Against All Odds Quotes

Take a look at me now, cause there's just an empty space. And you coming back to me is against all odds and that's what I've got to face. ~ Phil Collins

11-His days in Shadbagh were numbered, like Shuja's. He knew this now. There was nothing left for him here. He had no home here. He would wait until winter passed and the spring thaw set in, and he would rise one morning before dawn and he would step out the door. He would choose a direction and he would begin to walk. He would walk as far from Shadbagh as his feet would take him. And if one day, trekking across some vast open field, despair should take hold of him, he would stop in his tracks and shut his eyes and he would think of the falcon feather Pari had found in the desert. He would picture the feather coming loose from the bird, up in the clouds, half a mile above the world, twirling and spinning in violent currents, hurled by gusts of blustering wind across miles and miles of desert and mountains, to finally land, of all places and against all odds, at the foot of that one boulder for his sister to find. It would strike him with wonder, then, and hope too, that such things happened, And though he would know better, he would take heart, and he would open his eyes, and walk. ~ Khaled Hosseini

It's not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here. ~ Vikram Seth

He'd found himself intrigued by the way she'd weaved the lives of two very different people together, how she played off their strengths and weakness, how against all odds she brought them together and made it seem believable. Even if it was nothing more than make-believe. She was a talented writer. ~ M.K. Meredith

There's just this ... .an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined. ~ Virginia Woolf

Much of our American progress has been the product of the individual who had an idea; pursued it; fashioned it; tenaciously clung to it against all odds; and then produced it, sold it, and profited from it. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

A tree." She spotted one. It was hidden behind a much larger tree, its limbs misshapen in its attempt to fight for even a little sunlight in the shadow. "Dana has this tradition of giving a sad-looking tree the honor of being a Christmas tree." She walked over to the small, nearly hidden tree. "I like this one. "It's…"
He laughed. "Ugly?"
"No, it's beautiful because it's had a hard life. It's struggled to survive against all odds and would keep doing that without much hope. But it has a chance to be something special. ~ B.J. Daniels

We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so ... ~ Michael Cunningham

Do not be sad that all odds are against you; be happy that your real purpose is by you ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Hope is one of our central emotions, but we are often at a loss when asked to define it. Many of us confuse hope with optimism, a prevailing attitude that "things turn out for the best." But hope differs from optimism. Hope does not arise from being told to "Think Positively," or from hearing an overly rosy forecast. Hope, unlike optimism, is rooted in unalloyed reality. Although there is no uniform definition of hope, I found on that seemed to capture what my patients had taught me. Hope is the elevating feeling we experience when we see - in the mind's eye- a path to a better future. Hope acknowledges the significant obstacles and deep pitfalls along that path. True hope has no room for delusion. ~ Jerome Groopman

Creating a family in this turbulent world is an act of faith, a wager that against all odds there will be a future, that love can last, that the heart can triumph against all adversities and even against the grinding wheel of time. ~ Dean Koontz

He wanted that again, that feeling of standing with her against all odds and succeeding. He wanted it so bad, he was going to risk destroying everything he and his father had worked for. ~ Kim Harrison

Love abounds against all odds. One thing about love is that it comes with many sacrifices. Its good intentions always reassure you that in order to love someone else, you must be willing to love yourself first. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Eighteen years ago Coert and I fell together against all odds.
Then it ended.
And neither of us got over it.
No more missed opportunities.
It was time to risk everything. ~ Kristen Ashley

Keep this in mind, my friends: don't expect life to love you always! In life, you shall sometimes see true rejection and know the real meaning of rejection, but the more life and the people in your life reject you, all the more, get closer to God, and you shall see and know His real and true love! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Abhyasa (practice) is a dedicated, unswerving, constant, and vigilant search into a chosen subject pursued against all odds in the face of repeated failures, for indefinitely long periods of time. ~ B.K.S. Iyengar

3. Alone
The long march up the fulvous ridgebacks to
The marches, the frontiers of difference --
Where flesh marches with bone, day marches with
His wife the night, and country marches with
Another country -- is accomplished best,
By paradox, alone. A world of twos,
Of yangs and yins, of lives and objects, of
Sound grasses and deaf stones, is best essayed
By sole infiltrators who have cast off
Their ties to living moorings, and stand out
Into the roads of noon approaching night
Casting a single shadow, earnest of
Their honorable intention to lay down
Their lives for their old country, humankind,
In the same selfish spirit that inspired
Their lifelong journey, largely and at last
Alone, across the passes that divide
A life from every other, the sheer crags
Of overweening will, the deepening scarps
Like brain fissures that cunningly cut off
Each outcrop from the main and make it one
While its luck lasts, while its bravura holds
Against all odds, until the final climb
Across the mountains to the farther shore
Of sundown on the watersheds, where self,
Propelled by its last rays, sways in the sway
Of the last grasses and falls headlong in
The darkness of the dust it is part of
Upon the passes where we are no more:
Where the recirculating shaft goes home
Into the breast that armed it for the air,
And, as we must expect, the ~ L.E. Sissman

We all want to win against all odds. We all want to be loved. We all wish it was possible to change our world and to make our world a better place. ~ Kate Forsyth

Against all odds, I feel a drop of sympathy . . . amidst a sea of hatred." "Khalid. ~ Renee Ahdieh

Saigon, U.S.A. aptly documents the birth of a new American community, uprooted in the aftermath of war and forever torn apart by the wounds of the past, yet one capable of healing against all odds. An engrossing yet succinct film that captures not only a major incident in Vietnamese American life, but also an important chapter of American history. A profound film that manages to confront us with the deepest sorrow while allowing us to be hopeful about what it means to be human. ~ Nguyen Qui Duc

For millenia migrating birds have filled the skies, heading south in search of
warmer climes and richer pickings. Conversely, these days, droves of our fellow beings struggle northbound against all odds, seeking safety and a better life. The key difference ? This vast exodus of human traffic moves in one direction only. A testimony to failed foreign policy and disastrous military intervention that may have sown the seeds of European disintegration. ~ Alex Morritt

the universe is most generous when somehow, against all odds, it finds a way of telling you ur seeing something for the last time in ur life. ~ Jomny Sun

I'm so moved when I see everyday Americans standing together, against all odds, to make their lives and communities better - whether it's organizing against big factories polluting their air or against big banks corrupting our economy and political system. ~ Sally Kohn

Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. The opposite may be true: We may not be able to get it together until after we show up in such miserable shape. ~ Anne Lamott

Against all odds, the Academy had come to feel like home. A slimy, moldy, dungeonlike home without working toilets, maybe, but home nevertheless. He and George had even named the rats that lived behind their walls. Every night, they left Jon Cartwright Jr., III, and IV a piece of stale bread to nibble, in hopes they'd prefer the crumbs to human feet. ~ Cassandra Clare

Perhaps there is nothing wrong with being childish and naïve. Perhaps naivety is simply the unwillingness to learn one's lesson. It is the decision to speak and live the truth, the beautiful truth of who we are and what we're capable of, against all odds and in the face of all opposition. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

I was going to make the little hound here part of your display, but you know, against all odds, I've found myself growing to like the little guy! You were going to be a girl transforming into a werewolf, but now I think you'll be part of my Hansel & Gretel display. I needed a trespassing little snoop! ~ Christa Carmen

What matters most, is not how my end happens, or if it happens now. What I care about in this instant, is that she knows how much I love her - that I lived long enough to have her love me back. ~ Emm Cole

No matter what the odds, we can make this lifetime the best it can be. Think of the story about Morris Goodman in the film of The Secret. Morris lay in hospital completely paralyzed, only able to blink his eyes. But he knew he could still use his mind to visualize, and, against all odds, Morris walked. ~ Rhonda Byrne

Winning is a habit - leadership is calmly maintaining that habit against all odds. ~ Amit Ray

You never know if you can actually do something against all odds until you actually do it. ~ Abby Wambach

I cannot tell whether diamonds appeared in his eyes or mine as the shine of adoration became the icon one sees in history, a Byzantine sparkle, Medieval armor against all odds. ~ Alice Shapiro

This campaign was special because we always kept the challenger mentality we had from the start. We managed to keep the against-all-odds, can-do spirit that kept us going when no one thought we could win. ~ Geoff Davis

The natural state of mankind ... and I know that this is a controversial idea ... is freedom ... And the proof is the lengths to which a man, woman, or child will go to regain it once lost. He will break loose his chains. He will decimate his enemies. He will try and try and try again, against all odds, against all prejudices. ~ John Quincy Adams

As I uttered these inspiring words the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagram shown six years later in my address before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and my companion understood them perfectly. The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal and stone, so much so that I told him, "See my motor here; watch me reverse it." I cannot begin to describe my emotions. Pygmalion seeing his statue come to life could not have been more deeply moved. A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally, I would have given for that one which I had wrested from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence ... ~ Nikola Tesla

My company, Against All Odds Productions, has done print on demand; we were the first to do a book with a CD-ROM in the early 1990s. We do custom covers. It's always fun to do something new. ~ Rick Smolan

But, against all odds, my gigantic ego continues to attempt greatness. ~ Allie Brosh

I am doing what is right and from my heart against all odds. ~ Karen Todd Scarpulla

The ceremonies that persist - birthdays, weddings, funerals - focus only on ourselves, marking rites of personal transition. […]
We know how to carry out this rite for each other and we do it well. But imagine standing by the river, flooded with those same feelings as the Salmon march into the auditorium of their estuary. Rise in their honor, thank them for all the ways they have enriched our lives, sing to honor their hard work and accomplishments against all odds, tell them they are our hope for the future, encourage them to go off into the world to grow, and pray that they will come home. Then the feasting begins. Can we extend our bonds of celebration and support from our own species to the others who need us?
Many indigenous traditions still recognize the place of ceremony and often focus their celebrations on other species and events in the cycle of the seasons. In a colonist society the ceremonies that endure are not about land; they're about family and culture, values that are transportable from the old country. Ceremonies for the land no doubt existed there, but it seems they did not survive emigration in any substantial way. I think there is wisdom in regenerating them here, as a means to form bonds with this land. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

'Press Your Luck' was probably the most exciting because of the unpredictability of the game and how I won on one of the three days on the very last spin against all odds. It was one of those great unpredictable game show moments. ~ Randy West

You are mighty and strong! You made it against all odds. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Focus is a mental commitment to winning against all odds. Focus is beyond putting things together in order to reach a goal. Focus is longing for the goal; it is conditioning self to connect with the forces needed to achieve said goal. Focus is beyond toiling day and night, it is the mind's eye seeing only the harvests of the future and oblivious of the challenges of the present. ~ Asuni LadyZeal

How very important it is, to see the reflection of yourself and to keep that reflection in sight - despite how much you have been pushed and shoved, forgotten and ripped, lied to and deceived! It seems like the number one most valuable thing you can carry with you is the constant appearance of your own reflection for the beauty and wonder that you are and it's a fight and a struggle to keep that. If you had a treasure box filled with magical things - this would be the one thing it seems like people want to destroy or to take away or in some cases to even make their own! But you must remember your reflection, you must see yourself illuminated and you must remember, against all odds, remember. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Every successful person in life began by pursuing a passion, usually against all odds. ~ Robert Kiyosaki

Pessimists calculate the odds. Optimists believe they can overcome them. ~ Ted Koppel

Be strong. Even when you can't be. ~ Saim .A. Cheeda

Love is fragile. And we're not always its best caretakers. We just muddle through and do the best we can. And hope this fragile thing survives against all odds. ~ Nicholas Sparks

At the same time we see the phenomenon of successful women adopting the standards of men with a vengeance. Will women's march to power ascendancy, won against all odds, mean that they too will choose to flaunt their preferences for red meat, animal skin, sport hunting, and even bullfighting? As women are swelling the ranks of biomedical science, many have adopted the practice of animal experimentation. Will animal exploitation become the ultimate symbol of equality with the white male? ~ Maria Comninou

The sky was full of stars against all odds. You couldn't really see shit from The Strip, but that night, you could. You could because she was there. ~ L.J. Shen

We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep - it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more. ~ Michael Cunningham

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred? ~ Richard Dawkins

Omar realizes that the improbable fact of their survival also carries a hint of the divine. To be alive in this hole, against all odds, speaks to Omar of the existence of a higher power with some sort of plan for these still-living men. ~ Hector Tobar

Against all odds and despite all evidence to the contrary, still we trust that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, of our personal tunnel anyway. ~ Diane Schoemperlen

But I believe that, once the shock settles, faith and energy will return. Because let's be real: we always knew this shit wasn't going to be easy. Colonial power, patriarchal power, capitalist power must always and everywhere be battled, because they never, ever quit. We have to keep fighting, because otherwise there will be no future - all will be consumed. Those of us whose ancestors were owned and bred like animals know that future all too well, because it is, in part, our past. And we know that by fighting, against all odds, we who had nothing, not even our real names, transformed the universe. Our ancestors did this with very little, and we who have more must do the same. This is the joyous destiny of our people - to bury the arc of the moral universe so deep in justice that it will never be undone. ~ Junot Diaz

Life is a gamble, at terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn't take it. ~ Tom Stoppard

The two came to differ on many, if not most, issues. But the man who would single-handedly defy Hitler in 1940 against all odds bears a striking resemblance to the man who organized the first satyagraha campaign in South Africa. ~ Arthur Herman

I find nothing to be more heroic than someone chasing their own dream against all odds. ~ S.W. Southwick

Anne Lamott says in Traveling Mercies, I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said, Do the best you can with these, they will have to do. And mostly, against all odds, they're enough. ~ Melanie Shankle

Yet our ability to exercise free will and transcend the most extraordinary obstacles does not make the conditions of our life irrelevant. Most of us struggle and often fail to meet the biggest challenges of our lives. Even the smaller challenges - breaking a bad habit or sticking to a diet - often prove too difficult, even for those of us who are relatively privileged and comfortable in our daily lives. In fact, what is most remarkable about the hundreds of thousands of people who return from prison to their communities each year is not how many fail, but how many somehow manage to survive and stay out of prison against all odds. ~ Michelle Alexander

Wishing is a form of inspiration for the lazy mind but taking Action, Persisting and finding alternative routes to your destination against all odds is the definition of a SUCCESSFUL Venture. ~ Oscar Bimpong

The sun continued to rise, casting its light over the earth, brightening the darkness and chasing away the shadows of what had been. And every single day, it reminded me that though life could be lonely and painful, it was also filled with rainbows on water, with fields of daffodils, and angels that emerged from rock. It was filled with delicate flowers that, against all odds, found the strength to turn their faces to the sunshine and thrive. It was filled with miracles that arrived when you least expected them and the hard-won knowledge that healing, like stone, is just sand and pressure and time. ~ Mia Sheridan

Self-evident, Sharif Basha thinks, laying down his pen. So self-evident as to be hardly worth saying. But Anna does not think so. Anna, when she sees a wrong, she cannot rest until it has been put right. Besides, she wants to make him happy. Not just happy at home, but happy altogether. He knows she imagines a day when the shadow within which their life together has been lived will be lifted. And she still has confidence in public opinion; that if only people can be made to see, to understand - then wrongs can be undone, and history set on a different course. ~ Ahdaf Soueif

Believe in yourself and have confidence that you can compete against all odds. Have a vision of what you'd like to accomplish and be able to articulate that vision. ~ Robert Johnson

But there are no criminals here
Just people surviving against all odds
Multi and never ending circumstances
of racial repression
Class war accompanied
with post-traumatic stress
syndrome-like symptoms
Marshal law-like conditions
Magic trick tactics
transforming Brown and Black pearls into perils
with K-9's searching the perimeter
Face filled with hate
abra cadabra cop smiles
with a gun and a badge
The bullet is faster than the eye
Judges able to devour justice
with a single courtroom motion
not missing a crumb
Now you have your freedom
then you don't ~ Jonathan Daniel Gomez

One UniVerse for the Living

While palaces attest to the power of men,
And monuments mark their wars,
Little remains of the women who've been-
Except for the sons that they bore.
But the voices of women were baked into bread
And later buttered with epics
While the souls of their daughters
Stitched with fine thread
Became tapestries stored in attics.
And all through the ages
Men boasted like beasts
Erecting pillars of marble and stone,
But still they found themselves only to be
Sculpted of flesh and bone.
Philosophers pondered the nature of gods
Outlawing temptations that plagued them
And earning themselves, against all odds,
The power to punish the pagans.
By writing themselves into sacred books
The clergymen sealed our fate
To follow decrees that have their roots
In nothing but misguided hate.
So, children of Adam and invisible Eve,
challenge the wisdom of sages.
Don't be so sure sacred scrolls that you read
Aren't filled with human pages.
Walk in the wilderness.
Eat of the fruit.
Don't let them buy you with wages.
Plant your own garden.
Drink of the wine.
Learn how to be courageous.
Hearts that are hardened
To what is divine
Have honored the dead too long.
Search for the stories
Baked into bread
And eat until you are strong. ~ Nancy Boutilier

You will struggle. You will fall down. You will be hated. You will face many defeats. You will be mocked. You will be alone. The world will not give you recognition. The world will not give you, your due. Against all odds, if you still persist and create your art, it will be a victory! It will be your victory. Finally, you would win. ~ Avijeet Das

Ever notice the word 'rough' in through? There is truth to that, though the way may be rough, we are still able to get through it. ~ Anthony Liccione

One of my favorite teams of all time is Fran and Barry. I just thought Fran and Barry last season were just incredible and they just sort of went against all odds and were very successful. ~ Tom Ford

The fact that you couldn't see Alfred Hitchcock's first film The Mountain Eagle, or that you couldn't see so many of F.W. Murnau's masterpieces, or that you couldn't see so many of Oscar Micheaux's really intriguing race melodramas, made with fierce independent spirit against all odds in '20s and '30s America. That stuff haunted me. They really did bring to life a sense of 20th Century history: cultural history, pop history, gender politics and race politics, socio economic history, all that stuff. It was bracing and instructive. ~ Guy Maddin

It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do. ~ Anne Lamott

Because when you finally find the one against all odds, you give him your best and let the magic of the world carry the rest. ~ E. Mellyberry

At the center of the Universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person. Anything that we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds. Life is for service. ~ Fred Rogers

BE an accomplisher against all odds. ~ Stephanie Gilzene

I'm trying to look at my blessings and how amazingly well against all odds things have turned out for me. ~ James Taylor

It's never the differences between people that suprise us. It's the things that, against all odds, we have in common. ~ Jodi Picoult

You have special abilities," she goes on. "I don't mean you are a witch or a fox spirit. And you've never seemed drawn to the special gift of healing or magic. Rather, you are like A-ma Mata, who gave birth to the Akha people, who pushed against her restraints, who said, 'No, I will not accept my bad fate,' and who endured against all odds with her intelligence, compassion, and perseverance. All that comes from this grove. And the mother tree." A-ma ~ Lisa See

'Jazz Artist of the Century' would have to be a distinctive soloist and ensemble player, a composer, an arranger, a bandleader, and a driver; would have to span all the genres and periods of jazz; would have to have run her own label; [would] possess a deep spirituality, with grace and a sense of humor; and would have to have succeeded against all odds. Who else? Mary Lou Williams. ~ Dave Douglas

Forgiveness is an embrace, across all barriers, against all odds, in defiance of all that is mean and petty and vindictive and cruel in this life. ~ Kent Nerburn

Against all odds, beyond every logic, there is hope. ~ Shilpa Menon

There are so many things we do in life that define the real meaning of our lives. There are so many ideas that come to us each moment of time. There are so many things we conceive each day which give birth to things that define who we are and how we are living life. Everybody knows something and everybody thinks about something! A true value of our lives is not just in what we conceive each moment of time, but also in how we nurture and give life to what we conceive, against all odds, to give birth to something that defines who we are and who we become in the end! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Quitting is an essential life tool, but nobody wants to be called a "quitter." Society values persistence and celebrates heroes who reach their goals against all odds. Sometimes fear of failure keeps you going even when your goal is unrealistic. ~ Anonymous

Who did you lose?"
This girl is full of questions.
"Nobody." Or everyone - depends how I look at it. People don't really need to die to be gone. ~ Patricia Vanasse

Sure, I always chose rebels to identify with - I still do - but to me a rebel isn't so much someone who breaks the law as someone who goes against the odds. ~ William Petersen

He understood terrible purposes. They drove against all odds. They were their own necessity. Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was. ~ Frank Herbert

I had always enjoyed the title of Commander-in-Chief until I was informed ... that the only forces that cannot be transferred from Washington without my express permission are the members of the Marine Corps Band. Those are the only forces I have. I want it announced that we propose to hold the White House against all odds at least for some time to come. ~ John F. Kennedy

Against all odds, some poor presbyopic chump takes a shot at it, maybe so he won't make himself ill by sensing a truth no one else sees. And he falls flat on his face, of course, his truth as incomprehensible and strange as it was to begin with. But at least he's tried. And ~ Fredrik Sjoberg

...judgement had no place here. Evil was not in play, just life pulsing on, even at the expense of some of the participants. Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light. Nothing seemed too indecorous as long as the tick & the tock of life carried on. She knew this was not a dark side to Nature, just inventive ways to endure against all odds. ~ Delia Owens

How can I ever make you understand Cassie and me? I would have to take you there, walk you down every path of our secret shared geography. The truism says it's against all odds for a straight man and woman to be real friends, platonic friends; we rolled thirteen, threw down five aces and ran away giggling. She was the summertime cousin out of storybooks, the one you taught to swim at some midge-humming lake and pestered with tadpoles down her swimsuit, with whom you practiced first kisses on a heather hillside and laughed about it years later over a clandestine joint in your granny's cluttered attic. She painted my fingernails gold and dared me to leave them that way for work ... We climbed out her window and down the fire escape and lay on the roof of the extension below, drinking improvised cocktails and singing Tom Waits and watching the stars spin dizzily around us.
No. ~ Tana French

If you had been a public figure from the time you were a toddler, if you'd had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, than maybe to you might value privacy above all else. I have given everything up there from the time that I was three-years old. That's reality show enough, don't you think? ~ Jodie Foster

A Half-Blood of the eldest gods, Shall reach sixteen against all odds
And see the world in endless sleep
The Hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap
A single choice shall end his days
Olympus to preserve or raze. ~ Rick Riordan

Those Panthers ... those itsy, bitsy football players ... those hearty, gutsy guys from the oilfields ... what about 'em? Yep, its incredible, amazin' and unbelievable, but the li'lfellers do occasionally catch the best end of the stick. All the reasons for the phenomenal support of Permian had been embodied by this 1980 varsity team. They were a classic bunch of overachievers who had become living proof of all the perceived values of white working-class and middle-class America-desire, self-sacrifice, pushing oneself beyond the expected limit. They were the kinds of values that the Permian fans harbored about themselves. What made those boys great on the football field had made the fans great as well. Just as the boys had produced against all odds, so they had produced in the oil field against all odds, not with brains and fancy talk but with brawn and muscle and endurance and self-sacrifice. ~ H. G. Bissinger

Given all the centuries of hatred toward them, it is a miracle any Jews survived. Consider the historical record and look at the mighty empires, regimes and civilizations the Jewish people have outlasted: Ancient Egypt, the Philistines, the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Crusaders, the Spanish Empire, the Soviet Union and the Third Reich. All have crumbled one way or another and none remain today. And yet, against all odds, the Jewish people – a tiny community in the scheme of things – are still here, punching above their weight. ~ James Morcan

We take our miracles where we find them. We reach across the gap and sometimes, against all odds, against all logic, we touch. ~ Meredith Grey

Do you like Phil Collins? I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. It was on Duke where Phil Collins' presence became more apparent. I think Invisible Touch was the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Christy, take off your robe. Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. Sabrina, remove your dress. In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Sabrina, why don't you, uh, dance a little. Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. In Too Deep is the most moving pop song of the 1980s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I've heard in rock. Christy, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your asshole. Phil Collins' solo career seems to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying, in a narrower way. Especially songs like In the Air Tonight and Against All Odds. Sabrina, don't just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word art ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Hope is when against all odds a tiny flame keeps burning for the possibility. ~ Tilicia Haridat

Women who bring up children by themselves do it heroically, they do it against all odds, men who don't feel responsible for being part of their child's life create real strains on that family. ~ Jeb Bush

Just as the weak, despairing person is unwilling to hear anything about any consolation eternity has for him, so a person in such despair does not want to hear anything about it, either, but for a different reason: this very consolation would be his undoing; as a denunciation of all existence. Figuratively speaking, it is as if an error slipped into an author's writing and the error became conscious of itself as an error; perhaps it actually was not a mistake but in a much higher sense an essential part of the whole production, and now this error wants to mutiny against the author, out of hatred toward him, forbidding him to correct it and in maniacal defiance saying to him: No! I refuse to be erased! I will stand as a witness against you; a witness that you are a second-rate author. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

The third class of evils comprise those which everyone causes to himself by his own action. This is the largest class, and is far more numerous than the second class. It is especially of these evils that all men complain, - only few men are found that do not sin against themselves by this kind of evil ... This class of evil originates in man's vices, such as excessive desire for eating, drinking, and love; indulgence in these things in undue measure, or in improper manner, or partaking of bad food. This course brings diseases and afflictions upon the body and soul alike. ~ Maimonides

It is not true that women cannot keep secrets. Where they love, they can be trusted to death and beyond, against all sense and reason. It is their weakness, and their great strength. ~ Mary Stewart

Season late, day late, sun just down, and the sky
Cold gunmetal but with a wash of live rose, and she,
From water the color of sky except where
Her motion has fractured it to shivering splinters of silver,
Rises. Stands on the raw grass. Against
The new-curdling night of spruces, nakedness
Glimmers and, at bosom and flank, drips
With fluent silver. The man,

Some ten strokes out, but now hanging
Motionless in the gunmetal water, feet
Cold with the coldness of depth, all
History dissolving from him, is
Nothing but an eye. Is an eye only. Sees

The body that is marked by his use, and Time's,
Rise, and in the abrupt and unsustaining element of air,
Sway, lean, grapple the pond-bank. Sees
How, with that posture of female awkwardness that is,
And is the stab of, suddenly perceived grace, breasts bulge down in
The pure curve of their weight and buttocks
Moon up and, in swelling unity,
Are silver and glimmer. Then

The body is erect, she is herself, whatever
Self she may be, and with an end of the towel grasped in each hand,
Slowly draws it back and forth across back and buttocks, but
With face lifted toward the high sky, where
The over-wash of rose color now fails. Fails, though no star
Yet throbs there. The towel, forgotten,
Does not move now. The gaze
Remains fixed on the sky. The body,

Profiled against the darkn ~ Robert Penn Warren