Maybe my great struggle, and it's probably not anything different from too many other people, but it certainly is what drives the music, is a hugely internal one.
It is only in his head that man is heroic; in the pit of his stomach he is always a coward.
I've been learning a lot in my years, it's not just the fight itself, its a lot mentally fighting each other, that's something I learned later days. I realize now it's very important.
There is no power on earth that can loosen a man's grip on his own throat
Yes, there was an element of abstraction and unreality in misfortune. But when an abstraction starts to kill you, you have to get to work on it.
The violence of sorrow is not at the first to be striven withal; being, like a mighty beast, sooner tamed with following than overthrown by withstanding.
He is haunted by a demon, a demon against which he feels powerless, because in its first manifestation it has no face, no name, nothing; and the words, the poem he makes, are a kind of exorcism of this demon.
People see it [boxing] as a physical contact sport, but it's not. It's really a spiritual one of will against will. Who wants it the most? How much is he willing to take - and dish out - to get it? It's like fighting is 10 percent physical and 90 percent emotional.
The worst thing in the world is having to go back to the dark you shook off.
I feel like a small battlefield in which the problems, or some of the problems, of our time are being fought out. All one can hope to do is keep oneself humbly available, to allow oneself to be a battlefield. After all, the problems must be accommodated, have somewhere to struggle and come to rest and we, poor little humans, must put our inner space at their service and not run away.
The prey of fear, he, always curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work partly done, says to the alternating blaze, "Again the sun! anew each day; and new and new and new, that comes into and steadies my soul."
When boxers are in the ring, they're simple. It's when the fight is over, that's when the other fight, the real fight, begins. That's the problem.
A monster lies in wait in me,a stew of wounds and misery.But fiercer still in life and limb,the me that lies in wait in him
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
I thought marriage was tough. Golf's like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel! It's a psychological game that gets into your blood.
She could not trust herself to hope—but without hope, she realized, she had no reason to go on.
As an actor, to play someone who's at war with himself, that's so interesting.
The game has such a hold on golfers because they compete not only against an opponent, but also against the course, against par, and most surely- against themselves.
I love the idea of playing a good guy who's fighting his own demons.
I think bullfights are for men who aren't very brave and wish they were. If you saw one you'll know what I mean. Remember after all the cape work when the bull tries to kill something that isn't there? Remember how he gets confused and uneasy, sometimes just stands and looks for an answer? Well, then they have to give him a horse or his heart will break. He has to get his horns into something solid or his spirit dies. Well, I'm that horse. And that's the kind of men I get, confused and puzzled. If they can get a horn into me, that's a little triumph.
I'm starting to understand that fear is like cancer - you can beat it back, but if it returns, it can be worse than ever.
It is not a sudden leap from sick to well. It is a slow, strange meander from sick to mostly well. The misconception that eating disorders are a medical disease in the traditional sense is not helpful here. There is no 'cure'. A pill will not fix it, though it may help. Ditto therapy, ditto food, ditto endless support from family and friends. You fix it yourself. It is the hardest thing that I have ever done, and I found myself stronger for doing it. Much stronger.
At the heart of the matter is a battle between wish and fear. Fear generally proves stronger than a wish, but it leaves a taste of disappointment on the tongue.
Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out.
We are always running, and it has become a habit. We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. We are at war with ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others.
