Strong Enough Quotes

That's what gets me through the day. Knowing that I could do it. That I'm strong enough to do it and I can get it done. ~ Ned Vizzini

Being born as an Indigo, the most difficult mission is to be strong enough to retain your true "self" while living in human stereotype society. Having to pretend, to act "the same as others," can only make you so deeply unhappy and hurt - feeling as though your "wings" have been cut off. ~ Sahara Sanders

And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off. ~ C.S. Lewis

God is not here to be demanded of, begged from, or criticized. He hands out burdens to those who are strong enough to carry them, and I feel profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of lining up with the other invalids and asking for mine to be alleviated. ~ Ann Napolitano

There are many idols but I would categorize them into three: heroes who are strong enough to lay themselves bare to the people and cowards who hide behind symbols and crafted figures. Then there is one who rules over them. They all love the same thing; praise and adoration. The question is, to whom does the glory belong to, really? ~ DON SANTO

I was a center in college but I was a high post guy, feeding cutters and rebounding. Going to pro ball, I clearly wasn't big and strong enough to play center against giants like Mikan so I kept evolving. ~ Dolph Schayes

Ultimately, Congressional medicine is like veterinary medicine: It must be strong enough to work, and tasty enough to swallow. ~ Jim Cooper

All parents make mistakes. They're only human, so all of us grow up with at least a few invisible scars. But maybe that's okay, because the hard times are what make us strong enough to survive all the crap life throws at us down the road. ~ Alexa Land

There was something lacking – in him, he thought, not in the place. He was not up to it. He was not strong enough to take what was so generously offered. He felt himself dry and arid, like a desert plant, in this beautiful oasis. Life on Anarres had sealed him, closed off his soul; the waters of life welled all around him, and yet he could not drink. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

We all begin the process before we are ready, before we are strong enough, before we know enough; we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings that both tickle and thunder within us. We respond before we know how to speak the language, before we know all the answers, and before we know exactly to whom we are speaking. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

There are no stones
honeycombed into
an abusive tongue
strong enough
to clip my wings. ~ Susie Clevenger

Accept that you are strong enough to endure the present. The rest doesn't matter. ~ Pepper Winters

While his comrades got stuck in, Richie knelt beside Davey and turned him over. His cousin's cheeks had a blueish tinge to them, his eyes were closed. Richie pressed his ear against Davey's chest.
The heartbeat was strong enough. Alive, thank God. Unconsious, but alive. Richie took out his water bottle and upended it over Davey's face.
"Your debt is paid, cousin of mine," he said as a faint moan sounded in the other's throat. "Now let us be friends again. ~ David Pilling

People have been driving off of the canyon for decades. I don't know of any that were accidental. One Ranger who worked here before I did told me that on several occasions, when cars drove off and folks died, they went down and collected the remains. But there were no helicopters strong enough and affordable enough to haul the cars out. He told me Rangers went down later and sprayed the cars with paint to help them blend in with the rocks. ~ Nancy Eileen Muleady-Mecham

But precisely because love is so strong, we are, especially in our youth...usually not strong enough to maintain a straight course.

- Vincent van Gogh ~ Deborah Heiligman

So I didn't adopt Homer because he was cute and little and sweet, or because he was helpless and needed me. I adopted him because when you think you see something so fundamentally worthwhile in someone else, you don't look for the reasons - like bad timing or a negative bank balance - that might keep it out of your life. You commit to being strong enough to build your life around it, no matter what. In doing so, you begin to become the thing you admire. ~ Gwen Cooper

There is a core value I wanted to illuminate: No matter what kind of family you have - straight, gay, married, single parent, separated, no kids, two kids, 20 kids, whatever - we all go through the human comedy. But if the bonds are strong enough, and the desire is there, you can get to the other side, still together and still a family. ~ Lisa Cholodenko

Fright is something one can never get over. When a warrior is caught in such a tight spot he would simply turn his back to the ally without thinking twice. A warrior cannot indulge thus he cannot die of fright. A warrior allows the ally to come only when he is good and ready. When he is strong enough to grapple with the ally he opens up his gap and lurches out, grabs the ally, keeps him pinned down and maintains his stare on him for exactly the time he has to, then he moves his eyes away and releases the ally and lets him go. A warrior, my little friend, is the master at all times ~ Carlos Castaneda

Being single doesn't mean you're weak, it means that you're strong enough to wait for the right person. ~ Niall Horan

Things, events and people align and position themselves accordingly when a strong enough thought stirs them. ~ Stephen Richards

Death and love are the only two things that exist in this world that are strong enough to alter the course of your life, of your destiny. They either propeld you or paralyze you. In the end, the choice is always yours. - Wes Michels ~ Rachel Van Dyken

And I was fairly certain that my strong-enough-for-King-Kong-but-made-for-a-woman deodorant had utterly failed.
Doom with a View ~ Victoria Laurie

If you need someone, reach out to me. I promise I'm strong enough to lift you up. ~ Tanya Masse

Because I'm not strong enough to survive seeing you with the League! I said. Because I wanted you, after everything you went through, to have a chance to find your parents and live your life. ~ Alexandra Bracken

Where was I?"
"A different island," said old Tallow. Her voice was stern, but there was an ache in her look that Omakayas had never before seen. "An island called Spirit Island where everyone but you died of the itching sickness- you were the toughest one, the littlest one, and you survived them all."
"You were sent here so you could save the others," she said. "Because you'd had the sickness, you were strong enough to nurse them through it. They did a good thing when they took you in, and you saved them for their good act. Now the circle that began when I found you is complete. ~ Louise Erdrich

Tis a barbaric fancy," said Roxholm thoughtfully as he turned the stem of his glass, keeping his eyes fixed on it as though solving a problem for himself. "A barbaric fancy that a woman needs a master. She who is strong enough is her own conqueror
as a man should be master of himself. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

A man needs a woman to take care of him so she can make him strong enough for her to lean on. ~ Suzanne Woods Fisher

You've probably never had a real man." My body presses forward as she stands her ground. "No one was strong enough to deal with your penis envy."
"Penis envy?"
"Yeah, sweetheart." I reach my hand to cup her cheek. "You live in a man's world. You fight harder, stand straighter, and battle for your place." I see the flash in her eyes that lets me know I hit a chord. "I don't need you to assert your shit, babe. I'll own you. You won't want to have control because I'll make it so fucking good that you'll beg me to take it. ~ Corinne Michaels

Ink cannot tell the glow that lights me at this moment in turning to the mountains. I feel strong [enough] to leap Yosemite walls at a bound. ~ John Muir

Nothing in this world is perpetual; Every thing, however seemingly firm, is in continual flux and change: The world itself gives symptoms of frailty and dissolution: How contrary to analogy, therefore, to imagine, that one single form, seeming the frailest of any, and subject to the greatest disorders, is immortal and indissoluble? What a daring theory is that! How lightly, not to say how rashly, entertained! How to dispose of the infinite number of posthumous existences ought also to embarrass the religious theory. Every planet, in every solar system, we are at liberty to imagine people with intelligent, mortal beings: At least we can fix on no other supposition. For these, a new universe must, every generation, be created beyond the bounds of the present universe: or one must have been created at first so prodigiously wide as to admit of this continual influx of beings. Ought such bold suppositions to be received by any philosophy: and that merely on the pretext of a bare possibility? When it is asked, whether Agamemnon, Thersites, Hannibal, Nero, and every stupid clown, that ever existed in Italy, Scythia, Bactria, or Guinea, are now alive; can any man think, that a scrutiny of nature will furnish arguments strong enough to answer so strange a question in the affirmative? The want of argument, without revelation, sufficiently establishes the negative. Quanto facilius, says Pliny, certiusque sibi quemque credere, ac specimen securitatis antegenitali sumere experimento. Our ~ David Hume

I think I'd rather be branded than submit to some of the things that you have to." He said this without spite, just a soft statement of fact. "I'm not strong enough to do that. ~ Laura Bickle

She must be strong enough to hold the memory of her husband, to sing his song in her heart until she joined him in the Underworld. ~ Janell Rhiannon

No poem, not even Shakespeare or Milton or Chaucer, is ever strong enough to totally exclude every crucial precursor text or poem. ~ Harold Bloom

My travels have been numerous, though no topographer could chart the shores I have landed upon. For it is not places that have been my destination, but women. I am drawn to them by a force I have never questioned. To their infinite variety of charms I am helpless. But the hold of none has been strong enough to keep me from wandering aimlessly to others. ~ Roy L. Pickering Jr.

To paraphrase the philosopher Nietzsche, he who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how. I've found that 20 percent of any change is knowing how; but 80 percent is knowing why. If we gather a set of strong enough reasons to change, we can change in a minute something we've failed to change for years. ~ Tony Robbins

If you are strong enough, you can enjoy even in the middle of a storm! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

In the environment in which we evolved, the careful choice of a mate was critical to a female's success in passing on her genes. If her man was not strong enough to be a successful hunter, or not of sufficiently high rank within the tribe to commandeer food from others, her children might be in trouble. The women who were reproductively successful were those with a sexual preference for effective providers. A kind of erotic "tunnel vision" was selected for, which causes women to focus their mating effort on the men at the top of the pack - the "alpha males" with good physical endowments, social rank, and economic resources (or an ability to acquire them). ~ F. Roger Devlin

She isn't a storm or a leader or a king or a war or anyone whose life and death makes noise. The problem is words. There is skin, yes. And then, inside that, there is your language, the casual, inherited magic spells taht make your skin real. It's too late now
even if we could say "Shut up" or "Where's my dinner?" in the first language, the real language, the words weren't born in us. And unless your skin and your language touch each other without interruption, there is no word strong enough to make you understand that it matters that you live. The things that really "stay" are an Orisha, a kind night, a pretended boy, a garden song that made no sense. Those come closer to being enough. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

What is certainty but the refuge of those whose faith is not strong enough to entertain doubt. ~ Robert Breault

Lord," Michael said. "We walk into darkness now. Our enemies will surround us. Please help to make us strong enough to do what needs to be done. Amen. ~ Jim Butcher

None of would've made it alone" John once explained, "because Paul wasn't strong enough, I didn't have enough girl-appeal, George was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. But we thought everyone would be able to dig at least one of us, and that's how it turned out. ~ Jonathan Cott

No force is strong enough to break you from the outside.
I found out sometimes ago that men are first broken within before they are overwhelmed on the outside.
Once you are bankrupt on Joy, it will be hard to keep yourself together. Life will do its best to wear you thin but you must not let it wear you out.
The fruit of joy is right there in you, let it blossom. ~ Paul Bamikole

Let us all say together: "We want to build a green economy strong enough to life people out of poverty. We want to create green pathways out of poverty and into great careers for America's children. We want this 'green wave' to life all boats. This country can save the polar bears and poor kids too. ~ Van Jones

His soul really shone in the dark desperation of our prison ... [Bonhoeffer] had always been afraid that he would not be strong enough to stand such a test but now he knew there was nothing in life of which one need ever be afraid. ~ Payne Best

I believe our country is strong enough to be criticized. ~ Jack Anderson

What sort of man could you love for a lifetime?" he asked her.
She was silent for a while. He guessed that she was considering her answer.
"A kind man," she said. "When we are young and foolish we do not realize how essential a component of love kindness is. It is perhaps the most important quality. And an honorable man. Always doing the right thing no matter what."
His heart sank-on both account.
"And a strong man," she said. "Strong enough to be vulnerable, to take risks, to be honest even when honesty might expose him to ridicule or rejection. And someone who would put himself at the center of my world even before knowing that I would be willing to do the same for him. A man foolish and brave enough to tell me that he loves me even when I have hidden all signs that I love him in return."
"Eve-" he said.
"He would have to be tall and broad and dark and hook-nosed," she said. "And frowning much of the time, pretending he is tough and impervious to all the finer emotions. And then smiling occasionally to light up my heart and my life."
Good God!
"He would have to be you," she said. "no one else would do. Which is just as well, considering the fact that I am married to you... ~ Mary Balogh

I always thought I'd get farther. I'd like to blame the world for what I've failed to do, but the failure - the failure that sometimes washes over me as anger, makes me so angry I could spit - is all mine, in the end. What made my obstacles insurmountable, what consigned me to mediocrity, is me, just me. I thought for so long, forever, that I was strong enough
or I misunderstood what strength was. ~ Claire Messud

This week
in live current
events: your eyes.

All power can be
dangerous:
Direct

or alternating,
you, socket to me.
Plugged in and the grid

is humming,
this electricity,
molecule-deep desire:

particular friction, a charge
strong enough to stop
a heart

or start it
again; volt, re-volt--
I shudder, I stutter, I start

to life. I've got my ion
you, copper-top,
so watch how you

conduct yourself.
Here's today's
newsflash: a battery of rolling

blackouts in California, sudden,
like lightning kisses:
sudden, whitehot

darkness and you're
here, fumbling for
that small switch

with an urgent surge
strong enough to kill
lesser machines.

Static makes hair raise,
makes things cling,
makes things rise like

a gathering storm
charging outside
our darkened house

and here I am:
tempest, pouring out
mouthfulls

of tsunami on the ground,
I've got that rain-soaked kite,
that drenched key.

You know what it's for,
circuit-breaker, you know
how to kiss until it's hertz. ~ Daphne Gottlieb

Just over two weeks ago, right after we took the palace, he came to me in Vegas. He told me he'd fight for the chance to be with me, and I chose to give him that chance. I made the right decision. He might have a dark past, but he was strong enough to overcome it. He's become something good. He's become someone I respect, and if I have to fight for him now, I will. ~ Sandy Williams

If you don't appreciate what you have in life right now, whatever it is, you will never realize your purpose. Without appreciation, you will never become strong enough to respect yourself. ~ Caroline Myss

Love is the only emotion strong enough to sweep us off our feet, but remain unmoved when we are knocked to our knees. And if I am willing to embrace the former but flee from the latter, I've confused love with infatuation. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I always think incipent miracles surround us, waiting only to see if our faith is strong enough. We won't have to understand it; it will just work, like a beating heart, like love. Really, no matter how frightened and discouraged I may become about the future, I look forward to it. In spite of everything I see all around me every day, I have a shaky assurance that everything will turn out fine. I don't think I'm the only one. Why else would the phrase "everything's all right" ease a deep and troubled place in so many of us? We just don't know, we never know so much, yet we have such faith. We hold our hands over our hurts and lean forward, full of yearning and forgiveness. It is how we keep on, this kind of hope. ~ Elizabeth Berg

The principles of Islam teach us to be messengers of peace - to be like water, gentle enough to wash away tears and strong enough to drown hatred. To be Muslim is to protect the weak, the orphan, the beggar, the disabled of all races and cultures. To be Muslim is not to be color-blind, but to see the differences between people and to celebrate that diversity as a product of the free will that God chose to give us. As the Qur'an says, "And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed, in that are signs for those of knowledge" (30:22) ~ A. Helwa

I see the kids and I feel like taking them all away to a safe place to hide until the war stops and the hunger stops and El Cua becomes strong enough to give them the care they deserve. ~ Ben Linder

Being emotional is normal, all part of the job." Her words twirled around my mind. "These are precious new lives at their most fragile. You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel the weight on your heart."
Oh I felt the brick crushing my chest, the question was whether I was strong enough to lift it off and breathe myself.
"It's a balancing act between empathy, confidence, and trusting your skills. ~ Riley Mackenzie

I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. ~ Franz Kafka

We believe in a government strong enough to use words like "love" and "compassion" and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities. ~ Mario Cuomo

There certainly is a tension between the relativity of simultaneity and non-locality in quantum theory, but it's not strong enough to add up to a falsification of either side by itself. ~ Lee Smolin

Still, I couldn't get over Dad calling those farmers. People might think helping is hard, but really that's the easy part; just look how good it makes people feel. Look how happy all those Red Bend ladies were about chipping in. It's the asking that's so painful. It takes real courage, real strength, to say you're not strong enough to do it alone. Mom must really be hurting for Dad to be so brave. ~ Catherine Gilbert Murdock

It takes strong men and women to love ... people strong enough inside themselves to love ... without humiliation. ~ William Inge

Anything important has to be almost invisible. And underrated. So the understructure should be underrated, but strong enough to hold the earth. ~ Agnes Denes

Aleksia laughed at her, putting a world of scorn and withering contempt into her voice
just as Kay would probably do in a temper. In fact, everything that she was doing now was to test her to see if her own self-worth was strong enough to stand up to the worst the one she loved could deliver. It is so much harder to take a hint of scorn from the beloved than a verbal battering from an enemy ... Kay would always be more intelligent, more clever than Gerda was. She had to know, deep inside her, that what she offered was just as important and just as valuable as wit and intelligence. ~ Mercedes Lackey

That Staryk wanted to take her for nothing. He made her give him gold just to live, as if she belonged to him because he was strong enough to kill her. My father was strong enough to kill me but that did not mean I belonged to him. He sold me for six kopeks, for three pigs, for a jug of krupnik. He tried to sell me again and again like I was still his no matter how many times he sold me. And that was how that Staryk thought. He wanted to keep her and make more gold out of her forever, and it did not matter what she wanted, because he was strong. ~ Naomi Novik

His burden didn't feel any lighter. but he felt strong enough to carry it ~ Amish Tripathi

To protect the world as we know it, there were three races of hunters created to police and destroy the Daimons. We are called the Pyramid of Protection. Dark-Hunters pursue those who feed on humans, blood, and souls. Dream-Hunters go after the energy- and dreamsuckers, and Were-Hunters stalk the slayers. (Talon)
I guess what I don't understand is why you don't have one group that does it all. (Amanda)
Because we can't. If one person or group was strong enough to walk all four realms of existence, they would be able to enslave the world. Nothing and no one could stop them. And the gods would be greatly pissed. (Kyrian) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Oxytocin is an amino acid peptide. A hormone. They call it the love chemical. "So?" Kelsey gave him a dead-eyed stare. "So when you're further along in your pregnancy, more oxytocin receptors will be created in your uterine muscles. When the baby's big enough, your oxytocin level will rise, triggering labor, and will help your muscles contract so you can give birth." "Gross," said Cory. "No," Jack said. "Miraculous. Without the oxytocin, your muscles wouldn't be strong enough to push that baby out. But because of that chemical, you are. You'll be superhero strong." He smiled right into Kelsey's eyes. "Then, when you see your baby, that rush of oxytocin will help you bond. That's why they call it the love drug. And if you breast-feed, more oxytocin gets released, strengthening that bond. The maternal instinct is the strongest instinct in the world. Chemistry is definitely part of that. ~ Kristan Higgins

There is no magic on earth strong enough to wipe out the legacies of one's parents. ~ Salman Rushdie

I was completely obsessed with her. Addicted wasn't a strong enough word. She had surpassed my addictive tendencies, and I was full-blown obsessed. ~ Abbi Glines

I guess I always thought," Ivy said softly, "that if I was strong enough, if I was formidable enough, if I was successful enough - I could be enough. For you. I thought that if I became this person who could take on the world, then I could take care of you." She shook her head - at her past self, maybe, or to snap herself out of it. "When I came to Montana that summer, Tess, I thought I was ready. I really did. I was going to give you everything. But Gramps called me out, and he was right, Tessie. I wasn't doing it for you. You were thriving. You were happy. And I . . ." The words got caught in her throat, but she forced them out. "I was your sister. I was never going to be strong enough or successful enough. There was never going to be a right time to tell you. You were happy. And you deserved to be happy. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Happiness can always be found. You just have to be strong enough, fearless enough, to open your eyes and really look. ~ Lindsay Cummings

He is full of desire. Desire and fear. He does not know what he desires, and he does not admit his fear. But he feels both, strong enough to strangle. ~ Katherine Arden

You live, work and lead others in the most exciting time, ever! Are you strong enough? ~ Bill Jensen

We need a stable government, fast!" I kept saying. "Elections are great in principle but this is no time for high ideals."


The president was cool, a lot cooler than me. Maybe it was all that military training…he said to me, "This is the only time for high ideals because those ideals are all that we have. We aren't just fighting for our physical survival, but for the survival of our civilization. We don't have the luxury of old-world pillars. We don't have a common heritage, we don't have a millennia of history. All we have are the dreams and promises that bind us together. All we have…[struggling to remember]…all we have is what we want to be." You see what he was saying. Our country only exists because people believed in it, and if it wasn't strong enough to protect us from this crisis, then what future could it ever hope to have? He knew that America wanted a Caesar, but to be one would mean the end of America. They say great times make great men. I don't buy it. I saw a lot of weakness, a lot of filth. People who should have risen to the challenge and either couldn't or wouldn't. Greed, fear, stupidity, and hate. I saw it before the war, I see it today. My boss was a great man. We were damn lucky to have him. ~ Max Brooks

I'd always felt like it was only weak people who turned to God, but at that moment I realized maybe I was wrong: perhaps it was the other way around. Only those who were strong enough to admit their own, human limitations would know when to seek help and guidance. ~ Brownell Landrum

Arik and Cadie always knew they wouldn't be one of those couples that let problems between them fester. They would immediately address any issues that arose, bring them out into the open, discuss them until they reached a mutually satisfactory conclusion. They felt bad for some of the Founders who they believed had unhappy marriages - couples who were not strong enough to be truthful and open with each other, and even worse, with themselves ~ Christian Cantrell

Then, while the other members of my family were waiting in the living room, my mom pulled me aside at the top of the stairs.

"Before it gets too crazy, I need to tell you something," she said...

"Elizabeth, what this man has done is terrible. There aren't any words that are strong enough to describe how wicked and evil he is! He has taken nine months of your life that you will never get back again. But the best punishment you could ever give him is to be happy. To move forward with your life. To do exactly what you want. Because, yes, this will probably go to trial and some kind of sentencing will be given to him and that wicked woman. But even if that's true, you may never feel like justice has been served or that true restitution has been made.

"But you don't need to worry about that. At the end of the day, God is our ultimate judge. He will make up to you every pain and loss that you have suffered. And if it turns out that these wicked people are not punished here on Earth, it doesn't matter. His punishments are just. You don't ever have to worry. You don't ever have to even think about them again. ...

"You be happy, Elizabeth. Just be happy. If you go and feel sorry for yourself, or if you dwell on what has happened, if you hold on to your pain, that is allowing him to steal more of your life away. So don't you do that! Don't you let him! There is no way he deserves that. Not one more second of your life. You keep every second ~ Elizabeth Smart

...when the Gods finished creating woman, they stood back and looked at what they'd done. They had given her a body strong enough to run a marathon, a mind fast enough to do six things at once, a heart big enough to love even while it was breaking, hands that could paint a masterpiece or feed a family or write a symphony. And they were afraid, because they saw that what they made was stronger than they were. They knew they had to create a secret weapon, one thing they could use to destroy her. So they gave her children. ~ Donna Ball

Look for some peace organization to join. It will look small at first, and pitiful and helpless, but that's how movements start. That's how the movement against the Vietnam War started. It started with handfuls of people who thought they were helpless, thought they were powerless. But remember, this power of the people on top depends on the obedience of the people below. When people stop obeying, they have no power. When workers go on strike, huge corporations lose their power. When consumers boycott, huge business establishments have to give in. When soldiers refuse to fight, as so many soldiers did in Vietnam, so many deserters, so many fraggings, acts of violence by enlisted men against officers in Vietnam, B-52 pilots refusing to fly bombing missions anymore, war can't go on. When enough soldiers refuse, the government has to decide we can't continue. So, yes, people have the power. If they begin to organize, if they protest, if they create a strong enough movement, they can change things. ~ Howard Zinn

We feed the soil with our blood, our endless feuding," he said after a time. "We always have, but that does not mean we always should. I have shown that a tribe can come from the Quirai, the Wolves, the Woyela, the Naimans. We are one people, Arslan. When we are strong enough, I will make them come to me, or I will break them one at a time. I tell you we are one people. We are Mongols, Arslan. We are the silver people and one khan can lead us all."
"You are drunk, or dreaming," Arslan replied, ignoring his son's discomfort. "What makes you think they would ever accept you?"
"I am the land," Temujin replied. "And the land sees no difference in the families of our people. ~ Conn Iggulden

Style" comes on and we all go crazy, screaming in each other's faces and jumping up and down. Peter goes craziest of all. He keeps asking me if I'm having fun. He only asks out loud once, but with his eyes he asks me again and again. They are bright and hopeful, alight with expectation. With my eyes I tell him, Yes yes yes I am having fun.
We're starting to get the hang of slow dancing, too. Maybe we should take a ballroom-dancing class when I get to UVA so we can actually get good at it.
I tell him this, and fondly he says, "You always want to take things to the next level. Next-level chocolate chip cookies."
"I gave up on those."
"Next-level Halloween costumes."
"I like for things to feel special." At this, Peter smiles down at me and I say, "It's just too bad we'll never dance cheek to cheek."
"Maybe we could order you some dancing stilts."
"Oh, you mean high heels?"
He snickers. "I don't think there's such a thing as ten-inch heels."
I ignore him. "And it's too bad your noodle arms aren't strong enough to pick me up."
Peter lets out a roar like an injured lion and swoops me up and swings me around, just like I knew he would. It's a rare thing, to know someone so well, whether they'll pivot left or right. Outside of my family, I think he might be the person I know best of all. ~ Jenny Han

We are surrounded by evil forces in our daily lives. We must be wise enough to recognize them. Strong enough to resist them and resolute enough to destroy them. ~ J.E. Holling

But Don you're still a human being, you still want to live, you crave connection and society, you know intellectually that you're no less worthy of connection and society than anyone else simply because of how you appear, you know that hiding yourself away out of fear of gazes is really giving in to a shame that is not required and that will keep you from the kind of life you deserve as much as the next girl, you know that you can't help how you look but that you are supposed to be able to help how much you care about how you look. You're supposed to be strong enough to exert some control over how much you want to hide, and you're so desperate to feel some kind of control that you settle for the appearance of control."

"Your voice gets different when you talk about this - "

"What you do is you hide your deep need to hide, and you do this out of the need to appear to other people as if you have the strength not to care how you appear to others. You stick your hideous face right in there into the wine-tasting crowd's visual meatgrinder, you smile so wide it hurts and put out your hand and are extra gregarious and outgoing and exert yourself to appear totally unaware of the facial struggles of people who are trying not to wince or stare or give away the fact that they can see that you're hideously, improbably deformed. You feign acceptance of your deformity. You take your desire to hide and conceal it under a mask of acceptance."

"Use less wor ~ David Foster Wallace

He had suddenly the clearest understanding he had ever had of the way his father had gone so wrong. A man's strength was supposed to be against the outside world; to fight it back from himself and from those he took under his protection: his wife, his children, and for a man strong enough, more people still, people like his employees. To turn it inward, against the very people you had been given the strength to protect, because you couldn't deal with the outward fight, was the ultimate weakness. ~ Laura Florand

She needed facts. Facts were bricks. Maybe she could build herself a wall with them, too, one tall and wide and strong enough to keep her alive when he was gone. ~ Vicki Pettersson

Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors. ~ Andrew Boyd

She felt like a god. She dreamed of people who could fight back. Of wills strong enough to resist her. ~ V.E Schwab

The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes with the sword of justice. ~ John Webster

One day on a ranging we brought down a fine big elk. We were skinning it when the smell of blood drew a shadowcat out of its lair. I drove it off, but not before it shredded my cloak to ribbons. Do you see? Here, here, and here?" He chuckled. "It shredded my arm and back as well, and I bled worse than the elk. My brothers feared I might die before they got me back to Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower, so they carried me to a wildling village where we knew an old wisewoman did some healing. She was dead, as it happened, but her daughter saw to me. Cleaned my wounds, sewed me up, and fed me porridge and potions until I was strong enough to ride again. And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." He swept the cloak back over his shoulders. "But at the Shadow Tower, I was given a new wool cloak from stores, black and black, and trimmed with black, to go with my black breeches and black boots, my black doublet and black mail. The new cloak had no frays nor rips nor tears … and most of all, no red. The men of the Night's Watch dressed in black, Ser Denys Mallister reminded me sternly, as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now, he said. "I left the next morning … for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose. ~ George R.R. Martin

When one comes to think of it, there are no such things as divine, immutable, or inalienable rights. Rights are things we get when we are strong enough to make good our claim on them. ~ Helen Keller

Jonathan Drazen," I said, squeezing his hand. "You're a manipulative bastard, a brazen liar, and a sadist. You've brought me to my knees. You've dominated me. You've told me who I am and then challenged me to be it. If you made me strong enough to stand up to the world, let me stand by you. If you completed the woman I am, let me be that woman in your honor. Every part of my body is dedicated to you. Every note I sing. Every breath in my lungs. My pleasure and pain. Take me. Let me serve you. Let me be yours. ~ C.D. Reiss

It astonished me in the early Nineties to suddenly have musicians admit that they had been inspired and influenced by us. That meant a lot at that time. But of course, being human, the ... disrespect isn't even strong enough a word, is it? The opprobrium was painful. Being popular and hated is not satisfying. ~ Neil Peart

Silence was my sister's weapon. When people hurt or angered her, she never got loud like Mom or mean and smart-ass like me. Silence was how she fought back. It wasn't passive, or an act of helplessness: it was a cold cruel withering blade, lasting far longer than my mother's rage or my own antagonism, strong enough to make us practically beg for forgiveness every time.

Except now her weapon had gone haywire, turned on herself, driven her from her home and her support system and into what-knew-what kind of danger. ~ Sam J. Miller

The real question isn't "Why aren't you strong enough?" It's "Why do you keep doubting that you already are? ~ Linda Francis Lee

The good thing is I don't put the ball in my right hand and I'm predominantly left-handed when I'm running the ball. I just have to take care of the football and even if I have two hands that are 100 percent, I still can't turn the ball over. It's just something I have to mentally prepare for, and I think I'm strong enough to do that. ~ Michael Vick

Why would anyone who is deeply satisfied with reality, with real life as it is lived, dedicate himself to something as insubstantial and fanciful as the creation of fictional realities? Naturally, those who rebel against lie as it is, using their ability to invent different lives and different people, may do so for any number of reasons, honorable or dishonorable, generous or selfish, complex or banal. The nature of this basic questioning of reality, which to my mind lies at the heart of every literary calling, doesn't matter at all. What matters is that the rejection be strong enough to fuel the enthusiasm for a task as quixotic as tilting at windmills – the slight-of-hand replacement of the concrete, objective world of life as it is lived with the subtle and ephemeral world of fiction. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa

Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

To the people that have said I'm too small, I'm not fast enough, I don't have what it takes, I'm not strong enough. THANK YOU ~ Muhammad Ali

What was the past to me as soon as I met you? It was a dead thing altogether. I became another woman, filled full of new life from you. How could I be the early one? Why do you not see this? Dear, if you would only be a little more conceited, and believe in yourself so far as to see that you was strong enough to work this change in me, you would perhaps be in a mind to come to me, your poor wife. ~ Thomas Hardy

And you're right, I do love you Eden. I will follow you into eternity, or until after this weekend when we all die gruesome, painful deaths ... But with every breath I have left, I will use it to love you. Because, Eden, I want this ... You; I want you more than life, more than anything. There was a time when I didn't think I was strong enough to face you again, or what is between us. I was too afraid of the heartache, of being shattered again. But now, it doesn't matter, nothing matters except you. I will take an eternity of hardship, of war or fighting my father, or anything, just to hold your love again. You are everything to me, my sun, my moon, the air I breathe. Nothing exists accept you. I love you. ~ Rachel Higginson

My anger was strong enough to lift me to my feet and, one raised foot at a time, push me higher into the storm.
I kept going. The storm was fierce, but so was I. ~ Dan Gemeinhart