#desperation

I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished. It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#criminal-justice-system #cycle-of-violence #desperation #greed #homelessness

I have always used the world of make-believe with a certain desperation. ↗

— Ruth Benedict

#certain #desperation #i #make-believe #used

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting. ↗

— Jim Carrey

#creating #desperate #desperation #ingredient #interesting

People need motivation to do anything. I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation. ↗

— Jim Carrey

#beings #desperation #human #human beings #i

I like movies about longing and desperation, and dark and light things, stories about people struggling to raise children, and to have relationships and be intimate with each other. ↗

— Laura Dern

#children #dark #desperation #each #i

I had to go to a mirror and look at it. I couldn't picture myself in my own head. I had no image beyond a stick figure. I wasn't a mean person as a kid, or dumb, and something has to be said to justify excluding you. ↗

— Uma Thurman

#business #crazy #dead #desperation #drive

And also I think particularly as a female, you're taught to be defensive your whole life. You're taught not to be aggressive. ↗

— Uma Thurman

#business #crazy #dead #desperation #drive

THIS IS WHY He will never be given to wonder much if he was the mouth for some cruel force that said it. But if he were (this will comfort her) less than one moment out of millions had he meant it. So many years and so many turns they had swerved around the subject. And he will swear for many more the kitchen and everything in it vanished -- the oak table, their guests, the refrigerator door he had been surely propped against-- all changed to rusted ironwork and ash except in the center in her linen caftan: she was not touched. He remembers the silence before he spoke and her nodding a little, as if in the meat of this gray waste here was the signal for him to speak what they had long agreed, what somewhere they had prepared together. And this one moment in the desert of ash stretches into forever. They had been having a dinner party. She had been lonely. A friend asked her almost joking if she had ever felt really crazy, and when she started to unwind her answer in long, lovely sentences like scarves within her he saw this was the way they could no longer talk together. And that is when he said it, in front of the guests, because he couldn't bear to hear her. And this is why the guests have left and she screams as he comes near her. ↗

— Michael Ryan

#crazy #desperation #poetry #change

...don't you realize a flawless profile means nothing when a mere smile drives me to desperation? Don't you covet that power?.. ↗

— John Geddes

#desperation #love #power #smile #beauty

I talked to a calzone for fifteen minutes last night before I realized it was just an introverted pizza. I wish all my acquaintances were so tasty.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#alone #calzone #communicate #communication #desperation