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Terrifying Quotes

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Terrifying Quotes

“Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all costs, but maybe it's worthwhile to face it occasionally. The further we push aloneness away, the less are we able to cope with it, and the more terrifying it gets. Some philosophers believe that loneliness is the only true feeling there is. We live orphaned on a tiny rock in the immense vastness of space, with no hint of even the simplest form of life anywhere around us for billions upon billions of miles, alone beyond all imagining. We live locked in our own heads and can never entirely know the experience of another person. Even if we're surrounded by family and friends, we journey into death completely alone.”

“After reading Burgum, [Patricia Highsmith] wrote in her cahier that, like Kafka, she felt she was a pessimist, unable to formulate a system in which an individual could believe in God, government or self. Again like Kafka, she looked into the great abyss which separated the spiritual and the material and saw the terrifying emptiness, the hollowness, at the heart of every man, a sense of alienation she felt compelled to explore in her fiction. As her next hero, she would take an architect, 'a young man whose authority is art and therefore himself,' who when he murders, 'feels no guilt or even fear when he thinks of legal retribution'. The more she read of Kafka the more she felt afraid as she came to realise, 'I am so similar to him.”

“Cardan gazes at a rosebush with petals so black and glossy they look like patent leather. 'It was terrifying,' he says, 'watching you fall. I mean, you're generally terrifying, but I am unused to fearing for you. And then, I was furious. I am not sure I have ever been that angry before.' 'Mortals are fragile,' I say. 'Not you,' he says in a way that sounds a little like a lament. 'You never break.' Which is ridiculous, as hurt as I am. I feel like a constellation of wounds, held together with string and stubbornness. Still, I like hearing it. I like everything he's saying all too well. That boy is your weakness.”

“The thing looked around vacantly with its one eye, as if it had lost her. Finally it saw her, and, as if making a great effort, it opened its mouth once more and said in a wet, urgent voice, 'Run, child . . . She is pushing pushing me so hard to hurt you. I cannot fight her.' 'You can, said Coraline. 'Be brave.' She looked around: the thing that had once been the other father was between her and the steps up and out of the cellar. She started edging along the wall, heading towards the steps. The thing twisted bonelessly until one eye was facing her. It seemed to be getting bigger now, and more awake. 'Alas,' it said. 'I cannot.' Coraline had a single heartbeat in which to react. She could only think of two things to do. Either she could scream, and try to run away, and be chased around a badly lit cellar by the huge grub-thing - be chased until it caught her. Or she could do something else. So she did something else. As the thing reached her, Coraline put out her hand and closed it around the thing's remaining button-eye, and she tugged, as hard as she knew how.”

“Dragomir knew he'd never given much thought to love. He'd thought about his lifemate often. He'd been obsessed with finding her for centuries, but he'd never considered what he would feel when he found her. Not love. Not this overwhelming, terrifying feeling that shook him to his core. He hadn't known love could be felt through one's entire body. That it could manifest itself physically.”

“The Doctor looked at her, completely serious, and said very kindly and softly, 'Oh, I'm incredibly scared most of the time, you know. No one with even a basic knowledge of the universe wouldn't be - it's a completely terrifying place. And enormous. But it's also wonderful and lovely and more interesting than you could possibly imagine. Even than I could possibly imagine. It never lets me down. And I get to be alive in it all and to be scared and amazed and delighted and... I wouldn't be without it.' Then he adjusted his hat and grinned, playing the fool again.”

“'Go back up.' The angel chuckled. 'Well, that would be easy enough if I wanted to go up, but I assure you that I've had quite enough of up to last forever.' The angel shook with mirth again. 'Or until tomorrow. Or whenever I'm overcome with the lust for it once more. It's quite delightful, except that it's terrifying. Which is, of course, how so many of the best things are.'”

“...repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality. The child trapped in an abusive environment is faced with formidable tasks of adaptation. She must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety in a situation that is unsafe, control in a situation that is terrifyingly unpredictable, power in a situation of helplessness. Unable to care for or protect herself, she must compensate for the failures of adult care and protection with the only means at her disposal, an immature system of psychological defenses.”