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Brooding Quotes

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Brooding Quotes

“Insomniac is an impassioned work-an inspired amalgam of academic and first-hand research, memoir, analysis, and the kind of obsessive brooding we associate with the insomniac state. Much here is fascinating, and much is upsetting; here is a cri de coeur from a lifetime insomniac that is sure to appeal to the vast army of fellow insomniacs the world over.”

WorldFirstsKindStatesHandsResearchArmyFellowsLifetimeInspiredMemoirAppealsAnalysisUpsetFascinatingAcademicAssociatesObsessiveBroodingImpassionedInsomniac
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
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“Indeed, the greatest blessing that can follow the death of those we love is reconciliation. Without it there is no peace. But with it come quiet thoughts and quickened memories. And what else shall a man do except become reconciled? What purpose does he serve by fighting what he cannot touch or by brooding upon what he cannot change?”

MenDoePurposeFightingPeaceMemoriesLove IsBlessingQuietReconciliationThose We LoveBroodingGreatest Blessings
Author:Richard L. Evans
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“Slowly, but very deliberately, the brooding edifice of seduction, creaking and incongruous, came into being, a vast Heath Robinson mechanism, dually controlled by them and lumbering gloomily down vistas of triteness. With a sort of heavy-fisted dexterity the mutually adapted emotions of each of them became synchronized, until the unavoidable anti-climax was at hand.”

HandsEmotionHeavyControlledMechanismSeductionAdaptedBroodingClimaxEdificeVistasDexterity
Book:Afternoon Men: A Novel
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“I want you to sense the Holy Spirit brooding over you. Is this too good to be true? You betcha, it's the good news. Does He border on fantasy? You betcha, it's the gospel. Glad tidings of great joy, heaven has come instead of hell, Jesus has come instead of the devil. You can have the life you always wanted, instead of the life you have always had - instead. That is possible because of the absolute, incredible, incomparable favor of God.”

WantDoeWantedJoySpiritJesusHeavenFantasyHellHolyNewsDevilAbsolutesIncrediblesFavorsGladBeing TrueBordersHoly SpiritOver YouI Want YouGood NewsGreat JoyTrue YouBroodingIncomparableTidingsToo Good To Be TrueFavor Of God
Author:Graham Cooke
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“And in the same way, FDR's not much of a father. Although the children in all their memoirs really talk about what a fun-loving guy Dad was, and how brooding and unhappy Mom was. The children sort of blame it all on the mother. Well, this is kind of standard and typical, and aggrieved Eleanor Roosevelt that she was not a happier mother. She wanted to be a happier mother. And I must say, she was a happier grandmother.”

WayWellsKindChildrenWantedMotherGuyFatherFunMomDadStandardsBlameUnhappyMemoirGrandmotherTypicalBroodingEleanorFun Loving
Author:Blanche Wiesen Cook
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“Cale is my signature character in the Forgotten Realms. The most popular character I've written. He's a thief, an assassin, and eventually, a priest who stabs his own god in the chest. Always trying to slip his past, but never succeeding. Dark dude. Brooding dude. Born killer. But honorable, still.”

TryingStillsCharacterPastBornDarkWrittenSucceedForgottenRealmsPriestsChestsSlipsKillersThievesHonorableAlways TryingSignaturesAssassinsBrooding
Author:Paul S. Kemp
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“Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.”

IfsWayLifeTimeNextForgivenessTasksAccountsGuiltCleanBest WayAddressesRepentanceSentimentsRollingNext TimeRepentRemorseBroodingWrongdoingMoralistUndesirableAmendsBrave New WorldNot GuiltyBrave New World HappinessBrave New World FreedomFeeling GuiltyMaking Amends
Book:The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world
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“The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega, it is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blinded note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to "World." Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing.”

WorldFacesWaterPrayerSilenceStepsPrayingThousandTenWingsNotesQuittingDistinctionAddressesSilence IsBlindedRight DirectionTentsBlurBroodingAlphasSteps In The Right Direction
Author:Annie Dillard
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“My generation was secretive, brooding, ambitious, show-offy, and this generation is congenial. Totally. I imagine them walking around with GPS chips that notify them when a friend is in the vicinity, and their GPSes guide them to each other in clipped electronic lady voices and they sit down side by side in a coffee shop and text-message each other while checking their e-mail and hopping and skipping around Facebook to see who has posted pictures of their weekend.”

ShowsSidesVoiceImagineGenerationsWalkingMessagesGuidesCoffeeShopsWeekendMailAmbitiousChipsMy GenerationThis GenerationBroodingSecretiveCoffee ShopGpsText MessageHoppingVicinityNotify
Author:Garrison Keillor
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“For a while he'd tried molding himself into the tragic Romantic hero, brooding and staring clench-jawed off into space as he composed dark verse in his head. But it turned out that trying to appear tragic in Incontinence, Indiana, was redundant, and his mother kept shouting at him and making him forget his rhymes. "Tommy, if you keep grinding your teeth like that, they'll wear away and you'll have to have dentures like Aunt Ester." Tommy only wished his beard was as heavy as Aunt Ester's---then he could stare out over the moors while he stroked it pensively.”

IfsTryingMotherDarkSpaceForgetHeroHeavyTeethStaringTragicVersesRhymeAuntBeardShoutingIndianaBroodingRedundantMoorsMoldingIncontinence
Author:Christopher Moore
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“Though men in the mass forget the origins of their need, they still bring wolfhounds into city apartments, where dog and man both sit brooding in wistful discomfort. The magic that gleams an instant between Argos and Odysseus is both the recognition of diversity and the need for affection across the illusions of form. It is nature's cry to homeless, far-wandering, insatiable man: "Do not forget your brethren, nor the green wood from which you sprang. To do so is to invite disaster.”

MenNeedsStillsFormForgetCitiesMagicDogCryDiversityMassIllusionGreenAffectionWoodsDisasterWanderRecognitionInstantInvitesApartmentHomelessDiscomfortBrethrenInsatiableGleamBroodingOdysseus
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“An iceberg is water striving to be land; a mountain, especially a Himalaya, especially Everest, is land's attempt to metamorphose into sky; it is grounded in flight, the earth mutated--nearly--into air, and become, in the true sense, exalted. Long before she ever encountered the mountain, Allie was aware of its brooding presence in her soul.”

LongSoulEarthWaterAirSkyLandMountainStriveFlightGroundedExaltedEverestBroodingIcebergHimalayas
Book:The Satanic Verses
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“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.”

MayLongStillsDiesBlackSunClearAirTreeMonthsRedRiversHotShrinksCrowBananasBroodingBaffledGorgesWindowpane
Book:The God of Small Things
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“The Winter Woman is as wild as a blizzard, as fresh as new snow. While some see her as cold, she has a fiery heart under that ice-queen exterior. She likes the stark simplicity of Japanese art and the daring complexity of Russian literature. She prefers sharp to flowing lines, brooding to pouting, and rock and roll to country and western. Her drink is vodka, her car is German, her analgesic is Advil. The Winter Woman likes her men weak and her coffee strong. She is prone to anemia, hysteria, and suicide.”

MenHeartArtCountryLiteratureStrongLinesRocksCarColdDrinkWeakSuicideWesternWinterSimplicityCoffeeLikesSnowIceQueensComplexityDaringRock And RollStarksFieryHysteriaExteriorBroodingVodkaRussian LiteratureBlizzardPoutingIce QueenAnemiaJapanese Art
Author:Christopher Moore
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“Brooding, she changed the pool into the sea, and made the minnows into sharks and whales, and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by holding her hand against the sun, and so brought darkness and desolation, like God himself, to millions of ignorant and innocent creatures, and then took her hand away suddenly and let the sun stream down.”

WorldMadeHandsMillionsDarknessSunSeaChangedCreaturesCloudsCastsTinyIgnorantInnocentStreamsPoolSharksWhalesDesolationBroodingMinnows
Book:To the Lighthouse
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“Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings.”

LifeShouldYearsRealFeelingsMotivationalActionHoursLosesForgetOur LivesEndureForgottenAffectionUpsetDespiseWorthwhileSmall ThingsUndertakingsGrievanceBroodingIrreplaceablePettiness
Author:Andre Maurois
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“. . . in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker . . .”

MindOrderNaturalHealingInfluenceThousandExpectationsMakersSolitaryReverseBroodingGreat ExpectationsDiseasedSeclusionSecludedGreat Expectations ImportantHavishamMiss Havisham
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)
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“But the trouble with sainthood these days is the robe-and-halo imagery that gets stuck onto it." Carl got that brooding look again. "People forget that robes were street clothes once... and still are, in a lot of places. And halos are to that fierce air of innocence what speech balloons in comics are to the sound of the voice itself. Shorthand. But most people just see an old symbol and don't bother looking behind it for the meaning. Sainthood starts to look old-fashioned, unattainable... even repellent. Actually, you can see it all around, once you learn to spot it.”

PeopleLooksStillsSoundVoiceForgetBehindsTroubleAirStreetsSpeechClothesStuckSpotsSymbolsInnocenceThese DaysBotherFierceOld FashionedImageryRobesBalloonsUnattainableBroodingHalosSainthoodShorthand
Book:A Wizard Alone
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“We are all prone to brood on the evil done us. That brooding becomes as a gnawing and destructive canker. Is there a virtue more in need of application in our time than the virtue of forgiving and forgetting? There are those who would look upon this as a sign of weakness. Is it? I submit that it takes neither strength nor intelligence to brood in anger over wrongs suffered, to go through life with a spirit of vindictiveness, to dissipate one’s abilities in planning retribution. There is no peace in the nursing of a grudge. There is no happiness in living for the day when you can ‘get even.”

NeedsLooksDoneSpiritEvilAbilityForgetVirtueWeaknessForgivingPlanningOur TimeDestructiveApplicationSubmitNursingGrudgeRetributionBroodingVindictiveness
Author:Gordon B. Hinckley
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“I like the evening in India, the one magic moment when the sun balances on the rim of the world, and the hush descends, and ten thousand civil servants drift homeward on a river of bicycles, brooding on the Lord Krishna and the cost of living.”

WorldMomentsLordSunMagicBalanceCostThousandTenRiversIndiaEveningServantBicycleKrishnaHushBroodingRimsCost Of LivingCivil ServantsHush HushMagic MomentsLord Krishna
Book:What a way to run the tribe: selected articles, 1948-67
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“And what does the rain say at night in a small town, what does the rain have to say? Who walks beneath dripping melancholy branches listening to the rain? Who is there in the rain’s million-needled blurring splash, listening to the grave music of the rain at night, September rain, September rain, so dark and soft? Who is there listening to steady level roaring rain all around, brooding and listening and waiting, in the rain-washed, rain-twinkled dark of night?”

DoeNightWaitingDarkWalksLevelsMillionsListeningRainTownsGravesBranchesMelancholySteadySeptemberSmall TownRoaringBroodingDrippingRain At Night
Book:The Town and the City
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“Meditation upon death does not teach one how to die; it does not make the departure more easy, but ease is not what I seek. Beloved boy, so willful and brooding, your sacrifice will have enriched not my life but my death. ... Centuries as yet unborn within the dark womb of time would pass by thousands over that tomb without restoring life to him, but likewise without adding to his death, and without changing the fact that he had been.”

DoeFactsDiesEasyDarkBoysTeachMeditationSacrificeCenturyEaseBelovedWombTombsUnbornDepartureRestoringBrooding
Author:Marguerite Yourcenar
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