“That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.”

“I wouldn't want to live that life. I choose the pain. I chose the pain.”

“Life is a balanced system of learning and evolution. Whether pleasure or pain; every situation in your life serves a purpose. It is up to us to recognize what that purpose could be.”

“I waited for a long time and there was nothing but the pain of wanting something I couldn't seem to find.”

“I want my life to have a purpose. Do you know what I mean?”

“That’s the thing I want to make clear about depression: It’s got nothing at all to do with life. In the course of life, there is sadness and pain and sorror, all of which, in their right time and season, are normal—unpleasant, but normal. Depression is an altogether different zone because it involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest. The pain you feel in the course of a major clinical depression is an attempt on nature’s part (nature, after all, abhors a vacuum) to fill up the empty space. But for all intents and purposes, the deeply depressed are just the walking, waking dead.”