Ann Voskamp Quotes

I struggle every day to hold on to what little hope I can find.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.

There are seldom, if ever, any hopeless situations, but there are many people who lose hope in the face of some situations.

Pain is a byproduct of life. That’s the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That’s true for everyone. But if you don’t face the pain and the suck, you don’t ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for.

I’d always enjoyed life, and I knew I would again. But I was going to have to slog through a lot of bad patches to get there

How great it is when we come to know that times of disappointment can be followed by joy; that guilt over falling short of our ideals can be replaced by pride in doing all that we can; and that anger can be channeled into creative achievements... and into dreams that we can make come true.

There will be rough nights but joy really does come in the morning.

Don't be sad, don't be angry, if life deceives you! Submit to your grief - your time for joy will come, believe me.

In dire times you can lose joy, but you can't lose hope. Hope is your guide.

If you lose all hope, you can always find it again.

I went through an extremely trying ordeal, but I never forgot the world outside was a beautiful place.

Don't despair, even over the fact that you don't despair

It's really important to always have a positive mind-set, no matter what people have been through.

We can feel sad, hurt, demoralized. But we can't give up.

I don't want people to feel sorry for me or pity me - I want people to know that what got me through was human spirit and everyone has that in them.

Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow. Work, work tirelessly.

Your struggle is your strength. If you can resist becoming negative, bitter or hopeless, in time, your struggles will give you everything.

My personal motto has always been: Joy in spite of everything. Not just [mindless] joy, but joy in spite of everything. Recognizing the inequities and the suffering and the corruption and all that but refusing to let it rain on my parade. And I advocate this to other people.

We can choose to gather to our hearts the thorns of disappointment, failure, loneliness, and dismay in our present situation. Or we can gather the flowers of God's grace, boundless love, abiding presence, and unmatched joy. I choose to gather the flowers.

I am of the opinion, and even more so the older I get, that it is more difficult to have hope than it is to despair. And I mean this in the sense that in order to have hope you must acknowledge the despair and then you have to get beyond it. Taken from a radio interview given on BBC Radio 4's Open Book

If we want to cultivate hopefulness, we have to be willing to be flexible and demonstrate perseverance. Not every goal will look and feel the same. Tolerance for disappointment, determination, and a belief in self are the heart of hope.

I feel like I came through this year stronger and wiser, and I can go into 2015 in a much better place.

Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but morning comes. Keep hope alive.

Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.

Every day is different, and some days are better than others, but no matter how challenging the day, I get up and live it.