Jason

I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard,
I wished hard, but I didn’t pray. I had developed a certain distrust of
organized religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a
spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I
believed I had a responsiblity to be a good person, and that meant
fair, honest, hardworking, and honorable. If I did that, if I was good
to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to
some cause, if I wasn’t a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed
that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some
Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged
on whether I had lived a true life, not on whther I believed in a
certain book, or whether I’d been baptized. If there was indeed a God
at the end of my days, I hoped he didn’t say, "But you were never a
Christian, so you’re going the other way from heaven." If so, I was
going to reply, "You know what? You’re right. Fine."

-Lance Armstrong

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

-Niel Gaiman