Quotes about Struggle

It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

And then there was the unsettling fact that, despite whatever my mother might claim, the bullies, cheats, and self-promoters seemed to be doing quite well, while those she considered good and decent people seemed to get screwed an awful lot.

God sees the world through the eyes of those most oppressed.

I noticed that my mother paid for her intellectual freedom with chronic financial struggles and occasional personal chaos

The road we have taken to this point has not been easy. But then again the road to change never is.

The people back home, they didn't even know anyone else who had ridden in an airplane before. So they expected everything from him. 'Ah, Barack, you are a big shot now. You should give me something. You should help me.' Always these pressures from family. And he couldn't say no, he was so generous. You

Through them, I discovered a community of faith—that it was okay to doubt, to question, and still reach for something beyond the here and now.

I don't think I really like myself. And I blame the Old Man for this.

I couldn't rid myself of the sense that Roy was in danger somehow, that old demons were driving him toward an abyss, and that if only I was a better brother, my intervention would prevent his fall.

It was as if, because of the very strangeness of my heritage and the worlds I straddled, I was from everywhere and nowhere at once, a combination of ill-fitting parts, like a platypus or some imaginary beast, confined to a fragile habitat, unsure of where I belonged. And I sensed, without fully understanding why or how, that unless I could stitch my life together and situate myself along some firm axis, I might end up in some basic way living my life alone.

Sometimes you were just screwed, and the best you could do was have a stiff drink—and light up a cigarette.

I couldn't help but think about the daily fighting that continued to consume Iraq and Afghanistan and all the cruelty and suffering and injustice that my administration had barely even begun to deal with. The idea that I, or any one person, could bring order to such chaos seemed laughable; on some level, the crowds below were cheering an illusion.