Empty Shell Quotes

Pearl II [10w]
If the world's your pearl then you're an empty shell. ~ Beryl Dov

The Roundhouse was a complete shell. It was absolutely empty, lying derelict for years. ~ Richard Stanley

The afflicted are almost upon them. The air is a din of hypersonic bursts, snarls and empty shell casings. But still I hear him. As his people start to fall. As his pistol clicks empty. As he rises with only his knuckles left between him and the sheer brutality of mathematics. As the music swells above the carnage, still I hear him breathe the words. "Tell them I was thinking of them. At the end." They pile onto him. All snarls and teeth and fists. But as he falls, I am holding his hand. Easing him into his long good night. "I will tell them, David." The last words he will ever hear. 'I promise. ~ Amie Kaufman

One night, lightning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw it the next morning. It lay broken in half, and he looked into its trunk as into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away long ago; there was nothing inside - just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind. The living power had gone, and the shape it left had not been able to stand without it. Years ~ Ayn Rand

If you have no past or no future, which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide. But the cold reasoning mass of gray entrail in my cranium which parrots, 'I think, therefore I am,' whispers that there is always the turning, the upgrade, the new slant. And so I wait. ~ Sylvia Plath

Life
luscious wet life bereft of
death, loss of empty shell
minus absent of nothing
exploding star cell
amoeba sweet algae
oxygen,
hydrogen flowering
in the vacuum of
space and magnetic motion. ~ H. Raven Rose

Strength is an empty shell. ~ Jack London

But this time it was not pain that filled the empty shell, but feelings, flooding back, bringing knowledge and realisation. Here, and now, and his once more. Vadim. Forever and always. Vadim. His.
And Dan cried, helplessly, while his good hand clawed at the other's body, his body pressed so close, as if he was trying to crawl inside. ~ Marquesate & Vashtan

The shadows that lingered in the corners of the large chamber were a reflection of what he felt inside - an empty shell of darkness. Of the last three decades of his punishment, this was the first time that he felt forsaken. Now, he truly knew what it felt like to be one of the fallen, without the light of having or giving love. ~ L.G. Castillo

that town, they had gone under and now just the rotting empty shell remained. Having left all that was his home ~ Tim Heath

Why did people assume that the beautiful among them needed nothing but their beauty to bring them happiness? That behind the beauty there was nothing but an empty shell, insensitive shell? ~ Mary Balogh

No perfection can last forever. Time tears at it; wears it down until it's nothing, just an empty shell. ~ Cassandra Giovanni

I've never been so empty in my life. You took my soul with you. You took my heart. I'm this empty shell who goes through the motions every day, waiting for you to call me. Waiting until you answer my calls. ~ Abbi Glines

Technology innovation for the sake of innovation is an empty shell if we focus on what people don't need but would buy anyways. ~ Iveta Cherneva

What can we expect from an empty shell
Where many hearts of pearl once beat to dwell
Waves fail to break hard layer's bond of love
Wailing shore sends memoir to the sky above ~ Munia Khan

The religion of this 'I', the poetry of this 'I', and the philosophy of the same 'I' that from Poggio and Felelfo to Byron and Goethe produced a number of works astonishing for their profundity and brilliance have finally exhausted its content; and in the poetry of Decadence we see the rapid falling away of the empty shell of this 'I'. We remarked previously about the exaggeration without the exaggerated object, and about the precious style without the subject of this preciosity, which characterize this poetry - this is so in regard to its form; in regard to its content Decadence is above all hopeless egoism. The world, as an object of love, of interest, even as the object of indignation or contempt, has disappeared from this "poetry"; the world has disappeared, not only as an object exciting some reaction in this vapid 'I', but also as a spectator and possible judge of this 'I'; it is not even present.

("On Symbolists And Decadence") ~ Vasily Rozanov

With a hologram, like when your teacher is one of them, if you aren't looking right at them, they sometimes seem to be hollow. You see them and suddenly they don't have a face that pokes out. Their faces poke in, their nose and so on, and there is nothing inside them. If you don't look right at them, they can look just like an empty shell. ~ M T Anderson

A town without a bookstore is an empty shell of a place. ~ Ellery Adams

This empty shell holds nothing but the echoes of what was. ~ Jenim Dibie

I can't deceive myself out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light. And if you have no past or future which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide. But the cold reasoning mass of gray entrail in my cranium which parrots "I think, therefore I am," whispers that there is always the turning, the upgrade, the new slant. And so I wait. What avail are good looks? To grab temporary security? What avail are brains? Merely to say "I have seen; I have comprehended? ~ Sylvia Plath

The great oak tree had stood on a hill over the Hudson, in a lonely spot on the Taggart estate. Eddie Willers, aged seven, liked to come and look at that tree. It had stood there for hundreds of years, and he thought it would always stand there. Its roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it, but would swing the hill and the whole of the earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string. He felt safe in the oak tree's presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength.

One night, lightning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw it next morning. It lay broken in half, and he looked into its trunk as into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away long ago; there was nothing inside-just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind. The living power had gone, and the shape it left had not been able to stand without it. ~ Ayn Rand

Sad truth is. . . we all end up alone on some death bed. Yeah? No way to take anybody else's place and no way we can be lying on the same one."

I was at the edge of the white-wed cloth. My shoes filled with concrete, as did my head, looking at the empty shell of what was once a woman full of wonder.

"Any way to make someone feel not so alone?" she asked.

"The only thing anyone can ever do is help someone feel a little less lonely before they get there."

"How does someone do that?"

"Memories. Help create memories. Better ones. Ones to replace the old. ~ S.D. Lawendowski

Didn't she know yet? People you loved, the ones you cared about the most, they all died eventually. No one was spared. When you lost them, everything you had, all of your heart, was lost, too. It crippled you. Left you an empty shell, functioning on instinct alone. "You're horrible," she whispered, so softly that ~ Sophie Jordan

A pen, you see, you hold it between your thumb and your index finger. No, wait, you hold it however you want. After that, it's not hard, you don't even think about it. Your hands don't exist anymore. The important thing happens elsewhere. No, this won't do, it's still too pretty. You're not being asked to come up with something pretty, you know. No one gives a damn about pretty. There are children's drawings and glossy magazines for that. So put on your mittens, little genius, little empty shell, yes, go on, put them on, I tell you, and maybe at last you'll see, you'll draw an almost perfect failed circle. ~ Anna Gavalda

Writing is a long and lonesome business; back of the problems in thought and composition hover always the awful questions: Is this the page that shows the empty shell? Is it here and now that they find me out? ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

She looks like an empty shell of a woman with her soul hovering above her. We believe in spiritual guías in Santo Domingo. Hers is her own self. I can see Mami's soul desperately trying to find its way back into her small body. ~ Raquel Cepeda

Wealth for its own sake is an empty shell. Wealth that includes making other people's lives better will reward you even more than the beautiful mansion you live in. ~ Gene Simmons

Christianity can be described as a theological materialism: It is that which transforms our material existence. If our faith does not throw us into the arms of the world, if it does not lead to our experience of responsibility, love, celebration, and our commitment to transformation, then, whatever we call it, we have nothing but an empty shell. ~ Peter Rollins

No! Such as they will not destroy marriage - they will save it! They restore the vital substance while we preserve the empty shell. ~ Jesse Lynch Williams

Maybe I can learn to live in a way that makes it worth writing about, and maybe I can actually become something more than this empty shell. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

You have my heart, my soul, my life. I'm an empty shell without you. ~ Maria V. Snyder

Sometimes by holding onto what you love the most - you end up choking the very life from the thing you want to keep on living. It's possible to try too hard, to love something so deeply that you lose yourself. The danger is never in loving someone - but losing your identity in the process. Because what happens when tragedy strikes? You're left an empty shell. You're left with nothing. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

You can disappear inside of yourself and become an empty shell with depression in mind. It's that feeling of being invisible. Sometimes when I wake up I don't feel like my head is attached to my body - there's nothing. ~ Elena Tonra

It is an awfully sad misconception that librarians simply check books in and out. The library is the heart of a school, and without a librarian, it is but an empty shell. ~ Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Life without love, without chasing your dreams, is nothing. It means nothing. It's a sad fucking empty shell, Catherine. It's so easy to drown in darkness, to let it smother you, swallow you whole, to be blinded by it. But you gotta fight. You gotta fucking fight. ~ Mia Asher

I sleep for an entire day. And when I wake up I'm a new person. I'm empty. I've cried out everything I had in me. I'm an empty shell waiting to be filled with what comes next. Or I'm just being a total drama queen. I'm not empty. I'm still a person. I cried over a bad thing that happened in my life, but I probably shouldn't have. Compared to Mom's crisis, mine was small. Compared to a thousand other girls' around the world, mine is insignificant. It wasn't bad. Not compared to everyone else. It was just a couple seconds. It wasn't years. It wasn't months, like Mom. It wasn't a family member. Wasn't someone I see anymore. It didn't even hurt. There was no blood. It wasn't bad. Not compared to others'. So I should stop crying. ~ Sara Wolf

corner, an empty shell that is merely ~ Krishna Udayasankar

Love is not nonsense. It is everything. For without love what is a man? Just an empty shell. – Sir Lindsay Crawford (fellow knight/friend of hero, Troye de Valois) ~ Catherine March

Life
without love
is an empty shell .
زندگی بدون عشق
صدفی خالی است . ~ Rumi

If ELF don't exist, I would just be an empty shell ~ Leeteuk

I was an empty shell. Like a vacant house―condemned―for months I'd been utterly uninhabitable. Now I was a little improved. The front room was in better repair. But that was all―just the one small piece. He deserved better than that―better than a one-room, falling-down fixer-upper. No amount of investment on his part could put me back in working order. ~ Stephenie Meyer

An empty shell. Those were the first words that sprang to mind ... Something incredibly important - .. - had disappeared from Miu for good. Leaving behind not life, but its absence ~ Haruki Murakami

Living like an empty shell is not really living, no matter how many years it may go on. The heart and flesh of an empty shell give birth to nothing more than the life of an empty shell. ~ Haruki Murakami

Whenever the Christian idea of meditation is taken seriously, there are those who assume it is synonymous with the concept of meditation centered in Eastern religions. In reality, the two ideas stand worlds apart. Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind. The two ideas are quite different. ~ Richard J. Foster

Mornings are grey. Always the same. Absolutely empty. ~ Osamu Dazai

Is empty, and all the devils are here. ~ Terry Pratchett

But if you don't have that memory of being loved, you are condemned to search the world for something to fill you up. But no matter how much money you make or how famous you become, you will still feel empty. What you are really searching for is unconditional love, unqualified acceptance. And that was the one thing that was denied to you at birth. ~ Michael Jackson

Standing on the bridge, looking across at that empty city, everything in the compass of my gaze had been set there by a human hand. Somehow those pylons had been strung with wire, and those towers raised, and roofs tiled. There had been food and drink for millions of mouths. I don't cry easy, but my vision blurred as I stared on the ruins of what we had been, and I watched the small band of men in rags move toward it to pick at it like birds on the carcass of some giant. ~ Marcel Theroux

You're going to declare a rest period?' asked Jerott. Leisure, with Gabriel there, seemed too good to be true.

'Rumour being what it is, I imagine it will have declared itself by now,' Lymond said. 'Yes. We shall take three days from our labours to relax. Provided Sir Graham understands that by midday tomorrow St Mary's will be empty and all the men at arms and half the officers whoring in Peebles.' In the half-dark you could guess at Gabriel's smile.

'Do you think I don't know human nature?' he said. 'They are bound by no vows. But as they learn to respect you, they will do as you do.'

'That's what we're all afraid of,' said Jerott; and there was a ripple of laughter and a flash of amusement, he saw, from Lymond himself. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Well,that was fun," she said lightly as he maneuvered out of the lot. "I'm really glad you talked me into going out. My day was a blank page until seven."
That long, quiet moment lingered in his mind even as it lingered in Shelby's. Alan shifted, hoping to ease the thudding in the pit of his stomach. "Always happy to help someone fill in a few empty spaces." Alan controlled the speed of the car through force of will. Holding her hadn't soothed him but rather had only served to remind him how much time had passed since he had last held her.
"Actually you're an easy man to be with, Alan, for a politician." Easy? Shelby repeated to herself as she pressed the button to lower her window. Her blood was still throbbing from a meeting of eyes that had lasted less than ten seconds. If he was any easier, she'd be head over heels in love with him and headed for disaster. "I mean,you're not really pompous."
He shot her a look, long and cool, that boosted her confidence. "No?" he murmured after a humming silence.
"Hardly at all." Shelby sent him a smile. "Why,I'd probably vote for you myself."
Alan paused at a red light, studying it thoughtfully before he turned to her. "Your insults aren't as subtle today, Shelby."
"Insults?" Shelby gave him a bland stare. "Odd,I thought it was more flattery.Isn't a vote what it all comes down to? Votes, and that all-encompassing need to win."
The light stayed green for five full seconds before he cruised through it. "B ~ Nora Roberts

True love, by definition, means "someone that is truly loved". But true love must be reciprocated, or it is only excrutiatingly unbearable and devistating - a never-ending lonely night in an empty room. ~ A.M. Hudson

Making my way out of the bedroom, I found the loft empty, a visceral reminder that it had always been my sister's choice not to know me. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

I was born I came into this world with empty fists. After seventy years I am going away from this world with empty fists. ~ Mangalam Shiva

Have you heard of the illness hysteria siberiana? Try to imagine this: You're a farmer, living all alone on the Siberian tundra. Day after day you plow your fields. As far as the eye can see, nothing. To the north, the horizon, to the east, the horizon, to the south, to the west, more of the same. Every morning, when the sun rises in the east, you go out to work in your fields. When it's directly overhead, you take a break for lunch. When it sinks in the west, you go home to sleep. And then one day, something inside you dies. Day after day you watch the sun rise in the east, pass across the sky, then sink in the west, and something breaks inside you and dies. You toss your plow aside and, your head completely empty of thought, begin walking toward the west. Heading toward a land that lies west of the sun. Like someone, possessed, you walk on, day after day, not eating or drinking, until you collapse on the ground and die. That's hysteria siberiana. ~ Haruki Murakami

But the big courage is the cold-blooded kind, the kind that never lets go even when you're feeling empty inside, and your blood's thin, and there's no kind of fun or profit to be had, and the trouble's not over in an hour or two but lasts for months and years. ~ John Buchan

Cnut Longsword had near killed me with his blade Ice-Spite and it was small consolation that Serpent-Breath had sliced his throat in the same heartbeat that his sword had broken a rib and pierced my lung. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Hey, dickhead!" one of the other drivers yelled. "Get off the road!"
"This here is a Falcon Seven," the rider told him. "I can put a bolt through your windshield and pin you to your seat like a bug."
A direct threat, huh? Okay.

I pulled down my sunglasses a bit so the rider would see my eyes. "That's a nice crossbow."
He glanced in my direction. He saw a friendly blond girl with a big smile and a light Texas accent and didn't get alarmed.

"You've got what, a seventy-five-pound draw on it? Takes you about four seconds to reload?"
"Three," he said.

I gave him my Order smile: sweet grin, hard eyes, reached over to my passenger seat, and pulled out my submachine gun. About twenty-seven inches long, the HK was my favorite toy for close-quarters combat. The rider's eyes went wide.
"This is an HK UMP submachine gun. Renowned for its stopping power and reliability. Cyclic rate of fire: eight hundred rounds per minute. That means I can empty this thirty-round clip into you in less than three seconds. At this range, I'll cut you in half." It wasn't strictly true but it sounded good. "You see what it says on the barrel?"

On the barrel, pretty white letters spelled out PARTY STARTER.

"You open your mouth again, and I'll get the party started."
The rider clamped his jaws shut. ~ Ilona Andrews

LEIA: Love unfulfill'd turns quickly into spite,
And vengefulness doth fill the empty place
Within my heart. ~ Ian Doescher

The cold blast at the casement beats;The window-panes are white;The snow whirls through the empty streets;It is a dreary night! ~ Epes Sargent

What's prayer? It's shooting shafts into the dark. What mark they strike, if any, who's to say? It's reaching for a hand you cannot touch. The silence is so fathomless that prayers like plummets vanish into the sea. You beg. You whimper. You load God down with empty praise. You tell him sins that he already knows full well. You seek to change his changeless will. Yet Godric prays the way he breathes, for else his heart would wither in his breast. Prayer is the wind that fills his sail. Else drift with witless tides. And sometimes, by God's grace, a prayer is heard. ~ Frederick Buechner

Filthy tight, the dress is filthy
I'm falling flat and my arms are empty
Clear the way, better get it out of this room
A fallen woman in dancing costume ~ P.J. Harvey

To have an empty head is worse than to have an empty bank account. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up. ~ Stephen King

Let's do something cheerful
all your designs are about captivity, it depresses me.
Geryon watched the top of Herakles' head
and felt his limits returning. Nothing to say. He looked at this fact
in mild surprise. Once in childhood
his ice cream had been eaten by a dog. Just an empty con
in a small dramatic red fist.
Herakles stood up. No? Let's go then. On the way home they tried "Joy To The World"
but were too tired. It seemed a long drive. ~ Anne Carson

Yes. What is it, guilt, revenge, love, what?"
I swallowed. "I live alone."
"And your point is?"
"You have the Pack. You're surrounded by people who would fall over themselves for the pleasure of your company. I have no one. My parents are dead, my entire family is gone. I have no friends. Except Jim, and that's more of a working relationship than anything else. I have no lover. I can't even have a pet, because I'm not at the house often enough to keep it from starving. When I come crawling home, bleeding and filthy and exhausted, the house is dark and empty. Nobody keeps the porch light on for me. Nobody hugs me and says, 'Hey, I'm glad you made it. I'm glad you're okay. I was worried.' Nobody cares if I live or die. Nobody makes me coffee, nobody holds me before I go to bed, nobody fixes my medicine when I'm sick. I'm by myself. ~ Ilona Andrews

Apparently the world today can no longer be anything other than a world of masters and
slaves because contemporary ideologies, those that are changing the face of the earth, have learned from
Hegel to conceive of history in terms of the dialectic of master and slave. If, on the first morning of the
world, under the empty sky, there is only a master and a slave; even if there is only the bond of master
and slave between a transcendent god and mankind, then there can be no other law in this world than the
law of force. Only a god, or a principle above the master and the slave, could intervene and make men's
history something more than a mere chronicle of their victories and defeats. ~ Albert Camus

For if life, once empty of attachments
and sweet illusions, is a starless winter night,
still it's enough for me of mortal fate
and comfort and revenge that I can lie here
lazy, lifeless on the grass,
watching the sea and earth and sky, and smile. ~ Giacomo Leopardi

I saw…

…Amar slumped onto his throne, refusing to look at the empty seat on his left. Gupta was at his side, his face pinched, skin sallow.
"Go over every birth record, every horoscope until we find her again. I want--" He stopped, jaw tightening. "I need her back. I made a mistake."
"How will I know it's her?"
"The stars will not lie," said Amar. "A girl partnered with Death, a marriage that puts her on the brink of destruction and peace, horror and happiness, dark and light. Find her."
"But even if you bring her back, how will she know--"
"I have taken care of that," he said sharply.
In his hand was a small branch and a fledgling candle. "I have preserved every memory in the heart of Naraka."
"A fitting place," said Gupta in a small voice, but he frowned. "But then what? Mortals cannot receive such divine information. It destroys them. Not even you can break those sacred boundaries."
"There is a way," said Amar, breathing deeply. "I cannot tell them to a mortal. But if she becomes immortal…"
"Ah…clever," said Gupta. "The Otherworld may stop you from divulging those secrets, but a mortal that does not pass through the halls of the dead would eventually be deathless."
Amar nodded. "Sixty turns of the moon. A handful of weeks in our halls. And then I can reveal the memories of her past life. Her powers will be restored. She will be a queen once more. But until then, she needs protection. Nritti will no doubt try to f ~ Roshani Chokshi

IN APRIL Again the woods are odorous, the lark Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark, Where branches bare disclosed the empty day. After long rainy afternoons an hour Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings Them at the windows in a radiant shower, And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings. Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies; And cradled in the branches, hidden deep In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I keep forgetting that you're not as empty headed as most princesses. ~ Patricia C. Wrede

It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. ~ Roald Dahl

I hate pretty. It's a very empty word. It gives a bad name to beauty. ~ Oscar De La Renta

Read yourself, not books. Truth isn't outside, that's only memory, not wisdom. Memory without wisdom is like an empty thermos bottle - if you don't fill it, it's useless. ~ Ajahn Chah

Now, I'd replied, I don't know what I want. I can't paint anymore. Why? Because that part of me is empty. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Go safely. Go safely, she thought to him. What a silly, empty thing it was to say to anyone, anywhere. ~ Kristin Cashore