Wallace Stegner Quotes

Pain is one of the unavoidable facts of life. We Bidens have had our share. We don't pretend otherwise. And we don't pretend that we are different from families all over America that have to face the loss of loved ones or have to deal with the fallout of divorces.

Everything I loved was taken away from me, and I did not die.

I've been through cancer, divorce, loss and bereavement, but they are things most humans go through.

One of the things that happens to everyone who is grief-stricken, who has lost someone, is there comes a time when everyone else just wants you to get over it, but of course you don't get over it. You get stronger; you try and live on; you endure; you change; but you don't get over it. You carry it with you.

The heart will break, but broken live on.

Things happen to everybody in the course of a lifetime. Relationships end, people die, tragedy befalls everyone. So everyone has this wealth of experience, and the older you are the more you have to draw on.

Wounds turn into scars and scars make you tough.

Because nobody goes through life without a scar.

I have seen things in my life that have broken me in spirit.

I think that no human gets away unscathed in this old life. We've all experienced loss and grief and pain and tragedy.

Misery is, by her own nature, a passing phase of sorrow, one that does not linger uninvited. Her sojourns seem to be part of life's required curriculum, perhaps because Misery endows us with compassion and empathy.

There was a point that I stopped crying. It's not just because I didn't feel pain anymore, not because I didn't feel sorrow. It was just to keep going. I mean, it just was to survive, to live.

And yet, I found I could survive. I was alert, I felt the pain - the aching loss that radiated out from my chest, sending wracking waves of hurt through my limbs and head - but it was manageable. I could live through it. I didn't feel like the pain had weakened over time, rather that I'd grown strong enough to bear it.

Loss is the hardest thing, I said. But it's also the teacher that's the most difficult to ignore.

This time her heart would not break, even though it would hurt and hurt for a long time to come. Perhaps for the rest of her life. But it would not break. She had the strength to go on alone.

Don’t worry about me handling the pain," I say. "I’ve had a lot of practice.

Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.' Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part.

Heartbreak makes us stronger; it's an opportunity for spiritual growth. How can you understand someone else's pain if you have not yourself suffered?

I think it [my first heartbreak] probably just taught me that you will always heal. That this too shall pass. The first time you feel that sort of pain, you think it's never going to go away. Once you do survive it, you realize you can survive anything.

This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken.

What doesn't kill you is gonna leave a scar.

Sometimes to heal, you must first get hurt.

I don't smile much, and I never laugh. If you'd been through what I've been through, you wouldn't be smiling, either.

I think that people always say when people pass away that time heals all wounds. And that's probably the biggest lie. It's not true. I think we all need to remember that it is always still tough, and it's like losing a piece of your heart.

The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.