Quotessence
Home / Topics / Breaking Down Quotes

Breaking Down Quotes

Browse 517 quotes about Breaking Down.

Related topics

PeopleIfsBarriersThinkingWayKnowsMenWorldWallTryingCarHelpingMeanWritingBodyHumansWantCryFirstsGivingKindWholeStoriesTogetherBreaking Down BarriersFeelsMindMomentsPersonsStillsDoeDoorsEndsPlayProblemCountryHardHeartLongLooksMaySometimesWellsAbleCultureDifferentEnoughIdeasEnergyFilmJobsMadeMatterNeedsOpportunityProcessReasonRunningShowsTermTurnsTwoUseYearsArtArtistBoundariesCharacterClassDealsEconomicHappensHas BeensHouseI CanLife IsMightScienceShouldSilenceSituationSocialThreeBelieveCausesChildrenCommunityEyeFailingFormGovernmentGroupsHandsHomeImportantKidsLastsLosesMovingPoliticalmore

Breaking Down Quotes

“Or… maybe I’m not going crazy. “Maybe I’m some sort of android-cyborg-clone-thing, and I’m just breaking down. I’m not sure which way is worse. Dad laughs. “You’re not in your right mind, dear,” he says. “No, no, no, you’re not.” And then— —Silence. Dad fades away. The reverie chair disappears. There’s just blackness. I remember then that I am in the reverie of something dead. Whatever that thing was, it was dead. And, just as I’m starting to wonder if, perhaps, I have died, too, I see a light, far away in the corner of the dreamscape. The light isn’t soft; it’s not glowing. It crackles like silent lightning, burning with electricity, sparks flying out and fizzling in the dark. I don’t know why—it makes no sense, the way dreams often don’t—but I want to touch the light. So I do.”

MindLightSilenceCrazyDeadBreaking DownBlacknessReverieAndroidDreamscape
Book:The Body Electric
Create image

“I couldn't read, and it had almost killed me. I hadn't even won properly. I sank to my knees, letting the platform carry me, and covered my face in my shaking hands. Tears burned just before pain seared through my left arm. I would never beat the third task. I would never free Tamlin, or his people. The pain shot through my bones again, and through my increasing hysteria, I heard words inside my head that stopped me short. Don't let her see you cry. Put your hands at your sides and stand up. I couldn't. I couldn't move. Stand. Don't give her the satisfaction of seeing you break. My knees and spine, not entirely of my own will, forced me upright, and when the ground at last stopped moving, I looked at Amarantha with tearless eyes. Good, Rhysand told me. Stare her down. No tears- wait until you're back in your cell. Amarantha's face was drawn and white, her black eyes like onyx as she beheld me. I had won, but I should be dead. I should be squashed, my blood oozing everywhere. Count to ten. Don't look at Tamlin. Just stare at her. I obeyed. It was the only thing that kept me from giving in to the sobs trapped within my chest, thundering to get out. I willed myself to meet Amarantha's gaze. It was cold and vast and full of ancient malice, but I held it. I counted to ten. Good girl. Now walk away. Turn on your heel- good. Walk toward the door. Keep your chin high. Let the crowd part. One step after another. I listened to him, let him keep me tethered to sanity as I was escorted back to my cell by the guards-who still kept their distance. Rhysand's words echoed through my mind, holding me together. But when my cell door closed, he went silent, and I dropped to the floor and wept.”

SupportSarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronCryingRhysandRhysBreaking DownA Court Of Thorns And RosesHysteria
Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
Create image

“I wept for hours. For myself, for Tamlin, for the fact that I should be dead and had somehow survived. I cried for everything I'd lost, every injury I'd ever received, every wound- physical or otherwise. I cried for that trivial part of me, once so full of colour and light- now hollow and dark and empty. I couldn't stop. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't beat her. She won today and she had known it. She'd won; it was only by cheating that I'd survived. Tamlin would never be free, and I would perish in the most awful of ways. I couldn't read- I was an ignorant fool. My shortcomings had caught up with me, and this place would become my tomb. I would never paint again; never see the sun again. The walls closed in- the ceiling dropped. I wanted to be crushed; I wanted to be snuffed out. Everything converged, squeezing inward, sucking out air. I was grasping for my body, but it hurt too much each time I tried to maintain the connection. All I had wanted- all I had dared want, was a life that was quiet, easy. Nothing more than that. Nothing extraordinary. But now... now...”

Sarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronCryingHopelessnessBreaking DownShortcomingsA Court Of Thorns And RosesTamlin
Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
Create image

“Nesta didn't see the lake, or the stones, or the sunlight and green. Her vision blurred, and her eyes stung as if they had been sliced- cleaved open to allow the tears to pass. She made it to the stones before she fell to her knees, so hard the rock bit into her bones. Was she worth being counted? She knew the answer. Had always known it. Cassian whirled toward her, but Nesta didn't see him, either, or hear his words.. Not as she buried her face in her hands and wept.”

Sarah J MaasCryingWorthlessBreaking DownCassianNesta ArcheronNestaA Court Of Silver FlamesCountWept
Book:A ​Court of Silver Flames
Create image

“It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance and sweeps away all obstacles.”

MotivationalChangeEffortBusinessBreakDeterminationConstantObstaclesDeterminedResistancePersistenceBreaking DownDetermination And SuccessWill And DeterminationDetermination MotivationalDetermination PerseverancePerseverance And DeterminationDetermination And PersistenceGreat PerseveranceGreat DeterminationInspirational DeterminationPersistence InspirationalGreatest ObstaclesLife DeterminationObstacle In Life
Author:Claude M. Bristol
Create image

“Is it reasonable to suppose that we can apply a broad-spectrum insecticide to kill the burrowing larval stages of a crop-destroying insect ... without also killing the 'good' insects whose function may be the essential one of breaking down organic matter and maintaining healthy soil?”

MayMatterEnvironmentStageHealthyEssentialsFunctionKillingSoilReasonableBroadsDestroyingBreaking DownInsectsMaintainingSpectrumCropsInsecticidesBurrowing
Book:Silent Spring
Create image

“We must dispel the negative and harmful atmosphere that has been created by avaricious and unprincipled realtors who engage in "blockbusting." If we had in America really serious efforts to break down discrimination in housing, and at the same time a concerted program of government aid to improve housing for Negroes, I think that many white people would be surprised at how many Negroes would choose to live among themselves, exactly as Poles and Jews and other ethnic groups do.”

PeopleIfsThinkingHas BeensGovernmentWould BeAmericaWhiteEffortBreakGroupsSeriousNegativeProgramJewAidsDiscriminationAtmosphereBreaking DownHousingEthnic GroupsRealtorsGovernment Aid
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
Create image

“It was a strange lightness, a drifting feeling. Zero gravity. I understood that everything that once seemed solid and immovable might just float away. And that this was a truth of life, not an illusion in the grieving mind of a child. Everything that is hard and heavy in your world is made up of billions of molecules in constant motion offering the illusion of permanence. But it all tends toward breaking down and falling away. Some things just go more quickly, more surprisingly, than others.”

WorldMindChildrenMadeHardFeelingsMightFallStrangeIllusionUnderstoodDown AndConstantHeavyBillionsGrievingZeroGravityOfferingTruth Of LifeBreaking DownFloatsMoleculesDriftingPermanenceLightnessZero Gravity
Author:Lisa Unger
Create image

“I am firmly opposed to the government entering into any business the major purpose of which is competition with our citizens... for the Federal Government deliberately to go out to build up and expand... a power and manufacturing business is to break down the initiative and enterprise of the American people; it is the destruction of equality of opportunity amongst our people, it is the negation of the ideals upon which our civilization has been based.”

PeopleHas BeensGovernmentPurposeOpportunityBreakCitizensCivilizationMajorsIdealsDestructionCompetitionEnterpriseInitiativeFederal GovernmentEnteringBreaking DownManufacturingNegationEquality Of Opportunity
Book:March 4, 1929, to October 1, 1931
Create image

“The way to solve the conflict between human values and technology needs is not to run away from technology. That's impossible. The way to resolve the conflict is to break down the barriers of dualistic thought that prevent a real understanding of what technology is--not an exploitation of nature, but a fusion of nature and the human spirit into a new kind of creation that transcends both.”

WayNeedsHumansKindRealRunningSpiritValuesUnderstandingBreakTechnologyImpossibleCreationConflictSolveBarriersResolveRunning AwayExploitationBreaking DownHuman SpiritFusionHuman Values
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
Create image

“It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes. But Chrysler has been in trouble before, and we got through it, and I believe they can do it again... Let's face it, if your car breaks down, you're not going to take it to the White House to get fixed. But, if your company breaks down, you've got to go to the experts on the ground, not the bureaucrats.”

IfsBelieveHas BeensPainAmericaFacesHouseI BelieveCan DoWhiteCompanyBreakTroubleCarFixedExpertsWhite HouseBreaking DownRopeBureaucratsChrysler
Author:Lee Iacocca
Create image

“Even the alleged benefits of war, so far as more than alleged, spring from the fact that conflict of peoples at least enforces intercourse between them and thus accidentally enables them to learn from one another, and thereby to expand their horizons. Travel, economic and commercial tendencies, have at present gone far to break down external barriers; to bring peoples and classes into closer and more perceptible connection with one another.”

WarFactsClassBreakGoneEconomicConflictBenefitsSpringConnectionsTendenciesBarriersHorizonBreaking DownIntercourse
Book:Democracy And Education
Create image

“You see them? You see the things that float and flop about you and through you ever moment of your life? You see the creatures that form what men call the pure air and the blue sky? Have I not succeeded in breaking down the barrier; have I not shown you worlds that no other living men have seen?”

MenWorldMomentsFormAirSkyPureCreaturesBlueBarriersBreaking DownFloatsBlue Sky
Book:Waking Up Screaming: Haunting Tales of Terror
Create image

“Inanimate objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost. The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately to defeat him, and the three major classifications are based on the method each object uses to achieve its purpose. As a general rule, any object capable of breaking down at the moment when it is most needed will do so.”

MenMomentsUsePurposeThreeLostGoalBreakAchieveObjectsNeededMajorsCapableDown AndMethodDefeatCategoriesBreaking DownClassificationInanimate Objects
Author:Russell Baker
Create image

“When women and men have approximately equal life expectancies, it seems to be because women die not only in childbirth (fewer than thought) but about equal from diseases; poor sanitation and water; inadequate healthcare; and diseases of malnutrition. In industrialized societies, early deaths are caused more by diseases triggered by stress, which breaks down the immune system. It is since stress has become the key factor that men have died so much sooner than women.”

MenSeemsDiesWaterPoorBreakKeysEqualDiseaseMen And WomenStressDiedFactorsFewerHealthcareBreaking DownInadequateImmuneChildbirthImmune SystemMalnutritionExpectancySanitationLife ExpectancyEarly Death
Book:The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex
Create image

“As soon as we cease to believe in such an engineer and in a discourse which breaks with the received historical discourse, and as soon as we admit that every finite discourse is bound by a certain bricolage and that the engineer and the scientist are also species of bricoleurs , then the very idea of bricolage is menaced and the difference in which it took on its meaning breaks down.”

BelieveIdeasCertainDifferencesBreakScientistHistoricalSpeciesBoundsCeaseEngineersDiscourseBreaking DownFinite
Book:Writing and Difference
Create image