“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

“[T]here are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word "happy" would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

“Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.”

“Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories”

“Happiness simply cannot be relied upon as a measure of success.”

“There were happy days, with watermelon, and sad days of whiskey.”

“We don't know happiness without unhappiness, gaiety without sadness, and happiness can only be felt if you don't set any conditions.”

“A wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the children; and — by some sad, strange irony — it does not bind us children to our parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with gratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos and much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy.”

“She was experiencing the same odd happiness and odd sadness as then. The sadness meant: We are at the last station. The happiness meant: We are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness.”