Let me be loved like that, by a man who will not replace me with concubines when I'm old and ugly. Let me be loved by a man who loves God more than me.

There's always hope... even when there isn't faith. And sometimes, without hope or faith, there must be charity.

Of course, I also hear from critics who detest what I do, and while sometimes I feel rather proud of having made various the loathsome people or groups angry, at other times I wonder why I put up with such grief.

Personal humiliation was painful. Humiliation of one's family was much worse. Humiliation of one's social status was agony to bear. But humiliation of one's nation was the most excruciating of human miseries.

Two sides of the same coin, but which side is which?

The univers is statistically more likely to be ironic than not.

Your ego-depletion seems problematically difficult to assuage.