" She’s a fighter. She’s fine. She’s made tremendous strides.” True—all the while he has been stoically enduring it she has made tremendous strides by finding it unendurable, by being devastated by it, destroyed by it, and then by denuding herself of it. She doesn’t resist the blows the way he does; she receives the blows, falls apart, and when she gets herself up again, decides to make herself over. "

― Philip Roth , American Pastoral (The American Trilogy, #1)