Emma Donoghue Quotes

I am not brave. I am very weak. I am trying to overcome my problems. I do cry, I do break but I think that's normal.

Fear is part of the process. If you weren't scared, you'd be in trouble.

If I didn't have that, fear and projections over what was coming next could have taken over. But it was tough. Don't think I was an angel. It was hell.

I open the door to the fear landscape room and flip open the small black box that was in my back pocket to see the syringes inside. This is the box I have always used, padded around the needles; it is a sign of something sick inside me, or something brave.

When she spoke again it was in the thin, careful and above all brave voice of someone who has pulled themselves together despite overwhelming odds but might let go again at any moment.

Tell me how you could say such a thing, she said, staring down at the ground beneath her feet. You're not telling me anything I don't know already. 'Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.' What's the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed my body now, I'd fall apart. I've always lived like this, and it's the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that? How can you talk about watching over me if you can't see that?

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of trauma, I will fear no concussion.

Normally, we push away the things we're scared of.

I went to a haunted house once, and I don't do well in situations like that, and I've lived my entire life not being scared or anything.

Better be killed than frightened to death.

When I decided to stay in Iraq, I decided to take the fear out of my body and put it into a freezer.

Fear and I were old buddies, despite my best efforts to the contrary.

Music helped me to get out of a rough period in my life when I really struggled to see any future for myself and was terrified about what was happening to the people around me.

To back away from fear is the worst thing you can do. Fear shows.

Fear is often our immediate response to uncertainty. There's nothing wrong with experiencing fear. They key is not to get stuck in it.

If I'm afraid of something, I'll deal with it and get past it.

Courage has to do with controlling fear and it seems to me that focus has a way of overcoming anxiety.

There is a relationship between humor and fear. Think of all the gags you ever heard that have to do with dismemberment, or something that's horrible in one way or another, even if it's just horrible in the sense that somebody's being embarrassed. What do kids laugh at? Kids laugh if your fly's down. That's hilarious. But for the kid whose fly is down, it's a horrible situation.

"They tell us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but I don't believe that." he said. Then, a moment later, he added: "Oh, the fear is there, all right. It comes to us in many different forms, at different times, and overwhelms us. But the most frightening thing we can do at such times is to turn our backs on it, to close our eyes. For then we take the most precious thing inside us and surrender it to something else. In my case, that something was the wave."

I think it takes a lot to put oneself in a place where, you know, that thing about "Feel the fear and do it anyway." You wonder what the driving force is that makes you want to do that and not just stay in a safer place.

I'm starting to understand that fear is like cancer - you can beat it back, but if it returns, it can be worse than ever.

Sometimes I think everyone is just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending is how you get brave, I don't know.

When something bad happens to me, I think I'm able to deal with it in a pretty good way. That makes me lucky. Some people fall apart at the first little thing that happens.

I went through what I imagine thousands of other women have felt. I told myself to stay calm, to be strong, and that I had no reason to think I wouldn't live to see my children grow up and to meet my grandchildren.

I don’t feel brave, especially not right now. (Delphine) That’s what bravery is, especially for a woman not used to having emotions. When you feel deep, paralyzing fear and you don’t let it stop you, that is true courage. There’s never been bravery without fear. Just as there’s no love without hate. (M'Adoc)