top of page
"You're fucked. You thought you were going to be someone, but now it's obvious you're nobody. You haven't got as much talent as you thought you had, and there was no Plan B, and you got no skills and no education, and now you're looking at forty or fifty years of nothing. Less than nothing, probably. That's pretty heavy. That's worse than having the brain thing, because what you got now will take a lot longer to kill you. You've got the choice of a slow, painful death, or a quick, merciful one."
Standard
Customized
More

"I have always used the world of make-believe with a certain desperation."
Author Name
Personal Development

"I sort of got into Westerns... It was a sort of desperation move, really. I had several pictures that didn't go very well, and I just realised that I would have to try something else."
Author Name
Personal Development

"If I were a Roman Catholic, I should turn a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory."
Author Name
Personal Development

"You're fucked. You thought you were going to be someone, but now it's obvious you're nobody. You haven't got as much talent as you thought you had, and there was no Plan B, and you got no skills and no education, and now you're looking at forty or fifty years of nothing. Less than nothing, probably. That's pretty heavy. That's worse than having the brain thing, because what you got now will take a lot longer to kill you. You've got the choice of a slow, painful death, or a quick, merciful one."
Author Name
Personal Development

"You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation."
Author Name
Personal Development

"Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting."
Author Name
Personal Development

"Well, yeah, but I probably wasn't as open about my desperation."
Author Name
Personal Development

"Joe! he groaned, attempting to speak clearly. "Joe! Good ol' Joe!"Captain, you're drunk! Lofflin said, stating the obvious while trying to keep his voice level. Blaine grinned at him lopsidedly and giggled, almost choking. He slapped the table, knocking his empty glass over."Ye-ss, I am! Don't ssup-pose you " think I co-uld ssit here an' calmly wait t'die " dA1?2ou? Weee-ll, not ssob-er anyway. Ha ha ha.Disgust and hopelessness were swelling inside him. He felt like punching that drunken face till it was either sober or unconscious."Damn it, Captain! We need you " the crew needs you! You're turning your back on them " in our most desperate time!"
Author Name
Personal Development

"I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting."
Author Name
Personal Development
More

"That is another chamber of my heart that shows no electrical activity - the chamber that used to flicker into life when I saw a film that moved me, or read a book that inspired me, or listened to music that made me want to cry. I closed that chamber myself, for all the usual reasons. And now I seem to have made a pact with some philistine devil: if I don't attempt to re-open it, I will be allowed just enough energy and optimism to get through a working day without wanting to hang myself."
Emotion

"I don't want anyone writing in to point out that I spend too much money on books, many of which I will never read. I know that already. I certainly intend to read all of them, more or less. My intentions are good. Anyway, it's my money. And I'll bet you do it too."
Reading

"Hey, great idea: if you have kids, give your partner reading vouchers next Christmas. Each voucher entitles the bearer to two hours' reading time *while the kids are awake*. It might look like a cheapskate present, but parents will appreciate that it costs more in real terms than a Lamborghini."
Parenting

"I would never attempt to dissuade anyone from reading a book. But please, if you're reading something that's killing you, put it down and read something else, just as you would reach for the remote if you weren't enjoying a TV program...All I know is that you can get very little from a book that is making you weep with the effort of reading it. You won't remember it, and you'll be less likely to choose a book over [insert popular contemporary TV program] next time you have a choice."
Reading

"Have you got any soul?" a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues."
Introspection

"That's the trouble with good writers. Only the bad ones make you want to do the human thing and look away."
Emotion

"There were only seven years between the first and last Beatles albums. That's nothing, seven years, when you think of how their hairstyles changed and their music changed. Some bands now go seven years without hardly bothering to do anything."
Evolution

"We can't be as good as we'd want to, so the question then becomes, how do we cope with our own badness?"
Question

"It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party."
Relationship

"The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives."
Sentimentality
bottom of page