Quotes about problems
page 10

“Any time your life is at stake and you can't find even one woman to come forward and say, 'This is a good man,' your problem isn't what kind of woman THEY are. Your problem is what kind of men YOU are.”

Pearl Cleage (1948) American novelist

Source: Just Wanna Testify

Life, Men, Time

“Graves: It’s going to snow.
Dru Anderson: Thanks for the warning.
Graves: Hey, no problem. First one’s free.”

Lilith Saintcrow book Strange Angels

Source: Strange Angels

“Shanna planted her hands on her hips.
"Getting drunk is not going to solve your problems."
"Aye, but t'will make me no' give a damn."(Robby)”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: The Vampire and the Virgin

“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Women, Men, Learning

“I LOVE living, I have some problems with my LIFE, but living is the best thing they've come up with so far.”

Neil Simon (1927–2018) playwright, writer, academic

Love, Life

“When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus or resolution, we take hope away. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope

Hope, Way

“Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.”

Barbara Johnson (1947–2009) American literary critic

Love, Personality

“It's a bit embarrassing… to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

As quoted in Huston Smith, "Aldous Huxley--A Tribute," The Psychedelic Review, (1964) Vol I, No.3, (Aldous Huxley Memorial Issue), p. 264-5
Source: Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics & the Visionary Experience

Life, Way

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

Suffering, Personality

“It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Source: The Red Headed League

“Instead of focusing on the world's problems, give your attention and energy to trust, love, abundance, education and peace.”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

Love, World, Education, Peace

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, "Introduction", page 3 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=16&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image <br class="br">Source: The Descent of Man (1871) <br class="br">Context: It has often and confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

Confidence, Knowledge, Science

“The problem is that we humans are deep conformists.”

Robert Greene book Mastery

Source: Mastery

“There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.”

Sue Townsend (1946–2014) English writer and humorist

Source: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

People, Dreams

“Jamie: You have to promise you won't fall in love with me.
Landon: That's not a problem.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Variant: You have to promise you won't fall in love with me.
Source: A Walk to Remember

Love

“The key to happiness - as any good fairy godmother will tell you - is not to avoid problems, but to overcome them.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: My Unfair Godmother

Happiness

“Harry Dresden: I can't believe I'm about to say this. So think real careful about where this is coming from: Have you people ever considered talking when you've got a problem?”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: The Dresden Files, Turn Coat (2009), Chapter 23

People, Thinking

“For most of us the problem isn’t that we aim too high and fail - it’s just the opposite - we aim too low and succeed.”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

Source: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

Motivational

“I think the problem with people like this is that they are so stupid that they have no idea how stupid they are.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

People, Stupidity, Idea, Thinking

“Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.”

Roger Lewin (1944) American writer

Children, For Parents

“He has personality problems beyond the dreams of analysts.”

Douglas Adams book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Dreams, Personality

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Men, World, Dreams, Reality

“We have a new problem, fresh from the oven and hot as hell.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

Hell

“We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve, but to strive. … The problem, then, is how to bring about a striving for harmony with land among a people many of whom have forgotten there is any such thing as land, among whom education and culture have become almost synonymous with landlessness. This is the problem of 'conservation education.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 155.
1930s
Source: Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold

People, Education, Justice

“A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”

Duke Ellington (1899–1974) American jazz musician, composer and band leader

Source: Music is My Mistress

Chance, Motivational, Attitude, Positive

“That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

History, Understanding, Question

“This was always the problem with my mother and me, I suddenly realized. There were so many things we thought we agreed on, but anythign can have two meanings. Like sides of a coin, it just matters how it falls.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“the problem with knowing is that it takes away the possibility of pretending!”

Pearl Cleage What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

Source: What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

“The key is this: Meet today's problems with today's strength. Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. You do not have tomorrow's strength yet. You simply have enough for today.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear

“Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past.”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

Source: Created for Greater Things

Change, Past, Help

“If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

Happiness, Dependency, Happy

“Sometimes our strengths are also our weaknesses. Sometimes to be strong you have to first be weak. You have to share your burdens; you have to lean on other people while you face your problems and yourself.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Source: The Christmas Sweater

People, Strong

“Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

Pleasure

“Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections

Solitude

“To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill and eat them. Perfect.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Love, Perfection

“That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Science

“Police business is a hell of a problem. It’s a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there’s nothing in it to attract the highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get…”

Raymond Chandler book The Lady in the Lake

Source: The Lady in the Lake

Men, Hell, Business

“I'm on a man-fast. Why bother with them? the good ones are always taken. Or they're weirdly uminterested in a capricious wild child with continuous legal problems~ Carrow the Incarcerated”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Demon from the Dark

“If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“Don't worry, now that I know about your little ego problem, I'll do my best to look all gushy when you pound you chest.”

Christine Feehan book Shadow Game

Source: Shadow Game

“The problem with educating stupid people was that they didn’t know they were stupid. The same went for curing crazy people.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Source: Phoenix

People, Stupidity, Education

“The tricky thing about mazes is that you don't know if you've chosen the right path until the very end. If it turns out you were wrong, it's usually too late to go back and start again. That's the problem with mazes.”

Haruki Murakami book The Strange Library

Source: The Strange Library

“The fact is that we don't want to be free. What is responsible for our problems is the fear of losing what we have and what we know.”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Source: No Way Out (2002), Ch. 7: What Kind Of Human Being Do You Want?
Context: The fact is that we don't want to be free. What is responsible for our problems is the fear of losing what we have and what we know. All these therapies, all these techniques, religious or otherwise, are only perpetuating the agony of man.

Fear

“So?" Bob said. "Hat up, go kill her. Problem solved."
"Bob," I said. "You can't just go around killing people."
"I know. That's why you should do it."
"No, no. I can't go around killing people, either.”

Jim Butcher book Grave Peril

Source: Grave Peril

People

“Procrastination is not the problem. It is the solution.

Procrastinate now, don’t put it off.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

“my lips never know my problem they just always smile”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Smile

“Why? What is so wonderful about mass murder that nobody in the history of the world has ever fond any smarter solution to problems than killing everybody who doesn’t agree? Is that the limit of human intelligence?”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: One

World, History, Intelligence

“My most important problem was destroying the lines of demarcation that separate what seems real from what seems fantastic.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

“To alcohol! The cause of… and solution to… all of life's problems”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

Life, Alcohol

“Problems are adventures in disguise”

Steve Chandler

Reinventing Yourself: How To Become The Person You've Always Wanted To Be

“The problem with being nuts, she thought, is that you don't always feel as if you're nuts. Sometimes, in fact, you feel perfectly sane, and there just happens to be a trailer-shaped dragon crouching in the lot next door.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Feeling

“Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995: An Exhibition Catalogue

World, Peaceful

“Furthermore, worrying about people and problems doesn't help. It doesn't solve problems, it doesn't help other people, and it doesn't help us. It is wasted energy.”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

Source: Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

People, Help

“If you don't want to be in an argument with someone, it is probably best to try to solve the problem, rather than lying around hoping the other person will do it for you.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

Hope, Lying, Personality

“I like how you don't hide your problems like everyone else, and I don't have to hide mine when I'm around you.”

Ned Vizzini (1981–2013) American writer

“Lots of people talk to animals… Not very many listen though… that's the problem.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

People, Animals

“Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Business, Deep

“It's not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

Time

“Disagreements over money are the biggest cause of divorce."

She waved her hand. "Absolutely no problem. Your money is our money. My money is my money." She wrote away.

"I should make you negotiate with Phoebe.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Match Me If You Can

Money

“Okay," Juke said. "Your horse is a donkey, your poodle is a giant wolf breed, and your boyfriend is whatever the hell he is. You have problems.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Shifts

Hell, Wolf, Horse

“The world could be fixed of its problems if every child understood the necessity of their existence.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

World

“I congratulate you on having such a unique and beautiful problem.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

Hickory Dickory Dock

Beauty

“Koga:"You got a problem with that muttface?"
Inuyasha: Did you just call me a mutt?"
Koga:"No, you're right. That would be an insult to canines.”

Rumiko Takahashi (1957) manga artist

“Most times we're so focused on what we think we want that we can't appreciate how happy we already are. It's only when we forget about our problems and help others forget theirs that we realize how good we really have it.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2008-11-11
Threshold Editions
141659485X
52
2000s
Source: The Christmas Sweater

Happiness, Thinking, Time, Help

“I had problems a therapist couldn't solve; grief that no man in a room could ameliorate.”

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“And our problems will crumble apart, the soul / blow through like a wind, and here where we live
will all be clean again, with fresh bread on the table.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Soul

“Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.”

Alberto Moravia (1907–1990) Italian writer and journalist

Interviewed in The New Yorker, May 7, 1955.

Understanding, Perfection

“Are you demented, you stupid badger? Is that your problem? Or are you just an idiot?"
"As to that, I… Did you just call me a badger?"
"A bastard. I called you a bastard.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: This Heart of Mine

Stupidity

“So the problem is not so much to see what nobody has yet seen, as to think what nobody has yet thought concerning that which everybody sees.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Thinking

“So for Magic Problem-Solving 101, we headed to the training room and blew stuff up.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Training

“Maybe if I didn't say anything about what happened, we could get back to the way we were. Ignoring a problem was a perfectly acceptable way to deal with it, as long as both people agree never to bring it up again.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

People, Way

“The greatest polution problem we face today is negativity.”

Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001) Entrepreneur

“Even from the beginning, that was the problem. People liked pretty things. People even liked pretty things that wanted to kill and eat them.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

People

“The faith is not the problem, the problem is the faithful.”

Robert Ferrigno Prayers for the Assassin

Prayers For The Assassin (2006)
Source: Prayers for the Assassin

Faith

“I try hard not to judge anyone, and I try to bless everyone who is a part of my life, particularly anyone with whom I am having any problems”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Source: It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

Life, Parting

“What problems?" "Well for starters.. you're an evil duck killer.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Evil

“A real scientist solves problems, not wails that they are unsolvable.”

Anne McCaffrey book Acorna: The Unicorn Girl

Source: Acorna: The Unicorn Girl

“This college would probably have the same problem as the last one did."
I frowned, "What's that?"
"Homework.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

“We have a saying in Tibet: If a problem can be solved there is no use worrying about it. If it can't be solved, worrying will do no good.”

Heinrich Harrer book Seven Years in Tibet

Source: Seven Years in Tibet

“Cicero smiled at us. 'The art of life is to deal with problems as they arise, rather than destory one's spirit by worrying about them too far in advance. Especially tonight.”

Robert Harris (1957) novelist

Source: Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome

Life, Smile, Art

“We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

“The plain fact is that if you don't have a problem, you create one. If you don't have a problem you don't feel that you are living.”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Source: No Way Out (2002), Ch. 7: What Kind Of Human Being Do You Want?

Feeling

“As regards intellectual work it remains a fact, indeed, that great decisions in the realm of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual, working in solitude.”

Sigmund Freud Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego

Source: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego

Decision, Solitude

“I return to problems i can't solve, not because i am an idiot, but because the real problems can't be solved. The universe is expanding. The more we see, the more we discover there is to see. Always a new beginning, a different end.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles

Universe

“[Knowing how to suffer without complaining is the only practical thing, it's the great science, the lesson to learn, the solution to the problem of life. ]”

Irving Stone book Lust for Life

Source: Lust for Life

Life, Suffering, Learning, Science

“The problem in public life is learning to overcome terror; the problem in married life is learning to overcome boredom.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Life, Learning

“Just Leo’s luck. A super-hot immortal girl was waiting for him on Ogygia, but he couldn’t figure out how to wire a stupid chunk of rock into the three-thousand-year-old navigation device. Some problems even duct tape couldn’t solve.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Stupidity, Girl, Waiting

“When the love of your life dies, the problem is not that some part of you dies too, which it does, but that some part of you is still alive.”

Jackie Kay (1961) Poet and novelist

Source: Trumpet

Love, Life, Parting

“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Souls of Black Folk

Source: To the Nations of the World, address to Pan-African conference, London (1900). These words are also found in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), ch. II: Of the Dawn of Freedom

Color