Pain

"There's a pleasure to loving someone even when you know there's no chance in them loving you back. The pain I felt let me know I was still alive."

"The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control."

"Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness. Unfortunately the happiness is there. There is always the chance (about eight hundred and fifty to one) that another heart will come to mine. I can't help hoping, and keeping faith, and loving beauty. Quite frequently I am not so miserable as it would be wise to be."

"I think sometimes when we find love we pretend it away, or ignore it, or tell ourselves we’re imagining it. Because it is the most painful kind of hope there is."

"Please," he says. "I'm begging you to stop."I still. "I can't stomach your pain," he says. "I can feel it so strongly and it's making me crazy- please," he says to me. "Don't be sad. Or hurt. Or guilty. You've done nothing wrong." "I'm sorry-"Don't be sorry, either," he says. "God, the only reason I'm not going to kill Kent for this is because I know it would only upset you more."

"Two seconds later, the sound of an alarm filled my ears. ''What did you do'' I said over the noise as he backed up towards the bathroom door. ''The girl who gave you the note''''Yes...''''I caught her staring at my lighter.''I blinked. ''You gave a child, in a psych ward , a lighter''His eyes crinkled at the corners. ''She seemed trustworthy.''''You're sick,'' I said, but smiled.''Hey, nobody's perfect. '' Noah smiled back."

"Remembering. Forgetting. I'm not sure which is worse."

"And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then!... Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!"

"A best friend is the only one that walks into your life when the world has walked out."

"my mother, poor fish,wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times aweek, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!why don't you ever smile"and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was thesaddest smile I ever saw"

"You get use to someone—start to like them, even—and they leave. In the end, everyone leaves."

"I'm not really sure why. But... do you stop loving someone just because they betray you? I don't think so. That's what makes the betrayal hurt so much - pain, frustration, anger... and I still loved her. I still do."

"Kiss a lover, Dance a measure, Find your name And buried treasure. Face your life, It's pain, It's pleasure, Leave no path untaken."

"Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you"I do indeed, sir."Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat--your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me."

"Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the pain doesn't fade and the scars don't heal, and it's too damned late."

"Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night."

"We, unaccustomed to courageexiles from delightlive coiled in shells of lonelinessuntil love leaves its high holy templeand comes into our sightto liberate us into life. Love arrivesand in its train come ecstasiesold memories of pleasureancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold,love strikes away the chains of fearfrom our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's lightwe dare be brave And suddenly we seethat love costs all we areand will ever be. Yet it is only lovewhich sets us free."

"When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them."

"Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking."

"Being with her I feel a pain, like a frozen knife stuck in my chest. An awful pain, but the funny thing is I'm thankful for it. It's like that frozen pain and my very existence are one."