My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.

Scar tissue has no character. It's not like skin. It doesn't show age or illness or pallor or tan. It has no pores, no hair, no wrinkles. It's like a slip cover. It shields and disguises what's beneath. That's why we grow it; we have something to hide.

It was my misfortune-or salvation-to be at all times perfectly conscious of my misperceptions of reality.

We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got wind of them.

Tell me that you don’t take that blade and drag it across your skin and pray for the courage to press down.

It's important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there's a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there's a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there's a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance.

My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.