Quotes About Adversity

We came out of a very provincial city that was not very supportive of music, and we had to do our own thing and flyer everywhere.

You have kids growing up in some of the worst circumstances financially, living in some of the worst ghettos, and they succeed. They succeed because an adult figure, typically a mother, maybe a grandmother, nourishes the kid, supports the kid, protects the kid, encourages the kid to succeed. It's as if the environment never happened.

What sets Iris Stevenson apart is her success in a system that in no way supports her - with the hardest possible children to convert.

I am so much more than what happened to me. I'm a mother and a businesswoman; I run a charity that supports others overcoming adversity; and, most importantly, I'm happy.

Bankruptcy, divorce, these are feathers in my cap, I suppose. I have a wisdom which has been born from these things.

It was good for us, I suppose. Those kinds of times produce qualities in us that make us better for having had them. My parents were not getting along. My mother was quite intolerant of friendships that were being developed.

Everybody was starting to grow long hair and wear pink suits and purple glasses and stuff and then, I suppose, some people thought we were crazy, but we weren't really crazy because we're all still here!

Everybody laughs all the time, and some of the worst things that happen make you laugh 'cause it's a defense isn't it, I suppose.

How am I supposed to pay my bills? I can't get a regular job because I have been accused of being a Nazi. Am I supposed to be homeless?

Statistics say that I'm supposed to be in jail. And I'm not supposed to be alive.

We're supposed to be an entrepreneurial company; we're meant to be expanding and looking for opportunities - but the minute you do it, you get your head bashed in.

Apollo 13, as you may remember, gave us a reactor that is bubbling away right now somewhere in the Pacific. It's supposed to be bubbling away on the moon, but it's in the Pacific Ocean instead.

It rolls off my back. Ridicule doesn't mean anything - even from people you're supposed to wear knee pads around, like the scientific community.

We're just going to come out and play. We know that we're supposed to win all the games, but if we don't, we just have to take the next game and focus on what we did wrong in the game before and just try to do better at the next game.

When you fight the best and then you have to face someone who is supposedly easy to beat, that's when you take your eye off the ball and the defeats begin.

There's fear in everything, but we can't just succumb to that. We have to suppress it, so we get used to suppressing fear to make it through the our day. Otherwise, we'd become paralyzed by them.

Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan each suffered through his second four years. FDR was checkmated by Congress and the Supreme Court. Ike was dogged by Sputnik and reckless charges that the United States suffered from a Missile Gap. Reagan had to wend his way through Iran-Contra.

Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.

If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.

My mom was my mother and father. My father lost his mind when I was about 4 years old. And my mom did everything she could to make sure that we was brought up right.

When you collect bad loans... you sure learn a lot about making good ones. You also learn a lot about the power of persuasion, persistence and desperation.

Even if you're Bill Gates, you've got problems. I'm sure he would probably easily give a few billion dollars to get rid of all the problems that he has.

Slowly but surely the sea is freezing over.

It was becoming clear that, from being at the top at Holy Cross, we were at the bottom at St. Peter's. Objectively, this was very good, for it offered us a challenge and an opportunity to grow if we were ready to take it; and we surely were.