Judith Viorst Quotes

It doesn't matter who you are: being human is being human. Everyone has days that are challenging.

No matter where you come from, we all share the same struggles as human beings, and my beginning is no different.

I'm a normal, horrible, screwed up human being like everyone else. I mean, I'm not horrible person, but I'm just as screwed up as anybody.

When the storyteller tells the truth, she reminds us that human beings are more alike than unalike... A story is what it's like to be a human being-to be knocked down and to miraculously arise. Each one of us has arisen, awakened. We do rise.

Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me - choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothing.

If you think for one second no one knows what you've been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone - that pain is part of the human condition and that alone makes you a legion.

Whether it's someone struggling with mental illness, someone struggling with poverty or struggling with their own limitations in their social behaviors, for some reason, I'm drawn to characters like that.

That's the gift 'Precious' has given me. You really think you're telling a story about a fat black girl, and only fat black girls will understand it, and then you realize we're all Precious.

I had discovered that I'm much less special than I thought I am. So whatever I find true for myself, other people might also relate to.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

Like everybody, I've had a lot of pain in my life and I'm a work in progress. You must have a true desire to see the world from a different point of view, and that comes with growing up.

Just because you don't know if other people are experiencing the same thing as you are, it doesn't mean that it's not happening. Everybody doesn't necessarily share everything. Just know that what you're going through, other people are going through it, too.

No matter what you go through, if it's the truth, 9 times out of 10, somebody else has been through the same thing or is currently going through the same thing.

The thing that inspires me most is empathizing with people's flaws and seeing how they deal with them. That sort of connection you feel with someone when you realize that maybe even the negative things that they've said or done are because of insecurities or injuries they've endured.

There is an eternal humanity that crosses through all people, and it's more interesting often when it's about struggle - not people with champagne glasses.

I think people found out I'm just like anybody else. I've got problems, too.

I took a lot of bad things after Athens. I just learnt to deal with it. The problem was beforehand I had this feeling where I was trying to please everybody - I wanted everybody to like me.

If my life was a song it would be, 'It ain't that easy being green' from Sesame Street.

I'm not brave, I'm not fantastic. I'm like any other woman. I'm unhappy. I'm difficult. I'm sad. Am I strong, too? Maybe, but not always. There are days when I don't want to see anyone. The most important thing you learn? You can live with it.

I don't stress at all. When other people say, 'I'm having a bad day,' I ask, 'How can you have a bad day for the entire 24 hours, or even 12 or eight hours?' Something bad might happen, but that can't make the entire day bad.

Writing is weaponized empathy. It's putting yourself in someone else's head. It's finding what's in them that relates to you.

Remember that we are all human beings trying to do what we love to do.

The more you allow yourself to be vulnerable, the more people will be able to relate and learn from you, because we're all human.

Rejection doesn't always mean I'm not good enough.

We can all have a bad day. It happens for me as well.