Quotes About Resilience

Behind him hobbled Granma, who had survived only because she was as mean as her husband. She had held her own with a shrill ferocious religiosity that was as lecherous and as savage as anything Grampa could offer. . . As she walked she hiked her Mother Hubbard up to her knees, and she bleated her shrill terrible war cry: Pu-raise Gawd fur vittory.

repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

In the souls of people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared. I'm scared.

the technique must be learned the way I learned it, by failures

Tom bruised himself on the world and licked his cuts.

Fear the time when the bombs stopped falling while the bombers live - for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live - for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken.

It was Una," he said hoarsely. "He couldn't get over Una. He told me how a man, a real man, had no right to let sorrow destroy him. He told me again and again how I must believe that time would take care of it. He said it so often that I knew he was losing.

Adam seemed clothed in a viscosity that slowed his movements and held his thoughts down. He saw the world through gray water. Now and then his mind fought its way upward, and when the light broke in it brought him only sickness of the mind, and he retired into the grayness again.

Olive was way beyond hearing anything, but her chin was set and she was determined to help the pilot so that he would not be too afraid before they hit the earth. She smiled and nodded again. At the end of each stunt he looked back, and each time she encouraged him. Afterward he said over and over, She's the goddamest woman I ever saw. I tore up the rule book and she wanted more. Good Christ, what a pilot she would have made!

Then they asked, What'll we do? And the men replied, I don't know. But it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.

In the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

The people in flight from the terror behind—strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.

She controlled her face and whipped the fear from it. "You're just doing it because you're honest, is that it? You're just too sugar sweet to live.

Tu quello che puoi fare devi farlo lo stesso. L'importante,' diceva, 'è sapere che ogni volta che c'è un piccolo passo avanti, poi c'è pure una scivolata indietro, ma mai così indietro come prima. E' la differenza,' diceva, 'dimostra che quello che hai fatto era giusto farlo. E non era una perdita di tempo pure se magari sembrava di sì.

Tom laughed. "You jus' a-treadin' him on?'' "Sure,'' said Ma. "Take a man, he can get worried an' worried, an' it eats out his liver, an' purty soon he'll jus' lay down and die with his heart et out. But if you can take an' make 'im mad, why, he'll be awright. Pa, he didn' say nothin', but he's mad now. He'll show me now. He's awright.

The new migrants from the dust bowl are here to stay. They are the vest American stock, intelligent, resourceful; and, if given a chance, socially responsible. To attempt to force them into a peonage of starvation and intimidated despair will be unsuccessful. They can be citizens of the highest type, or they can be an army driven by suffering to take what they need. On their future treatment will depend the course they will be force to take.

You got to have patience. Why, Tom—us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people—we go on.

We still got a where we want, even if we got to crawl for the right.

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy,growing heavy for the vintage.

And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

You're jest a-teasin' yourself up to cry. I don' know what's come at you. Our folks ain't never did that. They took what come to 'em dry-eyed.

George si alzò in piedi. «Ce la faremo,» disse. «Prenderemo quella casetta e andremo a viverci.» Tornò a sedersi. I tre stettero queti, tutti imbambolati nel portento della cosa, ciascuno lanciato nel futuro dove la cosa tanto bella si sarebbe avverata.

I don't aim to starve to death before I kill the man that's starving me.