Struggling With Body Quotes & Sayings

This is the church's job. This is who we are as the body of Christ to reach out to people who are in need, who are struggling, who need to be discipled and to pursue Christ in their life. That's good news and the church should offer it wholeheartedly to anyone. — Alan Chambers

I was always shy. Writing was my only outlet. Because I always hid in a room, I spent a lot of time watching people. When I was a small child I could detect hidden body language in others only I could see. People's emotions rub off on me. When I told this to my therapist she said, "Well, you're an empath." I thought, "No way. Like Star Trek?" And she clarified: because I am so socially uncomfortable, I have compassion for others who I recognize are also struggling. People with anxiety are acutely aware. — Jenny Lawson

Everybody breaks sooner or later, Bob. Anyone can drown. Sometimes you see it. Most often, you
don't because the body protects and the skin hides, so drowning doesn't look like drowning and some
people scar so nicely. Take it from an expert. — Ilsa J. Bick

Essentially, if our secrets are secrets because we are told to be ashamed, then we must share them. There is no shame in being sad or struggling or trying to heal. We are all desperate, depraved and sacred. We are all terrible and brillIant. I can list all the things that can make a girl want to escape her own body (re: patriarchy). But I'd rather list all the things that make me want to stay in my body, and adorn it like a home, rub oils into my skin, tell it how sorry I am for trying to leave, for trying to hurt it into submission — Warsan Shire

They all seemed hungry, happy, and healthy enough in their buzzing - oh the days were hot, and the noise of bees filled the air that was dusty with pollen and sun haze, and there were tiny black flies stuck to one another crowded by the creek and a creek stink rising from the deep pool under the willow tree where a wheat sack of new kittens had been drowned, and their tiny terrible struggling had shot like an electric current through the confusion of muddy water and up the arm of the person who had tied the stone around the mouth of the sack and thrust it into the water; and the culprit had not been able to brush away the current; it penetrated her body and made her heart beat with fear and pity. I was the culprit. — Janet Frame

In terms of homosexuality, not everyone is prepared for a daily struggle against nature. In some ways, people who challenge and subvert their biologically-determined body are struggling against nature. It's a mysterious combination of nature and nurture that determines a person's gender, and for whatever reason some people are driven to challenge their biological "destiny". It's a difficult struggle, and I believe it takes a lot of courage. — Bruce LaBruce

The devil is a woman in a purple dress that's riding up her thighs and revealing smooth flawless skin like maybe she is an angel. A group of men are carrying her, struggling to get her to the top. I have never seen the woman before, or any of the men, but I think she is just so pretty even Sbho doesn't compare. She has long shiny hair that isn't really hers but it still looks good, nice skin, white teeth, and it seems like she eats very well. Her breasts are the only thing that is wrong with her body - nobody needs breasts that are each the size of ugly baby;s head. — NoViolet Bulawayo

Too many of my friends are dead, and others wrecked
By various diseases of the intellect
Or failing body. How am I still upright?
And even I sleep half the day, cough half the night.

How did it come to this? How else but through
The course of years, and what its workings do
To wood, stone, glass and almost all the metals,
Smouldering already in the fresh rose petals.

Our energy deceived us. Blessed with the knack
To get things done, we thought to get it back
Each time we lost it, just by taking breath -
And some of us are racing yet as we face death.

Well, good to see you. Sorry I have to fly.
I'm struggling with a deadline, God knows why,
And ghosts keep interrupting. Think of me
The way I do of you. Quite often. Constantly. — Clive James

But what of Ham? It didn't matter if he told anyone about his drunken father or not, if he chided him or tried to dress him, if he lifted his struggling body back into bed, if he took his hand and told him where to place his feet, none of this changed the fact of what he'd seen. It's possible he opened a door innocently, followed the sound of Noah's voice cursing God and the sky, possible he didn't even look, that he turned away before seeing. And it's likely that Noah hadn't noticed the door opening, couldn't have told you who had come in, which son, wouldn't remember anyway. Apparently it's God's call. Ham saw his father drunken and naked, and for this he was cursed, and all of his offspring, and the races that led from these offspring, accursed forever. — Nick Flynn

When I'm at the greatest odds with my body, it's usually because I feel my body's betraying me, whether that's been in the past, struggling with my weight and feeling that I couldn't eat what I wanted to eat, or that I couldn't get my body to do what I wanted it to do. — Demi Moore

I am a child of the Milky Way. The night is my mother. I am made of the dust of stars. Every atom in my body was forged in a star. When the universe exploded into being, already the bird longed for the wood and the fish for the pool. When the first galaxies fell into luminous clumps, already matter was struggling toward consciousness. The star clouds of Sagittarius are a burning bush. If there is a voice in Sagittarius, I'd be a fool not to listen. If God's voice in the night is a scrawny cry, then I'll prick up my ears. If night's faint lights fail to knock me off my feet, then I'll sit back on a dark hillside and wait and watch. A hint here and a trait there. Listening and watching. Waiting, always waiting, for the tingle in the spine. — Chet Raymo

The wave came again and carried them out onto the sea of pain, where he wondered again why life ever came into the world...The tide that drew them out into the troubled waters once again spent itself, and they floated slowly back, resting for a minute or so, only to be dragged out again. He held her up while she contracted and pushed inside herself, trying to open the petals of her flowering body...He lifted her, trying to free the load she was struggling with, but she was straining against the traces, getting nowhere, her eyes like those of a draft horse...Who would choose this, thought Laski, this work, this woe? Life enslaves us, makes us want children, gives us a thousand illusions about love, and all so that it can go forward. — William Kotzwinkle

Max is an idiot," Ivy said, struggling to her feet and almost toppling over before Jack caught her. "Slow down, Speed Racer," he said. "You need to move slowly until your body adjusts to its new reality." "And what reality is that?" "The one where you're not super human. — Lily Harper Hart

It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it's lonely, because you feel you can't talk about it. You feel it's something between you and the body. You feel it's a battle you will never win ... and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down. Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you. — David Levithan

I darted away from Geir and jmped through the gaping hole in the wall Will's body had made. The settling dust choked me, but I made it through and ran to Will. He was struggling to his feet, leaning heavily on his sword as the point dug into the cold ground. When I reached him, I dropped my swords and wrapped my arms around his chest.
"I've got you," I said, helping him lift his torso the rest of the way up. I heard a sickening snap in his chest as he groaned, and I knew something was broken. He buried his face into my shoulder and growled in pain. — Courtney Allison Moulton

I was thinking, I could turn him into a fly and drop him into a spider's web and watch him tangled and helpless and struggling, shut into the body of a dying buzzing fly; I could wish him dead until he died.I could fasten him to a tree and keep him there until he grew into the trunk and bark grew over his mouth. if he was under the ground I could walk over him stamping my feet. — Shirley Jackson

Both of us were spared, in body at least, by the stone walls of our different imprisonments, and altered in spirit, in ways we're still struggling to understand. — Barbara Kingsolver

Any writer or journalist who wants to retain his integrity finds himself thwarted by the general drift of society rather than by active persecution. The sort of things that are working against him are the concentration of the press in the hands of a few rich men, the grip of monopoly on radio and the films, the unwillingness of the public to spend money on books, making it necessary for nearly every writer to earn part of his living by hackwork ... Everything in our age conspires to turn the writer, and every other kind of artist as well, into a minor official, working on themes handed down from above and never telling what seems to him the whole of the truth. But in struggling against this fate he gets no help from his own side: that is, there is no large body of opinion which will assure him that he's in the right. — George Orwell

Though we can never be fully pure in body, we can be fully pure in heart. Half black, half white, half evil, half good, we are all the same, struggling to find our path in this seemingly never-ending chasm of darkness. And may we one day reach the light we so eagerly seek, knowing that the freedom from darkness may only come when we shine our own light upon others. — E.J. Squires

What's the matter with her? [Jasper] asked Griffin.
Griffin shook his head. 'Nothing. She's just two personas struggling for dominance in one body.'
[Jasper] ... Poor little thing. — Kady Cross

I love the fact that Perrault's princess goes on living and struggling after she finds her prince, and that Perrault doesn't shrink from the weirdness of Sleeping Beauty being over a hundred years old but having the body of a lithe young thing. When the prince wakes her, he considers telling her she's wearing the kind of clothes his grandmother used to wear, but decides it's best not to mention it just yet. — Samantha Ellis

To set the record straight, I'm not upset for me, but for all the girls out there that are struggling with their body image. — Jennifer Love Hewitt

There's still too much energy leftover at this tomb-desk, on Broadway, when I am semi-asleep at night in our bedroom, struggling to get a good night's rest. There's an overflow of loin energy. It spills out from my pores as if I were a cracked drum of reacting chemicals. I need to work to expend this excess energy in words, stories and books ... My mind is a body that's a mind. — Sergio Troncoso

Struggling transforms her captor into a Chinese finger trap. She's suffocating. Sucking in air without relief. Her lungs expand. Contract. Expand. They fill with lies and broken promises. With despair and lost hope. Each inhale is empty. Invisible hands reach into her body and constrict around her windpipe. She watches her friends collapse like supernovae, their cognizance disappearing into a black hole. A black hole she's quickly cascading into. The dark consumes, bleeds into her vision. She blinks. Catches icy blue eyes peeking out from the shadows. — Laura Kreitzer

Some say that to struggle in life is the point of it all. Wisdom says that it is not in the struggling that life's creative process precedes, but in the deep knowing that your victory is already won. — Denis John George

Laura opened her eyes, feeling like a stranger in her own garden. But if she was a stranger here, where was home? And who was she herself now? The real panic was a loss of identity, for she seemed inextricably woven into her body's weakness and discomfort, into her struggling sick lungs. What essence was there to be separated from her hand, her flesh, her bones. Laura lifted her hand, so thin it had become transparent. Is this I? This leaflike thing, falling away, falling away, this universe of molecules disintegrating, this miracle about to be transformed into nothingness. — May Sarton

Insecurity and jealously can be a cause of someone having a critical spirit towards others. Focusing on men and not the Lord can cause one to be critical of every flaw of others. Satan is also the "the accuser of the brethren" (Revelation 12:10) and sadly can work through or use believers to accomplish his work of tearing down. Those who are habitual fault-finders, constant critics of people and situations usually are sick in the body and full of tension and stress. The Scriptural solution to any of us even struggling in this area is clear: "stop passing judgment on one another" and that we can start to love others in the body of Christ, uplifiting them, edifying them and building them up. — Greg Gordon

He felt his arms ache and, looking down, saw that the girl had stopped struggling. There came that point, that sudden, blissful point, when it was useless to go on living, and when the mind and body came to accept that such was the case. That was a beautiful, peaceful moment, the most relaxed moment of one's life. — Ian Rankin

"You still taking him for his house-breaking lesson tonight?"
I flicked an eraser at him. He ducked it and threw me a grin.
While I was getting my Changes under control, we'd decided I should try once a week. While Simon was joking about house-breaking, that's kind of what it was like - take me outside regularly, where I'd attempt to perform a bodily function, and hopefully train my body to do it on a schedule. So far, I felt like a month-old puppy, struggling to control my bladder before it was ready to be controlled. — Kelley Armstrong

When I heard the apartment door open everything felt lethargic, like we were moving underwater, struggling slowly against the weight. The sitting room door opened and Braden walked in, his face so pale and eyes so glazed, that I knew before I even looked at tear-streaked Ellie. I knew what fear felt like when it was pulsing from a person, I knew how grief could thicken the air, how it could slam into your chest and cause pain through your whole body. Your eyes, your head, your arms, your legs, even your gums. — Samantha Young

I'm really not comfortable with you being naked," I said, struggling for a normal tone and failing.
His brow arched. "Why should it unsettle you, pet? After all, you just said I meant nothing to you beyond mere gratitude. And you've seen a man's body before, so don't pull that blushing act with me. What could be bothering you, then? I know what's bothering me." The smoothly bantering tone changed to a low, furious growl. "What's bothering me is that you dare to stand there and tell me what I do and do not feel about last night. That kissing you and holding you meant nothing to me. Then, to top it all off, that you were only reacting to me because you were impaired! That's rich. You know what those drugs did to you in the first dose, before the second one made you comatose? They killed the bug up your arse! — Jeaniene Frost

In the lower-brow selection of tabloids that report on the weight of celebrities, one statement that follows women struggling with their weight around more than any other is "She got her body back." Here you'll find near-constant Britney coverage. But barring any transcendent out-of-body experiences, these women were never separated from their bodies. They've occupied them across various weights. This phrase is not about a woman getting back something she lost as much as it as about our approval that she has returned to something we want her to be. What is meant by this phrase is "We got her body back." We got the body we felt entitled to. — Alana Massey

To study its effect on a living, struggling human body, he meant. To do that, you would need the right combination of hospital facilities, BSL-4 facilities, dedicated and expert professionals, and circumstances. You couldn't do it during the next outbreak at a mission clinic in an African village. You would need to bring Ebola virus into captivity - into a research situation, under highly controlled scrutiny - and not just in the form of frozen samples. You would need to study a raging infection inside somebody's body. That isn't easy to arrange. He added: "We haven't had an Ebola patient yet in the US." But for everything that happens, there is a first time. — David Quammen

The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire. The complexity and fecundity of poetry come from the same struggle. — Adrienne Rich

We're wrong if we think we're the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

After years of struggling with how I looked, I'm pretty comfortable and proud of my body now. — Shiri Appleby

Don't be upset," he whispered.
"I couldn't stop it from happening," she said in a plaintive voice.
"You weren't supposed to," he said tenderly. "I was playing with you. Teasing you."
"But I wanted it to last longer. It's our wedding night, and it's already over." Pausing, Beatrix added glumly, "At least my part of it is."
Christopher averted his face, but she could see that he was struggling to contain a laugh. When he had mastered himself, he looked down at her with a slight smile and smoothed her hair back from her face. "I can make you ready again."
Beatrix was quiet for a moment as she evaluated her spent nerves and limp body. "I don't think so," she said. "I feel like a wrung-out kitchen mop."
"I promise to make you ready again," he said, his voice threaded with amusement.
"It will take a long time," Beatrix said, still frowning.
Gathering her into his arms, Christopher crushed his mouth over hers. "I can only hope so. — Lisa Kleypas

My work is to love my body, all of it. Whole and entire. The whole aging mortal troublesome failing miraculous intricate breathing doomed cancerous warm mortifying unreliable hard-working imperfect beautiful appalling living struggling tender frightened frightening living dying living breathing temporary wondrous mystifying afflicted mortally-ill assemblage of the atoms of the universe that is my self, is me, for this space of time. — Irvin D. Yalom

This is what God taught me through Judas at Jesus' table, eating the broken bread that was His body: We don't get to opt out of living on mission because we might not be appreciated. We're not allowed to neglect the oppressed because we have reservations about their discernment. We cannot deny love because it might be despised or misunderstood. We can't withhold social relief because we're not convinced it will be perfectly managed. We can't project our advantaged perspective onto struggling people and expect results available only to the privileged. Must we be wise? Absolutely. But doing nothing is a blatant sin of omission. — Jen Hatmaker

No, please don't apologize." She smiled, warmth spreading through her breast as she gathered her courage. Maybe this was the time. "I wanted the kiss just as much as you. As a matter of - " "I'm engaged." "What?" Anna recoiled as if he had struck her. "I'm engaged to be married." Edward grimaced as if in self-disgust or possibly pain. She stood frozen, struggling to comprehend the simple words. A numbness seeped throughout her body, driving out the warmth as if it had never been. — Elizabeth Hoyt

I've had a lot of girls reach out to me about struggling with body image. I've only been able to write back to a few of them, but I've been able to write and have correspondence with a few of them and really talk about what I think they should do or if I think they should ask for help. — Troian Bellisario

I have been struggling to find my way back into my body my whole life. — Eve Ensler

The feeling of being trapped, of being helpless against his strength, his lust, and what my body needed was almost overwhelming. My eyes shuttered closed at the effort of not struggling in his harsh grasp. He whispered against my face, and I could not focus enough to see him. "Do you want to ride the storm?" His breath was hot against my skin. His voice promised no gentleness, no compromise. I knew the kind of sex he was offering, and the thought of it tightened things low in my body, drew another small sound from my throat. "Yes," I whispered, "yes." The roll of thunder echoed down the hallway, shuddering between the stone walls. The sound seemed to vibrate out of his body and into mine as if my body were a tuning fork struck against the rim of some great metal cup. His voice growled against my skin, with the taste of thunder in it. "Good," he said and forced me to my knees. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Everything in our age conspires to turn the writer, and every other kind of artist as well, into a minor official, working on themes handed to [him] from above and never telling what seems to him the whole of the truth. But in struggling against this fate he gets no help from his own side: that is, there is no large body of opinion which will assure him that he is in the right. — George Orwell

He was here. Nice to have someone to hold my hand in the end.
"Valkyrie, I need to lift you. This is going to hurt." His arms slid underneath my body.
I screamed. Almost gone. I struggled. Needed to tell him not to worry. It wasn't his fault. Don't bother trying to save me. Hurts too much.
"What is it, Valkyrie? You have to stop struggling." His head hovered above my mouth.
"There's nothing... left to save. — Amanda Carlson

I find it profoundly symbolic that I am appearing before a committee of fifteen men who will report to a legislative body of one hundred men because of a decision handed down by a court comprised of nine men
on an issue that affects millions of women ... I have the feeling that if men could get pregnant, we wouldn't be struggling for this legislation. If men could get pregnant, maternity benefits would be as sacrosanct as the G.I. Bill. — Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Moments later Griffin had Finley in the carriage, and Jasper sat on the seat across from them.
"What's the matter with her?" he asked Griffin.
Griffin shook his head. "Nothing. She's just two personas struggling for dominance in one body."
The cowboy's eyebrows shot up, but his expression was sympathetic. "Poor little thing. — Kady Cross

Riding in the herd, the sound like one constant, endless sigh; some frantic and others calm, some remembering some wrong done to them while others wanted only to sleep, and each struggling with hunger and thirst; some horses pregnant, others desperate to copulate; and all moved forward as one body amid the heat and the dust. — Amanda Coplin

Derek lunged. He hit me in the shoulder and knocked me to the floor, landing on top of me. His body jerked, like he'd been hit with the spell, and I let out a yelp, struggling to get up, but he held me down, whispering "I'm okay, it's okay" until the words penetrated. — Kelley Armstrong

Like many doctors, I was frankly traumatized by some of the experiences I had early on in my career. When you lean over a patient in an emergency room, trying to bring a dead body back to life, you are entirely focused on the job at hand. On the other side of a thin curtain, you can hear that person's husband or wife howling and wailing, knowing that the person they loved and lived with for fifty years is dying, begging the staff to do all they can, phoning their children, struggling to speak through tears to form the words and communicate the horror, telling them to come, quickly. I have memories from cubicles that I will never be able to deal with, and they upset me even now. — Ben Goldacre