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Quicksand Quotes

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Quicksand Quotes

“To get out of that quicksand, she needed validation, and she sought it the most in the world than anything else. Every time someone she knew passed by and looked at her, she would say everything that led her to get stuck in that quicksand. And every time someone blamed her for getting stuck or would just pass away without acknowledging her story, the quicksand consumed her a bit more.”

“The Trenches of Comprehension by Stewart Stafford Drowning at quicksand's smothering pace, A lonely disappearance that leaves no trace. As I struggle to get out, the deeper I sink, Nothing bequeathed, just dusty ink. Old wives say hearing is the last to go, Second last wind as a bittersweet tango, In sunken lethargy shouting aphorisms, Spouting words fortifies alert mechanisms. Communication fading as it nourishes, From a dying man's lips, it flourishes, The Reaper's bone dice leave you cheated, Exhaustion cashing out the defeated. Chin sinks below for past life crime, Eyes and lungs fill in white light time, Saviour's hand grasps mine in the sludge, And from death's door, I slowly budge. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

“With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can't start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It's like quicksand...hopeless from the start. A story, a picture, can renew sensation a little, but not enough, not enough. Nothing is real except the present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moments, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don't want to die.”

“It took Pueblo a few seconds to take in his surroundings. The first thing he realised was that he felt bruised all over; the second was that his clothes were waterlogged, even more than before, from the quicksand; and the third, was that he had landed on his front and was lying on a large, uncomfortable stone. No, wait… In his disoriented state, he shifted his weight. The stone didn't move. He was lying on his own fucking erection.”

“I was raised in the desert and always appreciated the way its landscape gives you a chance to see what's coming. In Florida, dangers don't reveal themselves until it's too late. The alligator lurking in the shallow pond, ready to devour your pet or your child. The snake hidden in the underbrush. The riptide slicing across that postcard-perfect Atlantic. Sinkholes. Encephalitis. Brain-destroying bacteria that flourish in overheated lakes. Quicksand.”

“Islanzadi sighed, and suddenly appeared tired. “Ormomis may have been your proper teacher, but you have proved yourself to be Brom’s heir, not Oromis’s. Brom is the only person who managed to entangle himself in as many predicaments as you. Like him, you seem compelled to find the deepest patch of quicksand and then dive into it.” Eragon hid a smile, pleased by the comparison.”

“Most autumns, the water is low from the long dry summer, and you have to get out from time to time and wade, leading or dragging your boat through trickling shallows from one pool to the long channel-twisted pool below, hanging up occasionally on shuddering bars of quicksand, making six or eight miles in a day's lazy work, but if you go to the river at all, you tend not to mind. You are not in a hurry there; you learned long since not to be.”

“When I write "paradise" I mean not only apple trees and golden women but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and Gila monsters, sandstorms, volcanoes and earthquakes, bacteria and bear, cactus, yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes - disease and death and the rotting of flesh.”

“While theoretically a person may block God out, logically there will be a breakdown because ultimately all enunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind. And if that moral doctrine is not absolute then the definer himself becomes undefined. That's what we are living with - an undefined definer giving us definitions for our course, and we are being trapped in the quicksand of the absence of objective truth.”

“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men's reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”

“Most days I feel like the sole survivor of a shipwreck, rowing my paddleboat across a sea of people on waves made of an infinite array of hands and crests that reveal anonymous faces. On a good day, the clouds part to alight on-lo and behold-an island! I step ashore, only find that it too is made of people, mangled bodies somehow still alive. They grab at my feet, pulling me under like quicksand. The last thing I see before suffocating is the sky, a billion eyes staring down, blinking in undulating electric ripples. The cold rain I feel on my cheeks is the tears of the people.”

“So there you have it: Nature is a rotten mess. But that's only the beginning. If you take your eyes off it for one second, it will kill you. Thorns, insects, fungus, worms, birds, reptiles, wild animals, raging rivers, bottomless ravines, dry deserts, snow, quicksand, tumbleweeds, sap, and mud. Rot, poison and death. That's Nature.It's a wonder you even step outside of your cabin, I said.My bravery exceeds my good sense, he said.”

“The canyon country does not always inspire love. To many it appears barren, hostile, repellent - a fearsome mostly waterless land of rock and heat, sand dunes and quicksand, cactus, thornbrush, scorpion, rattlesnake, and agaraphobic distances. To those who see our land in that manner, the best reply is, yes, you are right, it is a dangerous and terrible place. Enter at your own risk. Carry water. Avoid the noonday sun. Try to ignore the vultures. Pray frequently.”

“The genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man; it cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself. That which is creative must create itself - In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable sdvice.”

“I think I'm still just as conflicted about the war as I always was. On the one hand, I was a soldier carrying out his duty, following his allegiance to his country and to the mission at hand. But yet, there was always this unease plaguing me. "What are we doing here?" "Are we really fixing this country or are we doing more harm than good?" And the most pressing question: "How do we pull ourselves out of this quicksand?" I think I'm still there in that white space you mentioned, trying to get clarity for myself on what this war did to us as a nation.”

“Kevin [Drew] beat me to the punch because when he first sent "Sister OK" and I'm listening to it, it took me to a place that I had not been to in a long time. It took me to a place when you're a teenager. I understand it all now, but in a moment of confusion, in a moment of trying to find some kind of solid ground in an environment that was quicksand in my life, it's that first line just kills me all the time: "Well it's just that your sister said you'd be OK."”

“Generally the impulse to find justice through punitive measures can be a kind of quicksand. What James Whitman, the scholar I cite in the chapter of my book, talks about as an urge to level down, I think you see that everywhere. We're going to be a punitive society, so we might as well level out that punitiveness. Bankers and college swim stars and everyone face that same kind of wrath.”

“The Lord is near! You're not alone. You may feel alone. You may think you're alone. But there's never a moment in which you face life without help. God is near. God repeatedly pledges his proverbial presence to his people. Don't assume God is watching from a distance. Avoid the quicksand that bears the marker "God has left you!" Don't indulge this lie. If you do, your problem will be amplified by a sense of loneliness. It's one thing to face a challenge, but to face it all alone? Isolation creates a downward cycle of fret.”

“Beauty is a dangerous word. Beauty becomes slightly indulgent for me. It's a snatched kind of moment for me because I'm entitled to a nice day in my life but beauty creeps close to narcissism, which I really dislike, particularly in human beings who were born with good looks, who cash in on it. It's a bit of a dodgy word for me. I look at it with caution. It can be a bit like walking into quicksand; it can get you in to all kinds of trouble.”

“And so I began to read,' Sorkar said. 'And at first the complete works were like a jungle, the language was quicksand. Metaphors turned beneath my feet and became biting snakes, similes fled from my grasp like frightened deer, taking all meaning with them. All was alien, and amidst the hanging, entangling creepers of this foreign grammar, all sound became a cacophany. I feared for myself, for my health and sanity, but then I thought of my purpose, of where I was and who I was, of pain and I pressed on.”