Relief Quotes - Page 19

• For years we have been taught not to like things. Finally somebody said it was OK to like things. This was a great relief. It was getting hard to go around not liking everything.

  David Byrne

  Years, Taught, Said

  "The Talking Heads Song That Explains Talking Heads" by James Verini, www.newyorker.com. June 14, 2012.

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• Whatever he says, let his inner resolution be not to bear whatever comes to him, but to bear it 'for a reasonable period'--and let the reasonable period be shorter than the trial is likely to last. It need not be much shorter; in attacks on patience, chastity, and fortitude, the fun is to make the man yield just when (had he but known it) relief was almost in sight.

  C. S. Lewis

  Fun, Men, Yield

  C. S. Lewis (1995). “The Screwtape Letters”, Bantam Classics

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• We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. (10)

  Pema Chodron

  Grief, Fall, Healing

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.11, Shambhala Publications

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• They all deserve to die. Even you, Mrs. Lovett Even I. Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief For the rest of us death would be relief.

  Stephen Sondheim

  Wicked, Would Be, Sweeney Todd

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• Most mothers worry when their daughters reach adolescence but I was the opposite. I relaxed, I sighed with relief. Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life sized.

  Margaret Atwood

  Cute, Girl, Daughter

  Margaret Atwood (1988). “Cat's eye”, Doubleday, 1989

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• Lena knew she had spent too much of her life in a state of passive dread, just waiting for something bad to happen. In a life like that, relief was as close as you got to happiness.

  Ann Brashares

  Waiting, Too Much, States

  Ann Brashares (2012). “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Complete Collection”, p.287, Delacorte Press

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• Inching one's way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can't take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Heart, Dark, Sigh Of Relief

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.60, Grove Press

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• So, is there hope for a truly democratic Africa? Long answer: Only if continent-wide improvements in education, human rights and public health are coupled with an aggressive and far-sighted debt-relief program that breaks the cycle of subsistence farming and urban squalor. Short answer: No.

  Jon Stewart

  Rights, Long, Debt

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• I was keenly conscious of the comrades-in-arms who had fallen with me. A bond surpassing by a hundredfold that which I had known in life bound me to them. I felt a sense of inexpressible relief and realized that I had feared, more than death, separation from them. I apprehended that excruciating war survivor's torment, the sense of isolation and self-betrayal experienced by those who had elected to cling yet to breath when their comrades had let loose their grip.

  Steven Pressfield

  Betrayal, War, Self

  Steven Pressfield (2010). “Gates Of Fire”, p.29, Random House

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• The word itself has another color. It’s not a word with any resonance, although the e was once pronounced. There is only the bump now between b and l, the relief at the end, the whew. It hasn’t the sly turn which crimson takes halfway through, yellow’s deceptive jelly, or the rolled-down sound in brown. It hasn’t violet’s rapid sexual shudder or like a rough road the irregularity of ultramarine, the low puddle in mauve like a pancake covered in cream, the disapproving purse to pink, the assertive brevity of red, the whine of green.

  William H. Gass

  Yellow, Color, Green

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• For we did makeup. But we didn't forgive each other. And we didn't take steps. And it got to be too late and we saw that each of us had invested too much in being in the right and we walked away and it was a relief.

  Alice Munro

  Makeup, Forgiving, Too Late

  Alice Munro (1999). “The love of a good woman: stories”, Penguin, 1999

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• Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year's bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide! There are a hundred places where I fear To go,--so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Pain, Memories, Rain

  Edna St. Vincent Millay (2014). “Millay: Poems”, p.56, Everyman's Library

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• ...the habit of falling hardens the body, reaching the ground, to in itself, is a relief.

  Jose Saramago

  Fall, Body, Habit

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• Instead of relief or gratitude, more guilt washes over me. Andy's certainly not faultless - no one ever is in a marriage

  Emily Giffin

  Gratitude, Guilt

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• As I settled down to sleep in that new bed in the dark city, I saw that it was too late now, too late for everything. I would not be given a second chance. In the hours when I woke, I have to tell you that this struck me almost with relief.

  Colm Toibin

  Sleep, Dark, Second Chance

  Colm Toibin (2012). “The Empty Family: Stories”, p.84, Simon and Schuster

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• When Josey woke up and saw the feathery frost on her windowpane, she smiled. Finally, it was cold enough to wear long coats and tights. It was cold enough for scarves and shirts worn in layers, like camouflage. It was cold enough for her lucky red cardigan, which she swore had a power of its own. She loved this time of year. Summer was tedious with the light dresses she pretended to be comfortable in while secretly sure she looked like a loaf of white bread wearing a belt. The cold was such a relief.

  Sarah Addison Allen

  Summer, White, Light

  Sarah Addison Allen (2008). “The Sugar Queen”, p.1, Bantam

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• I'm on the verge of tears by the time we arrive at Pastels since I'm positive we won't get seated but the table is good, and relief that is almost tidal in scope washes over me in an awesome wave.

  Bret Easton Ellis

  Tears, Tables, Wave

  Bret Easton Ellis (2014). “American Psycho: Picador Classic”, p.40, Pan Macmillan

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• It wasn't awful to be dead. The stillness would almost be a relief. She wouldn't want pain, she wouldn't want to be wounded or mutilated. She could never shoot herself or jump off a building. But being dead wasn't unthinkable.

  Janet Fitch

  Pain, Want, Awful

  Janet Fitch (2013). “Paint It Black”, p.106, Hachette UK

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• You're insane!" she shouted. "Pretty cool, huh?" "No!"Tally yelled. "Why didn't you tell me it was broken?" Shay shrugged. "More fun that way?" "More fun?" Her heart beating fast,her vision strangely clear. She was full of anger and relief and...joy. "Well, kind of. But you suck!

  Scott Westerfeld

  Fun, Heart, Broken

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• At my worst, I even resented Nic because an addict, at least when high, has a momentary respite from his suffering. There is no similar relief for parents or children or husbands or wives or others who love them.

  David Sheff

  Children, Husband, Wife

  David Sheff (2009). “Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• It seems to me that we can’t explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we can’t fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them until they burst open. Inside is something that we can manage, something that isn’t as awful as it had a first seemed. It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, most people seem a lot like us: sometimes afraid and sometimes brave, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind.

  Sharon Creech

  Fear, War, People

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• somehow we have overlooked the fact this treasured called the heart can also be broken, has been broken, and now lies in pieces down under the surface. When it comes to habits we cannot quit or patterns we cannot stop, anger that flies out of nowhere, fears we cannot overcome, or weaknesses we hate to admit--much of what troubles us comes out of the broken places in our hearts crying out for relief. Jesus speaks as if we are all brokenhearted. We would do well to trust His perspective on this.

  John Eldredge

  Jesus, Hate, Lying

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• I stare into a thin, web-like crack above the urinal's handle and think to myself that if I were to disappear into that crack, say somehow miniaturize and slip into it, the odds are good that no one would notice I was gone. No... one... would... care. In fact some, if they noticed my absence, might feel an odd, indefinable sense of relief. This is true: the world is better off with some people gone. Our lives are not all interconnected. That theory is crock. Some people truly do not need to be here.

  Bret Easton Ellis

  Thinking, Odds, People

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• Without memories to cloud it, the mind perceives with absolute clarity. Each observation stands out in stark relief. In the beginning, when there's not yet a smudge, the slate still blank, there is only the present moment: each vital detail, shocked color, the fall of light. Like film stills. The mind relentlessly open to the world, deeply impressed, even hurt by it: not yet gauzed by memory.

  Nicole Krauss

  Hurt, Memories, Fall

  Nicole Krauss (2003). “Man Walks Into a Room”, p.138, Anchor

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• He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart.

  Jane Austen

  Pain, Heart, Past

  "Persuasion".

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