A Quote by Rodman Philbrick

What surprised me most about the Donner tragedy was that, given the terrible circumstances, how anyone survived at all. — © Rodman Philbrick
What surprised me most about the Donner tragedy was that, given the terrible circumstances, how anyone survived at all.
The Internet also makes it extraordinarily difficult for me to focus. One small break to look up exactly how almond milk is made, and four hours later I'm reading about the Donner Party and texting all my friends: DID YOU GUYS KNOW ABOUT THE DONNER PARTY AND HOW MESSED UP THAT WAS? TEXT ME BACK SO WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT!
America is a country that went through an extremely difficult set of circumstances out of 9/11. And we've survived it as a country, and I think we've survived it as one people. And we all ought to be concentrating on trying to make sure that we move forward as one people out of that terrible experience.
Those who make us believe that anything’s possible and fire our imagination over the long haul, are often the ones who have survived the bleakest of circumstances. The men and women who have every reason to despair, but don’t, may have the most to teach us, not only about how to hold true to our beliefs, but about how such a life can bring about seemingly impossible social change.
I'd get people asking me about my terrible, poor childhood which, in fact, was very normal, and I'd think, would you be as interested in me if I'd grown up in Surrey? And it surprised me how much I resented that.
The tragedy is what - given the 'right circumstances,' - normal decent folks, like you and me, will do. This is what makes me worry whenever looking on the road that Israel entered and shows no intention of leaving.
There are people who must spend huge amounts of time composing these online diatribes against me, all about how disgusting and terrible I am and how no one should ever read my books, and it's not enough for them to hate me, they can't stand the fact that ANYONE likes me!
At one campus where I was lecturing, I asked a friend, "How many of my colleagues know I'm gay?" He answered, "All of them." I wasn't surprised. But, just the same, it was kind of spooky, because not one of them had ever given me the faintest sign that he or she knew. If I had spoken about it myself, most of them would have felt it was in bad taste.
Ernest Rutherford's 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry wasn't given for the nuclear power station - he wouldn't have survived that long - it was given for showing how interesting atomic physics could be.
I always feel bad when people ask me questions. I always felt that I was a terrible interview because I don't have any problems with anyone, and I don't have a terrible past. Or I don't have any terrible problems to talk about that would make interesting articles.
The thing is to be happy, no matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, you're just there, going along easy in the world.
France is deeply upset to learn of the monstrous attacks that have just struck the United States.... In these terrible circumstances, all French people stand by the American people. We express our friendship and solidarity in this tragedy.
Of course the Munich tragedy was the biggest event in my career and the most terrible.
For me, there is a paradox in poetry, which is like the paradox in tragedy. You have the most terrible subject, but it's in a form that is so sensually gratifying that it connects the surviving heart to the despairing intellect.
Clearly, the oil spill in the Gulf is a terrible tragedy; we lost 11 lives on the rig, and their families are suffering, and it's also an economic tragedy for our state and ecological tragedy for the Gulf. But Sept. 11 was a different type of event: it was an intentional attack on soil.
I love what I do. I was given the most incredible gift that can be given to anyone. I could never imagine a world without music, and I feel grateful that I've been given the ability to share that.
If you could envision... the meaning of a tragedy... you might be surprised to hear, its you and me.
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