Ian Watson Quotes

I've certainly experienced physical pain in my life.

My first injury ever was a broken toe, and my mother made me run laps around the mat for the rest of the night. She said she wanted me to know that even if I was hurt, I was still fine.

I'm a great admirer of Primo Levi's work. It's always mind-boggling, the idea of how much pain people can endure and still come back from the edge with a sense of humor, with this tremendous animal desire we have to get on with life.

I meditate a lot, but I am constantly in pain. I'm trying to live with this. You just have to accept it.

A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.

It's an art to live with pain... mix the light into gray.

It's very difficult to advocate for yourself while you're in excruciating pain.

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!

I've learned a lot about pain management.

I think the mindset is always to think that you are never going to play pain-free.

I've been in pain for so long now I'm just used to it.

Pain is a part of being alive, and we need to learn that. Pain does not last forever, nor is it necessarily unbeatable, and we need to be taught that.

Luckily, I never feel at one time more than half my pains.

When you have so much pain, you think you will lose consciousness. If you say to yourself, ‘So what, lose consciousness,’ the pain goes away.

He who rejoices even at the stake triumphs not over pain but over the absence of pain where he had anticipated feeling it. A parable.

When there is pain, the animal instinct is 'fight or flight' (i.e., to either strike back or run away) - reflect instead. When you can calm yourself down, thinking about the dilemma that is causing you pain will bring you to a higher level and enlighten you, leading to progress.

Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain.

Pain is the feeling. Suffering is the effect the pain inflicts. If one can endure pain, one can live without suffering. If one can withstand pain, one can withstand anything. If one can learn to control pain, one can learn to control oneself.

The pain barrier was not a barrier for her; she could go beyond it.

One day at a time. You rise, you eat, you bathe, and you talk to the few people you can tolerate while feeling so wretched. Over time, it hurts a little less. Then a little less. And so on...Until one morning, you will awake and realize the pain is only a memory. It will always be with you, but it will eventually lack the power to cripple you.

In those days the best painkiller was ice; it wasn't addictive and it was particularly effective if you poured some whiskey over it.

Keep your sense of humor. There's enough stress in the rest of your life not to let bad shots ruin a game you're supposed to enjoy.

I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor or pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.

I think maybe to survive, I mean to just get through the day - I'm not saying that everything is hilariously funny.

Pain, scorned by yonder gout-ridden wretch, endured by yonder dyspeptic in the midst of his dainties, borne bravely by the girl in travail. Slight thou art, if I can bear thee, short thou art if I cannot bear thee!