Susan Fowler Quotes

While one might laugh at the meaningless boredom of people a decade or two ago, the emptiness has for many now moved from the state of boredom to a state of futility and despair, which holds promise of dangers.

I feel not unlike a small boy, waking from a bad dream to find reality not much of an improvement.

People's fear doth ofttimes degenerate into desperation

I think that fear comes about when there's things in the world that we want to change, things we're scared or angry about, and we can't change them, and so we become fearful; we develop anxiety.

Yeah, it's pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.

I found, when I left, that there were others who felt the same way. We'd meet, they'd come and seek me out, we'd talk about the future. And I found that their depression and pessimism was every bit as acute as mine.

No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing.

Powerlessness frustrates; absolute powerlessness frustrates absolutely. Absolute frustration is a dangerous emotion to run a world with.

Where no hope is left, is left no fear.

Being alone with fear can rapidly turn into panic. Being alone with frustration can rapidly turn into anger. Being alone with disappointment can rapid turn into discouragement and, even worse, despair.

I've stopped many things such as healthy eating. What's the point? In this post-truth era, I feel increasingly powerless.

When things aren't going well it can feel like the world is against you and there's nowhere to turn.

Many of the young people living in inner-city America don't see themselves - I mean, they even talk about things like death and dying. And there's a tremendous loss of hope. And of all the things to lose, I think nothing is worse or more difficult to overcome than the loss of hope.

Defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom, and above all futility.

I feel, in the end, as if everything I've done has been a failure.

Helplessness induces hopelessness, and history attests that loss of hope and not loss of lives is what decides the issue of war.

I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.

You know, sometimes I feel well and vital in the world, and sometimes I just feel so distressed I want to pull my hair out by the roots.

I was suffering from a peculiar and persistent sense that I was being pursued, and also the conviction that under the political order of the times, our lives had no meaning.

It's a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing nothing.

It is only a step from boredom to disillusionment, which leads naturally to self-pity, which in turn ends in chaos.

I am more weary of life, I think, than ever I was.

People don't believe or understand that a community can lose hope. You can have a whole community where hopelessness is the norm, where folks don't have faith that things will get better because history and circumstances have proven over 30, 40, or 50 years that things don't get better.

'Weary Willie' is very real to me. He is a man who has given up. The boat has gone and left him. The cards are stacked against him. He's content to make out with what he's got. He knows he'll go no further.

Another cause for the increase in alienation and cynicism is a feeling that too many policy decisions that affect individuals have been taken out of any system that has accountability or that they can influence.