People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted. - James Baldwin

But people can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.

It's astounding the first time you realize that a stranger has a body - the realization that he has a body makes him a stranger. It means that you have a body, too. You will live with this forever, and it will spell out the language of your life.