When death takes your mother, it steals that word forever.

I lived," Dor said, "but I was not alive.

If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid.

The second death. To think that you died and no one would remember you. I wondered if this was why we tried so hard to make our mark in America. To be known. Think of how important celebrity has become. We sing to get famous; expose our worst secrets to get famous; lose weight, eat bugs, even commit murder to get famous. Our young people post their deepest thoughts on public web sites. They run cameras from their bedrooms. It’s as if we are screaming Notice Me! Remember Me! Yet the notoriety barely lasts. Names quickly blur and in time are forgotten.

Secrets tear you apart.

When I lacked even the self-respect to keep myself alive, she dabbed my cuts and I fell back into being a son; I fell as easily as you fall into your pillow at night. And I didn't want it to end. That's the best way I can explain it. I knew it was impossible. But I didn't want it to end.

It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody’s out there.