the death and suffering of someone we love makes us bitter, jealous, against all religion, and incapable of happiness, we turn the person who died into one of the “devil’s martyrs.”

Nature is morally blind, without values. It churns along, following its own laws, not caring who or what gets in the way.

“Now that this has happened to me, what am I going to do about it?”

She is experiencing fear and fatigue, but it comes out as impatience and anger.

it was not God who caused it. It was caused by human beings choosing to be cruel to their fellow men.

At this point, religion structures what we do, forcing us to be with people and to let them into our lives.

Are you capable of forgiving and loving the people around you, even if they have hurt you and let you down by not being perfect? Can you forgive them and love them, because there aren’t any perfect people around, and because the penalty for not being able to love imperfect people is condemning oneself to loneliness?

“Why do we have to feel pain?” to “What do we do with our pain so that it becomes meaningful and not just pointless empty suffering?

the belief that human beings are free to choose the direction their life will take.