How do you stop a wave?

I didn't have much to write today...kind of a crappy day. Feeling lots of stress and on top of it had a major headache. Wanted to share two things though from a book I've just finished reading. The book is called "The Hour I First Believed" and is written by Wally Lamb.

The first is said by the character Maureen has survived the Columbine shootings. She's talking to a therapist...

"It's like...there's this wave coming toward me, but there's nothing I can do about it. And when it reaches me, crashes over me and...and I'm done for another day. I just give up. Give in to it. Because how do you stop a wave?"

How do you stop a wave? I wish the book had of answered that question.

Second, the main character Caelum is reading some letters written by Sam Clemens. Sam Clemens is Mark Twain's real name. Mark Twain lost his daughter. He wrote this in a letter to a friend...

"You know our life--the outside of it--as the others do--and the inside of it--which they do not. You have seen our whole voyage. You have seen us go to sea, a cloud of sail, and the flag at the peak, and you see us now, chartless, adrift--derelicts; battered; waterlogged, our sails a ruck of rags, our pride gone. For it is gone. And there is nothing in its place. The vanity of life was all we had, and there is no more vanity left in us. We are even ashamed of that we had; ashamed that we trusted the promises of life."