frustration Quotes

“If you’re frustrated because you’re not getting what you want, stop for a second: Have you actually flat-out asked for it? If you haven’t, stop complaining. You can’t expect the world to read your mind. You have to put it out there, and sometimes putting it out there is as simple as saying, ‘Hey, can I have that?‘”

“She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there, she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the little glittering circlet. In a sweeping passion she seized a glass vase from the table and flung it upon the tiles of the hearth. She wanted to destroy something. The crash and clatter were what she wanted to hear.”

“She had become attached to you both. She worked very hard for you, Henry! I don’t think you quite realize what anything in the nature of brain work means to a girl like that. Well, it seems that when the great day of trial came, and she did this wonderful thing for you without making a single mistake, you two sat there and never said a word to her, but talked together of how glad you were that it was all over and how you had been bored with the whole thing. And then you were surprised because she threw your slippers at you!”

“The winds of other people’s demands, and our own inner compulsions, have driven us onto a reef of frustration.”

“We’re at the creek catching fish with a holey net. Understandably, this may take some time. Come join us if you enjoy frustration.”

“The kind of hope I’m talking about is the belief that something good will come. That everything you’re going through and everything you’ve gone through will be worth the struggles and frustrations. The kind of hope I’m talking about is a deep belief that the world can be changed, that the impossible is possible.”

“Tears were coursing down the faces of Kennedy’s moonstruck recruits. John Kennedy had inspired us with his vision. One by one, we left work to grieve in private. The flag was at half-staff in our hearts.”

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.”

“Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual.”

“This endless search [for personal fulfillment] leads every ignorant human being to engage in various situations and entanglements, which in the beginning seem to hold the possibility of bringing about a happy circumstance, but which invariably leads to pain, suffering, and frustration.”

“Frustration, disillusionment and a profound sense of loss came to characterize the war-weary survivors and influenced their artistic productions.”

“You must determine where you are going in your life, because you cannot get there unless you move in that direction. Random wandering will not move you forward. It will instead disappoint and frustrate you and make you anxious and unhappy and hard to get along with (and then resentful, and then vengeful, and then worse).”

“You know what I hate most of all, Will? Not being able to run anymore, like you.”

“Talk. I pointed to my board. I hit the word again and again. Talk. Talk. Talk. I have so much to say.”

“I’m sick of a system where the richest man gets the most beautiful girl if he wants her, where the artist without an income has to sell his talents to a button manufacturer.”

“Don’t say ka, Roland. If you say ka one more time ... my head’ll explode. ”

“Some people will always taste like fire and leave the ones that love them tasting like ash.”

“With an outraged groan he tears the coat off again, splitting the shoulder of it, and hurls it across the room. It strikes against the shelf of Laura’s glass collection, and there is a tinkle of shattering glass. Laura cries out as if wounded. ‘My glass!—menagerie...‘”

“Louis struggled with his temper and went silently back to the wagon. The keys were gone, but the first-aid kit was still in the glove compartment. He got it and came back. When Ellie saw it, she began to scream louder than ever.”

“I can’t stand the sight of them huddled together against the truth, deaf and dumb to anything remotely real.”

“There are going to be frustrations in life. The question is not: How do I escape? It is: How can I use this as something positive?”

“You may grow frustrated and depressed, never realizing that the source of it is your alienation from your own creative potential.”

“Four Horsemen–Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, and Despair.”

“The prince is never going to come. Everyone knows that; and maybe sleeping beauty’s dead.”

“Love as education is one of the great powers of the world, but it hangs in a delicate suspension; it achieves its harmony as seldom as does love by the senses. Frustrated, it creates even greater havoc, for like all love it is a madness.”

“So now it’s both of you! First it’s all warm, warm, warm. Then it’s all soft, soft, soft. Now it’s all nice, nice, nice!”

“Think! Think! Think! That boy will think himself into an early grave...”

“You can’t stop animals from running away! They’re frightened. They don’t want to be killed and eaten!”

“I punched the pillow, harder and harder. Then I missed and punched the wall instead.”

“It must be frustrating for him to have a son as clever as me. It must be hard knowing that he can never win.”

Lots of mothers wishing that these days, while their sons walk to California, where rain comes, and the color green doesn’t seem like such a miracle, and hope rises daily, like sap in a stem. And I think, some day I’m going to walk there too, through New Mexico and Arizona and Nevada. Some day, I’ll leave behind the wind, and the dust and walk my way West and make myself to home in that distant place of green vines and promise.

“He throws the pot of lemon balm she gave him over the edge of the balcony. No phone call. He tosses the black Frisbee and the Swiss Army knife over too. Still the phone stays silent.”

“As he plays their relationship over in his mind like a movie, he wonders: What if his heart’s delight doesn’t call? Will life be worth living then? ”

“Leave it to the gods—that is all we can do, leave it to the gods.”

“All the energy of their frustration and fear going into their laughter.”

“With his hands pressed to his chest and his eyes still streaming with forced tears, he ran towards the nestling of lanes about the great cathedral. Softhearted ladies stared as he passed, moved by the sight of the weeping urchin. Then his eyes dried up, his nose recovered- and his grand determination flared anew. He would learn to read!”

“Why can’t I ever get you, Polly, when that other wolf managed to get his little girl.”

“Emotions are built on layers. Beneath hatred is usually anger; beneath anger is frustration; beneath frustration is hurt; beneath hurt is fear. If you keep expressing your feelings, you will generally move through them in that order. What begins with “I hate you” culminates in “I’m scared. I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“As we’re taught in the Twelve Steps, the chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear. Mainly fear that we would lose something we already possessed or that we would fail to get something we demanded. Living on the basis of unsatisfied demands, we obviously were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration. Therefore, we are taught, there will be no peace unless we are able to reduce these demands.”