Once upon a time there was a king, and the king commissioned his favorite wizard to create a magic mirror. This mirror didn__ show you your reflection. It showed you your soul__t showed you who you really were.The wizard couldn__ look at it without turning away. The king couldn__ look at it. The courtiers couldn__ look at it. A chestful of treasure was offered to anyone who could look at it for sixty seconds without turning away. And no one could.

My mother used to say not sleeping was the sign of a guilty mind. It could have been. There was a lot in my mind to feel guilty about. When you__e drunk and trying to sleep, your thoughts are visited by the ghosts of those deeds whose heat still glows hottest in your personal darkness. Our actions burn much longer than the moments in which they occur. And drunks like me, we hide from the glow of the embers by fueling other fires and hiding within the flames.

But if you wish, you can imagine that the Shadow does wait for your return and that it does remember everything that has gone before and that it doesn__ let you accept yourself as perfect until you let it. There is truth in that. That is why a child usually cries as soon as it__ born. With its first breath, the Shadow returns.

There is nothing like fear to complicate one's consciousness, inducing previously unknown levels of reflection

The degree of freedom we enjoy outwardly is a reflection of the degree of love we cultivate inwardly.

Life isn't memorable enough to remember everything. It's not like there are explosions all the time, or dog smoking cigarettes.