothing else, I would consider the day a triumph. Even minus a few teeth, I'd call it a triumph.

The rain wasn't the usual glittering silver, but dark and dirty, as if nature were a scrubwoman wringing out a filthy mop.

He said, if you allow yourself to be enchanted by the beauty to be seen in even ordinary things, then all things proved to be extraordinary.

Every life is complicated, every mind a kingdom of unmapped mysteries.

Not all or even most suffering is at the hands of fate; it befalls us at our invitation.