Survivor Quotes - Page 5

• . . .only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.

  John Boyne

  Trying, Way, Sides

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• But will I always love her? Does my love for her reside in my head or my heart? The scientist in her believed that emotion resulted from complex limbic brain circuitry that was for her, at this very moment, trapped in the trenches of a battle in which there would be no survivors. The mother in her believed that the love she hadd for her daughter was safe from the mayhem in her mind, because it lived in her heart.

  Lisa Genova

  Daughter, Mother, Heart

  Lisa Genova (2010). “Still Alice”, p.172, Simon and Schuster

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• It’s the leftover humans. The survivors. They’re the ones I can’t stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprises. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs. Which in turn brings me to the subject I am telling you about tonight, or today, or whatever the hour and color. It’s the story of one of those perpetual survivors –an expert at being left behind.

  Markus Zusak

  Heart, Jigsaw Puzzles, Color

  "The Book Thief". Book by Markus Zusak, 2007.

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• He was swept with a sadness, a sadness deep and penetrating, leaving him desolate like someone washed up on a beach, a lone survivor in a world full of strangers.

  Robert Cormier

  Beach, Sadness, Leaving

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• Their talk was endless, compulsive, and indulgent, sometimes sounding like the remains of the English language after having been hashed over by nuclear war survivors for a few hundred years.

  Douglas Coupland

  War, Years, Nuclear

  1991 Generation X,'It Can't Last'.

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• Survivors lived with their mistakes.

  Nora Roberts

  Mistake

  Nora Roberts (2015). “Genuine Lies”, p.257, Hachette UK

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• Over time as most people fail the survivor's exacting test of trustworthiness, she tends to withdraw from relationships. The isolation of the survivor thus persists even after she is free.

  Judith Lewis Herman

  People, Tests, Isolation

  Judith Lewis Herman (1997). “Trauma and Recovery”, p.93, Basic Books

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• It's weird, I was such a survivor and so wanted to be a part of life while I was trying to snuff out the life that was inside of me. I had this duality of trying to kill myself with drugs, then eating really good food and exercising and going swimming and trying to be a part of life. I was always going back and forth on some level.

  Anthony Kiedis

  Swimming, Exercise, Drug

  Anthony Kiedis, Larry Sloman (2004). “Scar Tissue”, p.116, Hachette UK

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• Survivors do not mourn together. They each mourn alone, even when in the same place. Grief is the most solitary of all feelings. Grief isolates, and every ritual, every gesture, every embrace, is a hopeless effort to break through that isolation. None of it works. The forms crumble and dissolve. To face death is to stand alone.

  Steven Erikson

  Grief, Break Through, Effort

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• But then, look at me. My brain is incorrectly formed, and I'm shaped like a tube. Plus, I'm an alcoholic, a "survivor" of childhood sexual abuse, was raised in a cult and have no education. So, really, if you think about it, the only thing that separates me from the guy with the stinky foot and no teeth is a book deal and some cologne.

  Augusten Burroughs

  Book, Thinking, Feet

  Augusten Burroughs (2012). “Magical Thinking”, p.211, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Men, Two, Four

  Viktor E. Frankl (2011). “The Unheard Cry for Meaning: Psychotherapy and Humanism”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• Hurray, Hallelujah, and Happy Prostate! Finally, someone has taken the years and done the work, so the rest of us no longer need suffer from ignorance as to how to have good prostate health. That someone is Roger Mason, and all that one needs to know in order to have a happy prostate has been distilled down into this one book. I would stake the health of my prostate on it, and can tell you as a prostate cancer survivor; it is the ONLY way to go.

  Dirk Benedict

  Cancer, Book, Taken

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• It's shocking that so many children still live in fear as a result of violence in the home, and don't know who to turn to for help and support. As a child survivor of domestic violence I can remember the fear and isolation. I'm delighted to support the Hideout, the new Women's Aid website for children and young people. I know it could have made a real difference to me and will provide great comfort and support to thousands of children.

  Gordon Ramsay

  Children, Real, Home

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• Women are the more important members of relationships. Women are the survivors, the nurturers and the bosses, despite men pretending it's a male dominated society.

  Ray Martin

  Women, Boss, Important

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• The air is an extremely dangerous, jealous and exacting mistress. Once under the spell most lovers are faithful to the end, which is not always old age. Even those masters and princes of aerial fighting, the survivors of fifty mortal duels in the high air who have come scatheless through the War and all its perils, have returned again and again to their love and perished too often in some ordinary commonplace flight undertaken for pure amusement.

  Winston Churchill

  War, Jealous, Fighting

  Sir Winston Churchill, Andrew Scotland (1965). “Churchill on men and events: a selection from "Thoughts and adventures" and "Great contemporaries"”

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• You told me it was a mistake to fight the scarred warriors. They were the survivors.

  Michael Scott

  Mistake, Fighting, Warrior

  Michael Scott (2010). “The Necromancer”, p.80, Random House

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• It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.

  Chinua Achebe

  Memories, Storyteller, Surviving

  "Chinua Achebe and Nairobi Half Life" by Hayden Bixby, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 22, 2013.

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• Elend shook his head. "We can survive this. But, the only way that will happen is if our people don't give up. They need leaders who laugh, leaders who feel that this fight can be won. So, this is what I ask of you. I don't care if you're an optimist or a pessimist—I don't care if secretly, you think we'll all be dead before the month ends. On the outside, I want to see you smiling. Do it in defiance, if you have to. If the end does come, I want this group to meet that end smiling. As the Survivor taught us.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Giving Up, Don't Give Up, Fighting

  Brandon Sanderson (2008). “The Hero of Ages: Book Three of Mistborn”, p.117, Macmillan

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• It(Boston Bombings) was worth it to hear you(survivor speakers) speak.

  Joe Biden

  Boston, Speak, Bombing

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• Lucky is the spouse who dies first, who never has to know what survivors endure.

  Sue Grafton

  Lucky, Firsts, Endure

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• I'm no hero. Heroes don't come back. Survivors return home. Heroes never come home. If anyone thinks I'm a hero, I'm not.

  Bob Feller

  Hero, Home, Thinking

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• The Minnesota spirit of compassion and help for people in need has moved countless Minnesotans to step forward to provide relief for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

  Jim Ramstad

  Compassion, People, Relief

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• As a privileged survivor of the First World War, I hope I may be allowed to interject here a deeply felt tribute to those who were not fortunate enough to succeed, but who shared the signal honor of trying to the last to salvage peace.

  Rene Cassin

  War, Honor, Trying

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• Paranoia: the gift of the survivor and the burden of the overtired, stressed, and terrified.

  Patricia Briggs

  Stressed, Paranoia, Burden

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• Jephthah called together the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, 'Let me cross over,' the men of Gilead asked him, 'Are you an Ephraimite?' If he replied, 'No,' they said, 'All right, say Shibboleth.' If he said, 'Sibboleth,' because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Fourty-thousand were killed at the time.

  Edwidge Danticat

  Men, Together, Jordan

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