Amanda Lindhout Quotes

Every day I have many choices to make about who I want to be.

I think it's the human spirit inside of all of us that has an enormous capacity to survive.

The road to recovery will not always be easy, but I will take it one day at a time, focusing on the moments I've dreamed about for so long.

I'm afraid of elevators, because they are an enclosed space, but I get in.

Contemplating Christmas when you are isolated and far from home brings its own unique pain.

Christmas was the one time of year when my brothers surfaced at home, when my parents and grandparents congregated to eat my mother's roast turkey.

Getting on a plane is hard for me, but I do it, because travel is vital to me.

I think that I find a lot of my healing out in the world.

Being in the dark, there's a real weight to it. It's heavy.

In my version of paradise, the air was always cold and the rivers ran with candy.

A little goes a long way in Somalia: $5 will feed a person there for about two weeks.

Friendships that don't fit my life anymore have faded away, and new ones have come in.

After being in captivity for so long, I can't begin to describe how wonderful it feels to be home in Canada.

We all waited on an afterlife. Only I planned to be alive for mine.

Maintaining my dignity is so important for me.

I don't think I'm unusual in that, in my 20s, like many people, I felt invincible.

I have watched lives change. I have seen women gain confidence.

I know firsthand how critical support systems are.

I am so proud to be a Canadian.

I'm not afraid of IED's, bullets, mortars.

I don't only long for the thrill of being in the middle of a war, I must understand it; I must make other people understand.

The same men who are placing all these outrageous restrictions on women’s freedoms in southern Somalia – that type of mentality – that’s what I had to deal with in captivity.

Women in Somalia face almost unimaginable oppression.

Forgiving is not an easy thing to do.

I used my captors names every chance I had. It was intentional, a way of reminding them that I saw them, of pegging them, of making them see me in return.

I've realized that the world is, in essence, full of banana peels - loaded with things that may unwittingly trip an internal wire in my mind, opening a floodgate of fears without warning.

It was a lesson the world had already taught me and was teaching me still. You don't know what's possible until you actually see it.

Sometimes, you have to make the choice to forgive 10 times a day when you have these pockets of anger come up. That's a lot of work, but to me it's worthwhile.

It was a slow understanding that the lack of education in a country like Somalia creates these huge social problems.

The greatest gift you have been given is the gift of your imagination - what do you dream of wanting to do?

Something happens when you are alone most of the time, when there are no distractions. Your mind grows more powerful--muscular, even. It takes over and starts to carry you.

What was reckless, I decided, was the way people were writing off huge swaths of the world as unsafe, unstable, unfriendly, when all they needed to do was go and see for themselves

By concentrating on what I was grateful for, I was able to stave off despair.