When Things Get Difficult Quotes & Sayings

No one had explained to Cameron when he was twenty years old and proud as hell that he'd managed to get his wife with child, how difficult it would be to raise a son. Nannies and tutors and schools were supposed to do that, weren't they? But sons needed so much more than food, clothing, and tutoring. They expected fathers to know things, to teach them about life, to be there when needed. — Jennifer Ashley

Don't take no for an answer. Don't let yourself get pushed around, and don't be afraid to be the bad guy. Find a producer who will be there to back you up when things get difficult. Make sure you work with key crew that you trust. — Ruba Nadda

Unfortunately we often get praise for things that weren't particularly difficult to achieve. If we focus on the props and encouragement of those who have low expectations for us, we become mediocre. It can be challenging to set our sights on excellence, particularly when we're hearing that we're already there. One of life's greatest lessons, which we all must learn, could be expressed in the phrase "That was nothing. Watch this." Challenge yourself and others to call the normal things normal and save that word excellent for things that really are. — Alex Harris

My voice was a bare rasp of fear. "In the weaving room, the women say it's never been this bad before ... "
"They always say that when things get difficult," she answered softly. Then she sat up suddenly as though coming fully awake. Reaching down, she took my chin in her hand and tipped my face to look up at hers. "Remember, Gwen, no matter who says what, the important thing is to understand what needs to be done, and then do it. No matter how hard it is, or how much pain you feel. It's as simple as that, really. Once you know what you have to do, you just do it. — Persia Woolley

There are many things in this world I do not know. I do not know how butterflies get out of their cocoons without damaging their wings. I do not know why anyone would boil vegetables when roasting them is tastier. I do not know how to make olive oil, and I do not know why dogs bark before an earthquake, and I do not know why some people voluntarily choose to climb mountains where it is freezing and difficult t breathe, or live in the suburbs, where the coffee is watery and all the houses look alike. — Lemony Snicket

When expectations of mobility are combined with a consumer mind-set, people are very likely to leave when things get difficult. — Christine D. Pohl

Sometimes when things get hard, we tend to set our sights on what's hard, that difficult thing that keeps us upset, and we turn our back on our strengths. — Walter Dean Myers

When things are difficult, awful, stressful, the thing that always gets you through is a sense of humour. I don't mean - well, maybe I do - laugh at the hangman as he puts the noose around your neck. But an eye, an ear, for the ridiculous, the absurd in life, can get you through a lot. — Paul Merton

It is very difficult to get people to focus on the most important things when you're in boom times. — Jeff Bezos

I keep everything hidden because there's nothing about my true self that anyone likes. I'm not difficult, Sebastian. I'm the easiest person around. I don't belong, and I spend all my time pretending I do. Sometimes I get weary of it, and that makes me angry.
It's not fair to the people around me when I lose my temper. I say awful things when I'm angry. But it's not fair to me, either, that I was made this way. — Courtney Milan

Being there when things are easy is one of the benefits of being a good friend. Being there when things get difficult is one of the tests. — Nina Guilbeau

You are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:41-42)
Choosing to please God sounds right at first, but it so often leads to a performing life, a girl trying to become good, a lean-on-myself theology. If I am trying to please God, it is difficult trust God. But when I trust God, pleasing him is automatic.
Anything we do to get life and identity outside of Christ is an idol, even service to Christ. He doesn't want my service. He wants me. And from that life-giving relationship, "streams of living water will flow from within" (John 7:38 NIV) — Emily P. Freeman

Being in a wheelchair has made everyday things difficult. Things you wouldn't imagine. Like the looks I get at high school basketball games when they tell everyone to stand for the National Anthem. — Travis J. Dahnke

When things get difficult it can be easy to complain. How you respond makes all the difference — Tony Dungy

I'm not an expert when it comes to technology, but what changed things for me was autofocus. I used to have to throw away half my pictures because it was so difficult to get the focus right. — Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Someone: You were pretty good at that thing, why'd you stop doing it?

Me internally: I get extremely anxious when I think about doing something I might possibly succeed at because I base my self-worth on my achievements and other people's approval. I am afraid because I know I will never be able to live up to my own unrealistic expectations. I hate making mistakes because they make me feel worthless. I take negative feedback too personally. I feel immense guilt over not doing things that I've been avoiding, which makes me avoid them more. I feel ashamed and inadequate due to how difficult it is for me to stay committed to anything. I'm worried that I'll just end up disappointing myself and the entire world and I am convinced that if I failed I would literally die.

Me externally: idk I guess I've just been kinda busy lol — Unknown

I could feel something that I hadn't felt for a long time. Something quiet and difficult to spot, but it was the feeling that you get when someone is listening to you. Really listening carefully. And it makes you want to tell things exactly the right way. It makes you want to take your time and explain, and get it right. — Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

But the siblings could scarcely remember when they had been able to relax and do the things they liked to do best. It seemed ages since Violet had been able to sit around and think of inventions, instead of frantically building something to get them out of trouble. Klaus could barely remember the last book he had read for his own enjoyment, instead of as research to defeat one of Olaf's schemes. And Sunny had used her teeth many, many times to escape from difficult situations, but it had been quite a while since she had bitten something recreationally. — Lemony Snicket

I'm interested in that thing that happens where there's a breaking point for some people and not for others. You go through such hardship, things that are almost impossibly difficult, and there's no sign that it's going to get any better, and that's the point when people quit. But some don't. — Robert Redford

Once in a while, when I'm out on the lawn, I'll jump around and do a couple of things. Here's a secret: The older you get, the more difficult it gets. The smallest little injury stays with you for so long. But that's how it goes, and it doesn't stop me. I'm always ready to do something that hurts a little! — Mads Mikkelsen

How can you regret never having found true love? That's like saying you regret not being born a genius. People don't have control over such things. It either happens or it doesn't. It's a gift - a present that most never get. It's more like a miracle, really, when you think of it. I mean, first you have to find that person, and then you have to get to know them to realize just what they mean to you - that right there is ridiculously difficult. Then ... then that person has to feel the same way about you. It's like searching for a specific snowflake, and even if you manage to find it, that's not good enough. You still have to find its matching pair. What are the odds? — Michael J. Sullivan

It's been difficult for me to get my head around Diana's death or talk about it. After she died, things were difficult, very difficult. We all have our own traumas and get on with it. But when it's there in your face year in, year out, it's hard. — Hasnat Khan

Obviously it won't do to love somebody and enjoy that person's company but then, when things between you get difficult, to abandon the person. No, it is clear that as pleasant as love is, it must also be unpleasant, because people are sometimes unpleasant or go through unpleasant things, and if we abandon them at those times and run away from them because they or their situation has become unpleasant, we would have to conclude that there wasn't much to our loving in the first place. — Norman Fischer

I repent nothing. A line remembered from the fog of the Internet. I am heartless, she thinks, but she knows even through her guilt that this isn't true. She knows there are traps everywhere that can make her cry, she knows the way she dies a little every time someone asks her for change and she doesn't give it to them means that she's too soft for this world or perhaps just for this city, she feels so small here. There are tears in her eyes now. Miranda is a person with very few certainties, but one of them is that only the dishonorable leave when things get difficult. — Emily St. John Mandel

So when bad things are happening to you, embrace the funk. That, too, is cultivating positive outlook. When something is hard or difficult and adversity is at your front door, embrace it, because it will make you stronger and your life richer. You can't know happiness unless you feel sadness. If you embrace it as part of the process, it can be life-altering. Life is going to get you down and the funk is going to get you. Embrace it and fight through it and know you are not alone. Take baby steps, remember all the slight edge allies you have, and know that there is a path out of the funk. — Jeff Olson

I started to get so many letters from unlikely people; a single mum going, "I watch your show, I'm not into survival, but I hold down four jobs and I get it when you say it's about persistence and putting a positive attitude into things during difficult times." That for me was a great liberator to realize that the show isn't about me running around, jumping off stuff and flexing muscles, it's about inspiring people. That makes me really happy. — Bear Grylls

The only thing that's difficult is reloading when things are happening. Can you get it done fast enough? — Garry Winogrand

We learn to endure to the end by learning to finish our current responsibilities, and we simply continue doing it all of our lives. We cannot expect to learn endurance in our later years if we have developed the habit of quitting when things get difficult now. — Robert D. Hales

Hope is a fragile thing, Peter continued, as fragile as a flower. Its fragility makes it easy to sneer at, by people who see life as a dark and difficult ordeal, people who get angry when something they can't believe in themselves gives comfort to others. They prefer to crush the flower underfoot, as if to say: See how weak this thing is, see how easily it can be destroyed. But, in truth, hope is one of the strongest things in the universe. Empires fall, civilizations vanish into dust, but hope always comes back, pushing up through the ashes, growing from seeds that are invisible and invincible. — Michel Faber

Under relentless prosecutorial grilling he sputtered that he had earlier deceived investigators "because I was an idiot," and he finally admitted that he had lied about nothing less than a treasonable overture. That lie he could not explain - but Bird and Sherwin attempt to explain it by citing a remark Oppenheimer made five years earlier to a Communist graduate student and friend of his, in which he admitted "his tendency when things get too much" to blurt out "irrational things." How difficult it must have been for an intellectual of his abilities, pride, and accomplishment to make such an admission ordinary men can only imagine. — Algis Valiunas

No matter what sorrow or happiness may come to us on account of external and internal conditions, we must not be depressed or joyous about them. They occur through the karma of our previous actions. These sorrows and happinesses will also change and end. So look at it like this: When we have illness, the sorrows of parting from beloved friends, the theft of our possessions, when we are ridiculed by others and they say unpleasant things, we must not get stuck in the sorrow and become depressed, saying: "It isn't right that these things happen to me." These sorts of experiences that are difficult to bear do not occur on account of extenuating conditions in our present life. In previous lifetimes we did the evils that are the cause for it to happen that we experience these kinds of things. Specifically, — Chogyal Phagpa

The nuns taught me that the best thing you can do in life when things get difficult is to work. — Frederick Lenz

I'm not ambitious when it comes to my acting career. I'm not breaking down my agency's doors or sending out headshots. Even when I'm offered work, I always want small parts. When it comes to things that other people have written, I just don't know what I'm doing. I'm terrible at memorizing a script and reading lines. I get confused and I don't understand and it just looks fake to me. It's more difficult for me to be creative that way. — Amy Sedaris

If you do the following three things, you will be successful in major college basketball. If you don't do them, it will be most difficult." He didn't say it would be impossible - typical of John Wooden - but he said it would be difficult. I was scrambling for my pen when he said, "Those three things are fairly simple: Number one, make certain, Dale, you always have better players than anybody you play. Now, with that locked up, make sure you always get the better players to put the team above themselves. And number three - this is very important, Dale Brown," he said, "don't try to be some coaching genius, or give the guys too much information, or too much stuff; always practice simplicity with constant repetition. — John Wooden

It is a long journey, not just as a writer, but as a human being. Take nothing and no one for granted, be humble always, be kind especially when it's difficult and never forget the place where you came from and the people that helped you get where you are. These things will live on in you and through you, long after the words have faded. — C.K. Webb

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

But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I've failed. I can be calm in a crisis, in the face of death or things that hurt badly. I don't get hysterical, which may be masochistic of me. — Emma Thompson

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

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

You will make sacrifices and compromises, get let down and let other people down, fail and start over, break some hearts, take some names, and learn to pick up and continue when your own heart gets broken. But difficult doesn't mean impossible, and out of the bajillions of things in this universe that you can't control, what you can control is how hard you try, and if or when to pack it in. Paul — Sophia Amoruso

All of my life, when things got too difficult, I folded up the tent and went to bed. I couldn't stand a challenge ... I was terrified of confrontation. I was very laid-back, and just wouldn't get involved or fight back. — Phoebe Snow

Your intention is for readers to benefit from your experiences and avoid the costly and time consuming mistakes you may have made. You want to help your readers know the short cuts and what you would have avoided, and why. As you write, keep a clear sense of why writing this is important to you, but also share your why within the body of the book. Why do your readers need to take the steps you describe? Are you saving them time, money, resources? Why did you start your journey to begin with? Did you want to change the world or get from point "A" to point "B"? Why did you keep going even when it was difficult? Was there a light at the end of the tunnel, a reward at the end? Why should they hang in there? All of these things will work magically if implemented correctly and consistently. — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

When I first began choreographing, I never thought of it as choreography but as expressing feelings. Though every piece is different, they are all trying to get at certain things that are difficult to put into words. In the work, everything belongs to everything else - the music, the set, the movement and whatever is said. — Pina Bausch

Because I work at other things, whenever I get a chance to write I feel grateful for it. But I learned that sometimes, I couldn't do anything else and I shouldn't plan to do anything that night or the next day. There were times when I was writing something difficult for days or weeks and when I'd finish, I would get up and go out of my shed into the garden and be sick. I had terrible migraines. — Damian Barr

You're wasting your life being involved with me."
"I'm not wasting anything."
"But I might never recover. Will you wait for me forever? Can you wait 10 years, 20 years?"
"You're letting yourself be scared by too many things," I said. "The dark, bad dreams, the power of the dead. You have to forget them. I'm sure you'll get well if you do."
"If I can," said Naoko, shaking her head.
"If you can get out of this place, will you live with me?" I asked.
"Then I can protect you from the dark and from bad dreams. Then you'd have me instead of Reiko to hold you when things got difficult."
Naoko pressed still more firmly against me.
"That would be wonderful," she said. — Haruki Murakami

Do that which consists in taking no action;
Pursue that which is not meddlesome;
Savor that which has no flavor.
Make the small big and the few many;
Do good to him who has done you an injury.
Lay plans for the accomplishment of the difficult before it becomes difficult;
Make something big by starting with it when small.
Difficult things in the word must needs have their beginnings in the easy;
Big things must needs have their beginnings in the small.
Therefore it is because the sage never attempts to be great that he succeeds in becoming great.
One who makes promises rashly rarely keeps good faith;
One who is in the habit of considering things easy meets with frequent difficulties.
Therefore even the sage treats some things as difficult.
That is why in the end no difficulties can get the better of him. — Lao-Tzu

And lastly, when other things in life get tough, when you're going through family troubles, when you're heartbroken, when you're frustrated with money problems, focus on your work. It has saved me through every single difficult thing I have ever had to do, like a scaffolding that goes far beyond any traditional notions of a career. — Teresita Fernandez

It struck me that Steve Jobs, known to be such a brilliant speaker, had a very difficult time explaining things when he was younger. He was describing technology that didn't exist. He had MIT engineers, and he was trying to tell them what he wanted; but there were no terms for what he wanted yet. I think a lot of his early frustration was trying to quickly get his vision to the finish line. — Joshua Michael Stern

For my entire career, I wanted to be a director. When I was in the theater, it was very difficult to get directing jobs, and I fell into the acting by default. I got in the habit of accepting whatever came my way. Not things that I disagreed with, though. It's not like I had aspirations - well, I did have aspirations to play Hamlet, which I ended up doing. — James Cromwell

Well, I have severe OCD and social anxiety disorder. I was diagnosed when I was fifteen and every year I get worse. I don't like people, I don't like outdoors, and I don't like trying new things. I have a routine and when my routine is interrupted, like you seem to enjoy doing, I get extremely stressed and it becomes difficult for me to focus for hours afterwards. — Nash Summers

What I will say is that you have to exercise your writing muscle. Write every day. Get better at it. Read a lot of good books. As a professional writer, I force myself to write when I don't feel like it. I don't wait to feel inspired. It takes discipline and grit and sacrifice to be able to bring a book out to the world. It's so much work, and it's very difficult, but it is also the most fun I've ever had. I love making things up. I love amusing myself. — Melissa De La Cruz

It was dirty and hot, and you're on a horse, all day. It was physical work, but there wasn't one of us - cast or crew - who didn't have a smile on our face. Even when it got real hard and tempers would rise because things would get difficult and the day would get late, we all loved the job and loved doing it. When you finished that day of work, everyone was looking around and going, "Yeah, that was a good day, man." — James Badge Dale

If you are the type of person to carry a lot of worry, especially about unfinished business, you are also probably the type to feel really guilty when you do things other than those pieces of unfinished business. Guilt is such a shitty thing. As if things weren't hard enough with the anxiety symptoms, guilt just creeps right up in there and makes things exponentially more difficult. I like to call this snowballing. You get worked up and then getting worked up makes you feel bad and then you get more worked up about feeling bad about getting worked up and then.... you get the point. — Robert Duff

And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don't even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in you life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means they are so small you don't have to take them into account when you are calculating something. — Mark Haddon

It's easy to get rid of things when there is an obvious reason for doing so. It's much more difficult when there is no compelling reason. — Marie Kondo