Elizabeth Smart > Quotes

“Music is the unspoken language that can convey feelings more accurately than talking ever could.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“Later, there were times when I was angry with myself for succumbing to that fear. But those with shattered souls find it very difficult to speak.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“I also believe in faith. Faith in a loving and kind heavenly Father who will always care about me. Faith that my worth will never be diminished. Faith that God knows how I feel and that I can depend on him to help me through it all. I believe that God not only suffered for me, but that He will make everything up to me in His own time and His own way. That gives me the peace I need to feel like justice will win out in the end”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“When faced with pain and evil, we have to make a choice.
We can choose to be taken by the evil.
Or we can try to embrace the good.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“Life is a journey for us all. We all face trials. We all have ups and downs. All of us are human. But we are also the masters of our fate. We are the ones who decide how we are going to react to life.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“As of this writing, I am twenty-five years old. I have been alive for 307 months. Nine of those months were pretty terrible. But 298 of those months have been very good. I have been happy. I have been very blessed. Who knows how many more months I have to live? But even if I died tomorrow, nine out of 307 seems like pretty good odds.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“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 for yourself. You keep them and be happy. God will take care of the rest.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“Knowing it can always get worse, I try to be grateful for whatever good I have.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“But the human spirit is resilient. God made us so. He gave us the ability to forgive. To leave our past behind. To look forward instead of back.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“Yes, I have lived through many miracles. I had experienced tender mercies that literally kept me alive. I had been carried by the love of others, and in many ways I had been blessed.”
― Elizabeth Smart with Chris Stewart

“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 that he deserves that. Not one more second of your life. You keep every second for yourself. You keep them and be happy. God will take care of the rest.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“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 for yourself. You keep them and be happy. God will take care of the rest.”

It's been ten years since my mother said those words.

The years have proved she was right.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“I have learned an important lesson. Yes, God can make some good come from evil. But even He, in all His majesty, won’t make the evil go away. Men are free. He won’t control them. There is wickedness in this world.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“When we are faced with a challenge, it is very easy to be mad or upset. But when we have passed our great test, we are then given opportunities to reach out to other people. We are able to effect change in a way that otherwise we would not be able to.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“I am alive, but I’m not living, I remember thinking as I walked. I am the living dead. I am nothing but a shell.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“Ultimately, to get better, I simply made a choice.”
― Elizabeth Smart with Chris Stewart, My Story

“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...
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 that he deserves that. Not one more second of your life. You keep every second for yourself. You keep them and be happy...”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“...your attitude is not your mood.”
― Elizabeth Smart, Where There's Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up

“I don’t know what the definition of despair is, but if it is feeling as if your life is over, as there’s no point to continue because no matter what happens, you will never be accepted or happy again, then despair is what I felt.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“He begins by repeating a wise saying that’s been attributed in various forms to everyone from Confucius to Oprah: Forgiveness is giving up hope of a better past.”
― Elizabeth Smart, Where There's Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up

“two types of survivors: the ones who did not die, and the ones who live. There will be those who will always remember and be the victim, and ones who just won’t. You have to go on, you have to learn, and you have to heal. Resentment and holding on to the past is so toxic.”
― Elizabeth Smart, Where There's Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up

“I didn’t have the cable around my ankle, and I was grateful for that, but that wasn’t enough to make me happy. I was still welded to Mitchell. I was anything but free. His words were stronger to me than any chains or cable ever could be.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“Find a miracle, hold onto it, and keep going.”
― Elizabeth Smart

“Our bodies are to be celebrated, despite our individual limitations.”
― Elizabeth Smart, Where There's Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up

“thought. He didn’t get Olivia! He’s been captured. He’s is prison right now.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“Each one of us strives to find peace and happiness in this life, and we hope for a better future in the next. For me, my faith and my religion provide me with that peace and happiness. Its not always easy, and I have been asked how I would feel if I found out it wasn’t true.
My answer is simple: Its my truth. It makes me a better person. If at the end of my life I die and I find out it isn’t true, I will have lived a life being the best person that I can be-hopefully someone who is kind, compassionate, and patient. I will never regret my dedication to these ideals.”
― Elizabeth Smart, Where There's Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up

“. . when we have passed our great test, we are then given opportunities to reach out to other people. We are able to effect change in a way that otherwise we wouldn't have been able to.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“But Mitchell’s face filled my mind like a monster in a dream. I heard his voice. It was the devil.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story

“I think of a line from my all-time favorite book, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. There is a part in the book when Mr. Rochester is speaking to Jane very passionately, and he says, “Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it—the savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you … I want: not alone your brittle frame.”
― Elizabeth Smart, Where There's Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up

“Here I was, a little girl, in the middle of the night, being taken from my bed, from my own home, from what I thought was the safest place in the entire world. It was an unimaginable intrusion!”
― Elizabeth Smart, My Story