Liz Murray quotes

I've learned in my life that you really don't know what's possible until you're already doing it. (Liz Murray)
If I had a magic wand, I would live in a building in New York, big enough so my friends, my family could all have apartments in it. We'd raise our kids in the same space and have backyard barbecues and get old and fat together. View quote
Liz Murray
Like my mother, I was always saying, 'I'll fix my life one day.' It became clear when I saw her die without fulfilling her dreams that my time was now or maybe never. View quote
Liz Murray
The lesson that people can't give me what they don't have, and if there's anything I took from it, it was: okay, I don't really expect anyone to hand me anything. There's going to be me and the world. View quote
Liz Murray
As well as being blind, Ma turned out to have the same mental illness that her mother had had. Between 1986 and 1990, she suffered six schizophrenic bouts, each requiring her to be institutionalised for up to three months. View quote
Liz Murray
Ma was legally blind due to a degenerative eye disease she'd had since birth. This meant she was entitled to welfare, and our lives revolved around the first day of every month when her payment was due. View quote
Liz Murray
I have just one black and white photograph left of my mother when she was younger. She was 17 when it was taken and beautiful with wispy curls and eyes that shone like dark marbles. View quote
Liz Murray
My mother used to sit at the foot of my bed, and she would share her dreams with me. View quote
Liz Murray
I'd been living on the streets of New York, and I was sleeping at my friends' houses, sometimes in the subway. View quote
Liz Murray
There was just so much attention that got focused on my story, and what that created was an opportunity for me to share what were the tools, what were the strategies, what was the thinking that had me break though those boundaries. View quote
Liz Murray
In the years ahead of me, I learned that the world is actually filled with people ready to tell you how likely something is, and what it means to be realistic. But what I have also learned is that no one, no one truly knows what is possible until they go and do it. (Liz Murray)
Life takes on the meaning that you give it. View quote
Liz Murray
But avoidance allows you to believe that you're making all kinds of strides when you're not. View quote
Liz Murray
If I want to be a loving, generous, giving person, I'm not going to test the waters. I'm simply going to be a loving, generous, giving person. View quote
Liz Murray
Life has a way of doing that; one minute everything makes sense, the next, things change. People get sick. Families break apart, your friends could close the door on you. View quote
Liz Murray
Many nights, I longed for home. But it occurred to me as I struggled for a feeling of comfort and safety: I have no idea where home is. View quote
Liz Murray
... In our family, if you said the words 'I feel,' they better be followed with 'hungry' or 'cold'. Because we didn't get personal, that's just how it was. View quote
Liz Murray
Shortly after I turned 13, Child Welfare took me into care. I was sent to a residential centre where girls with behavioural problems were 'evaluated'. My time there comes back to me now only in flashes of smells, images and sounds. View quote
Liz Murray
I had a calling inside of me. I had a sense that when I was going through experiences like living on the streets, losing my parents to AIDS, just having my whole world turned upside-down, there was this feeling inside of me like I was meant for something greater. View quote
Liz Murray
When you take charge of your own narrative, it gives you a handle on it. View quote
Liz Murray
People are surprised by the poverty and think that I wasn't cared for. But that wasn't the case - I was deeply loved. (Liz Murray)
If I could have a family and a home one night, and all of it's gone the next, that must mean that life has the capacity to change. And then I thought, 'Whoa! That means that just as change happens to me, I can cause change in my life.' View quote
Liz Murray
I feel like my life has been a series of miracles. I was in every sense a lost cause. View quote
Liz Murray
I was 17 and living on the streets. I had the education of technically an eighth-grader, but in reality, I had never had a formal education. View quote
Liz Murray
I think there is something to be said for what you can do when you don't know what you aren't supposed to be able to do. View quote
Liz Murray