They didn’t like company in grief; they preferred to be alone with their pain. - Colleen McCullough

For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.

"It had happened again. He had made everyone laugh by doing something silly, but he didn't know what it was, why it was so funny. His father would have said he ought to be a "wakeup," whatever that meant, but he hadn't been a wakeup, he had happily eaten a sausage sandwich that hadn't been a sausage sandwich. A piece of shit, they said it was, but how could he know what a piece of shit tasted like, when he had never eaten it before? What was so funny? He wished he knew; he hungered to know, to share in their laughter and understand. That was always the greatest sorrow, that he could never seem to understand.

His wide blue eyes filled with tears, his face twisted up in anguish and he began to cry like a small child, bellowing noisily, still wringing his hands together and shrinking away from them."

- Питай Господ, Ралф. - отвърна Меги - Той знае всичко за болката. Нали той ни е създал такива - и нас, и целия свят. Значи той е създал и болката.