Beautiful, but full of pain

Peggy Noonan's column is, as always, well worth reading. This bit is especially touching to me:

Of all the things I've heard said of the great horror, nothing seemed to me to sum it up as well as a woman chatting with a man as he cut her hair in New York. The TV was on, CNN. They stopped and watched the latest video of surging waves crashing through a hotel. The man sighed and shook his head. 'Life is terrible,' he said. The woman said, 'Oh it's beautiful, beautiful, but full of pain.'

I don't know if it can be said any better than that.