You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience that you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along."

A true hero isn't measured by the size of his strength, but by the strength of his heart.

. . . as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or we grow weak, and at last some crisis shows us what we have become.

Everywhere dread and the sheer silence reduced my courage to nothing.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it's letting go.

You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.

It is June. I am tired of being brave.

Later, if you faced the death of bombs and bullets, you did not do it with a banner, you did it with only a hat to cover your heart. You did not fondle the weakness inside you, though it was there. Your courage was a small coal that you kept swallowing.

Yet, if I could listen to the bulldog courage of those children and turn inward into the plague of my soul, with more eyes than the stars, I could melt the darkenss.