Emptiness Quotes - Page 18

• The life I walk binds my hands it makes me take things that I don’t understand I walk this dark world unknowing of what they hold true, forgetting the me I once knew, until you. The life I walk eternally was all I knew nothing more held me here to this earth until you. I feel the pain of every heart I take I feel the desire to replace all that I have grown to hate Darkness holds me close but the light still draws my empty soul The emptiness where I used pain to fill the hole no longer controls me, no longer calls me because of you.

  Abbi Glines

  Pain, Hate, Heart

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• This afternoon held that special quality of mournful emptiness I've connected with late Sunday afternoons ever since childhood: the feeling of having nothing to do.

  Margaret Atwood

  Sunday, Childhood, Feelings

  Margaret Atwood (1999). “The Edible Woman”, Emblem Editions

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• At first I felt dizzy - not with the kind of dizziness that makes the body reel but the kind that's like a dead emptiness in the brain, an instinctive awareness of the void.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Brain, Body, Void

  "The Education of the Stoic". Book by Fernando Pessoa (p. 14-15),

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• You lived intensely with others, only to have them disappear overnight, since the shadow class was condemned to movement. The men left for other jobs, towns, got deported, returned home, changed names. Sometimes someone came popping around a corner again, or on the subway then they vanished again. Addresses, phone numbers did not hold. The emptiness Biju felt returned to him over and over, until eventually he made sure not to let friendships sink deep anymore.

  Kiran Desai

  Jobs, Home, Men

  Kiran Desai (2007). “The Inheritance of Loss”, p.112, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Humans can't tolerate emptiness for long.

  Veronica Roth

  Long, Tolerate, Humans

  Veronica Roth (2014). “Divergent Collector's Edition”, p.25, Harper Collins

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• Before there can be fullness there must be emptiness. Before God can fill us with Himself we must first be emptied of ourselves.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Firsts, Worship, Fullness

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• Christmas can be the end of emptiness and waywardness; The beginning of happiness and purposefulness.

  William Arthur Ward

  Christmas, Ends, Purposefulness

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• Some people think of the glass as half full. Some people think of the glass as half empty. I think of the glass as too big.

  George Carlin

  Inspirational, Humor, Thinking

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• None are so empty as those who are full of themselves.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Inspirational, Self Esteem, Humble

  Benjamin Whichcote, Anthony Tuckney (1753). “Moral and religious aphorisms [collected by J. Jeffery from the papers of B. Whichcote]. Now re-publ., with additions, by S. Salter. To which are added, Eight letters: which passed between dr. Whichcote, and dr. Tuckney”, p.155

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• I shattered that memory by going back there. Without realizing it until it was too late, I replaced that memory with the emptiness of that day.

  J.A. Redmerski

  Memories, Too Late, Realizing

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• She turned to Skulduggery and held out her arms. “Come here, you.” He tilted his head. “My hugs are for special occasions only.” “Hug me.” “I prefer the old tradition.” “Hug.” “Would a handshake do?” “Hug.” “A pat on the back?” She stepped forward and wrapped her arms round him. “Hug,” she said. He sighed, and his hands settled on her shoulders. The others were warm and their embraces strong – with Skulduggery the hug was cold, and there were areas on his jacket that gave way beneath her fingers, and she could feel the emptiness within. She didn’t mind.

  Derek Landy

  Strong, Hands, Hug

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• Times like this it did seem real I was leaving, and even more that my family, and this life, would go on without me. And again I felt that emptiness rise up, but pushed it away. Still, I lingered there, in the doorway, memorizing the noise. The moment. Tucking it away out of sight, to be remembered when I needed it most.

  Sarah Dessen

  Real, Sight, Leaving

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• For the first time, she did want more. She did not know what she wanted, knew that it was dangerous and that she should rest content with what she had, but she knew an emptiness deep inside her, which began to ache.

  Iain Pears

  Contentment, Want, Firsts

  Iain Pears (2003). “Dream of Scipio”, p.147, Penguin

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• The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness.

  Ariel Gore

  People, Silence, World

  Ariel Gore (2003). “Atlas of the Human Heart”, p.23, Seal Press

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• When I talk to people who feel this emptiness and lack of fulfillment, I recommend they find a source of balance in their lives. I suggest they find a way to "give back" to the world in order to feel a sense of completeness.

  Harold S. Kushner

  Order, People, Giving

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• When he was dry, he believed it was alcohol he needed, but when he had a few drinks in him, he knew it was something else, possibly a woman; and when he had it all -- cash, booze, and a wife -- he couldn't be distracted from the great emptiness that was always falling through him and never hit the ground.

  Denis Johnson

  Fall, Wife, Alcohol

  Denis Johnson (1983). “Angels”, Knopf

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• The usefulness of a pot comes from its emptiness.

  Laozi

  Pot, Usefulness

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• Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere.

  Walker Percy

  Old Neighborhood, Shows, Persons

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer: A Novel”, p.41, Open Road Media

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• In other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray symbols dragging their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of muffled sound and faded glory, signifying absolutely nothing. And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that needs to be realized: not known but felt, not thought but breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson but a life.

  Ken Wilber

  Lying, Book, Reality

  Ken Wilber (2004). “The Simple Feeling of Being: Visionary, Spiritual, and Poetic Writings”, p.141, Shambhala Publications

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• So, to meditate is to purge the mind of its self-centered activity. And if you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness. The mind is uncontaminated by society; it is no longer subject to any influence, to the pressure of any desire. It is completely alone, and being alone, untouched it is innocent. Therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being. This whole process is meditation.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Self, Silence, Meditation

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• People frequently comment on the emptiness in one night stands, but emptiness here has always been just another word for darkness. Blind encounters writing sonnets no one can ever read. Desire and pain communicated in the vague language of sex.
  None of which made sense to me until much later when I realized everything I thought I'd retained of my encounters added up to so very little, hardly enduring, just shadows of love outlining nothing at all.

  Mark Z. Danielewski

  Sex, Pain, Writing

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• It’s hard to grieve in a town where everything that happens is God’s will. It’s hard to know what to do with your emptiness when you’re not supposed to have emptiness.

  Miriam Toews

  Grieving, Towns, Happens

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

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• A morality that holds need as a claim, holds emptiness-non-existence-as its standard of value; it rewards an absence, a defect: weakness, inability, incompetence, suffering, disease, disaster, the lack, the fault, the flaw-the zero.

  Ayn Rand

  Zero, Suffering, Weakness

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.32, Penguin

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• In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

  Jimmy Carter

  Strong, Hard Work, Self

  Energy and the National Goals - A Crisis of Confidence, delivered 15 July, 1979

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• If things do not exist as fixed, independent entities, then how can they die? Our notion of death as the sudden expiration of that which was once so real starts to unwind. If things do not exist in their own right and are flickering rather than static, then we can no longer fear their ultimate demise. We may fear their instability, or their emptiness, but the looming threat of death starts to seem absurd. Things are constantly dying, we find. Or rather, they are constantly in flux, arising and passing away with each moment of consciousness.

  Mark Epstein

  Real, Independent, Dying

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