No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences so-called trauma - but we make out of them just what suits our purposes.

Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.

My childhood was safe and sane. No abuse and no traumas. I was surrounded by a large and loving family who taught me the importance of hard work and a meaningful education.

One reason we resist making deliberate choices is that choice equals change and most of us feeling the world is unpredictable enough try to minimise the trauma of change in our personal lives.

The negative effects of combat were nightmares and I'd get jumpy around certain noises and stuff but you'd have that after a car accident or a bad divorce. Life's filled with trauma. You don't need to go to war to find it it's going to find you. We all deal with it and the effects go away after awhile. At least they did for me.

Trauma happens in relationships so it can only be healed in relationships. Art can't provide healing. It can be cathartic and therapeutic but a relationship is a three-part journey.

I began to speak well at a very advanced age - 15 16 17 years old. It was psychological: the trauma of war my family and growing up on my own. I was more or less a street kid.