Quotes About Resilience

My whole thing was I wanted to stay poised in different situations and scenarios.

Most of us are shrinking in the face of psycho-social and physical poisons, of the toxins of our world. But compassion, the generation of compassion, actually mobilizes our immunity.

The moment an ill can be patiently handled, it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

Whatever it is that's bothering me - interacting with annoying guy at a restaurant, contemplating my age, or losing friends to illness - I'll start to chip away at it. If you can poke holes in it, it's not as formidable; it's not as scary, and ultimately, it becomes another truth.

I've never been bitten by a shark, though God knows I had to poke a lot of them in the nose.

I sail, run dogs, ride horses, play professional poker and tell stories about the stuff I've been through. And I'm still a romantic; I still want Bambi to make it out of the fire.

I have a good poker face because I am half-dead inside.

Here's a news flash: I hate to lose! Just watch any televised poker broadcast and you can see that's the case.

My only memories of school are of being beaten, of being hit in the playground, of masters poking their fingers in my chest all day.

In the past, I'd felt I didn't want to try something because I might get shot down for it. I'd tried it with England, and the goalkeeper - I think it was against Poland - saved it. This time, it came off.

When you come from Poland, you have nothing. Your mother and father are working. You have only a bed for sleep. You have a kitchen, and that's it. You must fight.

Poland was once a powerful imperial country that disappeared from maps of Europe for more than 100 years. It was partitioned and occupied by the Nazis and the Russians... We pop up and disappear and we do not trust what we are told to believe.

The circumstances In which I grew up In Poland were not auspicious for humor.

In Lithuania they had racially abused me, in Poland they hadn't paid me, and I thought: 'I don't need this.' I said to my family: 'I'm not playing football again.'

My mom was a pilot, and my dad wrestled polar bears.

Environmental scientists in Canada said it was impossible for me to get to the Pole in 2004... I said 'no,' it's still OK, and I can still get there, and I did.

Pole vaulting is an event of high and lows.

After the failure in '92, my goal was to be a good pole vaulter. I used that as motivation.

I was knocked down and dragged by a police Land Rover in a hit-and-run.

Growing up, I think I was arrested 20-odd times by the Boston police. The good news is that I've been able to use those experiences in a lot of my roles, and that has been a blessing.

In life, you don't really know what's coming at you. Like a firefighter, or police officer, or anyone else working in the emergency field, they don't know what's going to come at them. You gotta be ready for anything.

Whether it's police officers, firefighters, first responders, or 911 dispatchers, many dedicated Americans work long hours, and often in difficult conditions, to make sure that when someone's in need, they can help.

At 25, I had lost my job due to the economy, and my family wanted me to become a policeman or firefighter, but I knew there were other things out there for me. I sent some pictures to New York City and a model agency called and said, 'Where have you been?'

When I was younger, I remember families like mine who had to deal with the disastrous policies of the 1970s.