Coping Quotes

If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane.

Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter.

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.

I complain a lot. That's one way of coping. But I'm in a profession where nobody tells you to quit. No board of other partners tells you it's time to get your gold watch, and no physical claim is made on you like an athlete or an actress. So I try to plug along on the theory that I can still do it. I still keep trying to produce prose, and some poetry, in the hope that I can find something to say about being alive, this country, but generally the human condition.

I did a lot of thinking, and used mental activity to relieve whatever feelings I had. I became very left-brained, and I was good in school. That is, I was a smart kid.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

Humor is an escape, because you cannot think about your problems when you are trying to be funny; so, in essence, "being a humorist" gives you a valid excuse to hide from your pain.

Two words will help you cope when you run low on hope: accept and trust.

Laughter is the shock absorber that eases the blows of life.

When the going gets tough, the tough make cookies.

Basically, I'm for anything that gets you through the night - be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.

To endure the pain of living, we all drug ourselves more or less with gin, with literature, with superstitions, with romance, with idealism, political, sentimental, and moral, with every possible preparation of that universal hashish: imagination.

What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back the burden of grief that is laid on each one of us. In youth we don't feel it, but as we grow to manhood we find the burden on our shoulders. Humor? It is nature's effort to harmonize conditions. The further the pendulum swings out over woe the further it is bound to swing back over mirth.

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

God put self-pity by the side of despair like the cure by the side of the disease.

Laughter is higher than all pain.

The plan was to drink until the pain is over, But what's worse, the pain or the hangover?

I have given a name to my pain, and call it "dog".

Men, in whatever anxiety they may be, if they are men, sometimes indulge in relaxation.

In truth I never really liked any of the heavy drugs, because normally my energy is up when I'm performing, and that's about it. Cocaine is nothing new. It's the pressure, I think. People use it to relieve that, and for me it is about getting numb and forgetting. I have a reverse metabolic reaction to the stuff.

Because I cannot sleep I make music at night.

Work makes a callus against grief.

I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.

Many things have been written, including by me, linking humor and pain. Mostly, in my case, the humor part keeps me sane. If I spent all my hours writing things like "Fatal Distraction," I'd become a brooding, erratic melancholic. I'd be Raskolnikov.

The cure for grief is motion.

The evening ended with dancing. On its being proposed, Anne offered her services, as usual, and though her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she sat at the instrument, she was extremely glad to be employed, and desired nothing in return but to be unobserved.

Smile, it's easier than explaning why you're sad

I'm the rap version of Dave Chappelle. I'm not sayin' I'm nearly as talented as Chappelle when it comes to political and social commentary, but like him, I'm laughing to keep from crying.

The best way to get over a dog's death is to get another soon.

Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning; One pain is less'ned by another's anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's languish.

I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.

Comedy can be a cathartic way to deal with personal trauma.

The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible.

The brutal reality of politics would be probably intolerable without drugs.

Our attitude towards suffering becomes very important because it can affect how we cope with suffering when it arises.

Sleep makes the silence and the terrible fear go by more quickly, helps pass the time, since it's impossible to kill.

For me, survival is the ability to cope with difficulties, with circumstances, and to overcome them.

Laugh now, cry later.

If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take hashish.

If I go on talking and talking...and telling you things about pretending, I shall bear it better. You don't forget, but you bear it better.

I'm for whatever gets you through the night.

There is nothing like employment, active indispensable employment, for relieving sorrow. Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy.

I used to imagine adventures for myself, I invented a life, so that I could at least exist somehow.

What you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of something else.

Becoming a comedienne was my way of adjusting to puberty.

If I did not have a sense of humor, I would have long ago killed myself.

Patch grief with proverbs.

He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we cannot find expression.

So you see, the quality of humor is not a personal or a national monopoly. It's as free as salvation, and, I am afraid, far more widely distributed. But it has its value, I think. The hard and sordid things of life are too hard and too sordid and too cruel for us to know and touch them year after year without some mitigating influence, some kindly veil to draw over them, from time to time, to blur the craggy outlines, and make the thorns less sharp and the cruelties less malignant.

I think being jilted is one of life's most painful experiences. It takes a long time to heal a broken heart. It's happened to all of us and never gets any easier. I understand, however, that playing one of my albums can help.

Adversity is a good test of our resiliency, our ability to cope, to stand back up, to recover from misfortune. Adversity is a painful pedagogue.

Know that I've forgotten precisely nothing; but I've driven it all out of my head for a time, even the memories--until I've radically improved my circumstances. Then...then you'll see, I'll rise from the dead!

Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey.

Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage.

But after a while you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing.

When you think things are bad, when you feel sour and blue, when you start to get mad... you should do what I do! Just tell yourself, Duckie, you're really quite lucky! Some people are much more... oh, ever so much more... oh, muchly much-much more unlucky than you!

Cocaine for me was a place to hide. Most people get hyper on coke. It slowed me down. Sometimes it made me paranoid and impotent, but mostly it just made me withdrawn.

The cigarettes you light one after another won’t help you forget her.