Basket Case Quotes

The last time I saw Collin was in 1917, at the foot of Mort-Homme.

Before the great slaughter, Collin'd been an avid angler. On that day, he was standing at the hole, watching maggots swarm among blow flies on two boys that we couldn't retrieve for burial without putting our own lives at risk.

And there, at the loop hole, he thought of his bamboo rods, his flies and the new reel he hadn't even tried out yet.

Collin was imaging himself on the riverbank, wine cooling in the current his stash of worms in a little metal box and a maggot on his hook, writhing like… Holy shit. Were the corpses getting to him?

Collin. The poor guy didn't even have time to sort out his thoughts.

In that split second, he was turned into a slab of bloody meat. A white hot hook drilled right through him and churned through his guts, which spilled out of a hole in his belly.

He was cleared out of the first aid station. The major did triage. Stomach wounds weren't worth the trouble. There were all going to die anyway, and besides, he wasn't equipped to deal with them.

Behind the aid station, next to a pile of wood crosses, there was a heap of body parts and shapeless, oozing human debris laid out on stretchers, stirred only be passing rats and clusters of large white maggots.

But on their last run, the stretcher bearers carried him out after all… Old Collin was still alive.

From the aid station to the ambu ~ Jacques Tardi

I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them, "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!" And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup. ~ Henry Rollins

Others, however, perhaps overwhelmed by what they read, say Africa should be written off, that it's beyond repair. My experiences so far say we should put it in perspective. For instance, a new nation that has just won its independence from a colonial power struggles with internal graft and corruption, civil war and economic turbulence - more developed nations see it as a basket-case. Yet 200+ years later it emerges as the world's sole superpower. Yes, America. ~ Kevin Sites

Well, if I don't get at least 16 hours, I'm a basket case. ~ Woody Allen

And look at me now. Seriously. Look at what all that action and adventure has done to me. I'm a frickin' basket case. - Valkyrie ~ Derek Landy

1. Bangladesh.... In 1971 ... Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani generals in both their civilian massacre policy in East Bengal and their armed attack on India from West Pakistan.... This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt. Kissinger's undisclosed reason for the 'tilt' was the supposed but never materialised 'brokerage' offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China.... Of the new state of Bangladesh, Kissinger remarked coldly that it was 'a basket case' before turning his unsolicited expertise elsewhere. ~ William M. Arkin

I'm a high-functioning basket case. ~ Lia Riley

The truth is, we are never just one thing. We all have many titles and many labels, but far too often, we get trapped inside a single definition. The Teacher's Pet, the Rule Follower, the Cheerleader, the Athlete, the Princess, the Basket Case, the Criminal... the Rock Star's Girlfriend. Whether we wrote that definition or it was given to us, it somehow becomes our only identity. We get so lost in it that we forget about all the other pieces that make up who we are. ~ Jessica Brody

I don't want to be a basket case on set. I try to sort of quiet all of that, all those thoughts, kinda just let yourself be aware of them when you're preparing to do the work but then once you get there you have to feel as free as possible. Anything that I perceived as something that ran the risk of stressing me out, I just left outside the studio doors because I didn't want to undermine myself. ~ Katherine Waterston

I'm a basket case, I thought. Who gets emotional over two letters?
But then I remembered that "no" also only has two letters.
Almost everyone in the world has cried over those. ~ Emery Lord

When I'm singing, it's like I'm at home. And music is a great healer. I think I'd have been a basket case if I hadn't been a singer. ~ Lulu

I don't want Burma to be a basket case forever. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi

A country that cannot feed itself cannot have self-pride, and in the mid-'60s 20 percent of all the wheat produced in America came into India. We were agriculturally a basket case. And 15 years later, 20 years later, we have become an agricultural power. This is the famous Green Revolution. ~ Jairam Ramesh

Until Africa changes it's Mindset - It will forever be a "basket case" looking for international support, funding and charity.
We need to Rethink Innovation ~ Tony Dovale

She is the sun that shines on my path, chasing away any shadows. She is the laughter that fills up the gaping holes, without which I would be a basket case. She is the reason why I love my job. The best part of my day is drinking a coffee, eating a chocolate treat and listening to great music, while sitting with Genevieve Cain. She appreciates life, she grasps it and makes it what she wants. Sure, she's hit a few bumps recently, what with her loser ex, but Gen's a survivor. And not just any survivor, she's a survivor with dignity and pride. ~ Nicola Claire

Before, my anxiety was singing solo. Now all this weird anticipation and jumbled excitement has added some strange harmonies into the mix. I'm a barbershop quartet basket case. ~ Jenn Bennett

I'm euphoric with dopamine when I think of you. My infatuation with the memory of your face has flooded my neurons with Serotonin. My restless need to be with you has thrown in some norepinephrine. I'm a chemical basket case. But since I refuse to blame you, I've decided to blame my brain. Maybe if I believe I've reversed cause and effect I'll get better. ~ E. L. Neve

Remember me mentioning I was two nuts short of a full bag? Well, that's a part of it. Not all of it, of course, but hey, you can't live for one hundred and eighty years without some bumps in the road. And one of those bumps is the fact I wake up a sweaty, basket case pretty much every night.
Visions are a bitch, what can I say? ~ Annie Anderson

Don't ever, ever give up. Moses was once a basket case. ~ Larry Wilde

You have to have confidence. You can't be someone who's so insecure that she's a basket case. ~ Kate Bosworth

American pop culture – supposedly the most powerful and influential force on the planet – has just surrendered to a one-man psycho-state economic basket-case that starves its own population. ~ Mark Steyn

What was it like to live in a time when one's fate was not war, when one was not led by the craven and the corrupt, when one's country was not a basket case kept alive only through the intravenous drip of American aid? ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

From the pancake house I drive directly to the county morgue. The contrast is not especially striking. ~ Carl Hiaasen

It is undoubtedly the case that the practice of the virtues makes one happier. We've somewhat lost sight of that essential truth, now that we, as a society, admire selfishness and vanity so much. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

As he hands me my case, he leans forward and tells me he'll say a prayer for me. I smile back at him and I thank him. I was wrong; feelings abound even with strangers and I was glad I booked a taxi and became a fare. If I had not, I'd be down a prayer. ~ Yvonne Joye

I don't like to celebrate my birthday, because I don't like taking credit for others' work - in this case, my mom and dad. Or possibly my mom and the mailman. ~ Jarod Kintz

You know how there are words that never really - they are never really quite right. You can't quite trust them. Use them. You know. Without pause.'

'There are words I stare at,' Zach says. 'Strange. Every time. Misled, that's one. I see mizzled. And unshed. I read unched.'

'Me too! But that's a different thing - except, now you mention it, it's odd about unshed, that it's only for tears. Mostly. Hardly ever blood, for instance, you don't see unshed blood. Unched. Not really.'

'Not in my case anyway. Mine sheds all over the joint! I'm a bleeder all right. ~ Emma Richler

I burned out my drawing hand by using it too much. The common word for it is writer's cramp. The fancy words for it are focal dystonia. The symptom in my case was a pinky finger that went spastic when I tried to draw. ~ Scott Adams

This case reminds me of one in which I likened the Plaintiff's case to a colander, because it was so full of holes. ~ George Jessel

Education is something that should not be organized on a for-profit basis, because in that case its purpose is not really to provide an education. It's not to teach students how to get better work, but how to provide banks with a free giveaway opportunity from the government, by making junk loans that are defaulted on. The effect may be to wreck the futures of the graduates that fall for the false promises that are being made. ~ Michael Hudson

I'd go to the farmers' market in Santa Barbara, and I'd put out my guitar case, and I'd test out these little ditty songs that I would write, and I would get a couple of avocados, a bag of pistachios, and, like, fifteen bucks. That was a lot of money for me. ~ Katy Perry

Trust me, at the time nine hundred years seemed frighteningly short - it still does. I really don't know how you cope with your eighty-something life spans, and that's a best-case scenario, isn't it? ~ Tosca Lee

To lessen or destroy sexual pleasure is to lessen temptation; a fallback in case the religious injunctions on veiling and seclusion somehow fail to do the job. ~ Geraldine Brooks

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default. ~ J.K. Rowling

For the inexperienced, however, it is very difficult to distinguish passionate love from mere sex hunger; especially is this the case with well-brought-up girls, who have been taught that they could not possibly like to kiss a man unless they loved him. ~ Bertrand Russell

I'm not going to say what was wrong with Claire, not here. I consider that a private matter. It's nobody's business what kind of illnesses you've had - in any case it's up to her if she wants to talk about it, and not up to me. ~ Herman Koch

I remember the sad case of a very godly man whom I knew who had two daughters who were the most excellent women. They had reached middle life when I met them. They lived, in a sense, for the things of God, and yet neither of them had ever become a member of a Christian church, or ever taken communion at the Lord's Table. As regards their life and conduct, you could not think of better people, and yet they had never become members of the church and they had never partaken of the bread and the wine. Why? They said they did not feel they were good enough. What was the matter with them? They were looking at themselves instead of at the finished, perfect work of Christ. You look at yourself and, of course, you will miserable, for within there is blackness and darkness. The best saint when he looks at himself becomes unhappy; he sees things that should not be there, and if you and I spend our whole time looking at ourselves we shall remain in misery, and we shall lose the joy. Self-examination is all right, but introspection is bad. Let us draw the distinction between these two things. We can examine ourselves in the light of Scripture, and if we do that we shall be driven to Christ. But with introspection a man looks at himself and continues to do so, and refuses to be happy until he gets rid of the imperfections that are still there. Oh, the tragedy that we should spend our lives looking at ourselves instead of looking at Him who can set us free! ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

If it is possible for one person to be hurt by another...
Then, it is possible for that person to be healed by another as well. ~ Hatori Sohma

I'm Kristin Ortega, Organic Damage Division. Bancroft was my case. ~ Richard K. Morgan

Because, sir, in case you don't know it, words move, they change from one day to the next, they are as unstable as shadows, are themselves shadows, which both are and have ceased to be, soap bubbles, shells in which one can barely hear a whisper, mere tree stumps. ~ Jose Saramago

Mom" I say "Oh honey" she says "The doctor wants to see you to make sure you don't have the same thing that killed your brother. "
She turns to Ms.Logan who looks scandalized by the whole encounter. "These things can run in famalies" she confides.
"Your afraid I'm going to come down with a bad case of getting two in the chest?" I say "cause you might be right about that running in families. ~ Holly Black

So often it happens that this one or that stands condemned by the social laws that govern family relations; and yet there are peculiar circumstances in the case, differences of temperament, divergent interests, innumerable complications of family life that excuse the apparent offence. ~ Honore De Balzac

His life, like every other life, could be graphed: an ascent that rises to a peak, pauses at a particular node, and then descends. Only the gradient changes in any particular case: this child's was steeper than most, his descent swifter. We all ripen. We are all bound by the same ineluctable law, the same mathematical certainty. ~ Guy Vanderhaeghe

I trust you had a pleasant walk, Ian," he said when her door closed upstairs.
Ian stiffened slightly in the act of pouring some leftover coffee into a mug and glanced over his shoulder. One look at his uncle's expression told him that the older man was well aware that desire, not a need for fresh air, had caused Ian to take Elizabeth for a walk. "What do you think?" he asked irritably.
"I think you've upset her repeatedly and deliberately, which is not your ordinary behavior with women."
"There is nothing ordinary about Elizabeth Cameron."
"I completely agree," said the vicar with a smile in his voice. Closing his book, he put it aside. "I also think she is strongly attracted to you, and you are to her. That much is perfectly obvious."
"Then it should be equally obvious to a man of your discernment," Ian said in a low, implacable voice, "that we are completely ill-suited to each other. It's a moot issue in any case; I'm marrying someone else."
Duncan opened his mouth to comment on that, saw the expression on Ian's face, and gave up. ~ Judith McNaught

Not every breakfast needs to be something worthy of posting to a food blog. Sometimes food is simply fuel, something we eat to live. But with TV ads and billboards and in-store displays saying otherwise - in colorful and provocative ways - that can be a hard case to make. ~ Mary DeTurris Poust

Even if your husband is full of himself, he should be allowed to dream. Let him. Don't burst his bubble. Why would any man want to come home to a wife who rolled her eyes and said, "Right!," every time he had an idea or made a resolution? Maybe your husband wants to run for local political office. You know he doesn't have a prayer. He's running anyway. You want to say, "You've got to be kidding!" But in this case he doesn't want to hear the truth. He wants your support. So give it to him. Call all your friends and tell them to vote for him, stand by his side when he gives speeches, buy buttons and balloons and throw him a campaign party. It doesn't matter if he wins or loses, what matters is that you believe in him. ~ Ellen Fein

The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat. ~ Michael Ondaatje

Your doubt doesn't exclude you from faith, no matter what you may have heard - it simply proves your humanness and His unfathomable Godness. But doubt doesn't have to define you or rule you; rather, it can be the fuel for discussion, study, and prayer. In order to own your faith, you have to continue the conversation. You have to allow yourself to be wrong, to question and to be taught. As long as you remain unteachable, rigid in your disbelief and doubt, you will remain in limbo, unable to firmly stand on either your conviction or suspicion. But in either case, to own one or the other you must ultimately be owned by your belief. You are owned by your faith or doubt when you turn yourself over to it fully. ~ Hayley DiMarco

Love can be about more than attraction. I sometimes think it is more a question of sanctuary, a case of unassailable friendship. ~ James Runcie

Training is vital. You need to know the technical aspects of acting, just in case someone hands you a monologue and simply says, 'Cry here and laugh here.' You have to be able to make sense of it all. ~ Kali Hawk

It is ever the case in war that beauty is destroyed in the stampede for victory." His ~ Oliver J. Tooley

Hespe's mouth went firm. She didn't scowl exactly, but it looked like she was getting all the pieces of a scowl together in one place, just in case she needed them in a hurry. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

When we are heavy-laden in our hearts, it falls in better with our humor to reveal our case in our own way and our own time. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Though it is true we are the highest and smartest animals, ospreys have eyes we have calculated to be sixty times more powerful and sophisticated than our own and that blindness, often caused by microscopic parasites that are themselves miracles of ingenuity, is one of the oldest and most tragic disorders known to man. And why award the superior eye (or in the case of cat or bat, also the ear) to the inferior species. ~ Christopher Hitchens

if we don't have experience with solitude - and this is often the case today - we start to equate loneliness and solitude. ~ Sherry Turkle

People are taking a closer look at Donald Trump. I think the best look they got was at the last debate. I think Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio prosecuted their case effectively. Donald doesn't have some great answers. When they talk, for instance, about immigration and releasing those tapes from The New York Times, we began talking about flexibility and immigration. ~ Mitt Romney

No one is a judge in his own case. Therefore ask: who audits the auditors themselves? ~ Mixed

The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.... All laughter then is occasioned by a paradox.... This, briefly stated, is the true explanation of the ludicrous. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

There was a time in my life when election year was nothing to me, but in 1912, I joined that great army of Americans who drop a stitch in their routine every four years, and give themselves up to backing first a candidate for the nomination and afterwards a nominee. ~ Margaret Case Harriman

His dark eyes were on the road ahead, thoughtful. "No. I was hoping to go back to Tucson and see if I could get this hot chick I know to go out with me. I hear she's in demand, though. She keeps putting me off each time I try to plan something romantic."
"Yeah, well, maybe if you come up with a good itinerary, you could lure her out."
"I was thinking dinner at Joe's."
I made a face. "If that's the case, maybe you'd better brace yourself for rejection."
"Red Pepper Bistro?"
"Okay. Now you're in the zone."
"Followed by a long massage in the sauna."
"That's pretty good too."
"And then indecent things in the sauna."
"I hope you mean you'll be doing the indecent things - because I more than did my share last night."
Kiyo glanced over at me with a mischievous grin. "Who says I'm talking about you? ~ Richelle Mead