Terror Quotes - Page 15

• The terror, which would not end for another 28 years-if it ever did end-began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

  Stephen King

  Rain, Years, Floating

  "It". Book by Stephen King, September 15, 1986.

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• I just gave them a little scare. A touch of psychological terror. As Joseph Conrad once wrote, true terror is the kind that men feel towards their imagination. (from Super-frog Saves Tokyo)

  Haruki Murakami

  Men, Imagination, Scare

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• For indeed you have a choice. You can flee and hide, and wait to be found. You can live out your days in terror, without meaning. Or you can take the harder choice, and you can save them.

  Juliet Marillier

  Found You, Choices, Waiting

  Juliet Marillier (2010). “Daughter of the Forest: Book One of the Sevenwaters Trilogy”, p.137, Macmillan

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• Biology designed the dance. Terror timed it. Dictated the rhythm with which their bodies answered each other. As though they already knew that for each tremor of pleasure they would pay with an equal measure of pain. As though they knew that how far they went would be measured against how far they would be taken.

  Arundhati Roy

  Pain, Taken, Body

  FaceBook post by Arundhati Roy from Feb 25, 2017

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• did you not call this a glorious expedition? and wherefore was it glorious? not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were brave to overcome. for this was it a glorious , for this was it an honorable undertaking

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Sea, Southern, Brave

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (2004). “Frankenstein”, p.256, Collector's Library

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• My own terror of appearing sentimental is so strong that I’ve decided to fight against it, some; but the terror is still there. . . . Do you identify with a distaste/fear about sentimentality? Do you agree that, past a certain line, such distaste can turn everything arch and sneering and too ironic? Or do you have your own set of abstract questions to drive yourself nuts with?

  David Foster Wallace

  Strong, Fighting, Past

  "David Foster Wallace" by Deborah Treisman, www.newyorker.com. September 29, 2008.

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• There's a terror in knowing what the world is about

  David Bowie

  Knowing, World, Superhuman

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• He had no conscious knowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed the instinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the very essence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of the unknown, the one culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that could happen to him, about which he knew nothing and about which he feared everything.

  Jack London

  Hurt, Animal, Essence

  Jack London (1992). “The Call of the Wild and White Fang”, p.116, Wordsworth Editions

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• He picked up the letter Q and hurled it into a distant privet bush where it hit a young rabbit. The rabbit hurtled off in terror and didn’t stop till it was set upon and eaten by a fox which choked on one of its bones and died on the bank of a stream which subsequently washed it away. During the following weeks Ford Perfect swallowed his pride and struck up a relationship with a girl who had been a personnel officer on Golgafrincham, and he was terribly upset when she suddenly passed away as a result of drinking water from a pool that had been polluted by the body of a dead fox.

  Douglas Adams

  Girl, Drinking, Pride

  Douglas Adams (2009). “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, p.149, Pan Macmillan

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• Vishous screamed. The only thing that was louder was the pop as the hip was relocated, as it were. And the last thing he saw before he checked out of the Conscious Inn & Suites was Jane's head whipping around in a panic. In her eyes was stark terror, as if the single worst thing that she could imagine was him in agony... And that was when he knew that he still loved her.

  J.R. Ward

  Eye, Agony, Panic

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• It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed ... The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Hero, Government, Hands

  "Political Scientism - Beware the Enlightened Ones" by Robin Koerner, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 2, 2017.

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• Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling... When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience.

  Edmund Burke

  Pain, Ideas, Giving

  "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful". Treatise by Edmund Burke, www.bartleby.com. 1757.

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• At that time, he was satisfying a sensual curiosity by experiencing the pleasures of people who live for love. He had believed he could stop there, that he would not be obliged to learn their sorrows; how small a thing her charm was for him now compared with the astounding terror that extended out from it like a murky halo, the immense anguish of not knowing at every moment what she had been doing, of not possessing her everywhere and always!

  Marcel Proust

  Knowing, People, Sensual

  Marcel Proust (2003). “In Search of Lost Time: The Way by Swann's”, p.369, Penguin UK

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• This, then, is the ultimate, that is only, consolation: simply that someone shares some of your own feelings and has made of these a work of art which you have the insight, sensitivity, and — like it or not — peculiar set of experiences to appreciate. Amazing thing to say, the consolation of horror in art is that it actually intensifies our panic, loudens it on the sounding-board of our horror-hollowed hearts, turns terror up full blast, all the while reaching for that perfect and deafening amplitude at which we may dance to the bizarre music of our own misery.

  Thomas Ligotti

  Art, Appreciate, Perfect

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• Robert Neville looked out over the new people of the earth. He knew he did not belong to them; he knew that, like the vampires, he was anathema and black terror to be destroyed. And, abruptly, the concept came, amusing to him even in his pain. ... Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.

  Richard Matheson

  Pain, Circles, People

  Richard Matheson (1954). “I Am Legend”, Greenwich, Connecticut : Fawcett

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• We were king’s men, knights, and heroes . . . but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all.” “Are you saying you are monsters?” “I am saying we are human. You are not the only one with wounds, Lady Brienne

  George R. R. Martin

  Kings, War, Hero

  George R. R. Martin (2011). “A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle: A Song of Ice and Fire Series: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows”, p.3314, Bantam

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• Not one of the creatures of blood can escape death. We all face it, and succumb to it. It follows us like a dark shadow. Yet if we live in terror of it, then we do not live at all. Yes we are born alone, and yes we will die alone. But in between, Tae, we live. We know joy.

  David Gemmell

  Dark, Blood, Joy

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• She'd been acutely aware that terror, betrayal, and cruelty had a human face, but she had not sufficiently appreciated that courage, kindness, and love had a human face as well.

  Dean Koontz

  Love, Betrayal, Kindness

  Dean Koontz (2001). “Dark Rivers of the Heart/Intensity/Sole Survivor: Three Complete Novels by Dean Koontz”

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• Margaret had always dreaded lest her courage should fail her in any emergency, and she should be proved to be, what she dreaded lest she was--a coward. But now, in this real great time of reasonable fear and nearness of terror, she forgot herself, and felt only an intense sympathy--intense to painfulness--in the interests of the moment.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Real, Coward, Emergencies

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (Illustrated)”, p.1059, Delphi Classics

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• Trav, if you cross us -- " "I know. You'll get me. I'll try not to pee all over myself in terror.

  Rachel Caine

  Trying, Crosses, Ifs

  Rachel Caine (2007). “Midnight Alley: The Morganville Vampires”, p.162, Penguin

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• All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless at all.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Sweet, Children, Reading

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• Intolerance is a thing that causes war, pogroms, crucifixions, lynchings, and makes people cruel to little children and each other. It is responsible for most of the viciousness, violence, terror, and heart and soul breaking of the world.

  Betty Smith

  Children, War, Heart

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• And in what fairy tale would John ever be any sane person's idea of Prince Charming anyway? He was the opposite of charming. More like Prince Terrifying.

  Meg Cabot

  Opposites, Ideas, Fairy Tale

  Meg Cabot (2013). “The Abandon Trilogy: Abandon, Underworld and Awaken”, p.58, Pan Macmillan

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• That has not yet been put to the test. I got my fourth-degree black belt this winter. When I make martial arts noises, thousands flee in terror. Don't test me." "Can you hear that? It's my knees knocking." "They're wise to fear me.

  Nora Roberts

  Wise, Art, Winter

  Nora Roberts (2012). “The Novels of Nora Roberts”, p.1079, Penguin

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• But she did not take her eyes from the wheels of the second car. And exactly at the moment when the midpoint between the wheels drew level with her, she threw away the red bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the car, and with a light movement, as though she would rise immediately, dropped on her knees. And at the instant she was terror-stricken at what she was doing. 'Where am I? What am I doing? What for?' She tried to get up, to throw herself back; but something huge and merciless struck her on the head and dragged her down on her back.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Eye, Light, Hands

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