“An important part of building a new culture was allowing people to complain about their past. At first, the more they complained, the worse the past would seem. But by venting, people could start to resolve the past. By bitching and bitching and bitching, they could exhaust the drama of their own horror stories. Grow bored. Only then could they accept a new story for their lives. Move forward.”

“People pray for rain, then complain about the flood. They pray for it to stop raining, then bitch about the drought.”

“How long could we do this before you started bitching?" Simon said as we turned down another street of apartment buildings."What?""We've been walking for two days now, and you haven't complained once. It's damned annoying, you know."I looked at him."If you don't complain, then I can't complain. Not without sounding like a whiny little snot.”

“A story can be new and yet tell about olden times. The past comes into existence with the story.”

“And at the start of every new day, I still believed I could choose my own beginning, one that was scrubbed clean of everything past”

“Don't worry about the bitches. That could be a good motto, because you come across people like that throughout your life.”