Escape Oneself Quotes

The sheep stampeded away because sheep are smart enough not to trust anyone for anything, especially not people who sleep in and crawl out of sheds, and I couldn't disagree with those sheep because I would run away from me, too, if I was a sheep and not me and even if I was me, I'd still like, some mornings, to be the thing running far from me instead of sewn inside myself forever. ~ Catherine Lacey

Sometimes it is painful to be oneself; at other times it seems impossible to escape oneself. ~ James Franco

Violence is born of the desire to escape oneself. ~ Iris Murdoch

I believe one has to escape oneself to discover oneself. ~ Rabih Alameddine

I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go. Suicide? Jesus Christ, just more work. I felt like sleeping for five years but they wouldn't let me. ~ Charles Bukowski

If you drive down there," I said, "he'll just escape the other way. That's what he's counting on. You have to walk down there, point your gun at him, and yell at him in that charming way you have. ~ Jennifer Echols

I spend my life writing fiction, so reading fiction isn't much of an escape. That's not always true, but I don't read much contemporary fiction. ~ Alan Furst

It is perhaps one's own fault, to see oneself drifting, rotting, in dishonour and horrible futility, and all the while knowing that somewhere within one there is the possibility of a decent human being. ~ George Orwell

Without a map of our natural and social world - a picture of the world and of one's place in it that is structured and has inner cohesion - human beings would be confused and unable to act purposefully and consistently, for there would be no way of orienting oneself, of finding a fixed point that permits one to organize all the impressions that impinge upon each individual. [ ... ] Even if the map is wrong, it fulfills its psychological function. But the map has never been entirely wrong - nor has it ever been entirely right. It has always been enough of an approximation to the explanation of phenomena to serve the purpose of living. ~ Erich Fromm

You can't easily break out of this cycle of love. It's always here and there up and down.. pain and joy, this wonderful feeling of being in love, which will come to an end later, is so dominating through your entire life. And you cannot escape it. ~ Till Lindemann

I want to be cut off from people like Marloe. Being a real person oneself is a matter of setting up limits and drawing lines and saying no. I don't want to be a nebulous bit of ectoplasm straying around in other people's lives. That sort of vague sympathy with everybody precludes any real understanding of anybody . . . And it precludes any real loyalty to anybody. ~ Iris Murdoch

A book is the only real escape from this fallen world. Aside from death. ~ J.R. Moehringer

There is no gainsaying the fact that this suggested program will strike most people as impossibly "radical" and "unrealistic"; any suggestion for changing the status quo, no matter how slight, can always be considered by someone as too radical, so that the only thoroughgoing escape from the charge of impracticality is never to advocate any change whatever in existing conditions. But to take this approach is to abandon human reason, and to drift in animal- or plant-like manner with the tide of events. ~ Murray N. Rothbard

One can run away from anything but oneself ~ Stefan Zweig

Not even for an hour can you bear to be alone, nor can you advantageously apply your leisure time, but you endeavor, a fugitive and wanderer, to escape from yourself, now vainly seeking to banish remorse by wine, and now by sleep; but the gloomy companion presses on you, and pursues you as you fly. ~ Horace

You can't escape your fate. ~ Donna Augustine

Bravery is an amazing and aggressive teacher. Its gives me the energy to dive into life, recover from disappointment, and mentally escape whatever locked door holds me in. ~ Marquita Burke-DeJesus

What you cannot escape, you must fight; what you cannot fight, you must endure. ~ Lilith Saintcrow

Ten years ago, Republicans decided it was time to reform our broken welfare system and give welfare recipients the tools they needed to escape the system and build a better life. ~ Todd Tiahrt

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves as well. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen accidents, meetings and material assistance that no one could have dreamed would come their way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. - Goethe, by attribution ~ Gregory Maguire

For others, the lure of a world where they fit is too great to escape, and they will spend the rest of their lives rattling at windows and peering at locks, trying to find the way home. ~ Seanan McGuire

But I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one's own ass, cross the street by oneself, or be trusted with money. ~ Anthony Bourdain

Curiously enough, it is a fear of how grace will change and improve them that keeps many souls away from God. They want God to take them as they are and let them stay that way. They want Him to take away their love of riches, but not their riches - to purge them of the disgust of sin, but not of the pleasure of sin. Some of them equate goodness with indifference to evil and think that God is good if He is broad-minded or tolerant about evil. Like the onlookers at the Cross, they want God on their terms, not His, and they shout, "Come down, and we will believe." But the things they ask are the marks of a false religion: it promises salvation without a cross, abandonment without sacrifice, Christ without his nails. God is a consuming fire; our desire for God must include a willingness to have the chaff burned from our intellect and the weeds of our sinful will purged. The very fear souls have of surrendering themselves to the Lord with a cross is an evidence of their instinctive belief in His Holiness. Because God is fire, we cannot escape Him, whether we draw near for conversion or flee from aversion: in either case, He affects us. If we accept His love, its fires will illumine and warm us; if we reject Him, they will still burn on in us in frustration and remorse. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Don't you know no one can escape the power of creatures reaching out with breath alone? ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. ~ Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Thinking, he walked ever more slowly and asked himself, What is it now that you were hoping to learn from doctrines and teachers, and what is it that they - who taught you so much - were unable to teach you? And, he decided, It was the Self whose meaning and nature I wished to learn. It was the Self I wished to escape from, wished to overcome. But I was unable to overcome it, I could only trick it, could only run away from it and hide. Truly, not a single thing in all the world has so occupied my thoughts as this Self of mine, this riddle: that I am alive and that I am One, am different and separate from all others, that I am Siddhartha! And there is not a thing in the world about which I know less than about myself, about Siddhartha! ~ Hermann Hesse

People won't see Imagination in something that doesn't relate to their experience because of their own mental limitations. I want people to escape the expected and ordinary, to escape the regular expectations of a story, and truly step into a different world of literature. ~ Lionel Suggs

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. ~ Thomas Merton

She nuzzled his chest as his fingertips combed through the wavy tendrils of her hair. The gentle motion lulled her eyes closed and drew a deep yawn from her tired body. "This," she murmured sleepily, "being here with you like this, it's a lovely escape, too."

Ronin kissed her forehead in agreement, momentarily tightening his hold on her. "That it is, honey," he breathed as she drifted off to sleep. "That it is… ~ Sibylla Matilde

Suddenly I realize it wasn't debris I felt against my escape pod as I left the ship. It was people. ~ Pierce Brown

I was a good lawyer , and most days that was enough. I was aware, however, that I took refuge in my profession, as unlikely as that seemed considering the amount of human suffering I dealt with. It offered me a role to escape into, from what I no longer knew; perhaps nothing more significant than my own little ration of suffering. ~ Michael Nava

It's a difficult job to do, but that is why we do it. Only so many people can do it. But it, it enables you to ... for a brief period of time to kind of get away. You have to go back and deal with, but it's a good escape. ~ Brett Favre

Noboby can escape fear.A true hero acts in spite of it. A true hero masters his fear so it doesn't master him. ~ Paul Asay

To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

Death was a release, in so many ways. An end to suffering. An escape to something else. What that something else was, I didn't know. Maybe heaven. Maybe hell. Maybe nothing at all. But I doubted it could be any worse than some of the things I'd seen and done in my lifetime. ~ Jennifer Estep

I am the master of my destiny. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The searching for our selves is the most agonizing, isn't it? - and yet the most stimulating - and one simply cannot escape it. ~ Karen Horney

How many nights and sunrises came to caress our hearts. Then, as often happens, I see I'm just lonely in living the poetry of these moments, and I'm throwing away my magic. I can find refuge in my songs, they surround me like a mother, but then I realize that this hug is becoming a cage, I'm prisoner in my dreams, and I wonder: "may I be condemned to dream forever?" ... I wish I could watch again beauty of the moon, creating a big heart made of shells on the beach, as a castaway's signal ... hoping to be seen by someone who's flying up there ... and loudly saying .. "Hey .. I'm here ! please help me to escape ~ Alice James Books

Is this how you will die? Is this what you were meant for? To simply be bled out like a pig?
A spark of rage flickers, an antidote to despair.
Will you not even try to survive? Did the scientists make you too stupid even to consider fighting for your own life?
Emiko closes her eyes and prays to Mizuko Jizo Bodhisattva, and then the bakeneko cheshire spirit for good measure. She takes a breath, and then with all her strength she slams her hand against the knife. The blade slices past her neck, a searing line.
"Arai wa?!" the man shouts.
Emiko shoves hard against him and ducks under his flailing knife. Behind her, she hears a grunt and thud as she bolts for the street. She doesn't look back. She plunges into the street, not caring that she shows herself as a windup, not caring that in running she will burn up and die. She runs, determined only to escape the demon behind her. She will burn, but she will not die passive like some pig led to slaughter. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

One moment I'm perfectly fine and the next I feel a wave of nausea, then panic. Then I can't catch my breath and I know I'm about to lose control and all I want to do is escape. Except that the one thing I can't escape from is the very thing I want to run away from ... me. ~ Jenny Lawson

It doesn't matter what one reveals or what one keeps to oneself. Everything we do, everything we are, rests on our personal power. If we don't have enough personal power the most magnificent piece of wisdom can be revealed to us and it won't make a damn bit of difference. ~ Carlos Castaneda

I'm a massive daydreamer. I'm constantly lost within my own fantasies and my own thoughts personally, and I think maybe that is sort of represented in what we do for a living, the fact that we make believe everything and we escape into these other characters for a living. ~ Emily Browning

It is surely absurd to seek God in terms of a preconceived idea of what God is. To seek thus is only to find what we know already, which is why it is so easy to deceove oneself into all manner of "supernatural" experiences and visions. To believe in God and to look for the God you believe in is simply to seek confirmation of an opinion. ~ Alan W. Watts

The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of
unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of
judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the
more ore you are free of pain, of suffering - and free of the egoic mind.
Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and
remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as
threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Then it hits me. Hard. I'm like a nail struck by a hammer - brittle, quivering, sinking deeper into something from which there is no escape. ~ Riley Sager

A person whom one has loved seems altogether too significant a thing to simply vanish altogether from the world. A person whom one loves is a world, just as one knows oneself to be a world. ~ Rebecca Goldstein

The thing I most fear when writing is my paucity of ideas and the thinness of my emotional lining. I audaciously resolve to write about my greatest fears in an effort to transcend what I most despise about myself – intellectual and emotional poverty. Perchance by making use of all my thoughts and matrix of emotions – both positive and negative – I can escape the labyrinth constructed of my terrible ignorance of the world and an appalling lack of self-awareness. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

About some books we feel that our reluctance to return to them is the true measure of our admiration. It is hard to suppose that many people go back, from a spontaneous desire, to reread 1984: there is neither reason nor need to, no one forgets it. The usual distinctions between forgotten details and a vivid general impression mean nothing here, for the book is written out of one passionate breath, each word is bent to a severe discipline of meaning, everything is stripped to the bareness of terror.
Kafka's The Trial is also a book of terror, but it is a paradigm and to some extent a puzzle, so that one may lose oneself in the rhythm of the paradigm and play with the parts of the puzzle. Kafka's novel persuades us that life is inescapably hazardous and problematic, but the very 'universality' of this idea helps soften its impact: to apprehend the terrible on the plane of metaphysics is to lend it an almost soothing aura. ~ Irving Howe

I'm a classic stress-eater, so I know a lot about how eating can become a way of hiding from what's really wrong. I escape into food. But some people escape into books. Some into relationships that might not be good for them. The three main characters in 'The Sugar Queen' struggle with each of these comforts-turned-crutches. ~ Sarah Addison Allen