" He believed that a person who had not felt pain, mental or physical, was incapable of strong attachments, and that shared suffering was the mortar of community. Pain broke a man open and let other people in; suffering was at the core of what it meant to be human. "

― Larissa MacFarquhar , Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help