Delilah Quotes

I survived this torture which left me paralyzed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violence through sex. I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and now I'm trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability.

The truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce. And I knew then that I was going to have to work my way up and out of that life if I was going to give my daughter a better life and a better future, and that's what I've done.

I'm not a figurehead for anything. I was a single mom with two kids. What else was I going to do? It was either be in a band or be a waitress.

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 lost and I didn't die. I still had my health, family and people who loved me.

I want readers to rehearse that day when everything shatters and think through what they'll hang onto when that happens.

When you come from so many damaged places you don't ever want to spiral back there, so you gotta continue to check yourself.

I've got to love the film, not the money. Because I know what it's like not to have money - you still survive.

When I did 'Dancing With the Stars,' I got literally thousands of emails from people saying, 'We relate to you. I've been divorced. I'm raising kids on my own.' Or, 'You've had money. You've lost money.'

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

I had a husband who stayed with me, and small children, and I had no choice but to pull myself together and rebuild a different kind of life. There was no other choice.

When my trust fund ran out, I panicked. I have a lot of admiration for the kids who come to the big city with nothing and make it.

I was living as a young single mom. I was 19 when I was divorced, and my daughter was a year old, and I waited tables here three to four nights a week for several years while I was trying to support myself and my daughter and the day I got that acceptance at Harvard Law School was an unforgettable day.

When people go through tragic circumstances, it's not that there is no love there, but it's so hard to deal with and sometimes the gap starts to happen.

That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.

I think 'Manchester' is really about grieving and trying to get on after something terrible has happened to an adult, and a whole life being destroyed, and then, what are the forces that keep him involved with the people he loves? They love him, and they won't let him go.

When you lose a parent at ten years old, the world seems like a much scarier place. It makes complete sense to me that I took survival courses when I was a teenager and started going to war zones as a reporter. I didn't ever want to be taken advantage of, and I wanted to be able to take care of those around me.

I've always been the person to look at any turmoil as temporary. I recall times where my mom was working five and six jobs, and there's still no food in the house.

Long before I achieved financial success and became the subject of a Hollywood film, I was a veteran, a single father, and a working person who was homeless.

My dad was a great man, and I loved him, but he had some demons he fought. It was tough to see some of those things as a kid, but I believe God doesn't save you from things; he saves you through them.

The only thing I know how to do is survive.

My story is just my story, and it's not nearly as traumatic as some.

I grew up in a household with my mother, who was a Holocaust survivor. I very much understand the mentality that you cannot live in the past. You can't spend your entire life, or even portions of it, looking back and dwelling on things that have already happened. You have to move forward.

We were a single-parent household for a while. It was just my mom, me, and my brother. We were on welfare for about a year and a half. But I remember my mom never complained, and we never wanted for anything. She always made ends meet and she's been the rock for the family. She instilled in me work ethic and toughness.

So many people have been abused. It's not rare; it's a very common human experience, and we survive.