CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In the long competition between my house and my car for a much-coveted prize (my sanity), the car finally won. It was rewarded with a trip to the auto auction, and I'm now driving a great little 2005 Jeep Liberty.

Still, it's been an unusually rough year, and in the days leading up to my old car's departure, I ran across two sayings that felt as though they had been written specifically for me.

The first: "She's standing on a line between giving up and seeing how much more she can take."

And the second: "Life has many ways of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all, or by having everything happen all at once."

With me, it's having everything happen all at once, and I frequently find myself wobbled by the overwhelming number of things that need taken care of at the same time. Problems seldom come single file. They join hands and travel en masse.

It's funny the comfort I can find in quotes during times like these. It's more than just the sage advice; it's knowing that someone else apparently went through something similar, yet made it through. I mean, they couldn't have written about it if they hadn't.

Although each of the quotes that follow aren't totally wise, all have spent at least a little time with me during the past few months (I've included attribution when I was able to track down where the quote originally came from):

"When things aren't adding up in your life, start subtracting."

"Don't be scared to walk alone. Don't be scared to like it." -- John Mayer

"There's no way around grief and loss. You can dodge all you want, but sooner or later, you just have to go into it, through it, and hopefully come out on the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left." -- Johnny Cash

"Leap and the net will appear."

"If you stumble, make it part of the dance."

"Only boring people are bored."

"Instead of thinking outside of the box, get rid of the box." -- Deepak Chopra

"You laugh. I laugh. You cry. I cry. You jump off a really tall cliff. I yell, 'Do a flip!'"

"You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you."

"I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question."

"People too weak to follow their own dreams will always find a way to discourage yours."

"Discipline is doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, when we don't want to do it."

"I do believe it's time for another adventure."

And finally, "Every pizza is a personal pizza if you try hard and believe in yourself."

Reach Karin Fuller via email at karinful...@gmail.com.