Quotes About Struggle

She still had her bad days, no question, when the black dog of depression sniffed her out and settled its crushing weight on her chest and breathed its pungent dog breath in her face.

had painstakingly assembled all the ingredients of happiness. He had performed all the necessary rituals, spoken the words, lit the candles, made the sacrifices. But happiness, like a disobedient spirit, refused to come. He couldn't think what else to do. He

They were like two recovering alcoholics, hopped up on caffeine and Twelve Step gospel, telling each other how glad they were to be sober and then talking about nothing but drinking.

I hadn't chosen my gift, and I hadn't chosen Alonzo either, but here we were. There was so much you didn't get to choose. The hard way was going to be very hard. It would be a long, long time before I felt safe and warm again.

Chop chop. I'm literally losing the will to live." —Eliot

It was so much easier to be angry. Being angry made him feel strong, even though—and this contradiction did nothing to diminish his anger—he was angry only because his position was so weak.

Every morning he woke up it seemed impossible that he could ever consume another drop of alcohol, but that conviction had always evaporated by 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

Glory has its price," Penny said. "Did you not know that, before you sought it?

Quentin knew he wasn't happy. Why not? He had painstakingly assembled all the ingredients of happiness. He had performed all the necessary rituals, spoken the words, lit the candles, made the sacrifices. But happiness, like a disobedient spirit, refused to come. He couldn't think what else to do.

There is really no end to life's little humiliations,

Magic, Quentin discovered, wasn't romantic at all. It was grim and repetitive and deceptive. And he worked his ass off and became very good at it.

It was easy when you were this angry, and this good, and God he was angry. And good.

He wasn't happy. Why not? He had painstakingly assembled all the ingredients of happiness. He had performed all the necessary rituals, spoken the words, lit the candles, made the sacrifices. But happiness, like a disobedient spirit, refused to come.

Quentin was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, except when he wasn't.

The beginning, the laying down of the fundamentals, was always the worst part, which he supposed was why so few people did it. That was the thing about the world: it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect.

Their little dance was like the endgame of a disastrously bloody chess match, just a queen chasing a beleaguered king around an empty board, sadistically refusing to checkmate.

Buddha going down with the ship, while the bed gradually swamped, and the cold seawater lapped up over his knees.

Every morning when he woke up it seemed impossible that he could ever consume another drop of alcohol, but that conviction had always evaporated by five o'clock in the afternoon.

Nothing a recovering addict likes more than a tale of how bad it had been in the old days, and how low a fellow addict had sunk.

Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you." Quentin's

For every hero, don't legions of foot soldiers have to die in the background? It was a matter of numbers, like the corpse in the castle said. Just work out the sums.

What is the point of magic if we can't fix real problems?

His mind was an icy pond constantly in danger of thawing. He trod on it only lightly-its surface was perilously slick and who knew how thin. To break through would mean immersion in what was below: cold, dark anaerobic water and angry, toothy fish. The fish were memories. He wanted to put them away somewhere and forget where he'd put them, but he couldn't.

Well, okay, then know this." Janet put her hands on her hips. She had struck an unexpected vein of bitterness in herself, and it was running away with her. "We human beings are unhappy all the time. We hate ourselves and we hate each other and sometimes we wish You or Whoever had never created us or this shit-ass world or any other shit-ass world. Do You realize that? So next time You might think about not doing such a half-assed job.