Jeff Ross Quotes

I grew up in a sad, depressed place. I got out. Poetry saved my life.

I was in a very deep, dark slump, and I needed to find a way to get myself out of it. I had to force myself back out into life, back out into experiencing things.

I took some of the hardest things about my life and wrote an empowering song with it. It has made me want to always write from that place.

I'm a creative person who had a lot of dark time in my life. I can still get to it: I can still go to a relationship or a time when things weren't great. But it's getting further and further from me.

I'm not grateful for depression, but it honestly made me work harder and gave me the drive that I have to succeed and to make it work.

I think there's a lot of people going through different things where you feel like your whole world's imploded, and you feel like you lost it all, whether it's physical, emotional, whatever you're going through. If I can be that beacon of hope for people that need it the most through dancing and through our storytelling, then I've done my job.

You will find that you survive humiliation. And that's an experience of incalculable value.

There's a great Albert Camus quote: 'The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.' When I first re-emerged, I was embarrassed to walk down the street. People would come up and say, 'I heard you were dead!' But I had to remind myself that a lot of the stuff I went through was pretty brutal. I'm definitely thankful that some of the rough patches are behind me.

You've been told that you're broken. That you're damaged goods ... there is also Post-Traumatic Growth. You come back from war stronger and more sure of who you are.

If killing yourself is not an option anymore, you have to sink into the darkness instead, and make something out of it.

Vulnerability pushed, I pushed back. I lost the fight, but probably won my life back.

Your personal life, your professional life, and your creative life are all intertwined. I went through a few very difficult years where I felt like a failure. But it was actually really important for me to go through that. Struggle, for me, is the most inspirational thing in the world at the end of the day - as long as you treat it that way.

I've had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.

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

People naturally want to know about what happened, about my leukemia. They ask the same questions again and again. And there have been so many positive conclusions, even through the bad times, that I don't mind at all to be reminded of my struggles.

Don't let your wounds make you become someone you're not.

Depression opens the door to beauty of some kind.

I think some of the funniest and most artistic people I know are the ones who had a hard time at school. They often have humility and artistry. So, as much as I feel bad for kids who have to go through a rough childhood, I believe that if they can turn it around, it's going to make them better people later on.

I'm not this callous clown walking around laughing at life all the time. I've had some serious, serious problems in my life. But I've come out with a smile.

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

In that I found being able to talk to my family about my feelings, praying for strength and realizing that our lives have a deep purpose and the journey of our lives is to find out what that is and express it, was the only way I could have gotten through it.

A lot of people do have tragic childhoods. But you know what? Get over it.

I've got over so much. Mum wouldn't want anything to come into my life that would make me fragile again.

Depression taught me the importance of compassion and hard work, and that you can overcome enormous obstacles.