And so, it is not astonishing that, though the patient enters therapy insisting that he wants to change, more often than not, what he really wants is to remain the same and to get the therapist to make him feel better. (4)

One can choose life, or choose death. Having chosen life, I must live it as it is.

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.

He prefers the security of known misery to the misery of unfamiliar insecurity.

So it is that God tugs at a pilgrim's sleeve telling him to remember that he is only human. He must be his own man, remain in exile, and belong to himself. He must pay attention to his own feelings and to the meaning of what he does, if he is to be for himself, and yet for others as well.

There appear to be many people who chose to go crazy (or become alcoholics, addicts, criminals, suicides) rather than have to bear the pain and ambiguity of a life situation that they have decided that they cannot stand. (98)

Each of us is ultimately alone.