Michael Morpurgo Quotes

Difficult times are the greatest opportunities in disguise. When we face difficult times we have to put in determined work to get ourselves into joy. Difficult times are your greatest opportunity to practice yourself into joy!

These days cry out, as never before, for us to pay attention, so we can move through them and get our joy and pride back.

Man's freedom is never in being saved from troubles, but it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the trouble an element in his joy.

Our attitude in the face of life's challenges determines our suffering or our freedom.

The basic root of happiness lies in our minds; outer circumstances are nothing more than adverse or favourable.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.

The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.

Sometimes, when I talk to someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer or some other illness, I'll remind them: "If you were honest with yourself, you were depressed before this happened. And if this were over you would be happy for a couple of weeks, a couple of months, and then something else would come along."

Every human being has gone through a tragedy of sorts. And the idea is that you have two paths you can take, you can find that alchemy that turns lead into gold, find that magic where you can see the loss as an entry point for learning and grow from it and become wiser and stronger.

The real enemy of happiness is the mind's fixations and delusions... If you have the right mind, you can overcome anything - you can be happy, no matter what.

Joy is not an alternative to opposition; it is part of a compound that includes opposition.

Pain is a byproduct of life. That’s the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That’s true for everyone. But if you don’t face the pain and the suck, you don’t ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for.

Happiness takes work. It doesn't always fall off trees or come easily. You really have to be someone that doesn't fall prey to being sad. I don't want sad, I can't be sad, I don't want to be about sad; I avoid sad. It inherently envelops you, so do everything that you can to escape it all the time.

Circumstances will never determine your amount of happiness. Circumstances only highlight who you already are.

The one thing all that battle taught me, is that no one walks away without scars. No one. (Bad Moon Rising)

Let every hindrance to joy become the soil out of which joy blossoms.

Trying to find comfort in perpetual discomfort has been my life's work.

The trick is not how much pain you feel - but how much joy you feel

Step by step, heart to heart, left right left. We all fall down like toy soldiers. Bit by bit, torn apart, we never win.

I become a happier man each time I suffer

Nothing that I can encounter today can be as bad as what is behind me. There are small things that used to upset me, but now I just think: Who cares?

The challenge is to resist circumstances. Any idiot can be happy in a happy place, but moral courage is required to be happy in a hellhole.

Self-pity is an acid which eats holes in happiness.

Obviously, this isn't the time in my life that I would have chosen to do this, but I feel like life gives you these challenges for a reason. I feel so happy and glad to be in the place that I am. I really feel blessed. This is something I need to face and take control of.

We can choose to be grateful, no matter what. This type of gratitude transcends whatever is happening around us. It surpasses disappointment, discouragement and despair. It blooms just as beautifully in the icy landscape of winter as it does in the pleasant warmth of summer.