Quotes About Resilience

Being born again doesn't mean that you've arrived somewhere, said Dave. It means you're ready to start the trip. The pilgrimage to more places of power, the doomed quest to keep the people and things you love from being caught by the weeds and dragged under.

We lived in Boston, in an apartment where even the rats had to walk stoop-shouldered.

Time sure kicks the shit out of people...

martyrs of the Antarctic.

there's still room for writing that holds out some hope for humanity.

Strange," said Natalie. "What?" "Two gunshot wounds, pneumonia, a concussion, three broken ribs, and enough cuts and bruises to keep a football team happy for a full season." "Jews are hard to kill.

If someone comes I go out to meet him but not for his sake

The Consul gripped the edges of the mat with fingers gone white. He had tied the strap of his duffel bag around his belt, otherwise the bag would have tumbled off to a glacier far below.

Resentment is one burden that is incompatible with your success. Always be the first to forgive; and forgive yourself first always.

I have a theory that as long as you have one good friend, one real friend, you can get through anything.

Some things you can fix, and some things you can't. And I just think it is a shame to walk away from the things you can.

The Little Drummer Boy was playing in the background for what seemed like the third time in a row. I fought off an urge to beat that Little Drummer Boy seneless with his own drumsticks.

Don't worry about the finish line. Don't question what you're doing. Just quiet your mind and keep up the pace.

But I do remember this thing that this famous rabbi wrote once about how Christians build cathedrals, these gorgeous impressive structures, but Jews, with a long history of watching their buildings get destroyed, build their cathedrals in time. The High Holidays. Shabbat. Cathedrals carved out of time that can never be worn down. I know you're no Jew but I kind of think that's what you did with your summer down here.

After listening to my entire story, he quietly said: You can say, This is impossible, terrible.' Or you can say, 'This is beautiful, wonderful.' You can imagine that you're in exile. Or you can imagine that you have more than one home.

Gone was the reflexive need to see the worst in things. Before the tumors took her life, they gave her a few moments of grace.

You carry the pain and you also carry the reward.

But gratitude and trauma weren't mutually exclusive.

You know," my aunt says, "I once had a terribly difficult period that lasted twenty-four years." Wait. Twenty-four years? "And it was so important to realize that I didn't know what was on the other side of the darkness. Every so often there was a sliver of light that shot the whole world through with mystery and wonder, and reminded me: I didn't have all the information.

I can't stand seeing their sympathy. For years, vital parts of me have been frozen, and since the accident I felt myself thawing, dripping, becoming more human than I can bear.

One afternoon I opened an email from her that included a passage from the work of Pema Chodron, a Buddhist teacher and writer whom I had long admired. To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land.

It's possible to grow up in the wrong house, on the wrong street, in the wrong town, in the wrong part of the country. It's possible to go to the wrong school. To have the wrong dad. To be pushed to do the wrong things. But it is also possible to survive all these psychic indignities if you have one, maybe two people who recognize you for who you are.

She'd also read up on neuroplasticity. Theo had always lagged behind, in terms of his emotional agility

What she doesn't realize is that I have survived for her as well -- and only now am I beginning to survive for myself.