When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?

I want to have a lasting experience of God.

The trick at every turn was to endure the test of living for as long as possible. The odds of survival were punishingly slim, for the world was naught by a school of calamity and an endless burning furnace of tribulation. But those who survived the world shaped it--even as the world, simultaneously, shaped them.

Balance is not letting anyone love you less than you love yourself.

My work is incredibly important to me personally. It brings me joy and it brings me life and it brings me meaning. It doesn't necessarily have to be important to the people who read it.

I was perfectly happy in my boring life before you came along.

This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude.