Quotes About Struggle

Laws exist only for the benefit of the strong; they unfailingly justify the oppression of the weak.

Some things in this world just ain't mean to be, not in the times we want 'em to, and the heart has to hold it in this world as a remembrance, a promise for the world that's to come. There's a prize at the end of all of it, but still, that's a heavy load to bear.

This novel business is an awful business. Why the hell did I ever get mixed up in it?

For me, living in the closet corroded my ability to have an honest, open relationship with my God, my loved ones, my constituency and myself.

I kept a steel wall around my moral and sexual instincts - protecting them, I thought, from the threats of the real world. This gave me a tremendous advantage in politics, if not in my soul. The true me, my spiritual core, slipped further and further from reach.

But being in the closet uniquely assisted me in politics. From my first run for the state legislature until my election as governor, all too often I was not leading but following my best guess at public opinion.

No relief was forthcoming from my then-Catholic faith, which said the practice of homosexuality was a 'mortal sin' subject to damnation.

People are not measured by their accomplishments, but by how many times they screw up trying to achieve them.

Strange about parents. We have such easy access to them and such daunting problems of communication.

So it is with life. Those thorns, the prickly problems of life, cause us to strive to rise above them and then, as we do, we learn. We learn to exercise true compassion, true kindness - or the thorns, if we let them, cause us to brood, to mourn over our trials. Then we plant the seeds of bitterness, hate, and ruin - weeds. We may reach up for the rose or down to the weeds...the weeds in life that tangle us, strangle us, and cause us to lose hope.

I know that I'll move on, I tell myself I'll find me something better I'll let go and just forget her She was no good for me Deep down I know that's the way it has to be so How come I still can't open this letter I can't forget her...

I was so lost, didn't know what to do with myself, I was my own worst enemy, I was lost and oh I needed help, Then you came along, and saw what state I was in, You picked me up, when I was down, Showed me how to live again.

Writer's block is real. It happens. Some days you sit down at the old typewriter, put your fingers on the keys, and nothing pops into your head. Blanko. Nada. El nothingissimo. What you do when this happens is what separates you from the one-of-thesedays- I'm-gonna-write-a-book crowd.

To set a forest on fire, you light a match. To set a character on fire, you put him in conflict.

For some it is harder to write a novel than to row a bathtub across the North Atlantic.

Novel writing is like heroin addiction; it takes everything you've got.

The reformer," Douglass explained in 1883, had "a difficult and disagreeable task before him. He has to part with old friends; break away from the beaten paths of society, and advance against the vehement protests of the most sacred sentiments of the human heart.

The emotional equivalent of jet lag is the end of a love affair and yet you, foolish and besotted lover, won't let go. You're still keeping time by his sun and moon, waking when he wakes, and sleeping only when he closes his eyes.

A finite game must always be won with a terminal move, a final act within the boundaries of the game that establishes the winner beyond any possibility of challenge. A terminal move results, in other words, in the death of the opposing player as player. The winner kills the opponent. The loser is dead in the sense of being incapable of further play.

This is a contradiction to all finite play. Because the purpose of a finite game is to bring play to an end with the victory of one of the players, each finite game is played to end itself. The contradiction is precisely that all finite play is play against itself.

Those who challenge the existing pattern of entitlements in a society do not consider the designated officers of enforcement powerful; they consider them opponents in a struggle that will determine by its outcome who is powerful. One does not win by power; one wins to be powerful.

To be fully compensated for what one gave of oneself in the struggle for a title is to be restored to the condition one was in prior to competition.

A boundary is a phenomenon of opposition. It is the meeting place of hostile forces. Where nothing opposes there can be no boundary. One cannot move beyond a boundary without being resisted.

Nobody is born a Bolshevik. It has to be learned. And it cannot be learned solely from books either. It is learned, over a long time, by a combination of field work, struggle, personal sacrifices, tests, study, and discussion. The making of a Bolshevik is a long, drawn-out process. But in compensation, when you get a Bolshevik, you have got something. When you get enough of them you can do anything you want to do, including making a revolution.