Petra Nemcova Quotes

1. People see me a certain way. Then they learn about me and start to understand that I don't fit that box. I don't have square edges. Maybe I'm a spiral.

2. We are also talking to Prince Albert of Monaco. We have got about 10 to 15 people already lined up.

3. My secret passion is motorbikes. I want a Kawasaki Ninja.

4. Surrender is a very important word. Not to force things. Perfect example: During the tsunami, when I was drowning and I was under a layer of debris, and I started to swallow the black water, and I couldn't breathe, I said: "Okay. If I have to go, I have to go." And I let go. In that moment, I felt very much a part of the water - my cells and the water cells, they merged. But that was just the blissful moment of connection to the surrender. As soon as I surrendered, somehow I could see the blue sky without trying. And I think often in life, we fight things, and we fight and we fight, and we never get anywhere. We just get pushed back. And sometimes just by letting go, we actually reach the destination.

5. There are lots of things which I would love to tell him, but in some way, I also feel that I lost the person closest to me. And I got a second chance to live. So in a way I feel that I live for both of us… and I will do my best.

6. Remember to remember. Because sometimes you forget all the things you know. You already have the knowledge, you're just not putting it into practice. So remember to remember.

7. True happiness is nothing physical. It's nothing that surrounds us. If you are dependent on happiness from outside, you'll be happy, then unhappy. You'll be a yo-yo.




8. So, we have choice, and sometimes it seems very hard, but the best way to heal physically or emotionally is to keep positive.

9. If we focus on the minuses, we go down the spiral. But if we are able to focus on the pluses, we can become stronger and put more meaning into our life.

10. If you stay still, it will come to you.

11. I talk to Simon, I write to him. I never used to write a diary. But now I'm writing a diary to him. I think it's not just me, but lots of others, family and friends, can still feel him around.

12. I've learned a couple of things. And one of the things I have learned is that every experience has pluses and minuses.





13. I was so afraid to even read a paper in front of my classmates. It is very funny because at that point my teachers would never have believed that I could speak in front of an audience of over 2,000 people.

14. I can dance for, like, four or five hours nonstop without even drinking water. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

15. I love to dance.

16. We cannot stop natural disasters but we can arm ourselves with knowledge: so many lives wouldn't have to be lost if there was enough disaster preparedness.

17. Growing up, we used to go mushroom hunting in the forests of the Czech Republic. My parents, and my grandfather in particular, taught us not to step on flowers, not to kick the mushrooms. They taught us that we are not owners of the land, as people so often think.

18. You cannot blame nature.

19. I used to work all the time, and now if there is a wedding, there's a concert, I'm there.

20. We were packing to leave. We were supposed to depart from the bungalow two hours later. Suddenly, I start hearing people screaming and glass starts to break and water starts rising. The whole bungalow was just crumbling and all the glass is cutting you, and that's the last time I saw my partner. I knew it was bigger than just our beach. The strength of it was just massive. I was very focused. I'd done lots of meditation, and it's one of the things that saved my life. If you start going frantic, you lose the opportunity to save your own life. At one point, the bungalow trapped me - the power of the water and the debris started crushing my pelvis. My pelvis broke in four places. I thought it was going to crush me into nothing. At this point, I had only my head above water. Then slowly the water started to decrease and the pressure went off. I tried to lift myself to get off the roof of that little bungalow, and just then the second wave came in and I went down and started drowning. The current started taking me out. I knew I had to catch something, because if I didn't I was going to be swept into the ocean. That's it. No return. I saw a palm tree, but I missed it. The current was very strong and swept me by it. I was able to catch the second tree. I caught the leaves. The palm tree was still attached to the roots. The water was up to the leaves, more than thirty feet. Underneath, you had the debris. You always had to be aware what's happening with the debris. And of cracking sounds, because the tree might fall. And you had to be aware if another wave was coming. So I stayed alert most of the time. But there were a few times I fainted from the pain because I was up there for eight hours, holding with my arms, with a branch under my toes. You're very much in the moment.

21. Before the tsunami, I always looked to the future. Always had millions of lists of things to do. If I were talking to you, I would not be here. I would be thinking of something that was coming up. Now I'm talking to you. I'm here. I'm present with you. It's one of the most important things I learned: to be present, because in this moment I'm creating the future. If we don't live now, we are losing the opportunity to live. If we don't live now, we are missing life.

22. Learn from the past, look to the future, but live in the present.




23. Who are we to judge, because we don't see things from somebody else's angle?



24. It's usually when the cameras leave that the support leaves as well.

25. Let's see, do I go shopping? Or do I go fund-raise to rebuild schools after a natural disaster has hit? So there really is no question.

26. I grew up under Communism so we could only learn Russian, and then when Communism fell in 1989 we could learn a few more things and have the freedom to travel and the freedom of speech - and the freedom of dreaming, really.

27. Our foundation goes to help in areas struck by natural disasters when the first responders leave. When it's not sexy to be there anymore.

28. A friend of mine is a painter, and he writes on many of his paintings. One of the things he writes is "Truth always happens." That's my definition of the truth. We all have our own truths. There are so many truths. But the real truth always happens.

29. I think all women want to feel sexy and confident yet comfortable at the same time in what they wear.






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