Lucy Grealy

Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them.

I was not a pretty girl. I was six feet tall at fifteen, you might say a bit gawky with a mouth full of metal, but still, my mother insisted I would be a movie star.

The curious thing about this resilience is that you can't finally decide to have it. It lies in wait, a form of grace.

I have to admit I'm a little bit afraid of dying because I'm not done yet. But when I get there, I'll have the things that I loved around me, and I'll be able to remember the things that made me smile.

It didn't seem fair: I was being punished for being ugly and then, when I was trying to make myself beautiful, I was punished for that too.

I was not an easy child to help, but my mother could never admit that there might be a problem she couldn't solve.

The thing that was so hard for me to accept was the fact that I was so hard to accept.

I learned about the strength you can get from a close family life. I learned to keep going, even in bad times. I learned not to despair, even when my world was falling apart. I learned that there are no free lunches. And I learned the value of hard work.

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.

I think of all the things that have happened to me and I am still here. I am still here and I am still me.

The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail.

But there was another thing—beauty. And I knew I was not beautiful. When I looked at myself, there was always something wrong. I didn't have any hips, and I had very little hair. I was too tall.