“The problem with thick skin is that it leaves you impervious to the sharpest of pins. Everything becomes dull. But without that sense of pain, there cannot be that sense of relief. Ultimately, the thickened skin leaves you numb, incapable of feeling the highs and lows of life. It leaves you rough like a rock and just as inanimate.”

“It was a relief to decide you didn’t have to decide. It was a relief to have faith in immutability, a relief to lose faith in your ability to change something, even when it was something you’d wish you could change. It was a relief to be imposed on intractably. Acceptance, if not brave, was at least a relief. That was the trick of it.”

“Jail’s are a spooky place,” remarked Bill, trying to match the pace of detective Adam.”Oh that is nothing in front of the ultimate fear” replied detective Adam.”Ultimate fear?””Funny thing that, the ultimate fear is also the ultimate relief.””Which is?””Death”

“Hope is not a prison.” Sorrel gently squeezed her arm. “Hope should lessen your fears, not intensify them”

“It’s very difficult to appreciate when you’re doing it all the time in the business. The laughter means so much to people. I suppose at all times, but especially these days. It seems that life is more difficult. It has been for me, and God knows for Gilda. But I think for everyone, they’re looking for a little relief. I used to think, ‘Sure, to get relief, they get a laugh.’ But I didn’t know the laugh meant that much. Sometimes it’s the difference between going to sleep at night depressed and worried about how you’re going to make it; and going through with a little confidence that it will be okay, it will be okay. Cause laughing is good for you. It’s good for the liver. It’s for the soul. It’s good for your whole emotional equipment.”

“The thought of all that happiness was hard to bear. What’s the point of happiness when all it does is throw the facts of dying into clear relief?”

“People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been–for a moment’s relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.”

“Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”[Mark Twain, a Biography]”