Amanda Lindhout Quotes

Contemplating Christmas when you are isolated and far from home brings its own unique pain.

I have a general sense of excitement about the future, and I don't know what that looks like yet. But it will be whatever I make it.

We all waited on an afterlife. Only I planned to be alive for mine.

Maintaining my dignity is so important for me.

The greatest gift you have been given is the gift of your imagination - what do you dream of wanting to do?

What was reckless, I decided, was the way people were writing off huge swaths of the world as unsafe, unstable, unfriendly, when all they needed to do was go and see for themselves

Sometimes it's nice for people not to know anything about me.

The big-time journalists generally had kidnapping insurance through their news organizations. Usually, it would pay for a crisis response company to help negotiate for a hostage's release. Freelancers most often had none.

I must try desperately to absorb all information I can about the Middle East. I want to excel. I want to speak articulately about the politics of the Middle East and its religion.

Christmas was the one time of year when my brothers surfaced at home, when my parents and grandparents congregated to eat my mother's roast turkey.

Going into Somalia, I didn't anticipate how many people's lives would be affected by it. In hindsight, I certainly wish I had taken more time to think about that, but I can't change it.

I would like to especially acknowledge my home community of Calgary, and the people of central Alberta who made my dream of freedom a reality.

I think that I find a lot of my healing out in the world.

Women in Somalia face almost unimaginable oppression.

A little goes a long way in Somalia: $5 will feed a person there for about two weeks.

With awareness come responsibility and choice.

I must thank my good friend Nigel Brennan. His strength of character in the midst of extreme hardship inspired me during the darkest days. Despite our separation, he always managed to find small ways to remind me that there are gentlemen in the world, even when I was surrounded by just the opposite.

It's difficult to put into words what freedom feels like. You only know what freedom feels like if you know what it feels like to not be free.

The countries with the greatest problems have the kindest people.

The book is called 'A House in the Sky' because during the very, very darkest times, that was how I survived. I had to find a safe place to go in my mind where there was no violence being done to my body and where I could reflect on the life I had lived and the life that I still wanted to live.

My confidence came from the way I grew up, and I'm grateful for it.

My faith in human decency was sorely tested at times during my captivity; however, after my release, I am humbly reminded that mankind is inherently good by the tremendous efforts and support of fellow Canadians.

My captors were definitely aware that what they were doing was wrong. It came out in small ways - occasionally through a show of guilt or compassion. One of the boys bought me a gift. Another used to sneak me acetaminophen tablets.

I don't only long for the thrill of being in the middle of a war, I must understand it; I must make other people understand.

When you see a 14-year-old boy who has never known what peace looks like for a day in his life, there's part of you as a human being that feels some degree, you can say, compassion for the fact that these boys have known war, famine, violence and death from the day they were born.

I made a vow to myself while I was a hostage that if I were lucky enough to live and to get out of Somalia, I would do something meaningful with my life - and specifically something that would be meaningful in the country where I'd lost my freedom.

The same men who are placing all these outrageous restrictions on women's freedoms in southern Somalia - that type of mentality - that's what I had to deal with in captivity.

It was a slow understanding that the lack of education in a country like Somalia creates these huge social problems.

Because that's the thing about the exact moment when you get somewhere that has required effort: There's a freeze-frame instant of total fulfillment, when every expectation has been met and the world is perfect.

What a woman is taught, she shares with her family.

Something happens when you are alone most of the time, when there are no distractions. Your mind grows more powerful--muscular, even. It takes over and starts to carry you.

Hillary Clinton has a strong and powerful voice regarding ending violence against women and girls.

In my mind, I built stairways. At the end of the stairways, I imagined rooms. These were high, airy places with big windows and a cool breeze moving through. I imagined one room opening brightly onto another room until I'd built a house, a place with hallways and more staircases. I built many houses, one after another, and those gave rise to a city -- a calm, sparkling city near the ocean, a place like Vancouver. I put myself there, and that's where I lived, in the wide-open sky of my mind. I made friends and read books and went running on a footpath in a jewel-green park along the harbour. I ate pancakes drizzled in syrup and took baths and watched sunlight pour through trees. This wasn't longing, and it wasn't insanity. It was relief. It got me through.

You have a responsibility to move your dreams forward, no matter what.

By concentrating on what I was grateful for, I was able to stave off despair.

writing it helped me to believe it. It staked some claim on the truth.

The road to recovery will not always be easy, but I will take it one day at a time, focusing on the moments I've dreamed about for so long.

After spending 460 days as a hostage, I did emerge a fundamentally changed person. But I think, like everyone does as they grow older and probably wiser, I can look back at my earlier life - my history, my mistakes, the joy I felt as a young woman traveling the world - with some objectivity and even some humor.

I used my captors' names every chance I had. It was intentional, a way of reminding them that I saw them, of pegging them, of making them see me in return.

For a while, the world for me was like a set of monkey bars. I swung from one place to the next, sometimes backward, sometimes forward, capitalizing on my own momentum, knowing that at some point my arms ... would give out, and I'd fall to the ground.

After being in captivity for so long, I can't begin to describe how wonderful it feels to be home in Canada.

Sometimes, you have to make the choice to forgive 10 times a day when you have these pockets of anger come up. That's a lot of work, but to me it's worthwhile.

Hamdi Ulukaya and Chobani have made the decision to feed 250,000 victims of the Somali famine. Their compassion speaks for itself, and is a shining example of how the business community can have an enormous positive impact on the world.

Friendships that don't fit my life anymore have faded away, and new ones have come in.

It was a slow understanding that my kidnappers really are a product of their environment.

I don't think I'm unusual in that, in my 20s, like many people, I felt invincible.

There was a fine line between holding steady and dipping into despair.

Getting on a plane is hard for me, but I do it, because travel is vital to me.

Being in the dark, there's a real weight to it. It's heavy.