Desmond Tutu Quotes

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

What to say? That the end of love is a haunting. A haunting of dreams. A haunting of silence. Haunted by ghosts it is easy to become a ghost. Life ebbs. The pulse is too faint. Nothing stirs you. Some people approve of this and call it healing. It is not healing. A dead body feels no pain.

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

I think scars are like battle wounds - beautiful, in a way. They show what you've been through and how strong you are for coming out of it.

I cannot tell how much my heart suffered for my people while at Leavenworth.

Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.

I speak to people who have been through so much more.

After I got over the terrible pain of having something of mine taken from me, I began to think how bad everybody else must be feeling. It wasn't a nice time.

'Whale Talk' is a tough book, but it is also a compassionate book about telling the truth and about redemption. I didn't draw the tough parts out of thin air; they are stories handed to me by people in pain.

Sin is, somehow, at the root of all human misery. Sin is what keeps us from God and from life. It is in the face of every battered woman, the cry of every neglected child, the despair of every addict, the death of every victim of every war.

Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.

Injuries are nothing to be ashamed about.

Everyone can relate to love, hurt, pain, learning how to forgive, needing to get over, needing the power of God in their life.

Behind every crime is a story of sadness.

From afar, I have cried watching my nation, sore with prejudice, slowly heal itself. I hurt along with America, my phantom pains only alleviated by work I do every day - art.

The power of storytelling is to free us from isolation, shame, and whatever the situation.

We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.

Forgiveness isn't about condoning what has happened to you or someone else's actions against you.

Suffering isn't ennobling, recovery is.

Let's be very clear: Living 'unforgiven' is not the sole domain of blacks. It can be found in any successful person.

The Bible doesn't sugarcoat pain and suffering; it gives you something to move past it.

Real pain hurts so bad. When you've gone through something and you've overcome it, you're able to heal other people.

I have been drawn to stories that are attempting to turn suffering into beauty.

'Somnia' is a story about loss and, I guess, what you're willing to do to have closure and try and feel whole again. It's a story of redemption in a sense. I don't want to give too much away, but it's a heartbreaking story that's incredibly terrifying.

I took revenge on hardship from my earlier life by forgetting it.