Relatable quotes for when you can’t sleep

Sometimes when your head hits the pillow your mind is in a million different places. For those kinds of nights here are some relatable quotes for when you can’t sleep.

Can't sleep

by Ellen Kinsey |
Published on

Sometimes it can be hard to switch off from the day and fall asleep when you have a head full of thoughts.

Some of us find it hard to fall asleep, others may wake up often in the night. Whatever you may be feeling, you are not alone.

So, whether you can’t drift to sleep or are having troubles drifting back off, here are some sayings that share this experience.

“A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow” – Charlotte Brontë

can't sleep

There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep” – Homer

“I think insomnia is a sign that a person is interesting” ― Avery Sawyer, Notes to Self

“Sleeplessness is a desert without vegetation or inhabitants” – Jessamyn West

“There are times when the bed is the only place on earth where peace is to be had” – Richard Llewellyn

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“The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep” – E. Joseph Cossman

“Sleep comes more easily than it returns” ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

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“I knew this feeling, the 2 a.m. loneliness that I'd practically invented” ― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby

“The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“It's a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids” ― Tracy Chevalier

“Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep” – Mahatma Gandhi

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“All she really wanted to do was sleep, but it seemed her awareness level was operating at peak efficiency, for some reason” ― Jason Medina, The Manhattanville Incident: An Undead Novel

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“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams”― Dr. Seuss

“You are the biggest enemy of your own sleep” ― Pawan Mishra

“If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep” – Dale Carnegie

“I do my best thinking at night when everyone else is sleeping. No interruptions. No noise. I like the feeling of being awake when no one else is” ― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“But [Pooh] couldn't sleep. The more he tried to sleep the more he couldn't. He tried counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Heffalumps. And that was worse. Because every Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of Pooh's honey, and eating it all. For some minutes he lay there miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Heffalump was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, "Very good honey this, I don't know when I've tasted better," Pooh could bear it no longer” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

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“When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep, and you’re never really awake” – From the movie Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk

“O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?” ― William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

can't sleep

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