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Daily Inspiration Quote by Jake Roberts

"Miserable is a good thing, though. If you start the day miserable, nobody else can screw up your day"

About this Quote

Roberts turns misery into a preemptive strategy, a kind of emotional armor you put on before the world gets a chance to hit you. The joke lands because it flips the usual self-help script: instead of “start your day right,” he’s basically saying, start it already ruined and you’ve beaten everyone to the punch. It’s darkly practical, delivered like a barroom hack for surviving other people.

The intent isn’t to glorify unhappiness so much as to reclaim control in a life that often feels controlled by audiences, promoters, addictions, and headlines. As a celebrity (and in Roberts’ case, someone whose public persona was built on menace and grit), he’s speaking from a culture where vulnerability gets exploited. “Nobody else can screw up your day” is the key tell: the threat isn’t abstract sadness, it’s other people - their demands, their judgments, their power to derail you. Misery becomes a firewall.

There’s a sly critique of positivity culture here. If you’re expected to be upbeat on cue, choosing misery reads like sabotage: you refuse the performance. But the subtext is also a little tragic. Starting miserable isn’t resilience; it’s resignation dressed as a punchline, the kind of coping mechanism that works until it becomes your only one. The humor gives it swagger. The worldview underneath is survivalist: lower your expectations, control the narrative, and you can’t be disappointed on someone else’s schedule.

Quote Details

TopicSarcastic
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Roberts, Jake. (2026, January 17). Miserable is a good thing, though. If you start the day miserable, nobody else can screw up your day. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/miserable-is-a-good-thing-though-if-you-start-the-75731/

Chicago Style
Roberts, Jake. "Miserable is a good thing, though. If you start the day miserable, nobody else can screw up your day." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/miserable-is-a-good-thing-though-if-you-start-the-75731/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Miserable is a good thing, though. If you start the day miserable, nobody else can screw up your day." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/miserable-is-a-good-thing-though-if-you-start-the-75731/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Miserable is a good thing though If you start the day miserable
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About the Author

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Jake Roberts (born May 30, 1955) is a Celebrity from USA.

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