Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have read more

Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion . . . . I myself prefer to laugh, since read more

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion . . . . I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We read more

Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.

It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a read more

It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is to -- act as if it were read more

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is to -- act as if it were impossible to fail.

Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, read more

Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates.

People need trouble -- a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don't mean you read more

People need trouble -- a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.

I am as frustrated with society as a pyromaniac in a petrified forest.

I am as frustrated with society as a pyromaniac in a petrified forest.

Frustration is the wet nurse of violence.

Frustration is the wet nurse of violence.