Unexpected Setbacks Quotes

Nothing teaches you like getting leveled. And I got leveled in my early 30s. Nothing went exactly the way I thought it would.

The illusion when things are going your way is that it's gonna just keep going. But it never does.

Sometimes it's things that take the joy out of life, like a blowout when you're hitting sixty or a button coming off of a shirt when you're in a hurry, but usually it's people.

Just when you think you've hit rock bottom, you realize you're standing on another trapdoor.

I was planning to be a baseball player until I ran into something called a curveball. And that set me back.

Just when normal life felt almost possible - when the world held some kind of order, meaning, even loveliness (the prismatic spray of light through an icicle; the stillness of a sunrise), some small thing would go awry and veil of optimism was torn away, the barren world revealed. They learned, somehow, to wait those times out. There was no cure, no answer, no reparation. (161)

There are many things in this life capable of throwing people off course - the death of someone close, the loss of income or health, the realisation that cherished hopes cannot always be fulfilled

Even if things are going well, I'm always thinking that I'm about to be hit with the dreaded gut punch and - psych! - I'll find out that it's all falling apart.

After I won but then lost my world title I ended up with no money. Then my dad died in prison.

You're not always going to have a perfect day. You're not always going to have the day that you envision.

I had amazing stuff happen right off the top. I thought this was how it worked. Hollywood is awesome! Cut to three years later: What happened?

A good man's fortune may grow out at heels.

All I can say is that you only realize how big your mountain is once you're laying motionless, helpless, and hopeless in the valley below. No one goes there on purpose, if you get what I'm saying, because the only way to find your personal low is to slip and roll down that mountain of yours, straight through to the bottom, no holds barred.

It seems like every time I start to feel good, something really awful happens. It's like... it's really terrible.

Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for awhile. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way.

Any time you think you have the game conquered, the game will turn around and punch you right in the nose.

There are filmmakers who get lucky with the first film itself, and then there are some of us who have to face difficulties.

Like most women, I thought it would be easy once I decided to start a family. I was surprised that Mother Nature kept poking me in the eye, saying, 'Nope, nope, nope.'

Something devastating can happen to you, and it can have positive consequences. By the same token, something fantastic can happen, and it can bring a lot of trouble. That's life.

Henry Fonda one time said that every time he had a job, he thought it was gonna' be the last one. And, if you got any sense, you gotta' think that because, you know when somebody's gonna do a dip, some of 'em go pretty far down.

I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy.

Seems like every time life starts straightening itself out, something's gotta go and happen.

I've never felt my gender was an obstacle. There have of course been moments in my career when it has slapped me in the face but the reason I felt it slapped me in the face was because it wasn't something that I had contemplated before.

I was in two successive European finals early in my career, so initially, you think that sort of thing is going to happen regularly. Then suddenly, it dries up, and before you know it, 13 years have passed before you get your next chance.