Quotes About Adversity

I was raised on an estate in an inner city school where people had a go about my size, people saying I am too big to play football - which still happens today - and I used that to inspire me.

Where I'm from, they'll beat your head until it gets back down to normal size.

A different type of human has to play that sport. Hockey players keep fighting - nobody cares what's wrong with you, as long as you have one foot to skate on, you keep playing.

I am always hurt, but what are you going to do? I have to skate.

I feel like the worst has happened to me, so what better person to skate to 'Madame Butterfly' than me?

Right when I was lying on the ground and saw my legs, I didn't think first, 'I'm going to die.' I was thinking, 'I'm not going to run again. I can't play basketball. I'm not going to skate.'

All I wanted to do was ride skateboards - I wanted to be a professional skateboarder. But I had this problem. I kept breaking half of my body skateboarding.

I was a serious competitive figure skater and still ice-skate as much as I can. Anyway, I once brought a date to the rink to have him experience what I was into. So all is going fine, and then - bam! - he bit it extremely hard! Skate time was over. His bruises were scary. I felt so bad.

You see figure skaters fall all the time. It's the way you pick yourself back up and keep going.

The African Americans' story is one that seems to be a repeated commitment to a scenario for success and failure. With each failure, the blow is that much more traumatizing until finally one reaches a point where there is to some degree an internalization, skepticism, fatalism, and expectation that it isn't going to work.

My first book was called, 'Mountain, Get Out of My Way,' where I did an autobiographical sketch, if you will, looking back at myself and looking back at things in my life, and juxtaposing them against things that are happening in other people's lives and trying to be motivational.

I ripped all the cartilage out of my hip in a water ski jumping accident. I am a bit accident prone.

After 13 years of hard landings in gymnastics, one ski run had delivered the biggest injury of my career.

I've been trying to learn to ski for years, but there's something about being 6-foot-5 and falling that's not appealing.

In modeling you rarely get the opportunity to learn a new skill for a project and I love a challenge.

People always ask me how I manage to find humor in so much bleakness. I think this is almost a necessary skill to have.

It is difficult to master the skill of scoring runs from a 90mph delivery that is dug into your armpit or is fizzing past your nose.

I've gotten very used to falling off of things. It's almost like that's my skill! I'm great at falling down and getting back up.

If you can put yourself in an environment where you're going to be pushed and you can show that you can overcome challenges with skill and pace that's really important for development.

I know Barao is a tough, skilled competitor. So am I.

If you tell your own story to your children - that includes your positive moments and your negative moments, and how you overcame them - you give your children the skills and the confidence they need to feel like they can overcome some hardship that they've felt.

I like a challenge. I like learning new skills because I didn't learn much at school.

There is nothing to be said for being crippled. You don't see the world better or clearer, nor do you develop some special set of skills by way of compensation.

I have been attacked and mistreated for my skin colour since I was a child.