I do see that there is an argument against suicide: the grief of the worshipers left behind, the awful famine in their hearts, these are too costly terms for the release.

Two years ago your father died, Ulysses. But as long as we are alive, as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world can take him from us.

But it seems that in the end all that matters is finding a way to survive the grief and trusting in the goodness of life beyond the pain.

The greater your capacity to love, the greater your capacity to feel the pain.

Emotional pain is such a strange feeling. You can forget you're in it—or try to, anyway—and then it sneaks up and finds its way to the surface.

A person who hasn't grieved a significant loss has unfinished business inside and can cause others great grief as a result.

We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering we are being kind to ourselves. the truth is, we only become more fearful, more hardened, and more alienated.

Suffering together builds togetherness, and if togetherness is more important for us and for our joy than freedom from suffering is, then God is good to allow this suffering.

As Francis Thompson wrote in his classic poem "The Hound of Heaven," "Is my gloom, after all, shade of His hand outstretched caressingly?

We need encouragement, not sermonizing, and we need clear-eyed acknowledgement of the situation, not a sanctified gloss that pushes us toward saying, 'I see I must not admit my pain because, after all, I'm a Christian. I'll just have to cover it up.

One must learn to love, and go through a good deal of suffering to get to it, and the journey is always towards the other soul.

The sweetness of his longing dives to a tender, bruised place in me.