Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
Interpretation
Life can often be dull, but it's important to find joy and avoid expressing negativity.
John Berryman suggests that while life may feel uneventful or mundane, especially in the company of friends, openly admitting to such feelings can dampen the spirit of companionship. Instead, the quote encourages us to focus on the positive aspects and seek out meaning and enjoyment in our experiences, even when they seem ordinary.
In practice
During a speech about embracing life's challenges, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of a positive outlook.
There is no such thing as Freedom (though it is the most important condition of human life, after Humility, -which does not exist either). There is only Slavery (walls around one) and absence-of-Slavery (ability to walk in any direction, or to remain still).
We must travel in the direction of our fear.
The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.
One must be ruthless with one's own writing or someone else will be.
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored means you have no inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.
'Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.
Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.
Learn to respect this sacred moment of birth, as fragile, as fleeting, as elusive as dawn.
You give up your childhood. You miss proms and games and high-school events, and people say it's awful... I say it was a good trade. You miss something but I think I gained more than I lost.
I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.
Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.
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