Quotes About Despair

No one told me it would hurt this much.

How unhappy does one have to be before living seems worse than dying?

Survival was a breeze that touched some and not others. Neither hope nor hopelessness had anything to do with it.

Her zealous hope of Heaven made it hell there.

The soybean crop was dead again, and the failed, whilted cornstalks were laid out on the ground like rows of underthings. Most of the farmers didn't even plant anymore. All the false visions had been erased. It felt like the moment before the Savior comes. And the Savior did come, but we had to wait a long time.

For his part he sensed with despair that he wouldn't come, no matter how long they kept at it. But this activity made him happy, he could stand here all night and offer pleasure to this other human being, this creature of form and flesh crying like an anvil.

I don't remember what I said to them. I remember loneliness crushing first my lungs. Then my heart. Then my balls.

The Vine had no jukebox, but a real stereo continually playing tunes of alcoholic self-pity and sentimental divorce.

Skip experienced no excitement. Only the lethargy and sadness of a man freezing to death.

Because we all believed we were tragic, and we drank. We had that helpless, destined feeling.

That night I sat in a booth across from Kid Williams, a former boxer. His black hands were lumpy and mutilated. I always had the feeling he might suddenly reach out his hands and strangle me to death. He spoke in two voices. He was in his fifties. He'd wasted his entire life. Such people were very dear to those of us who'd wasted only a few years.

January is the despairing heart of the Scottish winter

His life had no meaning. It was intolerable. The last three decades had been a hollow waste of time. Hands

The world didn't give a shit. It didn't bestow. It took

and two men standing up top, weeping like children because they'd somehow never known the world could get this bad.

searched for reasons not to blow my brains out. I came up with two or three dozen real fast, but I still wasn't certain I could listen to many more conversations between Brandon and one of his "bras.

Had eyes Luther'd seen before in the white poor—spent his whole life eating rage in place of food. Developed a taste for it he wouldn't lose no matter how regular he ate for the rest of his life.

Over his mother's shoulder, Jimmy saw his father stumble out of the house, his clothes wrinkled and his face puffy with sleep or booze or both...His mother followed Jimmy's gaze and when she looked back at him, she was worn out again, the smile gone so completely from her face, you'd have been surprised she knew how to make one.

Who with the Devil tries to play fair, weaves the net of his own despair. Oh, smile; what's a house between drunkards?

For there is a time in the tide of the heart, when Arrived at its anchor of suffering, a grave Or a bed, despairing in action, we ask O God, where is our home?

Despair can come from deep grief, but it can also be a defense against the risks of bitter disappointment and shattering heartbreak. Resignation and cynicism are easier, more self-soothing postures that do not require raw vulnerability and tragic risk of hope. To choose hope is to step firmly forward into the howling wind, baring one's chest to the elements, knowing that, in time, the storm will pass.

Despair dragged at me like an anchor, pulling me down. I closed my eyes and retreated to some dim place within, where there was nothing but an aching grey blankness…

Thought of blowing your brains out? William blinked, startled. No. That's good. Anything else is bound to be an improvement, isn't it?

Quite without warning, I began to cry. No sobbing, no throat-gripping spasms. Water simply welled in my eyes and flowed down my cheeks, slow as cold honey. A quiet acknowledgment of despair as things spiraled slowly out of control.