Quotes About Resilience

Make yourself do unpleasant things so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.

Then, as the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to his feet and turned his closed eyes toward the Sea. And the world whistled in his ears.

In this world goodness is destined to be defeated. But a man must go down fighting. That is the victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man.

How much better it would be if they weren't so damn understanding--if they kicked me out of the house. To find yourself out in the street with two dollars to your name, to catch the streetcar downtown and get a job, perhaps as an airline stewardess. Think how wonderful it would be to fly to Houston and back three times a week for the next twenty years. You think I'm kidding? I'm not. It would be wonderful.

Do you know what he told me after lying under a cliff for thirty six hours with two inches of his femur sticking out? He said: 'Queenie, I think I'm going to pass out and before I do, I'm going to give you a piece of advice' - God, I thought he was going to die and knew and was telling me what to do with his book - and he said quite solemnly: 'Queenie, always stick to Bach and the early Italians' - and passed out cold as a mackerel. And by God, it's not bad advice.

He's quite a guy. Do you know what he told me after lying under a cliff for thirty six hours with two inches of his femur sticking out? He said: Queenie, I think I'm going to pass out and before I do, I'm going to give you a piece of advice-God, I thought he was going to die an dknew and was telling me what to do with his book-and he said quite solemnly: Queenie, always stick to Bach and the early Italians-and passed out cold as a mackerel. And by God, it's not bad advice.

A man must live by his lights and do what little he can and do it as best he can. In this world goodness is destined to be defeated. But a man must go down fighting. That is the victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man.

On those days or mornings when you feel worst, when you think everything is hopeless, that nothing will happen--sometimes the best things happen.

Most Romans worked and played as usual while Rome fell about their ears. But surely it is fair to say that when a man becomes depressed, falls down in a sand trap, and decides to shoot himself, something has gone wrong with the man, not the world.

Let us die trying.

So many bad things have happened to them that they can't trust the good things. They have to shove them away before someone can get it back.

I wasn't a cynic; I was a banged-up realist.

It's like there's this wave coming toward me, but there's nothing I can do about it. And then it reaches me, crashes over me and...and I'm done for another day. I just give up. Give in to it. Because how do you stop a wave? You don't. And you're wise to recognize your powerlessness to do so. But what you can do is learn how to negotiate this wave. Work within the context of its inevitability.

a life we didn't choose, chose us

Audry Hepburn on the cover of The Nun's Story was staring up at me from my unmade bed. Her hair was hidden by her snow-white wimple; her big eyes looked frightened. What are you looking at? I said. Fuck you. It was the first time I'd ever said the word. I felt a brief shiver of power. Then I sat back on the bed and sobbed. Dolores Price: Lady of Sorrow.

Jack Speight undid me, then I almost undid myself. But I've undone some of the bad, too, some of the damage. With help. With luck and love.

I learned that there are two young men lost in the woods. Not one. Two....I may never find one of the young men....He has been gone so long. The odds, I'm afraid may be against it. But as for the other, I may have better luck. The other young man may be calling me.

A life I didn't choose chose me.

That's the problem with survival of the fittest ... the corpse at your fett. That little inconvenience.

Her shut-eyed smile transformed itself into something else: the smile of someone brave and knowing, someone whose pain had made her wise.

Let me tell you something, my wife died for Tuesdays ago. Cancer of the colon. We were married forty-one years. Now you stop feeling sorry for yourself and lose some of that pork of yours. Pretty girl like you - you don't want to do this yourself.

You are a meticulous steward of the pain and injustices people have visited upon you. Or, if you prefer, we could call you a scrupulous coroner.

Rivercrest was purgatory, with wheelchairs.

You are a meticulous steward of the pain and injustices people have visited upon you.