We Each Cope Differently With The Specter

At The End Of The Day, If There Was Indeed Some Body Or Presence Standing There To Judge Me, I Hoped I Would Be Judged On Whether I Had Lived A True Life, Not On Whether I Believed In A Certain Book, Or Whether I'd Been Baptized. If There Was Indeed A God At The End Of My Days, I Hoped He Didn't Say, But You Were Never A Christian, So You're Going The Other Way From Heaven. If So, I Was Going To Reply, You Know What? You're Right. Fine.

Average Is Your Enemy.

I Believed In Belief, For Its Own Shining Sake. To Believe In The Face Of Utter Hopelessness, Every Article Of Evidence To The Contrary, To Ignore Apparent Catastrophe - What Other Choice Was There? We Do It Every Day, I Realized. We Are So Much Stronger Than We Imagine, And Belief Is One Of The Most Valiant And Long-lived Human Characteristics. To Believe, When All Along We Humans Know That Nothing Can Cure The Briefness Of This Life, That There Is No Remedy For Our Basic Mortality, That Is A Form Of Bravery. To Continue Believing In Yourself, Believing In The Doctors, Believing In Thetreatent, Believing In Whatever I Chose To Believe In, That Was The Most Important Thing.

I Can Get Up In The Morning And Look Myself In The Mirror And My Family Can Look At Me Too And That's All That Matters.

I Wanted To Live, But Whether I Would Or Not Was Mystery, And In The Midst Of Confronting That Fact, Even At That Moment, I Was Beginning To Sense That To Stare Into The Heart Of Such A Fearful Mystery Wasn't A Bad Thing. To Be Afraid Is A Priceless Education. P 99