Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls aren't there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show us how badly we want things.
Math was a two-part exam and I once didn't go for the second part. I knew I'd done so badly on the first it was hopeless. I re-took it about four or five times. I think I eventually got it by getting the top GCSE grade.
Heartbreak was the impetus to me writing poems and music in the first place. Over the years, I had my heart broken so badly that if I didn't find a way to get all the pain out, I was going to lose my mind. I was crazy! Like, wanting to slash tires and smash car windows. Crazy! I was so hurt that I had to write.
I react very badly when mediocrity throws a tantrum of entitlement.
Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.
In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.
You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear.
A big part of managing a golf course is managing your swing on the course. A lot of guys can go out and hit a golf ball, but they have no idea how to manage what they do with the ball. I've won as many golf tournaments hitting the ball badly as I have hitting the ball well.
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
I don't know why people eat so badly. I could eat pasta all the time, but it really is fattening. And I love ice cream, but I can't do that. There was a time, until I was in my mid-forties, when I could eat a whole pizza - and really, no effect.