The hero surviving his own murder, his own suicide, his own addiction, surviving his own disappearance from the scene

Here's to everyone who has survived something devastating - - something that shattered your self - confidence and distorted your world in one blow. Whether you were fierce in the face of it or fell to...

For me the curse is a crutch, but the con is everything.

Nothing is really lost. Shapes change. But it's never completely gone.

Of all the trees we could've hit, we had to get one that hits back.

The poor are used to stifling any expression of their despair, because they must get on with life, with work, with the demands made of them day after day, hour after hour.

his legs where the bones had been broken

The thought has cheered me, and I'd like to hang onto that. Must protect my little pockets of happiness.

Your strength is the strength of stones. Suddenly

There is nothing wrong with you. God asks the most of those he loves best.

... they'd just tell you to turn the other cheek, wouldn't they?... Trouble is, Mrs. Dowdel observed, after you've turned the other cheek four times, you run out of cheeks.

The thing is, Mom, the secret of happiness is low expectations. That's a good reminder, right there. If you didn't lose your husband and kids all in one year, smile! You're ahead of the game.

That was the thing about life. Habit and routine made things feel permanent, but that was all an illusion based on the very flimsy foundation of repetition. Change and chaos was a far better bet to...

And maybe there is greatness waiting for you - if you only get back up on your feet and keep going.

Love is a word, another kind of open. As the diamond comes into a knot of flame I am Black because I come from the earth's inside take my word for jewel in the open light.

To flee forever is beyond the capacity of most: at some point even a hunted animal will stop, exhausted, and awaits its fate, if only for a while.

A bastard son must fight his own way in the world. Osferth knew that.

People's beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities. Ability is not a fixed property; there is a huge variability in how you perform. People who have a sense of...

He says the best way out is always through And I agree to that, or in so far As I can see no way out but through. - ROBERT FROST

Bits of it floating in the air, he said. It's like dust. You walk about and don't see it, don't notice it, but it's there and it's all coming down, covering everything. You're breathing it in. You...

"I am not perfect." It came out in a rush of breath. "See, I thought I was. Thank God I ain't. See, a perfect thing ain't got a chance. The world kills it, everything perfect. {Listen to him!} Now...

It was a morning for Ella Fitzgerald. There are fine things in the world, after all. Dignity, refinement, warmth and humour, where you'd never expect to find them. Even as an old woman, an amputee in...

He thought his heart would kill him, he'd had no clue what it was capable of.

If I'd had any way of knowing that things were - as Lily Tomlin once said - going to get a whole lot worse before they got worse, I'm not sure how I would have slept that night.

It's been one nightmare after another, Christina thought. Pretty soon I won't be able to keep track of them all.

Goodbye, Papa, you saved me. You taught me to read. No one can play like you. I'll never drink champagne. No one can play like you. - Liesel

Feeling of courage. Great desire to continue living.

Care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

The only time "early bloomer" has ever been applied to me is vis-à-vis my premature apprehension of the deep dread-of-existence thing. In all other cases, I plod and tromp along. My knuckles? Well,...

Of course, people will laugh at you, but people laugh at a great many things so there is no need to take it personally.