:"The stories we tell with good intentions and with as much honesty as we can muster may be incomplete, like a statue of Venus without arms or a nose. We may be tempted to make up for the lack by adding plastic parts, unnatural and anachronistic, but ruins of statues are often more beautiful than the originals. Our partial stories may be complete in their imperfection and their refusal to be brought to an end or to have all the necessary and required parts."
and,
"Myth gives a person the sense of living in a meaningful story, the feeling that one's life makes sense and has value, and these sensations are the basis for self-confidence and stability, purpose and poise. Without myth, life has to be proven valuable every day and is lived from profound anxiety; but with the awareness that one's life is grounded in eternal stories and motifs, one's own personal story begins to feel enchanted, and this feeling gives rise to love of one's own life that is the cure for narcissism, insecurity and self-doubt."
