Belle Boyd Quotes

Alas, I emerge from one disaster to fall into a worse.

Woe is me! Bitter is me! For what is my life? Why didn't the ship go under and drown me before I came to America?

My dad had a lot of bad luck. You could see his suffering, his terrible suffering, living a life that was disappointing and looking for another one.

The misfortune to be born when I was, where I was. That was a piece of bad luck.

For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort of misery is to have been happy.

The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means.

Dying is only one thing to be sad over... Living unhappily is something else.

Some people just aren't meant to be happy.

We are truly to be pitied.

If you're too happy about anything, fate usually gives you a good sock in the jaw and knocks you down.

There is no greater misery than false joys.

I mean you have been disappointed in love, but don't you know how many things there are to be disappointed in besides love? You are lucky to be still disappointed in love. Later it may be even more terrible.

I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.

How many people does each of us know who claim to seek happiness but freely choose paths inevitably leading to misery?

I should have been happy: I wasn’t.

But were there ever any Writhed not at passed joy?

Well, I hope you like it here, Leo. It used to be .......really nice.

Many things can make you miserable for weeks; few can bring you a whole day of happiness.

What is more miserable than discontent?

What did I do to deserve this?

It is a sad thing to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp.

My suffering left me sad and gloomy.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane In proving foresight may be vain The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain For promis'd joy!

Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept?