Quotes About Struggle

The wounds of war, Juliet thought, rather pleased with the way the words sounded in her head. It could be the title of a novel. Perhaps she should write one. But wasn't artistic endeavor the final refuge of the uncommitted?

one grief after another—her brothers, Father, the money, not to mention the war itself—had taken its toll on her and she had allowed herself to be worn down on the grindstone of Mother.

I know that human triumph is never fully redemptive.

The father washes his hands of his son, so the boy is forced to set out alone to try and find fear, hoping that by doing so he'll fit in, that finally he'll belong. That maybe once he can shudder, he'll be able to go home. That's a line that always got me, that part about the shudder and going home.

Those times when I couldn't stand what I was, and I didn't know how I could possibly be something else.

In this struggle for our freedom of expression, there comes a point when this gender system reveals itself to be not only repressive but silly. When we begin to see how ridiculous it is, we can try begin to dismantle it.

Suddenly she wants to fall to her knees and pray for the poets. She imagines them with immaculate ravaged faces, with necklaces of ransacked moons, with teeth which are black stubs. Poets are collections of unused crescents and bandages, confused images and terrible departing.

Megan could have kissed him. If there weren't a million obstacles, both physical and psychological, in her way, of course.

Sometimes when they all talk I feel like shouting, 'so your life went wrong—why assume mine will? Maybe it'll work for me!' But this would only invite a pitying smile, and a 'she'll learn' comment. You can't win with them. You can't even compete.

There are periods of despondency and suffering which take possession of me. But I don't want anything but my own way. That is wanting a good deal, of course, when you have to trample upon the lives, the hearts, the prejudices of others-

Or else she stayed in and nursed a mood with which she was becoming too familiar for her own comfort and peace of mind. It was not despair; but it seemed to her as if life were passing by, leaving its promise broken and unfulfilled.

She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet, half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mournful notes without promise, devoid even of hope.

There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why,—when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. She could not work on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir her pulses and warm her blood.

I've been working like a machine, and feeling like a lost soul.

But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her.

She was becoming too familiar for her own comfort and peace of mind. It was not despair; but it seemed to her like life was passing her by, leaving its promise broken and unfulfilled.

The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul's slavery for the rest of her days.

Robert's going had some way taken the brightness, the color, the meaning, out of everything. The conditions of her life were in no way changed, but her whole existence was dulled, like a faded garment which seems to be no longer worth wearing.

She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life.

I've been working like a machine, and feeling like a lost soul.

I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and live.

My sudden, unforeseen capitulation had knocked me backward, and I had nothing to hold on to. My internal weather was eerily calm, as if in a tornado's aftermath, birdsong, sunshine, supersaturated colors, wreckage all around, and myself, dazed and limping.

It happened every single day in Brooklyn: awaken to fresh glory, fall asleep to blight and ruin.

Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light. She did not like the rat. She would neverlike the rat, but she knew what she must do to save her own heart.