Quotes about Survival

There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life.

Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?

We have very primative emotions. It's impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.

I was blown up while we were eating cheese.

Fish, the old man said. Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?

I don't know who made the laws; But I know there ain't no law that you got to go hungry.

It must be most dangerous then to be a man. It is indeed, madame, and but few survive it.

If the people show too much courage on this world, the society must choke them to break them - and by that, of course, kill them. The society breaks everyone, but after that many become stronger on that broken places. And those it cannot broke, it kills them.

You learn in this war if you listen.

Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle's heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too and my feet and hands are like theirs. He ate the white eggs to give himself strength. He ate them all through May to be strong in September and October for the truly big fish.

Black flies, no-see-ums, deer flies, gnats and mosquitoes were instituted by the devil to force people to live in cities where he could get at them better. If it weren't for them everybody would live in the bush and he would be out of work. It was a rather successful invention.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.