“In that instant, I detected a subtle flicker of tears in her eyes. They glistened, like tiny diamonds forged by the emotions that surged within her. But I still don't know for whom these tears were. Whose sorrows were these tears meant for?
Were they meant for the one who awaited her on the distant platform, their reunion tinged with anticipation and longing?
Or were they for the one who stood on this platform, watching her silently and surreptitiously exiting his life story?”
“Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited.
[...]
A memory is its own thing each time it's recalled. It's not absolute. Stories based on actual events often share more with fiction than fact. Both fictions and memories are recalled and retold. They're both forms of stories. Stories are the way we learn. Stories are how we understand each other. But reality happens only once.
[...]
Every story is made up. Even the real ones.
[...]
That's the thing. Part of everything will always be forgettable. No matter how good or remarkable it is. It literally has to be. To be.”
Source: I'm Thinking of Ending Things
“Tim Kasser: ‘The heyday of humanistic psychology was in the 1960s and 1970s, when Keynes dominated. But since the rise of neo-liberalism from the 1980s, we’ve seen an influx of cognitive behavioural approaches and psychiatric drugs – technologies that put the cause of the problem right between your ears. The therapies our governments now want all focus on internal not external reform. They don’t see suffering as a call to change external circumstances for the good of our development.”
Source: Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis
“The universe doesn't deserve any playfulness at the moment.”
Source: To and Fro Upon the Earth: A Novel
“They say that if you really love, you never want any harm to befall your beloved. While this may be true of “normal” love, I here attest that, in unrequited love, the case is quite the opposite. One begins to associate suffering with loving and, therefore, you begin to believe that the former begets the latter. If I can make him suffer, I can make him understand that he loves me.”
Source: On Love and Travel: A Memoir
“We are all capable of recognizing that we are not the only one who suffers, that the other person also suffers very deeply, and that we are partly responsible for his or her suffering.”
Source: Peace Begins Here: Palestinians and Israelis Listening to Each Other
“There is a tendency to speak about your suffering and difficulties so that you can draw more people to support you in order to fight the other side. That is a big temptation. You think if you are strong and you will have more support, the other side will have to withdraw. That is the hope of many people. But we know that activities based on that kind of thinking have gone on for many years without bearing any fruit at all.”
Source: Peace Begins Here: Palestinians and Israelis Listening to Each Other
“Sometimes it is easier to be angry than to express your own suffering.”
Source: Peace Begins Here: Palestinians and Israelis Listening to Each Other
“He had been suffering for months. He had been brooding for weeks. He had been thinking about just one thing for days. And now his mind was focusing on one single, clearly defined goal.”
Source: The Decagon House Murders
“When suffering from a relationship breakup, tell yourself that this, too, will pass. It will!”
Source: Geboor: Spiritual Fiction