40 Inspirational Cancer Quotes

Life often throws unexpected challenges our way, and for those battling cancer, the journey can be particularly daunting. Amidst the waves of uncertainty, hope and strength become vital companions. Whether you or a loved one are on this path, finding inspiration can be a powerful tool to navigate through tough times. In this blog post, we've gathered a collection of 40 inspirational quotes that offer wisdom, comfort, and courage. These words, from voices who understand the struggle, illuminate the resilience of the human spirit and remind us that even in the darkest moments, light can always be found. Join us as we explore these uplifting quotes and celebrate the enduring power of hope and perseverance.

1. “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.” - Audre Lorde

2. “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” - Lance Armstrong Sally Jenkins

3. “You can see a person's whole life in the cancer they get.” - Haruki Murakami

4. “It's like they say about soldiers coming back from war. People all around you are dying. Really dying, Eric. You go in for a week's chemotherapy and you're in a ward with people who are really, actually dying, there and then and doing their best to come to terms with it. When the week's up, you go home and you see your family and your friends and everything's normal and familiar. It's too much. You think - one world can't possibly hold both these lives and you feel like you're going to go crazy when you realise the world is that big and it can fill with the most terrible things whenever it wants to.” - Steven Hall

5. “PRAISE FOR 'THE JOURNEY HOME'Many saints are known and praised by all. We pray to them in litanies and celebrate their feast days. But the vast majority of holy men and women live heroic lives quietly before God. Loyal to family, lovers of God, servants in the Church, these unsung saints live everyday life as an example for us. David Hanneman is one such man. His story is exemplary and should be told to the world. He not only lived a noble life, but also suffered with heroism and grace as he passed into glory. This is a story to encourage and bless us all. We are thankful to Joseph Hanneman for sharing his father and making his story known to us who need such examples to encourage us as we face the difficulties and challenges of life.” - Stephen K. Ray

6. “Everest attempt at sixty-two, three weeks after undergoing surgery for kidney cancer, marathon des Sables six months after it was amputated fingers and toes, be measured by the diagonal of Fools four weeks after ablation of a metastasis to the lung, is this possible? Cancer does not stop your life, giving up your dreams or your goals, it is simply a parameter to manage, no more, no less than all the other parameters of life.How to ensure that the disease becomes transparent to you and your entourage, almost insignificant in terms of trip you want to accomplish? This is precisely the question that Gerard Bourrat tries to answer in this book. To make a sports performance, to live with her cancer, to live well with amputations, the path is always the same: a goal, the joy of effort, perseverance and faith.This book does not commit you to climb Everest, to run under a blazing sun, walking thousands of miles, it invites you to conquer your own Everest.” - Gérard Bourrat

7. “It ought to be an offense to be excruciating and unfunny in circumstances where your audience is almost morally obliged to enthuse.” - Christopher Hitchens

8. “Saw a film on cancer yesterday, shown by the English delegation. No doubt about it. I'm right. "Migratory cancer cells" are amoebic formations. They are produced from disintegrating tissue and thus demonstrate the law of tension and charge in its purest form - as does the orgastic convulsion. Now money is a must - cancer the main issue - in every respect, even political.It was a staggering experience. My intuition is good. I depend on it. Was absolutely driven to buy a microscope. The sight of the cancer cells was exactly as I had previously imagined it, had almost physically felt it would be. Cancer is an autoinfection of the body, of an organ. And researchers have no idea of what, hor, or where!!” - Wilhelm Reich

9. “Maybe you should say goodbye, Cal.''No.''It might be important.''It might make her die.” - Jenny Downham

10. “I was depressed, but that was a side issue. This was more like closing up shop, or, say, having a big garage sale, where you look at everything you've bought in your life, and you remember how much it meant to you, and now you just tag it for a quarter and watch 'em carry it off, and you don't care. That's more like how it was.” - Jane Smiley

11. “Because that's what unfaithfulness is, isn't it? A cancer that's always there in the back of your mind, eating away at the foundations of the relationship.” - Matt Dunn

12. “Bravery is a willing decision to do what must be done. Fear is a cancer that is cured only by doing what must be done, backed by an intelligent, open mind.” - Corey Aaron Burkes

13. “Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.” - John Green

14. “Man, it was a good thing vampires didn't get cancer. Lately he'd been chain-smoking like a felon.” - J.R. Ward

15. “I’ll give you my strength if I can have your remission.” - John Green

16. “Clearly God was in some kind of mood on my birthday.” - Jodi Picoult

17. “Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying.” - John Green

18. “I didn't tell him that the diagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You're a woman. Now die.” - John Green

19. “I don't think you're dying," I said. "I think you've just got a touch of cancer.He smiled. Gallows humor.” - John Green

20. “She had six months at most left to live. She had cancer, she hissed. A filthy growth eating her insides away. There was an operation, she'd been told. They took half your stomach out and fitted you up with a plastic bag. Better a semicolon than a full stop, some might say.” - Helen Hodgman

21. “Yes?’ he asked, looking at me over the sheet.‘I’m a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.’‘Oh, a writer, eh?’‘Yes.’‘Are you sure?’‘No, I’m not.’‘What do you write?’‘Short stories mostly. And I’m halfway through a novel.’‘A novel, eh?’‘Yes.’‘What’s the name of it?’‘”The Leaky Faucet of My Doom.”‘‘Oh, I like that. What’s it about?’‘Everything.’‘Everything? You mean, for instance, it’s about cancer?’‘Yes.’‘How about my wife?’‘She’s in there too.” - Charles Bukowski

22. “The Great Change is when humankind accepts its role as part of the natural order of the universe instead of its role as a cancer” - Dan Simmons

23. “Even now, it's still hard for him to say it. I don't blame him. It's an icky word. Why couldn't whoever was in charge of naming things call cancer 'sugar' and sugar, 'cancer'? People might not eat so much of the stuff then. And it's so much more pleasant to die of sugar.” - Sarah Wylie

24. “[If you hear a] story about how eating sausage leads to anal cancer, you will be skeptical, because it has never happened to anyone you know, and sausage, after all, is delicious.” - David McRaney

25. “Osteosarcoma sometimes takes a limb to check you out. The, if it like you, it takes the rest.” - John Green

26. “Някой може да ти е приятел,но е възможно никога да не си прекрачвал бариерата на десетте сантиметра между вас,никога да не си го прегръщал продължително,да не си го виждал никога как се събужда.” - Albert Espinosa

27. “Awareness Makes a Cure Possible.” - Sydney Davies

28. “...gripping the rim of the sink you claw your way to stand and cling there, quaking with will, on heron legs, and still the hot muck pours out of you. (p. 27)” - Barbara Blatner

29. “I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference? I could easily kick you in, stove you under, for all those times, mean on gin, you rammed words into my belly. (p. 52)” - Barbara Blatner

30. “Each appointment brought fear, uncertainty and discouragement. Ann’s constant concern was, What if I have cancer?” - K. Howard Joslin

31. “But it's not a cancer book, because cancer books suck.” - John Green

32. “She did not begin to tell real lies until Rosa was in hospital suffering that filthy rot that left her all eaten out inside, as light and fragile as a pine log infested with white ant” - Peter Carey

33. “He can heal me. I believe He will. I believe I'm going to be an old surely Baptist preacher. And even if He doesn't...that's the thing: I've read Philippians 1. I know what Paul says. I'm here let's work, if I go home? That's better. I understand that.” - Matt Chandler

34. “In an essay titled A View From the Front Line, Jencks described her experience with cancer as like being woken up midflight on a jumbo jet and then thrown out with a parachute into a foreign landscape without a map:"There you are, the future patient, quietly progressing with other passengers toward a distant destination when, astonishingly (Why me?) a large hole opens in the floor next to you. People in white coats appear, help you into a parachute and — no time to think — out you go."You descend. You hit the ground....But where is the enemy? What is the enemy? What is it up to?...No road. No compass. No map. No training. Is there something you should know and don't?"The white coats are far, far away, strapping others into their parachutes. Occasionally they wave but, even if you ask them, they don't know the answers. They are up there in the Jumbo, involved with parachutes, not map-making.” - Siddhartha Mukherjee

35. “She ordered a martini and encouraged me to, but said she couldn't drink it with her medication. She just liked seeing it in front of her, like the old days, all set to do its little magic.” - Richard Ford

36. “Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a “gift,” was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before—one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate.” - Barbara Ehrenreich

37. “The Hegemony had known how to treat cancer, but most of the gene-tailoring knowledge and technology had been lost after the Fall.” - Dan Simmons

38. “God didn’t design your life so you would constantly fall down, but he does hope that you will be brought to your knees.” - Shannon L. Alder

39. “I am not afraid to die; I am only afraid of saying goodbye to you forever.” - Shannon L. Alder

40. “Cancer is finite. God is way bigger.” - Shirley Corder