Quotes & Sayings About Watching Someone Struggle

I was always shy. Writing was my only outlet. Because I always hid in a room, I spent a lot of time watching people. When I was a small child I could detect hidden body language in others only I could see. People's emotions rub off on me. When I told this to my therapist she said, "Well, you're an empath." I thought, "No way. Like Star Trek?" And she clarified: because I am so socially uncomfortable, I have compassion for others who I recognize are also struggling. People with anxiety are acutely aware. — Jenny Lawson

There are a lot of sacrifices a mother makes when she's raising a child by herself. I saw it when I was growing up, watching all my mother did for me. But it wasn't until recently that I fully understood the price she paid because of how we had to struggle. — Christina Applegate

Jezal swallowed and hunched his shoulders, watching the chunks of long dead wood file slowly past like rows of tombstones. "I don't like this," he muttered under his breath.
"You think I do?" Bayaz frowned grimly over at him. "You think any of us do? Men must sometimes do what they do not like if they are to be remembered. It is through struggle, not ease, that fame and honor are won. It is through conflict, not peace, that wealth and power are gained. — Joe Abercrombie

A part of being an actor is I people watch. I like to observe their behaviour, watch their reactions on the street and see how they talk to each other, and that's impossible when they are looking back at you. I used to enjoy taking the train and watching people in their own minds, struggling with themselves. — Javier Bardem

For me, the hardest part of an injury is watching the races go by that I had hoped to compete in. The only thing that makes it easier is thinking of how certain struggles make other accomplishments mean so much. — Dathan Ritzenhein

Watching soccer is my main hobby, really. I'm no tactician or coach, but I enjoy watching the free flow of it, the different styles, and the histories behind clubs. Like Barcelona vs. Madrid - it's not just a soccer game; it's a geopolitical struggle. There are great storylines and no commercials. — Andrew Luck

The whole premise of Joe's struggle to stay in school was the prospect of a more promising future afterward. It had not occurred to him that doors wouldn't just open for a man with a college degree. And once again it was pounded home to him how many of his classmates apparently did not even have to think about money, how many had people watching out for them, shelling out thousands of dollars they never expected to see again. It stirred up the old anxiety and self-doubt that always threatened to bubble to the surface. And it added something new to the mix - a toxic dash of jealousy. PART THREE 1935 The Parts That Really Matter — Daniel James Brown

The harassed look is that of a desperately tired swimmer or runner; yet there is no question of stopping. The creature we are watching will struggle on and on until it drops. Not because it is heroic. It can imagine no alternative.
Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face - the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young-man - all present still, preserved as fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying creature is: Look at us - we have died -what is there to be afraid of?
It answers them: But it happened so gradually, so easily. I am afraid of being rushed. — Christopher Isherwood

I have a lot of rage about things that didn't happen to me, tied up with watching an immigrant, working-class father struggle to make his way through the world - and seeing how society was modeled to keep him in his place. — Dennis Lehane

Years after Planck's death in 1947, at the age of 89, his former student and colleague James Franck recalled watching his hopeless struggle 'to avoid quantum theory, whether he could not at least make the influence of quantum theory as little as it could possibly be'.It was clear to Franck that Planck 'was a revolutionary against his own will' who 'finally came to the conclusion, "It doesn't help. We have to live with quantum theory. And believe me, it will expand."' It was a fitting epitaph for a reluctant revolutionary. — Manjit Kumar

My greatest struggle is to coexist while watching the people I love choose less than life-supporting paths via drugs, alcohol, or poor lifestyle decisions. There is so much to life; my heart breaks watching someone held captive by addiction. — Mike Love

It's weird watching President Bush struggle with excuses
for why we went to war. As he struggles, it reminds us
all what a terrific liar Bill Clinton really was. — Craig Kilborn

When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance, never to accept limitations that stood in my way. As an adult, watching him in his final years, I also saw how to come to terms with limits that couldn't simply be wished away. When to shift from pushing against limits to making the best of them is not often readily apparent. But it is clear that are times when the cost of pushing exceeds its value. Helping my father through the struggle to define that moment was simultaneously among the most painful and most privileged experiences of my life. Part of the way my father handled the limits he faced was by looking at them without illusion. Though his circumstances sometimes got him down, he never pretended they were better than they were. He always understood that life is short and one's place in the world is small. But he also saw himself as a link in a chain of history. — Atul Gawande

She was a superhero. She was my hero. Therefore, moments when she allowed herself to display vulnerability were distressing. It was like watching Superman struggle through a bout of kryptonite exposure. — Penny Reid

Olaf was a genius. This, she realized, watching the snowman struggle, was love. Olaf had been willing to put himself in danger because he didn't want to see her get hurt. Love wasn't the canned romantic declarations. That was nothing but fluff. That was what Hans had thrown at her and what she had mistaken for love. Pure, true love was what Olaf was showing her right now - sacrifice. — Elizabeth Rudnick

You man that tiller day and night. Won't you rest?'
Ereko lightly laughed the suggestion aside. 'No, lad. I am so old now that sleeping and waking have melded together into one and I know not which I inhabit.'
Watching the lad struggle through that, Ereko shifted course slightly to avoid a looming ice-spire.
'Truly? So old? As old as the mountains?'
Ereko raised his brows. 'Goodness, no. Not that old. Only half so old, I should think. — Ian C. Esslemont

... but he realized he would never reconcile himself to life as something other than a prelude. What's life's meaning then? What is it? What does make the world go round, not letting hope die? What do people dream about, watching the endless flow of years? They dream. A dream, that's it. We live for our only dream, which can lead us, hand in hand, through our life; for the dream we reconcile ourselves to any frustrations and we shall struggle for releasing its silky wings from the net of reality. (The right to a mistake.) — Lara Biyuts

Be careful how you live. Someone is always watching and will look to you as an example, an excuse, or a warning. The message some choices send is why struggle to do the right thing when you can do the wrong thing and be happy. Should we be happy or should we be right? — Donna Lynn Hope

You'd spend your whole life making two loaves of bread - just two loaves - and they would mean everything to you. All the effort it took to make them, all the time and the struggle and the thinking it would be impossible, watching everyone around you make bread every day all the time like it was nothing, and you just sit by yourself and wonder how any of it can even make sense, thinking maybe they're all just lying to you, like it's some huge joke that the whole world is playing on you, and then one day you finally do it. You make your two loaves. And then... — Dan Wells

When a baby chick hatches, it often struggles for a long, long time, and you can get impatient watching the little guy struggle. You might be tempted to help him out and break a little bit of the shell away and make it easier for him to escape, but if you do, he will die. You will rob him of a process specifically designed to make him strong. It is only through this struggle that he can gain the strength to survive his life. It is crucial (if you love him) that you let him struggle his way out of this challenge on his own.
Your life works the same way. The challenges you currently face are there to help you become stronger and smarter too. They are probably forcing you to learn and grow. If you were rescued from this situation, it might rob you of a process you need to become the person you are meant to be. — Kimberly Giles

When, on a moonlit night, you see a wide village street with its peasant houses, haystacks, sleeping willows, tranquility enters the soul; in this calm, wrapped in the shade of night, free from struggle, anxiety and passion, everything is gentle, wistful, beautiful, and it seems that the stars are watching over it tenderly and with love, and that this is taking place somewhere unearthly, and that all is well. — Anton Chekhov

I love boxing. I like to see the strategizing. Watching the warriors go to work. I like that struggle, going out there and fighting. — Barry Larkin

There's nothing more sensual than watching a man struggle to keep himself in check when he's looking at you. — Tara Sivec

Ultimately, it has been a struggle- but I was in Minneapolis and Austin a couple of weeks ago, sitting in theaters with complete strangers watching this weird movie that Kirk and I thought up and I was excited to be making film. — Donal Logue

I enjoy watching a woman with really bad teeth and a good sense of humor struggling to use her lips and tongue to hide her teeth when she's laughing. I just stand there and tell her joke after joke after joke. — George Carlin

I'm tired of watching attractive people trying to be ugly, struggling for authenticity. Why not be yourself? — Bradford Cox

I was pretty spoiled growing up, creatively and artistically; we were exposed to a lot of different things. I remember watching my brother's friends struggle to get to the level he was at musically and wondering why they were having such a hard time. — Stephen Bruner

You're watching your kids playing football, and you're not present. It's like the worst ... it's horrible. I despise myself for it. I think it's a particularly male thing. Being present and in the moment with your kids is something a lot of men struggle with. — Andy Serkis

Real spies don't have all the cool gadgets you see in the movies," Dak said, watching Sera struggle with the lock. "Though I sure wish we had a sonic screwdriver right about now. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

The romance is essential. I love the love. I don't love just people struggling. I love what people are struggling for. That moves me. I love watching people be loving, and I find it enchanting, magical and transporting. It's one of the reasons that I go to the movies, and that's why I like putting it in movies. — David O. Russell