Things were rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too.
Interpretation
Facing challenges makes us more relatable and human to one another.
This quote reflects the idea that adversity is a shared human experience. When individuals go through tough times, it can foster empathy and connection, as it highlights our common struggles and reminds us that everyone has their own battles to fight.
In practice
During a motivational speech, to emphasize resilience in facing life's challenges.
Your mother is not crazy. Neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother. He is merely miscast in a play. He would have made the perfect knight in a different century, or a very good pagan prince in a time of heroes. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do.
Sometimes, I feel like I spent the first part of my life wishing to be a teen-age boy, and the second part condemned to being one.
That's why people don't ever think to blame the Socs and are always ready to jump on us. We look hoody and they look decent. It could be just the other way around - half of the hoods I know are pretty decent guys underneath all that grease, and from what I've heard, a lot of Socs are just cold-blooded mean - but people usually go by looks.
Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.
I had it then. Soda fought for fun, Steve for hatred, Darry for pride, and Two-Bit for conformity. Why do I fight? I thought, and couldn't think of any real good reason. There isn't any real good reason for fighting except self-defense.
...but I've never regretted it. You can't regret experience.
[T]he normal and the everyday are often amazingly unstoppable, and what is unimaginable is the cessation of them. The world is resilient, and, no matter what interruptions occur, people so badly want to return to their lives and get on with them. A veneer of civilization descends quickly, like a shining rain. Dust is settled.
If you use that time where you're alone in ways that bring you joy and peace, then that solitude can have a really positive effect on your life.
My experience in Iraq made me realize, and during the recovery, that I could have died. And I just had to do more with my life.
We're always experiencing joy or sadness. But there are lots of people who've closed down. And there are times in one's life when one has to close down just to regroup.
I walked all those miles, I learned all those lessons. It's as if my new life was the gift I got at the end of a long struggle.
The worst time was 1983. Love and life and everything went wrong. I reached absolute rock bottom. I saw the Minotaur at the bottom of the abyss. I learnt of the harshness of the world and its impartiality to human failure.
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