State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.

You can’t put your feet on the ground until you’ve touched the sky.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

Every time there has been an effort by the Haitian people to overcome the misery and poverty that comes from 200 years of bitter attacks, really bitter, the U.S. steps in and blocks it.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.

The best way out of a difficulty is through it.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

The best way out is always through.

My freshman and sophomore years in high school, I spent a lot of time trying to get back on the right track. I was arrested multiple times by the time I was 16, so I had a little harder time trying to adjust like a lot of us do in high school.

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

The only way round is through.

The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest; success only comes later.

I’ve always had to conquer fear when I’m on stage. Basically, I was and still am a very shy person. It’s absolutely in conflict with what I do. But once I deliver the first joke I’m okay. It’s like I’m out there all by myself just delivering my lines to nobody in particular without ever trying to notice the audience in front of me.

I grew up in the east side of Detroit in an area where there was very little, except for a lot of scarcity, poverty and hunger. I never woke up saying, ‚I’m an orphan again today, isn’t this terrible? Poor me.‘

When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, ‚Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.‘

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

There was a point where I really felt I had ‚penniless divorcee lone parent‘ tattooed on my head.

If you tell me there’s something I can’t do, I’ll want to do it even more. Especially when it comes to entertaining.

I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn’t open. The only thing I had was cracks. I’d do everything to get through those cracks – scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it’s as big as a garage.

You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

When I was in my teens I had issues with OCD.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

When I was 50 years old, I actually decided to draw up a list of half a dozen things that I really hadn’t done very well, and I was going to make efforts to improve. One of them was skiing, and I really did become a very much better skier.

At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.

When things are going bad, there’s going to be some good that’s going to come from it.

You not supposed to feel down over whatever happen to you. I mean, you’re supposed to use whatever happen to you as some type of upper, not a downer.

People say you have to hit rock bottom, and, I can tell you, almost dying is as rock bottom as it gets.

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

I can’t jump the highest. I’m obviously not the biggest, not the strongest.

Serious illness doesn’t bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host.

My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit as well as physically.

A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest war you ever go through is right between your own ears. It’s in your mind. We’re all going through a war in our mind, and we have to callus our mind to fight that war and to win that war.

I didn’t know how to deal with success. If there was a Rock Star 101, I would have liked to take it. It might have helped me.

I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

The devil is a peace stealer, and he works hard to set us up to get upset. But we can learn how to change our approach so we don’t live upset all of the time. And Jesus gives us the best example to follow.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

I used to have a real problem with self-pity. Every time the devil would throw a pity party, I would attend.

I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice. And if you’re always the new kid, you never get a chance to adapt, so your confidence is just zilch.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it.

I can handle pain.

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

My parents were dealing with evictions and repossessions and electricity getting shut off, and I just realized that I had to get it together.

I came up from a difficult background.

A lot of the problems I had with fame I was bringing on myself. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of woe-is-me. Now I’m learning to see the positive side of things, instead of, like, ‚I can’t go to Kmart. I can’t take my kids to the haunted house.‘

Not being beautiful was the true blessing. Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

Intelligent people should learn from their experiences. With people on the street, the bad experience has beaten them.

If you try to fight the course, it will beat you.