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Wreckage Quotes

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Wreckage Quotes

“Envy and respect are not the same things... Before I endow you with respect, I should find out whether your curiosity is intellectual or merely morbid. Not that those who gawk at train derailments are so different from those who conduct autopsies; both want, at some level, to know what has happened, and, by extension, what will happen. Did the liver fail because of the decedent's alcoholism or was some toxin administered? If the deliverer is found, he or she may be imprisoned or, in more honest times, hanged, and thus pose no further threat. Or for the gawker at the accident, espying loose parts not unlike his or her own parts strewn amid wreckage may lead to a sense of awe at death's power, or horror at life's fragility, either of which may be instructive in any number of ways.”

WantLifeBodyDeathDarkTeachPowerHonestFutureHorrorIntellectualRespectMurderTrainEnvyCuriousVampireFragileLearnDifferenceKillDiscoverMorbidFragilityAccidentWreckageCuriousityAutopsyPartsInstructDerailGawkAutopsiesInstructive
Book:The Lesser Dead
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“Fear tells me that while there might be a host of people who wish to stand beside me in times of crisis, the tangled wreckage is sometimes so enormous that the best of their efforts leave them stranded at a great distance. And standing desperately alone surveying the carnage that holds all others a bay, God suddenly taps me on the shoulder, leans over and whispers, 'how about a little demolition?”

GodJesusFearJesus ChristLonelyDestructionCrisisAloneFaithfulDesperateFrightenedFearfulIsolatedAfraidParalysisTrialStrandedWreckageCarnageDemolitionFearingDesperately
Author:Craig D. Lounsbrough
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“I have difficulty imagining what trouble the High King got into in his own rooms, but it doesn't take me long to discover. When we arrive, I spot Cardan resting among the wreckage of his furniture. Curtains ripped from their rods, the frames of paintings cracked, their canvases kicked through, furniture broken. A small fire smoulders in a corner, and everything stinks of smoke and spilled wine. Nor is he alone. On a nearby couch are Locke and two beautiful faeries- a boy and a girl- one with ram's horns, the other with long ears that come to tufted points, like those of an owl. All of them are in an advanced state of undress and inebriation. They watch the room burn with a kind of grim fascination. ... 'Carda-' I remember myself and sink in to a bow. 'Your Infernal Majesty.' He turns and, for a moment, seems to look through me, as though he has no idea who I am. His mouth is painted gold, and his pupils are large with intoxication. Then his lip lifts in a familiar sneer. 'You.' 'Yes,' I say. 'Me.”

Holly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteCardan GreenbriarJudeCardanThe Wicked KingIntoxicatedWreckageLocke
Book:The Wicked King
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“The drought came with the volcano. Street lamps frowned through ash-made dark. Homes turned into hills with chimneys peeking out the summits. We hummed as we trudged through the wreckage, until our hums turned into songs. We didn’t know what else to do. Tears wouldn’t water the grass. Cries wouldn’t call the birds home.”

DeathLossDiagnosisDroughtAshWreckageVolcanoChimney
Book:Survived By: A Memoir in Verse + Other Poems
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“Where mermaids live looks a bit like your pool.' said Bernard. 'Except they build houses out of whale bones and the wreckage of sunken ships. They play chess with seahorses. They wear capes of fish scales and sleep on beds made from seaweed.' As we listened, I thought I heard a slight splashing from the far end of the pool. 'At night,' Bernard continued, 'they turn on an electric eel for a night-light, and they light a fire, and the smoke goes up a chimney made from coral.' 'Wait a minute,' interupted Zoe, clearly immersed in Bernard's description. 'If they live underwater, how could they have a fire?' 'You should ask them,' said Bernard. Zoe and I open our eyes. Now, look, I know the light was just playing tricks on us. And I know we'd all probably inhaled too much sequin glue. But for the briefest moment, the blue of Zoe's pool gave way to deeper, darker aqua-colored water. The few plants and rocks were replaced with a lagoon and a waterfall where several mermaids lounged half in the water, half in the sun. They splashed and dove, their laughter making the same sound as the water.”

WaterChessPoolCapesWreckageSeaweedMermaidsWaterfallAquaCoralLagoonSeahorsesElectric EelFish ScalesSunken ShipsWhale Bones
Book:Confessions of an Imaginary Friend
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“A spirit of practicality had come to her aid. It was only human. When the earthquake stops, when the flood recedes, when the volcanic dust settles or the guns fall silent, the survivors pick their way through the rubble and debris and wreckage. A chair leg here, a first communion certificate or a bundle of love letters there. The flotsam and jetsam of the old ways―the ways that will never return.”

WarFloodSurvivorsOld WaysDebrisWreckageEarthquakeVolcanic Eruption
Book:The Apothecary’s House
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“The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever recurring song of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever rising tides of revenge. Man has never risen above the injunction of the lex talionis: "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, men continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path.”

MenHumansMadeSelfFactsProblemHandsEyeLawLife IsSongIndividualNationsSocialPathFeetOceanUglySolveRevengeTeethHuman LifeRisingSpiteTidesPursuedRisenRecurringSocial ProblemsRetaliationWreckage
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“Tragedy blows through your life like a tornado, uprooting everything, creating chaos. You wait for the dust to settle, and then you choose. You can live in the wreckage and pretend it's still the mansion you remember. Or you can crawl from the rubble and slowly rebuild. Because after disaster strikes, the important thing is that you move on. But if you're like me, you just keep chasing the storm.”

IfsLifeStillsImportantRememberMovingWaitingCreatingTragedyImportant ThingsChaosBlowStormStrikesDisasterLike MeDustSettlingYou ChooseChasingMansionsTornadoesWreckageRubbleVeronica MarsUprooting
Book:Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars
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“Liberalism in various guises - feminism, the sexual revolution, gay activism - has been at war with marriage and family for several decades now. And when do-gooders look around at the wreckage of human lives caused by disintegrating families, they call for government to act as father, mother, brother, and sister.”

HumansLooksHas BeensWarGovernmentMotherFatherFeminismBrotherRevolutionGayVariousDecadesActivismHuman LifeLiberalismBrothers And SistersGuiseWreckageSexual RevolutionFather MotherMarriage And Family
Book:Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help and the Rest of Us
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“There's that older poem of John Ashbery's-"America"-with the pun "I'm a wrecker," so wreckage and building out of the ashes of that. We're haunted by the genocide that is America, the decimation of so many native cultures. As a mix-blood European ancestry American, you're a nexus of all those violences, and yet there's a relative personal identity as well.”

WellsAmericaCultureViolenceBloodIdentityBuildingNativeGenocideRelativeAshesAncestryPunWreckagePersonal IdentityNexus
Author:Anne Waldman
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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.”

KnowsWarFightingEasyPresidentPoorBoysDyingSonTerribleSouthRuinsHillsGentlemanFarmersWidowsClamorWreckage
Author:Woodrow Wilson
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“At forty-two, I had never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem--my chronic inability to astonish myself. I promise you, no one judges me more harshly than I do myself; I caused a brilliant wreckage. Some say I fell from grace; they're being kind. I didn't fall. I dove.”

KindTwoDoneProblemFallMy OwnGraceJudgingPromiseBreathsBrilliantFortyBe KindInabilityI PromiseDoveJudge MeWreckage
Book:The Mermaid Chair
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“The past is not a peaceful landscape lying there behind me, a country in which I can stroll wherever I please, and will gradually show me all its secret hills and dales. As I was moving forward, so it was crumbling. Most of the wreckage that can be seen is colourless, distorted, frozen: its meaning escapes me... all that's left is a skeleton. I shall never find my plans again, my hopes and fears - I shall not find myself.”

I CanCountryShowsPastMovingLyingLeftSecretBehindsPlansPleaseMoving ForwardPeacefulHillsLandscapeShow MeFrozenSkeletonsCrumblingHopes And FearsWreckage
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.”

StoriesHouseDarkMiddleGlassesWoodsConfusionBoatBlindnessPowerlessRapidsCrushedShatteredRoaringIcebergWhirlwindWreckageShattered Glass
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three red-headed men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed Hermione's hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood. 'No - no - no!' someone was shouting. 'No! Fred! No!' And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.”

MenStillsHandsEyeLastsFacesThreeLaughingStruggleSeeingFeetBrotherWallRedStonesWoodsGhostShakingShoutingHermioneKneelingWreckageFred Weasley
Author:J. K. Rowling
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