​Preface Pg 10 - 11 "Besides, I am not sure it is entirely possible to communicate the utterly devastating nature of one's suffering. Some experiences are so terrible they defy description."

Pg 11 "My suffering is as puzzling and horrible to me now as it was the day it happened. The good that may come out of the loss does not erase its badness or excuse the wrong done. Nothing can do that."

Chapter 1 Pg 16 "..catastrophic loss leaves the landscape of one's life forever changed."

Pg 17 "I remember those first moments after the accident as if everything was happening in slow motion. They are frozen into my memory with a terrible vividness."

Pg 20 "By some strange twist of fate or mysterious manifestation of divine providence I had been suddenly thrust into circumstances I had not chosen and could never have imagined. I had become the victim of a terrible tragedy."

"I realized I would have to suffer and adjust; I could not avoid or escape it."

Chapter 2 Page 25 "Each loss stands on its own and inflicts a unique kind of pain. What makes each loss so catastrophic is its devastating, cumulative, and irreversible nature."

Chapter 3 Pg 33 "So I lost all hope, collapsed to the ground, and fell into despair. I thought at that moment that I would live in darkness forever. I felt absolute terror in my soul."

Pg 34 "I chose to turn toward the pain, however falteringly, and to yield to the loss, though I had no idea at the time what that would mean."

Pg 36 "It is not what happens TO us that matters as much as what happens IN us."

Pg 37 "I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather, I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it becomes a part of who I am."

Pg 41 "Loss requires that we live in a delicate tension. We must mourn, but we must also go on living. We might feel that the world has stopped, though it never does."

Pg 48 "I also imagined having the power to live that tragic day over again, changing the sequence of events that led us to the accident."

"Many people form addictions after they experience loss. Loss disrupts and destroys the orderliness and familiarity of their world. They feel such desperation and disorientation in the face of this obliteration of order that they go berserk on binges. They saturate their sense with anything that will satisfy them in the moment because they cannot bear to think about the long-term consequences of loss. So they watch television every moment they can, work sixty hours a week, drink too much alcohol, go on a sexual rampage, eat constantly, or spend their money carelessly. In so doing, they hold suffering at a distance."

Pg 50 "That is why these responses, however natural, can deceive us, appearing to provide a way of escape from the problem rather than points of entry into the problem. We must therefore pay attention to them but not fool ourselves into thinking that they are merely stages on our way out of the predicament."

"I did not find it helpful, therefore, nor did I find it true in my experience, to identify these various responses as "stages" through which I had to pass on my way to "recovery." For one thing, I have still not moved beyond these stages, and I am not sure I ever will. I still feel anger, I still want to bargain with God, I still face the temptation of indulging my appetites, and I still want to deny that the tragedy is true. Not that I feel the urge to escape as intensely as I used to, but that is because my internal capacity to live with loss has grown."

Pg 51 "The problem with viewing these avenues of escape as stages is that it raises the false expectation that we go through them only once."

"In the end I was forced to address the problem of life's mortality--my mortality--which for a time made me profoundly depressed."

Pg 52 "I found depression completely debilitating. It took Herculean strength for me to get out of bed in the morning. I was fatigued all day long, yet at night I was sleepless. I would lie awake by the hour, feeling the torment of a darkness that no one could see but me. I had trouble concentrating. I was apathetic and desireless. I could not taste food, see beauty, or touch anything with pleasure."

Pg 53 "This experience

rarely follows immediately after the loss. It occurs at the end of the fight, after the denial yields to reality, the bargaining fails, the binges lead to emptiness, an the anger subsides. Then there is no will or desire left to resist the inevitable and undeniable. One is left only with deep sadness and profound depression."

Pg 54 "At the core of loss is the frightening true of our morality. We are creatures, made of dust. Life on earth can be and often is wonderful. But in the end all of us will die."

"The accident set off a silent scream of pain inside my soul. That scream was so loud that I could hardly hear another sound, not for a long time, and I could not imagine that I would hear any sound but that scream of pain for the rest of my life."

Pg 61 "For a time I was deprived, therefore, of the comfort that good memories provide and of the hope that a good imagination creations."

Pg 62 "Recovery is a misleading and empty expectation. We recover from broken limbs, not amputations. Catastrophic loss by definition precludes recovery. It will transform us or destroy us, but it will never leave us the same."

Pg 63 "Sorry never entirely leaves the soul of those who have suffered a severe loss. If anything, it may keep going deeper."

"But this depth of sorrow is the sign of a healthy soul, not a sick soul."

"Sorrow indicates that people who have suffered loss are living authentically in a world of misery, and it expresses the emotional anguish of people who feel pain for themselves or for others. Sorrow is noble and gracious. It enlarges the soul until the soul is capable of mourning and rejoicing simultaneously, of feeling the world's pain and hoping for the world's healing at the same time. However painful, sorrow is good for the soul."

Pg 64 "I was rarely elated by successes or depressed by failures--as if I was detached from it all."

Pg 68 "Gifts of grace come to all of us. But we must be ready to see and willing to receive these gifts. It will require a kind of sacrifice, the sacrifice of believing that, however painful our losses, life can still be good--good in a different way than before, but nevertheless good."