Linda Blair Quotes

My father's violence is the central fact of my art and my life.

I've overcome neglect and deprivation, abandonment and abuse.

This show has shown me how to throw a punch. But watching my future sister-in-law go through breast cancer has also shown me how to take one.

I got hit a lot. I'm glad I lived through it.

I probably only cried five or six times in my life and I think four of those times was from my daddy kicking my butt.

I was always a sensitive, sweet kid, but I got brutalized and I became brutal. And frankly, I don't think it was my natural makeup. I don't think its anyone's natural makeup to be a violent brawler.

I had a very dysfunctional family, and a very hard childhood. So I made a world out of words. And it was my salvation.

There's many, many people who have been through a lot worse things than I went through. I lost my dad when I was 14 and to violence.

Everybody faces pain. Everybody has trauma.

Mum grew up in Wythenshawe, one of 12. My mum didn't really go to school and didn't see the need for education, she got bullied so she excluded herself.

My mom got shot. My dad got shot. Some of the craziest stuff. All that happened to me.

Sometimes survival is the worst alternative there is

Cancer is awful. It took 10 years until I didn't think about it every day. Nobody should go through this. Nobody.

Sometimes you almost have to laugh to keep from crying to deal with the pain associated with the 'hood.

I never had a true childhood.

My mom died of cancer when I was really young. I'm not someone who tries to work out their own stuff with a role, but I think that happened despite my best efforts to keep myself separate from it.

While books provided me with some escape from the mental and physical horrors of my early life, they were unreliable. Many times the protagonists suffered terribly and then died at the end.

For the first five years of my life, things felt pretty good. A lot went wrong after that, family-wise.

I think my biggest focus for myself is learning how to continue to get through the trauma that my father has caused in my life.

I did not realize how broken I was until I saw how broken Mama was.

I don't believe in revenge. When people are bullies it's because of a deeper-rooted issue - either their family life is tough or they're being bullied by someone bigger than they are.

I didn't have a childhood.

People who need therapy are in Afghanistan. They've seen horrible human cruelty and degradation, but they don't have time or the money for therapy.

But when alcohol comes in, start running. Because there's a demon there, and it goes back to her childhood.

When my parents separated, I was very grateful.