Quotes About Adversity

If something scares you, no matter how small, you gotta face it because if you start failing on the small stuff eventually you'll fail on the big stuff.

You can experience trauma without getting stuck as the victim forever. You can choose to work the shit and rebuild yourself, or you can sit in the ruins and mourn forever.

You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought.

He admired her for throwing off her aristocratic shackles -- his terms, that -- and making her own way in the world. He didn't realize that the truth was so much more complex, so much less impressive. She had less thrown than been thrown.

I should have known something was wrong when my advisor's parting words were Good luck. To his credit, he had—very gently—suggested that I might want to consider a different sort of topic. But I didn't want to consider another topic. I was madly in love with my topic: "Aristocratic Espionage during the Wars with France, 1789- 1815." It had dash, it had swash, it had buckle.

Swooning solves nothing.

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

A scar is a sign of strength. . .the sign of a survivor.

I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.

Emma is a mattress who got thrown off the truck when her parents split up. It's not like you can blame a mattress when people don't tie it down tight enough.

Can't escape pain, kiddo. Battle through it and you get stronger.

Yes it is, because you can only be brave if you're scared.

The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don't offer up anything. Don't explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don't accidentally put your head in a noose.

I was in a race to see if I would die from the outside in or the inside out.

This camp is a forge for the army; it's testing our mettle. Instead of heat and hammer, our trials are cold and hunger. Question is, what are we made of?

The time has come to arm-wrestle some demons.

I closed my eyes and let my enemy win.

My only choice was to fight my way out, even if I didn't think I would make it.

I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here.

I wake up breathing dirt. I cough and spit out the pebbles in my mouth, but when I inhale again, wet clots of clay fill my lungs.

am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world. The tiny elf dancer became a wooden doll whose strings were jerked by people not paying attention. I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.

It's amazing any thing survives.

My fingers stroking the bark, seeking a Braille code, a clue, a message on how to come back to life after my long undersnow dormancy. I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So how can I find my way? Is there a chainsaw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears?

Keep breathing. It took a few minutes but I won. The grey pulled away from my eyes in ribbons and whispered that it would be back soon.