Leslie Cockburn Quotes

Growing up, I had a face that people wanted to tell things to, and I grew up with adults who had so much to say. They had lived through decades of unbelievable poverty, starvation, political upheaval, chaos.

All I'm trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty, unbelievable lifestyle that they gave me.

As a child I learned what it meant to be persecuted. But, even then, at the worst of times, I knew there was good in the world.

Growing up, my family was an enemy of the state. I have experienced more disappointment than joy, much more sad stories or desperate conditions.

As in the rankest soil the most beautiful flowers are grown, so in the dark soil of poverty the choicest flowers of humanity have developed and bloomed.

Jews, black people - any people who are hated or who have suffered, either as individuals or as a people - use humour. It is a survival skill.

I came out even with all the struggles I endured on Rikers Island.

No one has ever suffered from his people as I have.

So much of Judaism is about suffering, survival, and pathos.

That's what 'Hell On Earth' was about: we felt that we were living in hell.

I wanted to write something that reflected the violence and horror of the world, but I also wanted to reflect the way people fight to survive, even when society wants to crush them.

As awful as the crimes of Stalinism were, the vast majority of the Russian population was trying to survive, to love, to have a sense of purpose.

I've been sued, harassed, abused, but I've held my own.

People say, That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn't kill you doesn't kill you. That's all you get. Sometimes, you just have to hope that's enough.

To be fully human is...to know that it's possible to face the unimaginable and somehow put one foot in front of the other.

When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made - which is difference from the world that is was given - my primary defense, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world

I remember those faces of people who were good I saw that. I saw a father who gave his bread to his son and his son gave back the bread to his father. That, to me, was such a defeat of the enemies, will of the enemies, theories of the enemies, aspirations, here [in Auschwitz].

The man watched him. Real life is pretty bad? What do you think? Well, I think we're still here. A lot of bad things have happened but we're still here. Yeah. You don't think that's so great. It's okay.

Life is like a concentration camp... you can't leave without dying.

In those dark times, one rose to the very heights of humanity by simply remaining human.

It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity.

It is hard work to be good when you are very little and very hungry, and have many sticks to beat you, and no mother's lips to kiss you.

I've never stabbed, hurt, killed, stolen, anything, but I went to jail for a year. What is that? My pastor said to me the fact that I'm not living under a bridge as a crazy woman, talking to myself, is amazing.

With faith and courage, generations of Armenians have overcome great suffering and proudly preserved their culture, traditions, and religion and have told the story of the genocide to an often indifferent world.

I've seen the hell these people go through.