Ben Sherwood
Ben Sherwood is a bestselling author, award-winning journalist and founder of TheSurvivorsClub.org. From 2004 to 2006, he worked as executive producer of ABC’s Good Morning America during the two most successful seasons in the program’s history. Sherwood guided prize-winning coverage of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the devastation of hurricane Katrina, and the presidential election of 2004
From 1997 to 2001, Sherwood served as senior broadcast producer and senior producer of NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.
From 1989 to 1993, he worked as a producer and associate producer at ABC News PrimeTime Live with Diane Sawyer and Sam Donaldson.
Sherwood is the author of two critically acclaimed best-selling novels: The Man Who Ate the 747 and The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud. Sherwood’s books have been published around the world in 15 languages.
Charlie St. Cloud has been adapted as a feature film starring Zac Efron and was released by Universal Pictures in July 2010. The Man Who Ate the 747 is also being developed as a major motion picture and Broadway musical.
Sherwood’s latest book, The Survivors Club, is a non-fiction exploration of the science and secrets of who bounces back from everyday adversity and who doesn’t; who beats life-threatening disease and who succumbs; and who triumphs after economic hardship and who surrenders.
In January 2009, Sherwood founded TheSurvivorsClub.org, an online resource center and support network for people surviving and thriving in the face of all kinds of adversity.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College and a Rhodes Scholar, Sherwood earned masters degrees in history and development economics at Oxford University.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Karen Kehela Sherwood and their sons Will and Charlie.
“Trust your heart if the sea catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backwards. -I feel like, Charlie the main character can only communicate his bother who past away through nature and that he needs to move on and find love evn if his brother is not there physically.”
“That is the inescapable math of tragedy and the multiplication of grief. Too many good people die a little when they lose someone they love. One death begets two or twenty or one hundred. It's the same all over the world.”
“There's a reason for everything, you said, and though it's a mystery to me now, I know it won't always be so.”
“...Charlie still smiled at the urn above the cash register with a gold plaque that said: ASHES OF PROBLEM CUSTOMERS.”
“We all shine on in the moon and the stars and the sun.”
“A time for every occupation under heaven. A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted; a time for tears, a time for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing; a time for searching, a time for losing; a time for loving, a time for hating.”
“Most of all, I miss that feeling when you go to sleep at night and when you wake up in the morning. It's that feeling that everything is all rightin the world. You know, that amazing feeling that you're whole, that you've got everything you want, that you aren't missing anything. Sometimes when I wake up, I get it for just a moment. It lasts a few seconds, but then I remember what happened, and how nothing has been the same since”
“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire and live by love though the stars walk backwards.”
“In a critical sense, doing nothing can mean doing something. Inaction can be action and embracing this paradox can save your life.”
“That's death and life, you see. We all shine on. You just have to release your hearts, alert your senses, and pay attention. A leaf, a star, a song, a laugh. Notice all the little things, because somebody is reaching out to you. Qualcuno ti ama. Somebody loves you.”
“There's no such thing as a lost cause.”
“How many boys like him were out there in the ether, holding on to their big brothers and sisters who were still alive? How many husbands were floating between life and death, clinging to their wives in this world? And how may millions and millions of people were there in the world like Charlie who wouldn't let go of their loved ones when they're gone?”
“And I was even beginning to think home might be with you.”
“On the horizon, he saw the full moon. God dropped it there, he was sure, as a reminder of our small place in the world. A reminder that what is beautiful is fleeting.”