“I did the only thing I knew how to do: I built my own walls of silence to disguise my desperation and what later came to be recognized and diagnosed as depression.”

“I have begun to wonder where I came from. The person I am now, this fumbling, stumbling supplicant... was I built on the foundations of my old life, or did I rise from the grave a blank state? How much of me is inherited, and how much is my own creation? Questions that were once just idle musings have begun to feel strangely urgent. Am I firmly rooted to what came before? Or can I choose to deviate?”

“Tell me, how do get away from your own self?” she questioned. I knew what she meant with a sickening realization. They knew what I was. Somehow, they had found out my only secret.”

“How good it would be to make my own decisions; if only I knew how to.”

“The only thing I knew to do with a man was what I'd learned from my parents: to fight or not fight. I had no idea how to craft a partnership beyond that one basic thing.”

“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.”