“At that point in my life, I was not looking for a career. I viewed my first decade after college as a time to explore. I didn't want anchors to hold me down. If something caught my attention, I would try it. If not, I would move on.”

“I shut the bathroom door and caught sight of my face in the mirror. I had no idea how quickly it was to change, to fade. If I had, I would have stared at my reflection, memorizing it. It was the last time I would look into a real mirror for more than a decade.”

“I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.”

“I first became aware of death when my father held me up to see the view from the top of the Empire State Building. I thought that if he moved me just one foot over, I would die. But I trusted him to hold me tight. I wouldn’t fall over, and he would place me down safely.”

“Why did you start to write?I left at 15.. I started to write becase I was taken off a ship from Germany when I was 18. They said I wouldn't live for 6 months.I'd been given up for dead many times and I just didn't want to waste my life. I had what I now realize was a spiritual experience.I realized that I would die,and that just before I would die,two things would happen.number one, I would regret my entire life.and number two, I would want to live my life over again.and then I would die.and that terrified me.[...]to think that I would live my entire life, look at it, and say oh..I blew it. was such a terrifying thoughtthat I bought a typewriterI didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I bought a typewriter.but that is what got me to start writing, wasI did not want to waste my lifeI wanted to, and I HAD to, do something with my life”

“Some presence had a hold of me in that moment that would change my life from then on. I didn't know what that change would look like or how it would happen. All I know was that it was there.”