“I am not shy about admitting my modest talents. For example, I am happy to admit that I am better than average at clever remarks, and I also have a flair for getting people to like me. But to be perfectly fair to myself, I am ever-ready to confess my shortcomings, too, and a quick round of soul-searching forced me to admit that I had never been any good at all at breathing water. As I hung there from the seat belt, dazed and watching the water pour in and swirl around my head, this began to seem like a very large character flaw.”

“I am the child I once was, and the adult I am today. I am all of my good points, and each of my bad. I am brave but afraid, healed but damaged, strong but helpless. I am everything I have admitted and all that I have denied. The person that I am right now in this moment is the product of every- thing I have ever been; the truth, the lies and everything in between.”

“I am remarkably likeable. Few people have ever been as likeable as I am. There is, frankly, no end to my likeability. People gather together in public assemblies to discuss how much they like me. I have several awards, and a small medal from a small country in South America which pays tribute both to how much I am liked and my general all around wonderfulness. I don't have it on me, of course. I keep my medals in my sock drawer.”

“First I smell that smell and am overcome with a sensation of elation. Like a tight faucet turned open, everything floods from me. I scan the view, take a deep breath, and inevitably utter, "God, I love it here." I stride quickly to where the sand is still wet from the previous tide and then, and then I am gone. There is no thinking, just being. I have no awareness of time or of myself. If I am searching for glass, it is rote, with no more or less consciousness than a jellyfish searching for sustenance. It is not mindlessness or oblivion, as I am wholly aware, but in a way that preempts any reality outside of the moment. There I am seaweed, I am water, I am stone, I am fish. I am a grain of sand, warm in the sun. I am reduced to nothing, but part of everything. I am home, I am free, I am one with the sea, I am the primordial me, and the glass is just my excuse to be there.”

“Now as I began to sort through his “effects” it occurred to me how little I had really known him … I had forced upon my father the character that fitted most easily with my image of myself; to have had to admit to any complexity in him would have compromised my own.”

“If I hadn't lost my hearing, I wouldn't be where I am now. It forced me to maximize my own potential. I have to be better than the average person to succeed.”