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

Transformations require that we let go of familiar ways of doing things, without yet knowing what we will do next.

We all live in a tragicomic situation, a life that is in part absurd simply because it is not of our own making. We are born into a disordered world, into a family we did not choose, into circumstances we would have had somewhat improved, and we are even called by a name we did not select. (40)

All significant battles are fought within self.

Often things are as bad as they seem.

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 outrageous imagination is the wine of madness, then come fill my cup.