"I was told there would be no math"

“My optimistic outlook on life is to sort of be positive and take everyone at face value.”

“You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization.”

“But pain... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?”

“I'm backing down now. I really do love you. That's why I'm doing this.”

“Bob Dylan and John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen, these are soul guys. Bruce Springsteen might not sing like Otis Redding, but he sings with white soul. He's singing and he's writing songs from the bottom of his gut.”

“I wish the Lord would take me now”

“It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.”

“With books at least, the best experiences are not when you find what you were looking for, but when something quite different finds you, takes you by surprise, shifts your tastes to new territory.”

Source : Tim Parks (2012). “Teach Us to Sit Still: A Skeptic's Search for Health and Healing”, p.13, Rodale