Quotes About Survival

Yet the body insists on the struggle for life. Why?

There are only two kinds of people in the world. Those who are alive and those who are afraid

It has been said that sometimes we need a story more than food in order to live. p 374

What a terrible thing could be freedom. Trees were free when they were uprooted by the wind; ships were free when they were torn from their moorings; men were free when they were cast out of their homes—free to starve, free to perish of cold and hunger.

What horrifying torture this poor man must have endured. Out of a wise man they have made a miserable bundle of flesh and bones.

Chyna Shepherd, untouched and alive and able to pee.

I could live with one butt cheek — just sit at a slant for the rest of my life, not worry about how baggy the seat of my blue jeans looked, get used to the nickname Halfass — but I couldn't live with my brains blown out.

In life, little happens by chance, and most bad hands we're dealt are the consequence of our actions, which are shaped by our wisdom and our ignorance. In my experience, survival depends on hoping for the best while recognizing that disaster is more likely and that it can't be averted if it can't be imagined.

Anyway," he said, "if somebody doesn't belong in the world, there's no door they can throw him out. They can't take the world away from him and put him somewhere different. The worst thing they can do is kill him. That's all.

I often resorted: buckets, brooms, garden rakes, Granny Smith apples, cats that when thrown will reliably take out their fury not on the thrower but instead on the person at whom they're thrown. I didn't like throwing cats or animals of any kind, as far as that goes, but every once in a while, in a life-and-death situation, there was nothing to be done but grab a cat and throw it, or an angry ferret.

Nothing I could say or do would help her. Life is hard in a world gone wrong.

Although much that was precious has been taken from me in this life, I have reason to remain an optimist. After the numerous tight scrapes I've been through, by now I should have lost one leg, three fingers, one buttock, most of my teeth, an ear, my spleen, and my sense of fun. But here I am.

The stairs creaked. They always creaked when creaking could lead to your death, and they never creaked when creaking didn't matter. The universe is anthropic, meaning that its design makes possible and sustains intelligent life, especially human beings. Nevertheless, I perceive some power, some presence, some adversary behind the scenes that by countless devices subtle or blunt seeks to destroy us.

Life is hard in a world gone wrong.

In this beautiful but hard world, fate spared no species.

In the war, to survive, you had to be responsible every minute of every day, unhesitatingly responsible for yourself, for your every action. You had to be responsible for your buddies, too, because survival wasn't something that could be achieved alone. That's maybe the one positive thing about fighting in a war - it clarifies your thinking and makes you realize that a sense of responsibility is what separates good men from the damned.

I am an optimist about our species. I assume God is, too, for otherwise He would have scrubbed us off the planet a long time ago and would have started over.

Except for the lack of enormous insects, suffocating humidity, malaria victims groaning in death throes, poisonous vipers as thick as mosquitoes, and rabid jungle cats madly devouring their own feet, you would have sworn you were in the Amazon rainforest.

In the hollow steel-lined bin, my unfortunate eruption resonated such that it would have humiliated me if my first concern had been social acceptance. My first concern, however, was survival. At the moment, I didn't have the capacity for embarrassment because terror filled me.

What we had both done was keep on keeping on, which is all any of us can do.

mankind was, in reality, the most ruthless, dangerous, unforgiving species on earth.

I can't allow myself to be wary of one place merely because it reminds me of another place where I almost died, because just about every place reminds me of another place...

I'd settle for just getting my head above the shit line before I drown.

Canis latrans