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“Our way through life should not be difficult — but it is. The fact is that our lives are filled mostly with picking and choosing. "I want this, but not that." And because things are not anything other than the way they really are, we suffer. Nowhere is this more apparent and painful than when we are trying to find life after death. We so desperately want things to be the way they were. But they are not. So the longing itself becomes an additional source of suffering.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Finding Life after Death
What About the Big Stuff (2002)

Hermann Hesse photo

“But there is good and reason in us, in human beings, with whom fortune plays, and we can be stronger than nature and fate, if only for a few hours. And we can draw close to one another in times of need, understand and love one another, and live to comfort each other. And sometimes, when the black depths are silent, we can do even more. We can then be gods for moments, stretch out a commanding hand and create things which were not there before and which, when they are created, continue to live without us.”

Hermann Hesse book Gertrud

Source: Gertrude (1910), p. 236
Context: It was no different with my own life, and with Gertrude's and that of many others. Fate was not kind, life was capricious and terrible, and there was no good or reason in nature. But there is good and reason in us, in human beings, with whom fortune plays, and we can be stronger than nature and fate, if only for a few hours. And we can draw close to one another in times of need, understand and love one another, and live to comfort each other. And sometimes, when the black depths are silent, we can do even more. We can then be gods for moments, stretch out a commanding hand and create things which were not there before and which, when they are created, continue to live without us. Out of sounds, words, and other frail and worthless things, we can construct playthings — songs and poems full of meaning, consolation and goodness, more beautiful and enduring than the grim sport of fortune and destiny. We can keep the spirit of God in our hearts and, at times, when we are full of Him, He can appear in our eyes and our words, and also talk to others who do no know or do not wish to know Him. We cannot evade life's course, but we can school ourselves to be superior to fortune and also to look unflinchingly upon the most painful things.

Sarah McLachlan photo

“Heaven bent to take my hand
And lead me through the fire.
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight.Truth be told I've tried my best,
But somewhere along the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer,
And the cost was so much more than I could bear.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Fallen
Song lyrics, Afterglow (2003)

“The pain was so deep and so raw. There were days I would have died just to forget. The problem was, I couldn't figure out how to get her out of my mind. How do you kill that kind of pain?”

Ted Dekker book Kiss

Source: Kiss

Hank Green photo

“For years this rule has kept me out of hopeless despair:
You simply do not feel what is always there.
I ask my brain to entertain that pain is the same,
that if I feel it all the time, can you really call it pain?”

Hank Green (1980) American vlogger

A Song About An Anglerfish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek_wCaBZTCg
Songs

Georges Duhamel photo

“It is an extraordinary thing that this civilization, which wears out our nerves and exacts an almost painful effort from us in all our doings, should be at great pains to spare the mass of people that intellectual effort which is the only measure of true culture.”

Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) French writer

Source: Défense des Lettres [In Defense of Letters] (1937), p.

Rick Riordan photo

“Some pain shouldn't be wished away so easily. It had to be dealt with, even embraced.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

George Eliot photo

“But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch (1871)

Tess Gerritsen photo

“The most intimate feeling people can share is neither love nor hate, but pain.”

Tess Gerritsen book The Surgeon

Source: The Surgeon

Erich Segal photo

“The pain of not knowing what to do was exceeded only by that of knowing what I had done.”

Erich Segal book Love Story

Source: Love Story

Anne Rice photo

“Because I show you my pain, I do not of necessity love you.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer
Patrick Rothfuss photo

“That was another lesson I had learned perhaps too well: people meant pain.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

“I just want to protect them no matter how much pain befalls me.”

Masashi Kishimoto book Naruto

Source: Naruto, Vol. 47: The Seal Destroyed

Tony Kushner photo

“In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead.”

Tony Kushner (1956) American playwright and screenwriter

Source: Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika

James Baldwin photo

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States
Shannon Hale photo

“Throwing herself into learning helped Miri ignore the painful chill of solitude around her.”

Shannon Hale Princess Academy

Source: Princess Academy

Bob Marley photo

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Variant: One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.

Maya Angelou photo

“I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Variant: I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.