Survivor Survivors Quotes & Sayings

I look upon the gift of my life as a wondrous journey. — Maureen Brady

Survivors often develop an exaggerated need for control in their adult relationships. It's the only way they feel safe. They also struggle with commitment - saying yes in a relationship means being trapped in yet another family situation where abuse might take place. So the survivor panics as her relationship gets closer, certain that something terrible is going to happen. She pulls away, rejects, or tests her partner all the time. — Laura Davis

The Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes - Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin. — James Lovelock

Manhattan was a no-man's land, empty, an unofficial demilitarized zone between Partials and the human survivors. No one was supposed to be here, not because it was forbidden but because it was dangerous. If something happened to you out here, either side could get you, and neither side could protect you. — Dan Wells

As the generation of Holocaust survivors and liberators dwindles, the torch of remembrance, of bearing witness, and of education must continue forward. — Dan Gillerman

Be a victor, not a victim. — Joel Osteen

I have the greatest respect for the survivors of the Holocaust. We can't even imagine what these people went through. — Daniel Barenboim

For survivors, the word closure often connotes that the bereaved are underachievers who flunked a grief course. — Earl A Grollman

Consider also the special word they used: survivor. Something new. As long as they didn't have to say human being. It used to be refugee, but by now there was no such creature, no more refugees, only survivors. A name like a number
counted apart from the ordinary swarm. Blue digits on the arm, what difference? They don't call you a woman anyhow. Survivor. Even when your bones get melted into the grains of the earth, still they'll forget human being. Survivor and survivor and survivor; always and always. Who made up these words, parasites on the throat of suffering! — Cynthia Ozick

As we move away from the old role in which we were helplessly entrapped as a victim, we make friends with the people who affirm us. Their enthusiasm about us mirrors the positive experience we are having. — Maureen Brady

Adolescence is a twentieth-century invention most parents approach with dread and look back on with the relief of survivors. — Faye Moskowitz

As part of the healing process, change your perception of yourself from "victim" to that of "advocate" and "survivor. — Don Easton

I can sit in denial of my life because in looking around I see how lucky I am to have survived it. — K. Farrell St. Germain

Incest is almost always a devastating experience for
the victim. — Susan Forward

Naturally the descendants of survivors meet regularly with phenomena in the course of their lives which, for the parents, are in associative connection with the suppressed fearful memories. These phenomena are carriers of grave memories for the survivor parent. The heightened emotional tension, hyperactivity of the parents and grandparents when the child eats or excretes draws the child's attention to the fact that behind these phenomena lies some unknown, painful, shameful secret. — Terez Virag

So many times after a catastrophe like 9/11, Estonia in Sweden, the Holocaust or whatever, we are so fond of lifting up the hero examples, but actually 99 percent of survivors have done something that they feel very guilty about. — Ruben Ostlund

If you ever see a war," she says, not looking up from her clipboard, "you'll learn that war only destroys. No one escapes from a war. No one. Not even the survivors. — Patrick Ness

Gay guys love women who are tough, who are survivors. They always call me a diva. And I am a survivor; I've pulled through everything and I've not become bitter about it. — Samantha Fox

I'm one of the handful of survivors of the guys I came up with. — Richard Masur

Some of the most challenging work a suicide survivor can do is to pray. To pray fully, survivors must bring all of themselves to the prayer: their anger, disappointment, fears, insecurities, and why's. I bring all of me into an encounter with God, aware that nothing in the human experience, or the human response to the ambushes of life, is alien to God. — Harold Ivan Smith

As modern neurobiologists point out, the repetition of the traumatic experience in the flashbacks can be itself re-traumatizing; if not life-threatening, it is at least threatening to the chemical structure of the brain and can ultimately lead to deterioration. And this would also seem to explain the high suicide rate of survivor, for example, survivors of Vietnam. — Cathy Caruth

After eighty, there are no enemies, only survivors. — David Ben-Gurion

The survivors (of a nuclear war) would envy the dead. — Nikita Khrushchev

Heaven is freakin' not ready for me! - seven-time cancer survivor Dionne Warner in Never Leave Your Wingman — Deana J. Driver

Survivors are damaged to different degrees by their experiences. This does not depend on what happened physically. A Survivor who has been raped will not necessarily be more damaged than a Survivor who has been touched. The degree of damage depend on the degree of traumatic sexualization, stigmatization, betrayal and powerlessness, the child has experienced. This in turn depends on a number of factors such as:
* who the abuser was;
* how many abusers were involved;
* if the abuser was same-sex or opposite sex;
* what took place;
* what was said;
* how long the abuse went on for;
* How the child felt and how she interpreted what was happening;
* if the child was otherwise happy and supported;
* how other people reacted to the disclosure or discovery of the abuse;
* how old the child was — Carolyn Ainscough

Survivors are so often re-victimized by a system that demands they prove their purity and innocence. — Lena Dunham

If you're passionate, be passionate enough to fail. Fail small, accept responsibility, repeat. The people who make change are the survivors of serial failure. — Seth Godin

Of all the subjects I have photographed, the most controversial and the one that has moved me the most has to be the prostitutes who are getting on in years. They are true survivors. — Maya Goded

Being a survivor doesn't mean being strong - it's telling people when you need a meal or a ride, company, whatever. It's paying attention to heart wisdom, feelings, not living a role, but having a unique, authentic life, having something to contribute, finding time to love and laugh. All these things are qualities of survivors. — Bernie Siegel

I've been talking to people, and I've gone to hospitals, talked to survivors, to doctors, to caregivers. I just learned that there's really no one way for somebody to experience dealing with cancer. — Italia Ricci

To heal from child sexual abuse you must believe that you were a victim, that the abuse really did take place. This is often difficult for survivors. When you've spent your life denying the reality of your abuse, when you don't want it to be true, or when your family repeatedly calls you crazy or a liar, it can be hard to remain firm in the knowledge that you were abused. — Ellen Bass

I guess I'm a survivor. There are many of us survivors and any successful woman of my age has somewhat of that in her. — Helen Gurley Brown

I'm not... I'm not without a heart,' he heard Sophia say, her chin raised, eyes straight ahead. 'I'm not. I just don't have the luxury of being soft. I am trying to survive. — Alexandra Bracken

Many stroke survivors look back on their attack as a stroke of luck. Of course, by luck they mean horrible paralysis. — Dana Gould

I'm a survivor. And I say this with so much pride I could burst into a million tiny pieces at your feet. — Trish Kaye Lleone

One of many problems with survey research in general is that you can only survey the survivors. In other words, if you were to do a survey of people who were known to have played Russian Roulette and you sent out the questions before the time they were going to play and then you come back six months after they played Russian Roulette, you would probably discover that among the people who did come back there was no harm done. — Thomas Sowell

Everybody who is alive is a survivor, and everybody who is dead isn't," I said."So everybody alive must have the Survivor's Syndrome. It's that or death. I am so damn sick of people telling me proudly that they are survivors! — Kurt Vonnegut

War is most unkind to the memories of survivors — Thabo Katlholo

I thought when the abuse stopped I could move on with my life. Instead I am still running from Brian. The only difference is now I am running from him in my dreams. — Erin Merryn

All of us are survivors, but how many of us transcend survival? — Joan Baez

Something deep inside of me speaks with the voice of the psycho: For who could ever love a beast? — Zoe Cruz

We are survivors from the moment of diagnosis. — Peter Jennings

It's all a matter of perspective. Here's mine: I've been called a lot of things, but what I really am is a survivor - and while there are more than a few stupid Sirens, there are zero stupid survivors. — Kami Garcia

When we first begin to take power more directly, after long having kept our relationship to it underground...it is natural that we experience anxiety, even guilt, at putting ourselves first. These feeling let us know we are taking action; they do not need to stop us. — Maureen Brady

Dr. Ransome marked the exercises in the algebra textbook and gave him two strips of rice-paper bandage on which to solve the simultaneous equations. As he stood up, Dr. Ransome removed the three tomatoes from Jim's pocket. He laid them on the table by the wax tray.
'Did they come from the hospital garden?'
'Yes.' Jim gazed back frankly at Dr. Ransome. Recently he had begun to see him with a more adult eye. The long years of imprisonment, the constant disputes with the Japanese had made this young physician seem middle-aged. Dr. Ransome was often unsure of himself, as he was of Jim's theft.
'I have to give Basie something whenever I see him.'
'I know. It's a good thing that you're friends with Basie. He's a survivor, though survivors can be dangerous. Wars exist for people like Basie.' Dr. Ransome placed the tomatoes in Jim's hand. 'I want you to eat them, Jim. I'll get you something for Basie. — J.G. Ballard

Before an attack, the platoon pools all its available cash and the survivors divide it up afterwards. Those who are killed can't complain, the wounded would have given far more than that to escape as they have, and the unwounded regard the money as a consolation prize for still being here. — Robert Graves

As survivors, we've been conditioned to be victims sexually. Many of us have never learned to say no or to set limits on our sexual activities ... To heal, it's important that we take control, that we make active choices concerning if, when, and how we want to explore sexuality. Especially in the beginning, you need to put your own needs about sex ahead of anyone else's. — Ellen Bass

Like Jocelyn, Survivors often think: * That's just the way I am
* I'm not lovable, that's why I keep having disastrous relationships
* I'm not very clever, that's why I didn't do well at school
* I'm a loner
* I'm a weak person
* I'm not very nice
* I was a difficult child
Many survivors find it difficult to accept that being sexually abused as a child can continue to affect them many years later. It may seem too fantastic, or too frightening an idea to believe.
David Finkelhor, an American researcher, has tried to explain how sexual abuse affects a child and leads to long-term problems. He suggests four ways in which childhood sexual abuse causes problems:
1 Traumatic Sexualization
2 Stigmatization
3 Betrayal
4 Powerlessness — Carolyn Ainscough

Death fixes forever the relation existing between the departed spirit and the survivors upon earth. — John Quincy Adams

My novella, 'The Lucky One,' is inspired in part by my dad and also by a Holocaust survivor I interviewed for the Steven Spielberg Survivors of the Shoah Foundation. — Jenna Blum

Suicide is a whispered word, inappropriate for polite company. Family and friends often pretend they do not hear the word's dread sound even when it is uttered. For suicide is a taboo subject that stigmatizes not only the victim but the survivors as well. — Earl A Grollman

They feel guilty for having survived so they pretend the bad things never happened
Exodus (1960) screenplay — Dalton Trumbo

When a honeybee dies it releases a death pheromone, a characteristic odour that signals the survivors to remove it from the hive. The corpse is promptly pushed and tugged out of the hive. The death pheromone is oleic acid. What happens if a live bee is dabbed with a drop of oleic acid? Then no matter how strapping and vigourous it might be, it is carried kicking and screaming out of the hive. — Carl Sagan

So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen to me. It was that bad. It was the fault & responsibility of the adult. I was - and am - innocent. The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis — Ellen Bass

The present treatments for brain cancer are not curative. We need new and better treatments. More funding for research. Legislation to improve the research system and to provide better access to care, treatment, and rehabilitation services for all brain tumor survivors. — Shannon O'Brien

I would never call myself a cancer survivor because I think it devalues those who do not survive. There's this whole mythology that people bravely battle their cancer and then they become survivors. Well, the ones who don't survive may be just as brave, you know, just as courageous, wonderful people. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Survivors are cooperators. In order to survive in anything we need others to cooperate with or partner with. — Mike Vance

I don't think there was any overall Reich policy to kill the Jews. If there was, they would have been killed and there would not be now so many millions of survivors. And believe me, I am glad for every survivor that there was. — David Irving

To any survivor who may be doubting whether what they've experienced is truly abuse, remember that emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse will never be, and should never be, considered part of the messy equation of a normal relationship. As both metal health professionals and survivors can attest to, the traumatic highs and lows of being with a narcissist, a sociopath, or a psychopath are not the natural highs and lows of regular relationships. That suggestion is quite damaging to society and to survivors all around the world. — Shahida Arabi

I'm never going to give in. I'm never going to give up, and I will fight back with every breath I have.
- Dionne Warner, seven-time cancer survivor and subject of Never Leave Your Wingman — Deana J. Driver

Why would you do that for me?" Leesha asked.
Rojer smiled, taking her hand in his crippled one. "We're survivors, aren't we?" he asked. "Someone once told me that survivors have to look out for one another. — Peter V. Brett

Most of our informants [incest survivors] remembered their mothers as weak and powerless, finding their only dignity in martyrdom. — Judith Lewis Herman

People may not realize the damage that they are doing by placing the blame on the victim ~ but that doesn't lessen the damage that they cause by doing it. — Darlene Ouimet

One of the top challenges is the fact that you are dealing with survivors. Every time you deal with a documentary film subject it is fraught with obvious minefields but when you are dealing with a population that is severely traumatized and trying to recover from that trauma there is an extra level of vigilance and care and attention that has to be implemented all the time at every level. — Amy Ziering

You have to appreciate life before you want to preserve it," she said.
"And it's the survivors who maintain the most light and poignant hold upon the beauties of living. Women know this more often than men because birth is the reflection of death. — Frank Herbert

I sometimes continue to see myself in split ways; it causes me trouble and contributes to a lack of satisfaction with myself. — Maureen Brady

[T]he commitment of time, money and man power necessary for a capital case is enormous and it takes from other cases. But I think what bothers me most is that it offers to the families of the victims and the survivors a false sense of closure. — Richard Brown

This is a day on which we pay our respects to those who have endured the unimaginable. This is an occasion for the world to speak up against the unspeakable. It is long overdue that a day be dedicated to remembering and supporting the many victims and survivors of torture around the world. — Kofi Annan

[Working with survivors] it's just a whole different level of concern and that is something that was categorically different working on this film than any other project we had done. — Amy Ziering

Sometimes buried memories of abuse emerge spontaneously. A triggering event or catalyst starts the memories flowing. The survivor then experiences the memories as a barrage of images about the abuse and related details. Memories that are retrieved in this manner are relatively easy to understand and believe because the person remembering is so flooded with coherent, consistent information. — Renee Fredrickson

Living things have been doing just that for a long, long time. Through every kind of disaster and setback and catastrophe. We are survivors. — Robert Fulghum

...there is a particular focus of the problem faced only by men. It arises from our culture providing no room for a man as victim. — Mike Lew

Whenever I talk to survivors [of a domestic abuse relationship] who have lived through that and are on the other side and their whole perspective on life is a complete 180, I'm just so inspired. — Kerry Washington

While a psychiatric diagnosis can serve a purpose in treatment plans, it should not become a tool to discredit a person's disclosure of abuse. — Lee Ann Hoff

There are always survivors at a massacre. Among the victors, if nowhere else. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Always trust in proven survivors. — Peter F. Hamilton

Coming to terms with incest is not easy. Learning to be a survivor, not a victim, gives new meaning to life — Lynette Gould

Another question I am frequently asked is, "What do you mean by recovery?" It has taken me a while to answer that one. I had been depending on other people's definitions of recovery until I developed one that worked for me (just as you must come to one that makes sense for you.) Mine is simple. For me, it is about freedom.
Recovery is the freedom to make choices in your life that aren't determined by the abuse.
The specific choices will be different for each of you; the freedom to choose is your birthright. — Mike Lew

I don't always burn my bridges, but when I do, I like there to be no survivors. — Ursula Vernon

This is Luke's favorite thing to say about me, to remind me. I'm a survivor. It's the finality of the word that bothers me, its assuming implication. Survivors should move on. Should wear white wedding dresses and carry peonies down the aisle and overcome, rather than dwell in a past that can't be altered. The word dismisses something I cannot, will not, dismiss. — Jessica Knoll

You're actually each other's wingman. You never leave your partner vulnerable. - Graham Warner, husband of fun-loving seven-time cancer survivor Dionne Warner — Deana J. Driver

What most people call spontaneous recall usually involves memories that have been denied, not repressed. The survivor has always been aware that the sexual abuse happened, but he or she has studiously avoided thinking about it. A catalyst sets the memory process in motion, but the essential factor in the memory surfacing is the readiness of the survivor to deal with the reality of abuse. — Renee Fredrickson

And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship
even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

When I first started to remember specific memories of abuse, I felt like I had a storm cloud over me for about two or three days beforehand. When the memory finally surfaced, I felt like I was alone in a dark cave. I stayed in bed just thinking and crying and eating chocolate. I wrote in my healing journal and talked it out with a friend. I examined what I thought and how I felt and cried some more. It was agonizing. The more issues I faced, the stronger I got. It wasn't a pleasant process, but I knew it would be over in a few days and I would feel alive again. With each memory, I recovered faster and I had longer and longer breaks in between them. Facing them made me stronger. I was able to see more and more of the truth without it overwhelming me. Even though the memories increased in intensity, it was easier to deal with them. — Christina Enevoldsen

It was early in my career, and I had been seeing Mary, a shy, lonely, and physically collapsed young woman, for about three months in weekly psychotherapy, dealing with the ravages of her terrible history of early abuse. One day I opened the door to my waiting room and saw her standing there provocatively, dressed in a miniskirt, her hair dyed flaming red, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a snarl on her face. "You must be Dr. van der Kolk," she said. "My name is Jane, and I came to warn you not to believe any the lies that Mary has been telling you. Can I come in and tell you about her?" I was stunned but fortunately kept myself from confronting "Jane" and instead heard her out. Over the course of our session I met not only Jane but also a hurt little girl and an angry male adolescent. That was the beginning of a long and productive treatment. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

By opening the door to my life, it is my hope and mission to shed light on the hidden wounds of abuse, to end the stigma and shame associated with abuse, and to show survivors true courage, strength, inspiration, and determination. — Erin Merryn

The survivor movements were also challenging the notion of a dysfunctional family as the cause and culture of abuse, rather than being one of the many places where abuse nested. This notion, which in the 1990s and early 1980s was the dominant understanding of professionals characterised the sex abuser as a pathetic person who had been denied sex and warmth by his wife, who in turn denied warmth to her daughters. Out of this dysfunctional triad grew the far-too-cosy incest dyad. Simply diagnosed, relying on the signs: alcoholic father, cold distant mother, provocative daughter. Simply resolved, because everyone would want to stop, to return to the functioning family where mum and dad had sex and daughter concentrated on her exams. Professionals really believed for a while that sex offenders would want to stop what they were doing. They thought if abuse were decriminalised, abusers would seek help. The survivors knew different. P5 — Beatrix Campbell

A major problem for survivors is that their sense of self is too restricted and rigid within dissociative parts, because it has been derived from a range of experiences and action systems that is too limited, and excludes too much of the survivor's history. When survivors are unable to bind actions adequately with a sense of self in the moment, they experience symptoms of depersonalization. — Onno Van Der Hart

Bound by Blood, Marked by the Dragonfly. — Lisa Akers

There's an innocence to her still that amazes me. Sometimes I forget she's older than me. Then, I remember that she hasn't gone through what I've gone through. — Zoe Cruz

Maybe that is the greatest of wonders: that we can be shaped so much by those we've known closely, and equally by those we've never known at all - and that we too can change the world long after we've left it. — Jacob M. Appel

Healing isn't just about pain. It's about learning to love yourself. As you move from feeling like a victim to being a proud survivor, you will have glimmers of hope, pride and satisfaction. Those are natural by-products of healing. — Ellen Bass

Rather than deal with problems in relationships, I've always moved on. That's why I'm one of the very few survivors as a woman, you know. — Yoko Ono

The human spirit can be indomitable and it is this rare quality that is not at all to be expected that makes survivors of us all, the human race in the grand scheme of things. — Martha Gellhorn

It's the responsibility of the survivor to tell the story. — Tom Spanbauer

I'll never be considered one of the all-time greats; maybe not even one of the all-time goods. But I'm one of the all-time survivors. — Jim Kaat

In modern warfare there are no victors; there are only survivors. — Lyndon B. Johnson

My mom called Grandma today and told her we would no longer be attending family parties. My mom told her we have had enough of being blamed for something Brian did and everyone brushing it off like it was no big deal. — Erin Merryn

Even in times of trauma, we try to maintain a sense of normality until we no longer can. That, my friends, is called surviving. Not healing. We never become whole again ... we are survivors. If you are here today ... you are a survivor. But those of us who have made it thru hell and are still standing? We bare a different name: warriors. — Lori Goodwin

In brief, we who write are all in the same boat, as if we are survivors of torpedoes, and we hope to reach the shores of thought with strength for more activity. — Mary Ritter Beard