Quotes About Perseverance

People don't do this kind of thing because they have all kinds of extra time and energy for it; they do this kind of thing because their creativity matters to them enough that they are willing to make all kinds of extra sacrifices for it.

There are songs, Waits says, that simply will not allow themselves to be born, and that will hold up the recording of an entire album.

The world ain't straight. You grow up thinking things are a certain way. You think there are rules. You think there's a way that things have to be. You try to live straight. But the world doesn't care about your rules, or what you believe. The world ain't straight, Vivian. Never will be. Our rules, they don't mean a thing. The world just happens to you sometimes, is what I think. And people just gotta keep moving through it, best they can.

We can do it, whether it can be done or not.

Marriage survives, in other words, precisely because it evolves.

So the question is not so much "What are you passionate about?" The question is "What are you passionate enough about that you can endure the most disagreeable aspects of the work?

And no, this story does not end with her winning any championship medals. It doesn't have to. In fact, this story does not end at all, because Susan is still figure skating several mornings a week—simply because skating is still the best way for her to unfold a certain beauty and transcendence within her life that she cannot seem to access in any other manner.

Sometimes it takes a very long while to figure things out.

Ovau teie! Toa hai a'e tau metua i ta 'oe! E 'ore tau 'somore e mae qe ia 'eo! ~ Alma Whittaker

Because the truth of the matter is, most people don't finish things! Look around you, the evidence is everywhere: People don't finish. They begin ambitious projects with the best of intentions, but then they get stuck in a mire of insecurity and doubt and hairsplitting . . . and they stop. So if you can just complete something—merely complete it!—you're already miles ahead of the pack, right there.

I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note—only one word, actually—and that word was "STOP!" My fear never had anything more interesting or subtle to offer than that one emphatic word, repeated at full volume on an endless loop: "STOP, STOP, STOP, STOP!" Which

I am very empty in the bank since the bomb.

Another woman, though, who has managed to keep her vibrant career thriving even with three kids, and who sometimes takes her children with her on overseas business trips, said, "Just go for it. It's not that hard. You just have to push against all the forces that tell you what you can't do anymore now that you're a mom.

You need a droughtbreaker, baby. Gotta go find yo'self a rainmaker.

By all means, do not let me or anyone else ever take away your suffering, if you're committed to it!

It got worse still as time went on because people did not sympathize with you any more. They couldn't do enough for you at first, and that helped, and then they got bored with your troubles. But your troubles went on just the same and you had to bear them alone.

There always comes, I think, a sort of peak in suffering at which either you win over your pain or your pain wins over you, according as to whether you can, or cannot, call up that extra ounce of endurance that helps you to break through the circle of yourself and do the hitherto impossible. That extra ounce carries you through 'le dernier quart d' heure.' Psychologist have a name for it, I believe. Christians call it the Grace of God.

Second, and far more important: tuck your chin. You're going to get hurt, so expect it and be ready. You may as well see it coming.

Don't panic. Panic will kill you when nothing else wants to.

when you find the one thing in your life you believe in above anything else, you owe it to yourself to stand by it—it will never come again, child. And if you believe in it unwaveringly, the world has no other choice but to see it as you do, eventually. For who knows it better than you? Don't be afraid to take a difficult stand, darling. Find the one thing that matters—everything else will resolve itself.

Sometimes, however, there is more than hope. Sometimes there is reason.

Each time it was like a stray bit of glass pressed into the softness of her heart, grinding, grinding, oh so silently until she no longer noticed when she bled.

one can't live without falling now and again.

I love you, Godric St. John, and now I'm breaking my word. I will not leave you. You may either come with me to Laurelwood or I'll stay here with you in your musty old house in London and drive you mad with all my talking and relatives and... and exotic sexual positions until you break down and love me back, for I'm warning you that I'm not giving up until you love me and we're a happy family with dozens of children.