Life will not always be so hard or cruel. Our difficulties are but a moment.

Remember, Sang Ly. When you find your purpose—and you will find your purpose—never let go. Peace is a product of both patience and persistence.

To find purpose in our problems, to see past the ugliness, rather than step back, we should get closer. Only then will we notice the beauty.

It's tempting to wish for the perfect boss, the perfect parent, or the perfect outfit. But maybe the best any of us can do is not to quit, play the hand we've been dealt, and accessorize what we've got.

We cannot slay our incapacity and rise above it, but that is precisely what we wanted. Incapacity exists. No one should deny it, find fault with it or shout it down.

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

She owed no one an explanation; if she had made mistakes she had been duly punished by giving up her family, suffering in the hold of the ship, losing her baby, and facing a future of total uncertainty.

He had always been thin, but there he was reduced to nothing but skin and bones. His skin was burned by the unrelenting sun, salt, and sand, his features sharpened: he was a Giacometti sculpture in cast iron.

This is a road I must travel bleeding.

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.

If you bear the cross unwillingly, you make it a burden, and load yourself more heavily; but you must bear it.