“… The pain didn't bother me. In fact, I welcome it: It meant I was alive.”

“I am not bothered by the fact that I am not understood. I am bothered when I do not know others.”

“I was so thankful to just be alive. Things that bothered me before... nothing, I have become much more peaceful and less worried about anything.”

“All of a sudden it didn't bother me not being modern.”

“I was a loner as a child. I had an imaginary friend - I didn't bother with him.”

“From the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.”

“Pain was good. If I hurt, it meant I wasn't dead.”

“The pain was quite extraordinary. And yet also weirdly welcome and restorative, bringing him news of his aliveness and his caughtness in a story larger than himself.”

“My anger has meant pain to me but it has also meant survival, and before I give it up I’m going to be sure that there is something at least as powerful to replace it on the road to clarity.”

“I was starting to come to grips with the fact that I had created a lot of pain and suffering around me, not just within me.”