You know, when I hit a rough patch last year, I stumbled across this quote from 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath: 'I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.' It hit me like a ton of bricks—not because it’s about pain, but because it’s about stubbornly existing despite it. There’s something raw about how Plath captures exhaustion without begging for pity.
Then there’s this line from 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy: 'The secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably.' It’s not directly about hurt, but it reframes suffering as something universal, almost mundane. That weirdly comforted me—like my weariness wasn’t unique, just part of an old, old story.