Dan Simmons Quotes
We are created for precisely this sort of suffering. In the end, it is all we are, those limpid tide pools of self-consciousness between crashing waves of pain.
Quotes to Explore
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At school, I'd refuse to take part in biology lessons when animals were being dissected. One time, the teacher announced that we would be gassing worms. So I ran around the room, gathered up all the worms and set them free in the fields. I just loved animals and couldn't bear the thought of them suffering.
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I chose to present myself as one who comes from among the people, and I can be touched by their pain because I have my own.
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Suffering passes, while love is eternal. That's a gift that you have received from God. Don't waste it.
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In Gnosticism, the physical world did not ultimately matter - which meant physical suffering did not matter either. Seeking 'enlightenment' meant cultivating an attitude of detachment, even indifference.
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Risk is the sort of word that is easy to discuss upfront but tough to handle when it comes time to pay the piper. There will always be some who wimp out and second-guess when the pain hits, but that is a childish reaction.
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It's odd that you can get so anesthetized by your own pain or your own problem that you don't quite fully share the hell of someone close to you.
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Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.
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Suffering from dysentery at sea was no picnic.
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I lived for four years in the 1930s with these individuals and the only time that I wasn't thinking about dealing with physical suffering is when I was working on this book. I've never been more alive as when I worked on this book.
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The calls that I have received from President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the fact that there are other people that are suffering every bit as much as I am, and that our whole nation is going through a tragedy together, I think we have to think about those things.
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If our hearts are ready for anything, we will spontaneously reach out when others are hurting. Living in an ethical way can attune us to the pain and needs of others, but when our hearts are open and awake, we care instinctively.
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The role of a clown and a physician are the same - it's to elevate the possible and to relieve suffering.
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Too much self-centered attitude, you see, brings, you see, isolation. Result: loneliness, fear, anger. The extreme self-centered attitude is the source of suffering.
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God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
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There is no coming to consciousness without pain.
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The cause of suffering is that the unbounded Self is overshadowed by the world.
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Mum says that, since I was a tiny baby, I've had the most strong-willed and stubborn personality known to man. Although that was a real pain for her, she admired my resolve.
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Grief causes suffering and disease.
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The man who commits immorality does so because he thinks it will maximize pleasure if he can minimize the pain by keeping it secret.
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For students, understanding the separate and unique functions of each branch of government can help them understand how different kinds of government officials can help solve different kinds of problems.
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Lincoln - they used to talk about him almost as bad as they talk about me. So democracy has never been for the faint of heart.
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...she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
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We are created for precisely this sort of suffering. In the end, it is all we are, those limpid tide pools of self-consciousness between crashing waves of pain.
