Quotes About Struggle

The passengers huddled in their wet bedding, salt water streaming down the cabin walls, and prayed for deliverance.

They fell into two groups: the Saints (or in the spelling of their day, 'Saincts'), ideological, theological migrants, and the Strangers, who had compelling reasons of their own for risking their lives at sea. Few if any of the Strangers were driven by a calling to spread the Gospel; for the most part they simply hoped that they would fare better in the new world.

slithered across the slippery decks, which flew up and plunged down below their

It pleased God that he caught hold of the topsail halyards which hung overboard and ran out at length. Yet he held his hold (though he was sundry fathoms under water) till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water, and then with a boat hook and other means got into the ship again and his life saved.

Most people hate their jobs, true, but my old man despised his in an Ahab-and-Moby (or Eminem-and-Moby) kinda way. He never said, "Go into the entertainment biz, son"—he was just a living example of why it was worth taking a shot going after the stuff of dreams rather than simply getting a job. I saw how much my dad hated working and realized he was right: Working blows. If you hate what you do, it'll always be work.

because that's when I realized that this life is a rigged game that you cannot win. Even good men die screaming.

He didn't know how to deal with people who were falling apart, how to comfort them. He wasn't sure if he'd just forgotten how to be with people at all.

There was a mattress in the small front yard and the smell of rotting food. The house looked like it needed some work, even in the forgiving glow of the streetlights. He'd done business over the years with the people-smuggling rackets and he couldn't believe this was what the immigrants were all so desperate to reach.

He couldn't die by degrees in a life like that, didn't think he could do it even for a few days, a revulsion that probably sprang from the same part of his character as the violence he'd come to live by.

Because I kept fucking up, because it seemed so hard to not fuck up, I lived a life where I had less than what I desired. So instead of wanting more, sometimes I just made myself want even less. Sometimes I made myself believe that I wanted nothing.

Things are bad and crazy and chaotic. But you ride it out and you don't let it hurt you, and then there's this stretch of time that is so calm and perfect. And that's what was always worth waiting for.

War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace. - Baba

In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.

The rope that pulls you from the flood can become a noose around your neck.

They tell me I must wade into waters, where I will soon drown. Before I march in, I leave this on the shore for you. I pray you find it, sister, so you will know what was in my heart as I went under.

Kabul is... a thousand tragedies per square mile.

Though there were moments of beauty, Mariam knew for the most part that life had been unkind to her.

Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

And that, ...is the story of our country, one invasion after another...Macedonians. Saddanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing.

She is furious with herself for her own stupidity. Opening herself up like this, voluntarily, to a lifetime of worry and anguish. It was madness. Sheer lunacy. A spectacularly foolish and baseless faith, against enormous odds, that a world you do not control will not take from you the one thing you cannot bear to lose. Faith that the world will not destroy you.

I've read that if an avalanche buries you and you're lying there underneath all that snow, you can't tell which way is up or down. You want to dig yourself out but pick the wrong way, and you dig yourself to your own demise.

Yes, hope is a strange thing. Peace at last. But at what price?

I brought Hassan's son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty

It turned out that, like Satan, cancer had many names.