“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.”

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

Nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe.

Perhaps he is a fool or a coward but almost everybody is one or the other and most people are both.

History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.

It is easy to proclaim all souls equal in the sight of God; it is hard to make men equal on earth in the sight of men.

The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person.

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.

There are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.

Years have passed since I have set foot in a comedy club. If the comic is doing badly it’s painful, and if the comic is doing brilliantly, it’s extremely painful.

Like we were connected, the echo of his pain twisted inside inside me. his pain, my pain.

Time is the most powerful; the most adequate painkiller, time is a gift of mercy granted by a merciful universe.

You can make my chest swell with joy and cave with pain but peace is something I taught myself. Chest swelling chest caving with each new breath of fresh air.

I’m now convinced that I’m a doctor. I mean, if someone says they have a pain, I’m like, ‘Well, that’s your spleen.’

God knows life sucks. It’s right there in the Bible. The book of Job is all about Job asking God to take away pain and misery. And God says, “I can’t take away pain and misery because then no one would talk to me.”

Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.

Her scent blazed in my throat and I was glad. It was a pain that meant she was alive. As long as I burned, she was safe.