Eileen Brennan Quotes

Everyone who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power thereto in his own hell.

I think Ellenor is embarrassed and ashamed and has devoted all of her energy to the law and to helping other people get justice because it's too difficult for her to face her own struggle for justice.

Any personal crisis - you have to use it to get stronger.

Some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chambers of your own soul.

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at.

I have written only what I have thought through, felt through and suffered through.

I think you sometimes have to go hit rock bottom before you can grow and rebuild as a person.

'Showgirls' was a critical point in my life. I had my head handed to me. At 21 years old, I had to find my self-esteem again. It was a very hard time.

People don't know the real me. The hard times I went through are what led me to my life now. I was a mess as a teen! I was kind of wild and really unhappy.

When you go through hell, your own personal hell, and you have lost - loss of fame, loss of money, loss of career, loss of family, loss of love, loss of your own identity that I experienced in my own life - and you've been able to face the demons that have haunted you... I appreciate everything that I have.

When a person gets to the age of 35 and you go to jail, it either makes you or breaks you. It made me identify what I wanted.

Wasn’t hitting bottom the thing you had to do to knock some sense into yourself? Wasn’t hitting bottom the thing that showed you which way was up?

There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

Remember,too,that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start,and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they "arrive". The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at some moment of crisis,through which they are introduced to their "other selves".

I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft, amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a woe-struck and selfish woman.

Heartbreaks, disappointments and even our own weaknesses can serve as stepping-stones to the second half of life transformation. Failings are the foundation for growth. Those who have fallen, failed or 'gone down' are the only ones who understand 'up.'

Maybe her own tears were the poison that made her grow.

Find the meaning behind whatever it is you're going through because everybody's got something.

There is a hidden blessing in the most traumatic things we go through in our lives. My brain always goes to, 'Where is the hidden blessing? What is my gift?'

I can't say I can foresee the future and tell the stars, you know. But I do have an understanding for my own reality, just elements and things that I've learned from.

The bigger confrontation is the one an individual has with itself.

George Foreman. A miracle. A mystery to myself. Who am I? The mirror says back. The George you was always meant to be. Wasn't always like that. Used to look in the mirror and cried a river.

It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

There has been a lot of self-doubt and unwelcome events in my life.

The only history is a mere question of one's struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.