“Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.”

“In my life I have had various health threats: polio, seizures, a brain aneurysm. None of these things has really changed me much, although it is hard to say for sure. These are events that are part of my life. They make me who I am. I am thankful for them. They are scary.”

“I am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me.”

“I am so sad it makes me heavier than the sum of my parts.”

“Since I am determined to join myself to God, I find that I am also bound to be the enemy of his enemies. And since I find nothing that is more his enemy than the self that is me, I am constrained to hate this part of me more than any other.”

“I wear this because it suits me, it’s a part of who I am, of what I am. My soul is black, my life is black—as black as the nothingness that surrounds me.”