Ann Brashares Quotes

I'm a survivor.

How we handle our tough times stays with us for a long time.

Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.

We face up to awful things because we can't go around them, or forget them. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you say 'Yes, it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it,' the sooner you can get on with your own life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things.

My father died when I was 10; my sister got polio a couple of years later and was paralyzed. So there I was - my sister in a wheel chair, my father gone, and my mother a quiet little mouse. You see, it was the '30s in the South, so my mother was not prepared to cope. So I was scared to death. And being that scared, everything afterward became a struggle not to go down the drain. Struggling became a way of life for me.

When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.

No matter how many obstacles that are thrown in our path, there are ways to except them and to live through them.

I have survived and possibly I should not hope for more than that.

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.

Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.

It takes a lot of energy and creativity to make such screwed up lives carry on. And the kind of will people have to survive, year after year, dealing with that stuff, is weirdly impressive.

When you have to cope with a lot of problems, you're either going to sink or you're going to swim.

No matter how bad things get you got to go on living, even if it kills you.

All I'm trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty, unbelievable lifestyle that they gave me.

Don't struggle about the struggle. In other words, life's full of ups and downs. So if you're struggling, don't worry, everyone else has or will at some point.

When people are in the midst of really heavy stuff and still have a sense of humor, I admire that.

I do a lot of lectures on survival. I always say you can't change what happened, so have a little wallow, feel very sorry for yourself, and then get up and move forward. You can't change what happened.

I'm always looking for a story of survival.

Even as a child, I found a way to survive.

That's the goal, to survive your gift.

You don't have to be a scared person. I've had so many tragedies. I've managed to withstand things that you may think you cannot tolerate. But I have the strength.

I may have some things tougher than the average person, but there are a lot of people who are going through worse things than me. I can't live in fear.

The only thing I know how to do is survive.

If I can make it through homelessness, I can make it through anything.

I want to share the things I've done, the things I've survived, the things I've struggled through.