- America
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- Nov 07, 2020
Agonizing Quotes
Words for the moments that ache the most.
These quotes explore what it means to call something truly Difficult - a novelist's tangled relationship with writing, and a lifelong physical condition that causes real daily pain.
- Last Updated on Aug 03, 2026
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
Basically, I suffer from a genetic condition that causes my corneas to tear all the time. If it's happened to you even once, you know how agonizing it can be - for me, it was happening on a daily basis.
- Live
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- Nov 07, 2020
I don't live in New York or California. I'm in the grocery store, at the park with my kids, and I'm a normal person. I'm feeding my chickens and agonizing about my next book!
- Home
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- Nov 07, 2020
My own life changed when my father returned from his second combat tour in Vietnam. When he came home after almost a year in Army hospitals, he weighed less than half of what he did when he left. I watched the agonizing recovery, and that experience was on my mind when I was asked to come to VA.
- Memory
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- Nov 07, 2020
I still have in my memory, almost agonizing impressions of a serious illness which I had when I was about eight years old. Those about me called it scarlet fever, and its very name seemed to have a diabolical quality.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
To go through the agonizing process of learning how to walk again and write again and speak again makes you much more empathetic to people.
- Heart
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- Nov 07, 2020
The truth is that to enjoy acting one must be an exhibitionist at heart, one must revel in those exposures of the emotions which would be agonizing to a shy or reserved person. All the great actors have been and are exhibitionists.
- Difficult
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- Nov 07, 2020
Abortion opponents say women seek abortions in haste and confusion. Pro-choicers reply: Abortion is the most difficult, agonizing decision a woman ever makes.
- My Life
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- Nov 07, 2020
Writing is my obsession, my passion. My relationship with it is one of the most complex and agonizing and richly vexing that I have in my life.
- Comfort
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- Nov 07, 2020
'Shun security,' I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck. 'Get disoriented. Maybe your agonizing writing block isn't agonizing enough. Your enemy is comfort.'
- Choice
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- Nov 07, 2020
Since reading 'Sophie's Choice,' I have been haunted by the agonizing idea of choosing between two children.
- Nov 07, 2020
There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.
- Hide
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- Nov 07, 2020
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.
- Know
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- Nov 07, 2020