Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.
I missed you, Angel. Not one day went by that I didn't feel you missing from my life. You haunted me to the point that I began to believe Hank had gone back on his oath and killed you. I couldn't escape you and I didn't want to. You tortured me, but it was better than losing you.
The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.
The teacher pretended that algebra was a perfectly natural affair, to be taken for granted, whereas I didn't even know what numbers were. Mathematics classes became sheer terror and torture to me. I was so intimidated by my incomprehension that I did not dare to ask any questions.
Any happiness, no matter how brief, seemed better than the long, simmering torture of waking up day after day, knowing I could never have him.
There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but morally mandatory.