Words matter, words have import.

We all want to fix things. Just as we all believe that so much in life can be rectified. Mend fences, build bridges, reach out, engage in mutual healing.

Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.

Words matter, words have import.

All our stories are simultaneously unique and desperately similar, aren't they?

But what we can never do is change the story that has made us what we are. It's a story completely dictated by the accumulation of life's manifold complexities—its capacity for astonishment and horror, for sanguinity and hopelessness, for pellucid light and the most profound darkness. We are what has happened to us.

Success is a very fragile veneer. I get wary of people who embrace celebrity. It ruins people.