Winifred Holtby Quotes

As one who participated in all the wars of the state of Israel, I saw the horror of wars. I saw the fear of wars. I saw my best friends being killed in battles. I was seriously injured twice.

When you lose a parent at ten years old, the world seems like a much scarier place. It makes complete sense to me that I took survival courses when I was a teenager and started going to war zones as a reporter. I didn't ever want to be taken advantage of, and I wanted to be able to take care of those around me.

In life, there's a lot that I'm afraid of. Death is always scary. My sister passed away. I'm not scared to die, so much as I was scared to not have her in my life, and it took a long time for me to reconcile that. There are fears everyday, and things that I'm afraid of. I fear everything, but I keep going.

How many more times do we have to come to terms with death before we find safety?

My book 'Trust Your Heart', which is the story of my life, will be followed by 'Singing Lessons', a memoir of love, loss, hope, and healing, which talks about the death of my son and the hope that has been the aftermath of the healing from that tragedy.

There's nothing glorious about war. There's nothing glorious about holding your friends in your arms and watching them die. There's nothing glorious about having to leave your home for 6 to 8 months while your family's back here and you're away.

When my father died in my arms it had such a profound affect on me that at that very moment when my dad passed I realized that I needed to face my own fears.

Well, you know, I was through the whole of the Second World War and saw all my friends killed.

When you have been born in a war like me, living in a war as a child, when you have been in wars as a war correspondent all your life - trust me! You develop a form of fatalism; you are always ready to die.

The weird thing about grief, for me at least, was when each of my parents died, for a year or two afterwards I was pretty wildly brave - just willing to take life on.

My father died when I was seven. I guess I am interested in fatherlessness as a metaphor for vulnerability and unprotectedness. Being on your own in the world in a way you're not quite ready for, ever.

War isn't just about bravery and courage and jingoism and patriotism. It's also fundamentally about grief. And the people that go and do the fighting and the dying are never the people who actually benefit from the fighting and the dying.

I can't even say what my greatest fear is because I, I can't even imagine. Being without my family... I can't even say it because it makes me cry.

At 17, the first time I saw a dead body, I froze. By 31 it was a natural occurrence for me, and no group of people should live like that.

Most people are remarkably resilient. Even those who have been through war or great loss often find reservoirs of strength. But the legacy of trauma is a heavy burden to bear.

I've seen so many women in my family, so many mothers, that have lost children in the war in such absurd ways. I wonder how they do it. How do they keep living? How do they keep smiling?

I think, a lot of time, I'm just writing my worst fears, of the idea of losing my mom or my best friend or doing something so terrible to somebody that's kind of deemed unforgivable or having a really broken family.

After the tragic events of Manchester, with the senseless loss of life and the fear that came from knowing my family was unsafe and that I was completely powerless to protect them, I went to a very dark place with no tools to handle the feelings that came along with the devastation of the attack.

After 9/11, you kind of didn't want to open up your heart to more pain.

After my father's death, nothing could touch me any more.

Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.' Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part.

Bravest thing about people is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying.

No one in my family or my circle of friends had ever had to confront something like this. Jamie was seventeen, a child on the verge of womanhood, dying and still very much alive at the same time. I was afraid, more afraid than I'd ever been, not only for her, but for me as well. I lived in fear of doing something wrong, of doing something that would offend her. Was it okay to ever get angry in her presence? Was it okay to talk about the future anymore?

I lost my brother when I was 22. He was only 24. I was always the kind of person to live on the edge, but after that, it made me feel like I could really die. It can really happen. Before then, I never thought it could happen to me or my family.

My uncle's house burned down when I was 6 years old. We got out safely. But ever since, I've had a nightmare of dying in a fire.