Terrible Quotes - Page 40

• And I hope she does not live in a dark world. Because even the most terrible loss doesn't have to make you darker; it can make you deeper.

  Augusten Burroughs

  Loss, Dark, Doe

  Augusten Burroughs (2012). “This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.”, p.154, Macmillan

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• people do terrible things, sometimes, for the best reasons.

  Lauren Oliver

  People, Sometimes, Reason

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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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• It was terrible when a single conversation with someone determined your whole future relationship.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Determined, Conversation, Future Relationship

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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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• 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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• In reality, childhood is deep and rich. It's vital, mysterious, and profound. I remember my OWN childhood vividly; I knew terrible things, but I knew I mustn't let the adults *know* I knew... it would scare them.

  Art Spiegelman

  Reality, Profound, Childhood

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• It is difficult to put into words what I suffered-the longing that seemed to be tearing my heart out by the roots, the dreadful sense of being alone in an empty universe, the agonies that thrilled through me as if the blood were running ice-cold through my veins, the disgust with living, the impossibility of dying. Shakespeare himself never described this torture; but he counts it, in Hamlet, among the terrible of all the evils of existence. I had stopped composing; my mind seemed to become feebler as my feelings grew more intense. I did nothing. One power was left to me-to suffer.

  Hector Berlioz

  Depression, Running, Heart

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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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• Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life Is

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “Lady Windermere's Fan”, p.61, Oscar Wilde

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• In the presence of real tragedy you feel neither pain nor joy nor hatred, only a sense of enormous space and time suspended, the great doors open to black eternity, the rising across the terrible field of that last enormous, unanswerable question.

  Mervyn Peake

  Pain, Real, Doors

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• It occurred to me that I was unhappy. And it didn’t feel so very terrible. No urgency, nothing. I could slip out of my life on a slow wave like this—it didn’t matter. I don’t have to be happy. All I have to do is hold on to something and wait.

  Helen Oyeyemi

  Waiting, Unhappy, Matter

  Helen Oyeyemi (2011). “Mr Fox”, p.42, Pan Macmillan

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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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• Are you slow-witted? I'm so sorry for you. It's terrible to be dull and stupid.

  Lloyd Alexander

  Sorry, Stupid, Dull

  Lloyd Alexander (2014). “The Book of Three: The Chronicles of Prydain”, p.40, Usborne Publishing Ltd

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• Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Beautiful, Queens, Dark

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• You’re a terrible cook. That I’ll grant you. You can’t hold your liquor, either. And you have questionable taste in men. So no, you’re not perfect.” His voice sank to a husky whisper, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. “But you’re close. Close enough to restore a man’s faith in miracles.

  Tessa Dare

  Men, Voice, Perfect

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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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• I did a terrible television pilot that was so badly written and dumb that it became a turning point for me and I decided that I would never accept a job just because I needed the money.

  Fran Drescher

  Jobs, Dumb, Television

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• There was still plenty of water in the basement, and I felt it soaking me from the knees on down. If someone wanted to torture me until I told them a critical piece of information, all they would have to do is get my socks wet. It feels terrible.

  Daniel Handler

  Water, Pieces, Knees

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• A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.

  Cecil B. DeMille

  Agents, Dozen, Spirit

  "Sunset Boulevard", www.imdb.com. 1950.

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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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• There’s been terrible things we seen, en’t there? And more a coming, more’n likely. So I think I’d rather not know what’s in the future. I’ll stick to the present.

  Philip Pullman

  Thinking, Sticks, Knows

  Philip Pullman (1995). “Northern lights”

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