“Whoever has loved knows all that life contains of sorrow and joy.”
Source: House of Sand and Fog
“I'll teach you to kick me…'
You don't need to teach me--I already know how!”
“The joys of love… last only a moment. The sorrows of love last all the life long.”
Source: The Joys of Love
“Joy is deeper than sorrow, for all joy seeks eternity.”
Academy of Achievement interview (2006)
Context: In our culture, we think that happy and color is trivial, that black and darkness is deeper. But Nietzsche said — which is a line that I firmly believe — "Joy is deeper than sorrow, for all joy seeks eternity." And if you see Grendel, you'll see, as he's on the edge of the abyss, ready to leap to his death, he sings, "Is it joy I feel? Is it joy I feel?" And it's so, so moving. You can have a lot of different explanations for the ending of that opera, but there is something so palpable that you will feel when he sings those lines.
“Such is the life of a man. Moments of joy, obliterated by unforgettable sorrow.”
“Life is a chain of small sorrows that lead to a great joy.”
page 35
The Other Wife (2003)
“Keep some measure in the joy you take in luck, and the degree you
give way to sorrow.”
Fragment 67, as translated by R. Lattimore http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/arkhilokhos67.htm
Variant translations:
Soul, my soul, don't let them break you,
all these troubles. Never yield:
though their force is overwhelming,
up! attack them shield to shield...
"Archilochos: To His Soul" : A fragment http://web.archive.org/20030629194753/geocities.com/joncpoetics/translations/Archsoul.htm as translated from the Greek by Jon Corelis http://web.archive.org/20030805055937/www.geocities.com/joncpoetics/
Take the joy and bear the sorrow,
looking past your hopes and fears:
learn to recognize the measured
dance that orders all our years.
"Archilochos: To His Soul" : A fragment, as translated from the Greek by Jon Corelis
Fragments
Context: Heart, my heart, so battered with misfortune far beyond your strength,
up, and face the men who hate us. Bare your chest to the assault
of the enemy, and fight them off. Stand fast among the beamlike spears.
Give no ground; and if you beat them, do not brag in open show,
nor, if they beat you, run home and lie down on your bed and cry.
Keep some measure in the joy you take in luck, and the degree you
give way to sorrow. All our life is up-and-down like this.
Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 4
