It's not as if he didn't understand that much of his behavior was driven by desperation and self-hate, ... He wasn't shallow or unreflective, quite the contrary. It was simply the way he was. He was born wild, born troubled. He wasn't designed for the long haul; not everyone is.

August Kleinzahler

Behavior Desperation Hate Self

Related Quotes

I don't like to call myself a poet, ... Most poets are shiftless, no-account fools.

— August Kleinzahler

The New Jersey character - at least this part of Jersey - is straightforward, plainspoken to the point of bluntness, though not at all unfriendly, ... The humor is deadpan, ironical, playfully depreciating. Affectation is quickly and viscerally registered.

— August Kleinzahler

Desperate wants attained are always followed by obsessive fears of loss.

— Alan Robert Neal

BehaviorDesperationObsession

You look up one day and you hate the whiskey, and you hate the women, and you hate the piano. But that's all you got. You can't do nothing else. All you know how to do is play that piano. Now, who am I? Am I me? Or am I the piano player?

— August Wilson

All forms of self-defeating behavior are unseen and unconscious, which is why their existence is denied

— Vernon Howard

BehaviorExistenceSelf