Louis Zamperini Quotes

God knew my needs and took care accordingly.

Everyone needs that support-even if at first you don't think you do. Look around. See who's on your side and in your corner. You don't have to go it alone.

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, so I took Him at His word, begged for His pardon, and asked Jesus to come into my life.

I've accepted Christ as my Savior.

All I did was pray to God, every day. In prison camp, the main prayer was, 'Get me home alive, God, and I'll seek you and serve you.' I came home, got wrapped up in the celebration, and forgot about the hundreds of promises I'd made to God.

You should make your life count right up to the last minute.

Hope is incomplete and ongoing. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and is complete.

The Bible speaks of the Word of God as added. Sometimes it's planted by the wayside, and nothing grows there. Sometimes it's sown among the thorns and represents the person who makes the decision an then goes back to his old life of bars and chasing women or whatever. A third seed is sown among the rocks. There's sand and dirt between the rocks, and when it rains you'll see a stalk of green coming up. But on the first day with sunshine it wilts because there is no room for roots.
The fourth seed is planted on fertile soil, and finally it takes hold and has a chance to grow and live. That's what happened to me.

I've got to say that is - the highest emotion of the human experience is going down in a plane knowing your going to die!

Never give up, no matter what.

Every soldier should learn survival on land, sea, and in the air.

If I can take it, I can make it.

I couldn't speak English. I'm in kindergarten, and the only reason I got through to first grade is because I cheated.

One moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.

People say, on the raft, you must have hallucinated. Baloney. We were sharper after 47 days than the day we started because our minds were empty of all the war and contamination; we had clean minds to fill with good thoughts. Every day we'd exercise our minds.

I didn't know it then, but my persistence, perseverance, and unwillingness to accept defeat when things looked all but hopeless were part of the very character traits I would need to make it through World War II alive.

You only have one life. You should never be too busy to save it.

I was raised to face any challenge.

The one who forgives never brings up the past to that person's face. When you forgive, it's like it never happened. True forgiveness is complete and total.

If you can take it, you can make it.

To persevere, I think, is important for everybody. Don't give up, don't give in. There's always an answer to everything.

I'd made it this far and refused to give up because all my life I had always finished the race.

I believe everybody in the world should try to help somebody else. Let's say half the people in the world are successful. If they help the other half, hey, you've got no problem.

Self-esteem can't win you a race if you're not in shape.

The race film had confirmed a dead heat. That was great. But even better, most of the New York press finally learned to spell my name correctly.

I wonder what they'd do if they knew the truth about my high life and my low life and all the demons in between.

God has given me so much. He expects so much out of me.

It was all in His hands now - as it had always been.

The great lesson of my life is perseverance. Never give up. It's like my brother said, "Isn't one minute of pain worth a lifetime of glory?

I was a rotten kid. My excitement came from seeing what I could get away with.

The great commandment is that we preach the gospel to every creature, but neither God nor the Bible says anything about forcing it down people's throats.

If you hate somebody, it's like a boomerang that misses its target and comes back and hits you in the head. The one who hates is the one who hurts.

This was the first time God had crossed my mind in over a year, and again only in my moment of absolute hopelessness. I'd done the same on the raft and in the prison camps when I'd promised God my life should he let me survive. Had I kept my promise? No. And this time, instead of promises, I had only anger and complaints and blame. But I didn't blame myself; I blamed God. Maybe he was listening, maybe not, but even if, as I sometimes suspected, God watched over me, I couldn't blame him for cutting me loose this time.