“But my brain winds and wends. Back and forth. Up and down. It feels like the county fair has inhabited my mind-- complete with sketchy rides, carnies, and sugar-amped kids crying over lost balloons. So loud and disorienting. I want it to pack up and move on to the next town. I want my mind to be an open grassy field again with crickets and dandelions.”

“Probably the wisest words that were ever uttered to me. Came from a therapist. I was sitting in her office, crying my eyes out. . . and she said, "So let me get this straight. You base your personal happiness on things entirely out of your control.”

“It's about not taking things personally. Even when you feel the world is crumbling around you. It's about choosing happiness over suffering. It's about retraining the way we think.”

“Suffering sucks. Don't do it. Go home and love your wife. Go home and love yourself. Go homeand base your happiness on one thing and one thing only: freedom. Choose freedom, not suffering. Create a life of freedom, not wanting. Have some really good coffee and listen to the red-winged blackbirds in the marsh. Ignore the mosquitoes.”

“she confuses everything i am, shakes the change out of my pokets and makes me want to barter with foreign currency.”

“It was a completely new feeling for me–like someone had just released a million, tiny butterflies loose in my stomach, and they were feverishly flying up into my head and making me lose my mind.”

“My kid, her life. I want for her what she wants for herself.”