Bitterness

“It was the first time that he'd cried in a very long time. All of his emotions poured out now, in a great rush of release: it was sadness tinged with bitterness, but mostly an intensely deep feeling of loss.”

“The bacteria of resentment bred: distance turned to distrust; distrust turned to bitterness; bitterness to hate, which is, after all, a kind of grievous love”

“If all goes well, we will be back in time for a proper memorial service [for your father], Ben. I promise."Ben looked up, and all the bitterness was gone from his eyes, replaced somehow by both resignation and determination."And if all doesn't go well?" he asked, tightening his grip on Coralee's trusting hand as he led her outside to the driveway.Kira's flawless features morphed into something like a smile, yet wholly without happiness or humor."Then you'll all be meeting up with [your father] soon enough, I expect. Either that, or you shall wish it was so.”

“A godly man in the midst of the waves and storms that he meets with can see the glory of heaven before him and so contents himself. One drop of the sweetness of heaven is enough to take away all the sourness and bitterness of all the afflictions in the world. We know that one drop of sourness, or one drop of gall will make bitter a great deal of it; but if you put a spoonful of gall into a cup of sugar, it will embitter that. Now it is otherwise in heaven: one drop of sweetness will sweeten a great deal of sour affliction, but a great deal of sourness and gall will not embitter a soul who sees the glory of heaven that is to come.”

“I felt that the metal of my spirit, like a bar of iron that is softened and bent by a persistent flame, was being gradually softened and bent by the troubles that oppressed it. In spite of myself, I was conscious of a feeling of envy for those who did not suffer from such troubles, for the wealthy and the privileged; and this envy, I observed, was accompanied—still against my will—by a feeling of bitterness towards them, which, in turn, did not limit its aim to particular persons or situations, but, as if by an uncontrollable bias, tended to assume the general, abstract character of a whole conception of life. In fact, during those difficult days, I came very gradually to feel that my irritation and my intolerance of poverty were turning into a revolt against injustice, and not only against the injustice which struck at me personally but the injustice from which so many others like me suffered. I was quite aware of this almost imperceptible transformation of my subjective resentments into objective reflections and states of mind, owing to the bent of my thoughts which led always and irresistibly in the same direction: owing also to my conversation, which, without my intending it, alway harped upon the same subject. I also noticed in myself a growing sympathy for those political parties which proclaimed their struggle against the evils and infamies of the society to which, in the end I had attributed the troubles that beset me—a society which, as I thought, in reference to myself, allowed its best sons to languish and protected its worst ones. Usually, and in the simpler, less cultivated people, this process occurs without their knowing it, in the dark depths of consciousness where, by a kind of mysterious alchemy, egoism is transmuted into altruism, hatred into love, fear into courage; but to me, accustomed as I was to observing and studying myself, the whole thing was clear and visible, as though I were watching it happen in someone else; and yet I was aware the whole time that I was being swayed by material subjective factors, that I was transforming purely personal motives into universal reasons.”

“If each side had been frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept within the bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversed and each side is fighting the other side’s battle, all the bitterness which really flows from thwarted self-righteousness and obstinacy and from the accumulated grudges of the last ten years is concealed from them by the nominal or official "Unselfishness" of what they are doing or, at least, held to be excused by it.”

“I have observed one thing among true Christians in their differences in many countries: What divides and severs true Christian groups and Christians - what leaves a bitterness that can last for 20, 30, 40 years (or for 50 or 60 years in a son's or daughter's memory) - is not the issue of doctrine or belief that caused the differences in the first place. Invariably, it is a lack of love - and the bitter things that are said by true Christians in the midst of differences.”

“Watch out for those who celebrate your success with bitterness in their hearts!  surely, they'll hail you for what you are, and hate you for what you have become.”

“Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”

“I've tried to teach what I learned all those years in my mother and father's house, all those things I didn't realize I was learning and that I never knew I'd be so grateful for. When you have love and it's proffered every day in a kind of tender, yet stern insistence and even reckless laughter, when it is given to you and you accept it in life as a thing as natural as rain or snow, or the littler of leaves in fall, you can't help but take it for granted. For a bewildered while you incorrectly understand that the world has given you this becuase it's there in equal measure, everywhere. You never knowuntil it's too late to do anything about it, how seet the effort is: how lasting the human will to love can be in the breast of people who want to make it for you, who want to give it to you, without calculating what's in it fo them, without thinking at all of what it will mean when you grow to full adulthood, see the world as it is, and forget to mention what you have been given.Ever day of my grown-up life, I have wanted to do what my parents did. I have wanted to widen the province of love and weaken hate and bitterness in the hearts of my children. And I've done these things because of what I got from my family, all those lovely years when I was growing up, being loved and cherished and, unbeknown to me, and in the best way, honored, for myself.”

“If I wanted, I could come up with reasons to be angry with everyone I know; there are sins of commission or omission I could hang on every last person in my life… The truth is, I will never run out of people to indict. We are all guilty of so many failures to love well that if I wanted--and sometimes I do want--I could find some fault or transgression in everyone I know that I could then use to justify writing them off. I could blaze that trail to hell if I wanted to, and just the thought of it scares me off”

“The F word turns me on, she whispered. The F word?FoodHe threw back his head and laughed. It rumbled up out of his chest and felt so good it startled him. For the first time in years,his laughter was spontaneous. It wasn`t tinged with bitterness and cynicism.”

“There is no bitterness like that of man who finds out he has been believing in a ghost.”

“I have a pretty large experience of boys, and you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind!”

“You know, I think that nature has such a powerful message about moving from dark to light, and bitterness to sweetness.”

“An unceasingly grateful life can easily heal from the wounds of hurt and setback. It can also easily shed resentment, hate, and bitterness…”

“Anger and bitterness—whatever the cause—only end up hurting us. Turn that anger over to Christ.”

“So often, we had the tendency of saying, they're the problem. No, they're not the problem. Our heart is the problem. they are just there to show me what is in my heart. They don't put those things in my heart. They don't put the wrath, the bitterness in my heart. Those things are already there. They are the vessels God uses to to release what is in my heart so that I am aware of how black my heart really is.”

“Bitterness*Broken men Walk away from broken sonsWho stab them in the gutIn angerAnd bitternessFor crimes they are both not guilty ofLife is a bitch sometimes-------------------------2014©rassool jibraeel snyman – 16/5/2014“The Poetic Assassin”

“Every few months or so at home, Pops had to have Taiwanese ’Mian. Not the Dan-Dan Mian you get at Szechuan restaurants or in Fuchsia Dunlop’s book, but Taiwanese Dan-Dan. The trademark of ours is the use of clear pork bone stock, sesame paste, and crushed peanuts on top. You can add chili oil if you want, but I take it clean because when done right, you taste the essence of pork and the bitterness of sesame paste; the texture is somewhere between soup and ragout. Creamy, smooth, and still soupy. A little za cai (pickled radish) on top, chopped scallions, and you’re done. I realized that day, it’s the simple things in life. It’s not about a twelve-course tasting of unfamiliar ingredients or mass-produced water-added rib-chicken genetically modified monstrosity of meat that makes me feel alive. It’s getting a bowl of food that doesn’t have an agenda. The ingredients are the ingredients because they work and nothing more. These noodles were transcendent not because he used the best produce or protein or because it was locally sourced, but because he worked his dish. You can’t buy a championship.Did this old man invent Dan-Dan Mian? No. But did he perfect it with techniques and standards never before seen? Absolutely. He took a dish people were making in homes, made it better than anyone else, put it on front street, and established a standard. That’s professional cooking. To take something that already speaks to us, do it at the highest level, and force everyone else to step up, too. Food at its best uplifts the whole community, makes everyone rise to its standard. That’s what that Dan-Dan Mian did. If I had the honor of cooking my father’s last meal, I wouldn’t think twice. Dan-Dan Mian with a bullet, no question.”