“We cannot subscribe to the belief that this life is a vale of tears, though it once was just that for many of us. But it is clear that we make our own misery.”

“Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures... There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it.”

“We cannot trust our own minds, traditions and beliefs.”

“Because our birth mothers made a choice for us that dramatically changed the course of our lives and over which we had no control, many of us have a foundational belief (often unconscious) that we don't have the right to choose our own course in life. We feel instead that we are at the mercy of others.”

“When we make our own misery we sometimes cling to it even when we want so bad to change, because misery is something we know. The misery is comfortable.”

“...and when the twilight of that ride is finally upon us, we will look at the trail we have taken and at the signs of our passage. And though our tears will be many, we will know that great lives have been lived, and that our memories will forever bind us together.”