Like other ghosts, she whispers; not for me to join her, but so that, when I'm close enough, she can push me back into the world.

Not long after our final lesson, on one of our Sundays at the lake, my father and I were walking along the shore when he noticed a small rock shaped like a bird. When he picked it up, I saw the quick gleam of satisfaction in his face and felt in an instant that I had less power to please him than a stone.

Although I am no longer caught in the past, the future seems like a ridiculous thing to me. Try to catch it, hold it in your hand. It disappears every time.

You carry the past with you. Even if there's a before, and an after, in your life. It's still the same life. The trick is to build a bridge between that and what comes later.

You need to come face-to-face with the past, not as some naive, easily wounded boy, but as a grown-up, independent professional. Not to see what you want to see, but what you must see. Otherwise you'll carry around that baggage for the rest of your life.

...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whaterver form. Both are illusions.