Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.

The quotation contrasts the legitimacy of emotional release with the necessity of agency. It grants crying a proper place—acknowledging grief or overwhelm as human and temporary—yet insists that emotion alone cannot substitute for choice. The pivot (“But…”) marks a movement from feeling to responsibility: after the wave of sorrow passes, the person still faces the practical and moral task of deciding how to act. The implied ethic is not stoic denial but integration—allowing emotion, then returning to deliberation and commitment. Read this way, the line functions as counsel for endurance: compassion toward oneself, paired with a call to purposeful next steps.