I Had to Survive Quotes

“We should be more thankful that we receive from life much more than we need and we do much less than we can.”
― Roberto Canessa, I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives

“We soon learned that failure was only the operating cost of success.”
― Roberto Canessa, I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives

“But the mountain also imprinted me with compassion. Why had we been left alone for so long? Now, I think, 'What can I do to make sure those victims of tragedies I meet along the way are not left alone, abandoned, on their own paths?”
― Roberto Canessa, I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives

“Thanks to those long talks with Roberto and watching how he leads his life, I learned a lot of things. I learned that being a hero means more than persevering through one huge, life changing situation. Rather, it is being a hero in the day-to-day details. I learned that helping others and being passionate about what you do are not the exclusive domains of a person who survives a plan crash or a parent who endures a child's long illness. They are not reserved for a select few who are all of a sudden superior to you because they survived some enormous tragedy.”
― Roberto Canessa, I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives

“If those same scientists analyzed babies who are born with congenital heart disorders- who have to undergo open-heart surgery the moment they are born, whose tiny chests are opened and doused with icy water to paralyze their metabolisms, who are kept alive by machines and must have a series of surgeries as they grow-they might conclude those children would have worse outlooks than healthy children. Personally, I believe their lives are neither better nor worse, only different. We, on the mountain, and these children with their surgeries are sort of "abnormal," a kind of "mutant," because we both challenged our destiny and wrote a new ending. It's why I identify with them. When I'm with them, my life has meaning, and my heart grows. They are messengers of life, these children with voices made hoarse by the intubation that will often affect their vocal cords. In their raspy voices, they whisper to me that I was right to continue trudging over that mountain...”
― Roberto Canessa, I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives

“One of the things that was destroyed when we crashed into the mountain was our connection to society. But our ties to one another grew stronger every day. What we did was stabilize the injury and stitch together new ties made of metal and glass, of strength and sensitivity, of intelligence and emotion, to protect us as a group and not as isolated individuals. We survived together, like separate organs working together to save the body as a whole.”
― Roberto Canessa, I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives

“«El desafío de la vida no es no morir, es vivir bien».”
― Roberto Canessa, Tenía que sobrevivir: Cómo un accidente aéreo en los Andes inspiró mi vocación para salvar vidas

“Time files the rough edges off of our pain.”
― Roberto Canessa, I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives

“effort in the face of adversity is what makes you a stronger person.”
― Roberto Canessa, I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives