Colum McCann Quotes

A lot of what is most beautiful about the world arises from struggle.

I think there can always be beauty in struggle.

You can't lead a true life without suffering

An existence transfigured by failure.

Everything's been a struggle for me.

There's always got to be a struggle. What else is there? That's what life is made of. I don't know anything else. If there is, tell me about it.

Sometimes life has a way of putting us on our backs to force us to look up.

I had a calling inside of me. I had a sense that when I was going through experiences like living on the streets, losing my parents to AIDS, just having my whole world turned upside-down, there was this feeling inside of me like I was meant for something greater.

Life is supposed to get tough.

You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave.

The struggle I went through has value.

You're not fully you until life has booted you in the behind.

I had to fight my whole life to break out of my circumstances. That's just part of my makeup.

I'm not at all interested in the brave who fight against the odds and win. I am interested in those who accept their lot, as that is what many people in the world are doing. They do their best in ghastly conditions.

Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.

It is unnatural to deny effort, adversity, and pain.

I think life is very, very, very hard, and I've never had anything come super easy to me, no matter what people may think.

The hardest things in my life have made me who I am.

My whole life, I have had to fight.

Every phase of my life always hasn't been perfect for me. I've had to go through some adversity.

My entire life, nothing's been easy. This is the way it ought to be.

I don't think one ever stops struggling.

I've been 0-10, I've been in sucky situations.

I struggled for so many years.

Everybody's gone through some kind of struggle in their life, and I'd like to be the type of voice who talks about it.