A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.
This great misfortune - to be incapable of solitude.
No excuses and no sob stories. Life is full of excuses if you're looking. I have no time to gripe over misfortune. I don't waste time looking back.
A writer has a difficult fate, but a Jewish writer has an especially difficult fate. His soul is torn; he lives on two streets with three languages. It is a misfortune to live on this sort of 'border,' and that is what I have experienced.
For this is the mark of a wise and upright man, not to rail against the gods in misfortune.
Nigeria has had the misfortune - no, the fortune - of seeing the worst face of capitalism anywhere in Africa. The masses have seen it, they are disgusted, and they want an alternative.
There now exists a factor which was formerly lacking - the spirit of the nation has been aroused, and a common misfortune, a common debasement, has united all the inhabitants of the Islands.
The death of my husband, coming immediately after the general knowledge of the discoveries with which his name is associated, was felt by the public, and especially by the scientific circles, to be a national misfortune.
The misfortune is that many people, men and women, think that the perfect face has no flaws, no pores in the skin; and that gives unrealistic levels of esteem. Somebody feels they're not right because they haven't got that type of refinement.
No one likes to feel helpless. We find it psychologically unbearable and inside ourselves we may try to make ourselves part author of our misfortune rather than simply the recipient of it.
Whether you call my heart affectionate, or you call it womanish: I confess, that to my misfortune, it is soft.
