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Agonizing Quotes

Words for the moments that ache the most.

These quotes explore what it means to call something truly Difficult - a novelist's tangled relationship with writing, and a lifelong physical condition that causes real daily pain.

Theater people are always pining and agonizing because they're afraid that they'll be forgotten. And in America they're quite right. They will be.

Quotes by Agnes de Mille

Basically, I suffer from a genetic condition that causes my corneas to tear all the time. If it's happened to you even once, you know how agonizing it can be - for me, it was happening on a daily basis.

Quotes by Shannon Bream

I don't live in New York or California. I'm in the grocery store, at the park with my kids, and I'm a normal person. I'm feeding my chickens and agonizing about my next book!

Quotes by Sarah Dessen

My own life changed when my father returned from his second combat tour in Vietnam. When he came home after almost a year in Army hospitals, he weighed less than half of what he did when he left. I watched...

Quotes by Robert Wilkie

Always Quotes

I still have in my memory, almost agonizing impressions of a serious illness which I had when I was about eight years old. Those about me called it scarlet fever, and its very name seemed to have a diabolical quality.

Quotes by Pierre Loti

To go through the agonizing process of learning how to walk again and write again and speak again makes you much more empathetic to people.

Quotes by Mark Kirk

The truth is that to enjoy acting one must be an exhibitionist at heart, one must revel in those exposures of the emotions which would be agonizing to a shy or reserved person. All the great actors have been and...

Quotes by Leslie Howard

Abortion opponents say women seek abortions in haste and confusion. Pro-choicers reply: Abortion is the most difficult, agonizing decision a woman ever makes.

Quotes by Katha Pollitt

Writing is my obsession, my passion. My relationship with it is one of the most complex and agonizing and richly vexing that I have in my life.

Quotes by Julianna Baggott

Book Quotes

'Shun security,' I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck. 'Get disoriented. Maybe your agonizing writing block isn't agonizing enough. Your enemy is comfort.'

Quotes by John Burdett

Since reading 'Sophie's Choice,' I have been haunted by the agonizing idea of choosing between two children.

Quotes by Fiona Barton

Love, we say, is life; but love without hope and faith is agonizing death.

Elbert Hubbard

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.

Quotes by Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

Quotes by Countee Cullen

Difficult Quotes

I love writing and do not know why it is considered such a difficult, agonizing profession.

Quotes by Caroline B. Cooney

To learn a piece on the piano - even a simple one - has proved every bit as agonizing as writing a chapter in a book, every bit as tedious and hopeless and halting. But this is not to say...

Quotes by Ben Dolnick

Frequently Asked Questions

What kinds of "agonizing" experiences do these quotes cover?
Mostly creative and physical struggles - a novelist describing writing itself as agonizing, and someone living with a genetic condition that causes recurring, painful eye tearing.
Is this page just about one difficult decision?
No. Only one sample touches on a difficult personal decision some women describe as agonizing, and it's presented neutrally; the rest are about creative struggle and physical pain.
Why would a writer call their own work agonizing?
One quote describes writing as complex, agonizing, and richly vexing all at once - suggesting the struggle itself is part of what makes the Book worth finishing.
Does the page take a position on the abortion sample it references?
No. It's described only as a difficult personal decision, without endorsing either side of that debate.
What's the common thread across these quotes?
Genuine, often Difficult discomfort - whether from a stubborn creative block or a lasting physical condition - rather than exaggeration for effect.

One entry also touches on a difficult personal decision some women describe as agonizing, without taking a side. Together they show how the word covers both emotional and physical suffering, from a stubborn writing Book to the body itself.