Henry James

"Sorrow comes in great waves -- no one can know that better than you -- but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see."

On his birthday, a sketch of my favorite writer. As much as I like his novels and stories, it's lines from his letters that seem to run through my head most often. The passage above, from a letter to a grieving friend, is one of my favorites.