Everyone has something to hide. And if they couldn't hide it the world would be in a lot worse mess than it is.

To get married and have a family, is to grow up and mature. It's the only way. You can read philosophy books for a hundred years, but if you don't get married and have a family you will never get it. They soften you and shape you, mature you. Absolutely.

Now when I die, I shall only be dead.

I felt puny and absurd, a ludicrous midget. Easy enough to talk of soul and spirit and existential worth, but not when you're three feet tall.

Not only did I rediscover every experience of my life, I had to live each unfulfilled desire as well—as though they’d been fulfilled. I saw that what transpires in the mind is just as real as any flesh and blood occurrence. What had only been imagination in life, now became tangible, each fantasy a full reality. I lived them all—while, at the same time, standing to the side, a witness to their, often, intimate squalor. A witness cursed with total objectivity.

Failures plagued me. Things I had omitted or ignored, neglected. What I should have given and hadn’t. I felt the biting pang of every unfulfillment.

…Those who’ve marred their appearance in any way by their actions in life aren’t forced to witness that marring. If they were, they’d become self-conscious and be unable to concentrate on improving themselves.