Lauren

“Our view of reality is only a view, not reality itself.”
― Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures

“Actually, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy.”
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

“That was when they noticed that every musician on the stage was wearing mourning black. That was when they shut up. And when the conductor raised his arms, it was not a symphony that filled the cavernous space.

It was the Song of Eyllwe.

Then Song of Fenharrow. And Melisande. And Terrasen. Each nation that had people in those labour camps.

And finally, not for pomp or triumph, but to mourn what they had become, they played the Song of Adarlan.

When the final note finished, the conductor turned to the crowd, the musicians standing with him. As one, they looked to the boxes, to all those jewels bought with the blood of a continent. And without a word, without a bow or another gesture, they walked off the stage.

The next morning, by royal decree, the theatre was shut down.

No one saw those musicians or their conductor again.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Heir of Fire

“To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative.”
― Viktor Emil Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning