Quotes About Adversity

Suffering does make us more sensitive until it crushes us completely.

No sooner do you get a field cleared of them than within another year a new layer has somehow worked its way to the surface. It's my opinion they boil up from hell, those stones, cooling on the way.

My mother died when I was 18. Up until then, I never saw a tin can in my house. (Washington Post interview, 1990)

When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.

Life was a bitch. Love also was a bitch.

You hold on to the good of a thing, the part that enriches you, and do not dwell on the sadness. It is unproductive.

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drinkNor slumber nor a roof against the rain;Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink.

That which has quelled me, lives with me, Accomplice in catastrophe.

My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light!

Ninguno estamos libres de que se abata sobre nosotros la tragedia. Sucede constantemente.

y que no se acaba el mundo porque una cosa no salga del todo bien, y que ya habría otras oportunidades de demostrar mi cordura y que, si no las había, yo sabría buscármelas.

Tenía una confianza sin límites en su capacidad de sobreponerse a cualquier contrariedad y de sacar provecho de cualquier obstáculo.

Llora por lo que ha perdido, mientras observa esa foto que rememora una tarde de victoria. Y llora, tal vez, por todas las veces que le ha tocado perder. Uno nunca llora por una sola cosa, cada vez que llora.

Suficientes dolores y desengaños trae la vida por sí sola —suelo decirme— como para que uno por atolondrado, por pusilánime, cargue a sus espaldas desilusiones improvisadas.

Todos somos cobardes», pensé, «sólo es cuestión de que nos atemoricen lo suficiente».

Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life.

Disease, insanity, and death were the angels that attended my cradle, and since then have followed me throughout my life.

There is no situation so bad that the cops can't make it worse.

May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill.

I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

Be loyal to what you love, be true to the earth, fight your enemies with passion and laughter.

A life without tragedy would not be worth living. We

The consolation of reading biography: Most great men have led lives even more miserable than our own.

Read the great stuff but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.