To believe my eyes and not my ears.

You’ve got to keep trying because you don’t know what amazing things are round the corner. Also, always be grateful – at one point you wished to be where you are today.

I remember the moment when my overwhelming uneasiness yielded. Seven words from Samuel Beckett, a writer I’ve not even read that well, learned long ago as an undergraduate, began to repeat in my head, and the seemingly impassable sea of uncertainty parted: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” I took a step forward, repeating the phrase over and over: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” And then, at some point, I was through.

And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.

I can be a people-pleaser, to the detriment of my own needs sometimes.

Selfless and open, freeing.

Sensitive, kind, silly.

Cruelty to animals or children.

I would tell myself to stop being such a worrier.

I quite enjoyed all my retail jobs (I worked in H&M and Gap), but the worst times were the sale periods. The summer sales – awful.