Bitterness

“Some carry the burden of bitterness and resentfulness for many years.”

“Writing is hard. Writing that is good, writing that is powerful enough to evoke a change or an authentic emotion or even just an idea in another human being is about as mysterious as an alchemical recipe, but there are a few known ingredients. Craft? Yes, absolutely. Devotion? A load - yes! Humility? Not vital, I suppose, but all my favorites include at least a dash. Before those can be added to the cauldron though, you must have a base of Honesty. Honesty is difficult to find in public spaces these days (and getting harder every goddamn day) but if you're quiet, and patient, you can usually find some hidden in your room somewhere. (It helps to turn off the lights, for some reason.) Problem is, Honesty is invariably bound to Vulnerability and the only thing that cuts the bitterness of Vulnerability is Courage. And Courage? Well. Courage is the hardest thing of all.”

“I wish I could fill every young man who reads these pages with an utter dread and horror of poverty. I wish I could make you so feel its shame, its constraint, its bitterness that you would make vows against it.”

“There's such a connection between Vietnam and America, but it should be one of friendship. Not bitterness. Not enemies.”

“[God] wants to help you overcome the bitterness and anger that you feel, and He wants to encourage you . . . He knows that anger and depression will never help you deal with your problems—they only make them worse.”

“It was about grace, she decides, something that has been missing from her own life. ... She wants to be the kind of person who can bestow unearned kindness on another, replace bitterness with empathy, forgive only for the sake of forgiving.”

“It is up to each one of us to immunize ourselves from any disabling bolts of anger and defend ourselves from the thunderstorms of hatred. No matter how maliciously anyone might act towards us, humankinds’ ability to express empathy, compassion, and mercy is the only life-sustaining panacea. Whenever we foster empathy and compassion and display mercy towards other people, we overcome the vilest actions and greatest atrocities committed by other persons. If we love everyone, we can never feel victimized or hate anyone. If we love ourselves, we will never act in a degrading manner.”

“Without forgiveness and love, you will live with resentment, bitterness, malice and strife which result in more pain. You can never love without forgiving. Forgiveness deepens your ability to love and frees you from pain.”

“One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.”

“Bitterness is a broken spirit.”

“Two weeks ago, Aaron and Isaac, I learned your mother Laura has breast cancer. My heart feels impaled. These words, so useless and feeble. Laura is only thirty-five years old. Her next birthday will be in only three days. I write this letter to you, my sons, with the hope that one day in the future you will read it and understand what happened to our family.Together, your mother and I have created and nurtured an unbreakable bond that has transformed us into an unlikely team. A Chicano from El Paso, Texas. A Jew from Concord, Massachusetts. I want you to know your mother. She has given me hope when I have felt none; she has offered me kindness when I have been consumed by bitterness. I believe I have taught her how to be tough and savvy and how to achieve what you want around obstacles and naysayers.Our hope is that the therapies we are discussing with her doctors will defeat her cancer. But a great and ominous void has suddenly engulfed us at the beginning of our life as a family. This void suffocates me.”

“I suppose that means you don’t want any band-aids, either,” I said, a touch more bitterly than I’d meant to.”

“It's not that I am "above" feeling hatred. It's that I make the choice whether to yield to it or not. Hatred keeps a person with you, and the last thing I want with me in my thoughts is someone who doesn't deserve to be there.”

“Until you let go of that bitterness in your heart, it will find a comfortable place to destroy your dreams, your sight and most times, your sleep.”

“Forgiveness that is insincere, forced or premature can be more psychologically damaging than authentic bitterness & rage.”

“You have to accept your fate; do it without bitterness and stay humble.”

“Sometimes, for revenge to be as sweet and painful as it is intended, some time has to pass. Time enough that people have forgotten about past hurts and humiliations. Time enough to make the poison of bitterness consume a soul. It was to be that time...Two worlds collide and find a common link. A plan was made, a price was paid and revenge was set in motion.”

“There are many irritations in life. They become prime opportunities for Satan to lead us into evil passion. Keep anger clear of bitterness, spite, or hatred.”

“We have to be willing to acknowledge the good, or all we bring is bitterness to the bad, and that doesn’t help make things any better.”

“Carried to its final extreme, the logical end of this type of reaction to life is suicide. The hard-bitten kind of person is always, as it were, a partial suicide; some of himself is already dead”