Notoriously Difficult Quotes & Sayings

It didn't have to be a newfound respect for the craft, I knew that it's notoriously difficult and frightens a lot of people off. I don't think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but the dying actor who says: "dying is easy, comedy is hard." I hear it. — Colin Firth

Lower case Ss are notoriously difficult to get right. But in Helvetica it's not straight - you want to go in there and tighten it up. And the 'a' looks so woolly and ill-conceived, it really winds me up. — Bruno Maag

[She] had heard it said that there was only one emotion which, in recollection, was capable of resurrecting the full immediacy and power of the original - one emotion that time could never fade, and that would drag you back any number of years into the pure, undiluted feeling, as if you were living it anew. It wasn't love ... and it wasn't hate, or anger, or happiness, or even grief. Memories of those were but echoes of the true feeling.
It was shame. Shame never faded. — Laini Taylor

I never realised how powerful desire could be. It consumes every part of you, enhancing your senses by a million. — Colleen Hoover

-they were still practicing the fiendishly difficult pattern at the end of the act where the diagonal lines of swans cross over and dissolve to form three groups: unequal groups, since the number seventeen is notoriously difficult to divide by three. — Eva Ibbotson

There's a strong social urge in man to be needed. — Jo Nesbo

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Modern slavery is a hidden crime and notoriously difficult to measure. — Mo Ibrahim

There's nothing wrong with being scared ... It happens to all of us. What's wrong is if we don't try things because we're afraid. We can't hide away from the things that scare us. — Kristin Hannah

Watercolour painting is notoriously difficult - so much depends on directness and speed, and certainty of intention. Tentative or fumbling touches are disastrous, for they cannot be obliterated easily. — Walter J. Phillips

I have always been thoroughly bewildered by North Korea. They cannot be threatened, as they feel themselves superior to the one making the threat. They cannot be reasoned with, and most importantly, they are 100 percent convinced of their righteousness, so they cannot be bought. Megalomaniacs with delusions of grandeur are notoriously difficult to handle, but how generations of them can follow one another is beyond me. — Sylvain Neuvel

We are a species addicted to a stories. — Jonathan Gottschall

I never really understood what a three-year itch meant because I never felt it before. Before Johnny, my relationships had a four-month expiration date. — Kath C. Eustaquio-Derla

Productivity is notoriously difficult to predict. — Alan Greenspan

[Opera] does not call so much for an imaginative ear as for an imaginative eye, an eye which can see beyond little absurdities toward great truths. — George Richard Marek

Every November, during the certain holiday people love so much, people take a dead turkey, open up the dead turkey's ass, or carve out a really big hole in their ass, take some stuffing and shove it inside their dead empty ass, and use the little dead ass as an oven to bake some bread. Somebody else's dead empty bacteria-laden ass to make bread? Ass bread?! And people think vegans are weird? Because we eat tofu? And rice, and beans, and lentils? — Gary Yourofsky

Seems to me you've got two choices: one, you can get in a gunfight with the United States government - because that always ends well - or you can run downstairs, get as many of your boys out through the emergency exits as you can, and order the rest to surrender. Your call, but bail money's a lot cheaper than a tombstone. — Craig Schaefer

In the following pages I argue that we have both philosophical and scientific reasons to doubt the adequacy of this widely accepted doctrine of materialism. In the history of Western philosophy, as we will see, it has turned out to be notoriously difficult to formulate a viable concept of matter. And physics in the twentieth century has produced weighty reasons to think that some of the core tenets of materialism were mistaken. These results, when combined with the new theories of information, complexity, and emergence summarized elsewhere in this volume, point toward alternative accounts of the natural world that deserve careful attention and critical evaluation. — Paul Davies

It's not a girl's glittering personality that men're interested in, Holly. It never bloody is. — David Mitchell

Midterm elections for first-term presidents are notoriously difficult. — Tim Kaine

Hmm. Relationships between fathers and sons can be notoriously difficult, especially for two men who are as different as you and your father are."
"Yes, and he's also the king
that makes our relationship impossible. — Lynn Austin

Effort, not ability, makes the biggest difference in achievement. — William J. Clinton

Breakfast is a notoriously difficult meal to serve with a flourish. — Clement Freud

Endometriosis is notoriously difficult to diagnose because the symptoms are perverse. A woman with mild endometriosis can be in an agony for days every month (or every day for every month); women with the severe kind can have hardly any pain at all, like me. — Rose George

Well, the attractive thing about the subject of happiness is that it is notoriously difficult to write. — Edward St. Aubyn

Naming a fairy is notoriously difficult, because they don't particularly like to be named. There are so many of them, and humans have always wanted to categorize them. In that way, we think we can have more control over them. — Brian Froud

There's never a beginning for eternity. — Toba Beta

Growing up, I loved magic, I loved acting, I loved comedy. I really didn't know what direction I was going. I was trying a whole bunch of stuff. — Michael Carbonaro

Even if we don't want to admit it, the ability to overcome most obstacles is within our hands. We can't blame family, society, or history if our work is meaningless, dull, or stressful. Admittedly, there are not too many options when we realize that our job is useless, or actually harmful. Perhaps the only choice is to quit as quickly as possible, even at the cost of severe financial hardship. In terms of the bottom line of one's life, it is always a better deal to do something one feels good about than something that may make us materially comfortable but emotionally miserable. Such decisions are notoriously difficult, and require great honesty with oneself. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

It is notoriously difficult to define the word living. — Francis Crick

The whole bullying issue has really struck a nerve with me. It affects so many different types of people at a vital time in their lives. — Kenny Wormald

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. 'It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]' (Gen. 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is 'notoriously difficult to translate.' The various attempts we have in English are "helper" or "companion" or the notorious "help meet." Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat ... disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing "One day I shall be a help meet?" Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it "sustainer beside him"
The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately. — Stasi Eldredge