"She said, "It's not life or death, the labyrinth.""Um, okay. So what is it?""Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?... Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about."

Suffering, Religion, Philosophy, Life

49

Create Your Own Wallpaper

Standard

Customized

"She said, "It's not life or death, the labyrinth.""Um, okay. So what is it?""Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?... Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about."

Exlpore more Suffering quotes

"Oddly, the burned hand didn't seem to hurt much anymore; it was only numb. It would have been better if there had been pain. Pain was at least real."

Stephen King, American Author

Suffering, Pain, Regret, Truth, Wisdom

"We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination."

C. S. Lewis, British Author

Suffering, Acceptance, Faith, Reality

"As he took them in his arms, the crying of the babies permeated the night like a trail of blood calling out to a predator."

Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Spanish Novelist

Suffering, Pain, Darkness, Emotion, Fear

"Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy."

Alexandre Dumas, French Dramatist

Suffering, Happiness, Right, Life

"Also, I'm angry. I know life is hard, I think everyone knows that in their hearts, but why does it have to be cruel, as well? Why does it have to bite?"

Stephen King, American Author

Suffering, Regret, Truth, Power, Life

"The man who was once starved may revenge himself upon the world not by stealing just once, or by stealing only what he needs, but by taking from the world an endless toll in payment of something irreplaceable, which is the lost faith."

Anais Nin, American Author

Suffering, Revenge, Faith, Loss, World

"More commonly suffering breaks people, crushes them, and is simply unilluminating. You see how gruesomely human beings are destroyed by pain, when they have the added torment of losing their humanity first, so that their death is a total defeat..."

Saul Bellow, American Novelist

Suffering, Pain, Humanity, Loss

"We must love one another or die."

W. H. Auden, English Poet

Suffering, Love, Existence, Life, Death

"For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life."

Aeschylus, Greek Poet

Suffering, Pain, Death, Endurance

"It strikes me that perhaps this is part of what we are fighting to choose. Which pain to feel."

Ally Condie, American Author

Suffering, Pain, Choice, Struggle, War

Explore more quotes by John Green

"She raised one leg and gave me all her weight as I dipped her. She either trusted me or wanted to fall."

Trust

"I liked that he was a tenured professor in the Department of Slightly Crooked Smiles with a dual appointments in the Department of Having a Voice that Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin."

Humor

"I was so good at being a kid, and so terrible at being whatever I was now."

Change

"It occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because the is always the thought that everything might be done better and again."

Ambition

"Ben, if you get pee in my brand-new car, I am going to cut your balls off."Still peeing, Ben looks over at me smirking. "You re gonna need a hell of a big knife, bro."

Humor

"At some point, you just pull off the band aid and it hurts. But when it is over, you are relieved."

Healing

"Funerals, I had decided, are for the living."

Death

"There is no Them. There are only facets of Us."

Identity

"You were with Margo Roth Spiegelman last night? At THREE A.M.? I nodded. Alone? I nodded. Oh my God, if you hooked up with her, you have to tell me every single thing that happened. You have to write me a term paper on the look and feel of Margo Roth Spiegelman's breasts. Thrity pages, minimum! I want you to do a photo-realistic pencil drawing. A sculpture would also be acceptable. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to write a sestina about Margo Roth Spiegelman's breasts? Your six words are: pink, round, firmness, succulent, supple, and pillowy. Personally, I think at least one of the words should be buhbuhbuhbuh."

Humor

"I walked to his bedside table next. Infinite Mayhem. the ninth sequel to The Prince of Dawn, lay atop the table next to his reading lamp, the corner of page 138 turned down. He'd never made it to the end of the book. 'Spoiler alert: Mayhem survives,' I said out loud to him, just in case he could hear me."

Memory