What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one’s own, when self-pretense is no longer possible?

All of us have a path to follow and the path begins on earth.

When you sleep, your dream world is as real to you as life, isn’t it?

If men only felt about death as they do about sleep, all terrors would cease. . . Men sleep contentedly, assured that they will wake the following morning. They should feel the same about their lives.

Each memory was brought to life before me and within me. I could not avoid them. Neither could I rationalize, explain away. I could only re-experience with total cognizance, unprotected by pretense. Self delusion was impossible, truth exposed in this blinding light. Nothing as I thought it had been. Nothing as I hoped it had been. Only as it had been.

No longer will you be a weird Robinson Crusoe, imprisoned on an island of night surrounded by oceans of death.

Because there was only one thing worse than dying. And that was knowing you were going to die. And where. And how. (“Death Ship”)