Clint Smith Quotes

For he who loses all often easily loses himself.

Some people are born gardeners, some are politicians. I was an actor. It took a great deal of pain before I figured that out. I didn't relate to most of it.

'My Struggle' came from a place of questioning and feelings of inauthenticity and frustration, and almost all of that is gone.

It took a few years before I realized there was life after football.

Like most people in college, I just wasn't really sure who I was.

I wanted to write a book about what it's like to be 50 and trying to reinvent yourself - that struggle. There are all these books and inspirational speakers talking about being a lifelong learner, and it's so great to reinvent yourself, the brand of you. And I wanted to say, you know, it's not like that. It's actually really painful.

the spiritual meaning of every situation [is] not what happens to us, but what we do with what happens to us and who we decide to become because of what happens to us. The only real failure is the failure to grow from what we go through.

But I do believe that's when you do your soul-searching. I think when you have these trials that life gives you, it is an opportunity to find out who you are. Not just who you are when everything's great, but who are you when everything is taken away from you and you have nothing.

I guess that one of the most important things I've learned is that nothing is ever completely bad. Even cancer. It has made me a better person. It has given me courage and a sense of purpose I never had before. But you don't have to do like I did...wait until you lose a leg or get some awful disease, before you take the time to find out what kind of stuff you're really made of. You can start now. Anybody can.

When things fall apart in your life, you feel as if your whole world is crumbling. But actually it’s your fixed identity that’s crumbling. And as Chögyam Trungpa used to tell us, that’s cause for celebration.

There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.

I guess I don't really know what I want to do, either. Sometimes I feel like a shook-up bottle of soda. Like, I have all this passion that wants to explode, but I don't know where to aim it yet.

...It really IS easier to experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming apart.

It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty.

People who haven't experienced major setbacks sometimes feel that their hurts are somehow less legitimate or real.

When you're a woman in your thirties, and maybe you don't really know what you want to do with your life, but it seems like everyone else does, and your best friend gets married, and it forces you to look at yourself. I don't know if I described that in a very funny way.

Being a successful person is not necessarily defined by what you have achieved, but by what you have overcome.

A lot of people talk about life. Some love it. Some disparage it. And a few realize that life can be what you make it because they have learned from past experiences. Lessons learned from these experiences have often contributed greatly toward seeing the possibilities in what some people call "the game of life." When we've "been there" and "done that," we can have as good of an idea of what we don't want as what we do want. Experience is certainly an excellent teacher!

But I think half the battle is figuring out what works for you, and I am much better at being a mother than I ever would have been as a lawyer. I sometimes wonder if it is just me, or if there are other women who figure out where they are supposed to be by going nowhere." - My Sister's Keeper

I always think back to my childhood and I have a distinct memory of me not having any idea who I wanted to be. The funny thing is that I feel the same way now. So much time has passed and I haven't a definitive sense of self.

What else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That’s the reality of getting old, and I guess that’s really the crux of the matter. I’m not ready to be old yet.

Suddenly, I don't want to be this person anymore. I don't want to pretend I'm fooling the world when I'm not. I want someone else to have a plan for me, because I'm not doing a very good job myself.

If you have no enemies, you have no character.

I just wish that God or my parents or Sam or my sister or someone would just tell me what's wrong with me. Just tell me how to be different in a way that makes sense. To make this all go away.

The teenage years are years of great chaos and confusion in your lives, but also a time of seeking a deeper meaning.