Quotes About Adversity

For Mum, life was fundamentally hell. You went blind, you got raped, people forgot your birthday, Nixon got elected, your husband fled with a blonde from Beckenham, and then you got old, you couldn't walk and you died.

Because it is about that which we can't be prepared for—the great test we men have passed before, but have no way of knowing we will pass again.

Le danger consiste en ce que nous devenions de véritables habitants du désert et que nous nous sentions bien chez lui.

Tant que nous souffrons, dans les conditions du désert, nous sommes encore humains, encore intacts .

The Nazis, it turned out, possessed neither the manpower nor the will power to remain "tough" when they met determined opposition.

He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him;

But these are small troubles, people will say. Yes, but they are drops which wear hollows in the rock.

But they hurt me so," said the little mermaid. "Pride must suffer pain," replied the old lady.

Sharp knives seemed to cut her delicate feet, yet she hardly felt them--so deep was the pain in her heart.

To be born in a duck's nest in a farmyard is of no consequence to a bird if it is hatched from a swan's egg. He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him; for the great swans swam round the newcomer and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome.

desperation can toy with you and if you give desperation any wiggle room, it will find alternative answers

Here is the truth about tragedy: it's good for the soul.

Myron remembered something his father once told him: People have an amazing capacity to mess up their own lives.

The world doesn't give even the slightest damn about us or our petty problems. We never quite get that, do we? Our lives have been shattered—shouldn't the rest of us take notice? But no.

If you give desperation any wiggle room, it will toy with you.

Some people, no matter how easy the path they are given on the walk of life, will find a way to mess it all up. Ray Levine was one of those people.

They take in the full experience of great loves and great tragedies without backing down or crouching into some sort of defensive stance. If life is going to punch them in the face, they stick their chins out and savor the moment. That is living life to the fullest.

Survival is the thing. The mind will twist to survive. Anything can become normal.

Some people are drawn to trouble. Some people, no matter how easy the path they are given on the walk of life, will find a way to mess it all up.

And bad stays. Bad doesn't go away. You bury bad, it digs itself out. You throw bad in the middle of the ocean, it comes back at you like a tidal wave.

He traveled back again, to when she was that adorable teenager dominating center court, and his favorite Yiddish expression came back to him in a rush: Man plans, God laughs. This was not a kind laugh. "Kitty?

We always seem to be on the eve of destruction. And we always seem to get through it.

We always seem to be on the eve of destruction. And we always seem to get through it. Maybe we all survive the destruction we have wrought.

I don't mean little things like, say, what cereal turns out to be your favorite or whether you get into any AP classes or what girl you fall in love with or where you wind up living for the next twenty years. I mean total change. One second your world is one thing, the next—snap!—it is completely altered. All the rules, all the things you accepted about reality, are turned around.