Laurence Gonzales Quotations

We're all born with the survival instinct. But I think the true survivors, who get out of really bad situations, are ones who have lived in a certain way that directs them towards survival,

Well, where am I really? I'm 200 feet off the ground in a manmade maze.

They think, 'If something bad happens, it doesn't matter whose fault it is, I'm going to take care of it,'

Success is a dangerous element in any endeavor. Embrace the struggle. Beware the achievement. For it steals your caution even as it leads you down the next unknown pathway.

The word 'experienced' often refers to someone who's gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than you have.

The summit is not the only place on the mountain.

The sun beams are always there. The trick is in seeing them.

The maddening thing for someone with a Western scientific turn of mind is that it’s not what’s in your pack that separates the quick from the dead. It’s not even what’s in your mind. Corny as it sounds, it’s what’s in your heart.

We think we believe what we know, but we only truly believe what we feel.

Count your blessings. Be grateful-- you're alive

To survive you must surrender without giving in, that is to say, fully accept the reality in all its horror and never give up the will to survive. That allows you to quickly adapt to the situation and dedicate yourself to the present moment rather than wallow in denial.

To survive you must find yourself then it won't matter where you are.

We don't understand the power of nature and the world because we don't live with it. Our environment is designed to sustain us. We are the domestic pets of a human zoo called civilization.

As you run out of options and energy you must become resigned to your plight. Like it or not you must make a new mental map of where you are, not where you wish you were. To survive you must find yourself, then it won't matter where you are.

Gravity is on duty all of the time.

Survival is the celebration of choosing life over death. We know we're going to die. We all die. But survival is saying: perhaps not today. In that sense, survivors don't defeat death, they come to terms with it.

But what is the way forward? I know what it isn't. It's not, as we once believed, plenty to eat and a home with all the modern conveniences. It's not a 2,000-mile-long wall to keep Mexicans out or more accurate weapons to kill them. It's not a better low-fat meal or a faster computer speed. It's not a deodorant, a car, a soft drink, a skin cream. The way forward is found on a path through the wilderness of the head and heart---reason and emotion. Thinking, knowing, understanding.

Bureaucracies force us to practice nonsense. And if you rehearse nonsense, you may one day find yourself the victim of it.

To deal with reality you must first recognize it as such.