“It was unrealistic to expect to be constantly in the happiest place. In real life, you're lucky just to be always somewhere nearby.”
Source: Saint Anything
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Sarah Dessen 511
American writer 1970Related quotes
“Just tell yourself, Duckie, you're real quite lucky.”
“Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going.”
Source: The Phantom Tollbooth
“You oughta be thankful, a whole heaping lot,
For the places and people you're lucky you're not!”
The last sentence of this statement is often misquoted as "You oughta be thankful, a whole heaping lot, / For the people and places you're lucky you're not!"
Source: Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (1973)
Context: It’s a troublesome world. All the people who're in it
are troubled with troubles almost every minute.
You oughta be thankful, a whole heaping lot,
For the places and people you're lucky you're not!
The last sentence of this statement is often misquoted as "You oughta be thankful, a whole heaping lot, / For the people and places you're lucky you're not!"
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (1973)
On further elaborating on his point of being displaced in “Ariel Dorfman: 'Not to belong anywhere, to be displaced, is not a bad thing for a writer'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/09/ariel-dorfman-not-to-belong-anywhere-to-be-displaced-is-not-a-bad-thing-for-a-writer in The Guardian (2018 May 9)
The Pursuit of Simplicity (1981), p. 151
Variant: Total security has never been available to anyone. To expect it is unrealistic; to imagine that it can exist is to invite disaster. I believe the most important aim for humanity at present is to avoid war, dictatorship, and their awful consequences.
Better a Shield Than A Sword : Perspectives On Defense And Technology (1987), p. 241
Context: The preservation of peace and the improvement of the lot of all people require us to have faith in the rationality of humans. If we have this faith and if we pursue understanding, we have not the promise but at least the possibility of success. We should not be misled by promises. Humanity in all its history has repeatedly escaped disaster by a hair's breadth. Total security has never been available to anyone. To expect it is unrealistic; to imagine that it can exist is to invite disaster. What we do have in our technological capacities is an opportunity to use our inventiveness, our creativity, our wisdom and our understanding of our fellow beings to create a future world that is a little better than the one in which we live today.