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1 " Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of." [From the preface.] "
2 " It is a huge danger to pretend that awful things do not happen. But you need enough hope to keep going. I am trying to make hope. Flowers grow out of darkness. "
― Corita Kent
3 " That’s a funny thing: you think, when awful things happen, everything else just stops, like you would forget to pee and eat and get thirsty, but it’s not really true. It’s like you and your body are two separate things, like your body is betraying you, chugging on, idiotic and animal, craving water and sandwiches and bathroom breaks while your world falls apart. "
― Lauren Oliver , Before I Fall
4 " I keep everything hidden because there's nothing about my true self that anyone likes. I'm not difficult, Sebastian. I'm the easiest person around. I don't belong, and I spend all my time pretending I do. Sometimes I get weary of it, and that makes me angry.It's not fair to the people around me when I lose my temper. I say awful things when I'm angry. But it's not fair to me, either, that I was made this way. "
― Courtney Milan , The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister, #3)
5 " Maybe awful things is how God speaks to us, Vernon thought, trudging up the lightless tunnel. Maybe folks don’t trust in good things no more. Maybe awful things is all God’s got to remind us he’s alive. Maybe war is God come to life in men. Vernon pushed on toward the light of day. He stepped out onto the ledge and into the heat, and it felt like leaving a theater after the matinee had shown a sad film, the glare of sunshine after the darkness far too real to suffer. "
― Alan Heathcock , Volt
6 " Delphine witnessed awful things occurring to other humans. Worse than that, she was powerless to alter their fate. It would be that way all her life--disasters, falling like chairs all around her, falling so close they disarranged her hair, but not touching her. "
― Louise Erdrich , The Master Butchers Singing Club
7 " People are like a pack of dogs sometimes. All right one by one, but together... together they do awful things they don't mean to do. "
― Monica Furlong
8 " Regret, Joss. Regret does awful things to a person. "
― Samantha Young , On Dublin Street (On Dublin Street, #1)
9 " We face up to awful things because we can't go around them, or forget them. The sooner you say 'Yes, it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it,' the sooner you can get on with your own life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things. "
― Annie Proulx , The Shipping News
10 " If I were only allowed to read or enjoy art or listen to music made by people whose opinions and beliefs were the same as mine, I think the world would be a pretty dismal sort of a place... Most, probably all, human beings get to do awful things and believe things that other human beings think they should be burned for believing, and they get to do and believe wonderful things too, and artists, writers, musicians, creators, actors, are nothing if not human beings. "
― Neil Gaiman
11 " Make no mistake, hiding one's true self away in a closet and creating a facade of heterosexuality is not without its consequences. It may appear to have a degree of safety but from my experience they are very unhealthy places and do all kinds of terrible things to individuals psychologically, emotionally and behaviourally.....to say nothing of projection. The damage of the fear, shame, guilt and self-loathing that exist inside a closet are often reflected unknowingly in the external life of the individual. In or out of the closet; there is a price to pay. Each individual must weigh up the consequences of honesty, openness, secrecy and deception for themselves. Coming out, for most of us, is like an exorcism that releases us of the darkness we have lived in for years and caused us to believe awful things about ourselves. On the other side of the looking glass are freedom, light and life. "
― Anthony Venn-Brown OAM , A Life of Unlearning – a preacher's struggle with his homosexuality, church and faith
12 " You know, I wouldn’t have done this a month ago. I wouldn’t have done it then. Then I was avoiding. Now I’m just waiting. Things happen to me. They do. They have to go ahead and happen. You watch – you wait… Things still happen here and something is waiting to happen to me. I can tell. Recently my life feels like a bloodcurdling joke. Recently my life has taken on *form* Something is waiting. I am waiting. Soon, it will stop waiting – any day now. Awful things can happen any time. This is the awful thing. "
― Martin Amis
13 " I just feel like if I start opening the door to talking about my university experience, then people just kind of... own everything. There was a lot of stuff a couple of years ago saying that I was bullied at Brown and awful things like that, none of which were true. "
14 " Gimmicks come and go the cop show seems one genre that will never leave - not as long as people like to sit at home in the suburbs and see what awful things go on in the cities. "