Quotes About Adversity

I went through quite a few establishments that maybe weren't great for myself - security units, youth-offender places. I guess that was going to the lions' den. Social services said, 'You've got to go to some sort of school.'

When I was about five, I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, and since then it's just been a stronghold in my life. Really, through the shark attack and all the hard times that my family and I went through, it gave us unity and perseverance to push through all this crazy stuff that we never knew was going to happen.

National unity does not only have to occur when swords are swung at us.

There is something universal in the theme of a man trying to save his family in the midst of the most terrible circumstances. It is not limited to Sierra Leone. This story could apply to any number of places where ordinary people have been caught up in political events beyond their control.

Pain doesn't have a face and pain doesn't have a certain way of adjusting. Pain is universal.

Star-crossed lovers who have a destiny that isn't necessarily going to work in their favor - that's a universal story; that's an archetypal story.

That larger story in 'Salvage the Bones' is just about survival, and I think that, in the end, there are things about this novel and about these characters' experiences that make their stories universal stories.

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.

The entire universe is working against me. I can't believe the entire universe could be that foolish!

I'm just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe.

I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction.

Everyone has bad days, and when you're having a bad day, you think, 'Here I am being singled out by a hostile, malicious universe that is picking exclusively on me.' And then you read a book about bad days and realize they happen to everyone, not just tormented, persecuted you.

I think the universe was preparing me to be an actor. I never pursued one thing for long, but I was jack of all trades. I was learning everything possible because I knew my father would never shell out money for dresses or parties, but he would always give me money for new courses and books.

Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe.

I take a lot of pride in beating guys like Kyle Dake or David Taylor or these guys who have been basically bred to do this from Day 1. The best camps, the best high schools, the best universities. I never had that. It's not necessary, but I never had any of the frills a lot of those guys had.

War was my university. Everything has proceeded from there.

When I first came to Columbia University, I was dirt poor. I did not choose to come here - I just ended up here because I had nowhere else to go, having just escaped from China after Tiananmen. I was in a new country where I didn't understand the language, didn't know anybody, and didn't have a penny to my name. So I was desperate and afraid.

Life is a university, and you never graduate. Accept that whatever happens to you, no matter how terrible, is there to teach you. Your job is to learn and do what you have to.

As a small child in England, I had this dream of going to Africa. We didn't have any money and I was a girl, so everyone except my mother laughed at it. When I left school, there was no money for me to go to university, so I went to secretarial college and got a job.

The next day I was put on paid leave from my new job at Louisiana State University. This is very painful to me, though once again I understand the circumstances in which my employers find themselves in light of these actions taken against me.

When I was at school, most people were planning on going to university and becoming doctors or lawyers. I wanted to be a singer, and I was laughed at. It was tough, but I never let anything stop me.

I learnt more about politics during one South Dakota dust storm than in seven years at the university.

Sometimes life limits your choices - rising tuition costs may put university out of reach, or like me, personal circumstances might simply make it difficult to complete your education.

In early 1993, a hostile observer might have had grounds for thinking that the Unix story was almost played out, and with it the fortunes of the hacker tribe.