“Somewhere, excitement waited for me like an uncut cake.”

“I didn't tell him that I'd put his awful stories in boxes and stacked them on a shelf at the back of my mind. I could hear a quieter version of them still, from their dark place, through all the ot...”

“Anyone who's ever gone from warm and bright to cold and dark knows how I felt.”

“But the wind always swept my words away like cloud shadows, as if it mattered more that I said them, than who heard them.”

“I slept so long and hard that when my mother woke me the next morning I was a stranger to myself.”

“And that's when I felt the first wave of sorrow that came from keeping a new secret.”

“Today I want to belong. I want to feel safe and at home. I want to be aware of what it is like simply to be, without defenses or desires. I will appreciate the flow of life for what it is-my own tr...”

“Nature reflects the moods of the wizard.”

“My calling ties me to no office, makes me no man's slave, compels me to no action which my soul condemns. It sets me free from town life, which I loathe; and allows me to breathe clean air, to exer...”