But to believe that getting stuff is the purpose and aim of life is madness.

Obviously, I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and everyone involved with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is giving, not getting.

However they may have felt when they left they were now committed, they had passed the point of no return.

I suspect there will never be a requiem for a dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn it's passing.

I have rituals for cleaning out resentments, disappointments, heartbreak, depression and for work. One of the things I do is go over old stuff if I have been unable to write for a while.

I just don't seem to be capable of believing in evil as some separate, distinct power within itself. I guess I'm just not a Southern Baptist or a Fundamentalist. I just don't seem to be capable of believing in it myself, somehow. I don't . . . I can't conceive from my experience how this force of evil can exist without the force of love being right there.

I've always felt alienated. I realized that I've been terrified my entire life. So I can identify that fear which drives so many of the people that I write about.