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Quote by Elaine Pagels

“For those who find suffering inevitable--in other words, for any of us who can't dodge and pretend it's not there--acknowledging what actually happens is necessary, even if it takes decades, as it has for me.”

Quote by Elaine Pagels

Book:Why Religion? A Personal Story
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Why Religion? A Personal Story

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Elaine Pagels
Elaine Pagels

Elaine Pagels is a renowned American religious historian and professor. Born on February 13, 1943, she is known for her research on ancient religious texts, particularly those of early Christianity and Gnosticism. more

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“As for God, I frankly admit that I find it easier to live with the age-old questions about suffering than with many of the easy or pious explanations offered from time to time. Some of which seem to verge on blasphemy. I hope so much that no one has sought to try and comfort you by saying that God must have needed Francesca more than you. I would find it impossible to worship a God who deliberately stole my child from me. Such a God would be a moral monster.”

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Book:Winter Solstice
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“Redemptive suffering is an essential part of our master story. This is what it means for us to bear the image and likeness of God. By the power of the Holy Spirit, our suffering refines our charity, just as our charity transforms our suffering into a living sacrifice that allows God to have his way into our lives.”

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Book:The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross
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“For you, if you attain your goal and cannot find some way to transcend the experience of having that goal be your entire existence, your raison de faire, so, then one of two things will happen...One, one is that you attain the goal and realize the shocking realization that attaining the goal does not complete you or redeem you, does not make everything for your life "OK" as you are, in the culture, educated to assume it will do this, the goal. And then you face this fact that what you had thought would have the meaning does not have the meaning when you get it, and you are impaled by shock...Or the other possibility of doom...They attain the goal, thus, and put as much equal passion into celebrating their attainment as they had put into pursuing the attainment. This is called here the Syndrome of the Endless Party. The celebrity, money, sexual behaviors, drugs and substances. The glitter. They become celebrities instead of players, and because they are celebrities only as long as they feed the culture-of-goal's hunger for the make-it, the winning, they are doomed, because you cannot both celebrate and suffer, and play is always suffering, just so.”

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Book:Infinite Jest
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“Cât sunt de reci cuvintele! Nu există niciodată nimic care să poată fi pe măsură. Sufăr, sufăr, sunt un strigăt, sunt ceva care se contorsionează, îmi simt capul plin și greu și gândesc neînchipuit de repede. Și nimic nu iese, nimic nu iese. Să scriu? Inutil să scriu. [...] Oamenii au luat cuvintele și au făcut cu ele literatură. Iar acum, eu nu mai pot să-ți spun cât sufăr.”

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Book:Jurnalul unei fete greu de mulţumit
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