Susan Orlean Quotes

That loss was to breed an independence, a toughness of spirit, and an awareness of adversity and discipline that have never left me,.

Every hero must have the courage to be alone, to take the journey for himself.

The first few years in L.A. were really tough and scary, but I had to figure things out for myself.

It takes a lot of energy and creativity to make such screwed up lives carry on. And the kind of will people have to survive, year after year, dealing with that stuff, is weirdly impressive.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

Even as a child, I found a way to survive.

What happened to me in Somalia doesn't define me.

As a novelist, I have always been interested in how people come to terms with difficult, life-altering events.

I forged myself out of a vacuum. I crawl along the highway on hacked off stumps year after year. Some wonder how and why. I never do.

I've survived. I've beaten my own bad system, and on some days, on most days, that feels like a miracle.

When I think about my teenage years, when my parents broke up, and feeling alone and being out of control and having to survive... And then other times when you've had to find your own way... that's always been a dominant theme in what I've done.

I've been through hell not totally unscathed, but I came out not too bad.

On top of trying to find my way in this business and losing my mother and trying to figure out what family meant to me and everything - 2016, there was a lot of anger from me and a lot of anger all around. I think the hardest part was to really realize that all these things, it's worth it.

The only thing I know how to do is survive.

Paule Marshall does not let the black women in her fiction lose. While they lose friends, lovers, husbands, homes, or jobs, they always find themselves.

I've had to be tough my whole life.

When you are being bullied a long way from home, when you face that challenge, that is where you find out a lot about yourself.

I faced a certain amount of violence. It taught me that I had to learn to protect myself - and it made me stronger. It could have made me step backwards with my self-discovery. Instead, it pushed me further.

When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.

You will find that you survive humiliation. And that's an experience of incalculable value.

That is how I came to think that heavy and hard was the beginning of living, real living; and though I might not end up with a mark on my cheek, I had no doubt that I would end up with a mark somewhere.

I didn't drown. I didn't break.

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.\

Remember,too,that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start,and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they "arrive". The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at some moment of crisis,through which they are introduced to their "other selves".

No matter how painful your past has been, you have made it through.