For me, for a very long time, I was in denial because when you say you’re sad or you’re overwhelmed, we consider it whining or complaining. People say, ‘Count your blessings,’ and it’s like, ‘Yeah, I am, but I’m still sad. Something is wrong with me.’ I had to acknowledge it.
I think men are mainly unfaithful because as they get older, they feel the urge to prove to themselves that they are still attractive. They need proof from outside the marriage. It’s really sad. It’s all about them. It’s not about their wives at all.
If you hang out with a bunch of sad sacks who think the world sucks and there’s no possibility, you’ll start to believe that. But if you hang out with people who think everything is possible and actually do the impossible on a regular basis, you will believe that, and you will be able to achieve that.
I grew up feeling ‘less than.’ I was the sad, shy child hiding in the hall closet beneath coats. I’d wait for my grandmother’s voice to call, ‘Jewell, Jewell.’ I was lost, waiting to be found. I thought being found, I’d be happier, better. All the while, I read stories. Stories with both truth and lies.
When you have a nightmare, you think, ‘What caused this?’ And then you can sometimes get the same scenario two or three nights, back to back. Or something really bad happens, and you feel absolutely sad and do not want it to be real. You don’t want to fall asleep and get sucked back into that same dream.
Our religion is itself profoundly sad – a religion of universal anguish, and one which, because of its very catholicity, grants full liberty to the individual and asks no better than to be celebrated in each man’s own language – so long as he knows anguish and is a painter.
Ishmael Beah was born and spent his childhood in Sierra Leone as that sad but beautiful West African country was ravaged by a civil war that left some 50,000 dead between 1991 and 2002. He was a child soldier for a while, then, through extraordinary circumstances, was set free of that life.
Women often postpone their lives, thinking that if they’re not with a partner then it doesn’t really count. They’re still searching for their prince, in a way. And as much as we don’t discuss that, because it’s too embarrassing and too sad, I think it really does exist.
I remember that I used to get lots of books from the library, and ‘Little Women’ was one of them. And I used to just cross out the parts of it that really upset me because it’s such a sad book in so many ways. I’d cross out the parts that upset me, and I would rewrite new endings.
The new generation of musicians is writing music on computers, and this is very sad because the quality of songwriting has crashed and dived. There are some songs out that are made by only one guy who works a computer and doesn’t play any instruments.
I didn’t make music until I was about 18. I’d been playing my whole life, but I wasn’t putting it out because I didn’t feel like people would take it seriously. I thought people would be like, ‘It’s just like sad girl music – it’s like Taylor Swift.’
I do not think direct experience is always necessary to act, but I believe that sometimes you have to have had the real experience to act certain roles. One of those was losing your family member. I was not being able to imagine how sad that could be.
Don’t ever let the other stuff get in the way of your inherent skills as a kick-butt storyteller. Move the reader, make them happy and sad and excited and scared. Make them stare into space after they’ve put the book down, thinking about the tale that’s become a part of them.
I could never really choose a favorite book, but whenever I’m asked what my favorite movie is, I always say ‘Withnail & I,’ a British film from 1987. It’s funny and sad and absolutely gorgeous to look at. It’s the film I can watch over and over again.
I have a voice inside. A voice that I am forever trying to silence. A voice that calls me in when I want to be out, playing. A voice that is always sad. That is always terrified. That always wants to sit in the darkened room, away from noise and movement and colour – away from any experience that could prove to be challenging.
I talked with labels and they wouldn’t help with my international career. They said, ‘Saara, if you’re in Finland you just have to sing in Finnish.’ That led to this situation where I felt very lonely. I was really sad and still I was doing gigs all the time. I’d go onstage crying but I was still trying to sing.
My mother was very, very beautiful, and I saw that the beautiful women around me were often constrained not only by their beauty but by the way that being an object of male desire frequently caused violence in their lives. And it caused them to be constrained in these terribly sad ways – their brilliance was not valued.
I’ve seen a couple white girls coming to my concerts wearing head wraps, and I think they look so cute. It’s kind of sad to see that people are really into separation, trying to separate everybody and making a clear division of ‘us against you,’ even with fashion. That sucks. It’s not the way the world is supposed to be.
Who indeed, after pulling off the coloured glasses of prejudice and thrusting out of sight his pet projects, can help seeing the folly of these endeavours to protect men against themselves? A sad population of imbeciles would our schemers fill the world with, could their plans last.
The way you build trust with your team is around super-clear communication in that instant when they say, ‘I will be sad if you don’t do X.’ You have to say, ‘We’re not going to do X, and here’s why, and believe me, you’ll be much sadder later if I let you go do it and you spend a bunch of time on it and nothing ever happens.’
One day, I was at my grandmother’s house, and I found diaries that she kept as a young girl. I opened one to a page that had flowers glued inside. In her childish handwriting, my grandmother wrote, ‘Pap died today. I am very sad.’ The fact that this was true and that I could see the withered flowers made a huge impression on me.
I grew up in Chillum Heights in the Washington, D.C. area., and it was never a garden spot. When guys go, ‘Hey, when I grew up, my neighborhood was tough, and it was this and that’… the reality is that it was just a terribly sad place. And thank God, I was able to escape it.
You know what I have noticed? And this is really sad. Flying first class is less scary than flying coach. They speak to you and they’re so nice to you and they want to help you and they know you want a drink before the plane takes off. And they bring it to you without asking. If you’re sitting in coach and hoping for a drink, good luck.
I always knew that St. Jude was an amazing organization but meeting the kids and seeing how the hospital works first hand was truly beautiful. It doesn’t feel like a regular hospital all dreary and sad. It’s a colorful, beautiful, comfortable, fun place to live and the energy is wonderful.
I’m very artistic and creative, disorganised – ambitious, I would say, if that even makes sense. I’m definitely not the most mathematical person in the world; not scientific. I can’t even work out a tip; it’s really sad. But I’ve always thought, play up your strengths and let someone else handle your weaknesses. It’s OK. Work together.
