Terrible Things Quotes - Page 4

• The terrible thing about love is that it takes away your safety net, your balancing pole. Even the tightrope you walk upon will disappear beneath you, yet love expects you to keep walking anyway, arms outstretched, one foot after the other, on nothing more than air.

  Christopher Barzak

  Love Is, Air, Feet

  Christopher Barzak (2008). “The Love We Share Without Knowing”, p.65, Bantam

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• It is a terrible thing to want something you cannot have. It takes you over. I couldn't think straight because of it. There was no one else, I realized, whom I could possibly tell.

  Maggie O'Farrell

  Thinking, Want Something, Terrible

  Maggie O'Farrell (2008). “The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox”, p.151, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The men who committed the atrocities of September 11 were certainly not "cowards," as they were repeatedly described in the Western media, nor were they lunatics in any ordinary sense. They were men of faith—perfect faith, as it turns out—and this, it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be.

  Sam Harris

  Men, Media, Perfect

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.67, W. W. Norton & Company

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• He said you couldn't pretend the terrible things in life didn't happen. You can't clean it up. You keep all the refuse and the scars. It's how you learn. And try to make improvements.

  Marisha Pessl

  Things In Life, Trying, Scar

  Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.199, Penguin

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• For a moment she turned in a circle, staring at her hands, which she held high and useless, close to her breast. She bobbed and shambled like an ape doing a trick, and her face was the silly, bewildered face of a joker's victim. And yet she could make no move that was not beautiful. Her trapped terror was more lovely than any joy that Molly had ever seen, and that was the most terrible thing about it.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Beautiful, Silly, Moving

  Peter S. Beagle (2003). “A fine and private place: The last unicorn”

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• Unhappy people do the oddest, most terrible things, just trying to keep despair at bay. All you have to do is accept them...go around them...take evasive action.

  Geraldine McCaughrean

  People, Despair, Unhappy

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• The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self--all your wishes and precautions--to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call "ourselves," to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be "good.

  C. S. Lewis

  Impossible Things, Self, Hands

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.180, Simon and Schuster

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• It is a terrible thing for an author to have a lot of people running about his book without any invitation from him at all.

  A. A. Milne

  Running, Book, People

  A. A. Milne (2013). “Once On A Time”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

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• The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart—hearts are made to be broken—but that it turns one’s heart to stone.

  Oscar Wilde

  Heart, Broken, Stones

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.108, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Me, Polly Garter, under the washing line, giving the breast in the garden to my bonny new baby. Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And babies. And where's their fathers live, my love? Over the hills and far away. You're looking up at me now. I know what you're thinking, you poor little milky creature. You're thinking, you're no better than you should be, Polly, and that's good enough for me. Oh, isn't life a terrible thing, thank God?

  Dylan Thomas

  Baby, Father, Garden

  Under Milk Wood (1954) p. 30

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• Zach found himself remembering something he'd heard Soledad and Leo saying the previous night, about healing. That it was mysterious. That it took time. And that Lucy was just at the beginning. That a terrible thing had happened - two terrible things, really - but they were now over. And that Lucy would be okay, in the end.

  Nancy Werlin

  Healing, Night, Two

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• Hope is a terrible thing, she said. Is it? Yes, it keep you living in another place, a place which doesn't exist. For some people it's better than where they are. For many it's a relief. From life, she said. A relief from life? Is that living? Some people don't have a choice. No and that's awful for them. Hope is better than misery, he said. Or despair. Hope belongs in the same box as despair. Hope is not so bad, he said. At least despair has truth to it.

  Susan Minot

  People, Choices, Despair

  FaceBook post by Susan Minot from Dec 16, 2013

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• time is a terrible thing because it erases joys and pains at the same time.

  Gosho Aoyama

  Pain, Joy, Terrible

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• The most terrible things men do, they do in the name of love."— Madame Dorothea

  Cassandra Clare

  Men, Names, Terrible

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• I tell you, commander, it's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.

  Terry Pratchett

  Thinking, People, Done

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• Who are you?" because even now, she couldn't let her questions go. "What are you?" That face that wasn't a face smiled. It was the most terrible thing she'd ever see, ever. "Magnus" he said. "I'm the end.

  Rachel Caine

  Faces, Ends, Said

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• Life is not easy and comfortable, with nothing ever going wrong as long as you buy the right product. It's not true that if you have the right insurance everything is going to be fine. That's not what it's really like. Terrible things happen. And those are the things we learn from.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Long, Life Is, Easy

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• What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously.

  Haruki Murakami

  Care, Norwegian Wood, Terrible

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Sep 05, 2014

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• Love--the most wonderful and most terrible thing in the world.

  Jorge Amado

  World, Wonderful, Terrible

  Jorge Amado (1988). “Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon”

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• If you want a thing--truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible

  Octavia Butler

  Air, Desire, Would Be

  Octavia E. Butler (1998). “Parable of the Talents: A Novel”, p.363, Seven Stories Press

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• Look at me, he said to her. His arms and legs jerked. Look at me. You got your wish. I have learned how to love. And it’s a terrible thing. I’m broken. My heart is broken. Help me. The old woman turned and hobbled away. Come back, thought Edward. Fix me

  Kate DiCamillo

  Heart, Broken, Wish

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• the last cigarettes are smoked, the loaves are sliced, and lest this be taken for wry sorrow, drown the spider in wine. you are much more than simply dead: I am a dish for your ashes, I am a fist for your vanished air. the most terrible thing about life is finding it gone.

  Charles Bukowski

  Taken, Wine, Air

  Charles Bukowski (2009). “sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: New Poems”, p.101, Zondervan

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• Sometimes people say terrible things when they're scared. They don't mean to, but they can't help it. They lash out because if they can see that their words hurt someone else, it makes them feel as if they aren't completely powerless.

  Jonathan Maberry

  Hurt, Mean, People

  Jonathan Maberry (2012). “Tales of the Rot & Ruin: Rot & Ruin; Dust & Decay; Dead & Gone, a Rot & Ruin story; Flesh & Bone”, p.684, Simon and Schuster

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• What a terrible thing life can be.

  Jeff Lindsay

  Terrible

  Jeff Lindsay (2005). “Dearly Devoted Dexter”, p.79, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• Then there were things-- epic, terrible things-- that he didn't tell her but skirted around, like caressing the edges of a wound, hesitant, testing for pain.

  Laini Taylor

  Pain, Epic, Terrible

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