Instead, our system of "corrections" is about arm's-length revenge and retribution, all day and all night. Then its overseers wonder why people leave prison more broken than when they went in.

When you are deep in misery, you reach out to those who can help, people who can understand.

From a young age I had learned to get over--to cover my tracks emotionally, to hide or ignore my problems in the belief that they were mine alone to solve.

Do you have to find the evil in yourself in order to truly recognize it in the world?

If I could forgive, it meant I was a strong good person who could take responsibility for the path I had chosen for myself, and all the consequences that accompanied that choice. And it gave me the simple but powerful satisfaction of extending a kindness to another person in a tough spot.

We were never friends. Not for a second. I loved you.

Our current criminal justice system has no provision for restorative justice, in which an offender confronts the damage they have done and tries to make it right for the people they have harmed. [...] Instead, our system of "corrections" is about arm's-length revenge and retribution, all day and all night.