“So instead of ignoring the pain, I called out to it, reaching for more. Pain is part of who I am. It’s the defining characteristic of a Shifter’s transformation. Pain is what I suffer from my enemies. It is what I deal out to those who break our laws. It is what I protect my charges from. Pain is what I inherited from fate, that fickle bitch who gave me a mouth and fists, then put me in a world that wanted only my womb and my cradled arms.”

“I have come to realize that what is important is not my loss and the pain it caused but the fact that I have picked myself up (with help), taken the memories and the lessons, and becoming the woman they have wanted me to become.The fact that I have lost those I love is not what defines me. What defines me is the fact that I have survived and now live, despite the pain and with memory of their love.”

“Jane Eyre "I desired more...than was within my reach. Who blames me? Many call me discontented. I couldn't help it: the restlessness is in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.”

“As stone suffers of stoniness,As light of its shiningness,As birds of their wingedness,So I of my whoness.And what the cure of all this?What the not and not suffering?What the better and later of this?What the more me of me?How for the pain-world to beMore world and no pain?How for the faithful rain to fallMore wet and more dry?How for the wilful blood to runMore salt-red and sweet-white?And how for me in my actualnessTo more shriek and more smile?By no other miracles,By the same knowing poison,By an improved anguish,By my further dying.”

“I went away and cried to the Master of the Universe, "What have you done to me? A mind like this I need for a son? A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!”

“Helping people who are going through what I've been through makes me feel like [my pain] wasn't in vain. It gives the pain I went through a sense of purpose.”