A Quote by Cynthia Leitich Smith

But adulthood," continued the barely twentysomething, "doesn't give you power over what matters most. It doesn't protect you from pain, loss, fate. That's part of being human.
What psycho-analysis reveals in the transference phenomena of neurotics can also be observed in the lives of some normal people. The impression they give is of being pursued by a malignant fate or possessed by some 'daemonic' power; but psycho-analysis has always taken the view that their fate is for the most part arranged by themselves and determined by early infantile influences.
Grief is real because loss is real. Each grief has its own imprint, as distinctive and as unique as the person we lost. The pain of loss is so intense, so heartbreaking, because in loving we deeply connect with another human being, and grief is the reflection of the connection that has been lost. We think we want to avoid the grief, but really it is the pain of the loss we want to avoid. Grief is the healing process that ultimately brings us comfort in our pain.
They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions. (v)
Poetry has its uses for despair. It can carve a shape in which a pain can seem to be; it can give one’s loss a form and dimension so that it might be loss and not simply a hopeless haunting. It can do these things for one person, or it can do them for an entire culture. But poetry is for psychological, spiritual, or emotional pain. For physical pain it is, like everything but drugs, useless.
How can anyone be called human, if being born a human being and growing in a human society, he does not recognise human values? You must see that you don't harm any living being. He alone is a redeemed being who causes no pain to others and avoids pain to himself.
In life, loss is inevitable. Everyone knows this, yet in the core of most people it remains deeply denied - 'This should not happen to me.' It is for this reason that loss is the most difficult challenge one has to face as a human being.
There are so few stories being produced that are human. I suffer with the loss of that. I feel kind of out of place, even though I've continued to work.
The worst part is the unknown. The pain of being alone, the loneliness, is familiar. You've dealt with that. You understand it. But loving someone, risking everything, is unknown. There's no way to know how bad it's going to be. You barely survive the pain of being alone, so how can you deal with anything worse? So you don't bother to try.
Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.
D.H. Lawrence says that myths are "inexhaustible" because they are symbols of heart mysteries. That is, they can't be exhausted - they somehow have embodied some central human mystery (love, loss, being a body in time, who knows which or what?) and thus can be retold infinitely and still be rich. That's part of your saying: it's old, but it's also new. Or: there's nothing "new" in the human heart, but it still matters lots.
If someone has gone through a lot of emotional pain, including the loss of loved ones, that person may try to build a shell around his or her feelings to protect him- or herself from the pain.
Once a big loss has happened it is part of the picture forever. Not something you "get over." While each loss has felt specific, one thing I miss with each loss is entirely selfish, I miss the way a particular person saw me, understood me. But part of the challenge of being alive is to remain curious in any circumstance and this has helped me with grief. I want to feel all the contours and contradictions of living.
Being a wizard gives you more power than most, but it doesn't change your heart. We're all human. We're all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain.
Anyone working in the media can tell you that there seems to be an always-ready-to-explode segment of the populace for whom offense is a fate worse than anything imaginable. You'd think offense is one of the most calamitous things that could happen to a human being; right up there with the loss of a limb, or just missing a parking space.
If fate is a millstone, we are the grist. There is nothing we can do. So I wish for strength. If I cannot protect them from the wheel,then give me a strong blade, and enough strength, to shatter fate
There is so much to be gained from adulthood! Feelings just become so much deeper. The feeling of sadness and loss is much deeper than when you were a kid, but the feelings of love and happiness have also so much more dimension when you get older... That is what's so hard and exciting about being a human being.
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