“The thing is … nothing’s as easy as we'd like it to be. … And the real trouble comes from not knowing what we really want in the first place.”

—  Charles de Lint

"Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night", p. 282
The Ivory and the Horn (1996)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The thing is … nothing’s as easy as we'd like it to be. … And the real trouble comes from not knowing what we really wa…" by Charles de Lint?
Charles de Lint photo
Charles de Lint53
author 1951

Related quotes

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"Motley and Monarch", The North American Review, December 1885

“Feeling scared yet? Want to go somewhere safe?" "It won't help, will it? We'd just run into Godzilla or the Vampire from Hell. Trouble just follows you around." "Hey, Trouble. Let's find out what your mysterious Indian wanted us to know.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

“I've come to know that what we want in life is the greatest indication of who we really are.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Gift

Keanu Reeves photo

“The inspiration really comes first from the character and the story. That vision of what the story is, and what the character is, the world that they inhabit and what the story wants to tell. That’s really what inspires me.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Koenraad Elst photo

“There, in Europe, we really have an invasion of Aryans moving in from the east. And now that we know what a real Aryan invasion looks like, we note that it is completely missing in India.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2010s, Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins (2019)

Rich Mullins photo

“I think, you know, the thing everybody really wants to know anyway is not what the theory of relativity is, but I think what we all really want to know anyways, is whether we're loved or not.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Wheaton, Illinois http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/wheaton-illinois-sep1590-backup-copy.html (April 11, 1997) <br class="br">In Concert

Ayn Rand photo

“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Warren Zevon photo

“From what I know about alcoholism, I'd say there's nothing romantic, nothing grand, nothing heroic, nothing brave — nothing like that about drinking. It's a real coward's death.”

Warren Zevon (1947–2003) American singer-songwriter

As quoted in &quot;Warren Zevon&#x27;s Resurrection: How he saved himself from a coward&#x27;s death&quot; http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5935191/warren_zevons_resurrection/print by Paul Nelson, Rolling Stone (19 March 1981)

D.J. MacHale photo

“Whenever you look back and say, "If," you know you're in trouble. There's no such thing as "if." The only thing that counts is what really happened.”

D.J. MacHale book The Merchant of Death

Variant: Whenever you look back and say "if" you know you're in trouble. There is no such thing as "if". The only thing that matters is what really happened.
Source: The Merchant of Death

Alain photo

“We prove what we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove.”

Alain (1868–1951) French philosopher

On prouve tout ce qu'on veut, et la vraie difficulté est de savoir ce qu'on veut prouver.
Système des Beaux-Arts (1920), as quoted in The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less) by John M. Shanahan, p. 34
Variant translation: We prove anything we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove.

Related topics