Joyce’s Reviews > The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell > Status Update

“It’s a pilgrimage,” she said. “It’s not supposed to be easy.”

“I’m long past believing in miracles,” I said. “I just want to see her happy.”

I stopped drinking, but I’ve never stopped being an alcoholic. I’m hoping you’ll forgive me, Sam. I’m hoping that you’ll find it in your heart.

There’s nothing to forgive, Sister. I know it was the alcohol.

The ordeal with David Bateman and Trina Crouch had made me realize that holding grudges only caused more pain.

“I had no right to keep you to myself. It was God’s will for you to do his work.”

Initially, my work felt as I had intended it, an escape and a penance, but in Fernando I saw the truth in my mother’s words, and I hoped they would help to relieve the tremendous guilt I knew I would feel for having been gone.

The worst part of being a doctor is that other doctors cannot lie to you. They cannot give you false hope of a miracle.

No one needed to tell me what I already knew. My mother was dying.

“God did not make you different, Fernando. He made you special. But what is most important is not the color of your eyes. What is most important is what is inside.”

If anything, I’d classify myself as a Buddhist. I believed that every living thing came from the earth and was to be respected.

running from a faith that seemed to solve every problem not with a solution but with an excuse.

“It’s God’s will.”

“Most people who own a gun never have to use it. It’s the threat of the gun that deters the need.“