16 Quotes & Sayings By Amanda Lindhout

Amanda Lindhout is an Australian journalist, the author of the memoir "A House in the Sky" and is a contributing opinion writer at The Age. She was kidnapped in Somalia in 2008 and spent 460 days as a hostage of the al-Qaeda-affiliated group Al-Shabaab, where she was repeatedly raped and tortured, and where she witnessed indiscriminate killings, including those of her fellow captives. Her captors were eventually killed by Kenyan soldiers. Lindhout is currently researching future projects and speaking engagements.

It was a lesson the world had already taught me...
1
It was a lesson the world had already taught me and was teaching me still. You don't know what's possible until you actually see it. Amanda Lindhout
2
By concentrating on what I was grateful for, I was able to stave off despair. Amanda Lindhout
3
It is an obvious fact that you can never look ahead with clarity at your own future or anybody else's. You can't know what will happen until it happens. Or maybe it dawns on you the split second before, when you get a glimpse of your own fate. Amanda Lindhout
4
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. Amanda Lindhout
5
What was reckless, I decided, was the way people were writing off huge swaths of the world as unsafe, unstable, unfriendly, when all they needed to do was go and see for themselves Amanda Lindhout
6
Something happens when you are alone most of the time, when there are no distractions. Your mind grows more powerful--muscular, even. It takes over and starts to carry you. Amanda Lindhout
7
After spending 460 days as a hostage, I did emerge a fundamentally changed person. But I think, like everyone does as they grow older and probably wiser, I can look back at my earlier life - my history, my mistakes, the joy I felt as a young woman traveling the world - with some objectivity and even some humor. Amanda Lindhout
8
Contemplating Christmas when you are isolated and far from home brings its own unique pain. Amanda Lindhout
9
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. Amanda Lindhout
10
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. Amanda Lindhout
11
Because travel has always been such a vital part of myself and so essential to who I am, I have made the decision to continue to put myself back out into the world. And that's not an easy decision to make. Amanda Lindhout
12
Getting on a plane is hard for me, but I do it, because travel is vital to me. Amanda Lindhout
13
The greatest gift you have been given is the gift of your imagination - what do you dream of wanting to do? Amanda Lindhout
14
It was a slow understanding that the lack of education in a country like Somalia creates these huge social problems. Amanda Lindhout
15
Sometimes, you have to make the choice to forgive 10 times a day when you have these pockets of anger come up. That's a lot of work, but to me it's worthwhile. Amanda Lindhout