Everyone has a story; everyone hides his past as a means of self-preservation. Some just do it better, and more thoroughly, than others.

In half hour my mother has managed to give me what my father couldn't: my past.

Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.

In the space between yes and no, there is a lifetime. It’s the difference between the path you walk and one you leave behind; it’s the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; it’s the legroom for the lies you will tell yourself in the future.

I don't know whether you can look at your past and find, woven like the hidden symbols on a treasure map, the path that will point to your final destination.

by now you've already formed your own impression. you believe that an act committed a lifetime ago defines a man, or you believe that a person's past has nothing to do with his future. you think i am either a hero, or a monster. maybe knowning more about circumstances will make you think differently about me, but it won't change what happened twenty-eight years ago.

It turns out that sharing the past with someone is different from reliving it when you’re alone. It feels less like a wound, more like a poultice.