Manisha Koirala Quotes

Beating cancer is personal battle. It was one of the toughest opponents I have faced so far, and I think I did reasonably well. Touch wood.

I'm going to beat this cancer or die trying.

It doesn't hit you until you pull up to the hospital, and you see 'cancer' in big letters, and you're the patient. Then it all kind of comes home.

I was almost giving up because the chemo was so intense and aggressive that there were moments I had to find the inner strength within myself.

I was in the closet, so to speak, until after the fifth year when I was cancer-free.

I've had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.

Another inspiration that has helped me get through has been Lance Armstrong's story. My cancer is not nearly as bad as his, but I believe in staying motivated and keeping as fit as you can.

I'm praying that was my one little dip in the cancer pool. I hope never to have to revisit that, but I learned a lot, I'm cancer free with a bright and hopeful future.

A lot of suffering is just getting rid of dross in yourself, and lingering and hanging in the darkness is often - I say this against myself - a failure of imagination, to imagine the door into the light.

I think I have made allowances for the kind of despair which would test my faith, but you cannot know in advance what disaster to those you love would be too much to bear faithfully, and like everyone's, my faith is weakly conditional in some ways. I hope, I pray not to lose it. My fingers are crossed. Also my heart.

I'm holding onto the hope that there is some reason that I got cancer and there is something - that may not be very clear to me right now - but that I will do.

I think the hardest stories we tell are always the ones about ourselves. And as a journalist, I was taught that I'm never supposed to put myself in the story. So I spent what, 11, 12 years of my life writing about other people so I don't have to face my own life.

I don't want fear or cancer to define me, but it's always in the back of your mind.

On the one hand I wonder, Was this really my story to tell? On the other hand, I just wanted the story to be told. But the truth is that I didn't think anybody was going to read it.

When you're teaching creative nonfiction, it helps to have written about your life in a very open way, because you can say, 'Look, how much are you willing to risk emotionally to write? How careful can you be with the other people you're writing about?'

Now I'm fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how's your day, and nothing is changed for me.

I'm one of those people that will say, 'My cancer was a gift.'

As someone who has had cancer, I learned that you don't have to die. Look at me. Because of early detection, I'm fine. I'm cured. I'm well.

When you receive a cancer diagnosis, you're more vulnerable than at any other time in your life. I've personally had the experience twice. My only hope for survival was alternatives. But that was my decision, what I thought was best for me.

Time is shortening. But every day that I challenge this cancer and survive is a victory for me.

I wish I had more confidence.

To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don't be discouraged that my own journey hasn't gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope.

There were times when chemo would eat my body, but I told myself that I have the strength and courage to win and come out stronger.

I couldn't be a writer without hope. I think I became a writer because I'm pretty optimistic.

It was hard to write about my dad for the first book because I know how sensitive he is. I knew he wasn't going to take it as well as my mom, who can kind of roll with the punches and is used to having me tell her everything she has done wrong as a parent.