Quotes About Adversity

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

Progress just means bad things happen faster.

The purpose of this lectchoor is to let you know where we are. We are in the deep cack. It couldn't be worse if it was raining arseholes. Any questions?

The trouble with life was that you didn't get a chance to practice before doing it for real.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel--or if there was, it was an oncoming train.

When she spoke again it was in the thin, careful and above all brave voice of someone who has pulled themselves together despite overwhelming odds but might let go again at any moment.

If he'd been a hero, he would have taken the opportunity to say, That's what I call sorted! Since he wasn't a hero, he threw up.

He felt as if he had been shipwrecked on the Titanic, but in the nick of time had been rescued. By the Lusitania.

Sybil's female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars.  The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel.

Balance. It was all about balance. That had been one of the first things that she had learned: the centre of the seesaw has neither up nor down, but upness and downness flow through it while it remains unmoved. You had to be the centre of the seesaw so the pain flowed through you, not into you. It was very hard. But she could do it!

But in his experience it was only a matter of time before the normal balance of the universe restored itself and started doing the usual terrible things to him.

Oh, we're always all right. You remember that. We happen to other people. -Nanny Ogg

Fate can be one mean god at times.

Corporal Nobbs," he rasped, "why are you kicking people when they're down?" "Safest way, sir," said Nobby. Nobby had long ago been told about fighting fair and not striking a fallen opponent, and had then given some creative thought to how these rules applied to someone four feet tall with the muscle tone of an elastic band.

Vimes woke in damp and utter darkness with sand under his cheek. Some parts of his body reported for duty, others protested that they had a note from their mother.

She strode across the moors as if distance was a personal insult.

Falling isn't so bad, you know. It's only the landing that hurts.

Oh, well...up until now it had been a good day, in a horrible kind of way.

Rincewind trudged back up the beach. The trouble is, he said, is that things never get better, they just stay the same, only more so.

That's what being alive is, Thing! It's being badly prepared for everything! Because you only get one chance, Thing!

No point in imagining anything," said Granny. "Things are bad enough as they are.

Ye gods, it was so much better when there were just four of us up against that bloody great dragon, Vimes thought as they walked on. Of course, we nearly got burned alive a few times, but at least it wasn't complicated. It was a damned great dragon. You could see it coming. It didn't get political on you.

So I had to learn. All my life. The hard way. And the hard way's pretty hard, but not so hard as the easy way. I learned.

Anything could make Wentworth sticky. Washed and dried and left in the middle of a clean floor for five minutes, Wentworth would be sticky. It didn't seem to come from anywhere. He just got sticky.