Mark Kirk Quotes

I speak to people who have been through so much more.

If you're actually talking to someone who's been through a disastrous number of years, that only means one thing: They survived it.

I've lived through a lifetime of crises and survived.

We've had some tough times, but we've hung in there.

Man. I've been through a lot as a kid. But at the same time that upbringing just made me stronger and made me more determined to make it out of where I made it out from and just fight extra hard to not go back.

I know that sometimes the things we carry become too much for us. We are burned down, but somehow we have to pick ourselves up and keep going

I have a different kind of experience than other girls had. I've had to face a lot of different styles and adjust to them. I had to face a lot of bad situations and come back. I've had to fight with my eyes swollen shut and my nose broken and bloody.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

These are the times that try men's souls.

We're always attracted to characters who are people we could identify with and yet are put through incredibly tortured or difficult circumstances - the idea being that you don't really know who you are until you've been tested or suffered in some way.

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

One of the things that I try to do when I have a tough time with anything - whatever it may be - is just look at someone else's situation. Here in Staten Island, look, I have people that have children that haven't been back in their home for 18 months after Sandy. They lost every worldly possession.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

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.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

I'm a survivor - a living example of what people can go through and survive.

My own belief is that people can come back from anything. It doesn't mean that it won't come at a huge cost.

I was an outsider... but I was also sympathetic with people that were struggling to get up, because I struggled to get up.

How can they beat me? I've been struck by lightning, had two back operations, and been divorced twice.

I just think that there are those people that their resolve is strengthened by what it is that's keeping them down, and there are some people that will buckle under it. You never know which one is which until you get into the eighth or ninth round of the fight.

Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance.

Oh, I'm a survivor. My whole life has been surviving.

The secret is not to give up hope. It's very hard not to because if you're really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side.

Every season will have its dips and hard moments, and the challenge then is to make sure you don't get too down in those moments and make sure you come back fighting.

I am determined to go through the horror of this world.