I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It’s not the best way to live. But it’s the way I am.
—Jeffrey Eugenides in Middlesex
Money does not corrupt people. What corrupts people is lack of affection.… Money is simply the bandage which wounded people put over their wounds.
—Margaret Halsey
Spiritual awakening is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain. We leave our attachments and our worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top. At the peak we have transcended all pain. The only problem with this metaphor is that we leave all the others behind.… In the process of discovering our true nature, the journey goes down, not up.… Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt.… We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we will let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of compassion. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.
—Pema Chödrön
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for joy.
—Pema Chödrön
The Qabalists believed that the universe was created from sound. Thus by reciting sacred sounds, changes or transformations of matter could take place. Healing could simply consist of reinvoking those sacred sounds in the body.… Perhaps this is what the shamans do when they chant.
—Fred Alan Wolf
Healing is what happens, not what we do.
—Dora Kunz
Time heals. It's slow and it's painful but it works. Talking helps, going out with other people, seeing friends. She'll be like a book you read long ago. If you trust that if it's meant to be then it'll be again, and if it's not you will wake up one day and realize that you hadn't even thought of her once. And then you'll be free.
—Endless Love (2014)
Nobody was ever replaced in life, no hole completely filled or loss totally healed. You didn't need a medical degree to know that the human body really wasn't stronger in the broken places. Like any bone, the cracks would always show if you looked hard enough.
—Lisa Scottoline in Come Home
You get through it, you just never get over it.
—Jodi Picoult in Plain Truth
Find somebody new to love someday. Take the time you need to heal, but don't forget to eventually share your heart with someone.
—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love
The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.
—Hubert H. Humphrey
I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
—John Burroughs
Here's the thing about broken hearts: You can always survive them. Always. No matter how deep the hurt, the capacity to heal and move on is even stronger.
—Susan Wiggs in Summer At Willow Lake
The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around.… Throughout history, "tender loving care" has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing.
—Larry Dossey
The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.
—Paracelsus