Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington Quotes

I think there is pressure on people to turn every negative into a positive, but we should be allowed to say, 'I went through something really strange and awful and it has altered me forever.'

The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.

Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life.

It's important to wallow and grieve when you have a health issue. I don't think you really get the best stuff out of life until you've had the worst stuff.

The world brought me to my knees, what have you brung you?

The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.

There is, though, nothing that prepares us for the worst things in our life. There is nothing you can do to stop the shock, or buffer the pain.

It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion.

The longer I live, the less chance I'll ever recover from what life keeps doing to me.

It has been said that life has treated me harshly; and sometimes I have complained in my heart because many pleasures of human experience have been withheld from me...if much has been denied me, much, very much, has been given me.

Losing a basketball game hurts but when you see what you've been through, you look on it and say well if this is the worst thing that can happen to me, then I'm okay.

Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you.

I don't smile much, and I never laugh. If you'd been through what I've been through, you wouldn't be smiling, either.

I never had a true childhood.

I didn't have a childhood.

One of the things that I try to do when I have a tough time with anything - whatever it may be - is just look at someone else's situation. Here in Staten Island, look, I have people that have children that haven't been back in their home for 18 months after Sandy. They lost every worldly possession.

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses.

My father's death, my move, and my frightening and difficult delivery created a tremendous amount of stress, pain, and sadness for me. I was practically devastated beyond recovery.

I've been through cancer, divorce, loss and bereavement, but they are things most humans go through.

The stories my pupils told me were astonishing. One told how he had witnessed his cousin being shot in the back five times; another how his parents had died of AIDS. Another said that he'd probably been to more funerals than parties in his young life. For me - someone who had had an idyllic, happy childhood - this was staggering.

Some things you just don't get over.

For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort of misery is to have been happy.

I didn't have a childhood.

Sometimes poverty is the greatest gift you can ever be given. Sometimes loss is the key that leads you to gain.

Having cancer gave me membership in an elite club I'd rather not belong to.