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

“I would like to know just what kind of nothing I am”

“Sure, society understands visible shackles-- they get the symbolism of the wheelchair, of prosthetics, of a bumper sticker reading disabled veteran, but they still struggle for comprehension of the profound, invisible shackles that an illness such as [Chronic Fatigue] puts on a person's body.”

“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.”

“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.”

“His story also demonstrates an obscure truth. Having a plan, any plan, means you know on some level you're going to fail, you're in the wrong. This contradicts everything I've been taught, all the larger principles of modern life, which are all about planning and calculation. But if you're going to success, how could you need to think it out beforehand? If you had the necessary confidence--in every case perfect, unbreakable confidence--the idea of a plan would make you laugh.”

“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.”