Quotes About Struggle

In the beginning, I was a painter, but the moment I stood in front of the public and expressed my ideas using my body as the object and subject of the work, immediately it was clear that this is my best medium. I struggled with acceptance; my early career was hell. But it took me all these years to create a foundation so that performance would become accepted in the same way as photography and video. You have to believe that you're right, even if everybody believes you are wrong.

He could not deliver the piece because he could not sit as long as I can, and the public divided us because they were talking about how I am stronger. It was terrible for our relationship because his punishment was being unfaithful.

When you are a young artist, you have no idea what you are doing. Every artist who says he knows, it is a lie.

I always thought the more fucked-up childhood you have, the better artist you get, because you have more material to work with. I don't think anyone does anything from happiness. Happiness is such a good state, it doesn't need to be creative.

People who love you start to hate you when you become that rock star. Everybody is scrutinizing. They want you to be poor, to suffer, to struggle. I could not pay my electricity bill until I was 50, and now I can. I think this is something I should not be criticized for.

You gave up because everything stopped being easy. Just because you couldn't conquer this thing like you always did.

it's because the two of them hoped so hard; when things started going wrong for us they broke inside.

Honey, your uncle don't even have his papers right. What kind of liberties you think he has?" Aisha

One day she'll exist on paper in this country. She can sit on buses and take classes and get a job and never again feel that churning in her stomach if someone asks for ID.

In those days they didn't enforce the laws. We were the people you don't always see, flashing our polite smiles, trimming hedges, parking your cars in lots, doing the night shift. You needed us and we needed you.

All too often, we sanitize and simplify forgiveness, when in fact it's an arduous, exhausting task---messy, risky, and unpredictable.

There is no solution. I can see no possibility of peace in my lifetime. So long as they continue with their attacks, we will continue our defenses. We are trapped in tits for tats. It is impossible for someone so sensitive like myself to live life this way.

No, it's the same people who are always in power, Vera. Sometimes they call themselves communists, sometimes capitalists, sometimes devoutly religious—whatever they need to be to hang on to power. The former communists in Russia are the same people who own all the industries now. They're the real rip-off merchants. But the professional middle classes, people like Valentina's husband, have been hardest hit.

Moving to America felt as splitting and eternal as death.

Relationships with women were difficult enough; try factoring in being undead.

How many of these guys do you think we gotta kill before we can go home?" O'Brien whispered. "I'm pretty sure it's all of them," I answered. "Too bad they don't stay in one place. This war would be over that much sooner if everyone cooperated.

Being an undead bloodsucker makes everything complicated.

Cavagnolo and I stepped from behind the trees and back to the clearing. Flies swarmed around us, perhaps hoping we'd also drop dead and add to the feast.

Grandes barbaridades hemos hecho las personas en nuestro intento de adaptar la realidad a las medidas de nuestro recipiente mental.

Working at the Food Bank with my kids is an eye-opener. The face of hunger isn't the bum on the street drinking Sterno it's the working poor. They don't look any different, they don't behave any differently, they're not really any less educated. They are incredibly less privileged, and that's it.

Entonces sentí una tremenda opresión en el pecho, una opresión en la que no parecía estar afectado ningún órgano físico, pero que era algo asfixiante, insoportable. Ahí, en el pecho, cerca de la garganta, ahí debe estar el alma, hecha un ovillo.

que el dolor no me apague la rabia, que la alegría no desarme mi amor

osea, resumiendo, estoy jodido y radiante

En política latinoamericana la cosa no es poder ni querer sino joder.