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Terrible Quotes

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Terrible Quotes

“What truth? You see where truth is, and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn't it because you're young, because you haven't had time to suffer till you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward, isn't it because you cannot foresee or expect anything terrible, because so far life has been hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than we are, but think only, be just a little magnanimous, and have mercy on me.”

ThinkingLooksLittlesHas BeensImportantSeemsEyeYoungSufferingLostHonestHavensTerribleTruth IsMercySightDearDeeperSettlingUntruthImportant QuestionsMagnanimous
Book:The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…
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“I'm not blessed, or merciful. I'm just me. I've got a job to do, and I do it. Listen: even as we're talking, I'm there for old and young, innocent and guilty, those who die together and those who die alone. I'm in cars and boats and planes; in hospitals and forests and abbatoirs. For some folks death is a release, and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. But in the end, I'm there for all of them.”

EndsTogetherJobsYoungDiesTalkingCarTerribleBlessedFolksForestsInnocentBoatGuiltyReleasePlanesHospitalsTerrible ThingsMercifulAbominationSandman
Author:Neil Gaiman
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“So the Midwest nourishes us [...] and presents us with the spectacle of a land and a people completed and certain. And so we run to our bedrooms and read in a fever, and love the big hardwood trees outside the windows, and the terrible Midwest summers, and the terrible Midwest winters [...]. And so we leave it sorrowfully, having grown strong and restless by opposing with all our will and mind and muscle its simple, loving, single will for us: that we stay, that we stay and find a place among its familiar possibilities. Mother knew we would go; she encouraged us.”

PeopleMindBigsRunningMotherCertainStrongSimpleTreeLandPossibilityTerribleSummerWindowAnd LoveWinterFamiliarMusclesBedroomRestlessFeverOpposingMidwestHardwood
Author:Annie Dillard
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“Heaven's brightest and best-loved angel, who was cast out for inspiring a rebellion against God. Having lost Heaven, Lucifer and his rebel angels vowed to continue fighting here on earth." "I don't understand why he had to fight. He was already in heaven." "True. But he wasn't content to serve. He wanted more." "He had all he could ask for, didn't he?" Ann asks. "Exactly." Miss Moore states. "He had to ask. He was dependent upon someone else's whim. It's a terrible thing to have no power of one's own. To be denied.”

StatesWantedEarthFightingAsksLostHeavenMissingTerribleAngelCastsDependentRebellionRebelDeniedTerrible ThingsWhimLuciferPower Of OneRebellion Against GodRebel Angels
Author:Libba Bray
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“Oh! that look of love!" continued he, between his teeth, as he bolted himself into his own private room. "And that cursed lie; which showed some terrible shame in the background, to be kept from the light in which I thought she lived perpetually! Oh, Margaret, Margaret! Mother, how you have tortured me! Oh! Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never have led you into any falsehood for me.”

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Book:The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (20+ Books)
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“The world was a terrible place, cruel, pitiless, dark as a bad dream. Not a good place to live. Only in books could you find pity, comfort, happiness - and love. Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you security and friendship and didn't ask anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly.”

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Author:Cornelia Funke
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“During the terrible years of the Yekhov terror I spent seventeen months in the prison queues in Leningrad. One day someone ‘identified’ me. Then a woman with lips blue with cold who was standing behind me, and of course had never heard of my name, came out of the numbness which affected us all and whispered in my ear—(we all spoke in whispers there): ‘Could you describe this?’ I said, ‘I can!’ Then something resembling a smile slipped over what had once been her face.”

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Author:Anna Akhmatova
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“This is the gift of your species and this is the danger, because you do not choose to control your imaginings. You imagine wonderful things and you imagine terrible things, and you take no responsibility for the choice. You say you have inside you both the power of good and the power of evil, the angel and the devil, but in truth you have just one thing inside you - the ability to imagine.”

ChoicesEvilAbilityResponsibilityImagineWonderfulOne ThingDangerTerribleDevilAngelSpeciesJust OneWonderful ThingsTerrible Things
Book:Sphere
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“Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.”

IfsWorldBelieveStillsStatesGovernmentHappensWishAbilityLibertyRiskSecurityCitizensTerribleIdealsClaimsAbsolutesSafetyWorthyThings HappenDefinedTerrible ThingsBlanketInterference
Author:Ron Paul
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“I came from the South and I know what war is, for I have seen its wreckage and terrible ruin. It is easy for me as President to declare war. I do not have to fight, and neither do the gentlemen on the Hill who now clamour for it. It is some poor farmer's boy, or son of some poor widow away off in some modest community, or perhaps the scion of a great family, who will have to do the fighting.”

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Author:Woodrow Wilson
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“That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God.”

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Book:Mere Christianity: a revised and enlarged edition, with a new introduction, of the three books, The case for Christianity, Christian behaviour, and Beyond personality
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“A terrible premonition washed over me. This was how the whole world would end.... They would devour the forest and excrete piles of buildings made of stone wrenched from the earth or from dead trees. They would hammer paths of bare stone between their dwellings, and dirty the rivers and subdue the land until it could recall only the will of man. They could not stop themselves from doing what they did. They did not see what they did, and even if they saw, they did not know how to stop. They no longer knew what was enough.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldMadeEndsEnoughWholeEarthKnow HowPathSawsTreeLandBuildingTerribleRiversStonesWhole WorldForestsDirtyRecallsHammersDwellingPremonitionDead Trees
Book:The Complete Soldier Son Trilogy: Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, Renegade’s Magic
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“If you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge. You know that the foundation of the world is love, so that even when no human being can or will help you, you may go on, trusting in the One that loves you.”

IfsKnowsWorldHumansMayHelpingHappensLosesHuman BeingsLove YouGoes OnTerribleCatholicFoundationFinalsGods WillSpiteRefugeTerrible Things
Book:Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration
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“Dear friend, I feel great! I really mean it. I have to remember his for the next time I'm having a terrible week. Have you wer done that? You feel really bad, and then it goes away, and you don't know why. I try to remind myself when I feel great like this that there will be another terrible week coming someday, so I should store up as many great details as I can, so during the next terrible week, I can remember those details and believe that I'll feel great again. It doesn't work a lot, but I think it's very important to try.”

ThinkingKnowsFeelsShouldTryingBelieveMeanI CanImportantDoneRememberNextWeekTerribleDearDetailsStoresSomedayNext TimeReally MeanDear Friend
Author:Stephen Chbosky
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“A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you." The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.”

MenSaidTwoSelfJoyLyingFightingEvilWinningCompassionKindnessMinutesHumilitySonRegretPrideTerribleSorrowEgoEmpathyGuiltGreedEnvyPityGenerosityArroganceOld ManResentmentSerenitySuperiorityBenevolenceInferioritySelf PityPeace LoveHope LoveFalse PrideTwo Wolves
Author:Wendy Mass
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“Her life her life had taken on the shape of a terrible mistake. She hadn't been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She'd been given a can of gravy and a hair-brush and told, "There you go." She'd stood there for years, blinking and befuddled, brushing the can with the brush.”

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Book:The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore
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“O gouvernment francais, I think it was not very clever of You to put this terrible doll in La Ferte; for when Governments are found dead there is always a little doll on top of them, pulling and tweaking with his little hands to get back at the microscopic knife which sticks firmly in the quiet meat of their hearts.”

ThinkingHeartLittlesHandsGovernmentFoundTerribleQuietSticksCleverMeatGet BackKnivesPullingDollsVery CleverLittle HandsFound Dead
Book:The Enormous Room
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“Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. But pompous fools-guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus-THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn't a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!”

PeopleTryingHelpingGuyWonderfulHonestFoolTerribleOrdinaryImpressCoveringPompousHocus Pocus
Book:Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
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“You got a job?" "Ignatius hasta help me at home," Mrs. Reilly said. Her initial courage was failing a little, and she began to twist the lute string with the cord on the cake boxes. "I got terrible arthuritis." "I dust a bit," Ignatius told the policeman. "In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”

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Author:John Kennedy Toole
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“Finding yourself in a hole, at the bottom of a hole, in almost total solitude, and discovering that only writing can save you. To be without the slightest subject for a book, the slightest idea for a book, is to find yourself, once again, before a book. A vast emptiness. A possible book. Before nothing. Before something like living, naked writing, like something terrible, terrible to overcome.”

WritingBookIdeasSubjectsTerribleSolitudeFindingsOvercomingBottomHolesNakedEmptinessFinding YourselfDiscoveringLike Something
Book:Writing
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“By now, it is probably very late at night, and you have stayed up to read this book when you should have gone to sleep. If this is the case, then I commend you for falling into my trap. It is a writer's greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of his books. It goes back to authors being terrible people who delight in the suffering of others. Plus, we get a kickback from the caffeine industry.”

PeopleIfsShouldWritingBookNightSufferingFallReadingHoursSleepPleasureMorningCasesGoneIndustryTerribleLateShould HaveDelightHearingCoffeeStayingPlusReading BooksTrapsCaffeineLate NightGreatest PleasuresSuffering Of OthersCommendation
Author:Brandon Sanderson
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“People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying school masters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all -- we were wet.”

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Book:Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
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“Some may say that such a girl is not ready for a relationship with a man, especially a man in his late sixties. But to that I say: We don't know anything. We don't know how to cure a cold or what dogs are thinking. We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill people out of greed. So who are we to say how to love. I wouldn't force her. I wouldn't have to. She would want me. We would be in love. What do you know. You don't know anything. Call me when you've cured AIDS, give me a ring then and I'll listen.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMenWantGivingMayWarWould BeGirlForceKnow HowDogReadyColdTerribleLateGive MeGreedAidsRingsCuresCall MeDo You KnowWant MeSixtyTerrible ThingsNot ReadyHow To Love
Book:No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
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“What this country needs... what this great land of ours needs is something to happen to it. Something ferocious and tragic, like what happened to Jericho or the cities of the plain - something terrible I mean, son, so that when the people have been through hellfire and the crucible, and have suffered agony enough and grief, they’ll be people again, human beings, not a bunch of smug contented cows rooting at the trough.”

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Book:Set this House on Fire
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“Authors also create lovable, friendly characters, then proceed to do terrible things to them, like throw them in unsightly librarian-controlled dungeons. This makes readers feel hurt and worried for the characters. The simple truth is that authors like making people squirm. If this weren't the case, all novels would be filled completely with cute bunnies having birthday parties.”

PeopleIfsFeelsCharacterWould BeHurtSimplePartyCasesNovelReaderTerribleTruth IsFilledWorriedCuteFriendlyControlledLibrarianTerrible ThingsLovableBunniesDungeonsSimple TruthsBirthday Party
Book:Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
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