“My fight isn’t so simple, it has very deep roots, from long ago, from earlier generations. Life weighs on me with the weight of my family history, my genes drag along a race of sons of plenty and sons of bitches who with a blade of a machete cleared the pathways of life. They’re still doing it. They ate with the machete, they worked, they shaved, killed, and settled differences with their wives with machete. Today the machete is a shotgun, a nine-millimeter, a chopper. The weapon has changed but not its use. The story has changed, too, has become terrifying. Once proud, we are now ashamed, without understanding how, why, and when it all happened. We don’t know how long our history is, but we can feel its weight.”

“So many times in my life I’ve felt as though looking at Em is like seeing another variation of myself, but I don’t feel that way now. Too much has changed recently. Still, Em is my best girl friend. Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.-Cassia, from the novel Matched.”

“I wanted to save myself from that drug that contaminates the body and veins and not from the other drug, you know that drug that enters through your eyes and your private area, the one that settles into your heart to screw it up, that damn drug that naive people call love. The stupid drug that’s just as dangerous and deadly as the one that you find on the streets wrapped up in little packages.”

“He got to know me, not with the minuteness with which I knew him, but with his spontaneous conclusions. He talked about everyone and defined them, but I had the privilege of being the only one in whom he discovered new facets, the only one to whom he addressed questions from the soul, the only one he examined and in whom he found what they never gave him, but he was frightened by the discovery. The two of us were filled with fear that night, the only night, when we again closed what we’d opened, as if we’d never seen it.”

“Acceptance leads to the direct experience of true love. It confronts us with the awareness that love has nothing to do with what is advertised in consensus reality, that there is a deeper love shunned by the outer world. This love becomes our task to explore, even if this means doing so alone. A most significant experience on the way to acceptance is to acknowledge aloneness. Aloneness (all-oneness) is our authentic nature. We are always alone. We came into this planet alone and we will leave alone. And also during our whole staying in this world, no matter how we engage in relationships, we continue to be alone, although we may forget about it or pretend it is not the case.True love have nothing to do with the idea that someone is the other half of my soul and that I need him or her in order to be whole and feel complete. Love is not being half of an entirety with another, love is being both a whole, is accepting to be alone, and only when you can be alone with someone there is true love regardless of whether this aloneness is accepted by the other or not.”

“My building was constructed in 1896, and the utilities reflect an odd design that has been jerry-rigged further with each renovation. If you want to understand the wiring and plumbing in my building, you have to understand its history, how it was renovated for each new generation of scientists. My head has a long history also, and that history explains complicated nerves like the trigeminal and the facial.”

“I want to use this practice:Whenever I express my views, thoughts or anything I deeply believe, I will welcome any opposing view or thought. I will listen with caring attention to what the other says, accepting it no matter how different or antagonistic it seems to be.I will also deeply and sincerely thank them.I will abstain from feeling accused or judged.I will acknowledge the other as my shadow, an integral part of me who has accepted to relate with me.I believe that a vision in order to manifest requires its opposite, the other polarity. If my vision is truly holistic, I am not in a condition to oppose any alternative vision.I intend to learn to accept what appears to be opposite, no matter how unpleasant or contrary it is. I believe that only in the paradox of this acceptance, in releasing the urge to be right, unity can be experienced and manifested.I have tried all other options, and they have not worked, and this is the only I have left.And for this purpose I am open to be patient, promoting the gestation of this healing process, for I know that all is one.”