His crush went from exciting to depressing, as if he'd gone from the first blush of infatuation to the terminal nostalgia of a former lover without even the temporary relief of an actual relationship in between.
Lev GrossmanRead
Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Pain can be a burden, but it can also be transformed into strength and resilience.
This quote highlights the struggle many face with internal pain, suggesting that while most may succumb to it or try to numb it, there exists a powerful alternative. It emphasizes the idea that pain can be harnessed as a source of motivation and energy, allowing individuals to overcome adversity and transform their struggles into tools for personal growth and empowerment.
Themes
PainResilienceStrengthGrowthTransformation
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal growth, one could use this quote to inspire the audience.
More from Lev Grossman
All quotes →She still had her bad days, no question, when the black dog of depression sniffed her out and settled its crushing weight on her chest and breathed its pungent dog breath in her face. On those days she called in sick to the IT shop where, most days, she untangled tangled networks for a song. On those days she pulled down the shades and ran dark for twelve or twenty-four or seventy-two hours, however long it took for the black dog to go on home to its dark master.
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Magic: it was what happened when the mind met the world, and the mind won for a change.
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Fanfiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don't do it for money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.
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More than fantasy or even science fiction, Ray Bradbury wrote horror, and like so many great horror writers he was himself utterly without fear, of anything. He wasn't afraid of looking uncool - he wasn't scared to openly love innocence, or to be optimistic, or to write sentimentally when he felt that way.
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It didn’t matter where you were, if you were in a room full of books you were at least halfway home.
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