Quotes About Adversity

The confusions and delays prompted this graffito scrawled in the troop space of one of the transports: "Never in the history of human endeavour have so few been buggered about by so many" (495).

Yes, I learned to hate, Peter, and that is worse than being sick, or starved, or thirsty, or in pain.

The drink? Yes, I've had tough times in my life, especially the last year, regarding my ex-wife, my kids, I nearly broke my neck, I was on death row with pneumonia.

It takes a good crisis to get us going. When we feel fear and we fear loss we are capable of quite extraordinary things.

Running a startup is like being punched in the face repeatedly, but working for a large company is like being waterboarded.

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.

Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul.

No man could truly say what he was until he had been pushed to the edge of things with the precipice of his own ruin staring up at him.

This land does not go out of its way to provide happy endings

no man is ever a complete failure. He can always serve as a horrible example!

It's easy 'nough to titter w'en de stew is smokin' hot,But hit's mighty ha'd to giggle w'en dey's nuffin' in de pot.

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, A minute to smile and an hour to weep in, A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, And never a laugh but the moans come double; And that is life!

Life, I would later learn, is a raging river tumbling over jagged rocks, most of which are never seen. There are no signs warning of broken bones or broken promises or broken hearts. Some of us get knocked off our flimsy rafts. Others cling to the straps with utter desperation. Either way, the journey's end is the same. The river surges toward a roaring falls, unforgiving and unsurvivable.

All life is three-to-one against, boychik, but you beat the odds.

She had tried running away from her problems but now knew she would have to face them.

Omigod," Christine said. "Are you all right, Lateesha?" "Hell no, I broke a nail," she said, examining the pinky of her right hand. "How did you...?" Christine gestured toward the fallen man, who made no effort to get to his feet. "Oh, he's not too much. Didn't Bobby tell you?" "Tell me what?" "I'm a three-time national karate champion.

Yogi Berra reportedly said, "It's not the heat, it's the humility.

Dammit, she'd been warned about Solomon. He always tested new prosecutors, baited them into losing their cool, lured them into mistrials. And she wasn't totally "new." She'd handled arraignments and preliminary hearings for eight months. And hadn't she won her first two felony trials? Of course, neither one had involved Steve Slash-and-Burn Solomon

bring on your minions. I'm always outnumbered but never outgunned.

You raise your child the best you can. You release the child into the world, like launching a toy sailboat in a pond. Except the world is not a placid pond. More often, it is a raging sea, and life a perfect storm of the unexpected crashing head-on into the unbearable. There is no way to prepare the child for such a world because your own personal crises, traumas and failures are just that, your own. Your child, as you will belatedly learn, is not you.

Take these broken wings and learn to fly.

Even on especially hard days, I began to notice him everywhere, setting a table before me in the presence of my enemies, pursuing me with his love. Both the child and the cynic walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The cynic focuses on the darkness; the child focuses on the Shepherd.

I knew we must stay in absolute sync, for the enemy had grown so subtle, its camouflage so chameleon, we had to be on constant watch.

All I would have to do was not exist below the waist, and the future was mine.