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.

I swung from one place to the next, sometimes backward, sometimes forward, capitalizing on my own momentum, knowing that at some point my arms—or, more accurately, my quivering bank balance, accessed through foreign ATMs—would give out, and I’d fall to the ground.

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.

Because that’s the thing about the exact moment when you get somewhere that has required effort: There’s a freeze-frame instant of total fulfillment, when every expectation has been met and the world is perfect.

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

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.

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.

Forgiving is not an easy thing to do.

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

I, too, was carrying around my own fate. All the things I couldn't know sat somewhere inside, embroidered into me-maybe not quite fixed to the point of inevitability but waiting, in any event, for a chance to unspool.

Women in Somalia face almost unimaginable oppression.

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.

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.

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.

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

Maintaining my dignity is so important for me.

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

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

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.

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

I know firsthand how critical support systems are.

I am so proud to be a Canadian.

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