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“Percy’d heard stories about amputees who had phantom pains where their missing legs
and arms used to be. That’s how his mind
felt—like his missing memories were aching.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

“So many things I had thought forgotten
Return to my mind with stranger pain:
Like letters that arrive addressed to someone
Who left the house so many years ago.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

“I’ve stopped talking because there’s really nothing left to say and there’s this piercing sort of pain where my heart is. Maybe I’m even having a heart attack, but it doesn’t seem worth mentioning.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.”

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) English composer, conductor, and pianist

“…the love we most cherish will, of necessity, bring us pain. Because that love is like the setting of a body with broken bones. But I want to stage the setting. I want to direct all scenes.”

Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

“I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.”

Amy Tan (1952) American novelist

“We who are like senseless children shrink from suffering, but love its causes. We hurt ourselves; our pain is self-inflicted! Why should others be the object of our anger?”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

“Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

“Alone at last. Oh, the pleasure of the pain. (Zarek)
You really do suffer from insanity, don’t you? (Thanatos)
Hardly. I have to say I enjoy every minute of it. (Zarek)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

“I guess I felt attached to my weakness. My pain and suffering too. Summer light, the smell of a breeze, the sound of cicadas - if I like these things, why should I apologize?”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 40, The Rat Who Wound the Clock

“The referee told me this league has never had a brawl of that magnitude," said Mr. Penderwick after a long, painful silence. "Of course, at the time I was pretending to be a casual passerby and not a father at all.”

Jeanne Birdsall (1951) American children's writer

Source: The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

“Relationships always sounded so physically painful: you fell in love, you broke a heart, you lost your head. Was it any wonder that people came through the experience with battle scars?”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

“Ah how shameless – the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone they say come all their miseries yes but they themselves with their own reckless ways compound their pains beyond their proper share.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

Source: The Odyssey

“Not knowing is half the fun," Aphrodite said, "Exquisitely painful isn't it? Not being sure who you love and who loves you? Oh, you kids! It's so cute I'm going to cry!”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“You say you felt a presence, but I only sensed an absence. A vague pain without a source. I was like a patient who cannot tell the doctor where it hurts, only that it does.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“No little appetite or pain, no carelessness or meanness in him escaped her; no thought or dream or longing in him ever reached her. And yet several times in her life she had seen the stars.”

John Steinbeck book The Moon Is Down

The Moon Is Down (1942), p. 7

“Mr. Jorrocks then called upon the company in succession for a toast, a song, or a sentiment. Nimrod gave, "The Royal Staghounds"; Crane gave, "Champagne to our real friends, and real pain to our sham friends."”

Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864) English writer

Jorrocks's Jaunts and Jollities (1838) ch. 12

“Anyway, maybe there weren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. It never learned, it made the same cretinous mistakes over and over, trading short-term gain for long-term pain.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

“Nearly one-third of the population has persistent or recurrent chronic pain—and of those, one-half to two-thirds are either partially or totally disabled for periods of days, weeks, or months, and sometimes permanently.”

John Bonica (1917–1994) Anesthesiologist; pioneer in pain management

As quoted by Melinda Blau, "Conquering Pain: New Treatments, New Hope," New York Magazine (Mar 22, 1982)

“I think after 9/11, when we were in our moment of greatest sadness as a nation… this small group of neo-conservatives used our pain in order to set their agenda on their course.”

Michael Franti (1966) American rapper

Michael Franti Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s75CPceiCw&feature=related