Quotes About Adversity

As a viewer, I'm personally less interested in the damaged, white, middle-class male figuring out his dreams and more interested in maybe an underdog figuring out how they're going to survive in a world that doesn't necessarily invite them in.

I think viewers quite like it when I'm suffering or eating or drinking something horrible or really up against it in some quicksand or whatever.

Rather than viewing a brief relapse back to inactivity as a failure, treat it as a challenge and try to get back on track as soon as possible.

That's my viewpoint; I just tackle the world, whatever comes at me.

I cannot help but think that great results would have been obtained had my views been thought better of; yet I am much inclined to accept the present condition as for the best.

I experienced the sharp end of a tough time, living with a single parent, my mum, and she was really struggling to get a job. These are the things that form your views in life. They are established when you are growing up and being raised. That stuff doesn't really go away; that stays with you.

I give balanced, constructive views and what happens is that bits and pieces of what I say are used against me.

In Kaifi's poetry and in his work as a social activist, every setback only strengthened his resolve to fight back with renewed vigor and strength.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

I was a sickly child, and it wasn't until I was 19 that I realised I was quite a robust, vigorous person. Since then I've taken ill health to be an irritating interruption into what is a fairly reliable stream of good health.

What can I say? I deal with it. I think I have come to terms with my absolutely hateful and vile childhood. No, I have, really. But I did hate it at the time. I resented it. There were elements of it that were positively Dickensian.

I think the time I spent at Aston Villa was difficult. It was a difficult time and a difficult moment for the team.

I joined Aston Villa to improve myself in the Premier League. It started well but then I got injured and Villa ended up having five managers that season.

Even when I went to Aston Villa, it was very important that I was not in competition with Manchester United.

I realized why I can cook for different environments. Because of everything I've gone through growing up. Why can I cook for a Hollywood event without blinking an eye? Because I cooked at the Beverly Hilton and because I moved to Villa Park. Why can I cook for kids on Hollywood Boulevard at night? Because I went through it.

My mum knows people in the village who died or were affected by Agent Orange who had kids who are disabled. I could have been an orphan. So many things could have gone wrong but here I am... I realise how lucky I am to be here.

We lived in a farm village, and no one could afford to buy a car or to fly. We were envious. We couldn't afford any toys. I couldn't imagine making a real car.

My mum's from a very rural village in Nigeria, she grew up in a war, and for her it was really important that my brothers and I knew how to fend for ourselves. My dad bought me a Swiss army knife for my 13th birthday and we used to go camping and he showed me how to light fires.

My parents, Mary Agnes Smith and Rowland Smith, both had to work since their early teens, she in the holiday boarding house of her mother and he in his father's market garden in Marton Moss, a village on the south side of Blackpool, just north of Saint Anne's-on-Sea.

My wife gone, my mum gone, ostracised by my village. I was left all alone in life.

My father had to shift from the village because he didn't have a steady job.

Every villain needs her story told.

You've got to have a villain and they'll always make me a villain. I'm used to it - it makes me work harder and it makes me fight harder.

You could be a victim, you could be a hero, you could be a villain, or you could be a fugitive. But you could not just stand by. If you were in Europe between 1933 and 1945, you had to be something.