“Pain's nothing. Pain's what you give, not what you get.”
Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin
Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book One: All Respects to Heaven, I Like it Here
“What is so painful about that time is that nothing was disastrous.”
— Doris Lessing, book The Golden Notebook
Anna Wulf, in "Free Women: 1"
The Golden Notebook (1962)
Context: What is so painful about that time is that nothing was disastrous. It was all wrong, ugly, unhappy and coloured with cynicism, but nothing was tragic, there were no moments that could change anything or anybody. From time to time the emotional lightning flashed and showed a landscape of private misery, and then — we went on dancing. <!-- 128
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Doris Lessing94
British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer … 1919–2013Related quotes
John Cleese (1939) actor from England
“John Cleese says wokeness has a 'disastrous' impact on comedy” https://www.foxnews.com/media/john-cleese-wokeness-disastrous-impact-comedy Fox News (July 20, 2022)
Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future
"Introduction", item 3
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)
“What makes me weep so? From time to time. There is nothing saddening here.”
Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable
The Unnamable (1954)
Context: The tears stream down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. What makes me weep so? From time to time. There is nothing saddening here. Perhaps it is liquefied brain.
“I find nothing so painful as having to lead men.”
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) French engineer and physicist
Je ne trouve rien de si pénible que d'avoir à mener des hommes.
in his December 29 1816 letter to his uncle Léonor Mérimée, in [Œuvres complètes d'Augustin Fresnel, Imprimerie impériale, 1866, http://books.google.com/books?id=3QgAAAAAMAAJ, xviii]
“That so much time was wasted in this pain.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer
Christ, Old Student in a New School (1972)
Context: That so much time was wasted in this pain.
Ten thousand years ago he might have let off down
To not return again!
A dreadful laugh at last escapes his lips;
The laughter sets him free.
A Fool lives in the Universe! he cries.
The Fool is me!
And with one final shake of laughter
Breaks his bonds.
The nails fall skittering to marble floors.
And Christ, knelt at the rail, sees miracle
As Man steps down in amiable wisdom
To give himself what no one else can give:
His liberty.
