Quotes about Restlessness

Americans are nervous; Americans are restless; and what troubles me the most is that Americans are uncharacteristically pessimistic.

Insomnia's different," I said. It was hard to explain this to people. "You know the light that comes on when you open the refrigerator door? Just imagine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door. That's what it's like in my head. The light stays on.

The loudest sound on the earth, she thought, is a man with nothing to do.

Yeah, I wish we could skip this storyline crap," Cruz said. "Bor-ing.

In this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture. We overthrow the programming of advertising, movies, video games, magazines, TV, and MTV by which we have been hypnotized from the cradle. We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc., but only by doing our work.

Our schedules are so hectic we can't get everything done, or else we are bored and restless, constantly looking for something to amuse us. We are the most frantic generation in history—and also the most entertained. The Bible tells us that both extremes are wrong.

Only the Holy Spirit can give us peace in the midst of the storms of restlessness and despair. We should not grieve our Guide by indulging in worry or paying undue attention to self.

O foolish man that I then was, enduring impatiently the lot of man! I fretted then, sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest nor counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose it, I found not.

The few times, however, that we do obey our severe masters and listen carefully to our restless hearts, we may start to sense that in the midst of our sadness there is joy, that in the midst of our fears there is peace, that in the midst of our greediness there is the possibility of compassion and that indeed in the midst of our irking loneliness we can find the beginnings of a quiet solitude.

While busy with and worried about many things, we seldom feel truly satisfied, at peace, or at home.

There are many times when I cannot pray, when I am too tired to read the gospels, too restless to have spiritual thoughts, too depressed to find words for God, or too exhausted to do anything. But I can still look at these images so intimately connected with the experience of love.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.