Quotes About Perseverance

To be honest, however, I will have to admit that I wrote this book for the original model - the one who was overkidsed, underpatienced, with four years of college and chapped hands all year around. I knew if I didn't follow Faith's advice and laugh a little at myself, then I would surely cry.

I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you're both breathless. They crash . . . you add a longer tail . . . you patch and comfort, adjust and teach. You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they'll fly.

Okies who had just stepped into the corridor long enough to get a tin can of water for our boiling radiator. There are other stories, other dilemmas, but the characters never change. We're always standing around, unwashed, uncurled, harried, penniless, memory gone, no lipstick, no hose, unmatched shoes, and using the dirtiest cloth in the house to bind our wounds. Makes

Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem.

A few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over.

To escape from fire men will plunge into boiling water.

Through endurance we conquer.

The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.

The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.

I may not be as stong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over.

We're stronger in the places that we've been broken.

I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.

Fish, he said softly, aloud, I'll stay with you until I am dead.

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be

Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go all the goddamn way with what matters.

You must be prepared to work always without applause.

If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.

Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.

The fish is my friend too... I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars. Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky; he thought

Nobody climbs on skis now and almost everybody breaks their legs but maybe it is easier in the end to break your legs than to break your heart although they say that everything breaks now and that sometimes, afterwards, many are stronger at the broken places.

Never be daunted