
“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”
Source: The Wild Palms
VIII, 42
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII
“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”
Source: The Wild Palms
From Peter Engel, "An Interview With Stanislaw Lem": The Missouri Review, Volume VII, Number 2 (1984) http://www.missourireview.org/index.php?genre=Interviews&title=An+Interview+with+Stanislaw+Lem
Context: For moral reasons I am an atheist — for moral reasons. I am of the opinion that you would recognize a creator by his creation, and the world appears to me to be put together in such a painful way that I prefer to believe that it was not created by anyone than to think that somebody created this intentionally.
“Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.”
"Little Earthquakes".
Songs
“Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.”
Source: The Joy Luck Club (1989), Ch. 2, pg. 48
“I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.”
Variant: I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.
Reverence for Life (1969)