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Desolation Quotes

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Desolation Quotes

“It is usually unbearably painful to read a book by an author who knows way less than you do, unless the book is a novel.”

BookStoriesWisdomHumorFunnyPainSufferingQuotesLiteratureUnderstandingGriefEducationConsciousnessFictionKnowledgeNovelLearningToo MuchSadnessAwarenessIgnoranceHumourBooksSorrowDespairPerceptionHeartbreakJokesHumorousCapacityAccountsMiseryEntertainmentAppreciationIgnorantCommandEducatedRealizationNarrativeAccomplishmentHeartacheTortureAuthorWriterEnlightenedSatireStoryWritersUnhappinessCapabilityMasteryNonfictionAcceptableAphorismEntertainingAgonyDistressQuotationsJokeTormentEssaysHilariousEscapeUnbearableDiscomfortAuthorsUnderstandKnowExpertiseScholarshipComprehensionAphorismsSchoolingEscapismApprehensionCognitionKnowledgeableIlliterateDesolationEssaySkillUneducatedTolerableWretchednessManageableWell EducatedScholarlyAphoristAphoristsOverpoweringInsufferableUninformedEruditeUnendurableEruditionProficiencyLearnedNarrativesComprehendAccountEntertainGraspSustainableUnacceptableWell ReadInexperiencedCultivatedCulturedIntolerableWell InformedCognizanceUnschooledUnsophisticatedEndurableInsupportableUnworldlyMan Of LettersUnknowledgeableUnreadUntrainedVia DolorosaAdeptnessAdmissibleBe Acquainted WithBe Conversant WithBe Familiar WithBe Up To Speed OnBe Versed InBenightedBrookableExpertnessHave A Grasp OfHave Knowledge OfHave LearnedHave MasteredHave MemorizedKnowledgableMen Of LettersSufferableSupportableUnenlightenedUnlearnedUnletteredUnmanageableUntaughtUntutoredWoman Of LettersWomen Of Letters
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“Standing at the edge of time Almost falling down to the dark abyss As I near the end of mine I reminisce the things I will miss The smiles and laughter Running around without a care The time when my grin will never falter Being so free, willing my soul to bare Heartaches, heartbreaks and tears Now I know better and to myself I will never lie Because in woe, I learned to love and never fear Those were the best and worst moments of my life As the memories rush back to me I look down and now I feel relieved Because when it is time Everything will be fine when I leave”

LifeMemoriesLonelinessLife And LivingPeace Of MindOblivionDesolation
Author:Isabelle Guzman
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“indelible waiting l'art poetique "..I will wait for the night to chase me..." I sit on a rock and watch children playing in the park below They don't see me Or know my thoughts Or that you haven't called But I forgive them their indifference today Above me a crow caws Perhaps he smells the crumbs on my dress Or my anger But he flits away over the trees Probably has a home Probably has a wife Probably knew to call The children leave The coffee in my can turns cold The wind nips at me Some street lights flicker on But I won't move Not yet I will wait for the night to chase me Back where I came from Up the empty street To a quiet house”

LoveRomancePoetryWaitingMarriageLonelinessSorrowLiesAloneMoving OnEmptinessResentmentLove PoemsBreaking UpDesolationEstrangementBird PoemsChildren PoemsIndelible Waiting
Book:Years: a book of tiny poetry
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“I sit on a rock and watch children playing in the park below They don't see me Or know my thoughts Or that you haven't called But I forgive them their indifference today Above me a crow caws Perhaps he smells the crumbs on my dress Or my anger But he flits away over the trees Probably has a home Probably has a wife Probably knew to call The children leave The coffee in my can turns cold The wind nips at me Some street lights flicker on But I won't move Not yet I will wait for the night to chase me Back where I came from Up the empty street To a quiet house”

HeartPoetryRelationshipsMarriageSadnessLonelinessSorrowPoemLiesAloneMoving OnInsecurityResentmentLove PoemBreaking UpDesolationGoodbyesBird PoemIndelible WaitingChild Poem
Book:Years: a book of tiny poetry
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“But some of the machinery would be left, since new pieces could always be bought on the instalment plan - gaunt, staring motionless wheels rising from the mounds of brick rubble and ragged weeds with a quality profoundly astonishing, and gutted boilers lifting their rusting and unsmoking stacks with an air stubborn, baffled and bemused upon a stumppocked scene of profound and peaceful desolation, unplowed, untilled, gutting slowly into red and choked ravines beneath the long quiet rains of autumn and the galloping fury of vernal equinoxes.”

NatureBeautyDesolationAmerican SouthDeindustrialisation
Book:Light in August
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“As Ganin looked up at the skeletal roof in the ethereal sky he realized with merciless clarity that his affair with Mary was ended forever. It had lasted no more than four days—four days which were perhaps the happiest days of his life. But now he had exhausted his memories, was sated by them, and the image of Mary, together with that of the old dying poet, now remained in the house of ghosts, which itself was already a memory”

MemoriesSadDesolation
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
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“The people here had grown emaciated with hunger and toil, and the walls of their houses sighed with grief and sorrow. All the lovely flowers of this land had been transplanted to the palace to delight the eyes of the sovereign's consort, while the plump boars had been taken and served to please her sophisticated tastes. And so, the tranquil spring sun shone in vain on the grey, deserted streets of the city. And, perched atop a hill in the centre, the palace, shining with the five colours of the rainbow, towered over the corpse of the capital like a beast of prey.”

MetaphorTyrannyInequalityExploitationDesolation
Book:The Siren’s Lament: Essential Stories
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“We are sometimes dragged into a pit of unhappiness by someone else’s opinion that we do not look happy.”

HumorFunnyPainHappinessFacesJoySufferingQuotesPleasureGriefOpinionSadnessHumourSorrowSadDespairDepressionJokesHumorousBlueMiserySatisfactionDelightHappyUnhappyHolesImpressionSatisfiedMiserableWell BeingBlissHeartacheEnjoymentContentmentSatireUnhappinessMelancholyEcstasyAphorismJoyfulAgonyDistressQuotationsJokeAnguishWoeTormentCheerfulHeartbrokenHilariousPitsDelightedJoyousMerrySunnyAphorismsGloomCheerfulnessOpinionsFaceSmilingRaptureRadiantGloomyDepressedEcstaticTribulationContentDesolationGleeHurtingBroken HeartedEuphoriaJoyfulnessGrinningJollySorrowfulDownWretchednessCarefreeExuberanceExhilarationForlornAphoristAphoristsElationMerrimentGaietyDespondencyHoleEuphoricMalaiseMoroseChagrinImpressionsDespondentDejectedBlissfulBlitheOverjoyedExultantLightheartedJubilationJovialPitDespairingDolefulContentedDejectionLightheartednessMournfulPleasedDownheartedElatedBeamingBuoyantDisconsolateDowncastThe BluesCheerlessGloominessGratifiedJovialityJumping For JoyOn Top Of The WorldUntroubledCheeryJoylessLow SpiritsRapturousWoefulAs Happy As A ClamBeatificBlissfulnessChirpyDispiritedExhilaratedGleefulGlumIn A Good MoodIn Good SpiritsIn Seventh HeavenJocularJocundJollityJubilantLong FacedMournfulnessOn A HighOn Cloud NineOver The MoonThrilledTickled PinkWalking On AirWoebegoneDolefulnessDown At The MouthDown In The DumpsDown In The MouthGlumnessGood SpiritsLugubriousTransports Of Delight
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface. The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust. The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being. Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water. Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life. The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage. Dare to breach the surface and sink.”

WorldWaterMysteryDangerOceanIllusionProfoundDepthBonesSurfaceRichesDustPlentyDesertDryContradictionDeepContrastInwardEcologySuperficialObscureRichnessOccultScarcityDroughtDesolationSkinHiddenInsideEcoWithinOutsideMicrocosmProfundityMysteriesWithoutSkin DeepInside OutDangersDepthsDigDelveMembraneInnardsObscured
Book:The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
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“Strangely it came to Gale then that he was glad. Yaqui had returned to his own — the great spaces, the desolation, the solitude — to the trails he had trodden when a child, trails haunted now by ghosts of his people, and ever by his gods. Gale realized that in the Yaqui he had known the spirit of the desert, that this spirit had claimed all which was wild and primitive in him.”

SolitudeDesertNative AmericanDesolationSouthwestPrimitivenessYaqui
Book:Desert Gold
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“In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the Ice Age— no warmth, no life, no movement. Only those who have experienced it can fully appreciate what it means to be without the sun day after day and week after week. Few men unaccustomed to it can fight off its effects altogether, and it has driven some men mad.”

NightDarkSunColdDesolationIce AgeAntarctica
Book:Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
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“Each death laid a dreadful charge of complicity on the living; each death was incongenerous, its guilt irreducible, its sadness immortal; a bracelet of bright hair about the bone. I did not pray for her, because prayer has no efficacy; I did not cry for her, because only extroverts cry twice; I sat in the silence of that night, that infinite hostility to man, to permanence, to love, remembering her, remembering her.”

DeathLossGriefMourningDesolation
Book:The Magus
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“Sometimes, when one is moving silently through such an utterly desolate landscape, an overwhelming hallucination can make one feel that oneself, as an individual human being, is slowly being unraveled. The surrounding space is so vast that it becomes increasingly difficult to keep a balanced grip on one's own being. The mind swells out to fill the entire landscape, becoming so diffuse in the process that one loses the ability to keep it fastened to the physical self. The sun would rise from the eastern horizon, and cut it's way across the empty sky, and sink below the western horizon. This was the only perceptible change in our surroundings. And in the movement of the sun, I felt something I hardly know how to name: some huge, cosmic love.”

LandscapeHorizonCosmicDesolationHallucination
Book:The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
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“Never being on the shortlist of people’s attention may arouse a sensation of desolation but may, all together, be an expectant challenge to excel and exceed oneself, as it can inflame the will to extract unsuspected power from the inner self, never to give up and to hit the ground and run…ever since life may offer an astounding window of opportunity to assert oneself in a land of contention. ("Not on the shortlist" )”

ChallengeInner SelfDesolationExcelWindow Of OpportunityExpectantInflameShortlistHit The Ground And Run
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“Snowbound Condemnation by Stewart Stafford My vigil for a shabby scarecrow, Cruciform in a snowdrift field, Its saviour-suited arms clawing At corvids, frozen heels to Heaven. Its mouth a wailing O-shape, Lamenting deafened ears of corn, Resuscitation for a fool's errand, In a hysterical chorus of biting gales. Haunting a sycamore tree, complicit, I witnessed desolation's spectacle, Half-expecting a condemned miracle, This pilgrim genuflected into green slush. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

PoetryWinterNarrativeMelancholyExistentialGothicSymbolicDesolationScarecrowReligious Imagery
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“He was walking one wet night through a desolate region of the City. A wagon trundled by, drenching his legs with a fine spray. He turned aside, and a maze of dingy streets opened before him. The sky between the slanting rooftops hung black as a slab of jet. Then a waning moon rode clear of the storm clouds. He had penetrated an old commercial sector of the City where winding lanes lay lampless, flanked by dilapidated warehouses. Every window was boarded up or shattered; too many doorways opened onto musty darkness. With every turn of the black road the same scene lay revealed: row upon row of grey, sagging eaves; scarred and battered gates; rusting fences; sickle moons in every shallow remnant of the rain. He seemed to be shedding the present with every step, moving backwards through time. It seemed that he was acting out some part prearranged, utterly without will. "The White Road”

DesolationDerelictUrban Blight
Book:The White Road
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“Etienne now commanded a view of the whole district. It was still very dark, but the old man had peopled the darkness with untold sufferings, which the young one could sense all round him in the limitless space. Could he not hear a cry of famine borne over this bleak country by the March wind? The gale had lashed itself into a fury and seemed to be blowing death to all labour and a great hunger that would finish off men by the hundred. And with his roving eye he tried to peer through the gloom, with a tormenting desire to see and yet a fear of seeing. Everything slid away in the dark unknown, and all he could see was distant furnaces and coke-ovens which, set in batteries of a hundred chimneys arranged obliquely, made sloping lines of crimson flames; whilst further to the left the two blast-furnaces were burning blue in the sky like monstrous torches. It was as depressing to watch as a building on fire: as far as the threatening horizon the only stars which rose were the nocturnal fires of the land of coal and iron.”

MiseryDesolationCoal Mining
Book:Germinal
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“There is nothing in either savage or civilized history that is more utterly complete, more remorselessly sweeping than the Father of Mercy´s campaign among the Midianites. The official report deals only in masses, all the virgins, all the men, all the babies. all ´creatures that breathe,´ all houses. all cities. It gives you just one vast picture ...as far as the eye can reach, of charred ruins and storm-swept desolation... Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals, of gentleness, of meekness, of righteousness, of purity?”

MenGivingEyeFatherHouseDealsCitiesMoralTeacherHe ManBabyCreaturesMassMercyStormBreatheCampaignsRuinsOfficialsPurityJust OneReportsCivilizedRighteousnessSavagesVirginsGentlenessSweepingDesolationMeekness
Author:Mark Twain
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