Tragic Quotes - Page 18

• It is tragic that we have lost one of our nation's finest actors in the prime of his life. Heath Ledger's diverse and challenging roles will be remembered as some of the great performances by an Australian actor.

  Kevin Rudd

  Lost Ones, Challenges, Roles

  "In quotes: Heath Ledger tributes", news.bbc.co.uk. January 23, 2008.

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• [I]t is tragic that the forces for destruction that we unleashed are stronger than man's present ability to control them.

  Leslie Groves

  Men, Stronger, Destruction

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• If you follow nature you will not be able to vanquish the tragic in any real degree in your art... We must free ourselves from our attachment to the external, for only then do we transcend the tragic, and are enabled consciously to contemplate the repose which is within all things.

  Piet Mondrian

  Art, Real, Attachment

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• The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as more recent attacks in Madrid, Spain, and London, England, showed in a very tragic way just how vulnerable many areas of the world are to these sorts of actions.

  Jo Bonner

  September 11, Spain, World

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• I sometimes cry in the moments that are not necessarily dramatic or tragic in the films, often because of the music. I wonder whether it's the music that has that effect on you in this film.

  Roman Polanski

  Sometimes, Wonder, Cry

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• I'm more of a clown, a tragic clown. Yeah. I just like humor to come out of characters.

  Amy Sedaris

  Character, Clown, Yeah

  Interview with Amelie Gillette, tv.avclub.com. June 28, 2006.

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• In our truly remarkable an unexampled civil peace, where there are rarely fist fights; where no one is born, is gravely ill, or dies; where meat is eaten but no one sees an animal slaughtered; where scores of millions of cars, trains, elevators, and airplanes go their scheduled way and there is rarely a crash; where an immense production proceeds in orderly efficiency and the shelves are duly clears and nevertheless none of this come to joy or tragic grief or any other final good it is not surprising if there are explosions.

  Paul Goodman

  Grief, Airplane, Fighting

  Paul Goodman (2011). “Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society”, p.188, New York Review of Books

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• Avoid the unhappy ending, the harsh, the brutal, the tragic, the horrible -- if you care to see in print things you write. (In this connection don't do as I do, but do as I say.

  Jack London

  Writing, Unhappy, Connections

  Jack London, Dale L. Walker, Jeanne Campbell Reesman (1999). “No Mentor But Myself: Jack London on Writers and Writing”, p.57, Stanford University Press

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• What then is tragedy? In the Elizabethan period it was assumed that a play ending in death was a tragedy, but in recent years we have come to understand that to live on is sometimes far more tragic than death.

  George P. Baker

  Years, Play, Tragedy

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• Today, the scale and horror of modern warfare - whether nuclear or not - makes it totally unacceptable as a means of settling differences between nations. War should belong to the tragic past, to history; it should find no place on humanity's agenda for the future.

  Pope John Paul II

  War, Mean, Past

  Pope John Paul II (1987). “Pope John Paul II, Pilgrim of Peace”, Random House Value Pub

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• No doubt you are as alarmed as I by the tragic decline in America's language skills. If 10 people read the following sentence: Two tanker trucks has just overturned in Alaska, spilling a totel of 10,000 gallons of beer onto a highway. two would find an error in subject-verb agreement, two would find an error in spelling, and six would find a sponge and drive north.

  Mike Nichols

  Beer, Agreement, Skills

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• The tragic evils of our life are so commonly unintentional. We did not start out for that poor, cheap goal. That aim was not in our minds at all....Look to the road you are walking on. He who picks up one end of [a] stick picks up the other.He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to.

  Harry Emerson Fosdick

  Evil, Goal, Mind

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• I didn't believe in systems. Everything human was imperfect and ultimately absurd. What did I believe in then? In humor. In laughing at systems, at people, at one's self. In laughing even at one's need to laugh all the time. In seeing life as contradictory, many-sided, various, funny, tragic, and with moments of outrageous beauty. In seeing life as a fruitcake, including delicious plums and bad peanuts, but meant to be devoured hungrily all the same because you couldn't feast on the plums without also sometimes being poisoned by the peanuts.

  Erica Jong

  Believe, Self, Laughing

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• Human history's the most funny and yet the most tragic discovery will be the discovery of the religious people that all religions are man-made! And this childish discovery will enable the pious to make an intellectual jump in upwards direction. The devout will turn into a progressive man and the history will flow faster in the progressive direction.

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Religious, Men, Discovery

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• Everyone loves characters that are relatable or who have unique quirks or tragic flaws.

  Joe Madureira

  Character, Unique, Flaws

  "'Darksiders' Joe Madureira talks death, war, and comics". Interview with Jason Cipriano, www.mtv.com. April 15, 2012.

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• I know sometimes tragic or humiliating events propel you into a better life, I've experienced that for sure, but it still hurts. It still burns. I think sometimes it hurts more because you can't wish it had never happened. It improved your life in the long run.

  Autumn de Wilde

  Running, Hurt, Thinking

  Autumn de Wilde (2007). “Elliott Smith”, p.61, Chronicle Books

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• My biggest problem with President Bush is when we were in kindergarten together, he broke my favorite red crayon! Since that moment, my psychiatrist told me that I haven't been able to move forward as a person. Severely hindering the chances of me being able to mature any since that tragic day. For that, I'll never forgive him.

  Carolyn Parrish

  Moving Forward, Forgiving, President

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• The goal of all my work is essentially the same: demonstrating that magic is real or that reality is magic, by paying attention, and finding compensation or consolation for what is essentially a tragic existence.

  Peter Blegvad

  Real, Goal, Magic

  Interview with Franklin Bruno, believermag.com. November 1, 2009.

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• I suppose reggae has always been a hopeful way to protest, and just because the world's tragic doesn't mean it's not beautiful.

  Dave Wakeling

  Beautiful, Mean, Hopeful

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• The issue of animal use and abuse can seem insurmountable, it is tragic and it is complex. We love our companion animals and we value wildlife but we are generally blind to the realities of what goes into the food we eat.

  Liz Marshall

  Animal, Reality, Issues

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• The more the history of the World War and what led up to it is studied, the more clearly those tragic years become revealed as a vast collapse of civilization.

  Arthur Henderson

  War, Years, Civilization

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• What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence, to be the last of your people to speak your native tongue, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the elders, to anticipate the promise of the children. This tragic fate is indeed the plight of someone somewhere roughly every two weeks.

  Wade Davis

  Lonely, Children, Fate

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• For myself music definitely informs my emotions. And I can literally play a song that will get me where I need to be emotionally. I don't have to think about the tragic things that happened in my life or the greatest things that happened in my life.

  Queen Latifah

  Song, Thinking, Play

  "STEEL MAGNOLIAS: Lifetime’s Remake of a Beloved Story". Q&A with media, nicegirlstv.com. September 27, 2012.

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• Animation can be a full spectrum of different storytelling techniques and different genres. I think it's sad that there is only one audience that the studios are aiming for and that's the kid audience. It's really tragic that they don't' make films for older people.

  Bill Plympton

  Kids, Thinking, People

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• I'd always thought that heavy metal - what I knew of it, anyway - was for tragic losers with acne and inch-thick glasses who fantasised about slaying dragons and riding Harleys, failing to realise at the time that the only loser was me. Fortunately, a good friend of mine played me 'Battery' from Metallica's Master Of Puppets album and the scales fell instantly from my eyes. It was a total revelation.

  Joel McIver

  Eye, Good Friend, Glasses

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