“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”

~ Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

 “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

~ Mark Twain

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering, and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries. But suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.”

~ John Green, The Fault in Our Stars (Here, here, John Green, suffering is stupid.)

“He took a large tablet of beet sugar (an equivalent quantity of ordinary lump sugar does equally well) and soaked it in Angostura Bitters and then rolled it in Cayenne pepper. This he put into a large glass which he filled up with champagne. The excellences of this drink defy description.”

~ Evelyn Waugh, Labels