Quotes About Survival

Asleep, by Banana Yoshimoto The Hatak Witches, by Devon A. Mihesuah Beloved, by Toni Morrison The Through, by A. Rafael Johnson Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders Savage Conversations, by LeAnne Howe The Regeneration Trilogy, by Pat Barker Exit Ghost, by Philip Roth Songs for Discharming, by Denise Sweet Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57, by Gerald Vizenor

Tookie's Pandemic Reading Deep Survival, by Laurence Gonzales The Lost City of the Monkey God, by Douglas Preston The House of Broken Angels, by Luis Alberto Urrea The Heartsong of Charging Elk, by James Welch

Delphine witnessed awful things occurring yo other humans. Worse than that, she was powerless to alter their fate. It would be that way all her life- disasters, falling like chairs all around her, falling so close they disarranged her hair, but not touching her.

While in prison, I received a dictionary. It was sent to me with a note. This is the book I would take to a deserted island.

The prairie almost seemed to mock them with its beauty. Every inch of their skin was covered with bites upon bites. Their faces were purple and swollen. The mosquitoes bit through cloth, they bit through hair, they were implacable. Every being suffered. Yet they kept moving.

Death. That was its name. That's what she dealt with and she knew it, dreaded it, hated death's intimacy and the strange greed with which it pursued every living thing. Agnes screamed, bent her fingers into wire hangers around the mange-bald throat, locked her knees, squeezed harder, harder, harder, until the dog yelped, gave up, and disappeared.

The buffalo were taking leave of the earth and all they loved," said the old chiefs and hunters after years had passed and they could tell what split their hearts. "The buffalo went crazy with grief to see the end of things. Like us, they saw the end of things and like many of us, many today, they did not care to live." *

He was upset when pious land-grabbers declared that the Will of God was somehow involved in so effectively destroying Indians who squatted in the path of progress. Funny how often the Will of God puts a dollar in a pocket.

But maybe it's wrong of me to complain … I'm alive after all … and I lose an enemy or two every day … cancer, apoplexy, gluttony … it's a pleasure the number that pass on! … I'm not hard to please … a name! … another! … there are good things in life …

Hurry hurry, cram yourself full of dreams to carry you through the life that's waiting for you outside, when you leave here, to help you last a few days more in that nightmare of things and people. Among the dreams, choose the ones most likely to warm your soul.

My one and only chicken, bequeathed to me by Robinson, dreaded the noon hour the same as I did, he'd go back in with me. For three weeks the chicken lived with me like that, following me like a dog, clucking constantly, seeing snakes wherever he went. One day of extreme boredom, I ate him.

If you've lived this long, it's because you've squashed any poetry you had in you.

Nothing can be explained. The world only knows how to do one thing, to roll over and kill you

Never be picky and choosy about means of escaping disembowelment, or waste your time trying to find reasons for the persecution you're a victim of. Escape is good enough for the wise.

My mother would offer a selection of his watercolors to the peddlers at lunch hour ... She did all she could to keep me alive, I just shouldn't have been born.

if you've lived this long, it's because you've squashed any poetry you had in you.

Ils dénichaient mainte fois une ration de pain (même déficient du point de vue diététique) afin de survivre quand même jusqu'à la prochaine typhoïde qui, elle, n'allait pas rater leur organisme affaibli.

Now was the time to make quick tracks. Back to Fort-Gono, retrace my steps? Try to explain my conduct and the circumstances of the present disaster? I hesitated . . . Not for long. Nothing can be explained. The world only knows how to do one thing, to roll over and kill you, as a sleeper kills his fleas. That would be a stupid way to die, I said to myself, to let myself be crushed like everybody else. To put your trust in men is to get yourself killed a little.

A poor man in this world can be done to death in two main ways, by the absolute indifference of his fellows in peacetime or by their homicidal mania when there's a war.

Toute possibilité de lâcheté devient une magnifique espérance à qui s'y connaît. C'est mon avis. Il ne faut jamais se montrer difficile sur le moyen de se sauver de l'étripade, ni perdre son temps non plus à rechercher les raisons d'une persécution dont on est l'objet. Y échapper suffit au sage

Tout ça c'est des regrets qui ne font pas bouillir la marmite.

If we didn't find it, we could always pass out at the foot of some wall and sleep for an hour, if there was an hour left. In this business of getting killed, it's no use being picky and choosy … You've got to act as if life were going on, and that lie is the hardest part of it.

The one thing any of us really cared about was living for one more hour, one more hour is a big deal in a world where everything has reduced itself to murder.

I'm a testiculate animal, Ferdinand, and when I have a fact, I hang on to it for dear life