"It has to get really dark before you can see the stars."
                                                            -Touched by an Angel

"But what we are in spirit they can't take from us."
                                                                ~Wolf by the Ears by Ann Rinaldi

"The best way to cheer yourself up, is to try to cheer somebody else up."
                                                           -Mark Twain

"I learn by going where I have to go."
                            ~Under a Different Sky by Deborah Savage

"Once upon a time, there was a king who owned the most precious diamond in the world.  One day, as he was boasting and displaying the stone, the king discovered a huge scratch on its surface.  Summoning the most expert diamond cutters, he proclaimed: 'A chest of gold for anyone who can repair my damaged stone.'  But no one could remove the scratch from his once perfect jewel.  one day and artist came to the king with promises that he could make the diamond even more extraordinary than it had been before the accident.  the king gave it to him out of desperation.  Several weeks later, just as the king was about to give up, the artist returned to the palace.  with great skill he had etched a lovely rosebud on the diamond.  the scratch was transformed into a graceful stem.  My grandfather always told this story to people in his congregation who were ill or having hard times. 'When life wounds you, remember the artisan who turned scratches into something beautiful.'"
                                                                             -from the book A Season In-Between by Jan Greenberg

"We learn as much from what hurts us as from what loves us."
                                                                             -from the movie Tuesdays With Morrie

And I know, from life on this plantation, that sadness shared is a burden lessened.
                                                                            ~Wolf by the Ears  by Ann Rinaldi

"Times get bad.  Sooner or later, for everybody.  Those times all you can do is just go onlighting the fire and keeping the family fed and keeping everybody around you from killing each other.  There's more of those days than I like to tell you about.  Seems like you're always losing.  But you're not.  You keep lighting the fire and feeding the children and stopping everybody around you from killing each other and you're winning."
                            ~Wolf by the Ears  by Ann Rinaldi

". . .and in the eyes of the people there is the failure, and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath.  In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
                                -Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

They sat and looked at it and burned it into their memories.  How'll it be not to know what land's outside the door?  How if you wake up in the night and know--and know the willow tree's not there?  Can you live without the willow tree?  Well, no you can't.  The willow tree is you.  The pain on that mattress there--that dreadful pain--that's you.
                                                    ~GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

. . .To California or any other place--every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness.  And some day--the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way.  And they'll all walk together, and there'll be a dead terror from it.

                                                    ~GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

"They's a time of change, an' when that comes, dyin' is a piece of all dyin', and bearin' is a piece of all bearin', an' bearin' an' dyin' is two pieces of the same thing.  An' then things ain't lonely any more.  An' then a hurt don't hurt so bad, 'cause it ain't a lonely hurt no more."
                                                        ~GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

Our people are good people;  our people are kind people.  Pray God some day kind people won't all be poor.  Pray God some day a kid can eat.
                                                            ~GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

"Letters give us great pleasure..In their contents are those truths, though not doubted, we love to hear repeated.  They serve as gleams of light, to cheer a dreary scene where envy, hatred, malice, revenge, and all the worse passions of men are marshaled to make one another as miserable as possible."
                                                                         ~WOLF BY THE EARS by Ann Rinaldi

"Sometimes peoples gots to wear a poultice over their heart...Cover the heart over.  To protect it.  Sometimes people doan want you to see their hurt..."
                                                                         ~WOLF BY THE EARS by Ann Rinaldi
 

That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.....