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I think everybody has their pain. For me, the time that I really had to grow up was when I was 15 and I had my best friend die of leukemia. Watching somebody so strong go through that is definitely something that will give you a little bit of depth. There have been a lot of things that have happened in my life that has forced me to grow up.

We've all recognized the moment when the world has handed us a situation that is bigger than our youth can handle, and we have to grow up in a second. And when you do get to the other side, all it does is take us to this new level of existence that is more beautiful and more complex and, in some ways, more painful.

Life is not always easy to live, but the opportunity to do so is a blessing beyond comprehension. In the process of living, we will face struggles, many of which will cause us to suffer and to experience pain.

I have been blessed with a good, fun, and wonderful life, but I've also seen a whole lot of pain.

One day I was sitting in my own pain, and suddenly all the pain and troubles of the world came to me. I received all the pain of the world, all through my body.

If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.

At school I'd want to be so small that nobody could see me, and so my work depicts and reflects me - what it felt like to grow up in a world of pain.

The way I see things, the way I see life, I see it as a struggle. And there's a great deal of reward I have gained coming to that understanding - that existence is a struggle.

I do my best work when I am in pain and turmoil.

I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on summer humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives.