Wendelin Van Draanen Quotes

We must all wage an intense, lifelong battle against the constant downward pull. If we relax, the bugs and weeds of negativity will move into the garden and take away everything of value.

He who overcomes himself is divine. Most see their ruin before their eyes; but they go on into it.

Some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chambers of your own soul.

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at.

The bear is what we all wrestle with. Everybody has their bear in life. It's about conquering that bear and letting him go.

It's always appealing to play a character that has to overcome himself as well as an obstacle. It makes the drama so much deeper.

There had to be a point where I had to stop feeling sorry for myself.

Everybody fights demons. Some are worse than others.

The toughest opponent is me. A lot of times, you don't want to train. You don't want to box. Sometimes, life hits you to the point where you don't even want to live. You have to fight with that person. You have to make yourself wake up in the morning. You have to make yourself watch your weight. That's how I fight with that person.

Sometimes I think my soul is full of weeds!

You cannot take the mild approach to the weeds in your mental garden. You have got to hate weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you devastate.

The mind is like a fertile garden in which anything that is planted, flowers or weeds, will grow.

You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds

Everyone who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power thereto in his own hell.

When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.

Uncultivated minds are not full of wild flowers, like uncultivated fields. Villainous weeds grow in them and they are the haunt of toads.

The weak are not a noble breed. Their sublime deeds of faith, daring, and self-sacrifice usually spring from questionable motives. The weak hate not wickedness but weakness; and one instance of their hatred of weakness is hatred of self. All the passionate pursuits of the weak are in some degree a striving to escape, blur, or disguise an unwanted self. It is a striving shot through with malice, envy, self-deception, and a host of petty impulses; yet it often culminates in superb achievements.

I wrote to make sense out of all the contradictions I experienced and to deal with the pain and loss I was undergoing.

Change for me was really hard because I had built myself up to be a certain kind of man my whole life, as men are where I come from. I thought I got to handle things different that's gonna make me feel like a real pussy. For me it was hard to turn the other cheek. Even though it's a stronger choice. It was very hard to make the change, but I had to in order to survive. Otherwise they would have won.

The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down.

I’ve met kids who haven’t had the best of parents but because they had something in them, or they had somebody at school help develop them, they turned out fine.

I have not so great a struggle with my vices, great and numerous as they are, as I have with my impatience. My efforts are not absolutely useless; yet I have never been able to conquer this ferocious wild beast.