Quotes About Survival

The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn't have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself.

I wake up at night thinking about Euripides' 'Hecuba.' That to me is a story that says so much about what it is to be a human being in the middle of a world of unreliable things and people.

Libyans are deeply unsettled by Gaddafi and his regime's careless contempt for human life. The dictatorship is willing to employ any methods necessary to remain in power.

Everybody's got plans... until they get hit.

At one time in my life, from the time I was seven until I was about 13, I didn't speak. I only spoke to my brother. The reason I didn't speak: I had been molested, and I told the name of the molester to my brother who told it to the family.

I am on until I am dead, like a light bulb.

It's like, if you're on a ship, and you're sailing towards your destination, but the ship sinks: that doesn't mean that you have to sink. Just because the ship sinks doesn't mean you have to sink. You just figure it out until a raft comes along, and God will send you a raft. Or He'll send you another boat to get you to your destination.

At my age, I don't think anyone is untouched by cancer.

Human nerves quickly get accustomed to the most unusual conditions and circumstances and I noticed that quite a number of men actually fell asleep from sheer exhaustion in the trenches, in spite of the roaring of the cannon about us and the whizzing of shrapnel over our heads.

No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers will still spring up in the middle of nowhere.

Growing up in the ghetto is pretty hard. It's poverty; it's frustration.

I go to the mountains for an adventure and each time I pray I will get up and down again.

I had a very difficult upbringing.

We had such a strange upbringing with such eccentric parents and so we were often put in situations where finding what was funny was a survival thing.

Evolution is what it is. The upper classes have always died out; it's one of the most charming things about them.

I wrote six nonfiction books before getting into narrative fiction with 'Robopocalypse,' including 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising.' My goal all along was to start writing fiction, and I guess one day I'd just had enough.

'Robopocalypse' explores the intertwined fates of regular people who face a future filled with murderous machines. It follows them as humanity foments the robot uprising, fails to recognize the coming storm, and then is rocked to the core by methodical, crippling attacks.

I really believe that with all of what Lynyrd Skynyrd has been through, we can survive just about anything. We've had a load of ups and downs, but we're still here.

I am drawn to people who are like me - who have experienced the ups and downs of life but have come through the other side.

I would go on the record with my respect for Mike Madigan, which will probably upset a lot of friends. He's enormously skillful at what he does. The only speakers of any House who survive are the ones who can keep their majority and keep everyone going largely in the same direction. Mike Madigan is superb at that.

People are going to say mean things to you. They're going to say things that upset you. They're going to lie to you. They're going to lie about you. You'll survive.

A film that I love is 'Deliverance' from back in the day. You start out with these archetypal characters - the hero, the bookworm, the pacifist - and by the end, it's all turned upside down. I love that.

You ain't supposed to get salmon when they're swimming upstream to spawn. But if you're hungry, you do.

Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.