100 Coping Quotes

Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority.

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.

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.

I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humor.

I don't think there would be many jokes, if there weren't constant frustration and fear and so forth. It's a response to bad troubles like crime.

Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

It takes a good deal of physical courage to ride a horse. This, however, I have. I get it at about forty cents a flask, and take it as required.

You write in your letter something which I sometimes feel also: Sometimes I do not know how I shall pull through.

I took to writing at an early age to escape from meaninglessness, uselessness, unimportance, insignificance, poverty, enslavement, ill health, despair, madness, and all manner of other unattractive, natural and inevitable things.

Whether a person is spiritual or not, we all seek to get away from the stress, anger, and anxiety of everyday life. Some people drink, do drugs, or do worse to escape, and they hurt themselves in the process. Some people listen to music, mine included, and feel better.

Comedy is the blues for people who can't sing.

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Man is the only animal that knows he's going to die, so we invent a heaven to keep from going crazy. Most people are hypnotized by organized religion from childhood.

It is all well and good for children and acid freaks to still believe in Santa Claus - but it is still a profoundly morbid day for us working professionals. It is unsettling to know that one out of every twenty people you meet on Xmas will be dead this time next year... Some people can accept this, and some can't. That is why God made whiskey, and also why Wild Turkey comes in $300 shaped canisters during most of the Christmas season.'

I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?

'I think I think too much. That's why I drink!'

Jokes can be noble. Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward - and since I can start thinking and striving again that much sooner.

My father said 'When in doubt, castle.'

Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious - and what is too often overlooked - is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast-beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one.

One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you've got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.

But he had turned, little by little, a disturbance into words, he had made a pillow of old words, for his head.

Start every day with a smile and get it over with.

When you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.

I love poking fun at myself. I have a rather mean sense of humor. Viciously, viciously mean sense of humor, and I find that it does less damage if I turn it on myself. So I spend a lot of time making fun of me.

While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water - laughing at the girl, at the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier... and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

Humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be.

Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disc jockey. If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?

When life hands you lemons, make whisky sours

To know and to serve God, of course, is why we're here, a clear truth, that, like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard. But a little faith will see you through. What else will do except faith in such a cynical, corrupt time? When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word. What is the last word, then? Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music and books, raising kids - all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.

[While her father was a political prisoner in Cuba] I was always singing and dancing and reciting poems -- that was how I used to do my crying over my father. There were a lot of negotiations between the US and Cuban governments over the next couple of years [1961 - 1963]. [Castro proposed an exchange of prisoners for food, medicine and building machinery], and eventually my dad was released. It was wonderful to have him home -- it was probably the happiest time in my life. For once, the whole family was together, living a normal life. That was when my sister, Becky, was born [1964], and it was also when I started guitar lessons. I would lock myself away in my room for days, learning how to play. Even then I was beginning to work out that music was a way to cut throught all the BS.

'Excellent; all is well. The 'everlasting tedium' exactly countervenes the 'immediate onset of death' and I am left only with the 'canker' which, in the person of Firx, already afflicts me. One must use his wits in dealing with maledictions.' - Cugel

Good practical intelligence. Why screech when there is no one to comfort you?

He could find no cure for his grief; but he did know that continued occupation would relieve him, and therefore he occupied himself continually.

Fear is part of people's life. Some of them don't know how to face it, others - where I include myself - learn coexisting with it or face it, not as a negative thing, but like a autoprotection sensation.

And with 'disconnection,' we're talking about different levels of existence here, like in high school. I'd sit and look at that fuckin' clock and think, 'I'm not gonna make it! I can't make through the rest of this day - I'm gonna freak out, I'm gonna fuckin' strangle this teacher, I'm gonna fuckin' shoot this guy next to me!' Well how do you get through that? You just turn yourself off. How do you get through, like, your fuckin' parent beating you over the head? You just shut it off.

You basically have to trick yourself into incredible intensity to do this stuff, and I do a good job of pretending that I'm racing to save my mom from getting killed or my sister from being raped-some horrible thing that causes me to dig deep, like old-school 'Braveheart' s---. If you come into battle with that in your head, you're gonna be a different person than if you think you're just going out for a little swordfight. But when you do that for 10 years straight, it wears your a-- out. It's like crying wolf to yourself a million times. And at some point, you start to say, 'Why am I doing this?'

'The only way I was able to bring myself out of all that negativity was to lock myself in my room and sing.'

Whenever I'm nervous I just pretend that I'm naked and that everyone else in the room has their clothes on.

We're learning to live with somebody's depression And I don't want to live with somebody's depression.

I can't beat myself I can't beat myself And I don't want to talk. I'm taking the cure so I can be quiet Whenever I want. So leave me alone You ought to be proud that I'm getting good marks.

Smoking has a sedative effect upon the nerves, and enables a man to bear the sorrows of this life (of which every one has his share) not only decently, but dignifiedly.

For fourteen years [1966 to 1980] [my father] suffered a debilitating disease [multiple schlerosis]. I took care of him for most of that time, until he was no longer able to be taken care of at home . . . So, in essence, I was caring for [my father] and my younger sister [Becky], six years younger than I. It was difficult for me. It was a tough time. Music was my escape -- my catharsis. My way of just getting my emotions out. Music has always been a beautiful force in my life.

I'd lock myself up in my room with my guitar. I wouldn't cry. I was afraid if I let go just a little bit, it would all go. I would sing for hours by myself . . . . It was my way of crying.

And the broad who served the whisky She was a big old friendly girl. And she tried to fight her empty nights By smilin' at the world.

Well, I couldn't see what was to be, So I just stood there laughing.

While we were being bombed in Dresden, sitting in a cellar with our arms over our heads in case the ceiling fell, one slider said as though he were a duchess in a mansion on a cold and rainy night, 'I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight.' Nobody laughed, but we were still all glad he said it.

I smiled at him but knew it did not reach my eyes. I smiled because he smiled at me, more reflex than emotion. Inside I was nothing. It was a little like being in shock. Shock is nature's insulation, the thing that shuts you down so you can heal, or sometimes so you can die without hurting, or being afraid...

The fact is there are no stories I can tell my friends that will make them feel better. History cannot be erased, although we can soothe ourselves by speculating about it.

I have a new CD; it's in stores, and when you have a CD in stores, you have to do in-store appearances, and if nobody shows up, I just pretend like I'm shopping. That's how I shop; I sit behind a table with a pen.

I am greedy. I eat under stress. When you are eating, the rest of the world is tuned out. And when you tune back in you feel guilty about having been greedy and the rest of the world is still there, so you have to carry on eating!

Back in my 20s, I was playing poker to avoid living. I wasn't very satisfied with life. I used to play in a big game in Archway. And we'd play as much as we possibly could and for as much money as we had, and that went on for a couple of years.

Drugs don't work. They don't even make you forget - only momentarily, because if something's that painful, nothing's going to make you forget it. You think they'll fill the hole, but the hole just gets deeper: It's like trying to fill in a hole without a spade.

irony [is] a fashionable response to the experience of being had.

From thousands of our undone widows One may derive some wit.

I thought you were kidding. I thought it was a joke, I even wrote it down in my diary. 'Veronica had a very funny joke today.' I laughed at it later that night.

Maybe someday I'll turn into Helen Keller by puncturing my ears with a knife, then cutting my voicebox out.

Having conversations with Kurt Cobain I'm drowning my fears in the acid rain.

'I throw root vegetables at them.' - about the paparazzi

Any unhappiness that they might harbor in their hearts was kept in check, buried under the hard work that marked the rhythms of their lives, and then dissolved in the moments when joy was bountiful and love unstinted

we thug niggaz and we came in packs/Every one of niggaz strapped sippin on 'yaq (Cognac)/In the back, my AR-15/Thuggin till I die, these streets got me cravin thorazine

Come take my body God, don't let me suffer any longer/Smoke a pound of marijuana, so I know it ain't long

Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.

When this old world gets me down and there's no love to be found I close my eyes and soon I find I'm in a playground in my mind Where the children laugh and the children play And we sing a song all day.

When it gets tough, I go to the rifle!

Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music.

Learn to laugh at your troubles and you'll never run out of things to laugh at.

A diplomat's life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol.

'That's why you always keep an extra bottle around, feeling bad, you take a few sips and you have a first class scene again.'

I have my drugs, I have my woman, They keep away my lonliness. My parents, they have their religion, but sleep in separate houses.

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

It's no use crying over spilt evils. It's better to mop them up laughing.

I caught my wife in bed with another man. I was crushed. I said: 'Get off me, you two!'

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

Strangely, even when I was miserable in my own life, I usually loved being on a film set and I truly revelled in the atmosphere of working with the director and the actors in creating something. Making films was always a refuge for me because I was totally focused on the work and not thinking about my own problems. (2004)

Thank God I never hooked on anything. I never had a monkey on my back. I just wanted to self-medicate, to numb myself through liquor. It's how I dealt with life, reality, stress, change, sadness, memories. The list goes on. I was really trying to feel nothing. (2004)

I would hope to think that this is maybe hell. Maybe this is hell because then we could go on to something else. Because this ain't so bad. (1995)

The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it.

The more you drink, the better you're able to cope in Washington.

In victory, you deserve Champagne; in defeat, you need it.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Some subjects are so serious that one can only joke about them.

The truth of the matter is - and I'm always a bit reluctant to say this because people think you're a bit unfeeling. The truth of this, on 9/11, people who - myself and others - were so unbelievably focused on what was happening that we were, for many, many hours, I think, spared the agony of loss.

I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.

This is how we go on: one day a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root canal at a time; boat builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the birds in the sky and will not turn from the window when we hear the footsteps behind as something comes up the hall; we say yes, I agree that clouds often look like other things - fish and unicorns and men on horseback - but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightning flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on.

I wish I was more cheerful, it is more pleasant, Also it is a duty, we should smile as well as submitting To the purpose of One Above who is experimenting With various mixtures of human character which goes best, All is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us. There I go again. Smile, smile, and get some work to do Then you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.

'Elephants are eating my face.'- Dave Matthews 12.16.06, Warren Haynes' 18th Anual Xmas Jam