Quotes & Sayings About Survival In Night

With the money my mother earned from selling cakes, my father cut a deal with Mangochi and bought one pail of maize. My mother took it to the mill, saved half the flour for us, and used the rest for more cakes. We did this every day, taking enough to eat and selling the rest. It was enough to provide our one blob of nsima each night, along with some pumpkin leaves. It was practically nothing, yet knowing it would be there somehow made the hunger less painful.
"As long as we can stay in business," my father said, "we'll make it through. Our profit is that we live. — William Kamkwamba

Certain kinds of people, and a fortiori certain kinds of writers, have always experienced the world around them in the Gothic manner, I'm almost positive. Perhaps there was even some little stump of an apeman who witnessed prehistoric lightning as it parried with prehistoric blackness in a night without rain, and felt his soul rise and fall at the same time to behold this sublime and terrifying conflict. Perhaps such displays provided inspiration for those very first imaginings that were not born of our daily life of crude survival, who knows? Could this be why all our primal mythologies are Gothic - that is, fearsome, fantastical, and inhuman? — Thomas Ligotti

I understand that in some families both parents have to work, so the kids are home alone eating more processed foods. But if the kids know how to make oatmeal or eggs in the morning or pasta or a lentil soup at night - we're giving them real survival tools. — Tamra Davis

This is what I say to the young Jewish boy wondering what I have done with his years. It is in his name that I speak to you and that I express to you my deepest gratitude as one who has emerged from the Kingdom of Night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them. Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately. Thank you, Chairman Aarvik. Thank you, members of the Nobel Committee. Thank you, people of Norway, for declaring on this singular occasion that our survival has meaning for mankind. — Elie Wiesel

But don't forget who you really are. And I'm not talking about your so-called real name. All names are made up by someone else, even the one your parents gave you. You know who you really are. When you're alone at night, looking up at the stars, or maybe lying in your bed in total darkness, you know that nameless person inside you ... Your muscles will toughen. So will your heart and soul. That's necessary for survival. But don't lose touch with that person deep inside you, or else you won't really have survived at all. — Louis Sachar

Seeking survival, hostile, hidden from sight,
Deliciously flavoured - juicy, sweet bite,
Exploding senses preparing to ignite,
Inspiring to escape from the suffocating night. — Claudia Bakker

, And you, ye stars,
Who slowly begin to marshal,
As of old, the fields of heaven,
Your distant, melancholy lines!
Have you, too, survived yourselves?
Are you, too, what I fear to become?
You, too, once lived;
You, too, moved joyfully
Among august companions,
In an older world, peopled by Gods,
In a mightier order,
The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven.
But now, ye kindle
Your lonely, cold-shining lights,
Unwilling lingerers
In the heavenly wilderness,
For a younger, ignoble world;
And renew, by necessity,
Night after night your courses,
In echoing, unneared silence,
Above a race you know not -
Uncaring and undelighted,
Without friend and without home;
Weary like us, though not
Weary with our weariness. — Matthew Arnold

Wave after wave has brought to our shores beautiful and mysterious treasures from unknown worlds: figurines, animals, fetishes, masks, ceremonial or useful objects. They are called Primitive for want of a better name ... What could never have been written is there, all the dreams and anguishes of man. The hunger for food and sex and security, the terrors of night and death, the thirst for life and the hope for survival. — Dominique De Menil

The quality of a survival kit is determined how much it can help you when you need to sleep. If you can sleep well at night, you have it made. It should also assist you in meeting your water needs. — Mors Kochanski

Survival might be insufficient, she'd told Dieter in late-night arguments, but on the other hand, so was Shakespeare. — Emily St. John Mandel

Cultures of honor tend to take root in highlands and other marginally fertile areas, such as Sicily or the mountainous Basque regions of Spain. If you live on some rocky mountainside, the explanation goes, you can't farm. You probably raise goats or sheep, and the kind of culture that grows up around being a herdsman is very different from the culture that grows up around growing crops. The survival of a farmer depends on the cooperation of others in the community. But a herdsman is off by himself. Farmers also don't have to worry that their livelihood will be stolen in the night, because crops can't easily be stolen unless, of course, a thief wants to go to the trouble of harvesting an entire field on his own. But a herdsman does have to worry. He's under constant threat of ruin through the loss of his animals. So he has to be aggressive: he has to make it clear, through his words and deeds, that he is not weak. — Malcolm Gladwell

I always say artists must broaden their research. I go to casinos, fly fishing, to show apartments in new residential buildings, watch fairs, the football, ikebana courses, survival expeditions, Dungeons & Dragons nights, and it doesn't matter which of these I personally want to do - that is my job. That's true research; otherwise, it would be a bit like masturbating. — Ryan Gander

She reaches into the unknown and claims his hand, clasping it as if he might evaporate into the night. She's petrified. Not of the monstrosities prowling the island, but of the demon inside herself. The one about to rip apart her heart and mind to attain a selfish freedom. And it might all be a lie, placed there by the Society. — Laura Kreitzer

A people, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul. — Victor Hugo

When I felt ill and was on the way to becoming a burden to the other men, I noticed a growing chill in their attitude toward me. For people like us, living day and night on the brink of danger, the normal instinct of survival seems to strike inward, like a disease, distorting the personality and removing all motives other than those of sheer self-interest. That is why this afternoon I did not wait to go and tell my former comrades-in-arms what had happened to me. For one thing, they probably already knew; besides, it seemed unfair to risk awakening their dormant sense of humanity. — Shohei Ooka

She asked me what was wrong, and I told her I had to end it. She was surprised, and asked my why I thought so. I told her it wasn't a thought, more a feeling, like I couldn't breathe and knew I had to get some air. It was a survival instinct, I told her.
She said it was time for dinner. Then she sat me down and told me not to worry. She said moments like this were like waking up in the middle of the night: You're scared, your'e disoriented, and you're completely convinced you're right. But then you stay awake a little longer and you realize things aren't as fearful as they seem. — David Levithan

We can deeply love our poison. We can love the taste of it, the scent of it, the comforting weight of it in our belly and find ourselves woken in the night with stabbing cramps, arms around porcelain toilet bowls, hurling every last bit until collapsing on bathroom tile, limp from dehydration. Sometimes parting with love is essential for survival. I've found the most tragic aspect of losing loved ones wasn't the big boom of the fallout, but realizing later how much healthier I was without them. — Maggie Young

So now you know that, as dark as the depths of the sea may be, as dark as the night gets without a moon, it is not really true darkness. It's just waiting for light to return. There are places that are truly dark in this world, Ven, but this place here, this open stretch of sea where you are floating, is not one of them. It's not really dark here - it's just night. If you hang on and stay awake, in a short while the edges of the sky will start to turn gray, then pink, and the sun will rise, and there will be blue above and all around you again. — Elizabeth Haydon

I have been vehemently accused by people who didn't understand me of not believing in anything. I don't believe in anything. This is not a statement of existential hopelessness for which you should light a candle for me at night. It's a strategy for not getting bogged down in some weird trip. After all, what is the basis for believing anything? I mean, you have to understand: You're a monkey. In some kind of a biological situation where everything has been evolved to serve the economy of survival - this is not a philosophy course. So belief is a curious reaction to the present at hand. It isn't to be believed, it's to be dealt with - experienced and modeled. — Terence McKenna

We didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down. — Rosa Parks

Once you're a mom, all of your personal desires come secondary as the survival of the child becomes your life's priority, which leads you to worry each day and every night the little one turn out right. — Kimberly Guilfoyle

When you're the sane brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your hands
the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper
if you've promised your dying mother
then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the indifference of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin
the guy who beat the biochemical rap. — Wally Lamb

Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night. — Dorothy Parker

A full night's sleep without money worries was a luxury. They were afraid to answer the door to strangers as they often could not pay the rent and had no TV license. They lived in fear of been brought to court for bad debts. They became master liars and a sarcastic tongue and cheeky nature were vital survival skills people learned in Wasteside. They pretended to officials at front doors they were child minders and they refused to accept or sign anything official or registered in case it was a summons — Annette J. Dunlea

She looked at me with gentle indignation. She was what we have after sixty million years of the Cenozoic. There were a lot of random starts and dead ends. Those big plated pea-brain lizards didn't make it. Sharks, scorpions and cockroaches, as living fossils, are lasting pretty well. Savagery, venom and guile are good survival quotients. This forked female mammal didn't seem to have enough tools. One night in the swamps would kill her. Yet behind all that fragility was a marvelous toughness. A Junior Allen was less evolved. He was a skull-cracker, two steps away from the cave. They were at the two ends of our bell curve, with all the rest of us lumped in the middle. If the trend is still supposed to be up, she was of the kind we should breed, accepting sensitivity as a strength rather than a weakness. But there is too much Junior Allen seed around. — John D. MacDonald

What was it with women and pushing men's buttons?
I get that a woman wants to look attractive. News flash: you already do. We see it. But apparently to women, owning their own beauty isn't enough. They arm all the weapons in their arsenal to gain the attention of every Y chromosome within a ten-mile radius. Why do they go to all the trouble? Validation.
Meanwhile, biology dictates survival of the fittest; battles ensue, wars are fought, and somewhere amid all the carnage, a victor emerges to claim his female. All because said female just wanted to go out and feel pretty that night. — Kat Bastion

From the night into his high-walled room there came, persistently, that evanescent and dissolving sound - something the city was tossing up and calling back again, like a child playing with a ball. In Harlem, the Bronx, Gramercy Park, and along the water-fronts, in little parlors or on pebble-strewn, moon-flooded roofs, a thousand lovers were making this sound, crying little fragments of it into the air. All the city was playing with this sound out there in the blue summer dark, throwing it up and calling it back, promising that, in a little while, life would be beautiful as a story, promising happiness - and by that promise giving it. It gave love hope in its own survival. It could do no more. — F Scott Fitzgerald

While complying can be an effective strategy
for physical survival, it's a lousy one for personal fulfillment. Living a satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those in
control. Yet in our offices and our classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get you
through the day, but only the latter will get you through the night. — Daniel H. Pink

Paint ghosts over everything, the sadness of everything. We made ourselves cold. We made ourselves snow. We smuggled ourselves into ourselves. Haunted by each other's knowledge. To hide somewhere is not surrender, it is trickery. All day the snow falls down, all night the snow. I try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story. We left footprints in the slush of ourselves, getting out of there. — Richard Siken

How should a Jew feel? There we went through the seven gates of hell for matzos. Here I stand in matzos over my head. So how should a Jew feel? You are an angel of God, and the Rebbe, he should live and be well, the Rebbe made miracles and wonders for me. At night, I tell myself it is a dream and I am afraid to wake up. If it is a dream, better I should not wake up, better I should die in my sleep. — Chaim Potok

Why do old houses creak so much?" he asked idly, playing with her braid and drawing the silky end across her cheek.
"When all the warmth fades at night, it makes the old boards contract and slip against each other."
"A bloody massive house, it is. And you were left to your own devices in this place for too long. I didn't understand before, how alone you were."
"I had the twins for company. I watched over them."
"But there was no one to watch over you."
A sense of uneasiness came over her, as it always did whenever she reflected on her childhood. It had seemed as if her very survival had depended on never complaining or drawing attention to herself. "Oh I- I didn't need that."
"All little girls need to feel safe and wanted. — Lisa Kleypas

With our collective shock, what we saw seemed to be frozen into a state of suspended animation. Indelibly etched into our memories in terror, forever! My life was in slow motion, it was as if I was no longer in my body and this was a rather bad dream! It is almost impossible to describe with words what I saw, but I will try. This very experience is the one that has continued to shake me awake during the dense night of my lifetime. — Alfred Nestor

I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long. — Joseph Heller

So - our readiness to meet and defeat this kind of possible attack is forced upon us, both as a potent preventive of actual war and to insure survival in event of attack. This alertness to danger has to be translated into specific policies and activities in the several parts of the world where our rights - our way of life - can be seriously damaged. Work of this kind occupies my days and nights. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Children, Landon said, are good at getting lost, because "the key in survival is knowing you're lost": they don't stray far, they curl up in some sheltered place at night, they know they need help. — Rebecca Solnit

Sometimes you got to lie on the outside to keep your voice loud on the inside. We don't owe the master the truth. He owes us. Nothing comes from the master. He is the thief in the night. He steals it all. And every time we have to say 'yes sir' and 'no sir,' he steals some more. But we can survive it, if we stay loud in here," she said, throwing a fist hard against her breast. — Jonathan Odell

Louie was furious at the sharks. He had thought that they had an understanding:The men would stay out of the sharks' turf - the water - and the sharks would stay off of theirs - the raft. That the sharks had taken shots at him when he had gone overboard, and when the raft had been mostly submerged after the strafing, had seemed fair enough. But their attempt to poach men from their reinflated raft struck Louie as dirty pool. He stewed all night, scowled hatefully at the sharks all day, and eventually made a decision. if the sharks were going to try to eat him, he was going to try to eat them. — Laura Hillenbrand