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“One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of the great pain. … Or so says the legend.”

Colleen McCullough book The Thorn Birds

Epigraph, The Thorn Birds (1977)
Context: There is a legend about a bird that sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. Dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of the great pain. … Or so says the legend.

“By the seventeenth century, observers had reached the firm conclusion that American Indians were in no way inferior to Whites, and many writers took special pains to salute the Noble Red Man.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Context: By the seventeenth century, observers had reached the firm conclusion that American Indians were in no way inferior to Whites, and many writers took special pains to salute the Noble Red Man. The Jesuit missionary Bressani... reported that the inhabitants "are hardly barbarous, save in name.... marvelous faculty for remembering places, and for describing them to one another."... can recall things that a White "could not rehearse without writing." Another Jesuit enthusiastically corroborates... "nearly all show more intelligence in their business, speeches, courtesies, intercourse, tricks and subtleties, than do the shrewdest citizens and merchants in France."

“But our wounds are part of who we are… and there is nothing left to chance…. And pain's the pen that writes the songs…. That call us forth to dance”

Michael Card (1957) singer, songwriter, author, composer, Radio Host

“You surround yourself with your pain or you avoid it and let it find you when you are trying to do other things”

Ann Brashares book The Last Summer

Source: The Last Summer

“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“One pain is lessened by another’s anguish…. Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley.
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

To a Mouse, st. 7 (1785)
Source: Collected Poems of Robert Burns

“Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.~Ken Chlouber, Colorado miner and creator of the Leadville Trail 100 mile race”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“I should have learned this, she thought. I wanted to learn fire, and pain, but I should have learned people.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

“And when the Patrician was unhappy, he became very democratic. He found intricate and painful ways of spreading that unhappiness as far as possible.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

“Why bother inflicting enormous pain on yourself when sooner or later Life would certainly get around to doing it for you?”

Jeff Lindsay (1952) American playwright and crime novelist Jeffry P. Freundlich

Source: Dexter By Design

“Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle like a game of go. I will take hold of all the pain and snuff it out.”

Shan Sa book The Girl Who Played Go

Source: The Girl Who Played Go

“Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder.
I sob, I sob.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes to where life is not painful; nor is there a port of call where it is possible to forget.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“My idea of the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 156

“I was starting to come to grips with the fact that I had created a lot of pain and suffering around me, not just within me.”

Anthony Kiedis book Scar Tissue

Source: Scar Tissue

“For how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that you had them.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

“No matter how much bullying they inflict on my body, as long as I have this hope, I can endure any pain.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“Relief is a wonderful emotion, highly underrated. In fact, I prefer it to elation or joy. Relief lets the air out of the Tire of Pain.”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Source: Rococo

“How much of this truth can I bear to see and still live
unblinded?
How much of this pain
can I use?”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

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