“I am the only one of us who brings in any money. the other two cannot make money fortune telling. this is because they only tell the truth, and the truth is not what people want to hear. it is a bad thing and it troubles people, so they do not come back.”
Source: American Gods
“When Alma first started at the hospital, some of the nurses taught her to pray for the children according to severity. A level one meant pray that the child would be well; level two meant pray for decreased pain. Alma was slow to understand level three--praying that the children would die, that mercy and grace would shorten their suffering--but she had come around to it a few months into her job, when the boy with the shattered face was wheeled in. His mother's eyes convinced Alma that sometimes you suffered more the longer you lived.”
Source: Heads of the Colored People
“It is very hard to manage staff when you are suffering from the toxic effects of workplace mercury poisoning.”
“We became paid professionals of pain,
Specialists in suffering,
Aces of the ache,
Masters of the moan.”
Source: Call Us What We Carry
“. Loneliness was too big a punishment to bear. But surely, it was lesser than the pangs which she would have suffered from had she not revealed the truth”
Source: Lines of Fate: First Love and Other Stories
“We have the freedom to decide for ourselves how circumstances affect us and can choose to interpret events so that they have a meaning for us. In this way, even suffering can become endurable if it can be shown to be meaningful.”
Source: Psychology in Minutes: 200 Key Concepts Explained in an Instant
“Anxiety is a normal part of human existence, as are other forms of suffering. It is repression of our negative feelings that leads to psychological problems.”
Source: Psychology in Minutes: 200 Key Concepts Explained in an Instant
“To ease the guilt of noninvolvement, we charge the church with the job of meeting needs. We forget that we are the church! (p. 18)”
Source: Treasures of Encouragement: Women Helping Women in the Church
“Outpouring of emotion—grief, love, affection, anger, distrust . . . fill in the blanks. Emoticons replaced words on the internet. Without words, cohesive thought was replaced by an impulse signified by a smiling or sad face. Where would it end? Driving him to need an outpouring of wine, he expected.”
Source: Shared Sorrows
“The athletes at the highest level of our sport commit themselves to a life of discipline, hardship, sacrifice, and suffering.”
Source: Chasing Excellence: A Story About Building the World’s Fittest Athletes