Quotes About Struggle

I never consented to this body I've been charged with dragging until my death—

en aquella semana me mordías los dedos con frecuencia porque pensabas que tenía malas intenciones; haciéndome daño, te anticipabas a mi traición; por mi parte, me odiaba porque eso me gustaba, me daban ganas de traicionarte para que me volvieras a morder

Peaceful?' they ask, at a loss for words. For those lucky enough never to have experienced war, the word "peaceful" has little meaning.

In search of the past, I have travelled halfway around the globe, from Canada to Afghanistan, from a world of peace, material comfort and technology to a country that lives in the shadow of its history - a place whose only relevance to the rest of the world depends on the value and extent of a Westerner's life and "security". It may be illusionary, self-indulgent or bizarre, but I still think digging into the grave of history might lead to an understanding of the present.

A Walk on the Wild Side

He had met him before, that certain down-at-heel vet growing stooped from carrying a thirty-five-pound monkey on his back.

Chicago divided your heart. Leaving you loving the joint for keeps. Yet knowing it never can love you.

It's the place built out of Man's ceaseless failure to overcome himself. Out of Man's endless war against himself we build our successes as well as our failures. Making it the city of all cities most like Man himself— loneliest creation of all this very old poor earth.

And money can't buy everything. For example: poverty.

Big-shot town, small-shot town, jet-propelled old-fashioned town, by old-world hands with new-world tools built into a place whose heartbeat carries farther than its shout, whose whispering in the night sounds less hollow than its roistering noontime laugh: they have builded a heavy-shouldered laughter here who went to work too young.

The devil lives in a double-shot", Roman explains himself obscurely. "I got a great worm inside. Gnaws and gnaws. Every day I drown him and every day he gnaws. Help me drown the worm, fellas.

There is no way of being a creative writer in America without being a loser.

He was falling between glacial walls, he didn't know how anyone could fall so far away from everyone else in the world. So far to fall, so cold all the way, so steep and dark between those morphine-coloured walls...

You can't be a good writer in the States anymore... Because to be a good one you have to have a country where you can be poor and still eat, and still make your living standards secondary to your writing. Thoreau himself couldn't do that in the States today... (Sept. 1953 letter to Millen Brand)

What these people were trying to create or re-create here in this new world is beyond me. I can't put myself in their minds or their hearts, but I can sympathize with their struggle for an identity, with their puzzlement, which has troubled Americans from the very beginning - Who are we, where do we fit in, where are we going?

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.

Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?

I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people.

When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.

Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.

I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.