Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.

In my deepest, darkest moments, what really got me through was a prayer. Sometimes my prayer was 'Help me.' Sometimes a prayer was 'Thank you.' What I've discovered is that intimate connection and communication with my creator will always get me through because I know my support, my help, is just a prayer away.

Christmas comes during a season when the Earth is in its darkest time. It's a holiday for the family and for everyone.

It is often when night looks darkest, it is often before the fever breaks that one senses the gathering momentum for change, when one feels that resurrection of hope in the midst of despair and apathy.

Advice? I don't have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you're writing, you're a writer. Write like you're a Goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there's no chance for a pardon. Write like you're clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you've got just one last thing to say, like you're a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God's sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we're not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don't. Who knows, maybe you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't have to.

(Poetry) helped me to find a silver lining in even the darkest emotions, experiences, observations and topics; find positivity even in the face of extreme negativity; find strength when I was being forced to feel weak; and find hope that my tomorrows would be brighter.

Everyone wants to be the sun to lighten up everyone's life, but why not be the moon, to brighten in the darkest hour.

Even in the darkest of years, you remained the light of my life.

Even in the darkest of times you can make bright memories.

Sometimes I'll lie awake at night and listen to the sound of the clock. The motor ticks on endlessly. What an unsettling sound it is when you've yet to find peace - to find solace. Sometimes no matter how exhausted my body is, no matter how tired my thoughts are, no matter how sore my brain and my heart are...even then I still can't fall asleep. Sometimes I wish for nothing more than to sleep. Please, allow me to slip away into the darkest corners of the world and let me be. Just let me sleep. You can close your eyes to the surroundings, but you can't close your ears off to the sound around it. And sometimes the things you wish the most not to hear - are the loudest. They will not go away in the night and be silenced.

Sometimes courage is a quiet fight, a dim softness within you, that flickers even on your darkest days and reminds you that you are strong, that you are growing, that there is hope.

Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.

Rock bottom is somewhere none of us ever want to be, but sometimes it happens. It's a place that, if we allow it, can destroy us. On the other hand, it can teach us about the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves for our ultimate growth.

And now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear-shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying. It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at the darkest.

It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

When darkness is at its darkest, a star shines the brightest.

A poem was a box for your soul. That was the point. It was the place where you could save bits of yourself, and shake out your darkest feelings, without worrying that people would think you were strange. While I was writing, I would forget myself and everyone else; poetry made me feel part of something noble and beautiful and bigger than me. [...] I slid them under the carpet as soon as they were done, all the images and rhymes wrestled into place. By the time I had copied them out, I found I had memorized every line. Then they would surprise me by surging through me, like songs I knew by heart.

"In my darkest night

Fear of joy is the darkest of captivities.

Enlightenment can come from the darkest places.

For, in life, it is in the darkest zones one finds the brightest beauty and the most luminous wisdom.

"You see, to find the brightest wisdom one must pass through the darkest zones. And through the darkest zones there can be no guide.

The darkest hours bring the most light.

If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.