Quotes About Pressure

When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It's a subtle kind of murder ... the most loving parents and relatives commit this murder with smiles on their faces.

When life attains a crisis, man's focus narrows.

The English social anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, in his 1965 Death, Grief, and Mourning, had described this rejection of public mourning as a result of the increasing pressure of a new "ethical duty to enjoy oneself," a novel "imperative to do nothing which might diminish the enjoyment of others.

August comes on not like a month but like an affliction.

It occurs to me as I write that this white light, usually presented dippily (evidence of afterlife, higher power), is in fact precisely consistent with the oxygen deficit that occurs as blood flow to the brain decreases. Everything went white, those whose blood pressure has dropped say of the instant before they faint.

I knew from experience that events tend to gang up on you. It's not one straw that breaks the camel's back - it's the cumulative straws piling up and weighing you down. - Kiki Lowenstein

I once asked a young dissertation writer whether her suddenly grayed hair was due to ill health or personal tragedy; she answered: "It was the footnotes".

I know what it's like to start something and have it suddenly grow out of control. And you want to get rid of it, because it's hurting you and everyone else around you, but every time you try to do that, it consumes you again.

She stared at Peter, and she realized that in that one moment, when she hadn't been thinking, she knew exactly what he'd felt as he moved through the school with his backpack and his guns. Every kid in this school played a role: jock, brain, beauty, freak. All Peter had done was what they all secretly dreamed of: be someone, even for just nineteen minutes, who nobody else was allowed to judge.

A jewel's just a rock put under enourmous heat and pressure. Extraordinary things are always hiding in places people never think to look.

Do you know how, when you are on the verge of a breakdown, the world pounds in your ears; a rush of blood, of consequence? Do you now how it feels when the truth cuts your tongue to ribbons, and still you have to speak it?

You can have the best intentions, but the moment there's a hairline crack, it is only a matter of time before you go to pieces.

Coal, with time and heat and pressure, will always become a diamond. But if you were freezing to death, which would you consider the gem?

But there's an enormous difference between an audience that's watching you because they can't wait to see what comes next and an audience that's watching you because they're waiting for you to fail.

What does it feel like?" he asked. "What does what feel like?" Peter thought for a moment. "Being at the top." Josie reached across him for another packet of material and fed it into the stapler. She did three of these, and Peter was certain that she was going to ignore him, but then she spoke. "Like if you take one wrong step," she said, "you're going to fall.

I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.

A jewel's just a rock put under enormous heat and pressure.

Everyone wants their kid to grow up and go to Harvard or be a quarterback for the Patriots. No one ever looks at their baby and thinks, Oh, I hope my kid grows up and becomes a freak. I hope he gets to school every day and prays he won't catch anyone's attention. But you know what? Kids grow up like that every single day.

Coal that bears that pressure meets a diamond.

Its not workload that kills you, its worry that kills you.

Professional life is like a fire hydrant. You spend all of your time putting out fires and standing your ground against the big dogs.

Let's face it: in advertising, you are paid more, but you die younger. It's not very forgiving. Like sports stars, you're in it during your better years, and then you're out looking for work.

My family know not to get me any tech for Christmas. I can never get it to work, and it all becomes very tearful and pressurised.

I've never seen the allure of being famous, because I know what that's like. It's part of work.