Quotes About Courage

When you are on the knife's edge—when nobody knows exactly what is going to happen next, only that it will be worse—you take in today.

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.

Haters want us to hate them because hate is incapacitating. When we hate we can't operate from our real selves, which is our strength.

In general, though, there's no point in writing hopeless novels. We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this. Sometimes

Thurber was right when he said, "You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards.

You must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this.

If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there. We become like mushrooms, living in the dark, with poop up to our chins. If you want to know only what you already know, you're dying. You're saying: Leave me alone; I don't mind this little rathole. It's warm and dry. Really, it's fine.

A big heart is both a clunky and a delicate thing; it doesn't protect itself and it doesn't hide.

Is it okay to be a tiny tiny bit tired of Caitlyn? Yes, was very brave but so far he's gone from man to mannequin, instead of man to woman.

Will call him a she when the pee-pee is gone. Says Brave is to endure stares, jeers, prejudice. He won't.

You could see the amazing fortitude of people going through horror with grace, looking right into the pit and seeing that this is what you've got, this disease, or maybe even jealousy. So you do as well as you can with it. And this ravaged body or wounded psyche can and should be still be cared for as softly and tenderly as possible.

Try to write in a directly emotional way, instead of being too subtle or oblique. Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done.

Goodness and courage are how the divine presents itself so often—whether in drag, as close friends, or as EMTs.

It gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born." That line came back to me, from out of nowhere, and I decided to practice radical hope, hope in the face of not having a clue.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you'll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you've already been in.

Look, if you don't have a bad attitude and lots of things wrong with you, no serious person is going to be interested. If you feel scared, outraged, confused most of the time, come on over. Have a seat.

Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else.

See how the fearful chandelier Trembles above you Each time you open your mouth To sing. Sing. —DONALD JUSTICE

What your giving can do is to help your readers be braver, be better than they are, be open to the world again.

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding space,' to quote the late, great Zora Neale Hurston. It

In general, though, there's no point in writing hopeless novels. We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. I

I did the only thing I know to do. I said it. I told the truth...90% of the time this is the solution. Tell it. Cry if you can. If you can't, sit in a dejected posture hunched over and stay with this a while. It will shift and become less acute.