Bitter Aftertaste Quotes

Coffee is a lot like people. In many ways, it's deceiving. The sweetness that you smell as it brews is more often than not a fallacy. The scent of a dark roasted coffee bean promises you rich flavors with hints of chocolate and hazelnut, but if you're not used to coffee's deceptiveness, you're left with a bitter aftertaste dangling at the back of your throat. To those of us who are used to it- we've grown a fondness for that bitter taste. It's complex. It's teasing. It reminds us that most things in life are not consistently sweet with every sip. One morning, your coffee might brew mild with just a flirtation of nutty undertones, And the next morning, it might be pelting you in the face with those same nuts, leaving little stinging marks with each sip. It's moody. It's not easy to perfect. But when you get the perfect brew, it's rewarding. And that same perfection is not guaranteed tomorrow just because you managed it today. ~ Katana Collins

He's lithe and tanned and taut. But to my eye he's lost something. He has a synthetic quality, like orange soda instead of freshly squeezed juice. It's orangey and bubbly and it quenches your thirst, but it leaves a bitter aftertaste. And it's not good for you. ~ Sophie Kinsella

And our marriage dissolved, like margarita salt on the tongue, leaving behind the bitter aftertaste of something that started out sweet but ended sour. ~ Tracy Brogan

Memories

Memories are real life experiences distilled over time into a palatable elixir that one can selectively choose to indulge.

Heartbreak and misfortune are most often entombed in cerebral mausoleums. Due to their caustic essence they are prohibitive to access and are accompanied by a lingering bitter aftertaste.

Pleasant recollections may be retrieved at will as if tethered to the end of a string on a reel. They are often seasoned to taste and bursting with flavor and pungent aromas. ~ Rob Wood

He took the slide of and, before she could stop him, removed the glass top and licked the sample.
She fought the urge to gag. He didn't seem at all bothered. He stood quite still, closing his eyes, and then said, "Hmmm. A bit salty, bitter aftertaste ... iron ... hydroxide." He smiled then, and looked at her as if he was quite proud of himself. "Definitely iron hydroxide. That is a binding agent, is it not?"
"You are insane," she said. "You can't go around ... licking things that come out of a water treatment plant. That's just ... unsanitary."
"Life is unsanitary," he said. ~ Rachel Caine

Media seem to get off easy to stuff the "sheeple" with canned and standardized messages that they can digest at ease in their comfort zone, without leaving any bitter aftertaste. ("Don't leave! Stay with us!") ~ Erik Pevernagie

What today throws at you will force you to become better or bitter for tomorrow; it will push you toward breakdown or breakthrough ... ~ Brian D. McLaren

But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. ~ Ed Catmull

He made her play and she had almost forgotten how. Life had been so serious and so bitter. He knew how to play and swept her along with him. ~ Margaret Mitchell

There are psychologists who think that consciousness accompanies brain processes and is determined by them but doesn't itself exert any influence on them. Something like the reflection of a tree in water; it couldn't exist without the tree, but it doesn't in any way affect he tree. I think it's all stuff and nonsense to say that there can be love without passion; when people say love can endure after passion is dead they're talking of something else, affection, kindliness, community of taste and interest, and habit . . . Of course there can be desire without love. Desire isn't passion. Desire is the natural consequence of the sexual instinct . . . That's why women are foolish to make a song and dance if their husbands have an occasional flutter when the time and place are propitious . . . what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose . . . Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction but impediment . . . When passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honor is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive . . . and if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, th ~ W. Somerset Maugham

That bitter word, which closed all earthly friendships and finished every feast of love farewell! ~ Robert Pollok

Lucky that man whose children make his happiness in life and not his grief, the anguished disappointment of his hopes. ~ Euripides

The old man was cranky, bitter bastard, but it's the thorn in your side that leaves the biggest hole. ~ Jodi Picoult

About 90 percent of the things in our lives are right, and about 10 percent are wrong. If we want to be happy, all we have to do is to concentrate on the 90 percent that are right, and ignore the 10 percent that are wrong. If we want to be worried and bitter and have stomach ulcers, all we have to do is to concentrate on the 10 percent that are wrong and ignore the 90 percent that are glorious. The words Think and Thank ~ Og Mandino

This I have always known - that if I did not live my life immersed in the one activity which suits me, and which also, to tell the truth, keeps me utterly happy and intrigued, I would come someday to bitter and mortal regret. ~ Mary Oliver

Life was harsh and people were worthless and mean to their bitter cores. They only used and betrayed. That was the only code she believed in. Trisa. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change ... [T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face if its constant and bitter opposition. ~ H.L. Mencken

Food of Love
Eating is touch carried to the bitter end. -Samuel Butler II

I'm going to murder you with love;
I'm going to suffocate you with embraces;
I'm going to hug you, bone by bone,
Till you're dead all over.
Then I will dine on your delectable marrow.

You will become my personal Sahara;
I'll sun myself in you, then with one swallow
Drain you remaining brackish well.
With my female blade I'll carve my name
In your most aspiring palm
Before I chop it down.
Then I'll inhale your last oasis whole.

But in the total desert you become
You'll see me stretch, horizon to horizon,
Opulent mirage!
Wisteria balconies dripping cyclamen.
Vistas ablaze with crystal, laced in gold.

So you will summon each dry grain of sand
And move towards me in undulating dunes
Till you arrive at sudden ultramarine:
A Mediterranean to stroke your dusty shores;
Obstinate verdue, creeping inland, fast renudes
Your barrens; succulents spring up everywhere,
Surprising life! And I will be that green.

When you are fed and watered, flourishing
With shoots entwining trellis, dome and spire,
Till you are resurrected field in bloom,
I will devour you, my natural food,
My host, my final supper on the earth,
And you'll begin to die again. ~ Carolyn Kizer

Heartbreak can make you hard! But don't let it make you bitter. ~ Tyler Perry

We dreamt of a crappy apartment somewhere
Making love while we let the midnight air
Flow through the open window, into our closed hearts
Left bitter from heartbreak and too much time apart ~ Jessica-Lynn Barbour

Her time has come," answered Miss Lizzie. "That's why I didn't marry Harvey - long ago when he asked me. I was afraid of 'that'. So afraid." "I don't know," Miss Lizzie said. "Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than just to be safe." She waited until the next scream died away. "At least she knows she's living. ~ Betty Smith

I criticized the whole American songwriting industry and the pop side of it and I was bitter about it. And I stepped back and thought 'Why are you bitter? You can't just stand there like every other indie musician and criticize this so-called 'generic' music when you're not doing anything to challenge that.' ~ Marina And The Diamonds

... and from that moment Buck hated him with a bitter and deathless hatred. ~ Jack London

There's a different flavor to children's literature you read after you grow up than there was reading it as a child. Things that were sweet as a child become bitter once you grow up. ~ Mizuki Nomura

Better choose silence than bitter words which shall leave nothing but bitter footprints ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Before the bud swells, before the grass springs, before the plough is started, comes the sugar harvest. It is sequel of the bitter frost; a sap run is the sweet goodbye of winter. ~ John Burroughs

Condemning ourselves is the quickest way to get a substitute sense of worth. People who have almost, but not quite, lost their feeling of worth generally have very strong needs to condemn themselves, for that is the most ready way of drowning the bitter ache of feelings of worthlessness and humiliation. It is as though the person were saying to himself, "I must be important that I am so worth condemning," or "Look how noble I am: I have such high ideals and I am so ashamed of myself that I fall short." A psychoanalyst once pointedly remarked that when someone in psychoanalysis berates himself at great length for picayune sins, he feels like asking, "Who do you think you are?" The self-condemning person is very often trying to show how important he is that God is so concerned with punishing him. ~ Rollo May

Sandwiched between their "once upon a time" and "happily ever after," they all had to experience great adversity. Why must all experience sadness and tragedy? Why could we not simply live in bliss and peace, each day filled with wonder, joy, and love?
The scriptures tell us there must be opposition in all things, for without it we could not discern the sweet from the bitter. 2 Would the marathon runner feel the triumph of finishing the race had she not felt the pain of the hours of pushing against her limits? Would the pianist feel the joy of mastering an intricate sonata without the painstaking hours of practice? ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

If you are unaware that the world is teeming with ineptitude from the beginning, you will develop a bitter countenance, and in turn others will eschew you. ~ Tsunetomo Yamamoto

I've yet to meet a bitter teenager. Bitterness, jealousy and jadedness, I think, are the most unattractive qualities in a person, and unfortunately they do seem to come with age. ~ Jane Goldman

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

You, of all people, deserve a happy ending. Despite everything that happened to you, you aren't bitter. You aren't cold. You've just retreated a little and been shy, and that's okay. If I were a fairy godmother, I would give you your heart's desire in an istant. And I would wipe away your tears and tell you not to cry.
-Rachel to Julia ~ Sylvain Reynard

He walked on down the dark, empty street. Suddenly an idea came to him. Immediately, with his whole being, he knew it was true. He had glimpsed a new and improbable explanation for the atomic phenomena that up until now had seemed so hopelessly inexplicable; abysses had suddenly changed into bridges. What clarity and simplicity! This idea was astonishingly graceful and beautiful. It seemed to have given birth to itself – like a white water-lily appearing out of the calm darkness of a lake. He gasped, reveling in its beauty…
And how strange, he thought suddenly, that this idea should have come to him when his mind was far away from anything to do with science, when the discussions that so excited him were those of free men, when his words and the words of his friends had been determined only by freedom, by bitter freedom. ~ Vasily Grossman

Man doesn't realize his real purpose on earth so long as he rolls in comforts. It is absolutely true that adversity teaches a man a bitter lesson, toughens his fiber and moulds his character. In other words, an altogether new man is born out of adversity which helpfully destroys one's ego and makes one humble and selfless. Prolonged suffering opens the eyes to hate the things for which one craved before unduly, leading eventually even to a state of resignation. It then dawns on us that continued yearnings brings us intense agony. But the stoic mind is least perturbed by the vicissitudes of life. It is well within our efforts to conquer grief. It's simple. Develop an attitude of detachment even while remaining in the thick of terrestrial pleasures. ~ V.S. Naipaul

Depths of Friendship
... under fathoms deep
of dark and bitter cold
an eerie oscillation
reverberated brash and bold ... ~ Muse

Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition. It ~ Charlotte Bronte

Thus the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new master, and whispering in his ears sinister prophecies of coming catastrophe.
In this way arose feudal Socialism; half lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of the past, half menace of the future, at times by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart's core, but always ludicrous in its effects, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history. ~ Karl Marx

'I Know You Care' is about my dad. And I haven't seen him for a long, long time. And my parents divorced when I was really young. And I guess I just wanted a - it was my way of saying that I wasn't bitter or angry anymore. I was just sad and just felt like something was missing. ~ Ellie Goulding

I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don't want to die humiliated or deceived. ~ Taylor Swift

Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain. ~ John Locke

Rhys told himself that everything came with a price. He'd made a difficult choice years ago to regain all he had, and some days he could convince himself that life was like war: bitter, desperate choices were often made in the name of survival, and some inevitably survived at the expense of others. ~ Julie Anne Long

If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments. ~ Bill Maher

Their Christian walk was such that it convinced even their most bitter foes of the sincerity and wholeheartedness of their faith and practice. The foes saw faith working powerfully through love, demonstrated in their straightforward business dealings, charitable deeds to the poor, visiting and comforting the sick and oppressed educating the ignorant, convincing the erring, punishing the wicked, reproving the idle, and encouraging the devout. And all this was done with diligence and sensitivity, as well as joy, peace, and happiness, such that it was obvious that the Lord was truly with them. ~ Willem Teellinck

We could go back to the time when we first met: a man in emotional tatters over someone who had left him, and a woman madly in love with her neighbor. I could repeat what I said to you once: 'I'm going to fight to the bitter end.' Well, I fought and I lost, and now I'll just have to lick my wounds and leave. ~ Paulo Coelho

Fools, their wisdom weak,
are their own enemies
as they go through life,
doing evil
that bears
bitter fruit. ~ Juan Mascaro

Oh, beauty is a beguiling call to death and I'm addicted to the sweet pitch of its siren. That that starts sweet ends bitter, and that which starts bitter ends sweet. ~ Johnny Quid

There was nothing to tempt me from the choice of desserts, so I opted instead for a coffee, which was bitter and lukewarm. Naturally, I had been about to pour it all over myself but, just in time, had read the warning printed on the paper cup, alerting me to the fact that hot liquids can cause injury. A lucky escape, Eleanor! I said to myself, laughing quietly. I began to suspect that Mr. McDonald was a very foolish man indeed, although, judging from the undiminished queue, a wealthy one. ~ Gail Honeyman

People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what's bitter and move on. ~ Bill Cosby

Consciousness and revolt, these rejections are the contrary of renunciation. Everything that is indomitable and passionate in a human heart quickens them, on the contrary, with its own life. It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will. Suicide is a repudiation. The absurd man can only drain everything to the bitter end, and deplete himself. The absurd is his extreme tension, which he maintains constantly by solitary effort, for he knows that in that consciousness and in that day-to-day revolt he gives proof of his only truth, which is defiance. ~ Albert Camus