Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all, he declared to the sky, squinting up at God and demanding justice. I held him in my arms at night and saw parts of his soul turn to ash. Then I saw him reborn, with a stone in place of his heart. Nathan would accept no more compromises.

In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.

On the other side of pain, there is still love.

There might be things more terrible even than losing someone you love by death.

I think it's all lovely hallucination but I love it sorta.

I love the natural world - it comes from my culture, which grew out of a people enslaved.

I love the abstract, delicate, profound, vague, voluptuously wordless sensation of living ecstatically.

The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word "love."

He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace.

We do not realise that we are children of eternity. If we did, then success would be no success, and failure would be no failure to us.

As terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness.

Basically, kid, what this all means is that life is a lot tougher than it used to be, in the Good Old Days, back before you were born. Things used to be awesome, but now they're kinda terrifying. To be honest, the future doesn't look too bright. You were born at a pretty crappy time in history. And it looks like things are only gonna get worse from here on out. Human civilization is in 'decline.' Some people even say it's 'collapsing.