Miserable Quotes - Page 24

• I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be miserable than that he should be — that proves I love him better than myself.

  Emily Bronte

  I Love Him, Night, May

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.531, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• They live forever. But many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life's value.

  N.K. Jemisin

  Lonely, Thinking, Forever

  N. K. Jemisin (2010). “The Broken Kingdoms”, p.116, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We spent as much money as we could and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.

  Charles Dickens

  Funny, Money, Humorous

  Charles Dickens (2012). “Great Expectations Thrift Study Edition”, p.215, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Oh, darling, I've been so miserable.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Darling

  Ernest Hemingway (2016). “The Sun Also Rises”, p.13, Hamilton Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• But yeah, Ann [Trason] insisted, running was romantic; and no, of course her friends didn't get it because they'd never broken through. For them, running was a miserable two miles motivated solely by size 6 jeans: get on the scale, get depressed, get your headphones on, and get it over with. But you can't muscle through a five-hour run that way; you have to relax into it, like easing your body into a hot bath, until it no longer resists the shock and begins to enjoy it.

  Christopher McDougall

  Running, Jeans, Two

  8 Copy quote

• For the way loneliness is worse when you return to it after a reprieve—like the soul’s version of putting on a wet bathing suit, clammy and miserable.

  Laini Taylor

  Loneliness, Soul, Way

  4 Copy quote

• It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you’re doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It’s what you think of it. Two people may in the same place doing the same thing, and yet one may be miserable and the other happy. Why? Because of a different mental attitude.

  Dale Carnegie

  Attitude, Thinking, Two

  23 Copy quote

• Oh, seriously--how could you be miserable with twenty thingamabobs AND a snarfblat?!

  John Bytheway

  Twenties

  4 Copy quote

• It’s all about control. Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to become master of your own destiny, you have more to learn. Parkinson’s is a perfect metaphor for lack of control. Every unwanted movement in my hand or arm, every twitch that I cannot anticipate or arrest, is a reminder that even in the domain of my own being, I am not calling the shots. I tried to exert control by drinking myself to a place of indifference, which just exacerbated the sense of miserable hopelessness.

  Michael J. Fox

  Drinking, Destiny, Hands

  12 Copy quote

• If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Giving Up, Thinking, Want

  Brandon Sanderson (2011). “Mistborn Trilogy”, p.1814, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I crawled back into myself all alone, just delighted to observe that I was even more miserable than before, because I had brought a new kind of distress and something that resembled true feeling into my solitude.

  Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Solitude, Feelings, Kind

  20 Copy quote

• The smarter you are, the more reasons you have to be miserable.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Reason, Smarter

  Lisa Kleypas (2010). “Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor”, p.12, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You okay?" Anton asks, looking at me like he's trying to figure out if I'm drunk. His plans depend on me. I look as blank as possible and hope that it freaks him out. No point in my being the only miserable one.

  Holly Black

  Drunk, Trying, Looks

  Holly Black (2010). “White Cat”, p.193, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.

  Stevie Smith

  Lonely, Needs, Trouble

  Stevie Smith (1988). “New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith”, p.45, New Directions Publishing

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• At last the cold crept up my spine; at last it filled me from foot to head; at last I grew so chill and desolate that all thought and pain and awareness came to a standstill. I wasn't miserable anymore: I wasn't anything at all. I was a nothing-- a random configuration of molecules. If my heart still beat I didn't know it. I was aware of one thing only; next to the gaping fact called Death, all I knew was nothing, all I did meant nothing, all I felt conveyed nothing. This was no passing thought. It was a gnawing, palpable emptiness more real than the cold.

  David James Duncan

  Pain, Real, Heart

  4 Copy quote

• I keep my expectations low, so nobody disappoints me." "Yeah, well, I have high expectations." I look toward Miranda. "I guess my friends do, too." "Expectations make people miserable, so whatever yours are, lower them. You'll definitely be happier.

  Simone Elkeles

  People, Expectations, Looks

  4 Copy quote

• Dad: Honey, have you seen my glasses? I can"t find them. Mom: I haven't seen them. Calvin: (with glasses, to Dad) Calvin, go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!

  Bill Watterson

  Mom, Dad, Hate

  4 Copy quote

• Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves.

  Terry Pratchett

  Jobs, Short Life, Thinking

  Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett (2011). “Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch”, p.38, Harper Collins

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• She was feeling, thinking, trembling about everything; agitated, happy, miserable, infinitely obliged, absolutely angry.

  Jane Austen

  Thinking, Feelings, Trembling

  Jane Austen (1857). “Mansfield park”, p.185

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• For a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to which these sights were the monuments and the remembrances. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains, and look around me with a free and lofty spirit; but the iron had eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my miserable self.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Iron, Sight, Self

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1869). “Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus”, p.127

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there’s no reason to add to everyone’s misery by looking miserable yourself.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Tragedy, Add, Misery

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims”, p.248, A&C Black

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• This, she thought, isn’t just for today. It’s for everything. For the heartache that still felt like a punch in the gut each time it struck, fresh as new, at unpredictable moments; for the smiling lies and the mental images she couldn’t shake; for the shame of having been so naive. For the way loneliness is worse when you return to it after a reprieve—like the soul’s version of putting on a wet bathing suit, clammy and miserable.

  Laini Taylor

  Loneliness, Lying, Heartache

  Laini Taylor (2011). “Daughter of Smoke and Bone: Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy”, p.20, Hachette UK

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• [T]he Christian is unable to sin and not care ... They may sin, but they cannot do so comfortably and continually. They are very much aware of their wrong actions, and they are very miserable.

  Joyce Meyer

  Christian, Godly, Care

  4 Copy quote

• My Lolita remarked: "You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own"; and it struck me, as my automaton knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing about my darling's mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile cliches, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate - dim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted rags and miserable convulsions.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Twilight, Garden, Adorable

  Vladimir Nabokov (2011). “The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated”, p.377, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man. What should I do? Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable? Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and esthetic ideals? It’s all too little. I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone. But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?

  Emile M. Cioran

  Girl, Philosophical, Fighting

  "On the Heights of Despair". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1934.

  41 Copy quote

  Show source