Eugene O'Neill Quotes

Certain stories we carry with us, events in our life, they define who we are. It's not a matter of getting over anything; we have to make the best of it.

What happened to me in Somalia doesn't define me.

There's so many things that people do on a daily basis that they do as a way of defining who they are. But really, what defines who you are is when circumstances push you to the edge.

No matter what, I need to maintain my sense of self and always be true to who I am. And that while there are always going to be roadblocks along the way, you're going to be just fine, as long as you learn from each setback.

But when I call for a hero, out comes my lazy old self; so I never know who I am, nor how many I am or will be. I'd love to be able to touch a bell and summon the real me, because if I really need myself, I mustn't disappear.

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.

I have learned that a bitter experience can make you stronger. I now boastfully say that I have a hide like a rhinoceros... and I'm smiling. It's an interesting thing.

In the last couple of years I've been facing down a lot of the demons of the past and trying to find out, who I am, It's something I think I'll be doing for the rest of my life.

I wouldn't change anything because the mistakes and the hurt are as important as all the great fights. They made me who I am today.

I'm trying to make myself better. But I don't regret anything that I've gone through, because it makes me who I am.

I have weathered many different storms and I know who I am and my friends know who I really am.

The movie says, You can lose your job and your way and still rescue yourself. 'Larry Crowne' creates a self-excavated utopia, and I love that idea, that message.

I'm still me even after all that's happened.

I had to find the courage to turn my life around.

Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.

I didn't want to become like so many of the young people I've worked with who have money, fame, and success but don't know who they are as people.

I just realized one day that I was so unhappy. And not only that, but I didn't even like the person that I was. I didn't even know who I was. And so 'Shatter Me' is about first discovering what was under the shell and then learning to love that person that was under it. And then not being afraid to break free.

For me, 'Pariah' is very much about that inner churn. It's about this person's emotional inner life, and that's really what I wanted to bring to 'Bessie.'

You are who you are, why should you deny your past?

For the last 14 years or so, I've been a fighter for so long I kind of forgot what it's like to not have this as my biggest form of expression of who I am.

God allows and at times causes us to go through the kinds of circumstances that strip away all falsehood and leave us with our real selves. God's ultimate intent is not to leave us faithless, but to leave us faith-full. There are few things as exhilarating as going through the fire and finding that you had the resilience to make it through. All of us wonder at times whether we have what it takes. God wants to bring us to a place where we have no doubt of the work He has done within us.

Our tears prepare the ground for our future growth.

without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my past was my life.

I didn't dare to think of anything then except the "facts." To get beneath the facts I would have had to be an artist, and one doesn't become an artist overnight. First you have to be crushed, to have your conflicting points of view annihilated. You have to be wiped out as a human being in order to be born again an individual. You have to be carbonized and mineralized in order to work upwards from the last common denominator of the self. You have to get beyond pity in order to feel from the very roots of your being.

You have to have a strong sense of your values and a strong sense of who you are, because there are a lot of events and a lot of people who will pull you in this direction or that direction.