Struggling Work Quotes & Sayings

So struggling for work here has been very good for me, but it's also been very hard to handle rejection. — Patricia Velasquez

In order to deserve, we must pay our dues and steadily work for perfection. We must relish in struggle, and relinquish pride. We must dispel fear and seek enlightenment. We must shun division and honor love. We must know our hearts and seek to understand others. We must try, live, create, feel, grow and love. — Bryant McGill

Well, I wasn't going to abuse him. I was only going to ask: Is there any quality which distinguishes his work from that of twenty struggling writers one could name? Of course not. He's a clever, prolific man; so are they. But he began with money and friends; he came from Oxford into the thick of advertised people; his name was mentioned in print six times a week before he had written a dozen articles. This kind of thing will become the rule. Men won't succeed in literature that they may get into society, but will get into society that they may succeed in literature. — George Gissing

Nobody does nothing. Everybody does something, sometimes nothing is something in the idle man's world. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Competition is. In every business, no matter how small or how large, someone is just around the corner forever trying to steal your ideas and build his success out of your imagination, struggling after that which you have toiled endless years to secure, striving to outdo you in each and every way. If such a competitor would work as hard to originate as he does to copy, he would much more quickly gain success. — Alice Foote MacDougall

What was true of an ancient community of Christian believers struggling with a powerful and appealing philosophy is also true for Christians in a postmodern context. Arguments that deconstruct the regimes of truth at work in the late modern culture of global capitalism are indispensable. So also is a deeper understanding of the counterideological force of the biblical tradition. But such arguments are no guarantee that the biblical metanarrative will not be co-opted for ideological purposes of violent exclusion, nor do arguments prove the truth of the gospel. Only the nonideological, embracing, forgiving and shalom-filled life of a dynamic Christian community formed by the story of Jesus will prove the gospel to be true and render the idolatrous alternatives fundamentally implausible. — Brian J. Walsh

I grew up in a family struggling for work. — Rick Scott

In my work with young Jewish adults in the gay community, I hear their stories of discrimination, of struggling for acceptance, of feeling invisible not for what they have done but simply for who they are. — Lynn Schusterman

Not surprisingly, people with PTSD commonly feel detached or estranged from others. People who have endured combat, rape, disaster work, and other forms of trauma often assume that they are now different and that no one could possibly relate to their experiences. They might feel that they can't tell others about what happened or what they did for fear of judgment, and the secrets and fear of being shunned lead to their feeling disconnected from others. Because they no longer feel comfortable in social situations, they might avoid gatherings - or they might go but find no pleasure in them. Of course, to connect with others, people need to be emotionally open. This is difficult when one is still struggling to contain memories of the past. — Glenn Schiraldi

I know it's hard to see," he said, "but God shows me his work in you every time we meet. I see your faith growing inside you like a beautiful spring bud, just ready to blossom. Whatever you think you're facing, the obstacles you's struggling to overcome, they's like rain feeding that bud inside you. Don't fear the storm. He's in the storm, just like he's in the gentle breeze. He gots you right where he wants you." I hugged — Jennifer H. Westall

We all faced painful ethical challenges before we even knew how to spell our names. There were tough choices. Tradeoffs. Confusing signals regarding how to live one's life. And here we are now, today, still struggling. Still trying to sort things out. Still trying to work our way through life effectively. About the only thing that has changed is the scope of the problem. There's more at stake now. And we're in a position, as grownups, to do a lot more-good or bad-for ourselves, our organization, our world. But we still must wrestle with our imperfect ethics. — Price Pritchett

I'm constantly struggling. You know, the stories that I feel like I could cover, do the work that I want to do and being a mother. That's really where my struggle is - and being a wife and having a life - and for me it's really hard to find that balance. I'm always struggling to find that balance. — Lynsey Addario

This great artist is a man whose life-time is consumed by struggle : partly against material circumstances, partly against incomprehension, partly against himself ... In no other culture has the artist been thought of in this way. Why then in this culture? We have already referred to the exigencies of the open art market. But the struggle was not only to live. Each time a painter realized that he was dissatisfied with the limited role of painting as a celebration of material property and of the status that accompanied it, he inevitably found himself struggling with the very language of his own art as understood by the tradition of his calling.
...
Every exceptional work was the result of a prolonged successful struggle. Innumerable works involved no struggle. There were also prolonged yet unsuccessful struggles. (P.104) — John Berger

The wave came again and carried them out onto the sea of pain, where he wondered again why life ever came into the world...The tide that drew them out into the troubled waters once again spent itself, and they floated slowly back, resting for a minute or so, only to be dragged out again. He held her up while she contracted and pushed inside herself, trying to open the petals of her flowering body...He lifted her, trying to free the load she was struggling with, but she was straining against the traces, getting nowhere, her eyes like those of a draft horse...Who would choose this, thought Laski, this work, this woe? Life enslaves us, makes us want children, gives us a thousand illusions about love, and all so that it can go forward. — William Kotzwinkle

Setting proper expectations from the moment you meet a potential client will reduce stress and enable all parties to work together, rather than struggling contentiously through the process. — Michelle Moore

I tried something when my career was really struggling: reaching out to people, to filmmakers I wanted to work with. I genuinely wrote a letter to Clint Eastwood saying, "Hey man, I'm a fan and I would be an extra in your movie." — Josh Lucas

I think my father kept struggling to get us into better neighborhoods, better schools. One of the worst jobs he had was folding shirts under these fluorescent lights all day at the equivalent of a Kmart. I remember visiting him at work, thinking, 'When I grow up, I've got to do anything else.' — Terry Zwigoff

It's been a struggling school for many, many years, and [that's] not surprising since it's serving some of the most disadvantaged kids in the city. It wasn't the only one by any means, but it was among those. It shows that things like good, steady, stable leadership makes a huge difference; focusing on the culture of the schools as a place where kids feel supported and want to be; supporting the teachers, so they want to stay and work hard. — Pedro Noguera

Power to Laura Boudreau-McPherson-O'Brien: Laura's Story is about a woman finding her place in the world, and her voice, while struggling against poverty, societal limitations, and at times, herself. Anyone who has had to fight for what she believes in or come up against odds be they external or internal, will relate to this book. Women will feel strength and will realize that though this novel is a work of fiction, it is authentic in its aim to give a voice to many women's untold stories. Happy International Women's Day everyone! — Julie Larade

You can hardly imagine how I am struggling to exert my poetical ideas just now for the discovery of analogies & remote figures respecting the earth, Sun & all sorts of things-for I think it is the true way (corrected by judgement) to work out a discovery. — Michael Faraday

That's kind of the nature of the profession I'm in. It's frustrating. Things don't go your way, and I was no exception, in that I spent many years struggling to get work, and there are a lot of people more talented than myself who got jobs before me. And I finally, after years and years and years, got lucky. — Will Arnett

We have swallowed technology and are struggling to avoid the shackles that make it work: rules and laws. — Seth Kantner

Being free is as difficult and as perpetual - or rather fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good jew or a good Moslem or a good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up in the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again. — Maya Angelou

You read about people like you in myths and in the Lore, struggling with their gifts. But it's the struggle that brings greatness. If your powers came easily to you, without incident, you would never appreciate them as you should. And you would no' be a good leader because you would be impatient with others who did have to work hard. It never comes easy to the great warriors in history. — Kresley Cole

When I work with countries struggling to pay for budgets or finance trade deficits, I reflect on how Americans do not spend a moment considering the unique advantages of being able to issue bonds and print money freely. — Robert Zoellick

You don't tell someone who's mentally ill or struggling, who's having a low time in their lives, to harden up, because it doesn't work. — John Kirwan

The schools that suffer are the schools in, in poor neighborhoods. They are the neighborhoods with the greatest need, with the parents struggling to work and to make ends meet. They don't have enough resources to give, they don't have enough resources to pay more, and these are the neighborhoods that go first. — Sonia Sotomayor

Certainly every Christian ought to be praying and working to nullify the abominable abortion law. But as we work and pray, we should have in mind not only this important issue as though it stood alone. Rather, we should be struggling and praying that this whole other total entity "(this godless) worldview" can be rolled back with all its results across all of life. — Francis Schaeffer

The truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce. And I knew then that I was going to have to work my way up and out of that life if I was going to give my daughter a better life and a better future, and that's what I've done. — Wendy Davis

Regardless of the subject of my films ... I am looking for a way of evoking in audiences feelings similar to my own: the physically painful impotence and sorrow that assail me when I see a man weeping at the bus stop, when I observe people struggling vainly to get close to others, when I see someone eating up the left-overs in a cheap restaurant, when I see the first blotches on a woman's hand and know that she too is bitterly aware of them, when I see the kind of appalling and irreparable injustice that so visibly scars the human face. I want this pain to come across to my audience, to see this physical agony, which I think I am beginning to fathom, to seep into my work. — Krzysztof Kieslowski

You might be able to thrash your way out of a spiderweb, but thrashing in quicksand doesn't work. The harder you fight, the more ground you lose. Struggling merely expedites your inevitable defeat. — Karen Marie Moning

There's still too much energy leftover at this tomb-desk, on Broadway, when I am semi-asleep at night in our bedroom, struggling to get a good night's rest. There's an overflow of loin energy. It spills out from my pores as if I were a cracked drum of reacting chemicals. I need to work to expend this excess energy in words, stories and books ... My mind is a body that's a mind. — Sergio Troncoso

I think the biggest obstacle I still have to overcome is myself, and just kind of struggling every day with what to do with the work and where to go next. — Jessica Valenti

I urge all parents, but especially fathers, to work at building your daughter's self-concept throughout her childhood. Tell her she is pretty every chance you get. Hug her. Compliment her admirable traits. Build her confidence by giving her your time and attention. Defend her when she is struggling. And let her know that she has a place in your heart that is reserved only for her. She will never forget it. — James C. Dobson

And what's important to you?" I asked.
Marshal thought while we maneuvered around Darth Vader, who was struggling to keep from hitting the wall with his helmet blocking his vision. "Success at work. Having fun doing it. Caring for someone and supporting their interests because you like to see them happy. Having them care about and support yours simply because they want to see you happy. — Kim Harrison

My priorities have always been God first, family second, career third. I have found that when I put my life in this order, everything seems to work out. God was my first priority early in my career when I was struggling to make ends meet. Through the failures and success I have experienced since then, my faith has remained unchecked. — Mary Kay Ash

Insecurity and jealously can be a cause of someone having a critical spirit towards others. Focusing on men and not the Lord can cause one to be critical of every flaw of others. Satan is also the "the accuser of the brethren" (Revelation 12:10) and sadly can work through or use believers to accomplish his work of tearing down. Those who are habitual fault-finders, constant critics of people and situations usually are sick in the body and full of tension and stress. The Scriptural solution to any of us even struggling in this area is clear: "stop passing judgment on one another" and that we can start to love others in the body of Christ, uplifiting them, edifying them and building them up. — Greg Gordon

True budo is a work of love. It is a work of giving life to all beings, and not killing or struggling with each other. Love is the guardian deity of everything. Nothing can exist without it. Aikido is the realization of love. — Morihei Ueshiba

Any person striving to accomplish anything worthwhile will risk their personal vivacity by assuming responsibility that exceeds their talent and abilities and work beyond their physical strength and emotional stamina. A motivated person will endure loneliness and despair and open-mindedly accept righteous criticism. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Only the strong knew what suffering was. The weak never found themselves in the strong webs; the strong man was the one who found himself day and night bound and struggling, so that the work he did, the plotting and the owning and the buying, the decisions he made - and in a large family there had been many to make - were often hard-fibered. — John Ehle

Talk about a struggling artist having to work against enormous odds ... But I love movies so much, so I'm going to do it. — Ariel Pink

You can be very successful but still struggling financially, and it looked like I'd have to take a year or two off and find whatever menial labouring work you can get as a middle-aged, unskilled bald man. — Richard Flanagan

Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have so we might as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy. — Pema Chodron

Zane." His voice
was hushed and pensive. "Sometimes I'm not capable of
expressing how grateful I am for you."
"What do you mean?"
Ty put a hand to his own chest, visibly struggling to
find the right words. "For your ... So few people have ever
understood the way I work. In here." He tapped his chest.
"Thank you for ... your insight. — Abigail Roux

So what is the solution for those who are struggling with the process of maintaining a positive mental attitude? Keep at it! If you plant a seed in the ground and water it every day, it starts to grow towards the surface. If you don't know and trust that this seed is growing, you will doubt whether anything at all is happening underneath the surface. You may start to say: "I don't believe in this! I water this piece of ground every day but I never see any results for all my hard work!" Part of life is trusting that if you put in the effort, the outcome is already happening with your very intention and then your action. Eventually, one day, that little plant breaks through the soil with its green, new stem. And from there, you watch it grow stronger and more vital every day (as long as you keep looking after it and watering it!). — David Fox

There's a story behind every old ballad or work song or nonsense song that I ever knew. Sometimes it's a fascinating story. A story of people struggling for freedom, struggling to get along in this old world. — Pete Seeger

After you cross a hurdle, it looks so easy. Sometimes, it may feel that it was always possible. However, for that feeling of euphoria, you have to slog. After all, nothing comes for free! — Neelam Saxena Chandra

What inspired me to work so hard and to maintain my determination was seeing my mother. She was an immigrant and was struggling in America to make it by; that inspired me to work hard. — Michelle Phan

You're hot for two seconds, and you're struggling to get work again. If it were easy, I don't think that's a good place for an artist to work from. — Tatiana Maslany

My own life would make a pretty dull story, I think, and I envy him as I drive to work on a cold Minnesota morning across the Mississippi River with its coal barges still struggling upstream like so many of us nowadays. — Garrison Keillor

That women bring home the bacon, fry it up, serve it for breakfast, and use its greasy remains to make candles for their children's science projects is hardly news. Yet how parenting responsibilities get sorted out under these conditions remains unresolved. Neither government nor private business has adapted to this reality, throwing the burden back onto individual families to cope. And while today's fathers are more engaged with their children than fathers in any previous generation, they're charting a blind course, navigating by trial and, just as critically, error. Many women can't tell whether they're supposed to be grateful for the help they're getting or enraged by the help they're failing to receive; many men, meanwhile, are struggling to adjust to the same work-life rope-a-dope as their wives, now that they too are expected to show up for Gymboree. — Jennifer Senior

Many exiles leave the mainstream church and engage in the kinds of things we've looked at already: living an authentic life, struggling for global justice, showing compassion, pursuing vocation as a way of doing God's work. But often they do it alone, imagining that it's either the conventional church or no church at all. — Michael Frost

Almost everyone can remember losing his or her virginity, and most writers can remember the first book he/she put down thinking: I can do better than this. Hell, I am doing better than this! What could be more encouraging to the struggling writer than to realize his/her work is unquestionably better than that of someone who actually got paid for his/her stuff? — Stephen King

Career had a lot to do with 80 percent of my breakups. It's very tough to date a struggling musician. The idea of it is enticing and fun and mysterious. But the reality is long hours and hard work. I have a lot of respect for the women I've dated. — Taylor Hicks

There are many paths to mastery, and if you are persistent you will certainly find one that suits you.
But a key component in the process is determining your mental and psychological strengths and working with them.
To rise to the level of mastery requires many hours of dedicated focus and practice. You cannot get there if your work brings you no joy and you are constantly struggling to overcome your own weaknesses.
You must look deep within and come to an understanding of these particular strengths and weaknesses you possess, being as realistic as possible. Knowing your strengths you can lean on them with utmost intensity.
Once you start in this direction, you will gain momentum. You will not be burdened by conventions and you will not be slowed down by having to deal with skills that go against your inclinations and strengths. In this way, your creative and intuitive powers will be naturally awakened. — Robert Greene

I love Europe, but we are still struggling with that kind of development. First of all, we don't have a smart conversation about the difference between an immigrant and a refugee. A refugee can't go back. An immigrant is someone - I chose to move to America. And I also have the option of saying hey, didn't work out, I can move back. That's a completely different story than someone who is locked in. — Marcus Samuelsson

Many people have a stereotype of what it means to be poor. And it may be somebody they see on the street corner with a sign: "Will work for food." And what they don't think about is that person who's struggling every day. Could be the person who waited on us, took our bank deposit, works in retail, but who is barely above the poverty line. — Robert D. Putnam

Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we're thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don't show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin', no matter what. — Steven Pressfield

For me, at some point, the idea of struggling through the process was not as interesting as doing tests and executing the painting after I figured out all of its elements and how they were going to work together. — Laura Owens

I think, like a lot of actors and people in the arts who are struggling to get where they want to be, you spend a lot of time sitting around grumbling about how you're not doing the kind of work you really want to do. But there's a lot of complacency in that, too. — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

We cannot rest and sit down lest we rust and decay. Health is maintained only through work. And as it is with all life so it is with science. We are always struggling from the relative to the absolute. — Max Planck

My work is to love my body, all of it. Whole and entire. The whole aging mortal troublesome failing miraculous intricate breathing doomed cancerous warm mortifying unreliable hard-working imperfect beautiful appalling living struggling tender frightened frightening living dying living breathing temporary wondrous mystifying afflicted mortally-ill assemblage of the atoms of the universe that is my self, is me, for this space of time. — Irvin D. Yalom

Too many people, once they reach a comfortable position in life, forget the important role writers like Hammett - who dropped out of high school in his first year to work supporting his family - or Howard - struggling to break into the pulps with absolutely no professional advice and little encouragement - play in literature, just as they tend to ignore the role the working man and woman play in society. — Don Herron

I have the cliche 'struggling actor' story. I was waiting tables in New York, went out to L.A. soon after graduation to get some jobs, but it didn't work out. I wanted to cut my teeth in professional theater, so I came back to New York. It made my journey a longer one, but I really wanted to excel in the theater. — Pedro Pascal

There are some men who will always prefer to deal with another man, any man, rather than a woman ... I can see him struggling to place me: I'm not married to him, clearly I'm not his mother, I didn't go to school with his sister and I'm sure as hell not going to go to bed with him. So what, he must be asking himself as he chews on his pigeon, is this girl doing here? What is she for? — Allison Pearson

As a black and as a woman, I didn't think that I would really want to live in any of the eras before this, because I would inevitably be worse off. I would have spent more time struggling just to prove I was human than doing my work. — Octavia E. Butler

There was an exquisitely beautiful conception in my brain when I did this piece of work all alone from midnight until morning after the experience of a wonderful day. But I was not able to make the consummation anywhere nearly as beautiful as the inspiration. That, I suppose, is the cry of every heart struggling for self-expression. — Gene Stratton-Porter

When you're struggling, or doubting, or fearful, or feel as if your foundation has crumbled, don't ever underestimate the power of praise! Don't just think about it. Do it. Pull out all the stops. Make praise your first response to fearful situations in your life. God wants us to praise Him at all times, but especially when we are afraid or discouraged. When we do, not only will He take away our fear, but He will also give us joy (Psalm 34:1-5). Fear will tell you things that are not God's truth for your life. Fear denies that God's presence is powerful and fully active in your life. It cancels all hope and faith in God's desire to work in your behalf. But the truth is that faith, prayer, praise, and the Word of God will conquer your every fear. — Stormie O'martian

Above all, Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire' is the work of an artist at the peak of his powers. India is his palette, and Mumbai - that teeming 'maximum city', with 19 million strivers on the make, jostling, scheming, struggling and killing for success - is his brush. — Shashi Tharoor

We've got some guys going good and we've got some guys who are struggling. Usually April's a tough month. Guys come from Arizona where the weather's perfect and the ball flies all over the place. Then you get into the reality of the season, and it can work against them, not so much physically as mentally. — Jeff Pentland

After hearing an answer, I drew in the chloroform in long breaths, thinking to assist the doctors in their work. In spite of this, I have a faint recollection of struggling with all my might against its effects, previous to losing consciousness; but I was greatly surprised on being afterwards told that I had, when in that condition, used more foul language in ten minutes delirium than had probably been used in twenty four hours by the whole population of Canada. — W.H. Davies

The world is full of men and women who work too much, sleep too little, hardly ever exercise, eat poorly, and are always struggling or failing to find adequate time with their families. We are in a perpetual hurry-constantly rushing from one activity to another, with little understanding of where all this activity is leading us ... The world has gone and got itself in an awful rush, to whose benefit I do not know. We are too busy for our own good. We need to slow down. Our lifestyles are destroying us. The worst part is, we are rushing east in search of a sunset. — Matthew Kelly

Great artistic works are often based on solving several psychological problems simultaneously. In literature this is often accomplished by splitting apart the conflict and assigning each aspect to a different character. Marjie Rynearson, for instance, wrote an award-winning play, Jenny, about the meeting and reconciliation of two women: the mother of a murder victim and the mother of the murderer. Within the dialogue between the two characters she sought to resolve two sets of problems: the rage and grief of the victim's mother, and the horror, guilt, and grief of the murderer's mother. She worked on the play for several years, and only when it was finished did she realize that through it she was struggling to resolve her feelings about the suicide of her best friend. Rynearson had simultaneously been, in effect, both the friend of the victim and the friend of the perpetrator of the killing. The power of the work lay in its simultaneous resolution of conflicting problems. — Linda Austin

As a struggling actor, you're not looking for parts that define you; you're just looking for work. — Matt Damon

When people hate, its power engulfs them and they are totally consumed by it ... Keep struggling against hatred and resentment. At times you will have the upper hand, at times you will feel beaten down. Although it is extremely difficult, never let hatred completely overtake you ... Never stop trying to live the commandment of love and forgiveness. Do not dilute the strength of Jesus's message; do not shun it; do not dismiss it as unreal and impractical. Do not cut it to your size, trying to make it more applicable to real life in the world. Do not change it so that it will suit you. Keep it as it is, aspire to it, desire it, and work for its achievement — Anonymous

Right now, with millions of Americans still out of work, and struggling to recover from the worst economic downturn since the great depression, with 40 million Americans dealing with student loans, with millions of people working full-time at minimum wage and still living in poverty, with the big banks getting bigger and the workers getting poorer, and seniors struggling to make ends meet, Republicans in Washington have decided the most important thing for them to focus on is how to deny women access to birth control. — Elizabeth Warren

The happiest I ever been was when I was a struggling actor. I've had big houses and small houses. I always had work available for most of my career. When I actually had to find jobs to make money, that's when I was happy. — Richard Dreyfuss

If creative procrastination, selectively applied, prevented Leonardo from finishing a few commissions - of minor importance when one is struggling with the inner workings of the cosmos - then only someone who is a complete captive of the modern cult of productive mediocrity . . . could fault him for it. Productive mediocrity requires discipline of an ordinary kind. It is safe and threatens no one. Nothing will be changed by mediocrity. . . . But genius is uncontrolled and uncontrollable. You cannot produce a work of genius according to a schedule or an outline. — Adam M. Grant

There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested. There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why, - when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. She could not work on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir her pulses and warm her blood. — Kate Chopin

I start work by spending time in personal Bible study. Because my projects center on a question in my own faith walk, I find Bible study essential. And God gives me scriptures daily that speak to the question with which I'm struggling. — Francine Rivers

Men of great genius, whether their work be in poetry, philosophy or art, stand in all ages like isolated heroes, keeping up single-handed a desperate struggling against the onslaught of an army of opponents. Is not this characteristic of the miserable nature of mankind? The dullness, grosness, perversity, silliness, and brutality of by far the greater part of the race are always an obstacle to the efforts of the genius, whatever be the method of his art; they so form that hostile army to which he at last has to succumb. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Paul and I were both struggling actors. One night he would serve me in a restaurant, and the next night I would serve him. It was what out of work actors did. — David Soul

I know some people are like "I'm depressed and I'm a struggling artist" and that really works for some people, but that doesn't work for me. I have to be really happy, even when I'm writing my depressing songs; I have to come through that stage before I can write. I have to be in a good place. I'm a positive person. — Charli XCX

Stress means something different if it is the result of rewarding work rather than struggling to keep the family out of debt. — Julian Baggini

I struggled many times when maybe it didn't look like I was struggling, and I had to work hard every day. — Ryne Sandberg

Recently I have been attacked in newspapers by two 'fabulist' writers, as far as I can make out for the ordinariness of the worlds I portray. To which the most obvious reply is that it's all very well writing about elves and dragons and goddesses rising out of the ground and the rest of it--who couldn't do that and make it colorful? (Readable, of course, is another matter...) But writing about pubs and struggling singer-songwriters--well, that's hard work. Nothing happens. Nothing happens, and yet, somehow, I have to persuade you that something is happening somewhere in the hearts and minds of my characters, even though they're just standing there drinking beer and making jokes about Peter Frampton. — Nick Hornby

Struggling writers are often advised to pick a simple genre, but it doesn't work that way. — Alan Furst

Ruthless destruction of an ego is a rather simple matter. Preserving the host deprived of an ego is a more delicate affair. How does a person engage in momentous battle with the self while simultaneously struggling to maintain their cerebral, emotive, and spiritual equilibrium in the thin air of consciousness? How assiduously does an agitated mind need to work in order to achieve the elusive degree of emotional and mental quietness that I seek? — Kilroy J. Oldster

My heart grows every day through struggling and love of my kids. It helps balance everything else - the work and the world. It helps keep me grounded and in perspective of what is really meaningful to me. — Kathryn Erbe

Be Patient to become a Patent — Zeeshan Ahmed

Some struggling marriages can be salvaged with hard work and counseling; others should be dismantled and stripped for parts. — Mallory Ortberg

Ask a kid who's struggling in math if he likes being in a mixed-level class, and he'll tell you he feels like a moron. Ask the math genius if he likes being in a mixed-level class, and he'll tell you he's sick of doing all the work during group projects. Sometimes, it's better to sort like with like. — Jodi Picoult