Chogyam Trungpa Quotes

My life was on the line here and my career and everything I worked for, it was hanging by a thread.

When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream.

If you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.

Man is a strange animal. He generally cannot read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it.

When there's a war, people get married.

You back a big cat into a corner and somebody is going to get bloody.

I once saved someone from drowning.

The people of our city are holding on by a thread. Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows.

My life has been a series of emergencies.

I've never done well when I've been appreciated. I've done best when I'm targeted for death.

They went into stores to get food to stay alive. Looting isn't the right word. I call it survival.

In extreme danger, fear feels no pity.

In war time you will do almost anything. You just have to.

When you're boiling in oil, in the middle of a crisis, the challenges are so consuming there is no time for anything else.

At this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don't think you can help but be involved.

We have beastly qualities within us. If we're put into certain circumstances, and the walls around us come in tighter and tighter, we all could maybe do dangerous things.

Life isn't that complicated on paper. It's made more complex by the day and age we live.

There's nothing like desperation to sharpen your sense of focus.

We feel that we are fighting for our lives and our livelihoods.

Only in a true life or death scenario can you have mental clearness to know that you cannot feel guilty for surviving.

Necessity knows no law.

In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.

Sometimes that's all life is... One desperate act after another.

When you were alone in the rising ocean, you grabbed whatever raft passed by.

The impossible becomes possible when your back is against the wall