Quotes & Sayings About A Difficult Time In Life

It is difficult to feel things very strongly in a world wherein most of the time, the majority seem to be intoxicated and often senseless. — C. JoyBell C.

So I had made a decision which carried with it things that I could not articulate at the time. I had made the choice instinctively, and only later had given it meaning. The trip had never been billed in my mind as an adventure in the sense of something to be proved. And it struck me then that the most difficult things has been the decision to act, the rest had been merely tenacity
and the fears were paper tigers. One really could do anything one had decided to do whether it were changing a job, moving to a new place, divorcing a husband or whatever,m one really cold act to change and control one's life;and the procedure, the process, was its own reward. — Robyn Davidson

The attachment to parental figures I am trying to describe here is an attachment to parents who have inflicted injury on their children. It is an attachment that prevents us from helping ourselves. The unfulfilled natural needs of the child are later transferred to therapists, partners, or our own children. We cannot believe that those needs were really ignored, or possibly even trampled on by our parents in such a way that we were forced to repress them. We hope that the other people we relate to will finally give us what we have been looking for, understand, support, and respect us, and relieve us of the difficult decisions life brings with it. As these expectations are fostered by the denial of childhood reality, we cannot give them up. As I said earlier, they cannot be relinquished by an act of will. But they will disappear in time if we are determined to face up to our own truth. This is not easy. It is almost always painful. But it is possible. In — Alice Miller

You have perhaps waited for years to be freed from some need. For a long, long time you have looked out from the darkness in search of the light, and have had a difficult problem in life that you have not been able to solve in spite of great efforts. And then, when the time was fulfilled and God's hour had come, did not a solution, light, and deliverance come quite unexpectedly, perhaps quite differently than you thought? — Eberhard Arnold

The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be ... The computer resembles the magic of legend in this respect, too. If one character, one pause, of the incantation is not strictly in proper form, the magic doesn't work. Human beings are not accustomed to being perfect, and few areas of human activity demand it. Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program. — Fred Brooks

It does not say, 'Blessed are those who are persecuted because they are objectionable.' It does not say, 'Blessed are those who are having a hard time in their Christian life because they are being difficult.' It does not say, 'Blessed are those who are being persecuted as Christians because they are seriously lacking in wisdom and are really foolish and unwise in what they regard as being their testimony. — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

He was partly a young man of our time - that is, honest by nature, demanding the truth, seeking it and believing in it, and in that belief demanding immediate participation in it with all the strength of his soul; demanding an immediate deed, with an unfailing desire to sacrifice everything for this deed, even life. Although, unfortunately, these young men do not understand that the sacrifice of life is, perhaps, the easiest of all sacrifices in many cases, while to sacrifice, for example, five or six years of their ebulliently youthful life to hard, difficult studies, to learning, in order to increase tenfold their strength to serve the very truth and the very deed that they loved and set out to accomplish - such sacrifice is often almost beyond the strength of many of them. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Certainly it's very difficult to keep momentum going through a film which has as many characters as this does, and the piece took on a life of its own to try and shape it. That took all the time we had in editing. — John Crowley

It is difficult to make the right choices in life, so it's better to take it one step at a time". — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

There was a time when no difficult subjects were ever aired in the 'Lady', and sadly, life isn't like that. — Rachel Johnson

We humans, once we have become emotionally invested in a homeplace, a prized personal possession, or, especially, in another person, find it immensely difficult to give them up ... Because they were made at a time of life when we were utterly dependent on them, the love attachments of infancy have inordinate power over us, more than any other emotional investment. — Louise J. Kaplan

... the matter was new to me, and I had no material for its treatment. But I got books, read up the facts, laboriously constructed a skeleton out of the dry bones of the real, and then clothed them, and tried to breathe into them life, and in this last aim I had pleasure. With me it was a difficult and anxious time till my facts were found, selected, and properly pointed; nor could I rest from research and effort till I was satisfied of correct anatomy; the strength of my inward repugnance to the idea of flaw or falsity sometimes enabled me to shun egregious blunders; but the knowledge was not there in my head, ready and mellow; it had not been down in Spring, grown in Summer, harvested in Autumn, and garnered through Winter; whatever I wanted I must go out and gather fresh; glean of wild herbs my lap full, and shred them green into the pot. — Charlotte Bronte

I have learnt, that it is not possible (or I should say, it is very difficult) to have a perfect life. But life can be a collection of perfect moments. These can come at the most unexpected time, all we need to do is recognise them and capture them in our memories, and they become ours to treasure forever. — Parul Sheth

You're guaranteed to be lucky several times in your life-it's what you do with it. Young writers spend all their time worrying, in a way that David Gerrold did not and I did not. How do they get to meet the right people? How do they get to the right parties? If only someone would read my script ... Forget all that. All these things are easy and will happen. The way you get your script to the right people is that you put it in an envelope. It's fucking easy. The difficult bit is writing something that is so good people will take a punt on a brand new writer. That's it-you have to write an absolutely terrific script. — Steven Moffat

It's easy to see why dog rescue is a mushrooming culture. Turning a troubled person's life around is difficult, but rescuers with commitment and time and a few dollars can radically alter the fate of a dog. And there are millions of dogs - nearly 10 million in the shelter system, many others mistreated in private homes - in need of rescuing. — Jon Katz

Emotional baggage, which is carried over from the past, colors our perceptions. Likewise, past conclusions and beliefs, based on reasoning that may or may not have been accurate, also tint our perception of reality. Retaining our capacity for reason is common sense, but definite conclusions and beliefs keep us from seeing life as it really is at any given moment.
Emotional reactions can be unreasonable, and reason can be flawed. It's difficult to have deep confidence in either one, especially when they're often at war with each other. But the universal mind exists in the instant, in a moment beyond time, and it sees the universe as it literally is. It's the universe perceiving itself. It is, moreover, something we can have absolute confidence in, and with that confidence, we can maintain a genuinely positive attitude. — H.E. Davey

A book is a map ... There will be times in your life when you will feel lost and confused. The way back to yourself is through reading. There is not a problem in existence that has not been eased, somewhere and at some time, by a book ... The answers have all been written. And the more you read, the more you will know how to find your way through those difficult times. — Matt Haig

On a deeper level, there's a level of privacy that I need in order to work, and if there's been a time when there's been a lot of publicness in my life, it can be a little bit difficult to sort of rebuild that private space. — Stacey D'Erasmo

I sometimes wonder whether the act of surrender is not one of the greatest of all - the highest. It is one of the [most] difficult of all ... You see it's so immensely complicated. It needs real humility and at the same time, an absolute belief in one's own essential freedom. It is an act of faith. At the last moments, like all great acts, it is pure risk. This is true for me as a human being and as a writer. Dear Heaven, how hard it is to let go - to step into the blue. And yet one's creative life depends on it and one desires to do nothing else. — Katherine Mansfield

Difficult as his task may be, so is writing an act that is perpetually longing in its attempt to cull the surreptitious meaning of life, which is always located experiences, beyond the obvious, possible, experience that is renewed with each new writing as if it were lived for the first time is the experience that drives today's human being to live a perpetual state of tension as he stands face to face with destruction, death, torture, and solitude. — Luay Hamza Abbas

Whenever I feel 'less of myself', or as if I am not as productive as I can be, or abundance is not flowing into my life, or I am not laughing and smiling as much, or my relationships seem stuck and difficult, it is an indication that I am losing that connection. It is like being in a 'bad service area' where calls drop out. — Malti Bhojwani

Those who take lightly promises they make to those they love are people who find little lasting satisfaction in life. This is not an easy time in which to live. That does not mean that it has to be a difficult time to love, but it does mean that you will find unusual stresses upon your lives and your relationship. — Brandon Sanderson

Love, she told herself, would one day release her from this spell of unreality. She was persuaded that the sublime passion was the key to the enigma; but it was difficult to relate her conception of love to the forms it wore in her experience. Two or three of the girls she had envied for their superior acquaintance with the arts of life had contracted, in the course of time, what were variously described as "romantic" or "foolish" marriages; one even made a runaway match, and languished for a while under a cloud of social reprobation. Here, then, was passion in action, romance converted to reality; yet the heroines of these exploits returned from them untransfigured, and their husbands were as dull as ever when one had to sit next to them at dinner. Her own case, of course, would be different. — Edith Wharton

The instinctual nature tells us when enough is enough. It is prudent and life preserving....sometimes it is difficult for us to realize when we are losing our instincts, for it is often an insidious process that does not occur all in one day, but rather over a long period of time. Too, the loss or deadening of instinct is often entirely supported by the surrounding culture, and sometimes even by other women who endure the loss of instinct as a way of achieving belonging in a culture that keeps no nourishing habitat for the natural woman. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

They cannot understand that the figure of a laborer - some furrows in a plowed field, a bit of sand, sea and sky - are serious objects, so difficult but at the same time so beautiful, that it is indeed worth while to devote one's life to the task of expressing the poetry hidden in them. — Brenda Ueland

The tradition of nonviolence, optimism, concern for the individual, and unconditional compassion that developed in Tibet is the culmination of a slow inner revolution, a cool one, hard to see, that began 2,500 years ago with the Buddha's insight about the end of suffering. What I have learned from these people has forever changed my life, and I believe their culture contains an inner science particularly relevant to the difficult time in which we live. — Robert Thurman

IT SEEMS DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE, but there was once a time when human beings did not feel the need to share their every waking moment with hundreds of millions, even billions, of complete and utter strangers. If one went to a shopping mall to purchase an article of clothing, one did not post minute-by-minute details on a social networking site; and if one made a fool of oneself at a party, one did not leave a photographic record of the sorry episode in a digital scrapbook that would survive for all eternity. But now, in the era of lost inhibition, it seemed no detail of life was too mundane or humiliating to share. In the online age, it was more important to live out loud than to live with dignity. Internet followers were more treasured than flesh-and-blood friends, for they held the illusive promise of celebrity, even immortality. Were Descartes alive today, he might have written: I tweet, therefore I am. — Daniel Silva

I'm still trying to decide. It's a really difficult one because I really enjoy my time in the Air Force. And I'd love to continue it. But the pressures of my other life are building. And fighting them off or balancing the two of them has proven quite difficult. — Prince William

When a difficult situation comes into your life, it is possible to tune in to your mind and say, ?Okay, choose.? Are you going to make yourself miserable or content? Are you going to visualize scarcity or abundance? Are you going to put yourself down for getting angry with your husband or are you simply going to notice what insecurity you were feeling at the time and discuss it with him? The choice is definitely yours. Pick the one that contributes most to your aliveness and growth. — Susan Jeffers

It's a problem" is another deadening phrase. It's heavy and negative. "It's an opportunity" opens the door to growth. Each time you can see the gift in life's obstacles, you can handle difficult situations in a rewarding way. Each time you have the opportunity to stretch your capacity to handle the world, the more powerful you become. — Susan Jeffers

I confess to feeling continued ambivalence about political life, aware of its shortcomings and disappointments, but drawn back to it again and again because of its infinite promise. Justice can triumph, wrongs can be righted, and pain can be alleviated, if the right fix is found. The optimistic illusion that one can change the world is difficult to resist, especially when from time to time that illusion is sustained by even a hint of reality. Change does happen in the political process. — Madeleine M. Kunin

When you have mental illness you don't have a plaster or a cast or a crutch, that let everyone know that you have the illness, so people expect the same of you as from anyone else and when you are different they give you a hard time and they think you're being difficult or they think you're being a pain in the ass and they're horrible to you. You spend your life in Ireland trying to hide that you have a mental illness. — Sinead O'Connor

Once I had thought I was whole -- had seemed to be able to love a man, to bear a child, to heal the sick--and know that all these things were natural parts of me, not the difficult, troubled fragments into which my life had now disintegrated. But that had been in the past, the man I had loved was Jamie, and for a time, I had been part of something greater than myself. — Diana Gabaldon

Many people don't wake up. They fight against a difficult time, shut the window and become more bitter. Fortunately or unfortunately, however you see it, we are served up those opportunities over and over in our life. So if you've shut the window, don't worry, another hard time is going to come around the corner - to give you that chance all over again. — Elizabeth Lesser

Mustering this sad, mutinous little force, I drove them before me up the Linar gorge, cursing the lot of them. It was not difficult for me to work up a rage at this moment. All of a sudden I felt that revulsion against an alien way of life that anyone who travels in remote places experiences from time to time. I longed for clean clothes; the company of people who meant what they said, and did it. I longed for a hot bath and a drink. — Eric Newby

There are always things I find difficult - being in crowds, remembering faces. I do like routines. I always travel with someone. My life in Avignon is a very quiet one. I have an apartment that looks over the whole city. I can drop into town, but a lot of the time I write from home. In some respects I still live a very quiet, simple life. — Daniel Tammet

It's very difficult to look at the World
and into your heart at the same time.
In between, a life has passed. — Jim Harrison

[Christians] must become, must be known as, the people who don't hold grudges, who don't sulk. We must be the people who know how to say "Sorry," and who know how to respond when other people say it to us. It is remarkable, once more, how difficult this still seems, considering how much time the Christian church has had to think about it and how much energy has been spent on expounding the New Testament, where the advice is all so clear. Perhaps it's because we have tried, if at all, to do it as though it were just a matter of obeying an artificial command
and then, finding it difficult, have stopped trying because nobody else seems to be very good at it either. Perhaps it might be different if we reminded ourselves frequently that we are preparing for life in God's new world, and that the death and resurrection of Jesus, which by baptism constitute our own new identity, offer us both the motivation and the energy to try again in a new way. — N. T. Wright

I started sharpening pencils at the census and how that was a difficult time in my life because my marriage was ending and I had quit cartooning and I didn't know what to do with myself. — David Rees

But I did not bring the Wild Boy to England simply so he could learn from us. I also brought him here so we could learn from him; so we can remember what it means to be young- to be innocent. You are still young now, but there will come a time when you will be grown-up, and it is easy, so easy, to forget how precious, how dear, life is. Then you forget to smile, to laugh, to cry, to dream. I hope knowing Peter will help you to hold on fiercely to your own innocence, to live joyfully, even in the midst of difficult times. — Christopher Daniel Mechling

In order to understand the symbolic indications of the unconscious, one must be careful not to get outside oneself or "beside oneself," but to stay emotionally within oneself. Indeed, it is vitally important that the ego should continue to function in normal ways. Only if I remain an ordinary human being, conscious of my incompleteness, can I become receptive to the significant contents and processes of the unconscious. But how can a human being stand the tension of feeling himself at one with the whole universe, while at the same time he is only a miserable earthly human creature? If, on the one hand, I despise myself as merely a statistical cipher, my life has no meaning and is not worth living. But if, on the other hand, I feel myself to be part of something much greater, how am I to keep my feet on the ground? It is very difficult indeed to keep these inner opposites united within oneself without toppling over into one or the other extreme. — C. G. Jung

The career world is like an ecological system: People occupy particular fields within which they must compete for resources and survival. The more people there are crowded into a space, the harder it becomes to thrive there. Working in such a field will tend to wear you out as you struggle to get attention, to play the political games, to win scarce resources for yourself. You spend so much time at these games that you have little time left over for true mastery. You are seduced into such fields because you see others there making a living, treading the familiar path. You are not aware of how difficult such a life can be. — Robert Greene

If you can't enjoy the time between golf shots, then you are going to have a pretty difficult life because most of you life is the time spent in-between. — Peter Jacobsen

When I have a difficult decision to make, I imagine myself as a 90-year-old guy looking back on his life. I imagine what I'll think about myself at that point in time, and it always makes it really easy to go for it. You're only going to regret that you wimped out. — Nick Woodman

People say I've had a difficult time in life. I think I've had an exciting time in life. — Iyanla Vanzant

Passing beneath the dance hall, thinking again of this book, I realized suddenly that our life had come to an end: I realized that the book I was planning was nothing more than a tomb in which to bury her - and the me which had belonged to her. That was some time ago, and ever since I have been trying to write it. Why is it so difficult? Why? Because the idea of an "end" is intolerable to me. — Henry Miller

You want so very much to adhere to your comfortable, uncomplicated contrasting color scheme. But that part of you that is no longer delicate, the pieces of you that have been impressed upon time and time again are making it difficult. You are beginning to understand, perhaps quite reluctantly, that life is cast in shades of grey. And that grey, whether it leans towards a lighter washed out version, or towards a never ending darkness, is not in the business of solace. — Tamara Thiel

In order for agape to flourish, I must not be afraid to change my life. If I liked what I was doing, very well. But if I did not, there was always the time for a change. If I allowed change to occur, I would be transforming myself into a fertile field and allowing the Creative Imagination to sow its seeds in me.
"Everything I have taught you, include agape, makes sense only if you are satisfied with yourself. If you are not, then the exercises you have learned are inevitably going to make you seek change. And if you do not want all of those exercises to work against you, you have to allow change to happen.
"This is the most difficult moment in a person's life
when the person witnesses the good fight and is unable to change and join the battle. When this happens, knowledge turns against the person who holds it. — Paulo Coelho

I think everyone, at some time in his life, has this happen to him, comes face to face with the bitter realization that he has failed in something that means a tremendous amount and probably in a relation that is close to him. Life teaches you that you cannot attain real maturity until you are ready to accept this harsh knowledge, this limitation in yourself, and make the difficult adjustment. Either you must learn to allow someone else to meet the need, without bitterness or envy, and accept it; or somehow you must make yourself learn to meet it. If you refuse to accept the limitation in yourself, you will be unable to grow beyond this point. — Eleanor Roosevelt

It's difficult to write a really good short story because it must be a complete and finished reflection of life with only a few words to use as tools. There isn't time for bad writing in a short story. — Edna Ferber

If I'm convinced that I'm not good enough, I will have a difficult time accepting someone into my life who thinks I am. It's the Groucho Marx syndrome of not wanting to like anyone who would want me in their club. The only way that I can accept someone's finding me wonderful, is if I find myself wonderful. But to the ego, self-acceptance is death. — Marianne Williamson

I got married at a very young age, and of course, for all the wrong reasons, and ended up divorced and lost everything. It was a very difficult time in my life. — Willie Aames

When [what you are deeply passionate about, what you can be best in the world at and what drives your economic engine] come together, not only does your work move toward greatness, but so does your life. For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you've had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time here on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered. — James C. Collins

In 1970, I wrote in the New York Times, of all uncongenial places, It is possible to stop most drug addiction in the United States within a very short time. Simply make all drugs available and sell them at cost. Label each drug with a precise description of what effect - good or bad - the drug will have on the taker. This will require heroic honesty. Don't say that marijuana is addictive or dangerous when it is neither, as millions of people know - unlike "speed," which kills most unpleasantly, or heroin, which can be addictive and difficult to kick. Along with exhortation and warning, it might be good for our citizens to recall (or learn for the first time) that the United States was the creation of men who believed that each person has the right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere with his neighbors' pursuit of happiness (that his neighbor's idea of happiness is persecuting others does confuse matters a bit). — Gore Vidal

When walking away from something we were once committed to, we often hesitate. Deciding to make a major change in life is difficult. But we all reach a point when we're done - done giving to a world that only takes. Until then, you'll want, you'll wait, and you'll contemplate change. When you're truly done, you'll know. You'll know when the time comes. — Scott Hildreth

Democracy destroys the unity of the Rumanian nation, dividing it among political parties, making Rumanians hate one another, and thus exposing a divided people to the united congregation of Jewish power at a difficult time in the nation's history. This argument alone is so persuasive as to warrant the discarding of democracy in favor of anything that would ensure our unity
or life itself. For disunity means death. — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

I firmly believe in small gestures: pay for their coffee, hold the door for strangers, over tip, smile or try to be kind even when you don't feel like it, pay compliments, chase the kid's runaway ball down the sidewalk and throw it back to him, try to be larger than you are - particularly when it's difficult. People do notice, people appreciate. I appreciate it when it's done to (for) me. Small gestures can be an effort, or actually go against our grain ("I'm not a big one for paying compliments ... "), but the irony is that almost every time you make them, you feel better about yourself. For a moment life suddenly feels lighter, a bit more Gene Kelly dancing in the rain. — Jonathan Carroll

Become accustomed to seeing life as something we can pause in order to document it, get another thread running in it, or hook it up to another feed. We've seen that in all of this activity, we no longer experience interruptions as disruptions. We experience them as connection. We seek them out, and when they're not there, we create them. Interruptions enable us to avoid difficult feelings and awkward moments. They become a convenience. And over time we have trained our brains to crave them. Of course, all of this makes it hard to settle down into conversation. — Sherry Turkle

Unfortunately, while free time might be a necessary condition for happiness, by itself it is not sufficient to guarantee it. Learning how to use it beneficially turns out to be more difficult than expected. Nor does it seem that more of a good thing is necessarily better; as is true of so many other things, what enriches life in small quantities might impoverish it in larger doses. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

For most people, an hour a day playing our favorite games will power up our ability to engage whole-heartedly with difficult challenges, strengthen our relationships with the people we care about most - while still letting us notice when it's time to stop playing in virtual worlds and bring our gamer strengths back to real life. — Jane McGonigal

Playing Super Mario Bros. 2 again, in the two-bedroom apartment I share with my wife, is to re-learn the productivity of cussing. Playing any game, for that matter, bends my larynx into the saltiest shapes imaginable. With time comes an understanding that the game on your screen is nothing compared to life's true challenges. Still, with each fall down a pit or graze of a fireball-spitting plant, my mild-mannered speech pattern gives way to filth. Super Mario Bros. 2 is not even known as a difficult game. But to a player of limited and rusty skills, i.e., your author, it pushes back. — Jon Irwin

God will place a variety of people in your life who will not necessarily love you in a way that makes you feel loved completely. Adapt to that and try to just see through to their heart and what life experiences may have caused their love limits. Forgiveness is extremely difficult but necessary. It make take time and serious effort, but choose daily to live in the now and let go of grudges. — T. TaJuan Mercer

I love the romance of the '40s. It was the perfect time to live. Technology wasn't so advanced that it made life more difficult, but it was just enough that you can send a phone call or a telegram. And people still took pride in how they looked. The men got dressed up and the women got dressed up and they took care of themselves. — Bethany Joy Lenz

During this time I came to understand a lot about myself, human beings, faith and the meaning of marriage and friendship. The world is not black and white, nothing is what it seems, and we are not cartoon characters that can be divided into goodies and baddies, but complex and multi-faceted beings with many weaknesses. Human beings will always disappoint. But God is there. He sometimes speaks through others and we would be wise to listen to those we trust and to our own inner voice, God's voice. No matter how difficult or painful life sometimes becomes, we must never lose faith.

We may not always find justice in this world, but compassion and forgiveness are such important qualities. They help us to dissolve so much of the negativity that we hold. Practising them mostly benefits ourselves. — Kristiane Backer

I made a decision a long time ago that I was going to choose joy. I even painted a big rectangle on my wall and printed it in big letters so I wouldn't forget to make that choice every day. The major word in that rectangle isn't joy, it's CHOOSE. It's looking around me when life is difficult and trading every complaint I have for something beautiful in my life that far outweighs it. I know, it's that Pollyanna personified thing again, but living joyful beats being cynical any day of the week. — Jessica N. Turner

Think about your particular assignment at this time in your life. It may be to get an education, it may be to rear children, it may be to be a grandparent, it may be to care for an relieve the suffering of someone you love, it may be to do a job in the most excellent way possible, it may be to support someone who has a difficult assignment of their own. Our assignments are varied and they change from time to time. Don't take them lightly. Give them your full heart and energy. Do them with enthusiasm. Do whatever you have to do this week with your whole heart and soul. To do less than this will leave you with an empty feeling. — Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I had a difficult time hearing my own inner voice about what I wanted to be in this life, because there were all these perfect examples of what a man actually does. The notion is that he goes to college, gets married and provides. That's what a man does. — Kevin Costner

When man comes to the realization that he is not the "favorite" of God; that he was not specially created, that the universe was not made for his benefit, and that he is subject to the same laws of nature as all other forms of life, then, and not until then, will he understand that he must rely upon himself, and himself alone, for whatever benefits he is to enjoy; and devote his time and energies to helping himself and his fellow men to meet the exigencies of life and to set about to solve the difficult and intricate problems of living.
The recognition of a problem is the first step to its solution - We are not "fallen" angels, nor were we "created" perfect.
On the contrary, we are the product of millions of years of an unpurposed evolution. We are the descendants and inheritors of all the defects of our primitive ancestry - the evolution of the myriad forms of life from the infinitesimal to the mammoth - from the worm to the dinosaur. — Joseph Lewis

Learn to be difficult when it counts. In school as in life, having a reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time. — Timothy Ferriss

I was raised by my grandmother. She had a very difficult time, raised all her kids, my father and everybody. Listening to those stories and finding her so strong, poised. Anybody who came close to her was made to feel blessed. And at the same time, it didn't matter how strong a person was, in front of her, their head would go down. She carried through her life raising everybody. That is my model. — Rajashree Choudhury

Have you noticed how difficult it is just to get along in the world? If you're no good at all in your job, people treat you badly and eventually you will be unemployed. And if you're a little better than competent, everyone expects miracles from you, every single time. Like most of life, it's a no-win situation. And if you dare to mention it, no matter how creatively you phrase your complaints, you are shunned as a whiner. — Jeff Lindsay

Like all human beings, Bob [Crane] had feelings and emotions. He danced on the moon, jumped for joy, laughed in ecstasy, and leapt in triumph. He also cried in grief, mourned losses, threw his hands up to the sky in frustration, and felt desperate, scared, sad, and alone. Bob's flaws - the mistakes and bad choices he made, the most difficult moments he faced, and his descent into the jaws of a powerful addiction - were all but a part of his whole life journey. His flaws were merely the specks, like the specks on the Parthenon that comprise any person's entire time on earth... In spite of his flaws, he was a kind person, a joyful person, a talented person, a courageous person - a whole person. — Carol M. Ford

So often when God places a call on one of His children, the ability to answer the call requires a separation between the old life and the new life. We are called away from the old in order to prepare our heart for what is to come. This can be a painful and difficult separation. Joseph was separated from his family. Jacob was sent to live with his uncle Laban. Moses was sent to the desert. Perhaps God has placed you in your own desert period. Perhaps you cannot make sense of the situation in which you find yourself. If you, like Paul, will get intimate with God during this time, He will reveal the purposes He has for you. The key is pressing into Him. Seek Him with a whole heart, and He will be found. — Os Hillman

Jean-Yves looked up at his mother's face, her greying chignon, her harsh features: it was difficult to feel a rush of tenderness, of affection for this woman; as far back as he could remember, she had never really been one for hugs; it was equally difficult to imagine her in the role of a sensual lover, a slut. He suddenly realised that his father must have been bored shitless his whole life. He felt terribly shocked by this, his hands tensed on the edge of the table: this time it was irreparable, it was definitive. In despair, he tried to recall a moment when he had seen his father beaming, happy, genuinely glad to be alive. — Michel Houellebecq

It is not only the hostility of others that may prevent us from questioning the status quo. Our will to doubt can be just as powerfully sapped by an internal sense that societal conventions must have a sound basis, even if we are not sure exactly what this may be, because they have been adhered to by a great many people for a long time. It seems implausible that our society could be gravely mistaken in its beliefs, and at the same time, that we would be alone in noticing the fact. We stifle our doubts, and follow the flock, because we cannot conceive of ourselves as pioneers of hitherto unknown difficult truths. It is for help in overcoming our meekness that we can turn to the philosopher. — Alain De Botton

At LeakyCon, a young lady asked me how I dealt with bullying. I wasn't able to give her a very good answer, which troubles me. Well, there were lots of shouts of "It gets better" and "Stay strong" and "We love you". But when I put myself back in time to when I was being bullied, none of those things would've helped me. Yes, absolutely it does get better. But when you are being physically and psychologically tortured, it is difficult to remove yourself from the pressingness of the moment at hand. Here's how I dealt with bullying: I cried, I hated myself, I hated my life. I didn't deal with it, I survived it, but I never dealt with it. So here are two tips from someone with lots of experience. 1: It's not about you, it has nothing to do with you, it's about the assholes doing it to you. 2: Your job is not to deal with it, your job is to survive it, which you CAN do because it WILL end. And then yes, it will get better. — Hank Green

It's easy to feel happy when things are going your way. The trick is to remain inspired in difficult situations. That's where life stops being a game of chance and becomes one of skill. That's when, if you can stay serene in the face of adversity, you get back on track in half the time it might otherwise take. — Jonathan Cainer

It is easy to make stuff up - and easy to dig up information and repeat it or report it to others. But to find a real life story with real people in real life situations is quite difficult and time-consuming. Yet, the rewards are worth the effort. — Lee Gutkind

Before you ever get the person you really want in your life, you will be tested with every person that was wrong for you. You will be tempted with what was easy, what was familiar, what was only physical, what was safe and what was simply a friend to pull you out of a difficult situation because you didn't want to be alone. When you finally meet the person you were meant to be with you won't have to guess, decide or choose. You will be drawn to them. They will seem to fit who you are, but at the same time have the missing pieces that makes you want to become a better person. There is no need to be guarded because this soul is like your own and talking to them about the deepest things in life are effortless. They won't be like any other you have met and you will find yourself looking for parts of them in everyone you meet. — Shannon L. Alder

Writing has taught me a lot - though far from everything - about writing, so as time has passed, it has become more pleasurable if not easier. I've done other things in life, but writing is by a factor of 10 the most difficult among them. And, of course, you never achieve what you set out to achieve, so you must keep on trying to do better. — Charles McCarry

I could give one, if you wish," Sazed said, "but I do not think you need one. I have known you both for some time, and am willing to give my blessing to this union. I simply offer counsel. Those who take lightly promises they make to those they love are people who find little lasting satisfaction in life. This is not an easy time in which to live. That does not mean that it has to be a difficult time to love, but it does mean that you will find unusual stresses upon your lives and your relationship. "Do not forget the love oath you made to each other this evening. It will give you much strength in the days to come, I think. — Brandon Sanderson

I have learned that bitterness, resentment and self-pity do nothing to lift the gloomy clouds of a spiritual February in my life. If anything, these sins only harden the soil of my heart, making it difficult for new growth to spring forth at God's appointed time. — Katherine J. Walden

'Life's That Way' was an extraordinarily difficult book to write, because it wasn't written as a book. It was written as a journal of events that were happening as I wrote it, without the space or time either to digest or analyze those events and without the hindsight and peace that writing in the aftermath would have provided. — Jim Beaver

I said, "I don't think I can give you that kind of emotion." And he [Hitchcock] sat there and said, "Ingrid, fake it!" Well, that was the best advice I've had in my whole life, because in all the years to come there were many directors who gave me what I thought were quite impossible instructions and many difficult things to do, and just when I was on the verge of starting to argue with them, I heard his voice coming to me through the air saying, "Ingrid, fake it!" It saved a lot of unpleasant situations and waste of time. — Ingrid Bergman

We live in a time where the media is a very difficult thing to navigate because it's everywhere, and I tend to want to be a lot more private with my life. — Emily VanCamp

To love, we need to be sensitive to those around us, which is impossible if we are racing through life engrossed in all the things we need to do before sunset. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that a person who is always late will find it difficult to love; he will be in too much of a hurry. — Eknath Easwaran

When my father died, I had millions of people supporting me in a very, very difficult time. I have received so much from this country. I realize that we're defined in life not by what we get from this world but by what we have to offer it, and I know that I have a lot to offer this country, and I'm serious about devoting my life to it. — Justin Trudeau

There was something I was always very good at, however, and that was teaching myself not to be frightened while frightening things are going on. It is difficult to do this, but I had learned. It is simply a matter of putting one's fear aside, like the vegetable on the plate you don't want to touch until all of your rice and chicken are gone, and getting frightened later, when one is out of danger. Sometimes I imagine I will be frightened for the rest of my life because of all of the fear I put aside during my time in Stain'd-by-the-Sea. — Lemony Snicket

No matter how difficult something you or a loved one faces, it should not take over your life and be the center of all your interest. Challenges are growth experiences,temporary scenes to be played out on the background of a pleasant life. Don't become so absorbed in a single event that you can't think of anything else or care for yourself or for those who depend upon you. Remember, much like the mending of the body, the healing of some spiritual and emotional challenges takes time. — Richard G. Scott

Writing is like wrestling; you are wrestling with ideas and with the story. There is a lot of energy required. At the same time, it is exciting. So it is both difficult and easy. What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing. I have said in the kind of exaggerated manner of writers and prophets that writing, for me, is like receiving a term of imprisonment-you know that's what you're in for, for whatever time it takes. — Chinua Achebe

When I turned thirty, I briefly flirted with the notion of undergoing sexual reassignment surgery. Once again, I was ready for a big change in my life. Plus, I was having a really difficult time meeting gay guys who didn't seem gay yet were still caustic. So I figured, as a woman I would have a whole new pool of men from which to fish.
I decided that I would probably opt for the self-lubricating vagioplasty option. ... the plus side of this vagina was that it was, like the name implies, self-lubricating. So I wouldn't need to give myself away and reach for the K-Y. On the downside, it was always self-lubricating, so you had to wear a maxipad at all times, even at funerals. — Augusten Burroughs

At this time in history, sick, afraid, and despondent are the general conditions that affect the majority of poeple almost everywhere. It's difficult and challenging to follow the call of conscience when we're under the dark veil of these forces. At the same time, it's painful not to follow it.
When you become healthy, courageous, and hopeful, following your conscience becomes easier. When people are healthy, courageous, and hopeful, it's difficult to bend their mind and will. You can't force them to do what you'd like them to do against their will. They will speak out what they believe, and stand up and do what is right even when it means a loss to them.
I am hopeful because I have witnessed this change throughout my life. From the realization of what I really am, I became hopeful, courageous, and passionate for life, and I felt responsible for the general condition of humanity and the Earth because they are not separate from me. — Ilchi Lee

The life of an Essentialist is a life lived without regret. If you have correctly identified what really matters, if you invest your time and energy in it, then it is difficult to regret the choices you make. You become proud of the life you have chosen to live. — Greg McKeown

It can be difficult to leave a long-term relationship, even when our inner-wisdom tells us it's time to let go. At this point, we can choose let go and endure the intense pain of leaving behind the familiar to make way for a new chapter in our life. Or we can stay and suffer a low-grade pain that slowly eats away at our heart and soul, like an emotional cancer. Until we wake up, one day and realize, we are buried so deep in the dysfunction of the relationship that we scarcely remember who we were and what we wanted and needed to be. — Jaeda DeWalt

Just like in the real world, the world in our minds is real. You cannot have both positive and negative thoughts at the same time. Negativity brings us down when we should actually be enjoying life and getting the most out of it. Mental de-cluttering is really about getting rid of your worries, bad memories, fears and disappointments, and starting on a new footing where the past doesn't matter. You decide on what you are going to carry with you to a new and better life. Remember, the more the baggage you carry with you, the more difficult life would be. Focus more on the things you have control over; if you cannot handle something now forget about it altogether. — Jesse Jacobs

When you practice Dynamic Meditation for the first time this will be difficult, because we have suppressed the body so much that a suppressed pattern of life has become natural to us. It is not natural! Look at a child: he plays with his body in quite a different way. If he is crying, he is crying intensely. The cry of a child is a beautiful thing to hear, but the cry of an adult is ugly. Even in anger a child is beautiful; he has a total intensity. But when an adult is angry he is ugly; he is not total. And any type of intensity is beautiful. — Rajneesh

Time is the great healer. No matter how difficult the circumstances that cross our path, it takes time for our emotions, minds and spirit to process what's happened. Rushing to make choices too quickly can send us down the wrong fork in the road. It's normal and natural to feel overwhelmed, out of sorts and confused when a major change knocks on our door. While you may be forced to make some choices quickly, delay as many choices as possible until time has worked its magic. When you feel on solid ground again, you will be ready to make better choices about the future. — Don Shapiro

It is the misfortune of contemporary leaders, across the whole spectrum of Australian life, that the community's demand for strong leadership is growing in direct proportion to our lack of confidence in ourselves. The end of this century is an unusually difficult time to be a leader in Australia. — Hugh Mackay

Individuals somehow are led to find my books at times that are important to them. The mail that I get very, very often will say, "I was at a difficult time in my life, and someone gave me a copy." — Richard Bach

How could she have reacted like that? She didn't understand what had come over her. She'd felt his passion and her own. It made her anxious. On edge. For something. Something that made her skin prickle whenever he was in the room with her. Indeed, she found it difficult to concentrate when he was
around. He was big and strong and smelled incredible. She wanted to curl up against his chest and never leave. She'd never had such strong urges. But then again, she'd never met a man who made her feel so protected simply by his solid presence and his confident command of everything around him. His strength was strangely soothing. She couldn't remember a time in her life when she'd felt so ... content. — Monica McCarty