Quotes About Struggle

How do the angels get to sleep When the devil leaves the porch light on? —Tom Waits

The soul under the burden of sin cannot flee." —Iris Murdoch, The Unicorn

Life at best is bittersweet.

Homo Sapiens and their guns.

Kid... comics will break your heart.

When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive.

It's not about you. It's about us. Life is difficult for everyone.

The place where we can most directly open to the mystery of life is in what we don't do well, in the places of our struggles and vulnerability. These places always require surrender and letting go: When we let ourselves become vulnerable, new things can be born in us. In risking the unknown we gain a sense of life itself. And most remarkably, that which we have sought is often just here, buried under the problem and the weakness itself.

As Albert Camus wrote, "We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and others.

If only there were evil people out there insidiously committing evil deeds and it was only necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who among us is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart?

There are two kinds of difficulties. Some are clearly problems to solve, situations that call for compassionate action and direct response. Many more are problems we create for ourselves by struggling to make life different than it is or by becoming so caught up in our own point of view that we lose sight of a larger, wiser perspective. Usually

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class.

Oddly, the highly productive writer found writing wearing. "My botherations often won't let me work,"11 he complained. He

The question: "Do I have to have the conflict outside the character? Can't I have the character at war with himself inside his head?" Answer: The conflict has to be on the outside. If you remember the example of writing something which could be put on the theater stage, you will not forget this principle.

It's axiomatic among professional novelists that when things are going hideously for the lead character, the book is probably going along just wonderfully, thank you.

And you know what the worst thing was? The worst thing was that nobody ever believed how hard we tried.

When we were desperate or hopeful or deluded or embattled enough to go for help we went to people with letters after their names and prayed that they might have read the right books that had the right words in them never suspecting the terrifying truth that the right words, as simple as they were had not been written yet

It's common to maintain that trying a repetitive tactic in the face of ongoing failure defines insanity, but sometimes it is all we have.

Women can elect to put their jobs before family, but they will always be second to profits for the companies who employ them. This has been men's reality since the first paycheck, but now women have equal access to the same bitter pill of uncertainty and powerlessness

Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide.

Early on, if I was alone two or three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide.

After a fellow has been through several kinds of hell and high water, it isn't exactly new to him if he is told that he may die. though it does give me a pain to think that just as I had given up the ship you fellow should arrive, only to have me die on your hands now that the fight is over. But that's all in the game.

condition for days? Or should I end her torture quickly? I couldn't take her to the hospital, I'd go to jail for sure. I