If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure 9 will go in the ditch and you have only one to battle with.

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts— not to hurt others.

The point was not to die, since death came anyway, but to survive, which would be a miracle.

I'd realized that in writing happiness is useless-without suffering there is no story.

My heart is broken, he told himself. It was at that moment he understood the profound meaning of that common phrase: he thought he heard the sound of glass breaking and felt that the essence of his being was pouring out until he was empty, with no memory of the past, no awareness of the present, no hope for the future.

Happiness is slippery, it slithers away between your fingers, but problems are something you can hold on to, they've got handles, they're rough and hard.

I felt like I'd been emptied out from the inside, I was a bloody cavity, I couldn't breathe, my bones were made of wax, my soul had taken flight. And the world still turned as if nothing had happened: I stand up, take one step then another, find my voice and respond, I haven't lost my mind, I drink water, my mouth full of sand, my eyes burning, and my little girl stiff, frozen, sculpted in alabaster

We were working under very harsh conditions on 'Zero Kelvin.' We were up there in the Arctic, closer to the North Pole than to a hospital. Sometimes you had to sleep in small Arctic tents with guns to protect yourself from polar bears and stuff.

The only way round is through.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequence of any misfortune.

Too much happens ... Man performs, engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything.

Trouble will rain on those who are already wet.