A lack of freedom is no longer, in most developed societies, the problem. Our downfall lies in our inability to make the most of the freedom that our ancestors painfully secured for us over three centuries.
—Alain de Botton in Religion for Atheists
All things are difficult before they are easy.
—Thomas Fuller
I don’t understand why things always go from perfect to weird with us. It’s like we’re incapable of normal human interaction.
—Stephanie Perkins in Anna and the French Kiss
Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men.
—Joseph Conrad
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
—Thomas Mann
It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.
—William Carlos Williams
Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.
—Robert Quillen
I don't think you have to do something so big to be brave. And it's the little things that are harder anyway.
—Morgan Matson in Since You've Been Gone
The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.
—Willa Cather
Tis not the dying for a faith that is so hard… 'tis the living up to it that is difficult.
—William Makepeace Thackeray
The older you get the stronger the wind gets—and it's always in your face.
—Pablo Picasso
I think I'm only now realizing how hard it must be to be a woman. Too thin or not thin enough. Do your job flawlessly, but don't show up any of the men. Speak up, but don't be bitchy. Smile.
—Christina Lauren in Dating You / Hating You