Stronger than pain quotes (page 159) | Quotes of famous people

“You know, everyone's always talking about trauma and pain and how this society isn't working, that we shouldn't have racism and sexism, but we never talk in positive terms — like what would joy be, what it would be like to have a totally great existence.”

Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet

Kathy Acker: Where does she get off?
Context: Bataille is associated with the surrealists. Basically the idea is that democracy doesn't work. Communism doesn't work. All these fucking models aren't working. We've got to find some new models — a model of what society should look like.
We don't know what humans are like. And the ground is not economics; it's not like people do everything they do for economic reasons. You've got to look at the imagination; you've got to look at sex. We have no way of describing these things using the language we have. So a group was formed around Bataille to try to figure out what it means to be human — what society should look like.
Humans have to live in a society — they can't just survive as individuals. That's not a viable condition. You know, everyone's always talking about trauma and pain and how this society isn't working, that we shouldn't have racism and sexism, but we never talk in positive terms — like what would joy be, what it would be like to have a totally great existence. Bataille and his followers looked for models for people to have totally great existences. … Well, they looked at tribal models and how they dealt with sexual stuff and sacrifice and property — the joys that aren't based on economic accumulation and the workaday world, but based on giving it all up — not having that specific, controlling, imprisoning "I." He wasn't a Freudian. He was much more interested in the tribal model where everything is on the surface and you deal with sexual stuff the same way you deal with economic stuff and social stuff.

“Despite the amount of suffering, pain, misery, sorrow and travail which can exist in life, the reason for existence is the same reason as one has to play a game — interest, contest, activity and possession. The truth of this assertion is established by an observation of the elements of games and then applying these elements to life itself.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Scientology : The Fundamentals of Thought (1973).
Scientology Bulletins

“Drugs don’t work. They don’t even make you forget – only momentarily, because if something’s that painful, nothing’s going to make you forget it. You think they’ll fill the hole, but the hole just gets deeper… It’s like trying to fill in a hole without a spade.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

The Sunday Times, May 14, 2006
Drugs

“But I escaped from reality
Escaped from the pain
I said to myself
"Some day, I'll be as I should be
Though I'm far from there now"
After such excuses, my eyes were opened
All I could do was to live in the present time.”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Walking Proud
Lyrics, My Story

“It is necessary that every man be surpassingly temperate. That person would most of all be a man of this sort if he were superior to money, which is what corrupts all men, and if, without caring about his life, he bestowed his pains on things that are just and pursued virtue.”

Iamblichus (240–320) Syrian philosopher

Source: Anonymous of Iamblichus, p. 149

“A person cries out against life because it's lonely, and because life's broken off from whatever created it. But no matter how much you hate life, you love it, too. It's like a caldron boiling with everything you have to have — but very painful to the lips.”

Frank Herbert book The Green Brain

The Green Brain (1966)

“The growing pains of … being an actor, that was a little frustrating at times because you feel like you have great capacity to do many things. And yet there seems to be a misunderstanding about who you are and what you're trying to do. And that requires patience, and people eventually will understand.”

Matt Dillon (1964) American actor

Bill Muller (June 24, 2005) "Dillon Bucks Wayward-Youth Roles", The Arizona Republic, p. P3.

“"Any last words?"
Simon knew what he was supposed to say. Sh'ma Yisrael, adonai elohanu, adonai echod. Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. He tried to speak the words, but a searing pain burned his throat. "Clary,"”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Valentine and Simon, pg. 342-343
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,
To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.”

Sara Teasdale Rivers to the Sea

"Alchemy"
Rivers to the Sea (1915)

“The Prescription: We must face our pain and conflict. Until we quit denying our failures and muffling our uneasiness, until we confess our bewilderment and alienation, we can't take the next and necessary steps. The political system needs to be transformed, not reformed.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Seven, Right Power

“When the world you live in
really gets you down,
when you feel a pain inside you
starting to pound,
and the girl you love,
she doesn't want to know,
let an old friend, as a godsend,
lead you to where peaceful waters flow”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Where Peaceful Waters Flow" (song)
Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Where Peaceful Waters Flow" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FnSi2UtNYU (song on YouTube)
Song lyrics