Self Pity Quotes - Page 8

• Self-pity” is just sadness, I think, in the pejorative.

  Renata Adler

  Sadness, Thinking, Self

  Renata Adler (2013). “Speedboat”, p.53, New York Review of Books

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• I wasn’t lonely. I experienced no self-pity. I was just caught up in a life in which I could find no meaning.

  Charles Bukowski

  Lonely, Self, Pity

  Charles Bukowski (2009). “sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: New Poems”, p.316, Zondervan

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• But the day I can't shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I'm washed up for keeps.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Self, Pity, I Can

  Jonathan Lethem (2014). “Gun, with Occasional Music”, p.24, Faber & Faber

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• In the weeks since I had made the decision to leave my father's house, I had grown up. And I had learned that not every battle can be fought by firing an arrow from a bow. But I would have to face whatever new challenges came my way as bravely as I had faced the Huns. I could not wallow in self-pity, thinking about what might have been. I had to do my duty. It was the only way to stay true to myself.

  Cameron Dokey

  Father, Thinking, Arrows

  Cameron Dokey (2010). “Wild Orchid: A Retelling of "The Ballad of Mulan"”, p.179, Simon and Schuster

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• So, using his pride like a shield against despair, dejection, and-most important— self-pity, Raoden raised his head to stare damnation in the eyes.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Eye, Pride, Self

  Brandon Sanderson (2007). “Elantris: Tenth Anniversary Author's Definitive Edition”, p.5, Macmillan

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• Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain entrusted to you. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, you are sharing in a certain measure of that cosmic pain, and are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self pity.

  Vilayat Inayat Khan

  Mother, Spiritual, Pain

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• Emptiness and boredom: what an understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair, and depression. Isn't there some other way to look at this? After all, angst of these dimensions is a luxury item. You need to be well fed, clothes, and housed to have time for this much self-pity.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Self, Luxury, Clothes

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• Certainly. But take this into consideration: of every ten problems we have, nine are created by our own selves - through guilt, self-punishment, self-pity. However, from time to time a great obstacle appears in our path, which was put there by God, and which is there for a reason. The reason is: to give us the opportunity to change everything, to move forwards.

  Paulo Coelho

  Moving, Opportunity, Self

  Paulo Coelho (2015). “Warrior of the Light -”, p.22, Booklassic

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• The atheist view is correspondingly life-affirming and life-enhancing, while at the same time never being tainted with self-delusion, wishful thinking, or the whingeing self-pity of those who feel that life owes them something.

  Richard Dawkins

  Atheist, Thinking, Self

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.405, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I'm a fairly tormented artist, and I'm less willing to indulge myself in self-pity, outside of songwriting.

  Dave Matthews

  Music, Artist, Self

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• ...and I confess that, like a child, I cry. Ah, self-pity; I think we are at our most honest and sincere when we feel sorry for ourselves.

  Iain Banks

  Children, Sorry, Thinking

  Iain Banks (1999). “A Song of Stone: A Novel”, p.277, Simon and Schuster

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• I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on the good things still in my life. I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each every morning, a few tears, and that's all.

  Mitch Albom

  Depression, Morning, Self

  Mitch Albom (2007). “Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson”, p.57, Broadway Books

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• Despite not knowing if what he felt from moment to moment would pass or last forever, he entered fully into his shifting states of violent rage, self-pity, longing, heartbreak, cynicism, without losing the ability to think about what was happening to him. That took courage, I thought, living with the suffering in a mindful way, as an artifact of being, neither good nor bad.

  Diane Ackerman

  Inspirational, Thinking, Self

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• I let myself feel good and sorry for myself, but only for a second. Daddy always said that the most useless of all human emotions was self-pity.

  Gabrielle Zevin

  Sorry, Self, Daddy

  Gabrielle Zevin (2011). “All These Things I've Done”, p.172, Macmillan

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• I particularly scorn my fondness for paradox. I despise pessimism, narcissism, solipsism, truculence, word-play, and pusillanimity, my chiefer inclinations; loathe self-loathers ergo me; have no pity for self-pity and so am free of that sweet baseness. I doubt I am. Being me’s no joke.

  John Barth

  Sweet, Self, Play

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• But mostly, I remembered what I’ve always believed. What my mom taught me. That while some things are just plain awful, most things in life can be seen either tragic or comic. And it’s your choice. Is life a big, long, tiresome slog from sadness to regret to guilt to resentment to self-pity? Or is life weird, outrageous, bizarre, ironic, and just stupid? Gotta go with stupid. It’s not the easy way out. Self pity is the easiest thing in the world. Finding the humor, the irony, the slight justification for a skewed, skeptical optimism. That’s tough. - Marco, Animorphs #35: The Proposal

  Katherine Applegate

  Mom, Regret, Stupid

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• I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.

  James Ellroy

  Thinking, Self, Males

  "The Onion talks to crime-fiction kingpin James Ellroy". Interview by John Krewson, www.avclub.com. November 20, 1996.

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• I write my miserable songs. I write songs about disgust and self-pity. We’re all going to have bummer moments. That’s not the stuff I choose to share.

  Jason Mraz

  Song, Writing, Self

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• Self-pity gets you nowhere. But insight to see that something can be done with the second-bests and adventurous daring to try might be a handle to take hold of.

  Harry Emerson Fosdick

  Self, Trying, Done

  Harry Emerson Fosdick (1958). “Riverside sermons”

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• What will a Hillary Clinton presidency look like? The answer by now seems obvious: It will look like her presidential campaign, which in turn looks increasingly like the first Clinton presidency. Which is to say, high-minded ideals, lowered execution, half truths, outright lies (and imaginary flights), take-no prisoners politics, some very good policy ideas, a presidential spouse given to wallowing in anger and self-pity, and a succession of aides and surrogates pushed under the bus when things don't go right. Which is to say, often.

  Carl Bernstein

  Lying, Self, Ideas

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• Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow. Awareness of others is a healthy antidote to this self-focus.

  Kevin Malarkey

  Wall, Self, Focus

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• The people who ultimately reach their goals are those who don't give up. Instead of wallowing in self-pity or frustration - or throwing in the towel altogether - they explore what didn't work and course-correct.

  Lauren Mackler

  Perseverance, Giving Up, Don't Give Up

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• We must bring light to as many people as possible. Who has time to indulge in self-pity or guilt? In advanced self-giving you have no time for this. You just push these emotions out.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Yoga, Indulge In

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• The path of love has many opponents - fear, self-pity, anxiety, hate, lust, greed, avarice - all the usual freinds.

  Frederick Lenz

  Hate, Yoga, Self

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• When writing of oneself one should show no mercy. Yet why at the first attempt to discover one's own truth does all inner strength seem to melt away in floods of self-pity and tenderness and rising tears?

  Georges Bernanos

  Writing, Self, Inner Strength

  Georges Bernanos, Rémy Rougeau (2002). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, p.8, Da Capo Press

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