The Chalk Man

What shapes us is not always our achievements but our omissions. Not lies; simply the truths we don’t tell.

There are some things in life you can alter–your weight, your appearance, even your name–but there are others that wishing and trying and working hard can never make any difference to. Those things are the ones that shape us. Not the things we can change, but the ones we can't.

We think we want answers. But what we really want are the right answers. Human nature. We ask questions that we hope will give us the truth we want to hear. The problem is, you can’t choose your truths. Truth has a habit of simply being the truth. The only real choice you have is whether to believe it or not.

Being an adult is only an illusion. When it comes down to it I’m not sure any of us ever really grow up.

The thing you have to understand is that being a good person isn’t about singing hymns, or praying to some mystical, god. It isn’t about wearing a cross or going to church every Sunday. Being a good person is about how you treat others. A good person doesn’t need a religion, because they are content within themselves that they are doing the right thing.

You know what someone once told me? Secrets are like arseholes. We all have them. It’s just that some are dirtier than others.

For who are we if not the sum of our experiences, the things that we gather and collect in life? Once you strip those away, we become just a mass of flesh, bone, and blood vessels.

He's dead.' 'Dead?' Funny how people always repeat that word, even though they know they've heard it correctly. A kind of denial by delay.

Real friends are there no matter what. Real friends are people you love and hate in equal measure but who are as much a part of you as yourself.

Principles are nice things. If you can afford them. I like to think I am a principled man, but then, most men do. The fact is, we all have a price, we all have buttons that can press to make us do things that are not entirely honorable. Principles do not pay the mortgage or clear our debts. A principled man is generally a man who has everything he wants or absolutely nothing to lose.

History itself is only ever a story, told by the ones who survive it.

None of it was true but rumors are like germs. They spread and multiply almost in a breath and before you know it, everyone is contaminated.

Never assume," my dad once told me. "To assume makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'.

They were chanting a lot of stuff about love but they seemed full of hate.

Thin, I think, that fabric between realities. Maybe minds aren't lost. Maybe they just slip through and find a different place to wander.

Your world shrinks as you grow older. You become Gulliver in your very own Lilliput.

However, even as a kid, I could sense the anger - the venom - of those protesters. Something about their eyes, the spittle that exploded from their mouths, the way they brandished their banners like weapons. They were chanting a lot of stuff about love but they seemed full of hate.

Better to be a fool than an angel.

No one ever found any answers at the bottom of a bottle. Not the point, of course. The point of reaching the bottom of the bottle is generally to forget the questions.

People say there’s nothing stronger than love. They’re right. That’s why the worst atrocities are always committed in its name.

Love isn’t a choice. It’s a compulsion.

Wise man. Kids from the moment they’re born, they fill your heart with love…and terror. Especially little girls. You want to protect them from everything. And they you can’t, you feel like you’ve failed as a father. You’ve saved yourself a lot of pain by not having children.

...I understood how things can change in an instant. All the stuff we take for granted can just be ripped away.

My life is one long wreck of 'should haves', crashing into each other in a big tangled mess of regrets.

Assuming can trip us up in other ways too. It can stop us seeing people for who they really are and make us lose sight of the people we know.

Karma. What you sow, you reap. You do bad things and they’ll come back eventually and bite you on the backside.

I don’t think how you act in this life makes any difference after you die. Good or bad. But it does make a big difference while you’re alive. To other people. That’s why you should always try to treat them well.