Black Pit Quotes

Catastrophe alone sparks man's salvation. I don't mean in the religious sense, although I guess it is appropriate there, too, because believers agree that salvation comes only after death. It is part of the human near-tragedy that we learn more from loss than from gain. Gain binds us until we stumble and fall into that black pit then we find the spirit of understanding and truth. And if we fall far enough and still persist, we find our salvation. ~ John Kramer

And in the echo of that gladness, horror blooms within me. In its own strange way, it's a horror as deep as any I've experienced so far. I've succeeded in taking another human hostage, in making him urinate on himself. I made a plan to torture someone, and then I carried it out, and it satisfied me to do so. As much hurt and hell as the Wolfman has caused, I don't want to be his judge and jury, his jailer and tormentor. I don't want to be that person. I want to be good. I don't want to fall into a big, black pit of darkness, because what if I can't get out? ~ Carolyn Lee Adams

She loved him with a force that could bring tears to her eyes, and the thought of losing him felt like standing on the edge of an endless black pit, about to fall in. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
and the vermin of the world inhabit it
and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit
and it goes by the name of London.
At the top of the hole sit the privileged few
Making mock of the vermin in the lonely zoo
turning beauty to filth and greed ...
I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders,
for the cruelty of men is as wonderous as Peru
but there's no place like London! ~ Stephen Sondheim

There was a barber and his wife
and she was beautiful...
a foolish barber and his wife.
She was his reason for his life...
and she was beautiful, and she was virtuous.
And he was naive.
There was another man who saw
that she was beautiful...
A biased vulture of the law
who, with a gesture of his claw
removed the barber from his plate!
And there was nothing but to wait!
And she would fall!
So soft!
So young!
So lost and oh so beautiful!

Antony (spoken)

The lady, sir...did she succumb?

Sweeney Todd (sung)

Ah, that was many years ago...
I doubt if anyone would know.
(spoken)
Now leave me, Antony.
There is somewhere I must go,
something i must find out.
Now, and alone.

Antony (spoken)

But surely we will meet again before I am off to Plymouth?

Sweeney Todd (spoken)

If you want you may well find me around Fleet Street. I wouldn't wander.
(sung)
There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
and it's filled with people who are filled with shit!
And the vermin of the world inhabit it! ~ Stephen Sondheim

An evil vampire would not have such a black pit of pain and remorse hidden in his heart. He wouldn't know the meaning of remorse. ~ Kerrelyn Sparks

There is a black pit in the bottom of my soul that has no limit to its falling. ~ Claire North

One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say. ~ C.S. Lewis

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. ~ C.S. Lewis

A tiny part of my heart is so happy to see him safe and laughing, but the other part is a black pit that threatens to suck all of me into it. He is happy without me. He is laughing without me. But what about me? ~ Carrie Jones

Lately, it had been an endless procession of long, black nights and gray mornings, when her sense of failure swept over her like a five-hundred-pound wave; and she was scared. But it wasn't death that she feared. She had looked down into that black pit of death and had wanted to jump in, once too often. As a matter of fact, the thought began to appeal to her more and more.

She even knew how she would kill herself. It would be with a silver bullet. As round and as smooth as an ice-cold blue martini. She would place the gun in the freezer for a few hours before she did it, so it would feel frosty and cold against her head. She could almost feel the ice-cold bullet shooting through her hot, troubled brain, freezing the pain for good. The sound of the gun blast would be the last sound she would ever hear. And then... nothing. Maybe just the silent sound that a bird might hear, flying in the clean, cool air, high above the earth. The sweet, pure air of freedom.

No, it wasn't death she was afraid of. It was this life of hers that was beginning to remind her of that gray intensive care waiting room. ~ Fannie Flagg

Todd:I had him!
His throat was there beneath my hand.
No, I had him!
His throat was there and now he'll never come again.
Mrs. Lovett: Easy now, hush love hush
I keep telling you, Whats your rush?
Todd: When? Why did I wait?
You told me to wait -
Now he'll never come again.
There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
And it's filled with people who are filled with shit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it.
But not for long...

They all deserve to die.
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.
Because in all of the whole human race
Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two
There's the one staying put in his proper place
And the one with his foot in the other one's face
Look at me, Mrs Lovett, look at you.

No, we all deserve to die
Even you, Mrs Lovett, even I!
Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief
For the rest of us death will be a relief
We all deserve to die.

And I'll never see Johanna
No I'll never hug my girl to me - finished!
Alright! You sir, how about a shave?
Come and visit your good friend Sweeney.
You sir, too sir? Welcome to the grave.

I will have vengenance.
I will have salvation.
Who sir, you sir?
No ones in the chair, Come on! Come on!
Sweeney's. waiting. I want you bleeders.
You sir! Anybody!
Gentlemen now don't be shy!

Stephen Sondheim

Sleep is harder to reach and thinner, and sleeping is no longer the Drop into the black pit all oblivion until the alarm clock, no, sleep is thin and fitful and full of memories and reminders and the dark is never dark enough. ~ Doris Lessing

Some of them stole off to those cryptical realms which are known only to cats and which villagers say are on the moon's dark side, whither the cats leap from tall housetops; but one small black kitten crept upstairs and sprang in Carter's lap to purr and play, and curled up near his feet when he lay down at last on the little couch whose pillows were stuffed with fragrant drowsy herbs. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Cobb was in a Klan group back in the 60's, and told me stories about how they used to throw live 'coons, possums, porcupines, or ganders into Black houses at night in attempts to run them out of Johnston and Harnett County. Cobb said that late one night, he and three or four other local rednecks snuck up on the house of one Black family, peered through the window and saw a huge Black woman sitting in front of a TV watching Gunsmoke, with a gang of children all around her.
The window was open and Cobb threw a live possum in her lap. Cobb said she squalled about the loudest and longest he'd ever heard, and jumped about four feet up in the air. Cobb then ran and jumped into a nearby ditch to observe what would happen next, and it wasn't long before they saw the Black woman bust out of the back door and run across a cotton field with a trail of children behind. Cobb said she was as wide as three rows of cotton, but fast and agile. She outran all the young'uns. ~ Frazier Glenn Miller

Your harshest critic is always going to be yourself. Don't ignore that critic but don't give it more attention than it deserves. ~ Michael Ian Black

By early evening all the sky to the north had darkened and the spare terrain they trod had turned a neuter gray as far as the eye could see. They grouped in the road at the top of a rise and looked back. The storm front towered above them and the wind was cool on their sweating faces. They slumped bleary-eyed in their saddles and looked at one another. Shrouded in the black thunderheads the distant lightning glowed mutely like welding seen through foundry smoke. As if repairs were under way at some flawed place n the iron dark of the world. ~ Cormac McCarthy

I wasn't really conscious about 'The 39 Clues' movie when I wrote 'The Black Circle.' ~ Patrick Carman

Every white person in this country-and I do not care what he or she says-knows one thing. They may not know, as they put, "what I want",but they know they would not like to be black here.
If they know that, then they know everything they need to know, and whatever else they say is a lie. ~ James Baldwin

It's one thing to be helpless as one tries to lace a corset or to mount an elephant, quite another to be helpless as a bandit pushes a black steel knife against the flesh of your throat while his brother comes to join him. ~ John Speed

I used to own an island in the Seychelles and had a big boat there and one day I came across some Somali pirates who were passing by on their way to re-provision their boat. They didn't even acknowledge me - which is unheard of among sailors - and it was like looking into the eyes of a black mamba. ~ Wilbur Smith

Children will go with any story as long as it's good, but white adults sometimes think that if a black child's on the cover, it is perhaps not for them. ~ Malorie Blackman

Don't let anyone rob you of hope. ~ Pope Francis

What treasures lay inside! Yes, here were the colors that she had asked for: red, pink, yellow, blue, green, black- all in powder form, of course, not like the one or two bottles of liquid food color that were available at the Lebanese supermarket in town; those were not at all modern- some big blocks of marzipan, and, as always, June had included some new things for Angel to try. This time there were three tubes that looked rather like thick pens. She picked one upend examined it: written along its length were the words 'Gateau Graffito,' and underneath, written in uppercase letters, was the word 'red.' Reaching for the other two pens- one marked 'green' and the other 'black'- she saw a small printed sheet lying at the bottom of the bubblewrap nest. It explained that these pens were filled with food color, and offered a picture showing how they could be used to write fine lines or thick lines, depending on how you held them. It also guaranteed that the contents were kosher. Eh, now her cakes were going to be more beautiful than ever! ~ Gaile Parkin

Listen and listen good, shitbrain. If you ever touch someone I love again, I will shove this cross down your throat and watch you choke on it. You want to know why a Prince of Hell wanted me so bad? Now you do. I'm not a nice girl. I'm a Seer. It is my job to save the people of the world from vultures like you. Now you take that back to whoever your boss is and let him come find me, if he's stupid enough. I'll bury you all if I have to. ~ Kyoko M.

[The huge success of Curse of the Black Pearl] made perfect sense to me on the one hand, and at the same time, it made no sense at all, which I kind of enjoyed. Even now, with the dolls and the cereal boxes and snacks and fruit juices, it all just feels fun to me, in a Warholian way. It's absurd. It doesn't get more absurd. ~ Johnny Depp

If I'm still conscious to face the consequences of my actions, then at the very least I will know that my actions were real, thay they indeed had consequences, though my lone life will amount to less than a single click of static in the symphony of the big bang. If my actions were real, then so were my memories, and if those were real, the things I've done have allowed me to see God and I0m not afraid of following my life down that eight-second black rabbit hole. ~ Craig Clevenger

All these self-serving efforts by powerful factions to define their racist rhetoric as nonracist has left Americans thoroughly divided over, and ignorant of, what racist ideas truly are. It has all allowed Americans who think something is wrong with Black people to believe, somehow, that they are not racists. But to say something is wrong with a group is to say something is inferior about that group. These sayings are interlocked logically whether Americans realize it or not, whether Americans are willing to admit it or not. Any comprehensive history of racist ideas must grapple with the ongoing manipulation and confusion, must set the record straight on those who are espousing racist ideas and those who are not. My definition of a racist idea is a simple one: it is any concept that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any way. I define anti-Black racist ideas - the subject of this book - as any idea suggesting that Black people, or any group of Black people, are inferior in any way to another racial group. ~ Ibram X. Kendi

Black women have always been friends. I mean, if you didn't have each other you had nothing. ~ Toni Morrison

The First Amendment allows Nazis and white extremists to do what they are going to do, and it allows for black extremists and all other types of extremists to do what they are going to do. I understand that, and I'm not opposed to that. ~ Niger Innis

Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me from London, asking questions. One was "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books." You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I'm not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man. ~ Malcolm X

Heaven has its business and earth has its business: those are two separate things. Heaven, that's the angels' pasture; they are happy; they don't have to fret about food and drink. And you can be sure that they have black angels to do the heavy work like laundering the clouds or sweeping the rain and cleaning the sun after a storm, while the white angels sing like nightingales all day long or blow in those little trumpets like they show in the pictures we see in church. ~ Jacques Roumain

Black bones are rattling in the grass. ~ Amy Cross

The great black bird broods outside my window in the high dark night waiting to enfold me when I leave the house tomorrow only I'm going to dodge it successfully by sheer animalism and ability and even exhilaration, so goodnight ~ Jack Kerouac

Black: I see a different truth. Settin right across the table from me.
White: Which is?
Black: That you must love your brother or die. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin; when nothing is unabsorbed, and I could fancy that we might blow so vast a bubble that the sun might set and rise in it and we might take the blue of midday and the black of midnight and be cast off and escape from here and now. ~ Virginia Woolf

I'm tired of having to consult a group of old white guys about my black girl craft. They don't even know what they're listening for or to. ~ Azealia Banks

The greatest percentage of poverty is found in female-headed households. Over 70 percent of female-headed households are poor. A large percentage of poor people are children (17 percent); fully 85 percent of black children living in poverty reside in a female-headed household. ~ Walter E. Williams

In order to disprove the assertion that all crows are black, one white crow is sufficient. ~ William James

Stupid weirdo! Liar! You filthy cat-boy-!! ~ Peach-Pit

Emma felt frightened, apprehensive, yes, but also elated and excited, her feelings all tumbled and mixed together like a stew of varied ingredients tossed into the same pot. She was aware of the blood coursing through her veins, the beat of her heart, the breath in her lungs. Was aware, too, of that clenched knot that hung in the pit of her stomach. This was what it was to be alive, to be at the edge, facing survival eye to eye, knowing, KNOWING, you would win. ~ Helen Hollick

Corn wind in the fall, come off the black lands, come off the whisper of the silk hangers, the lap of the flat spear leaves. ~ Carl Sandburg

I can never kind of fathom a character's journey beyond the moment when you go to black, any more than when people ask me what Jason Patric did with the tape recorder at the end of 'Narc,' you know what I mean? Even in 'Blood, Guts,' like, what happens down the road with these characters? ~ Joe Carnahan

I can't negate the theory that the Huxtables on 'The Cosby Show' may have helped pave the way for the Obama family. People enjoyed watching that black family. ~ Bill Cosby

A king-size bed sat catty-corner opposite me. The bedroom was painted white, but the comforter was crimson. Small black velvet bird appliques swarmed in the center. I'm not much for art. I'll confess the deeper meaning of the twisted comforter was lost on me. Maybe death to all swallows? ~ Hailey Edwards

Well it has been very exciting and very changing as well. Celebrating the 40th year and having the album out and the Channel 4 documentary and I resigned from Blind Date. ~ Cilla Black

It The Weather Channel is the most watched cable channel in America. I'll repeat that. It is the most watched cable channel in America. They were worried about the terrorists immobilizing us, and a portion of our countrymen watch weather. 'Kay, you don't get any more immobile than that ... unless you're in a goddamn coma. That means you're saying, I'd go to the window, but it's too far. If you want to know what the weather is you go to a window and stick your hand out and if you want to know what the temperature is you drive by a bank. ~ Lewis Black

I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach. ~ Maya Angelou

Yet I have learned.
In chronicles of sorrow, too, there are joys,
In lesions of silence, immeasurable noise.
And certainly in the very pit of the heart
Beneath the trouble in the valves
There is kindness.
Certainly in the ruby heart of this plum's seasons,
A silent reason for hope. ~ Amal Khan

In the interest rate area, traders have for a long time used a version of what is known as Black's model for European bond options; another version of the same model for caps and floors; and yet another version of the same model for European swap options. ~ John Hull

I used to love history class. I can still quote whole passages by heart: "When the emperor entered the Hall of Balming Virtue, a violent wind came from a dark corner, and out of it slithered a giant serpent that coiled around the throne. The emperor fainted, and that night earthquakes struck Loyang, and waves swept the shores, and cranes shrieked in the marshes. On the fifth day of the sixth moon a long trail of black mist floated into the Hall of Concubines, and hot and cold became confused, and a hen turned into a rooster, and a woman turned into a man, and flesh fell from the skies." Now, that is grand stuff, just the thing to give to growing boys, and then we were old enough to read the greatest of all historians. This is what Ssu-ma Ch'ien had to say about the exact same subject: "The Chou Dynasty was nearing collapse." Bah. ~ Barry Hughart

Tom Ford, who is my all-time favourite, once said to me, 'Here's the thing about dress shirts, Rob. You need white, and you need black.' 'What about blue,' I asked. He said, 'Have you ever seen Cary Grant in a blue dress shirt?' ~ Rob Lowe

Hitler really wasn't so bad. In the black way. ~ Anthony Jeselnik

People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite for the black broth of honest criticism. ~ Agnes Repplier

With stand-up, you can be as freeform as you want to be. You can say what you want, how you want, at any moment without constraint. ~ Michael Ian Black

Life is like a piano. White keys are happy moments and the black ones are sad moments. Both keys are played together to give us the sweet music called Life. ~ Suzy Kassem

Legitimate revolution must be led by, made by those who have been most oppressed: black, brown, yellow, red, and white women-with men relating to that the best they can. ~ Robin Morgan

One clear night while the others slept, I climbed
the stairs to the roof of the house and under a sky
strewn with stars I gazed at the sea, at the spread of it,
the rolling crests of it raked by the wind, becoming
like bits of lace tossed in the air. I stood in the long
whispering night, waiting for something, a sign, the approach
of a distant light, and I imagined you coming closer,
the dark waves of your hair mingling with the sea,
and the dark became desire, and desire the arriving light.
The nearness, the momentary warmth of you as I stood
on that lonely height watching the slow swells of the sea
break on the shore and turn briefly into glass and disappear ...
Why did I believe you would come out of nowhere? Why with all
that the world offers would you come only because I was here? ~ Mark Strand

Pessimism is a towering skyscraper eighty stories high in the suburbs of the soul at the end of a long avenue with waste ground on either side and a few poorly-stocked little shops. Several ultra-fast staircases give access to the building, running up from the cellars to the roof-gardens. The comfort of this place leaves nothing to be desired and only the greatest luxury is acceptable, but every Friday the residents gather on the ground floor to read from a bible bound in the skin of a blind man. The psalmic words they intone rise up through the pipes, sigh in the stoves and sweep the chimneys coated inside with black grease which leaves dirt on the skin. Water runs constantly in the bathrooms and the showers beat down on the numbered bodies, peppering them with sand. On Sundays the bed linen unrolls by itself and nobody makes love. For this tower block, like an obscure phallus scraping the vulva of the sky, is usually a hive of sexual activity. The most beautiful woman lives there, but no-one has ever known her. It is said, that dressed in furs and feathers, she keeps herself shut away in a first-floor apartment as if in a white safe. Her windows are scissors which cut short both shadow and breath. Her name is AURORA. ~ Michel Leiris

I like how writing can take you off for a jaunt in your head and then set you back down in the chair where you've been all along. ~ Georgann Low

If you ever try to change my memories again, I will slap you into next spring." I took a breath, knees shaking as I felt small beside him, my white dress brushing against his black trousers. Some women get flowers or poems from their suitors. I get insults and threats. ~ Dawn Cook