Quotes About Struggle

I pull my lower lip all the way in between my teeth. If I try hard enough, maybe I can gobble my whole self this way.... I didn't try hard enough to swallow myself.

I won the wintergirl trip over the border into dangerland.

My head is killing me, my throat is killing me, my stomach bubbles with toxic waste. I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid if this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind.

I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting.

They tied me back together, but they didn't use double knots. My insides are draining out of the fault lines in my skin, I can feel it, but every time I check the bandages, they're dry.

I pushed my ragged mouth against the mirror. A thousand crushed bleeding lips pushed back at me...

This is not our fight', the old man said. 'British or American, that is not the choice. You must choose your own side, find your road through the valley of darkness that will lead you to the river Jordan. . . Look hard for your river Jordan, my child. You'll find it.

Can't escape pain, kiddo. Battle through it and you get stronger.

I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.

I want to eat like a normal person eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut out my heart or take every pill that was ever made.

There is nothing wrong with me. These are really sick people, sick that you can see.

I want to tell him that it's just a stupid car, but bits of me are scattered all over town; the graveyard, school, Cassie's room, the motel, and standing in from of the sink in my mother's kitchen. It takes too much energy to gather all the bits together, so I just sit there and watch him implode.

I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head.

I shake my head. I pick up the rake and start making the dead-leaf pile neater. A blister pops and stains the rake handle like a tear. Dad nods and walks to the Jeep, keys jangling in his fingers. A mockingbird lands on a low oak branch and scolds me. I rake the leaves out of my throat. Me: Can you buy some seeds? Flower seeds?

I was in a race to see if I would die from the outside in or the inside out.

I didn't fit. I was a different size, a different shape. I kept trying to squeeze into a body, a skin suit, that was too small. It rubbed me the wrong way. I blistered. I callused. I scarred over and it kept hurting. I would never fit. But, really, I didn't want to fit. That's why it was hard.

There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me. My closest is a good thing, a quiet place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my head where no one can hear them.

I doubt trees are ever told to 'be the screwed-up ninth-grader.'

Picasso." He whispers like a priest. "Picasso. Who saw the truth. Who painted the truth, molded it, ripped from the earth with two angry hands.

Had she ever enjoyed anything? Had every day been a struggle? Perhaps death would be a release, a rest for the weary.

If that was life, then it was twisted.

It was like looking at a knot, knowing it was a knot, but not knowing how to untie it. I had no map for this life.

This camp is a forge for the army; it's testing our mettle. Instead of heat and hammer, our trials are cold and hunger. Question is, what are we made of?

The time has come to arm-wrestle some demons.