Jeannette Walls Quotes

Survivors can't always choose their methods.

When things happen to you in the worst way, you live with it, you go over it, you think, 'What else could I have done?'

I'm a survivor, at least that's what everyone tells me.

One of the things you realize when you have a health crisis in your immediate family is that life does not stop so that you can go through that experience.

I learned, by the time I was twenty, I'm not gonna die from a panic attack; you feel like you're going to.

So many people have been abused. It's not rare; it's a very common human experience, and we survive.

I think there's a lot of people going through different things where you feel like your whole world's imploded, and you feel like you lost it all, whether it's physical, emotional, whatever you're going through. If I can be that beacon of hope for people that need it the most through dancing and through our storytelling, then I've done my job.

The hopeful part about that is when you do have that help, you will feel better. It still doesn't make this easy. Nothing makes this easy, but you can make better decisions.

I wasn't willing to be a victim. I only wanted to survive, and I only wanted to get through.

Sometimes when we get our ass kicked and we're down, sometimes we stay down, and sometimes we get depressed and sometimes we don't know how to handle it, and sometimes we don't know what's going on, and sometimes we feel like it's not worth going on.

I did rocks, all this dumb stuff. But now it's just trying to stay afloat and just get through the days.

I didn't think I should die but I did not know how I would Live.

You'll beat this. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you will. You're a survivor." "I don't want to survive it." "I know that, too," Nell had said. "And it's fair enough. But sometimes we don't have a choice.

But...as bad as it was, I learned something about myself. That I could go through something like that and survive. I mean, I know it could have been worse--a lot worse-- but for me, it was all I could have handled at the time. And I learned from it.

I'm not giving up on life. I'm giving up on today.

I believe that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you... stranger.

The word 'survivor' carries a weight of remembrance that has broken the minds and bodies of more than a few men and women. It also contains a humbling light of recognition that compels many to do whatever they can to help reinforce the efforts of those who might be 'at risk' of not just giving up on their dreams, but of giving up on their continued existence.

We can take suffering to be an opportunity to learn and to grow. But if we are honest, we should remember that this is making the best of a bad job, and that minimising suffering takes priority over optimising its outcome.

I am extremely interested in how people negotiate catastrophe, not because I'm morbidly interested in it but because I'm interested in the secret of resilience; that's what I'm always exploring in the stories and the novels.

I know there will be X amount of women being diagnosed. I love to say, You can get through it. You can.

In my life I've gone through a lot of really hard times. I went through depression and had so many challenges that I overcame. And I overcame because I just decided to be happy.

Let's suppose somebody abused you sexually. You still had a choice, though not a good one, about what to tell yourself about the abuse.

It's... a hard thing for a director, to think you came up with a shot, something from your mind, and someone died while doing it. It's the worst thing you'll ever have to live with. It was very hard for me to get back on the horse again.

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.

I can't understand people who give up and commit suicide. If I have a bad day, I figure tomorrow will be better. And even if it isn't, at least it isn't any worse.