Wendelin Van Draanen Quotes

Things are going to go wrong, and I think we are false to life if we don’t portray it. But there is also the hope that some lucky clown is going to come along and stumble into the gold mine. And I think you are also entitled to hold out that hope.

How do you come back? It's one step at a time. I'm optimistic because I don't know what else to be.

You just do the best you can with what you've got... and sometimes magic strikes.

Something will turn up.

As long as there is a mathematical chance, we have to keep on going.

Everything evens up, you just wait, Even a garbage can gets a steak, You ain't even a garbage can, you have faith!

Sufre mas el que espera siempre que aquel que nunca espero a nadie? Does he who is always waiting suffer more than he who’s never waited for anyone?

Chance, my master and my friend, will, I feel sure, deign once again to send me the spirits of his unruly kingdom. All my trust is now in him- and in myself. But above all in him, for when I go under he always fishes me out, seizing and shaking me like a life-saving dog whose teeth tear my skin a little every time. So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.

I want to talk about hope. Are we going to be completely lambasted by things we don't see coming? Yeah. Is it going to damage the human race and hurt us? Probably many times. Are we going to get over it? Absolutely. Are we going to move through it? Yes.

Believe in miracles but don't depend on them.

Nothing's lost forever.

As long as you can walk the street and you know there's a tomorrow, there's always that chance. That's how I've always been. I've always had complete belief that I would make something out of myself again, because to me, it's always been about accomplishment.

Even the losers get lucky sometimes. Even the losers keep a little bit of pride. They get lucky sometimes.

There is something good in all weathers. If it doesn't happen to be good for my work today, it's good for some other man's today... and will come around for me tomorrow.

Hope is to a man as a bladder to a learning swimmer--it keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves, and by that help he may attain the exercise; but yet it many times makes him venture beyond his height, and then if that breaks, or a storm rises, he drowns without recovery. How many would die, did not hope sustain them! How many have died by hoping too much! This wonder we find in Hope, that she is both a flatterer and a true friend.

When tending a vast and beautiful garden, you have to plant many seeds, never knowing ahead of time which ones will germinate, which will produce the most glorious flowers, which will bear the sweetest fruit. A good gardener plants them all, tends and nurtures them, and wishes them well. Optimism is the best fertilizer.

Hope -- Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us...A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.

It's like you run into this dark tunnel, trusting that somewhere there's another end to it where you're going to come out. And there's a point in the middle where it's just dark. There's no light from where you came in and there's no light at the other end; all you can do is keep running. And then you start to see a little light, and a little more light, and then, bam! You're out in the sun.

Hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it's dangerous, that it's painful and risky, that it's making a dare in the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?

We are lucky, even the worst of us, for daylight comes.

As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better.

Because we don't know that much about what has happened before, it's useful. But either we will recover and progress, or the alternative is that it's all downhill from here. So I would just as soon believe, in my optimistic Midwestern American way, that we will recover and maybe even make lemonade out of the lemons that we are faced with.

While the sick man has life, there is hope.

If things look badly to-day they may look better tomorrow.