“There's pain behind us all...but more so with those who hate and abuse. Think about it!”

“We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.”

“There's no doubt about it: fun people are fun. But I finally learned that there is something more important, in the people you know, than whether they are fun. Thinking about those friends who had given me so much pleasure but who had also caused me so much pain, thinking about that bright, cruel world to which they'd introduced me, I saw that there's a better way to value people. Not as fun or not fun, or stylish or not stylish, but as warm or cold, generous or selfish. People who think about others and people who don't. People who know how to listen, and people who only know how to talk.”

“When people kill themselves, they think they're ending the pain, but all they're doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.”

“Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it.”

“Those who are in pain – most of the world’s populations at any given moment – do not do a lot of thinking, speaking, or writing about suffering. All their energy goes into surviving. That is why a lot of what is said and written about suffering seems hollow to those actually in pain.”