Home > Topic > the incredulity
1 " So, what...in the meantime, you just...” He glanced at her then back at the road. “Deny yourself?”Em gave a half smile at the incredulity in his voice. Clearly it was a foreign concept to him. “It’s okay. I have a battery operated boyfriend awaiting my attention when I get home.”He shot her a quick, open-mouthed stare, his lips parted enticingly. He looked so stunned at her admission she couldn’t help but laugh.“Sorry, didn’t you know that women did that, too? Did I shock you?”“Not at all.” He recovered quickly, a big smile splitting his profile. “I’m just trying to decide which is sexier. Self-denial or self-abuse. "
― Amy Andrews , Playing the Player (Sydney Smoke Rugby, #3)
2 " ... He who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new... partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event. "
― Niccolò Machiavelli , The Prince
3 " An English teacher at school once said to her, 'Alice, one thing I hope you never find out is that a broken heart hurts physically.' Nothing she has ever experienced has prepared her for the pain of this. Most of the time her heart feels as though it's waterlogged and her ribcage, her arms, her back, her temples, her legs all ache in a dull, persistent way: but at times like this the incredulity and the appalling irreversibility of what has happened cripple her with a pain so bad she often doesn't speak for days. "
― Maggie O'Farrell , After You'd Gone
4 " She never opened her mail in the middle of the day. Sometimes she forgot about it for a week or more until people rang to complain. Nor did she check her answering machine messages. In fact, it had only been in the last year that she had finally bought an answering machine, and she steadfastly refused to have a mobile, to the incredulity of all those around her, who didn’t believe that people could actually function without one. But Frieda wanted to be able to escape from incessant communications and demands. She didn’t want to be at anyone’s beck and call, and she liked cutting herself off from the urgent inanities of the world. When she was on her own, she liked to be truly alone. Out of contact and adrift. "
― Nicci French , Blue Monday (Frieda Klein, #1)
5 " I recognized no obstacle to miraculous change but the incredulity of others. This was an idea that died hard, if it ever really died at all. "
― Tobias Wolff , This Boy's Life
