Claustrophobia Quotes

She was afraid of us moving in together. With Mark, domestic intimacy had become domestic claustrophobia; and had riddled romance (though she never quite said this) like woodworm. It wasn't that she was resistant to the glamourlessness of stray toenails and washing up and underpants and mug-rings and hoovering and boredom; on the contrary: it was that she was horrified by her own willingness to sink so deeply into the comfort of such details. A no nonsense streak in her identified the ordinary with truth, the exotic with delusion. She and Mark had delighted in dehumbugging their own romance, had (she confessed) Larkinized themselves into mundanity addicts. In Mark's case (she suspected) because he knew deep down he had no magic in him; in her own because she knew deep down that she had too much (no nonsense streak or not), and that to release it would be to lose him - and perhaps herself. Therefore they had wallowed together in cosiness, both suffering, Mark for fear of her leaving him, her for fear (certainty, actually) that the romantic inside her would rise up and smash their deadening familiarity to pieces. ~ Glen Duncan

In just two years, CSAS ignited the flame Grandmother lit years before. Carl would never succeed in his attempts to extinguish it. But his parental authority was able to keep it dormant and unthreatening for several years. At Ooltewah High School, I was like a lion forced into captivity after a liberating romp in the jungle. Nothing challenged me. Nothing motivated me. Nothing moved me. My claustrophobia itched to the point where clawing at my own skin seemed to be my only method of relief. With no social outlets and no intellectual nourishment, I caved into self-destruction. My bulimia amplified from throwing up obligatory family dinners to driving to grocery stores, Dollar Generals, and gas stations, shoving junk food into my purse in between security camera reach, devouring the calories in the corners of desolate parking lots, and scurrying into remote public restrooms in the outskirts of town. My knees would rest on the cold, sticky tile floors as I wrapped my arms around bleach-scented toilets as if embracing an old friend. ~ Maggie Georgiana Young

OF COURSE, SPACE travel isn't only about being stuffed into a claustrophobia-inducing cell, scared witless, trussed up in a restraint harness, and raped through every orifice for years on end. Because, you know, if that was all there was to it, there'd be a queue outside every travel agent. ~ Charles Stross

So at my old school," he said. "There was this kid on the baseball team. People thought, I don't know. They saw that he went to some website or something." ... "They made it impossible for him to play. Every day, the found another way to mess with him. Then one Friday after school, they locked him in the storage closet." He winced, as if remembering and I knew. I knew then. "All night long and the whole next day. A tiny, dark, disgusting airless space. His parents thought he was at the away game and someone told the coaches he was sick, so no one even looked for him. No one knew he was trapped in there." His chest was heaving and I was remembering how he told me he didn't used to have claustrophobia and now he did. "He was really good too, probably the best player on the team or could have been. And he didn't even do anything. The guy just went to these sites and someone saw. Do you get it? Do you get what it would mean for me? The assistant captain? I want to be captain next year so maybe I can graduate early. No scholarship. No nothing. These guys aren't" - he made finger quotes - "evolved. They're not from Northern California. They don't do all-day sits or draw pictures." The dagger went straight in. "It's brutal in a locker room. ~ Jandy Nelson

I'm going to get an MRI to find out whether I have claustrophobia. ~ Steven Wright

This claustrophobia was the only weakness I had. It's not my fault. It's just in my mind. ~ Felix Baumgartner

I took the steps down Angel's Flight to Hill Street: a hundred and forty steps, with tight fists, frightened of no man, but scared of the Third Street Tunnel, scared to walk through it – claustrophobia. Scared of high places too, and of blood, and of earthquakes; otherwise, quite fearless, excepting death, except the fear I'll scream in a crowd, except the fear of appendicitis, except the fear of heart trouble, even that, sitting in his room holding the clock and pressing his jugular vein, counting out his heartbeats, listening to the weird purr and whirr of his stomach. Otherwise, quite fearless. ~ John Fante

You can get claustrophobia and agoraphobia - a fear of wide, open spaces - simultaneously on a spacewalk. ~ Chris Hadfield

It was more like a form of claustrophobia
a dread of exchanging the freedom of her own self-imposed routine for the inescapable burden of somebody else's. ~ Jan Struther

The world and everything in it was intolerably and permanently fucked and nothing had ever been good or okay, unbearable claustrophobia of the soul, the windowless room, no way out, waves of shame and horror, leave me alone. ~ Donna Tartt

There was no way his imagination could feel the impact of the whole Earth having gone, it was too big. He prodded his feelings by thinking that his parent and his sister had gone. No reaction.He thought of all the people he had been close to. No reaction. Then he thought of a complete stranger he had been standing behind in the queue at the supermarket two days before and felt a sudden stab: the supermarket was gone, everyone in it was gone! Nelson's Column had gone! and there would be no outcry, because there was no one left to make an outcry! From now on Nelson's Column only existed in his mind. England only existed in his mind. A wave of claustrophobia closed in on him.
He tried again: America, he thought, has gone. He couldn't grasp it, He decided to start smaller again. New York has gone. No reaction. He'd never seriously believed it existed anyway. The dollar, he thought, has sunk for ever. Slight tremor there. Every "Bogart" movie has been wiped, he said to himself, and that gave him a nasty knock. McDonald's, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald's hamburger.
He passed out. ~ Douglas Adams

After my dad leaves, I look over and realize Tobin's eyes are open, and he's watching me.
:Hey over there.: I smile at him.
:Hey yourself. Getting claustrophobic in here yet?:
:Nah, not really. I had a friend who helped me face my phobia, and I think it's a lot better now. In the end, all he got for his trouble was some really nasty sea wasp stings.:
:I think he got more than that.: Tobin sends me a quizzical smile, and I blush when I think how he helped me in our tiny prison. :That's good news, though, about your claustrophobia being better.: He closes his eyes. :I don't want to have to hum that many lullabies to you ever again.: ~ Polly Holyoke

Bond found this irksome. He disliked being cosseted. It gave him claustrophobia. ~ Ian Fleming

From the time I was a little kid, I was always shy. Performing was when I was outgoing. So I guess I am a loner. I get claustrophobia if a lot of people are around. ~ Johnny Carson

MRI machines sucked. They really, honestly sucked. You lay motionless inside a cramped metal tube that made you feel like a torpedo waiting for launch, and weird noises went off around you as you fought off claustrophobia you'd never had before for an hour that seemed to last approximately one thousand years. ~ Andrea Speed

She had never before suffered from claustrophobia, but the room seemed too small to contain Luke's elation, and she felt that she could be swept up and lost in the tempest of his delight. ~ Esther Spurrill Jones

What surprises me is that I did not talk for One and a Half Year....when I was born....I can still feel the claustrophobia of those times and now vent out my thoughts all the time !!:-) ~ Abha Maryada Banerjee

I'm not afraid of flying; I just fear I'm going to die. I think I'm - vulnerable. I admit it. I don't fly. I got claustrophobia. I don't go in high buildings. I don't do those things. I'm just myself, whatever that is. ~ John Madden

For me, it's a multitude of things. In the modern world, there's a real genuine fear of loss of individuality and I think the undead speak to that. I also think the idea of the dead coming back to life, and this unstoppable foe that just keeps coming and coming, but rather slowly just chases you, is a real primal fear. It's like a fear of claustrophobia, heights or water. ~ Paul W. S. Anderson

I think the other side of that is embracing the claustrophobia, and that's what a huge piece of this show is, just watching people go through having to be stuck in that. I think the audience is going to feel some of that. It might not be comfortable, but it's really cool to just be experiencing that along with the characters that you're watching. ~ Kyra Zagorsky

But then I remembered: the universe was closed, and so very small. There was really nowhere else to go. ~ Peter Watts

We all laughed, but what I really felt was a sense of claustrophobia, something that had been happening more and more. It was like the city was getting smaller the longer we were there. It was incestuous, the way everyone knew everything about people. ~ Jennifer Close

I almost started panicking at the thought of claustrophobia kicking in, but then I realized I was not a sufferer of that particular condition and I continued on as before. ~ Wade Chris

'Game of Thrones' fans are the nicest people ever, but a thousand nice people coming at me gives me claustrophobia. ~ Peter Dinklage

Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It's not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it's the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don't last long in captivity ~ Neal Shusterman

If you want to understand what a year of life means, ask a student who just flunked his end-of-the-year exams. Or a month of life: speak to a mother who has just given birth to a premature baby and is waiting for him to be taken out of the incubator before she can hold him safe and sound in her arms. Or a week: interview a man who works in a factory or a mine to feed his family. Or a day: ask two people madly in love who are waiting for their next rendezvous. Or an hour: talk to a claustrophobia sufferer stuck in a broken-down elevator. Or a second: look at the expression on the face of a man who has just escaped from a car wreck. Or one-thousandth of a second: ask the athlete who just won the silver medal at the Olympic Games, and not the gold he trained for all his life. Life is magic, Arthur, and I know what I'm saying because since my accident I appreciate the value of every instant. So I beg you, let's make the most of all the seconds that we have left. ~ Marc Levy

The institution of marriage should be re-examined because of its overwhelming claustrophobia. The odds are stacked against spontaneity and effervescence. It's an institution that was brought about for the sake of family and children, but biologically, it's very unnatural. It's masochism and torture the way it's been organized. ~ Peter Beard

Tonglen practice has four stages: Rest your mind for a second or two in a state of openness or stillness. This is called flashing absolute bodhichitta, or suddenly opening to the basic spaciousness and clarity of the awakened heart. Work with texture. Breathe in a feeling of hot, dark, and heavy - a sense of claustrophobia - and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, and light - a sense of freshness. Breathe in through all the pores of your body and radiate out completely, through all the pores of your body. Do this until your visualization feels synchronized with your in and out-breaths. Now contemplate any painful situation that's real to you. For example, you can breathe in the hot, dark, constricted feeling of sadness that you feel, and breathe out a light, cool sense of joy or space or whatever might provide relief. Widen the circle of compassion by connecting with all those who feel this kind of pain, and extending the wish to help everyone. ~ Pema Chodron

Ali Bell doesn't play hide-and-seek," Lucas said. "She plays hide-and-pray-I-don't-find-you."
Mackenzie smiled. "When Ali Bell gives you the finger, she's telling you how many seconds you have to live."
Cole chuckled, saying, "Fear of spiders is arachnophobia, and fear of tight spaces is claustrophobia, but fear of Ali Bell is just called logic."
"Oh, oh." Kat clapped excitedly. "There used to be a street named after Ali Bell, but it was changed because nobody crosses Ali Bell and lives. True story. ~ Gena Showalter

Flakes of snow swirled and danced across the porch. The Overlook faced it as it had for nearly three-quarters of a century, its darkened windows now bearded with snow, indifferent to the fact it was now cut off from the world ... Inside its shell the three of them went about their early evening routine, like microbes trapped in the intestine of a monster. ~ Stephen King

I wanted 'Alien' to be all about claustrophobia. ~ Ridley Scott

Darkness is a strange thing - it is both infinite and confining; it holds you tight in its grasp, but it holds you suspended in a void. Silence operates in a similar way. Slowly the two combine to become a threat.
("Come Into My Parlour") ~ Reggie Oliver

The discovery of phobias by psychiatrists has done much to clear the atmosphere. Whereas in the old days a person would say: 'Let's get the heck out of here!' today she says: 'Let's get the heck out of here! I've got claustrophobia. ~ Robert Benchley

I suffer from CLAUSTROPHOBIA, a fear of closed spaces.For example, I'm petrified that the WINE store will be closed before I have time to get there!!! ~ Tanya Masse

Going down on a woman gives me a stiff neck, going down on a man gives me lockjaw and conventional sex gives me claustrophobia. ~ Tallulah Bankhead

I recommend people develop a fear of elevators, like I have. Even if something is on the tenth floor, I'm walking up. If you don't have claustrophobia, pretend you do and take the stairs everywhere! It ends up being so healthy! ~ Tamara Taylor

The claustrophobia of the forest. The first few trees visible before her, monochrome contrasts of black shadow and white moonlight, and beyond that an entire continent, wilderness uninterrupted from ocean to ocean with so few people left between the shores. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

I rush over to him and practically knock him down as I kiss him hard. He stumbles back, but his hands go to my waist, and his mouth takes everything I give.
I try to express everything I feel for him, everything I want to say, because I'm not sure if I can admit it aloud yet. I love him. This is true, but the thought of saying it out loud makes the walls close in - just like they've always done. Only difference is, this time, when I remind myself that it's Damon, all that doubt, the claustrophobia, the itchy feeling of wanting to escape disappears completely.
If I focus on the Damon part and not words like love and forever, I don't freak out. I want it. Everything. ~ Eden Finley

Can I ask you something?
Boxers. Briefs exacerbate my claustrophobia. ~ Alex Adams

I was tortured fifteen times, that's total submission. They did that with shutting off your blood circulation with ropes, giving you claustrophobia and pain at the same time, bending you double. ~ James Stockdale

To experience love as claustrophobia. In such a twisted paradigm lies the sick legacy of a lifetime in the closet. ~ Paul Monette

The first century of the plague had seen the country turned upside down. In the twilight years of Edward III it seemed that nothing could damage the greatness of the Plantagenet royal estate. But the world of the village went from impoverished claustrophobia to traumatized infection. A hundred years later, everything had been upended, courtesy of King Death. ~ Simon Schama