“To express want is to own the desire, to stand in your own reality. The easier alternative is the language of impairment: “I can’t come because I’m run down, overworked, under the gun, tired, sick, or not up to it.” The underlying message is, “I cannot attend because I am impaired,” rather than the more honest and self-respecting response: “I choose to not attend because I prefer the other option.”

“The more invested I am in my own ideas about reality, the more those experiences will feel like victimizations rather than the ups and downs of relating. Actually, I believe that the less I conceptualize things that way, the more likely it is that people will want to stay by me, because they will not feel burdened, consciously or unconsciously, by my projections, judgments, entitlements, or unrealistic expectations.”

“I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.”

“I am unacquainted with His designs, but I shall not cease to believe in them because I cannot fathom them, and I had rather mistrust my own capacity than His justice”

“Do I really smother my own joy because I believe that anger achieves more than love? That Satan's way is more powerful, more practical, more fulfilling in my daily life than Jesus' way? WHy else get angry? Isn't it because I think complaining, exasperation, resentment will pound me up into the full life I really want? When I choose-and it is a choice-to crush joy with bitterness, am I not purposefully choosing to take the way of the Prince of Darkness? Choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I think it is more effective-more expedient-than giving thanks?”

“In a rabbit-fear I may hurl myself under the wheels of the car because the lights terrify me, and under the dark blind death of wheels I will be safe. I am very tired, very banal, very confused. I do not know who I am tonight. I wanted to walk until I dropped and not complete the inevitable circle of coming home.”