We are all born into families and cultures we didn't choose, given names we didn't pick, instructed in behaviour and values we might not have freely chosen, and too often we end up expected to live lives designed by others.

That is one of the reasons why a man should pick a path with heart, so that he can find his laughter.

I remember a group therapy session when one of the patients was reluctantly turning his corner. He would accept it, he said, but he wouldn't like the idea of having to solve problems every day for the rest of his life. My co-therapist told him that it was not required that he like it. She shared her own displeasure, saying: 'I remember that when I first discovered what life was like, I was furious. I guess I'm still kind of mad sometimes.' (135)

If I am transparent enough to myself, then I can become less afraid of those hidden selves that my transparency may reveal to others. If I reveal myself without worrying about how others will respond, then some will care, though others may not. But who can love me, if no one knows me? I must risk it, or live alone. It is enough that I must die alone. I am determined to let down my walls, whatever the risks, if it means that I may have whatever is there for me.

To live without the creative potential of our own destructiveness is to be a cardboard angel.

I have long trusted dreams as prophetic visions. I do not mean that they foretell the future, only that they illuminate the present, when my eyes are closed, so that I may see clearly.

The only times that we can have what we long for are those moments when we stop grasping for it. At such times, all things are possible: "to a mind that is 'still' the whole universe surrenders".