Quotes About Overcoming

Whether you want to lose 20 pounds or 200, what the contestants on 'The Biggest Loser' have learned - and taught me - holds true: You've got to make a break. You've got to divorce yourself from the past and find a different way of living. And you can never go back.

I've been written off more times than some of the government's tax returns but I just keep plodding along.

When one kicks over a tea table and smashes everything but the sugar bowl, one may as well pick that up and drop it on the bricks, don't you think?

My first-night jitters are so bad, I can't even hold a tea cup, but once I am over that, I get really into it.

How do I take a step? How do I lift my foot off the ground, move it through the air a little bit and then bring it down? I had to teach myself to walk again.

When I was in the first grade I was afraid of the teacher and had a miserable time in the reading circle, a difficulty that was overcome by the loving patience of my second grade teacher. Even though I could read, I refused to do so.

I was in special ed, but I felt like I was a caged bird. I felt like I could do better. I made sure I mastered my special ed lessons. I made sure I listened to my teacher. I made sure I did my homework, but I had to do a little extra.

I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too.

I was so afraid to even read a paper in front of my classmates. It is very funny because at that point my teachers would never have believed that I could speak in front of an audience of over 2,000 people.

For me, failure is not a bad thing because it teaches you how to succeed.

My teammate in college, Melissa Jones, lost her sight in one eye. Hers wasn't a hit to the eye; she fell and hit her head on the court, and then someone fell on her.

I used to be so focused on winning, I had a really hard time enjoying soccer. If I missed a shot, I would spend a lot of time thinking about how I'd disappointed my teammates. Then I learned how moments of struggle make you stronger.

I feel like after my incident, it really made me realize football is not here forever. I'm all the more anxious to come out here and let my teammates know, 'Look, hey, this is the same JPP. Missing fingers aren't going to stop me from playing some ball.'

That was nothing. I've talked myself out of much worse.

I wasn't that crazy on spirit when I said you're my flame in the dark. We chase away the shadows around each other. Our backgrounds don't matter. What we have is bigger than that. I love you, and beneath all that logic, calculation, and superstition, I know you love me too.

We all have moments of weakness. It's how we recover from them that really counts.

Carter] shook it off. "Don't worry about it. We all have moments of weakness. It's how we recover from them that really counts." (Chapter 19)

In a note to a West Point classmate, Eisenhower wrote, "There is no use denying that at times discouragement has piled on top of discouragement.

Muhammad Ali said, "Often it isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out, it's the little pebble in your shoe.

Whether we bring them on ourselves or they are forced upon us, difficult times come, and it is what we do once they have arrived that is important.

Depression is a big fucked-up monster. Everyone gets a turn, whether or not they want to own up to it. It's a hard fight that fucks you top to bottom. Drains you hollow. And when you're finally rid of it, there's something about having overcome it that robs you of compassion.

It might be harder than you imagined it to be -- it might take longer -- but you can change things, Marik. Your life is significant. As low as you are . . . there is only room to rise. But you have to let go.

There's too much at stake for you to let some little thing distract you and pull you down into defeat.

We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.