quote · Legacy record
We’re only given as much as the heart can endure,” “What does not kill you makes you stronger,” “Our sorrows provide us with the lessons we most need to learn”: these are the kinds of phrases that enrage my injured friend. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to come up with a spiritual lesson that demands becoming a quadriparalytic. The tepid “there must be a reason for it” notion sometimes floated by religious or quasi-religious acquaintances or bystanders, is, to her, another form of violence. She has no time for it. She is too busy asking, in this changed form, what makes a livable life, and how she can live it.
We’re only given as much as the heart can endure,” “What does not kill you makes you stronger,” “Our sorrows provide us with the lessons we most need to learn”: these are the kinds of phrases that enrage my injured friend. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to come up with a spiritual lesson that demands becoming a quadriparalytic. The tepid “there must be a reason for it” notion sometimes floated by religious or quasi-religious acquaintances or bystanders, is, to her, another form of violence. She has no time for it. She is too busy asking, in this changed form, what makes a livable life, and how she can live it.
Approximate author period: c. 1973 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Maggie Nelson
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1973 AD · modern
Approximate author-period evidence for Maggie Nelson: documented birth year 1973; activity date not established. Wikidata Q6730288, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6730288 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 113126; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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