Misunderstood Quotes

“Everybody wants to be a hero
But most of us are just misunderstood villains”
― Mahogany L. Browne, Chlorine Sky

“Life did not impress me and I did not impress life. We were two companions who’d been forced together, and we tried to get a long or coexist but communication failed and I was misunderstood, and misunderstood life; until I found art. Or art found me, which it rather feels like because I never sought it, never wished for it, it just showed up one night when I needed it the most and it communicated in a way I finally understood. It spoke to me, sang to me, danced for me, and for the first time I understood and could make myself understood, and that’s when it all changed.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“But now more often the old stale hopeless weariness overcame him: the black sickness whichalmost no one else,certainly not his nearest dearest friends, couldunderstand at all.The idea of giving up the world, which had given him for a time so much life-energy, appeared now as a sort of fake suicide, a ghastly play-image of his death. This fatal falseness-of-heart was what perhaps Father Damien, on further acquaintance, had now seen in him.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Green Knight

“Whenever you create anything, you take a risk. And that includes your life. It may work out, it may not. It may be well received, it may not be....
It's always a risk to take action. It might not work, it might blow up in your face, you might lose money, you might fail. No one may get it.

But that's not the only risk. There's another risk: the risk of not trying it.

How is not trying a risk? You risk settling and continuing in the same direction in the same way, wondering about other paths and possibilities, believing that this is as good as it gets while discontent gnaws away at your soul.”
― Rob Bell, How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living

“Through even perhaps no one's making but their own, there are people out there who don't at all feel themselves designed for other people because they're seldom understood; howbeit not in some rebellious, angsty way - just really, gravely mistaken.”
― Criss Jami

“Pirates are humans. Just misunderstood humans.”
― Kyleigh Williamson, Speaking Up for Each Other: A Collection of Short Stories for Tweens and Middle Grade Readers

“I’m so tired of it all. I’m tired of not fitting in; of being left out; of being hated. I’m tired of having everything I am ripped up and strewn around the room the way a puppy wrecks an abandoned toilet roll. I’m tired of never doing anything right; of constantly being humiliated; of feeling like I’m just not good enough, no matter what I do. I’m tired of feeling like this. And most of all, I’m tired of being a polar bear, wandering around the rainforest on my own.”
― Holly Smale

“When you are constantly reacting to having been wronged (or perhaps to what you may regard as a wrong); when you are always giving in by practically living to defend, retaliating one time after another, again and again, you then spend double that time trying to prove the whole story: because to third parties, you will frequently appear to be on the attack, and therefore potentially receiving attacks once more - henceforth an unending pattern of misunderstood retaliations.”
― Criss Jami

“As beguiling as the church of Legend was, Tella imagined it had Legend all wrong. Caraval might have been extreme in all of its splendor, but she didn't think he was.”
― Stephanie Garber, Legendary

“If all I cared about was me, I could make a million. And that’s what they will never understand.”
― Edie Sedgwick

“Everything that happened to me has been a paradox for life. The very things that I should have done would have been the trap… I believed in something else. You have to work like mad to make people understand… Even if I don’t make it, you know, I really insist on believing, and then I fall off the edge because there’s nobody else to follow it.”
― Edie Sedgwick

“My greatest fear in that moment was that my silence might be misunderstood as disinterest, disregard, or disrespect — that my anxiety would be perceived as apathy.”
― Sean Norris, Heaven and Hurricanes

“If you hate me for who I am,
then hate, you should;
but I hate it when I am being,
misunderstood.”
― Akash Mandal

“Molly wanted to hug the young girl close, stroke her black hair and tell her that loneliness, while unpleasant, was endurable. Not once, though, did she consider telling the girl that she was wrong for that reassurance would be a lie, wouldn’t it be? She was, after all, her, and in the intervening four decades, the girl’s prescience had been proven right. Loneliness had indeed been the condition—would always be the condition—of Molly’s life, of being misunderstood and neglected by others, even amidst a crowd and friends and, for a few years, a husband.”
― Ray Smith, The Magnolia That Bloomed Unseen

“It is better to be misunderstood than to make a mistake.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“I don't mind if you want to keep it. But... why did you?"
Keir shrugged. "'Tis no' my way to take a feeling apart and examine the workings of it."
Merritt tilted her head, regarding him intently. "Did you want it as a trophy, perhaps? To remind you someday of a conquest you once made?"
Keir's smile vanished. He didn't think she really believed that, but the suggestion- the very idea of it- filled him with indignation. "No.I'm no' a brute who would think of you as a thing to be won. "
Seeming to realize he was genuinely offended, Merritt said hastily, "Oh, I didn't mean to imply-"
"I may have rough ways, but I know how to be gentle with a woman-"
"Yes. Of course. I shouldn't have put it that way-"
"-and as for needing areminder- "Keir's indignation deepened into outrage." Do you think me so shallow-pated I'd need reminding of a woman I once held in my arms? How could I forget you? The most- "
He was interrupted as Merritt took his face in her hands and kissed him again. There was more he'd meant to say, but her mouth was too luscious to resist.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Disguise

“When Sam told this story to Sadie, she laughed, though she barely seemed to be listening. He had framed the story in a humorous way, smoothed off some of the edges of his hostility toward the woman in the park. But as he told it, he could feel himself back in that dog park. He could feel the dry California heat and the murderous pounding of his heart. Without warning, an anecdote he had meant to be amusing did not feel amusing. Anyone, who had truly looked at Tuesday could not have possibly seen a coyote. But the woman had not truly looked, and the injustice of this hit him. Why was is it acceptable for apparently well-meaning people to see the world in such a general way?
Sam was put off by Sadie's laughter. He asked her what was funny. She was confused for a moment---hadn't he wanted her to laugh?---and then she said, annoyed, "You get that this a story about you, right? That's why you lost your mind at a dog park. You're Tuesday. You're the incredibly special dog that no one can classify." It was not long after their huge argument, and things were quite strained between them.
Sam told her that she was being reductive, and that her interpretation was insulting to both him and the dog. "It's a story about Tuesday," he insisted. "Maybe it's a story about L.A., too. Maybe it's a story about the kind of people that go to the dog park in Silver Lake. But it's mainly a story about Tuesday."
"The text," she said, "perhaps.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“I’m sorry.” The words didn’t touch his sorrow for her. On impulse, he clasped her hand, and she didn’t pull away. He should’ve recognized the smoke screens she put up, the first line of defense of the wounded and scarred.
“Don’t be,” she said. “I only told you because I’m sick of your condemnation. But I don't want your pity either.”
He swept his thumb along the side of her palm. “It’s not pity.”
“Then what is it?”
Understanding. A barrier between them slipping away. “A wake-up call,” he said, really seeing her for the first time.”
― Chandra Blumberg, Stirring Up Love

“Extremely complex individuals are not here to be understood. They are here to be felt on a profound level. Whether that's through their existence or their creations. That is something that they will have to come to terms with in their lifetime.”
― Robin S. Baker

“I can... make your life... better.” Fuck, I hope she understands my meaning. “There are certain... things... I can help you with.”

She blinks at me. “Why can’t you just speak normally?” She throws her hands up with an exasperated huff. “I thought you said there were no cameras here.”

I give her a look. “Fuck off. I was trying to be mysterious.”
― Ashlyn Hades, Broken Phoenix

“The two most misunderstood words: Love and Happiness”
― Robert Celner

“The two most misunderstood words: Love and Happiness.”
― Robert Celner

“Every great misunderstanding must be understood by the least among fools,for greatness is an element of misery..”
― Maany Godson

“A confident woman can be be misunderstood sometimes.”
― Charmaine J. Forde

“He knows what it’s like to be misunderstood. No one—not even His closest friends—understood Him.”
― Brant Hansen, Blessed Are the Misfits: Great News for Believers who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They're Missing Something

“The work of a genius must be opposite himself in that it must retain some capacity of being understood.”
― Criss Jami

“Massive growth doesn't come form lateral moves. It comes from taking a stand for something great, for your best self, for being willing to be misunderstood, and even a willingness to be lonely for a while.”
― Doug Wood, Church Boy to Millionaire: How to Find Personal Freedom and Liberate Your Millionaire Mindset for Massive Impact

“I like your sister.'

One of the few.

Amren lifted her eyes to me as if I'd said the words aloud. 'I like her because so few do. I like her because she is not easy to be around, or to understand.'

'But?'

'But nothing,' Amren said, returning to the puzzle. 'Because I like her, I am not inclined to gossip about her current state.

'It's not gossip. I'm concerned.'' We all were. 'She is starting down a path that-'

'I will not betray her confidence.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Frost and Starlight

“I believe you have to be willing to risk being misunderstood if you’re going to be truly sensual in this world. Fact of the matter is, as you become more sensual, you’re going to become more UNRELATABLE.”
― Lebo Grand

“And he said...

...there is no death, only a life which is misunderstood.”
― Anthony T. Hincks