Tawni O'Dell Quotes

I never felt the urge to jump off a bridge, but there are times I have wanted to jump out of my life, out of my skin.

I just wanted to jump out of my body sometimes and be someone else.

If all we seek is an escape, what does that say about the world we live in? That village, that city, that life? We are desperate with our dreams. What - oh, what - does that say?

Nothing had happened yet in my life except the need to get out of it.

Pain is the difference between what is and what I want it to be.

The want of a thing is perplexing enough, but the possession of it, is intolerable.

All I want is a little more than I'll ever get.

The things that I can't have I want, And what I have seems second-rate, The things I want to do I can't, And what I have to do I hate.

I was drinking a lot of bourbon. I was miserable. I was starting to get work, but it wasn't remotely satisfying. It was garbage compared to the theater I was doing.

Suffering is getting what you do not want while wanting what you do not get.

You only have to pick up a paper to see the sort of scams and injustices that are out there. There's a sense that people don't belong and just aren't very happy. They're outraged, in fact, and they're being shafted left, right and centre.

Stress is caused by being 'here' but wanting to be 'there'.

Her future, she thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing; she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate.

Where desire ends up causing suffering is when it fixates.

Seven out of 10 Americans, they do not like the direction our country is going. Many of our fellow citizens feel alienated and have lost faith in our core institutions. They don't feel heard and they don't feel represented by those in office.

What is more miserable than discontent?

I’d like to go out in the front yard and shout something. “None of this is worth it!” That’s what I’d like people to hear.

Because to tell you the truth, most of the time dying seems pretty much like my only means of escape

Get me a gun. If I don't go into labor soon, I'm going to shoot myself. And pass the gravy. Pass it now." Valerie - To the Nines

As I was saying before I was interrupted ... I believe the last thing I said was 'There must be a better way to make a living than this.' Well, I've looked - and there isn't.

And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea.

What is it with me? Am I absolutely nobody, but merely inordinately vain? I do not know…. But I am most fearfully unhappy. That is all. I am so unhappy that I wish I was dead—yet I should be mad to die when I have not yet lived at all.

We're enjoying sluggish times, and not enjoying them very much.

That should be your town motto. It's all I ever hear. Like: New Hampshire, Live Free or Die. It should be: Despair, You Need To Leave Now.

If they'd been dogs, they would have all been in the yard eating grass and trying to yak up whatever was making them feel so lousy. Not a bone gnawed, not a ball chased-all tails went unwagged. Oh, life is a fast cat, a short leash, a flea in that place where you just can't scratch.