Hilton Als

Dramas about addiction can be exciting to watch. And then dispiriting. Exciting because degradation is fascinating to follow from the relative safety and smugness of an 'appropriate' life, and dispiriting because if all that sad mayhem can happen to this or that character, what's to keep it from happening to me or you?

American Writer

Patrick Modiano

Writing is a strange and solitary activity. There are dispiriting times when you start working on the first few pages of a novel. Every day, you have the feeling you are on the wrong track. This creates a strong urge to go back and follow a different path. It is important not to give in to this urge but to keep going.

French Novelist

Sue Townsend

The DSS offices are not given enough funding, their staff are poorly paid and are driven to distraction by the amount of work they have to do. There is frequent turnover of staff. Morale is extremely low. Working with desperate people all day is very dispiriting; their unhappiness rubs off on you.

English Novelist

Cecile Richards

Dealing with men in Congress - for the most part, it's pretty dispiriting in terms of the lack of regard they have for women. And they're not even... it's like they don't know what they don't know, and they don't even care what they don't know.

American Activist

Bjorn Lomborg

I found university a little dispiriting. I thought I would enter the great halls of Plato, but instead I entered the halls of an intellectual sausage factory. I wanted to do something not on the main course, and chose the environment.

Danish Scientist

Susan Choi

I always try to avoid looking at the section where my books would be shelved, but I do know that my most reliable neighbor to the right is Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening', which is dispiriting. That's a book I don't want to re-read.

American Novelist

Michael Wolff

Trump's election was dispiriting and confounding to most traditional political players - perhaps nobody more so than Murdoch. Still, Murdoch did what he has always done: made sure he had maximum influence with the new president.

American Author

Robert Falcon Scott

The events of the day's march are now becoming so dreary and dispiriting that one longs to forget them when we camp; it is an effort even to record them in a diary.

British Explorer

Joe Klein

For those of us who consider ourselves political moderates, life is a dispiriting slog, a sorry mix of rectitude and ineptitude.

American Journalist

Indicates a strong negative emotional impact, usually sadness or frustration.

Negative Emotion

Use when an event or fact diminishes someone's motivation or enthusiasm.

Loss of Motivation

Best used in the context of events or outcomes that are unexpected and unwelcome.

Dispiriting