disappointment

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
e60d1dc	Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.	dream dreams misattributed-mark-twain disappointed explore sail disappointment	H. Jackson Brown Jr.
08edfcc	"Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. "	hatred sadness fail excitement english language emotions disappointment	Jeffrey Eugenides
b9e55be	She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward.	time disappointment night	Markus Zusak
b22f774	If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.	compensation hope inspirational failure disappointment	Henry David Thoreau
826a155	Look. I have a strategy. Why expect anything? If you don't expect anything, you don't get disappointed.	hope life disappointment expectations strategy	Patricia McCormick
f5ffe24	"There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pate."	epigrams fandom similes on-writing disappointment writers	Margaret Atwood
07ebd7b	Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment help us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments -- but all of this is transitory it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.	suffering joy disappointment	Paulo Coelho
db6a4dc	Disappointments in love, even betrayals and losses, serve the soul at the very moment they seem in life to be tragedies. The soul is partly in time and partly in eternity. We might remember the part that resides in eternity when we feel despair over the part that is in life.	love tragedies disappointment soul	Thomas Moore
86b39dd	Truth is, something that I thought was perfect was taken away from me, and I never wanted perfect again. I wanted middle of the road, stuff I didn't care about so that I couldn't lose anything I really loved ever again.	relationships love fear-of-commitment the-time-of-my-life risks disappointment	Cecelia Ahern
50ab3f2	I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.	holidays disappointment	Sylvia Plath
18beb3c	Sometimes parents don't find what they're looking for it their child, so they plant seeds for what they'd like to grow there instead. I've witnessed this with the former hockey player who takes his son out to skate before he can even walk. Or in the mother who gave up her ballet dreams when she married, but now scrapes her daughter's hair into a bun and watched from the wings of the stage. We are not, as you'd expect, orchestrating their lives; we are not even trying for a second chance. We are hoping that if this one thing takes root, it might take up enough light and space to keep something else from developing in our children: the disappointment we've already lived.	dream disappointment	Jodi Picoult
c254ef9	She had learned the lesson of renunciation and was as familiar with the wreck of each day's wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun.	peace-of-mind planning disappointment	Thomas Hardy
b68726f	"While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a therapist has shown me that the demands of intimate life can be just as useful as meditation in moving people toward this capacity. Just as in formal meditation, intimate relationships teach us that the more we relate to each other as objects, the greater our disappointment. The trick, as in meditation, is to use this disappointment to change the way we relate."	relationships objectification meditation desire disappointment	Mark Epstein
effde52	Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I've made a big investment in you, Peter. Time and money, and it's not working. Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. We don't put it on the table and call it caviar.	mentors mentor wall-street disappointment	Tom Wolfe
84ef879	There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp.	grief futility depression hope dark-history falling-short haunted-past smoke-in-the-eyes why-the-world-needs-jesus unrest pointlessness bittersweet-memories sins heartache vanity disappointment expectations despair regrets nostalgia	Joseph Conrad
995d48e	People all over the world, you good, faithful, busy people, I implore you, don't be me! If you're dissatisfied by whatever life throws at you, walk away and leave it behind before it's too late! When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!	life inspirational advice-for-daily-living lemonade news disappointment	Rebecca McNutt
c4fb77c	He thought perhaps it was a woman's way, to come out of such a storm of emotion and pain as if she were a ship emerging onto calm seas. She had seemed, not at peace, but emptied of sorrow. As if she had run out of that particular emotion and no other one arose to take its place.	tragedy pain woman depression emotion sorrow sadness ship devastation numb empty way storm peace cold disappointment	Robin Hobb
6990c53	He was disappointed in it all. He had developed into an alien. As the steam beer had tasted raw, so their companionship seemed raw to him. He was too far removed. Too many thousands of opened books yawned between them and him. He had exiled himself. He had travelled in the vast realm of intellect until he could no longer return home. On the other hand, he was human, and his gregarious need for companionship remained unsatisfied. He had found no new home.	life disappointment	Jack London
66e3431	Maybe everyone does have a novel in them, perhaps even a great one. I don't believe it, but for the purposes of this argument, let's say it's so. Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.	writing imagination heartbreak trade-in disappointment writers	Ann Patchett
fc5d78c	It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.	optimism hope anxiety drive americans atheism pessimism disappointment	Alain de Botton
0bde7f3	Fundamental belief consoled him for superficial irony.	faith sovereignty-of-god disillusionment disappointment	Thomas Hardy
311d2fc	At the top of the slope on the perimeter of the site, overlooking six lanes of motorway, is a diner frequented by lorry drivers who have either just unloaded or or are waiting to pick up their cargo. Anyone nursing a disappointment with domestic life would find relief in this tiled, brightly lit cafeteria with its smells of fries and petrol, for it has the reassuring feel of a place where everyone is just passing through--and which therefore has none of the close-knit or convivial atmosphere which could cast a humiliating light on one's own alienation. It suggests itself as an ideal location for Christmas lunch for those let down by their families.	travel cafeteria diner motorways anonymity disappointment	Alain de Botton
a1ba6f9	I took up space. I was a collection of cells and memories, awkward limbs and clumsy fashion crimes; I was the repository of my parents' expectations and evidence of their disappointments	memories living life parents disappointment expectations memory	Robin Wasserman
20a783d	He was not crying for the pain they had caused him, nor for the humiliation he had suffered when they looked at his foot, but with rage at himself because, unable to stand the torture, he had put out his foot of his own accord.	pain humiliation will power disappointment	W. Somerset Maugham
f234d95	"The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed." "That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character."	suffering disappointment	Betty Smith
596f2c0	I can't bear the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom.	idealism sodom cynic cynical innocence cynicism disappointment	Fyodor Dostoyevsky
d24cbdb	"It's only in the last few years that I've learned that playing down the exciting stuff doesn't' take the pain away when it doesn't happen. It also creates a lot of isolation. Once you've diminished the importance of something, your friends are not likely to call and say, "I'm sorry that didn't work out. I know you were excited about it." Now when someone asks me about the potential opportunity that I'm excited about, I'm more likely to practice courage and say, "I'm so excited about the possibility. I'm trying to stay realistic, but I really hope it happens." When things haven't panned out, it's been comforting to be able to call a supportive friend and say, "Remember that event I told you about? It's not going to happen, and I'm so bummed."	brene-brown priorities vulnerability disappointment	Brené Brown
58d4a20	They saw me. Milton's smile curled off his face like unsticky tape. And I knew immediately, I was a boy band, a boondoggle, born fool. He was going to pull a Danny Zuko in when Sandy says hello to him in front of the T-Birds, a Mrs. Robinson when she tells Elaine she didn't seduce Benjamin, a Daisy when she chooses Tom with the disposition of a sour kiwi over Gatsby, a self-made man, a man engorged with dreams, who didn't mind throwing a pile of shirts around a room if he wanted too. My heart landslided. My legs earthquaked.	daisy-buchanan jay-gatsby rude-awakening the-graduate tom-buchanan grease the-great-gatsby pop-culture nervous rude cruelty denial embarrassment movies teenagers rejection disappointment	Marisha Pessl
d9dd9db	Find a way to learn something from every disappointment.	inspirational-quotes learning-quotes laurie-nadel laurie-nadel-quotes quote-about-life quote-of-the-day quote-of-the-week quotes-twitter wayne-dyer learning-from-mistakes disappointment	Laurie Nadel
80f6032	No matter was the professional talkers tell you, I never met a black boy who wanted to fail.	disappointment	Ta-Nehisi Coates
481860f	When has been disappointed for so long, hope becomes the enemy. One cannot be dashed to the earth unless one is lifted first, and I learned to avoid hope.	time pain fear hope avoidance burn deny enemy ignore look-away hurt break fall crash weight disappointment	Robin Hobb
92e1a55	It is apt to be so, and it is hard to bear; for, though we do not want trumpets blown, we do like to have out little virtues appreciated, and cannot help feeling disappointed if they are not.	eight-cousins louisa-may-alcott virtues disappointment human-nature	Louisa May Alcott
c00f055	Guns, she was reminded then, were not for girls. They were for boys. They were invented by boys. They were invented by boys who had never gotten over their disappointment that accompanying their own orgasm there wasn't a big boom sound.	like-life lorrie-moore orgasm hunting guns boys disappointment	Lorrie Moore
7647701	It [Foucault's Pendulum] can be very comforting for people of my generation, who ate disappointment for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.	comfort disappointment	Umberto Eco
a348895	In the Dictionary 'lumpy jaw' comes just before 'lunacy,' but in life there are no such clues. Suddenly, for no reason, you might start to dribble from the mouth, to howl peevishly at the moon. You might start quoting your mother, out loud and with conviction. You might lose your friends to the most uninspired of deaths. You might one day wake up and find yourself teaching at a community college; there will have been nothing to warn you. You might say things to your students like, There is only one valid theme in literature: Life will disappoint you.	literature midlife-crisis lunacy disappointment	Lorrie Moore
361d82e	Every time he thought about it he became more convinced that there was nothing that was really true and even less in which to believe. So it was simpler not to care about anything, for in that way he was never disappointed.	disappointment	Norton Juster

e60d1dc

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

dream dreams misattributed-mark-twain disappointed explore sail disappointment

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

08edfcc

"Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. "

hatred sadness fail excitement english language emotions disappointment

Jeffrey Eugenides

b9e55be

She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward.

time disappointment night

Markus Zusak

b22f774

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

compensation hope inspirational failure disappointment

Henry David Thoreau

826a155

Look. I have a strategy. Why expect anything? If you don't expect anything, you don't get disappointed.

hope life disappointment expectations strategy

Patricia McCormick

f5ffe24

"There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pate."

epigrams fandom similes on-writing disappointment writers

Margaret Atwood

07ebd7b

Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment help us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments -- but all of this is transitory it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.

suffering joy disappointment

Paulo Coelho

db6a4dc

Disappointments in love, even betrayals and losses, serve the soul at the very moment they seem in life to be tragedies. The soul is partly in time and partly in eternity. We might remember the part that resides in eternity when we feel despair over the part that is in life.

love tragedies disappointment soul

Thomas  Moore

86b39dd

Truth is, something that I thought was perfect was taken away from me, and I never wanted perfect again. I wanted middle of the road, stuff I didn't care about so that I couldn't lose anything I really loved ever again.

relationships love fear-of-commitment the-time-of-my-life risks disappointment

Cecelia Ahern

50ab3f2

I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.

holidays disappointment

Sylvia Plath

18beb3c

Sometimes parents don't find what they're looking for it their child, so they plant seeds for what they'd like to grow there instead. I've witnessed this with the former hockey player who takes his son out to skate before he can even walk. Or in the mother who gave up her ballet dreams when she married, but now scrapes her daughter's hair into a bun and watched from the wings of the stage. We are not, as you'd expect, orchestrating their lives; we are not even trying for a second chance. We are hoping that if this one thing takes root, it might take up enough light and space to keep something else from developing in our children: the disappointment we've already lived.

dream disappointment

Jodi Picoult

c254ef9

She had learned the lesson of renunciation and was as familiar with the wreck of each day's wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun.

peace-of-mind planning disappointment

Thomas Hardy

b68726f

"While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a therapist has shown me that the demands of intimate life can be just as useful as meditation in moving people toward this capacity. Just as in formal meditation, intimate relationships teach us that the more we relate to each other as objects, the greater our disappointment. The trick, as in meditation, is to use this disappointment to change the way we relate."

relationships objectification meditation desire disappointment

Mark Epstein

effde52

Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I've made a big investment in you, Peter. Time and money, and it's not working. Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. We don't put it on the table and call it caviar.

mentors mentor wall-street disappointment

Tom Wolfe

84ef879

There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp.

grief futility depression hope dark-history falling-short haunted-past smoke-in-the-eyes why-the-world-needs-jesus unrest pointlessness bittersweet-memories sins heartache vanity disappointment expectations despair regrets nostalgia

Joseph Conrad

995d48e

People all over the world, you good, faithful, busy people, I implore you, don't be me! If you're dissatisfied by whatever life throws at you, walk away and leave it behind before it's too late! When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

life inspirational advice-for-daily-living lemonade news disappointment

Rebecca McNutt

c4fb77c

He thought perhaps it was a woman's way, to come out of such a storm of emotion and pain as if she were a ship emerging onto calm seas. She had seemed, not at peace, but emptied of sorrow. As if she had run out of that particular emotion and no other one arose to take its place.

tragedy pain woman depression emotion sorrow sadness ship devastation numb empty way storm peace cold disappointment

Robin Hobb

6990c53

He was disappointed in it all. He had developed into an alien. As the steam beer had tasted raw, so their companionship seemed raw to him. He was too far removed. Too many thousands of opened books yawned between them and him. He had exiled himself. He had travelled in the vast realm of intellect until he could no longer return home. On the other hand, he was human, and his gregarious need for companionship remained unsatisfied. He had found no new home.

life disappointment

Jack London

66e3431

Maybe everyone does have a novel in them, perhaps even a great one. I don't believe it, but for the purposes of this argument, let's say it's so. Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

writing imagination heartbreak trade-in disappointment writers

Ann Patchett

fc5d78c

It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.

optimism hope anxiety drive americans atheism pessimism disappointment

Alain de Botton

0bde7f3

Fundamental belief consoled him for superficial irony.

faith sovereignty-of-god disillusionment disappointment

Thomas Hardy

311d2fc

At the top of the slope on the perimeter of the site, overlooking six lanes of motorway, is a diner frequented by lorry drivers who have either just unloaded or or are waiting to pick up their cargo. Anyone nursing a disappointment with domestic life would find relief in this tiled, brightly lit cafeteria with its smells of fries and petrol, for it has the reassuring feel of a place where everyone is just passing through--and which therefore has none of the close-knit or convivial atmosphere which could cast a humiliating light on one's own alienation. It suggests itself as an ideal location for Christmas lunch for those let down by their families.

travel cafeteria diner motorways anonymity disappointment

Alain de Botton

a1ba6f9

I took up space. I was a collection of cells and memories, awkward limbs and clumsy fashion crimes; I was the repository of my parents' expectations and evidence of their disappointments

memories living life parents disappointment expectations memory

Robin Wasserman

20a783d

He was not crying for the pain they had caused him, nor for the humiliation he had suffered when they looked at his foot, but with rage at himself because, unable to stand the torture, he had put out his foot of his own accord.

pain humiliation will power disappointment

W. Somerset Maugham

f234d95

"The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed." "That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character."

suffering disappointment

Betty Smith

596f2c0

I can't bear the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom.

idealism sodom cynic cynical innocence cynicism disappointment

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

d24cbdb

"It's only in the last few years that I've learned that playing down the exciting stuff doesn't' take the pain away when it doesn't happen. It also creates a lot of isolation. Once you've diminished the importance of something, your friends are not likely to call and say, "I'm sorry that didn't work out. I know you were excited about it." Now when someone asks me about the potential opportunity that I'm excited about, I'm more likely to practice courage and say, "I'm so excited about the possibility. I'm trying to stay realistic, but I really hope it happens." When things haven't panned out, it's been comforting to be able to call a supportive friend and say, "Remember that event I told you about? It's not going to happen, and I'm so bummed."

brene-brown priorities vulnerability disappointment

Brené Brown

58d4a20

They saw me. Milton's smile curled off his face like unsticky tape. And I knew immediately, I was a boy band, a boondoggle, born fool. He was going to pull a Danny Zuko in when Sandy says hello to him in front of the T-Birds, a Mrs. Robinson when she tells Elaine she didn't seduce Benjamin, a Daisy when she chooses Tom with the disposition of a sour kiwi over Gatsby, a self-made man, a man engorged with dreams, who didn't mind throwing a pile of shirts around a room if he wanted too. My heart landslided. My legs earthquaked.

daisy-buchanan jay-gatsby rude-awakening the-graduate tom-buchanan grease the-great-gatsby pop-culture nervous rude cruelty denial embarrassment movies teenagers rejection disappointment

Marisha Pessl

d9dd9db

Find a way to learn something from every disappointment.

inspirational-quotes learning-quotes laurie-nadel laurie-nadel-quotes quote-about-life quote-of-the-day quote-of-the-week quotes-twitter wayne-dyer learning-from-mistakes disappointment

Laurie Nadel

80f6032

No matter was the professional talkers tell you, I never met a black boy who wanted to fail.

disappointment

Ta-Nehisi Coates

481860f

When has been disappointed for so long, hope becomes the enemy. One cannot be dashed to the earth unless one is lifted first, and I learned to avoid hope.

time pain fear hope avoidance burn deny enemy ignore look-away hurt break fall crash weight disappointment

Robin Hobb

92e1a55

It is apt to be so, and it is hard to bear; for, though we do not want trumpets blown, we do like to have out little virtues appreciated, and cannot help feeling disappointed if they are not.

eight-cousins louisa-may-alcott virtues disappointment human-nature

Louisa May Alcott

c00f055

Guns, she was reminded then, were not for girls. They were for boys. They were invented by boys. They were invented by boys who had never gotten over their disappointment that accompanying their own orgasm there wasn't a big boom sound.

like-life lorrie-moore orgasm hunting guns boys disappointment

Lorrie Moore

7647701

It [Foucault's Pendulum] can be very comforting for people of my generation, who ate disappointment for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

comfort disappointment

Umberto Eco

a348895

In the Dictionary 'lumpy jaw' comes just before 'lunacy,' but in life there are no such clues. Suddenly, for no reason, you might start to dribble from the mouth, to howl peevishly at the moon. You might start quoting your mother, out loud and with conviction. You might lose your friends to the most uninspired of deaths. You might one day wake up and find yourself teaching at a community college; there will have been nothing to warn you. You might say things to your students like, There is only one valid theme in literature: Life will disappoint you.

literature midlife-crisis lunacy disappointment

Lorrie Moore

361d82e

Every time he thought about it he became more convinced that there was nothing that was really true and even less in which to believe. So it was simpler not to care about anything, for in that way he was never disappointed.

disappointment

Norton Juster