"I once read in a biography of Van Gogh how his teacher said to him, “To experience suffering , and not happiness, is of far greater importance to a devastated heart”. Van Gogh replied that if a painter has not suffered, he has nothing to paint; happiness deadened the senses, the artist needed suffering as his nourishment. I, too, believe that too much happiness can muddy the goals of life."
Xiao Hui Wang