The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy.
Of course it's true: the public want to see young people - young people are the people who go to the cinema. It's a sad fact of life, but you've got to accept it and not whine about it.
The sad fact is that spending rises every year, no matter what people want or say they want.
For those aspiring to make a living from travel photography, it's a sad fact that the boring shots are the shots that are going to make you money.
The view of how America speaks is reflected in our laws. And one of the laws is fair housing. It very clearly prohibits discrimination in the sale and rental of housing in America. It's been a sad fact of American life that the practice in many communities has been quite the opposite.
A sad fact of life lately at the Museum of Modern Art is that when it comes to group shows of contemporary painting from the collection, the bar has been set pretty low.
One thing 'not right' on the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches is the sad fact that the Edmund Pettus Bridge hasn't been renamed the John Lewis Bridge.
The sad fact is, because we've had a failed policy and failed leadership, now we're having to rely on Russians and the Iranians to go into Syria to fight and destroy ISIS.
It's a sad fact that a lot of those countries who haven't been involved in the war in Iraq have taken far more responsibility for rehoming people displaced by the war than Britain has done.
The sad fact is that horrendous human conflict is nothing new.
Like a lot of overcommitted, overworked Americans, I do not have much time to exercise. Plain and simple. Instead of merely accepting this sad fact, I remind myself of it constantly, so that on the 95 percent of days I know I won't make it to the gym, I remember to go out of my way to get my body moving.
The sad fact is that the same terrorist scenarios, if they occurred in five different States, there could be five different sets of responses to the American people. We need, at a minimum, a level of coordination on communicating threats to the public.
The lack of women directors is a sad fact of life. Kathryn Bigelow's thrilling Best Director win may help turn things around.
For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.
I always think of the live show first, where the song is gonna go in the show. That's why they aren't sad songs. When I play, I want to make people happy, not sad. It's such a pleasure for me to do what I do, and I want other people to feel some form of that pleasure, too.
I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't; they want that positive, uptempo thing.
I like singer-songwriters, and I find sad songs comforting rather than depressing. It makes you realise you're not alone in the world.
When I write sad songs, I feel like I'm sewing up a scar in me, and the outcome always feels so much better than when I write happy ones.
There will be slow songs, sad songs, happy songs, songs about boys, and songs about being who you are. I'm making sure I'm happy with all of the songs, because if I am not happy with them, I can't expect anyone else to be, you know?
It's not about being happy 100 percent all the time, cause that's just life. I make sad songs, too, that really only make the happy songs better.