Pain

"You fell asleep and a monster crawled from out of my head and found its way under my bed"

"Some moments in a life, and they needn't be very long or seem very important, can make up for so much in that life; can redeem, justify, that pain, that bewilderment, with which one lives, and invest one with the courage not only to endure it, but to profit from it; some moments teach one the price of human connection: if one can live with one's own pain, then one respects the pain of others, and so, briefly, but transcendentally, we can release each other from pain."

"The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you."

"You didn’t understand the poem, but that was because it wasn’t for you. It was for me to understand the pain you put me through."

"The medical professionals should fight PTSD at every cost for those living in pain and the battles they've lost."

"Some moments in a life, and they needn't be very long or seem very important, can make up for so much in that life; can redeem, justify, that pain, that bewilderment, with which one lives, and invest one with the courage not only to endure it, but to profit from it' some moments teach one the price of human connection: if one can live with one's own pain, then one respects the pain of others, and so, briefly, but transcendentally, we can release each other from pain."

"It's okay to be hurt because what is pleasure without some pain."

"[A]fter all, what does it mean for pain to be 'memorable'? You're either in pain or you're not. And it isn't the pain that one forgets. It's the touching death part. As the baby might say to its mother, we might say to death: I forget you, but you remember me."

"Her brightest memories were his darkest recollections."

"To make love is to give birth to death."

"When we get hurt, our bodies immediately start trying to heal that hurt. This works for emotions as well. If we were scarred socially, by an incident of rejection or bullying, we immediately start trying to heal. Like pus comes out of wounds, emotions flow from psychological wounds. And what do we really need at that moment? When we are out of that dangerous situation that scarred us, and we become triggered by some little thing - what do we need? Do we need someone to look at us and say, "Wow, you're really sensitive, aren't you" or "Hey, man, I didn't mean it like that."? Do we need someone to justify their actions or tell us to take it easy, because the situation didn't really require such a reaction?And, from ourselves, do we really need four pounds of judgment with liberal helpings of shame? Do we need to run away, to suppress, to hate our "over-sensitivity" to situations that seem innocuous to others?No. We do not need all of these versions of rejection of a natural healing process. You would not feel shame over a wound doing what it must do to heal, nor would you shame another. So why do we do this to our heart wounds? Why do we do it to ourselves? To others?Next time some harmless situation triggers you or someone around you into an intense emotion - realize it's an attempt at emotional healing. Realize the danger is no longer there, but don't suppress the healing of old dangers and old pains. Allow the pain. Don't react, but don't repress. Embrace the pain. Embrace the pain of others. Like this, we have some chance at healing the endless cycles of generational repression and suppression that are rolling around in our society. Fall open. Break open. Sit with others' openness. Let love be your medicine."

"Seriousness is too boring to the playful human condition. A heart of stone that has a long face can never express love."

"that's ONE thing that's wrong with intellectuals and writers - they don't feel a hell of a lot except their own comfort or their own pain. which is normal but shitty."

"He learned that kisses and touches and professions of love could make you forget, and that the more he was with Kieran, the more he wanted to be with him and not with anyone else."

"He tore his gaze from the door to eye the medallion at his chest, black and dull, sharply offset by the gold around it and along the chain. She was losing this war, he thought, feeling the dullness of Eleanor Black’s dread swarming against his dead heart where the medallion fell. She was losing it and it did not matter who won: We would cease to be no matter the outcome."

"There's a threshold of pain, a person loses consciousness in order not to die. And there's a threshold of grief, it suddenly stops hurting. And you feel nothing. Nothing at all."

"He thought of what his mother always said whenever he cut himself, “Dimka, scars are time’s alphabet.” If so, his body was covered in poetry, his soul contained an entire encyclopedia of pain and loss..." Kelly Oliver, WOLF: A Jessica James Mystery"

"Why are those who knew him, when they pass from the memory of a young man, sensitive and gay, to the work – novels and writings – surprised to pass into a nocturnal world, a world of cold torment, a world not without light but in which light blinds at the same time that it illuminates; gives hope, but makes hope the shadow of anguish and despair? Why is it that he who, in his work, passes from the objectivity of the narratives to the intimacy of the Diary, descends into a still darker night in which the cries of a lost man can be heard? Why does it seem that the closer one comes to his heart, the closer one comes to an unconsoled center from which a piercing flash sometimes bursts forth, an excess of pain, excess of joy? Who has the right to speak of Kafka without making this enigma heard, an enigma that speaks with the complexity, with the simplicity, of enigma?"

"Push through the pain, and conquer the obstacles. Regardless of what you think today, it won’t matter 5 years from now."

"A sad lesson that was mine to learn is that you can't lose what was never truly yours. Nor can you hold to things that simply do not wish to be held."