Terrible Quotes - Page 17

• What harm has he ever done to you?' 'You know what harm he's done me. He offended me with his terrible taste.

  Nick Hornby

  Done, Taste, Harm

  Nick Hornby (1996). “High Fidelity”, p.65, Penguin

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• If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.

  Anne Lamott

  Three, Admitting, Littles

  Anne Lamott (2013). “Help: The First Essential Prayer”, p.12, Hachette UK

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• It was a terrible decision, and I confess I'd make it again.

  Lauren DeStefano

  Decision

  FaceBook post by Lauren DeStefano from May 22, 2012

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• This wasn't the first time that I'd come close to death, but it was the first time I'd been involved in this part of it, this strange, terrible saying goodbye to someone you've loved.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Goodbye, Firsts, Strange

  Madeleine L'Engle (2008). “A Ring of Endless Light: The Austin Family Chronicles”, p.7, Macmillan

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• At that moment, Harry fully understood for the first time why people said Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. The look upon Dumbledore's face as he stared down at the unconscious form of Mad-Eye moody was more terrible than Harry could have ever imagined. There was no benign smile upon Dumbledore's face, no twinkle in the eyes behind the spectacles. There was cold fury in every line of the ancient face; a sense of power radiated from Dumbledore as though he were giving off burning heat.

  J. K. Rowling

  Eye, People, Giving

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• exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement.

  Edward Said

  Home, Sadness, Thinking

  Edward W. Said (2013). “Reflections On Exile: And Other Literary And Cultural Essays”, p.212, Granta Books

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• ...a chasm opened in the earth and out of it coal-black horses sprang, drawing a chariot and driven by one who had a look of dark splendor, majestic and beautiful and terrible. He caught her to him and held her close. The next moment she was being borne away from the radiance of earth in springtime to the world of the dead by the king who rules it.

  Edith Hamilton

  Beautiful, Horse, Kings

  Edith Hamilton (2017). “Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, 75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition”, p.124, Hachette UK

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• If there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don't snuff it out, don't be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we'd want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!

  André Aciman

  Pain, Rip, Night

  "Call me by your name". Book by André Aciman, January 23, 2007.

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• I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I had ever killed. I was now a killer. I was now as guilty as Cain. I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood on my hands. It's a terrible burden to carry. All sentient life is sacred.

  Yann Martel

  Religious, Boys, Blood

  Yann Martel, Canongate Books (2007). “Life of Pi (Illustrated): Deluxe Illustrated Edition”, p.192, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor or pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.

  Sylvia Plath

  Baby, Pain, Home

  Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.35, Hamilton Books

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• What is love?” “I don’t know.” “Love is the name given to the bond Kemal feels with Füsun whenever they travel along highways or sidewalks; visit houses, gardens, or rooms; or whenever he watches her sitting in tea gardens and restaurants, and at dinner tables.” “Hmmm … that’s a lovely answer,~ But isn’t love what you feel when you can’t see me?” “Under those circumstances, it becomes a terrible obsession, an illness.

  Orhan Pamuk

  Love Is, Garden, Names

  Orhan Pamuk (2011). “The Museum of Innocence”, p.592, Faber & Faber

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• At the back of my mind I had a sense of us sitting about waiting for some terrible event, and then I would remember that it had already happened.

  Ian Mcewan

  Terrible Events, Waiting, Mind

  Ian McEwan (2010). “The Cement Garden”, p.59, Random House

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• Marya Morevna, we are better at this than you are. We can hold two terrible ideas at once in our hearts. Never have your folk delighted us more, been more like family. For a devil, hypocrisy is a parlour game, like charades. Such fun, and when the evening is done we shall be holding our bellies to keep from dying of laughter.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Laughter, Fun, Heart

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• It was like either: (A) I was a terrible guy who was knowingly doing this rotten thing over and over, or (B) it wasn’t so rotten, really, just normal, and the way to confirm it was normal was to keep doing it, over and over.

  George Saunders

  Guy, Rotten, Way

  George Saunders (2013). “Home: Family Snapshots”, p.20, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• And this must be Avery?" "Oh, God, no," Cam said. "This is Candy, Mom." His mother's eyes widened and a bit of color infused her cheeks. "Uh, I'm..." "I'm Avery," I said, shooting Cam a look. "You had it right." She spun around, smacking Cam across the arm. Hard, too. "Cameron! Oh my God. I thought..." She smacked him again and he laughed. "You're terrible.

  J. Lynn

  Mom, Mother, Eye

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• Sorrow is better than fear. Fear is a journey,a terrible journey, but sorrow is at least an arrival. When the storm threatens, a man is afraid for his house. But when the house is destroyed, there is something to do. About a storm he can do nothing, but he can rebuild a house.

  Alan Paton

  Journey, Men, House

  Alan Paton (2003). “Cry, the Beloved Country”, p.98, Simon and Schuster

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• I think that’s a mercy of this island, actually, that it won’t give us our terrible memories for long, but let us keep the good ones for as long as we want them.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Memories, Thinking, Islands

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• Power isn't about doing something terrible to someone who's weaker than you, Reiner. It's having the strength to do something terrible, and choosing not to.

  Jodi Picoult

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• No matter how grave the secret, how imperative absolute silence, someone would always feel the urge to confess, and an unleashed secret is a terrible force.

  Tea Obreht

  Silence, Secret, Matter

  "Téa Obreht: 'I don't feel I've earned the Orange prize'" by Kira Cochrane, www.theguardian.com. June 10, 2011.

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• The motto I have penned on my knuckles is that this is the best world we have--because it's the only world we have. It's the simplest math ever. However many terrible, rankling, peeve-inducing things may occur, there are always libraries. And rain-falling-on-sea. And the moon. And love. There is always something to look back on, with satisfaction, or forward to, with joy. There is always a moment where you boggle at the world--at yourself--at the whole, unlikely, precarious business of being alive--and then start laughing

  Caitlin Moran

  Rain, Fall, Math

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• Perhaps we are the same person. Perhaps we have no limits; perhaps we flow into each other, stream through each other, boundlessly and magnificently. You bear terrible thoughts; it is almost painful to be near you. At the same time it is enticing. Do you know why?

  Ingmar Bergman

  Limits, Flow, Bears

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• East of the sun and west of the moon.' As unfathomable as the words were, I realized I must figure them out, reason it through. For I would go to this impossible land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon. From the moment the sleigh had vanished from sight and I could no longer hear the silver bells I knew that I would go after the stranger that had been the white bear to make right the terrible wrong I had done him.... All that mattered was to make things right. And I would do whatever it took, journey to wherever I must, to reach that goal.

  Edith Pattou

  Moon, Journey, Sight

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• Is it really so terrible being around us?" I blushed. "No," I said. "But . . . it's complicated. I've been taught certain things my entire life. Those are hard to shake." "The greatest changes in history have come because people were able to shake off what others told them to do.

  Richelle Mead

  People, Able, Taught

  Richelle Mead (2011). “Bloodlines”, p.165, Penguin

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• Let me just acknowlege that the function of grammar is to make language as efficent and clear and transparent as possible. But if we’re all constantly correcting each other’s grammar and being really snotty about it, then people stop talking because they start to be petrified that they’re going to make some sort of terrible grammatical error and that’s precisely the opposite of what grammar is supposed to do, which is to facilitate clear communication.

  John Green

  Communication, Errors, Talking

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• I think everything is happening all the time, but if you don't put yourself in the path of it, you miss it. When you travel, you put yourself out there. It's not always great. Sometimes it's terrible. But other times ... [...] It's not so bad.

  Gayle Forman

  Thinking, Missing, Path

  Gayle Forman (2013). “Just One Day”, p.35, Penguin

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