“I almost wish I had cancer. Then I’d either beat it or die from it. But my disease, even if successfully treated, will never go away. And it might not kill me. But it will hang over me like the blade of a guillotine; more threatening inert than if the blade suddenly slips and mercifully turns out my lights. This is my war to end all wars.”

“The city was waking up to another day. I hadn't slept or changed my clothes in six days. ”

“I kept waiting for something bigger, something more profound, something that I could hitch myself to and be carried away once and for all to the heaven-on-earth that I deserved. I kept struggling for control, which was really a demand for everything I wanted--peace, happiness, love, perfection--all at once, right now, and for all time. I wanted life to be perfect, always. And when it wasn't, which was most of the time, I got really anxious, and when I got anxious, I started thinking about how good it would feel to get high again. ”

“Besides, the angels lived in heaven forever and that was a long time, so I imagined things got boring up there after a while. It was scary to think about living forever with nothing to do ”

“The test of a mans character is not the mistakes he makes but the way he responds to them. ”

“I understood that the attachment to myself and my image ... was actually taking me away from my self, away from this wonderful opportunity to just sit, just breathe, just feel the warm animal of my body, just feel the soft, sultry heat of June. The density of my attachment was making it impossible for me to have a truly satisfying experience of life in my body just as it was in the moment. When under the sway of this obsession, my mind's attention was always in the fantasized future, or the idealized or devalued past - never present to the reality of the moment.”

“At lunchtime I bought a huge orangeThe size of it made us all laugh.I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—They got quarters and I had a half.And that orange it made me so happy,As ordinary things often doJust lately. The shopping. A walk in the parkThis is peace and contentment. It's new.The rest of the day was quite easy.I did all my jobs on my listAnd enjoyed them and had some time over.I love you. I'm glad I exist.”