Bitter Quotes - Page 38

• "You're a bitter man," said Candide.
  "That's because I've lived," said Martin.

  Voltaire

  Men, Candide, Said

  "Candide, Or, Optimism". Book by Voltaire, 1759.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low, Of some song sung to rest the tired dead, A song to fall like water on my head, And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow! There is a magic made by melody: A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep To the subaqueous stillness of the sea, And floats forever in a moon-green pool, Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

  Elizabeth Bishop

  Dream, Song, Fall

  Elizabeth Bishop (2008). “Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters”

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Don't wake up a woman in love. Let her dream, so that she does not weep when she returns to her bitter reality

  Mark Twain

  Love, Marriage, Dream

  31 Copy quote

• Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.

  Joanne Harris

  Happiness, Sweet, Heart

  Joanne Harris (2000). “Chocolat”, p.146, Penguin

  58 Copy quote

  Show source

• That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn.

  Barack Obama

  Laughter, Mean, White

  Barack Obama (2007). “Dreams From My Father”, p.80, Canongate Books

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those bitter sorrows of childhood!-- when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

  George Eliot

  Summer, Wings, Space

  Laetitia Weaver, George Eliot “Marian Evans in the Twenty First Century”, Lulu.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it will make you less miserable now. I have had enough experience to make this statement.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Happiness, Depression, Believe

  39 Copy quote

• That was what she really wanted. To forget so thoroughly she'd never have another memory again, the bitter so bitter you gave up the sweet.

  Janet Fitch

  Sweet, Memories, Forget

  Janet Fitch (2006). “Paint It Black: A Novel”, p.189, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He said you were the only one who was bitter about S.'s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving.

  J. D. Salinger

  Suicide, Said, Unforgiving

  j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Moving, Anger

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.105, A&C Black

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• I thought this man had long ago drained everything from my heart. But now something strong and bitter flowed and made me feel another emptiness in a place I didn't know was there. I cursed this man aloud so he could hear. You had dog eyes. You jumped and followed whoever called you. Now you chase your own tail.

  Amy Tan

  Dog, Strong, Eye

  4 Copy quote

• Pippa's laugh is bitter, tinged with tears. 'Ha! Why do girls think being beautiful will solve every problem? Being beautiful just creates problems. It's a misery. I wish I were someone else.

  Libba Bray

  Beautiful, Girl, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• When young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge. Though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach faith where no faith was.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Hate, Eye, Light

  Rudyard Kipling (2015). “Stories and Poems”, p.113, OUP Oxford

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I know it. I know I shall make beastly mistakes, Father-" "The world does not forgive mistakes so quickly, my girl." He sounds bitter and sad. "If the world will not forgive me," I say softly, "I shall have to learn to forgive myself." He nods in understanding. "And how will you marry? Or do you intend to marry?" I think of Kartik, and tears threaten. "I shall meet someone one day, as Mother found you.

  Libba Bray

  Girl, Mother, Father

  4 Copy quote

• I sip my coffee. I look at the mountain, which is still doing its tricks, as you look at a still-beautiful face belonging to a person who was once your lover in another country years ago: with fond nostalgia, and recognition, but no real feelings save a secret astonishment that you are now strangers. Thanks. For the memories. It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator--our very self-consciousness--is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution, cutting us off at both ends.

  Annie Dillard

  Beautiful, Country, Memories

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.80, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today was a very cold and bitter day, as cold and bitter as a cup of hot chocolate, if the cup of hot chocolate had vinegar added to it and were placed in a refrigerator for several hours.

  Daniel Handler

  Chocolate, Hot, Today

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be... safe. At least she knows she's living.

  Betty Smith

  Pain, Fighting, Thinking

  BETTY SMITH (1947). “A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN MAGGIE NOW”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste out sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sout with the same tongue.

  Neil Gaiman

  Sweet, Wine, Poison

  4 Copy quote

• Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleance me in the great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.

  Oscar Wilde

  Sweet, Hurt, Stars

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.152, Oxford University Press on Demand

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Next out of the hall came the sisters and their husbands. Before I could say anything, the captain had clamped his hand over my mouth and was lifting me off my feet as I kicked. Cornwall made as to draw his dagger, but Regan pulled him away. "You've just won a kingdom, my duke, killing vermin is a servant's task. Leave the bitter fool stew in his own bile." She wanted me. It was clear.

  Christopher Moore

  Husband, Hands, Feet

  4 Copy quote

• I give you bitter pills, in a sugar coating. The pills are harmless - the poison's in the sugar

  James St. James

  Giving, Sugar Coating, Pills

  James St. James (2003). “Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland”, p.187, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now they came back to him, on this night he was seventeen years old. All the years and places of his brief broken life came within mind's reach and made a whole again. He knew once more, at last, after this long, bitter, waisted time, who he was and where he was. But where he must go in the years to come, that he could not see; and he feared to see it.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Night, Years, Long

  5 Copy quote

• From bitter searching of the heart, quickened with passion and with pain we rise to play a greater part this is the faith from which we start.

  Leonard Cohen

  Pain, Passion, Heart

  Song: Villanelle For Our Time, Album: Dear Heather, 2004

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To my mind, a well-developed sense of humor is the surest indication of a person's humanity, no matter how black and bitter that humor may be.

  Thomas Ligotti

  Humanity, Black, Mind

  19 Copy quote

• Blame is a bitter and indigestible thing, even when the blame is a coat you cut for yourself, even when you stood right there and got yourself measured so you could wear it right.

  R.J. Ellory

  Cutting, Coats, Blame

  4 Copy quote