Chester Himes Quotes

I've come through things that would have felled an ox. That fills me with optimism, not just for myself but for our particular species.

When I said the city would be stronger, I didn't know that. I just hoped it. There are parts of you that say, 'Maybe we're not going to get through this.' You don't listen to them.

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.

I believe very deeply in the human spirit, and I have a sense of awe about it. I look around and ask, 'What makes the difference? What is it?' I've known people the world has thrown everything at - to discourage them, to kill them, to break their spirit. And yet something about them retains a dignity. They face life and they don't ask quarters.

No problem of human making is too great to be overcome by human ingenuity, human energy, and the untiring hope of the human spirit.

The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.

Joseph shall return to Canaan, grieve not, Hovels shall turn to rose gardens, grieve not. If a flood should arrive, to drown all that's alive, Noah is your guide in the typhoon's eye, grieve not.

Hard times may have held you down, but they will not last forever. When all is said and done, you will be increased.

Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.

The kind of hope I'm talking about is the belief that something good will come. That everything you're going through and everything you've gone through will be worth the struggles and frustrations. The kind of hope I'm talking about is a deep belief that the world can be changed, that the impossible is possible.

Beneath the worst the world can do, there is always the glimmer of the best.

Throughout the journey of my life, I have maintained a strong faith in the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity. I deeply believe in one's own positive will to overcome even the most daunting challenges.

The true test of a character is to face hard conditions with the determination to make them better.

I find faith in human perseverance, even as the universe throws challenge after challenge our way.

No matter where we live on the planet or how difficult our situation seems to be, we have the ability to overcome and transcend our circumstances.

I want to talk about hope. Are we going to be completely lambasted by things we don't see coming? Yeah. Is it going to damage the human race and hurt us? Probably many times. Are we going to get over it? Absolutely. Are we going to move through it? Yes.

Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up.

I AM VERY MOVED BY SURVIVORS. BY PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO OVERCOME A HANDICAP, A SITUATION, OR ANYTHING. VISITING THE HEARTS AND SOULS OF THOSE PEOPLE TEACHES ME A LOT ABOUT HUMANS AND HUMANITY.

If you walked by a street and you was walking a concrete and you saw a rose growing from concrete, even if it had messed up petals and it was a little to the side you would marvel at just seeing a rose grow through concrete. So way is it that when you see some ghetto kid grow out of the dirtiest circumstance and he can talk and he can sit across the room and make you cry, make you laugh, all you can talk about is my dirty rose, my dirty stems and how am leaning crooked to the side, u can't even see that I've come up from out of that.

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

There was never a point in my life where I gave up. My marriage, as you know, fell apart.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

Always in life bad times will lead to great times.

I've had to learn to fight all my life - got to learn to keep smiling. If you smile things will work out.