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I hate to admit this, but some days hearing about other people's problems actually cheers me up.

—Susan Elizabeth Phillips in The Great Escape

problems schadenfreude

About Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Portrait of Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (born December 11, 1944, in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a romance novelist from the United States. She is the creator of the sports romance and has been called the "Queen of Romantic Comedy".

More quotations from Susan Elizabeth Phillips

More quotations tagged with “problems”

Relationships always started with that heady, swoonish period, where the other person is like some new invention that suddenly solves all life's worst problems, like losing socks in the dryer or toasting bagels without burning the edges. At this phase, which usually lasts about six weeks max, the other person is perfect. But at six weeks and two days, the cracks begin to show; not real structural damage yet, but little things that niggle and nag. Like the way they always assume you'll pay for your own movie, just because you did once, or how they use the dashboard of their car as an imaginary keyboard at long stoplights. Once, you might have thought this was cute, or endearing. Now, it annoys you, but not enough to change anything. Come week eight, though, the strain is starting to show. This person is, in fact, human, and here's where most relationships splinter and die. Because either you can stick around and deal with these problems, or ease out gracefully, knowing that at some point in the not-too-distant future, there will emerge another perfect person, who will fix everything, at least for six weeks.

—Sarah Dessen in This Lullaby

love relationships perfection problems

Writer's block is what you get if you're too full of yourself and trying to be García Márquez. You sit and stare at the wall and nothing happens for you. It's like imagining you're a tree and trying to sprout leaves. Once you come to your senses and accept who you are, then there's no problem. I'm not García Márquez. I'm a late-middle-aged midlist fair-to-middling writer with a comfortable midriff, and it gives me quite a bit of pleasure.

—Garrison Keillor

imagination writing pleasure problems

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