Melissa

“Someone who doesn't make the (Olympic) team might weep and collapse. In my day no one fell on the track and cried like a baby. We lost gracefully. And when someone won, he didn't act like he'd just become king of the world, either. Athletes in my day were simply humble in our victory.
I believe we were more mature then...Maybe it's because the media puts so much pressure on athletes; maybe it's also the money. In my day we competed for the love of the sport...In my day we patted the guy who beat us on the back, wished him well, and that was it.”
― Louis Zamperini, Devil at My Heels: A Heroic Olympian's Astonishing Story of Survival as a Japanese POW in World War II

“Yet a part of you still believes you can fight and survive no matter what your mind knows. It's not so strange. Where there's still life, there's still hope. What happens is up to God.”
― Louis Zamperini, Devil at My Heels: A Heroic Olympian's Astonishing Story of Survival as a Japanese POW in World War II

“Sometimes, too often, I don't want to muster the energy. Stress and anxiety seem easier. Easier to let a mind run wild with the worry than to exercise discipline, to reign her in, slip the blinders on a train her to walk steady in certain assurance, not spooked by the specters looming ahead.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“The great commandment is that we preach the gospel to every creature, but neither God nor the Bible says anything about forcing it down people's throats.”
― Louis Zamperini, Devil at My Heels: A Heroic Olympian's Astonishing Story of Survival as a Japanese POW in World War II