Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by M.E. Thomas

Quote by M.E. Thomas

“It isn't enough that the bad guy is prevented from doing his bad deeds; he must suffer as much as possible. It is as if the existence of evil - or something that can be designated as evil - provides a safe haven for the good to engage in evil. It's a safe space to indulge in inflicting harm, to experience the sublime of suffering.”

Quote by M.E. Thomas

Book:Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight
Create image

Work

Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

M.E. Thomas

Browse famous quotes and profile details for M.E. Thomas. more

You May Also Like

“I'm afraid of life! There are times I--I am very frightened. Any happiness seems trivial. And yet, I wonder if it isn't all a misunderstanding-- this grasping after happiness, this fear of pain... If instead of fearing it and running from it, one could... get through it, go beyond it. There is something beyond it. It's the self that suffers, and there's a place where the self--ceases. I don't know how to say it. But I believe that the reality--the truth that I recognize in suffering as I don't in comfort and happiness--that the reality of pain is not pain. If you can get through it. If you can endure it all the way.”

PainSuffering
Book:The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
Create image

“Everyone is in pain. Most people think pain in massage means something is happening, and if they can endure it, they will be improved, but sometimes the only thing pain means is pain. It a very easy mistake to make, though.. She’d refused for the longest time to get therapy or take any psychoactive drugs because she’d felt that the “darkness” was necessary, not just for her as an actor, but as a human being. You didn’t have to feel slightly terrible all the time, as it turns out. Her only worry now was that slightly terrible was not a flaw in her chemistry, but an appropriate response to being the kind of person that she was. “You’re very hard on yourself,” Luke said. “Can you imagine the kind of person that I’d be if I wasn’t hard on myself?” she said back. Luke should be sympathetic. He was hoping to improve the human race, and it would be hard to get there if the human race thought it was already fantastic, thanks very much. Well, she could still go dark, if she needed to, she could go dark right now. Yesterday she had done Terror. She’d done Fear and Dejection and Remorse. And because she had done Remorse as fully as a person could do it, she knew that she hadn’t ever experienced that kind of pure Remorse before. What she’d felt in the past was polluted Remorse, because half the time she was sorry she was also privately resentful and building a case about why the actions that had led to Remorse could be justified.”

PainSufferingHealingExistential Suffering
Book:The Wanderers
Create image

“The intensity of my grief hits the mountains across Eclipse Sound, and then echoes throughout Arctic. There’s nobody around. I can barely see the town below the hill, nestled within the valley of barren tundra, across from the tiny airport, my only access to the south. I’m alone amidst this desolate landscape and there’s nowhere to hide. No trees or buildings or distractions. It’s just me in the depths of my suffering and all my faults and mistakes of the past are exposed underneath the spotlight of the midnight sun.”

SufferingRelationshipsGriefLetting GoGrief And LossLight And DarknessArcticGrief And Loss QuotesMidnight SunTundra
Book:See What Flowers
Create image

“From watching Silvia, I'd learned that one of the worst things about being ill is that most people find your suffering opaque. With this sadness it was different. I felt that I needed to nurture and protect it from people's understanding. I wanted Susy's sympathy because I wanted comfort and to feel less alone, and yet I also didn't want it—I didn't want my personal grief to be part of something universal right then.”

SufferingUnderstandingGriefSadnessSickIllSympathyPersonalTitleOlivia Sudjic
Book:Sympathy
Create image