Pathetic Quotes - Page 4

Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin.

P. D. James

Race, Mind, Ruins

P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.21, Vintage

7 Copy quote

Show source
I'm convinced no one actually likes clubs. It's a conspiracy. We've been told they're cool and fun; that only "saddoes" dislike them. And no one in our pathetic little pre-apocalyptic timebubble wants to be labelled "sad" - it's like being officially declared worthless by the state. So we muster a grin and go out on the town in our millions.

Charlie Brooker

Fun, Clubs, Want

Charlie Brooker (2009). “The Hell of it All”, p.3, Faber & Faber

10 Copy quote

Show source
Andrew hated to see her humiliated and pathetic like this; but he half hated her too for landing herself in it, when any idiot could have seen.

J. K. Rowling

Half, Idiot, Andrew

4 Copy quote
As pathetic as it was, she'd rather hold on to the possibility of something perfect than be hit with the reality of nothing much.

Francine Pascal

Reality, Perfect, Possibility

Francine Pascal (2013). “Fearless 2: Twisted; Kiss; Payback”, p.418, Simon and Schuster

4 Copy quote

Show source
He dunked his tea bag and watched the results critically. “I really must get a new supplier. This tea is pathetic. America just doesn’t understand tea at all.

Rachel Caine

America, Tea, Bags

Rachel Caine (2007). “The Dead Girls' Dance: The Morganville Vampires”, p.123, Penguin

4 Copy quote

Show source
Could I betray my absent heart to save my pathetic life?

Stephenie Meyer

Heart, Betray, Absent

4 Copy quote
As we curve around into the loop of the City Circle, I can see that a couple of other stylists have tried to steal Cinna and Portia's idea of illuminating their tributes. The electric-light-studded outfits from District 3, where they make electronics, at least make sense. But what are the livestock keepers from Distric 10, who are dressed as cows, doing with flaming belts? Broiling themselves? Pathetic.

Suzanne Collins

Couple, Curves, Light

Suzanne Collins (2010). “Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)”, p.213, Scholastic Inc.

4 Copy quote

Show source
That's a movie quote, right? You know, if you do that with books, people think you're intelligent." Sophie lowered her chin. "If this is your pathetic attempt to seduce me again, you're falling miserably." "I don't seduce woman." Phin shoved back his chair and stood up. "They fall into my open arms." "Clumsy of them.

Jennifer Crusie

Book, Fall, Intelligent

7 Copy quote
He looks at you like you're someone he's never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You're a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Passion, Mean, Eye

Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.21, Bloomsbury Publishing

9 Copy quote

Show source
Stop it. Seriously. This isn't funny.' 'You're right.' A pause. 'It's pathetic.

Sarah Dessen

Pauses

Sarah Dessen (2011). “What Happened to Goodbye”, p.118, Penguin

4 Copy quote

Show source
Morgan sighed. "I," she announced, "am so pathetic." "You are not," I said. "I am." She went over and straightened the cling wrap, corner to corner. "Do you know how many times I've brought in devilled eggs? This is, like, the only time I haven't been sobbing and that's only 'cause I cried all night. And Norman," she said, her voice rising to a wail, "sweet Norman, always just acts so surprised to see the eggs, and pleased, and he never, once, has ever acted like he knew what they meant."

Sarah Dessen

Sweet, Night, Eggs

"Keeping the Moon". Book by Sarah Dessen, September 1, 1999.

4 Copy quote

Show source
Life is not a series of pathetic, meaningles actions. Some of them are so far from pathetic, so far from meaningless as to be beyond reason, maybe beyond forgiveness.

Judith Guest

Action, Life Is, Reason

7 Copy quote
I walked inside Macy’s and faced the pathetic spectacle of a department store full of shoppers, none of whom were shopping for themselves. Without the instant gratification of a self-aimed purchase, everyone walked around in the tactical stupor of the financially obligated.

Rachel Cohn

Christmas, Self, Shopping

Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2010). “Dash & Lily's Book of Dares”, p.32, Knopf Books for Young Readers

9 Copy quote

Show source
Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic.

William Hazlitt

Mean, Passion, Writing

William Hazlitt (1845). “Lectures on the English Poets”, p.9

5 Copy quote

Show source
Well, you won't unless you come to lunch with me," Cal said. "I'm holding it for ransom. There's a gun to its heel right now." "I have lunch at my desk," Min began, and thought,Oh, for crying out loud, could I beany more pathetic ? "Emilio is experimenting with a lunch menu. He needs you. I need you.

Jennifer Crusie

Gun, Lunch, Needs

Jennifer Crusie (2007). “Bet Me”, p.122, St. Martin's Press

4 Copy quote

Show source
Hello, cell. How are you? Still dank and dirty? Me? I've taken up a new habit: talking to my cell. It's like talking to myself but slightly more pathetic.

Brandon Mull

Dirty, Taken, Cells

23 Copy quote
...how much needless despair has been caused by a series of biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones? Resulting in the fact that the one you love so passionately won't or can't love you. As a species we're pathetic that way: imperfectly monogamous.

Margaret Atwood

Love You, Despair, Pheromones

Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.166, Anchor

9 Copy quote

Show source
The thing I was beginning to figure out about Sam and Grace, the thing about Sam not being able to function without her, was that that sort of love only worked when you were sure both people would always be around for each other. If one half of the equation left, or died, or was slightly less perfect in their love, it became the most tragic, pathetic story invented, laughable in its absurdity. Without Grace, Sam was a joke without a punch line.

Maggie Stiefvater

People, Perfect, Grace

4 Copy quote
Most people are only too delighted to wreck each other's heads. And for the tiny minority who do their pathetic best not to, this world is going to go right ahead and make sure they do it anyway.

Tana French

People, World, Wrecks

Tana French (2010). “Faithful Place: Dublin Murder Squad: 3”, p.428, Hachette UK

4 Copy quote

Show source
When you do something stupid and die, it's pathetic," I said. "When you do something stupid and survive it, then you get to call it impressive or heroic.

Jim Butcher

Stupid, Heroic, Said

Jim Butcher (2006). “Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files”, p.384, Penguin

4 Copy quote

Show source
The most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.

John Bradshaw

Stars, Powerful, Shame

John Bradshaw (2010). “Healing the Shame that Binds You”, p.34, Health Communications, Inc.

8 Copy quote

Show source
According to Dickens, the first rule of human nature is self-preservation and when I forgive him for writing a character as pathetic as Oliver Twist, I'll thank him for the advice.

Melina Marchetta

Writing, Character, Self

Melina Marchetta (2010). “Jellicoe Road”, p.8, Harper Collins

5 Copy quote

Show source
They separate us into groups. The Ringleaders and the Others. I belong to the Ringleaders because my weak, pathetic, traitorous, fundamentally base peers point to me when someone asks them who is in charge.

Melina Marchetta

Groups, Peers, Weak

4 Copy quote
It now lately sometimes seemed a black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end. Could dedicate their entire lives to it. It seemed admirable and at the same time pathetic. We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe.

David Foster Wallace

Caring, Years, People

4 Copy quote
He takes out a cigarette and offers one to me. "I try not to indulge. It's a filthy habit," I tell him. "I love that word filthy. I love the way you force it out of your mouth like it's some kind of vermin you want to get rid of." "You've had vermin in your mouth?" "You're mean in that way, you know. You don't let anyone get away with pathetic analogies.

Melina Marchetta

Mean, Trying, Analogies

Melina Marchetta (2003). “Saving Francesca”

4 Copy quote

Show source