I don’t know about anyone else but I find a good quote really useful when I’m struggling in life. I find that when I’m feeling down, reading the wise words of others can really buoy me up.

I guess that it comes down to knowing that if someone else has said it then I know that someone else has felt it. Because pain has that ability to cut you off and isolate you from every other motherfucker on the planet. You can’t quite understand how anyone else can laugh or smile when you are in the depths of it, and that really does suck.

So I’m sure that reading quotes is the way that we open a window into another person’s suffering and realise that it’s not just is. And that’s all we really want as humans: to feel that we are not alone.

Here are 15 of the quotes that I like in my moments of pain and I’ve felt quite a few of them over the past week or so. I work in a food shop and the amount of time I’ve spent in the chilled aisle, wondering if I’ll ever heal and feel whole again is crazy. It takes my breath away and makes me want to drop to my knees. I hope that if you are suffering in this way that you will feel better soon and I hope that this post helps you feel a little less alone. We are all in the same boat, even if we sometimes feel like we are marooned in the middle of nowhere. Just breathe and know that things will work their way out if you just hang on tight.

1. The pain that you’ve been feeling can’t compare to the joy that is coming – Romans 8:18
2. The heart was made to be broken – Oscar Wilde
3. What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful – Brene Brown
4. Adversity is the first path to truth – Lord Byron
5. People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved – Anne Sullivan
6. A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for – John Shedd
7. I have learned that there is more power in a good strong hug than in a thousand meaningful words – Ann Hood
8. The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts – Bertrandt Russell
9. I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more – C.S. Lewis
10. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart – Helen Keller
11. Everything you do is triggered by an emotion of either desire or fear – Brian Tracy
12. A broken heart is just the growing pains necessary so that you can love more completely when the real thing comes along – J.S.B Morse
13. The human capacity for burden is like bamboo, far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance – Jodi Picoult
14. If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces – Shane Koyczan
15. Rock bottom became the solid foundation in which I rebuilt my life – JK Rowling