Quotes about survival
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“Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at itself.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

Communication

“For the first time in his existence, he knew he was drowning and he wasn't thinking about survival.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Water Bound

Thinking, Time

“Man struggles to survive, not to succumb”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

“We wouldn't be alive without love we wouldn't have survived without running maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Love

“We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Thinking

“We are all brothers and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive. (pg. 39)”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

Fate, Way, Suffering, Help

“I survive at the edge of friends circles.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

“Love doesn't go anywhere when you die, you know. The person passes on, the body withers, but love, it survives.”

Sarah Strohmeyer (1950) American writer

Source: Kindred Spirits

Love, Personality

“Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving?”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Happiness

“…kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Kiss

“Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

“Urban survival rule 22: Never annoy an armed man.”

Kelley Armstrong book Bitten

Source: Bitten

“Max, if you survive your final test, can you steal me one of those magic outfits for me?"
I'll try to get one for each of us. Hey! 'If'?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

“It is a melancholy illusion of those who write books and articles that the printed word survives. Alas, it rarely does.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Source: How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism

Books

“If your workplace was somehow transplanted into the jungle and everyone was forced to survive at a very primitive level, it's safe to say that eventually your boss would rape you.”

Scott Dikkers (1965) American comic writer

Source: You Are Worthless: Depressing Nuggets of Wisdom Sure to Ruin Your Day

“But then, his revenge had been more direct. He’d hunted down the ones who’d killed his sister and nephew – those who’d survived his mother’s attack – and he’d made them wish they’d never been born with nerve endings.' (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Revenge, Sister

“Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“No, scratch the word "career." Careers are for people who wish to advance. I only want to survive, draw a paycheck.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

People, Drawing

“I need to write about love. I need to think and think and write about love-otherwise, my soul won’t survive.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

Love, Soul, Thinking

“Experience had quickly taught her that she could not survive the storms without the anchor of the constraining love of Christ and what she called the "Rock-counsciousness" of the promise given her, "He goeth before.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael

Love, Christ

“Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.”

Zadie Smith book The Autograph Man

Source: The Autograph Man

Friendship

“No matter how bad things get, you can always see the beauty in them. The worse things get, the more you have to make yourself see the magic in order to survive.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: Pink Smog

Beauty

“The kind of person that thanks another person never survives. Have you learned nothing?”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Learning, Personality

“There were only so many ways a man‟s heart could break, and he had a feeling his couldn‟t survive another puncture.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: When He Was Wicked

Way, Feeling, Heart

“Would you like to know your future?

If your answer is yes, think again. Not knowing is the greatest life motivator.

So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence -- a surprise.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Life, Motivation, Thinking, Future

“Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive.” “That’s a lie.” “No. It’s just a half truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

War, Truth, Lie, Help

“Reading is not simply an intellectual pursuit but an emotional and spiritual one. It lights the candle in the hurricane lamp of self; that's why it survives."

[, Newsweek Magazine, March 25, 2010]”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Light, Reading

“We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death.”

Thomas Bernhard book Extinction

Source: Extinction

Death, People

“The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over.”

Toni Morrison book Sula

Source: Sula

Evil

“Mother can beat me all she wants, but I haven’t let her take away my will to somehow survive.”

Dave Pelzer (1960) American author

Source: A Child Called "It"

“You've got to be quick on your feet in this world if you want to survive. Though once you know the rules, it is not too hard to play the game.”

Bryce Courtenay The Power of One

Source: The Power of One

World, Game

“You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."

"Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

Hate, People, Effort, Help

“A pity to survive night flights over St. Georges Channel only to crack my skull falling from a ladder.”

Eoin Colfer book Airman

Source: Airman

Night

“Adrian.
He was the reason I was able to survive in this prison.
And he was also the reason I was here in the first place.”

Richelle Mead book Silver Shadows

Source: Silver Shadows

“And you take care, too, Shahara. Remember the lies we tell ourselves to survive seldom bring peace to our souls. (Nero)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Fire

Peace, Soul

“We wanted to test each other's capacity for survival: only if we had tried in vain to destroy one another would we know we were safe.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: On Love

“You can make some inferences about a man's character if you know something about the conditions in which he has survived and prospered.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene

“A proud heart can survive general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.”

Chinua Achebe book Things Fall Apart

Source: Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 3 (p. 27)

Motivational, Back To Work, Failure, Heart

“If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one's chances of survival increase with each book one reads.”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker

Books, Chance, Reading, Fight

“The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don’t offer up anything. Don’t explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don’t accidentally put your head in a noose.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Question, Patience

“There are some things more important than physical survival. You gotta be able to look at yourself in the mirror.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Circus of the Damned

Source: Circus of the Damned

“This endured absence is nothing more or less than forgetfulness. I am, intermittently, unfaithful. This is the condition of my survival.”

Roland Barthes book A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Source: A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Unfaithfulness, Forgetting

“Anyone worth knowing breaks once. Once. No shame, no foul if you survive it. You did.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

“I don't care if they eat me alive, I've got better things to do than survive.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

“Please come to me, Cat, because there's no surviving you. You don't have to love me back. You don't have to be mine. Just let me be yours.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

Love, Cats

“What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another. We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory… We are men only, a brief flare of the torch.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Men, Memory

“Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Life, Fear, Help, Parting

“Besides, every couple needs to argue now and then. Just to prove that the relationship is strong enough to survive it.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Strong

“The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Life, Childhood

“Out of the red and silver and the long cry of alarm to the poet who survives in all human beings, as the child survives in him; to this poet she threw an unexpected ladder in the middle of the city and ordained, 'Climb!”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Cry

“Sometimes I just survive.
But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: Getting the Girl

“I wonder how she'll make up her mind."
"Oh, that I do know." I can just catch Gale's last words through the layer of fur. "Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Thinking

“Roman might have survived the Great Vampire War of 1710, but he was about to face an even worse terror.
A mortal female in full rage.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire

War, Rage

“Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

"Stairway to Heaven," Thinking in Pictures (1995), p. 202.
Source: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
Context: Most people don't realize that the slaughter plant is much gentler than nature. Animals in the wild die from starvation, predators, or exposure. If I had a choice, I would rather go through a slaughter system than have my guts ripped out by coyotes or lions while I was still conscious. Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.

Death, People, Birth, Nature

“If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

“So what if they were in Tartarus? So what if they stood a slim chance of surviving? He was so glad that they were together, he had the ridiculous urge to smile.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Smile, Chance

“In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy.”

Jenny Holzer (1950) American conceptual artist

Dreams, Way, Joy

“There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

World, Light, Heart

“Another werewolf thing. Like most animals, we spent a large part of our lives engaged in the three Fs of basic survival. Feeding, fighting and… reproduction.”

Kelley Armstrong book Stolen

Source: Stolen

Animals, Fight, Parting

“The very worst impulses of humankind can survive generations, centuries, even millennia. And the best of our individual efforts can die with us at the end of a single lifetime.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

Source: The Historian (2005), Ch. 9
Context: There is survival and survival, the historian learns to his grief. The very worst impulses of humankind can survive generations, centuries, even millennia. And the best of our individual efforts can die with us at the end of a single lifetime.
Context: My dear and unfortunate successor:
I shall conclude my account as rapidly as possible, since you must draw from it vital information if we are both to — ah, to survive, at least, and to survive in a state of goodness and mercy. There is survival and survival, the historian learns to his grief. The very worst impulses of humankind can survive generations, centuries, even millennia. And the best of our individual efforts can die with us at the end of a single lifetime.

Effort

“I know what it's like to battle everyday of my life, just for acceptance, just to survive.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Water Bound

Life

“It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

“All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

"The Precarious Vogue of Ingmar Bergman" in Esquire (April 1960); republished as "The Northern Protestant" in Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961) and in The Price of the Ticket (1985)

Art