Quotes About Persistence

Failure is impossible" - Susan B. Anthony

I'm turning into a rock, and in some ways that's good, because rocks last forever. But

Life may not continue the way we know it today, but it will continue. Life endures.

floor, complete

If I start , I'm not going to stop, he said flatly.

I'm starting to remember that it's okay when things don't turn out right the first time. I can always try again and get it right.

But, as her mother had often told her, life wasn't meant to be easy. It was meant to be lived.

It's not getting it right the first time--it's learning to do it right and then not getting lazy.

His horse went sideways two feet for every foot it moved forward, but finally it could reach ground, and it surged out the other side. He took off his hat and waved it. "Piece of cake," he yelled. "Talk about a liar," Maya muttered.

Moving backward meant more suffering, and staying stuck was just as bad. That left moving forward. There had to be an answer somewhere. All she had to do was find it.

So it can be done, if you're willing to work at it. There's no magic, there's just believing.

Better to keep trying until you find something that makes you happy rather than choose something now and hate your job for the next twenty years.

Every failure brings us closer to our ultimate success.

From failure, success.

And because of all that we have been through, I am sick of the word unprecedented. The use of the word unprecedented is unprecedented. Make it stop.

Miss Frumkin rummaged through her bag looking for a spoon. She seemed to be aware that there was no spoon in the bag, but she insisted on rummaging anyway. Finding no spoon, she took out her toothbrush and began to eat the yogurt with the toothbrush. Miss O'Reilly laughed at her. Miss Frumkin didn't seem to mind. "They laughed at Bell and they laughed at Edison," she said, throwing the toothbrush into the wastebasket. She finished eating the yogurt with her fingers.

she was counting the brushstrokes when she brushed her teeth — on the rare days that she did brush her teeth.

Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead.

Desire wills its perpetuation ad infinitum.

How can I go on this way? And how can I not?

Let's take a positive view. The mountain is an emblem of all the forms of wholesale death: the deluge, the great conflagration (sterminator Vesevo, as the great poet was to say), but also of survival, of human persistence. In this instance, nature run amok also makes culture, makes artifacts, by murdering, petrifying history. In such disasters there is much to appreciate.

Sisyphus, I. I cling to my rock, you don't have to chain me. Stand back! I roll it up—up, up. And … down we go. I knew that would happen. See, I'm on my feet again. See, I'm starting to roll it up again. Don't try to talk me out of it. Nothing, nothing could tear me away from this rock.

Page 357 - if the mountain was smooth, you couldn't climb it.

at age seventy-four, she was asked what had been the outstanding events of her life. She responded, "Work and more work! . . . loving everything terrifically. . . . The outstanding event to me is the doing—which I am still at.