Quotes About Courage

But how else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin?

I am not a saint or a cripple, I am not a wound; now I will see whether I am a coward.

I know why there is no glass, in front of the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window opens only partly and why the glass in it is shatter-proof. It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.

I don't want her to be like me. Give in, go along, save her skin. That is what it comes down to. I want gallantry from her, swashbuckling, heroism, single-handed combat. Something I lack.

Then there's the two of us. This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters, too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars that press on us with their deafness. It's not love we don't wish to fall into, but that fear. This word is not enough but it will have to do. It's a single vowel in this metallic silence, a mouth that says O again and again in wonder and pain, a breath, a finger grip on a cliffside. You can hold on or let go.

What good is it to throw yourself in front of a steamroller out of moral principles and then be crushed flat like a sock emptied of its foot? Better to fade into the crowd, the piously praising, unctuous, hate-mongering crowd. Better to hurl rocks than to have them hurled at you. Or better for your chances of staying alive.

And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

I pray silently: Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. I don't know what it means, but it sounds right, and it will have to do, because I don't know what else I can say to God.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum [...] But what did it mean? I said. What?, he said. Oh, it meant 'Don't let the bastards grind you down'. I guess we thought we were pretty smart back then.

Fuck that shit, I told them, I've started this and I'm going to finish it.

Keep steady, I told myself. Don't share too much about yourself, it will be used against you. Listen carefully. Save all clues. Don't show fear.

Some of the best things are done by those with nowhere to turn, by those who don't have time, by those who truly understand the word helpless. They dispense no thought with the calculation of risk and profit, they take no thought for the future, they're forced to spearpoint into the present tense. - Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)

And so I step up, int the darkness within; or else the light.

I keep walking. I feel daring, light-headed. They are not my best friends or even my friends. Nothing binds me to them. I am free.

I still have it in me to feel sorry for him. Moira is right, I am a wimp.

Hell we can make for ourselves.

Eu gostaria de não ter vergonha. Gostaria de ser sem vergonha. Gostaria de ser ignorante. Então eu não saberia o quanto era ignorante.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer...an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river.

You hold it in, whatever it is, until you can make it through the worst part. Then, once you're safe, you can cry all the tears you couldn't waste time crying before.

In her place I would have just laid down in a ditch and cried myself to death. But Amanda says if there's something you really want, you can figure out a way to get it. She says being discouraged is a waste of time.

I am still a coward, still fearful; none of that has changed. But I turn and walk away from her. It's like stepping off a cliff, believing the air will hold you up. And it does. I see that I don't have to do what she says, and worse and better, I've never had to do what she says. I can do what I like.

I admired her lack of compunction, the courage of her bad manners, the energy of simple rage. Throwing a bag of spaghetti had a simplicity to it, a recklessness, a careless grandeur. It got things over with. I was a long way, then, from being able to do anything like it myself.

You wouldn't think it would be Toby--she was so tough and hard--but if you're drowning, a soft squashy thing is no good to hold on to. You need something more solid.