David Sheff

Sometimes I am all right. Is this what they call letting go? I have let go, if letting go means I am all right sometimes.

I'm not sure if I know any 'functional' families, if functional means a family without difficult times and members who don't have a full range of problems.

In his suicide note, Kurt Cobain wrote, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." He was quoting a Neil Young song about Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. When I was twenty-four, I interviewed John Lennon. I asked him about this sentiment, one that pervades rock and roll. He took strong, outraged exception to it. "It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out, " he said. "I worship people who survive. I'll take the living and the healthy.

... Gunpei Yokoi, asked his boss, 'What should I make?' Nintendo chief executive Hiroshi Yamauchi replied, 'Something great.'Game Over Nintendo's Battle to Dominate Videogames