Quotes About Survival

Let's just face truth. Facts! Whether or not the white man of the world is able to face truth, and facts, about the true reasons for his troubles—that's what essentially will determine whether or not he will now survive.

In the ghettoes the white man has built for us, he has forced us not to aspire to greater things, but to view everyday living as survival-and in that kind of a community, survival is what is respected.

In several of the apartments the women tenants were prostitutes. The minority were in some other racket or hustle—boosters, numbers runners, or dope-peddlers—and I'd guess that everyone who lived in the house used dope of some kind. This shouldn't reflect too badly on that particular building, because almost everyone in Harlem needed some kind of hustle to survive, and needed to stay high in some way to forget what they had to do to survive.

Right now, in every big city ghetto, tens of thousands of yesterday's and today's school drop-outs are keeping body and soul together by some form of hustling in the same way I did. And they inevitably move into more and more, worse and worse, illegality and immorality.

When you become an animal, a vulture, in the ghetto, as I had become, you enter a world of animals and vultures. It becomes truly the survival of only the fittest.

My family was so poor we were close to eating the holes inside of doughnuts.

Sooner or later, we all go through a crucible. I'm guessing your's was that island. Most believe there are two types of people who go into a crucible: the ones who grow stronger from the experience and survive it, and the ones who die. But there's a third type: the ones who learn to love the fire. They chose to stay in their crucible because it's easier to embrace the pain when it's all you know anymore

What had killed them became the air that they breathed. Perhaps this ability that life has to turn things to its advantage doesn't mean much to you. But let me tell you that, in my world, it has meant a lot.

What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.

It's unfortunate that this has happened. No. It's fortunate that this has happened and I've remained unharmed by it.

Poverty is the mother of crime.

Whom a man might compare to one of those half-eaten wretches, matched in the amphitheatre with wild beasts; who as full as they are all the body over with wounds and blood, desire for a great favour, that they may be reserved till the next day

Think of how many people have died, and how many more animals have been killed and eaten by humans and each other, yet the Earth is not overflowing with corpses. Life continually renews itself. * * *

Remind yourself of what you've been through and what you've had the strength to endure.

By my twenty-second birthday, you know, I had killed eight men. Eight that I was certain of, eight that I could plainly count. That information was stuffed deep within my gut, and if anyone ever asked if I killed someone during the war, particularly if a child ever asked, I vowed I'd shake my head no, that information was never coming out.--SHIFTY'S WAR

For us in Easy Company, a new hope stirred. It wasn't a carefree hope, one that fills a man with energy. But an undeclared hope that drives a man to caution. It's when you sense you might actually come through this thing alive.

I was there when we opened the gates. Some of these poor wretches running out were so emaciated they actually died from the excitement of being liberated. I saw it happen several times. These people in the camps – they were like walking skeletons. You could see all their bones. The gates opened and the people ran out yelling, I'm free! I'm free! And some of them died right there. I was horrified to see what the SS had done to these people. - Roy Gates

No power on earth, if it labours beneath the burden of fear, can possibly be strong enough to survive.

All the same, she cries on the front porch, and I wish I could go over there and hold her. I wish I could rescue her and hold her in my arms. How do people live like this? How do they survive? And maybe that's why I'm here. What if they can't anymore?

What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.

After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? Because it is.

When any civilization is dust and ashes, he said, art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.

There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive.

These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you. And for the most part they did. Or something did; you could tell by the fact that you were still alive.