“Any serious social encounter with knives has one main goal: to stop the action. Beyond that, you have a little flexibility: to kill, or merely get away, or what have you. But first comes the cessation of hostilities.There are many ways to handle this. You can run, shoot, call the cops, or even try to organize a discussion group to talk the problem out. But I’m talking knives, so I’ll limit myself to that.All wounds are painful and pain is a great tool for stopping fights. So is the loss of use of various parts of the body. Therefore, it follows that although we wish to inflict any wound we can, the more painful it is, the better.”

“Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase in pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop.”

“Pain (any pain--emotional, physical, mental) has a message.The information it has about our life can be remarkablyspecific, but it usually falls into one of two categories: Wewould be more alive if we did more of this and Life would bemore lovely if we did less of that. Once we get the pain'smessage, and follow its advice, the pain goes away.”

“Good, if you were not part Lycanthrope that blow would have killed you. Now, stop fighting your pain and embrace it.”

“Loss is like a shrapnel wound, I said, where the piece of metal's got stuck in a place where the surgeons daren't go, so they decide to leave it. It is painful at first, horribly painful, so that you wonder you can live with it. But then the body grows around it, until it doesn't hurt anymore. Not like it used to be. But every now and again there are these twinges when you are not ready for them, and you realize it is still there, and it's always going to be there. It is a part of you. A still, hard point inside.”

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.”