“The incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading" so that "he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy.”

“I'm like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he's cold, and his clothes are torn, and he's ashamed, but he's not unhappy.”

“Never marry a person less educated than you. You, not only degrade yourself but also your kids will suffer whole life.”

“Misery, in cold truth, is a weight less upon those who undergo it than upon the minds of those who see it; for he who is cold and starving is so busy in his efforts to obtain warmth and food that he has little time for self-pity, and endures his unhappy condition better than those who take it upon themselves to suffer for him.”

“Well-being and need are purely relative concepts. There is no such thing as poverty in itself, suffering in itself, unhappiness in itself. All is relative.”

“He remembered the darkness and despair she'd suffered during her long years as a prisoner, but he also recalled the deep, unquenchable joy she took from the world around her; and he knew that given the choice, Wilamena would suffer all she had and more rather than sacrifice one day of being alive.It was just as his father had said. She chose life, all of it.”