Quotes About Struggle

Wat is het moeilijk om het gewone leven weer op te pakken en niet totaal ontmoedigd te raken door de onafwendbaarheid van de ellende

The day will come, however, when people will see they are worth more than the price of the paint and my living expenses, very meagre on the whole, which we put into them"_ Page.419

Anyone who leads an upright life and experiences real difficulty and disappointment and yet is not crushed by them is worth more than one for whom everything has always been plain sailing and who has known nothing but relative prosperity"_Page.52

The more I am spent, ill, a broken pitcher, so much more am I an artist.

I always believe that I have a certain toughness in common with the peasants, who also do not eat so particularly well, and yet live and work on.

And yet, my dear sister, to what an extent doctors, engineers, in short lots of people, have more practical, stabler ideas than artists! As for me, I often think with a deep sigh that I ought to have been better than I am. Let me stop talking of it at once, or else it might discourage me. Well, the fact is that one cannot retrace one's steps, and the steps one has taken greatly influence the future.

You see I am not stronger than other people in that if I neglected myself too much, it would be the same with me as with so many painters (so very many if one thinks it over), I should drop dead, or worse still - become insane or an idiot.

In my picture of the "Night Café" I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. So I have tried to express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low public house

Ich wäre sehr froh, wenn Du in mir doch etwas anderes sehen könntest als eine Art Nichtstuer.

You are thrifty yourself, you understand what is absolutely needed. And I ask you, can one do what is absolutely necessary with what remains for one's own use after paying for painting materials, models, and rent? If I had some friends, if I were a little known, yes, then it would be easier; but I have no friends, and my job is to try and make them.

I know you think this merciless to those at home. And yet I tell you that at times Father himself felt vaguely that he had made a mistake and had taken the wrong side. But he tried to reconcile irreconcilable things, and...he had not as much firmness of character as he seemed

You get angry whenever I expostulate with you, or rather you don't give a damn, and all the rest of it, which we know by now, and yet I believe a time will come when, of your own accord, you will come to the conclusion that you have been too weak to persevere in trying to help me regain some credit with people.

But don't worry too much about it, we shall not fail, but what I tell you is true - from the moment that I send this letter off till I get your answer, which I hope, however, will cross mine, I shall be without a cent, and it will mean fasting again. Well, let's hope we shall be together soon, and that the worst will be over.

Personally I believe that the adversities one meets with in the ordinary course of life do us as much good as harm. The very complaint that makes one ill today, overwhelming one with discouragement, that same thing - once the disease has passed off - gives us the energy to get up and to want to be completely recovered tomorrow.

A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke

The sadness will last forever.

Don't lose heart if it's very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes.

It's better to have a gay life of it than to commit suicide.

I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.

You fell off the tree of fucked-up-weird and slammed every branch on the way down.

What is it that draws us back to the broken places? Maybe

Just enough for a twelve-pack of beer, a pack of smokes, and a Bic lighter. Not exactly the breakfast of champions, but the perfect recipe for a man who is speedily losing his shit.

I was doing just fine on my own before the old man died and Lisa came storming back into my life. I was writing, building my audience, travelling, not thinking about fire, not thinking about Lisa as much as I used to. David Bourenhem was of zero concern to me. I was free. I'll say it again: I . . . was . . . free. But now the old paranoia has raised its ugly, scarred head again. The paranoia, the obsessions, the bad habits. The fire. They're all sneaking back into my life.

You can't stand having people around you, but then you go completely nuts when you're left all alone.