“Life, she realized, so often became a determined, relentless avoidance of pain-of one's own, of other people's. But sometimes pain had to be acknowledged and even touched so that one could move into it and through it and past it. Or else be destroyed by it.”

“Life so often becomes a determined, relentless avoidance of pain - of one's own, of other people's. But sometimes pain has to be acknowledged and even touched so that one can move into it and through it and past it. Or else be destroyed by it.”

“Running so hard, her breath stippled with pain to go faster, hit the grass harder, move forward faster, like she could break through something in front of her, something no one else saw.”

“Margrethe watched them paralyzed by the intensity of the emotions moving through her. So much pain and euphoria, a sense that even though her own heart was broken, the world could contain such beauty and magic she almost could not bear it? What did her own pain matter, in the face of that?”

“not even one's own pain weigh so heavy as the pain one feels with someone , for someone”

“Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”