We were determined by public opinions of us. Would we think we existed without outside confirmation? And how long would we live apart from others before we began to doubt our existence?

Praise requires constant renewal and expansion.

My old friend, water, my good companion, my beloved mother and father: I am its most natural offspring.

My eyes glaze over at a writer solving tiny problems.

Searching for the self when I was entirely alone was hazardous. What if I found not so much a great emptiness as a space full of unpleasant contents, a compound of long-hidden truths, closeted, buried, forgotten. When I went looking, I was playing a desperate game of hide-and-seek, fearful of what I might find, most afraid that I would find nothing.

A hand up is worthier than one's own fist grasping a higher rung of the ladder.

We were determined by public opinions of us. Would we think we existed without outside confirmation? And how long would we live apart from others before we began to doubt our existence?