“When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.”
Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony
Page 175
Testimony (1979)
Source: 1840s, The Sickness unto Death (July 30, 1849), p. 49
“When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.”
Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony
Page 175
Testimony (1979)
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter
Review https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-groundhog-day-1993 of Groundhog Day <br class="br">Reviews, Four star reviews
“It's not the despair, Laura, I can stand the despair. It's the hope.”
Michael Frayn (1933) British writer
Clockwise (1986), cited from Malcolm Page File on Frayn (London: Methuen, 1994) p. 65.
“My despair is less despair than boredom and loneliness.”
Anthony Swofford book Jarhead
Source: Jarhead
David Foster Wallace book A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Essays
Context: I felt despair. The word’s overused and banalified now, despair, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture — a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death. It’s maybe close to what people call dread or angst. But it’s not these things, quite. It’s more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I’m small and weak and selfish and going without any doubt at all to die. It’s wanting to jump overboard.
Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director
General Security: The Liquidation of Opium (1925)