Billy Wilder Quotes

I have been drawn to stories that are attempting to turn suffering into beauty.

I've never stabbed, hurt, killed, stolen, anything, but I went to jail for a year. What is that? My pastor said to me the fact that I'm not living under a bridge as a crazy woman, talking to myself, is amazing.

I speak to people who have been through so much more.

I hit rock bottom, but thank God my bottom wasn't death.

Suffering isn't ennobling, recovery is.

I had to fight; I had to fall, and I had to get hurt to be where I am.

Beauty that arose out of pain.

There is healing in the bitter cup.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

Sometimes you almost have to laugh to keep from crying to deal with the pain associated with the 'hood.

There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you.

There will be days when you feel defeated, exhausted, and plain old beat-up by life's whiplash. People you love will disappoint you - and you will disappoint them. You'll probably struggle with some kind of mortal appetite. Some days it will feel as though the veil between Heaven and Earth is made of reinforced concrete.

I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands.

Life's fairly excruciating. Painful things happen. Every now and then, you drag yourself out of the stream and stand on the bank gasping for air. I think that's how I work.

'Whale Talk' is a tough book, but it is also a compassionate book about telling the truth and about redemption. I didn't draw the tough parts out of thin air; they are stories handed to me by people in pain.

The most terrible things end, at last.

That's the irony in the work: the best stories are the worst things that happen. My best times were somebody else's worst.

Everyone has a rock bottom.

Because nobody goes through life without a scar.

The struggle of my life created empathy - I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me.

When you're in hell, you forget how great you really are because you're suffering and you forget the great things you've done.

All this pain is going to come back and make me stronger.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn't know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn't even smell like smoke.

Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.