Complaints Quotes

No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No ~ Emily St. John Mandel

If you don't eat, or if you miss a meal and find yourself hungry, feel free to shed your tears in the shower. And then learn to set a schedule. Don't bring your complaints to me. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Nowadays I get complaints about long drum solos, but in those days they wanted me to keep on going so they could go over to the bar and have a drink. ~ Aynsley Dunbar

Try to avoid complaints. Self-pity even when legitimate never fails to undermine your strength.
~ Mariane Pearl

We have complaints that institutional dominance of the stock market has put 'the small investor at a disadvantage because he can't compete with the trust companies' huge resources, etc. The facts are quite the opposite. It may be that the institutions are better equipped than the individual to speculate in the market.But I am convinced that an individual investor with sound principles, and soundly advised, can do distinctly better over the long pull than large institutions. ~ Benjamin Graham

Don't change the subject," Blaze snapped. "You said dragons? And untie me, damn it. My wrists hurt." He shrugged, completely ignoring her complaints. "Of course there are dragons. Where you think the myths come from? ~ Sara King

When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for. ~ John Milton

Require nothing unreasonable of your officers and men, but see that whatever is required be punctually complied with. Reward and punish every man according to his merit, without partiality or prejudice; hear his complaints; if well founded, redress them; if otherwise, discourage them, in order to prevent frivolous ones. Discourage vice in every shape, and impress upon the mind of every man, from the first to the lowest, the importance of the cause, and what it is they are contending for. ~ George Washington

I suspect that every teacher hears the same complaints, but that, being seldom a practicing author, he tends to dismiss them as out of his field, or to see in them evidence that the troubled student has not the true vocation. Yet it is these very pupils who are most obviously gifted who suffer from these disabilities, and the more sensitively organized they are the higher the hazard seems to them. Your embryo journalist or hack writer seldom asks for help of any sort; he is off after agents and editors while his more serious brother-in-arms is suffering the torments of the damned because of his insufficiencies. Yet instruction in writing is oftenest aimed at the oblivious tradesman of fiction, and the troubles of the artist are dismissed or overlooked. ~ Dorothea Brande

Cowardly thoughts, anxious hesitation, Womanish timidity, timorous complaints Won't keep misery away from you And will not set you free. ~ Edith Hahn Beer

"One of the governor's complaints: federal rules that prohibit dispensary owners from putting their money in banks. "If you really want to introduce corruption into legal marijuana," he said, make it an all cash business." ~ John Hickenlooper

What'll it be?"
"I'll have a beer. Bottled. Not light."
"Careful there, Ty," Jenna said as she popped the top off and slid the bottle to him. "Don't want to put on too much weight, or you'll have trouble holding your stick."
He grabbed the bottle and held it to his lips. "Never had any complaints about my abilities with my stick so far."
Jenna arched a brow. "And you're here alone? With that charm? Shocking. ~ Jaci Burton

Have you noticed how difficult it is just to get along in the world? If you're no good at all in your job, people treat you badly and eventually you will be unemployed. And if you're a little better than competent, everyone expects miracles from you, every single time. Like most of life, it's a no-win situation. And if you dare to mention it, no matter how creatively you phrase your complaints, you are shunned as a whiner. ~ Jeff Lindsay

In February of 1996, about six months after I created eBay, I started receiving a spate of complaints. Everyone was complaining about each other. I felt very much like I was a parent who had to adjudicate the brothers beating each other up. ~ Pierre Omidyar

The answer, of course, is that we are always and forever influenced by those with whom we associate. If a man keeps company with those who curse and complain - he will soon find curses and complaints flowing like a river from his own mouth. If he spends his days with the lazy - those seeking handouts - he will soon find his finances in disarray. Many of our sorrows can be traced to relationships with the wrong people. ~ Andy Andrews

During the Civil War, on hearing complaints that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant drank alcohol to excess Find out what Grant drinks and send a barrel of it to each of my other generals! ~ Abraham Lincoln

When the anarchist, as the mouthpiece of the declining levels of society, insists on 'right,' 'justice,' 'equal rights' with such beautiful indignation, he is just acting under the pressure of his lack of culture, which cannot grasp why he really suffers, what he is poor in– in life.

A drive to find causes is powerful in him: it must be somebody's fault that he's feeling bad . . . Even his 'beautiful indignation' does him good; all poor devils like to whine--it gives them a little thrill of power. Even complaints, the act of complaining, can give life the charm on account of which one can stand to live it: there is a subtle dose of revenge in every complaint; one blames those who are different for one's own feeling bad, and in certain circumstances even being bad, as if they were guilty of an injustice, a prohibited privilege. 'If I'm a lowlife, you should be one too': on this logic, revolutions are built.–

Complaining is never good for anything; it comes from weakness. Whether one ascribes one's feeling bad to others or to oneself–the socialist does the former, the Christian, for example, the latter–makes no real difference. What is common to both and, let us add, what is unworthy, is that it should be someone's fault that one is suffering–in short, that the sufferer prescribes the honey of revenge as a cure for his own suffering. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

God accommodates [Moses'] complaints and makes in-course corrections. God does not take a human being so fully into the divine confidence--you might say, God does not depend on a human being so fully--until Mary conceives by the Holy Spirit. (pg. 16) ~ Ellen F. Davis

In a single week, there might be committees, caucuses, colloquium, congresses, and conventions variously coming together to establish codes, set courses of action, levy complaints, and generally clamor about the world's oldest problems in its newest nomenclature. ~ Amor Towles

When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away. ~ Samuel Johnson

I try to keep my voice in writing, and I think that's why I get so many complaints about how I write. ~ Stanley Cavell

An unaspiring person always complaints. There is no end to his complaints. He bitterly complains even when the blessings of opportunity knock at his very door. ~ Sri Chinmoy

Bewildered, bewildered, you have no complaint. You are what you are, and you ain't what you ain't. ~ John Prine

During the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Eastern Massachusetts, mid-nineteenth century, there happened to be a very lively press run by working people, young women in the factories, artisans in the mills, and so on. They had their own press that was very interesting, very widely read and had a lot of support. And they bitterly condemned the way the industrial system was taking away their freedom and liberty and imposing on them rigid hierarchical structures that they didn't want. One of their main complaints was what they called "the new spirit of the age: gain wealth forgetting all but self." For 150 years there have been massive efforts to try to impose "the new spirit of the age" on people. But it's so inhuman that there's a lot of resistance, and it continues. ~ Noam Chomsky

It would be superfluous to mention more who, though others deemed them the happiest of men, have expressed their loathing for every act of their years, and with their own lips have given true testimony against themselves; but by these complaints they changed neither themselves nor others. For when they have vented their feelings in words, they fall back into their usual round. Heaven knows! such lives as yours, though they should pass the limit of a thousand years, will shrink into the merest span; your vices will swallow up any amount of time. The space you have, which reason can prolong, although it naturally hurries away, of necessity escapes from you quickly; for you do not seize it, you neither hold it back, nor impose delay upon the swiftest thing in the world, but you allow it to slip away as if it were something superfluous and that could be replaced. ~ Seneca.

A disciple once complained, "You tell us stories, but you never reveal their meaning to us." The master replied, "How would you like it if someone offered you fruit and then chewed it up for you before giving it to you?" If your heart is straight with God, then every creature will be to you a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. ~ Thomas A Kempis

It is a horrible thing, money. But it is also horrible to be the only one who hasn't got any. One of my chief complaints against people
has always been that they had no respect for animals. But many people have a great respect for money. Animals with bank accounts of their own will be in a position to insist upon respect. ~ Hugh Lofting

The life we've left behind us has a bad habit of stepping out of the shadows, of bringing complaints to us, of taking us to court. ~ Milan Kundera

In that moment, Lisette loved that man.
Loud complaints erupted, accomplished by the usual slurs slung at the immortal black sheep.
Bastien shrugged them off as his gaze met hers.
Thank you, she told him telepatheically.
His lips tilted up the tiniest bit.
Unfortunately, Seth and David both picked up on the thought and turned back to her with matching frowns, gazes sharpening.
Merde.
"Why haven't you been around lately?" Seth queried. ~ Dianne Duvall

I have this thing built into my contract that the club has to put up a sign that says my act "contains the strongest language and material content imaginable," but, believe it or not, I still get complaints. People want you to be what they want you to be. If they see you on TV and that's what they like, they want you to be EXACTLY like that when they see you live. And if you're not, some of them get upset. ~ Joe Rogan

The nice thing about a protest song is that it takes the complaint, the fussing, the finger-pointing, and gives it an added component of sociable harmony. ~ Nicholson Baker

I've made my decision."
Remi flinched, but I didn't.
Dolf stuck out his hand. "Welcome, Marshell."
I knew before he opened his mouth - I saw the acceptance in his eyes. I didn't often see that on the faces of other paranormals, so when I saw it, I knew it.
"Oh, thank the goddess." Remi dropped his head on the table.
As we shook hands, Dolf looked down at Remi, who was very calmly beating his head against the table. "Stop being so damn dramatic. That's Heller's job."
Remi jerked his head off the table. "You did not just call me a diva."
"So does this mean I can start calling you Cinderfella?"
Remi scowled at me. "You do, and I will kick your ass."
"I'll pencil you in."
"Ass," Remi retorted.
"I didn't hear any complaints about that particular part of my anatomy from you earlier." Oh yeah, I was smirking.
Dolf tapped on the table. "Children…. ~ M.A. Church

Jesus loved the will of His Father. He embraced the limitations, the necessities, the conditions, the very chains of His humanity as He walked and worked here on earth, fulfilling moment by moment His divine commission and the stern demands of His incarnation. Never was there a word or even a look of complaint. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

Ultimately, all our complaints are directed against God. ~ Woodrow M. Kroll

It was never easy, but I always tried my best and kept complaints out of my heart by holding tightly onto the hope that one day, I would read and write. ~ Ger Duany

Constant complaints were being made of incompetent attendants, and some dozen women did double duty, and then were blamed for breaking down. If any hospital director fancies this a good and economical arrangement, allow one used up nurse to tell him it isn't, and beg him to spare the sisterhood, who sometimes, in their sympathy, forget that they are mortal, and run the risk of being made immortal, sooner than is agreeable to their partial friends. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints. ~ Jim Harrison

Domestic violence has often gone unnamed and unblamed in my society. It is the norm for men to teach their wives a lesson, and for the women to bear that beating and teaching with no complaints. ~ Fatima Mohammed

Mothers tend to encourage their sons to run away and romp ... Mothers of little boys often complain that "There's no controlling him." "He's all over the place ... " The complaints are tinged with more than a little pride at the boy's marvelous independence and masculine bravado. It's almost as though the mother enjoyed being overwhelmed by her spectacular conquering hero. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages. ~ Adam Smith

Complaining is never powerful because at the root of a complaint is powerlessness ~ Dennis Prager

I can be happy or unhappy in all situations. I am sure of it, because I have been. I have felt distraught and joyful in situations of abundance as well as poverty, in situations of popularity and anonymity, in situations of success and failure. The difference was never based on the situation itself, but always on my state of mind and heart. When I knew I was walking with God, I always felt happy and at peace. When I was entangled in my own complaints and emotional needs, I always felt restless and divided. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints of the North have earned this crumb by their complaints. ~ Wallace Stevens

Their Policy in this is very wise, and has nothing Barbarous in it. For, since their preservation depends upon their union, and since it is hardly possible that among peoples where license reigns with all impunity -- and, above all, among young people -- there should not happen some event capable of causing a rupture, and disuniting their minds, -- for these reasons, they hold every year a general assembly in Onnontaé. There all the Deputies from the different Nations are present, to make their complaints and receive the necessary satisfaction in mutual gifts, -- by means of which they maintain a good understanding with one another ~ Reuben Gold Thwaites

Riyadh was the base of the government, but none of the Al Sa'ud family particularly enjoyed the city; their complaints never ended about the dreariness of life in Riyadh. It was too hot and dry, the men of religion took themselves too seriously, the nights were too cold. Most of the family preferred Jeddah or Taif. ~ Jean Sasson

The next time you have the urge to complain, stop and ask yourself what it is you truly want. Do you just want to complain or do you want to improve your situation? Somewhere within each complaint is a genuine desire to improve things, but the complaint by itself is never enough to make it happen. So make the choice not to aggravate a bad situation with your complaints. Choose instead to improve it with your positive thoughts, ideas and actions. ~ Anonymous

According to the English scholar Richard Lloyd-Jones, some of the clay tablets deciphered from ancient Sumerian include complaints about the deteriorating writing skills of the young. ~ Steven Pinker

I've never gotten any complaints about my headscarf from a man. You can be sexy with a head wrap! ~ Sanaa Lathan

There is joy at the end of every struggle we face. But you can never cross over and get there with the boats of complains. Complainer is only an explainer of pain! Take action! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

People don't think of writers as sex objects. The women who write to me and suggest that we ought to have sex usually turn out to be, like, eighty. And their letters always end with, "Just joking." ~ Dave Barry

The cruelest thing anyone can do to Portnoy's Complaint is to read it twice. ~ Irving Howe

Jesus.. says, 'Let go of your complaints, forgive those who loved you poorly, step over your feelings of being rejected, and have the courage to trust that you won't fall into an abyss of nothingness but into the safe embrace of a God whose love will heal all your wounds. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

The bureau is closed, said Gavroche. I'm receiving no more complaints. ~ Victor Hugo

Why should death make a man truthful, or even clever? The dead are likely dull fellows, full of tedious complaints - the ground's too cold, my gravestone should be larger, why does he get more worms than I do ... ~ George R R Martin

A complaint is a compliment of negativity. ~ Debasish Mridha

A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

But in Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity, and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties; neither apprehending want himself, nor vexed with the endless complaints of his wife? ~ Thomas More

In California, I guess you belong to the state; you don't even belong to your parents. It's an old Spanish law. It doesn't require your parents to swear out a complaint; anybody can. ~ Bo Derek

People would like to place a standard on our show that doesn't exist. We're not set up for reporting; we don't have an apparatus for that. We're discussing things that hopefully people might get something out of, but it's wildly inconsistent. Just because we hit on points that resonate, or people think are real complaints - that doesn't make us journalists. ~ Jon Stewart

A true patriot would keep the attention of his fellow citizens awake to their grievances, and not allow them to rest till the causes of their just complaints are removed. ~ Samuel Adams

I live my life free of compromise, and step into the shadows without complaint or regret. ~ Alan Moore

You know, a Communist's whole life work is based on complaint of how everything is done ... So if they ever get their country running good they will defeat their own cause. ~ Will Rogers

Life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong, and complaints about the world around you. ~ Sara Zarr

Opportunities are where the complaints are. ~ Jack Ma

God created the world in six days. On the seventh day, he rested. On the eighth day, he started getting complaints. And it hasn't stopped since. ~ James Scott Bell

Let me say this: being an idiot is no box of chocolates. People laugh, lose patience, treat you shabby. Now they say folks supposed to be kind to the afflicted, but let me tell you this - it ain't always that way. Even so, I got no complaints, cause I reckon I done live a pretty interesting life, so to speak. ~ Winston Groom

She was willing a little bit of sweated labour, incapable of betraying the slogan of her slavers, that since the customer or sucker was paying for his gutrot ten times what it cost to produce and five times what it cost to fling in his face, it was only reasonable to defer to his complaints up to but not exceeding fifty per cent of his exploitation. ~ Samuel Beckett

The leap of faith always means loving without expecting to be loved in return, giving without wanting to receive, inviting without hoping to be invited, holding without asking to be held. And every time I make a little leap, I catch a glimpse of the One who runs out to me and invites me into his joy, the joy in which I can find not only myself, but also my brothers and sisters. Thus the disciplines of trust and gratitude reveal the God who searches for me, burning with desire to take away all my resentments and complaints and to let me sit at his side at the heavenly banquet. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

More academics should blog, post videos, post audio, post lectures, offer articles and more. You'll enjoy it: I've had threats and blackmail, abuse, smears and formal complaints with forged documentation. ~ Ben Goldacre

One of my biggest complaints about adulthood is that it's difficult to simply hang out with friends ~ Erin Rooney Doland

Let those feelings out. Talk about it. Even if you're talking to your journal by yourself in an empty room. That still counts. That still matters.

If you know someone who's struggling and isolated, help them talk about it. Even if they don't have the right words. Even if you sit in silence as they try to feel safe. Even if they shower you with complaints, excuses, and justifications. Even if you can see they're just playing small, being irrational, blaming circumstances. Just be there. It all counts. It all matters. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

When we were born, we were thrown off to land on earth. The successful kept calm and created their wings on their way down. The losers were busy complaining against the creator why he did not give wings to them knowing they had to fly. ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

An increasing cackle of complaints, orders, and jests, and what to a European would have been bad language, came from behind the curtains. Here was evidently a woman used to command. ~ Rudyard Kipling

The Nutri-Matic was designed and manufactured by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation whose complaints department now covers all the major landmasses of the first three planets in the Sirius Tau Star system. Arthur ~ Douglas Adams

Doctors need to be held accountable, since power corrupts. There must be complaints procedures and litigation, commissions of enquiry, punishment and compensation. At the same time if you do not hide or deny any mistakes when things go wrong, and if your patients and their families know that you are distressed by whatever happened, you might, if you are lucky, receive the precious gift of forgiveness. ~ Henry Marsh

A man endures misfortune without complaint. ~ Franz Schubert

The most frequent complaint is that it's hard. True. it's a hard game to win Also, many people ask me how to use the secret debugging commands, apparently under the impression that I'll tell them. ~ Graham Nelson

All of you, I am sure, have heard many cries about Government interference with business and about "creeping socialism." I should like to remind the gentlemen who make these complaints that if events had been allowed to continue as they were going prior to March 4, 1933, most of them would have no businesses left for the Government or for anyone else to interfere with - and almost surely we would have socialism in this country, real socialism. ~ Harry Truman

I'm a reasonably attractive young gal, great rack, nice legs, and never had any complaints in the sack. But I'd never been - cue sad music - in love before. And no one had ever been - cue sadder music - in love with me. ~ Alice Clayton

The wonderful thing about modern medicine is that so many of these complaints that used to signify old age and decline can be coped with. ~ Ian McKellen

I've never had any complaints yet! ~ George S. Kaufman

Time.

For some it was a great healer, the ultimate fixer of bad break-ups, shake-ups, and heartache…

For others, Time was an insidious stealer of all things they want most in life, stripping it away from them by sneakily changing the rules of obtaining it… For all the joyful wishes and hopeful desires held near and dear to our hearts, Time was the one element most likely to keep it from our reach.

To me, Time was all of these, and none. Time simply is. It's the framework in which we play out the games of our lives, but the secret is not to control it. It is not to master it. It is simply to learn to exist fully within the moment, to be aware of every facet of our being, and to wring every ounce of joy from it. Perhaps we were our own thieves, lamenting the absence of even a spare moment to enjoy life, when all it really takes is to stop the complaints, take the moment firmly in hand, and make it our own. Because the secret is that Time passes, and if you let it, it will leave you in its wake, aching with every beat of your heart and in every fiber of your being for what you have missed. ~ Madelyn Alt

The chance you had is the life you've got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people's lives, ... but you mustn't wish for another life. You mustn't want to be somebody else. ~ Wendell Berry

You know, many writers really don't like to write. I think this the chief complaint of so many. They hate to write; they do it under the compulsion that makes any artist the victim he is, but they loathe the process of sitting down trying to turn thoughts into reasonable sentences. ~ Harper Lee

In fact, Lincoln and Stanton had already heard similar complaints. After dispatching investigators to look into General Grant's behavior, however, they had concluded that his drinking did not affect his unmatched ability to plan, execute, and win battles. A memorable story circulated that when a delegation brought further rumors of Grant's drinking to the president, Lincoln declared that if he could find the brand of whiskey Grant used, he would promptly distribute it to the rest of his generals! ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

When we touch the foundation of the reality of the good news of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints. ~ Oswald Chambers

As the Navajo and Christian activist Mark Charles explains, when citizens of the thirteen British colonies composed the Declaration of Independence, among their complaints against King George was that he didn't allow them to apply the Doctrine of Discovery to the people of the lands to their west.22 The Declaration described the indigenous peoples as "merciless Indian savages," clearly not counted among the "all men" whom God supposedly "created equal. ~ Brian D. McLaren

Quantum mechanics - the physics of our world - requires that you hold such pedestrian complaints in abeyance. ~ Brian Greene

I say, then, that viewed from that standpoint, there is but one single subject of complaint which Virginia has to make against the government under which we live; a complaint made by the whole South, and that is on the subject of African slavery ... ~ John Brown Baldwin

In these words lies all his power: He chose the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints. ~ Paulo Coelho

I was blessed with the looks of a fucking Adonis, so yeah, men usually hated me anyway. I paid their bullshit complaints little to no attention at all. Let me put it this way, if I had a nickel for every single time some guy was jealous of me, I'd be rich.
Oh, wait! I am rich. So, fuck them. ~ Barbie Bohrman

A steady flow of complaints about the proliferation of books reverberated into the late 1600s. Intellectuals warned that people would stop talking to each other, burying themselves in books, polluting their minds with useless, fatuous ideas. ~ Daniel J. Levitin

Sexuality, desirability has nothing to do with body type. It has to do with how you feel from within. I was at my fattest best in 'The Dirty Picture,' and I was called the most desirable. So there you go. I am quite well-endowed, so I have no complaints. ~ Vidya Balan

The complaints of the child in us will never cease lamenting until it is consoled, answered, understood. Only then will it lie still in us, like our fears. It will die in peace and leave us what the child leaves to the man - the sense of wonder. ~ Anais Nin

Complaints about reality are immature. ~ Timothy Findley

Among all the complaints you hear these days about the crimes of the media, it seems to me the critics miss the big one. It is that especially TV, but also we of the print press, tend to reduce mess and complexity and ambiguity to a simple story line that doesn't reflect reality so much as it distorts it ... What bothers me about the journalistic tendency to reduce unmanageable reality to self-contained, movielike little dramas is not just that we falsify when we do this. It is also that we really miss the good story. ~ Meg Greenfield

Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess:

Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity.

Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends.

Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point.

Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing.

I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.

Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint -- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces.

Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And, Lo ~ Anonymous

For people sometimes believed that it was safer to live with complaints,
was necessary to cooperate with grief, was all right to become an accomplice in self-ambush ...
Take heart to flat out decide to be well and stride into the future sane and whole. ~ Toni Cade Bambara

Let's restrict ourselves to military botany. What's a -? DUCK!"
Now, gentle reader, you be the judge. Was I asking the question What's a duck? Of course I wasn't. Despite Meg's later complaints, I was trying to warn her that the nearest strix was charging straight at her face.
She didn't understand my warning, which was not my fault. ~ Rick Riordan

The traveler's boast, sometimes couched as a complaint, is that of having been an eyewitness, and invariably this experience - shocking though it may seem at the time - is an enrichment, even a blessing, one of the life-altering trophies of the road. ~ Paul Theroux