An experience involving dental work with inadequate nerve blocks (i.e., transcending dental medication, for those of you hip to ancient punchlines) last year left me with the ability to block some pain mentally, and endure a lot of pain when it can’t be blocked. Part of the secret to the latter is to accept that you cannot die from pain (probably not entirely true). This also works for moderate amounts of fear, since fear is unlikely to kill you (but certainly can, I am told). So I realized… in the classic Swayze aphorism “pain don’t hurt,” “hurt” doesn’t mean pain, it means lasting injury. Thus, “pain don’t hurt” really means something like “pain won’t kill you.”
What movie/ lyric/ poetic/ dramatic/ literary quotes that you have found some meaning in? For another example, I’ve used “Who’s more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him,” usually in reference to my own students… lol. I’m expecting silliness from all y’all, don’t let me down!
My SECOND favorite show of all time is Deadwood and I have two quotes from there I love. The first similar to yours. Censored because…Deadwood.
“Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or f—ing beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man—and give some back.”
“Every day takes figuring out all over again how to f—ing live.”
“The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known is this: NEVER GO IN AGAINST A SICILIAN WHEN DEATH IS ON THE LINE!”
“You have no power over me” from Labyrinth is another good line to remember when dealing with toxic people.
Of course, some people do have power over you, which is when you need to recall Codsworth’s words from Clue: “I suggest that we stack the bodies in the cellar, lock it, leave quietly one at a time, and pretend than none of this has ever happened.”
Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
Since reading this thread I keep thinking about a line from Car Wash, which I always remembered as a funny Richard Pryor film. Watching it later, yeah, it’s pretty heavy stuff beneath the comedy and Pryor’s a one-scene wonder, but it’s a good film and still feels relevant.
There’s a character played by Antonio Vargas (mothercrabbin’ Huggy Bear!) named Lindy. I don’t think the film ever explicitly defines Lindy’s gender identity, but I seem to recall people using female pronouns. For something released in 1976 I imagine they were keeping close to the flamboyant gay stereotype to play it a bit safer, but Lindy was fantastic and Vargas delivered an amazing performance.
At one point after taking some verbal abuse from Bill Duke’s character, Lindy snaps back with the line, “Honey, I’m more man than you’ll ever be and more woman than you’ll ever get.” In context, it’s basically saying “I’m brave enough to be who I am”, which in that time and place took a lot of chutzpah.
That struck me as a really powerful line, especially from 1976, and I’ve always wondered how many in the LGBTQ community felt empowered by it. It gets mentioned every so often, but usually by critics and LGBTQ historians instead of in the wild.
Anyway, it’s a good film and well worth a watch if you haven’t seen it.
