Battered Quotes - Page 2

• I got a book token for Christmas and exchanged it for a book called A History of Art, and that book (which I still have-battered and falling to pieces) became more precious to me than any Bible.

  Philip Pullman

  Art, Book, Fall

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• It was a strange feeling going into a church I did not know for a service that I did not really believe in, but once inside I couldn't help a feeling of warmth and security. Outside there were wars and road accidents and murders, striptease clubs and battered babies and frayed tempers and unhappy marriages and people contemplating suicide and bad jokes, but once in St. Martin's there was peace. Surely people go to church not to involve themselves in the world's problems but to escape from them.

  Michael Palin

  Suicide, Baby, War

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• I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in on by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair.

  John Quincy Adams

  Learning, Wind, Broken

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• What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness. Buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by their own unruly emotions, and bruised by rejection and ridicule, authentic disciples may have stumbled and frequently fallen, endured lapses and relapses, gotten handcuffed to the fleshpots and wandered into a far county. Yet, they kept coming back to Jesus.

  Brennan Manning

  Jesus, Biblical, Wind

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• We are such small, stupid things. For most of my life I thought of nature as the stupid thing: Blind, animal, destructive. We, the humans, were clean and smart and in control: we had wrestled the rest of the world into submission, battered it down, pinned it to a glass slide and the pages of The Bool of Shhh.

  Lauren Oliver

  Smart, Stupid, Animal

  Lauren Oliver (2011). “Hana: A Delirium Short Story”, p.21, Hachette UK

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• Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens.

  Dean Koontz

  Reality, Often Can, Cheerful

  Dean Koontz (2007). “The Good Guy”, p.103, Bantam

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• My Papa's Waltz: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

  Theodore Roethke

  Mother, Boys, Hands

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.83, Anchor

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• His heart felt dangerously full, for the first time in years. That dried-up battered organ, suddenly flush with love. It could kill him.

  Maile Meloy

  Heart, Years, Firsts

  Maile Meloy (2010). “Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It”, p.173, Canongate Books

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• My one-time roommate Claire had inherited the house from her uncle, and when she went off to bigger and better things, she’d left it in my care. And it needed a lot of it. Most importantly, it needed a new roof. There was a worrying stain on the ceiling of my bedroom that had started out roughly the shape of Rhode Island, but now looked more like North Carolina. Another few more days of rain and it was going to be Texas. And then it wouldn’t be anything at all because the battered old shingles were going to cave in on my head.

  Karen Chance

  Uncles, Rain, Rhode Island

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• When I think about my relationship with America, I feel like a battered wife: Yeah, he knocks me around a lot, but boy, he sure can dance.

  Sarah Vowell

  Boys, Thinking, America

  Sarah Vowell (2013). “Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World”, p.152, Simon and Schuster

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• When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made - which is difference from the world that is was given - my primary defense, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world

  Dean Koontz

  Differences, Humanity, Defense

  Dean Koontz (2008). “Odd Hours: An Odd Thomas Novel”, p.150, Bantam

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• Glass shattered, vampires roared, humans screamed. The noise battered at me, just as the tidal wave of scores of brains at high gear washed over me. When it began to taper off, I looked up into Eric's eyes. Incredibly, he was excited. He smiled at me. "I knew I'd get on top of you somehow," he said. Are you trying to make me mad so I'll forget how scared I am?" No, I'm just opportunistic." I wiggled, trying to get out from under him, and he said, "Oh, do that again. It felt great.

  Charlaine Harris

  Eye, Glasses, Mad

  Charlaine Harris (2009). “Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set”, p.471, Penguin

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• Historical memory is a potent weapon in fighting against the desert of organized forgetting and implies a rethinking of the role that artists, intellectuals, educators, youth and other concerned citizens can play in fostering a reawakening of America's battered public memories.

  Henry Giroux

  Memories, Fighting, Artist

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• I did not love cold harmony and perfect regularity of organization; what I sought was variety, mystery, tradition, the venerable, the awful. I despised sophisters and calculators; I was groping for faith, honor, and prescriptive loyalties. I would have given any number of neo-classical pediments for one poor battered gargoyle.

  Russell Kirk

  Loyalty, Organization, Numbers

  Russell Kirk (2014). “The Essential Russell Kirk: Selected Essays”, p.213, Open Road Media

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• Hardy was every loose-limbed cowboy in warn denim, every pair of blue eyes, every battered pickup, every hot cloudless day." -Liberty

  Lisa Kleypas

  Eye, Cowboy, Blue

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• One is seduced and battered in turn. The result is presumably wisdom. Wisdom! We are clinging to life like lizards. Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits. In fact, I insist on it. A letter is like a poem, it leaps into life and shows very clearly the marks, perhaps I should say thumbprints, of an unwilling or unready composer.

  James Salter

  Book, Landscape, Letters

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• It's me, love," he said softly. "Everything's all right." Daisy managed to whisper through dry lips. "If you're a ghost...I hope you haunt me forever." Matthew sat on the floor and reached for her cold hands. "Would a ghost use the door?" he asked gently, bringing her fingers to his scratched, battered face.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Doors, Hands, Forever

  Lisa Kleypas (2011). “Scandal In Spring: Number 4 in series”, p.115, Hachette UK

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• ...you are battered and bruised in the collisions between reminiscence and reality.

  David Eagleman

  Reality, Collision, Bruised

  David Eagleman (2009). “Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives”, p.110, Vintage

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• The rain battered the cottage. Valkyrie risked a look up at Skulduggery. “What is it?” she whispered. “It’s a box,” he whispered back. “What kind of box?” “A wooden one.” She gave him a look.

  Derek Landy

  Rain, Looks, Cottages

  Derek Landy (2011). “Death Bringer (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 6)”, p.48, HarperCollins UK

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• ...and our footsteps rang and echoed till it sounded like the room was full of dancers, the house calling up all the people who had danced here across centuries of spring evenings, gallant girls seeing gallant boys off to war, old men and women straight-backed while outside their world disintegrated and the new one battered at their doors, all of them bruised and all of them laughing, welcoming us into their long lineage.

  Tana French

  Girl, Spring, War

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• What is that which can never die It is that faithful force that is born into us that one that is greater than us that calls new seed to the open and battered and barren places so that we can be resown. It is this force in its insistence in its loyalty to us in its love of us in its most often mysterious ways that is far greater far more majestic and far more ancient than any heretofore ever known.

  Clarissa Pinkola Estes

  Loyalty, Faithful, Way

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• Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!

  Allen Ginsberg

  Old Things, Soul, Sunflower

  Allen Ginsberg, Lewis Hyde (1984). “On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg”, p.395, University of Michigan Press

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• I’m sorry, Eve. I love you. I’m not letting you do this.” She screamed and battered harder. “You love me? You asshole! Let me go!

  Rachel Caine

  Sorry, Love You, Let Me Go

  Rachel Caine (2007). “The Dead Girls' Dance: The Morganville Vampires”, p.112, Penguin

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• I pounded through the houses, staggering down the hallways, falling down the steps. It was a hot streaky dawn full of insecticides, exhaust, flowers that could make you sick or fall in love. My battered Impala was still parked there on the side of the road and I wanted to lie down on the shredded seats and sleep and sleep. But I thought of the bones; I could hear them singing. They needed me to write their song.

  Francesca Lia Block

  Song, Falling In Love, Lying

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• The to Cathal was battered and only one wagon wide, with swells of hard earth where mud had frozen during cold ad rainy seasons. Enna tripped often, and cursed each time she tripped, until Dasha said, "Enna, you might watch your language." Enna grimaced. "I was. You should hear my thoughts.

  Shannon Hale

  Watches, Frozen, Earth

  Shannon Hale (2010). “Forest Born”, p.79, A&C Black

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