Colum McCann Quotes

I'm a happily married man and I think to get married you have to be optimistic.

I've always loved life, irrespective of all the ups and downs that have filled my journey.

I reason that as long as I'm smiling 90 percent of the time, I can handle the setbacks that occur 10 percent of the time.

The next time you encounter a difficult obstacle or problem, you should smile and say, 'Here's my chance to grow.'

Wise men never sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.

Love is the seed of all hope. It is the enticement to trust, to risk, to try, to go on.

If you can fall in love again and again if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical you've got it half licked.

It will pass, it will all pass, we're going to be so happy! If our love could grow any stronger it would grow stronger because there is something horrifying in it.

Whatever life may send your way - make the best of it. Don't waste your time and energy worrying about it. Instead, find a way to do something about it. Learn from it, adjust to it, be strong, be flexible and be your best in every situation.

Be able to laugh at difficulties.

You might encounter defeats but you must never be defeated... Love a lot. Laugh a lot at the silliest things and be very serious... love life.

Courage and cheerfulness will not only carry you over the rough places in life, but will enable you to bring comfort and help to the weak-hearted and will console you in the sad hours.

If your face is swollen from the severe beatings of life, smile and pretend to be a fat man.

I also tried to leave myself alone enough to be surprised by the news. That's when it had its potency. If I approach everything with joy and hope and love, which is what we all do. Every day we get up we're hoping that today is going to be the day that's going to get you over the hump. I tried to do that as much as I could. So then when all the news happens you see what she is made out of.

The challenge is to resist circumstances. Any idiot can be happy in a happy place, but moral courage is required to be happy in a hellhole.

Regarding love what can you say? It's not the quantity of your sexual relations that counts. It's the quality. On the other hand if the quantity drops below once every eight months, I would definitely look into it.

Getting married is an incredible act of hopefulness.

We must endure Adversity Bravely and cheerfully.

Almost anything can be dealt with if people are of good will and light hearts and strong values.

It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit. It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win.

Hope itself is like a star- not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity.

One must never have spared oneself, one must have acquired hardness as a habit to be cheerful and in good spirits in the midst of nothing but hard truths.

There's gon' be some stuff you gon' see that's gon' make it hard to smile in the future. But through whatever you see, through all the rain and the pain, you gotta keep your sense of humor. You gotta be able to smile through all this bullshit. Remember that.

As long as you can walk the street and you know there's a tomorrow, there's always that chance. That's how I've always been. I've always had complete belief that I would make something out of myself again, because to me, it's always been about accomplishment.