Ellen Page Quotes

I like to see what happens to people when they're thrown into really crappy situations. I think it's really interesting to watch what decisions they make, how they deal with the feelings they have.

I want to know why this is such a part of me. I want to know why this thing that happened to other people has happened so much to me. I keep looking for the lesson.

I think so much of my early life, even though I grew up White and middle class, I was completely shattered by the horrifically violent atmosphere I grew up in. I am a consequence of violence. That opened a door to many realities that I would not have experienced had I not survived what I did.

It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.

When something bad happens is when you really learn. It causes self-examination, it causes you to take a look at yourself. You naturally start analyzing. It's not that you're wrong; it's that sometimes you just need to make adjustments. Change your way of thinking, change your way of doing, change your way of choosing.

It's not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can't live with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that the ghosts you chase you never catch.

You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame. Yeah, see, they die of shame. 'What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?' And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives. Thinking.

Now if I go through it again, I think I would be a lot more open about it. I admire people who have been open like Melissa Ethridge and women I see walking around facing it without wigs and all of that stuff. I think I would be more courageous next time.

Something always made me save myself. Either the Betty Ford Center or going onstage to perform in the theater when many people didn't think I could do it.

People never fail to amaze me. They face the unimaginable with a shot of grace and a rush of adrenaline; they steel their nerves; they summon their cool or anger or faith or whatever it takes to pull them through, and they go on to live another day.

​W​e're so used to having everything we want at our fingertips so I think that when things get tough it's ​difficult ​for people to persist through that.

If your ride through life is not as smooth as you would like it to be, blaming the road may not be the answer.

In family life people almost always adjust themselves to misfortune. They make a bed of it and hope makes them accept that bed, however hard it is.

I have been confronted with many difficulties throughout the course of my life, and my country is going through a critical period. But I laugh often, and my laughter is contagious. When people ask me how I find the strength to laugh now, I reply that I am a professional laugher.

So you're just moving along and suddenly you get this moment that breaks your ability to continue, and yet you continue. I wanted those kinds of moments. And initially people would say, "I don't think I have any." Their initial reaction was to render invisible those moments weaved into a kind of everydayness.

You gotta remember I was homeless. Whenever I think I have something to complain about. I go outside, walk across the street and look at my home, and remind myself of the time I was living on the damn lakefront in a car full of garbage bags with clothes, and ask myself, "What do you possibly have to be upset about?" I have nothing to complain about.

People have to go through what they have to go through. I think in some cases you sort of bring things on yourself and that's what you want it to be than that's the way it is.

Some people give their problems swimming lessons instead of drowning them.

I think that people don't make the most of their lives. So, you know, for me, it seems like it's the beginning of me rattling the cage, of making some people nervous. And people are strategically trying to do things to mute my voice in some way or make me look like I'm a lunatic or pinpoint the inaccuracies in my grammar to somehow take away from the overall message of what I'm saying.

A lot of people say if they could go back in time they would not change anything. But, to be honest with you, I like it and I don't like it. I like the fact that all I went through as a youngster made me a great man, but just goin' through what I went through - I wouldn't wanna go through that again. I wouldn't wish that on nobody.

I should at least mention that I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances – which I also haven’t seen before. I think the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these people. Maybe, hopefully, someday you will.

Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh- I really think that requires spirit!

We’ve all seen the same situation happen to two people. One looks for the lesson, sets their shoulders back and presses on while the other asks ‘why does it always happen to me?’ You can choose not to sit on the fence. You can choose not to criticise. You must stand as guard at the door of your own mind and choose to be positive.

I don't think I made any really big mistakes; it's just that I chose something difficult to do. Looking back, I suppose I should be grateful that I got as far as I got.

I just kept thinking about what my mom [Hillary Clinton] has said repeatedly when people have asked her similar questions, she's tough and she can take whatever people say about her.