Chandra Wilson Quotes

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.

I just want to share with everyone that no matter what challenges, adversities you face in life, that you can overcome them... and once you overcome those adversities, use your story, your testimony to others, to help others get through their storm.

You have to lift your head up out of the mud and just do it.

Some people look like they're lost causes, but they're not. Even if they're in a messed up situation, the one little thing you do to help can go a long way.

In my life I had no other choice than to become a strong person.

I really believe I'm no different from anyone else. I just had a few challenges I had to learn from at a very early age.

I struggled to get through high school. I didn't get to go to college. But it made me realize you can do anything if you want to bad enough.

I hope telling stories though 'Making a Difference' - as in my academic work and nonprofit work - will help me to live my grandmother's adage of 'Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.'

People I looked up to a lot were, you know, Oprah because she had a rough childhood but overcame so many obstacles and broke barriers to become who she is. It was really eye opening to me: just because I had a rough childhood doesn't mean that I can't make something of myself.

I was raised on an estate in an inner city school where people had a go about my size, people saying I am too big to play football - which still happens today - and I used that to inspire me.

I wanted to prove I wasn't that person everyone wanted to stereotype me. You can slag me off, I talk about my upbringing now and try and do it in a way that inspires others, but I never felt good about it.

I always said that if I had the platform and the opportunity to share my story and make it easier for others, I would - so that, in a way, I can be the role model that I was looking for as a kid.

Since losing my legs, I've found out that I am able to help other people by sharing how I've overcome my obstacles.

There are a lot of people who came out of adverse situations and made it. Use it as motivation. Use it to drive you.

After I got dropped by Interscope, I knew in my heart that I had to fight back some way or not rap at all. I just took it upon myself to get myself where I needed to be.

Through my handicaps, I have found my self, my work, my God.

You are not the product of your circumstances. You are a composite of all the things you believe, and all the places you believe you can go. Your past does not define you. You can step out of your history and create a new day for yourself. Even if the entire culture is saying, "You can't." Even if every single possible bad thing that can happen to you does. You can keep going forward.

This world and life of ours are filled with inequalities. The worst possible use to make of this fact, however, is to allow resentments to possess us. All of us have imagined limitations, but we have also the privilege of pushing them aside, and spreading our lives out! We never know any of our limitations until we put ourselves to the test. There are always "growing pains" working within us.

The one resolution, which was in my mind long before it took the form of a resolution, is the key-note of my life. It is this, always to regard as mere impertinences of fate the handicaps which were placed upon my life almost at the beginning. I resolved that they should not crush or dwarf my soul, but rather be made to blossom, like Aaron's rod, with flowers.

In life there are worse things (then being fired by the Miami Marlins) and I have experienced them. I have lived through bad moments and I will get through this with support.

Do you know how many times my career has been close to rock bottom? Each time, I was like, 'Girl, figure it out. Reinvent yourself.'

Life is about challenges and how we face up to them and the attitude we take into every day life so hopefully we'll be able to motivate people to do more with their life.

I try and tell all the kids that I meet that hope to be amazing one day and be a professional athlete or a doctor or a lawyer or whatever they want to be. I tell them they can do all that because Tourette's won't stop them.

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

You have to motivate yourself with challenges. That's how you know you're still alive.