Faltering Quotes

That last night," she said quietly. "Why did you say you hoped you'd never see me again?"
He hadn't said it; it had been his last thought when he'd turned to leave. But he didn't seem to notice the discrepancy as he looked at her now.
"Because," he began before faltering, his voice leaving on a sigh. His left hand reached to rake a path through his hair, scattering the inky thickness in all directions. "The more I learn of you, the more difficult it is to stay away. ~ Angela B. Wade

The uniform said they didn't want me anymore,' interrupted Lockie.
Tina could hear some anger underneath his faltering words.
'He said they weren't even looking for me.'
The words were said quietly and there was a question in them. Kids thought their parents were superheroes. Surely if they had been looking for him, they would have found him? Tina knew better. Parents were just kids with more responsibility. They couldn't control the world any more than an eight-year-old kid could. ~ Nicole Trope

The faltering of our suburban living arrangement is probably certain. The response of suburbanites is not. Will they elect maniacs who promise to make America just like it was in 1997? Will there be a desperate attempt to sustain the unsustainable by authoritarian measures? Will the institutions of order and justice fail in the process? ~ James Howard Kunstler

Complete your task. Seek no reward. Make no claims. Without faltering fully choose to do what you must do. ~ Laozi

What will I do when you're gone?" said Alasdair, with a faltering voice.
Bryeison placed a hand on his shoulder and said, with raging tranquility, "Do what is good and what is right. ~ Michelle Franklin

There is no chain of philosophical reasoning or method of philosophical enquiry through which we can arrive at the truths of faith as conclusions. But once by faith we have acknowledged those truths we are able to understand why there is good reason to acknowledge them. This, as he was to argue a little later, is because of the effects of sin on the human mind. It is "because human minds are obscured by familiarity with darkness, which covers them in a night of sins and bad habits, and are unable to perceive with the clarity and purity proper to reason" that authority has been provided to bring "the faltering eye into the light of truth" (De moribus ecclesiae catholicae 31.2.31). ~ Alasdair MacIntyre

We'll never be a normal boy and girl, will we?" she managed to say.
"No," he breathed, eyes blazing. "We won't."
And then the music exploded around them, and Chaol took her with it, spinning her so that her cloak fanned out around her. Each step was flawless, lethal, like that first time they'd sparred together so many months ago. She knew his every move and he knew hers, as though they'd been dancing this waltz together all their lives. Faster, never faltering, never breaking her stare.
The rest of the world quieted into nothing. In that moment, after ten long years, Celaena looked at Chaol and realized she was home. ~ Sarah J. Maas

In the use of force, one simplifies the situation by assuming that the evil to be overcome is clear-cut, definite, and irreversible. Hence there remains but one thing: to eliminate it. Any dialogue with the sinner, any question of the irreversibility of his act, only means faltering and failure. Failure to eliminate evil is itself a defeat. Anything that even remotely risks such defeat is in itself capitulation to evil. The irreversibility of evil then reaches out to contaminate even the tolerant thought of the hesitant crusader who, momentarily, doubts the total evil of the enemy he is about to eliminate. p. 21 ~ Thomas Merton

The only thing that prevented a father's love from faltering was the fact that there was in his possession a photograph of himself at the same early age, in which he, too, looked like a homicidal fried egg. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. ~ Oscar Wilde

There was splendid fighting on the part of the division on the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th. There was no faltering or hesitation. Each man went to work determined to carry anything in reason. ~ John Buford

Later I will tell him: our courage comes out in different ways. We are brave in our bold dreams but also in our hesitations. We are brave in our willingness to carry on even as our pounding hearts say, "You will fail and land on your face." Brave in our terrific tolerance for making a hundred mistakes. Day after day. We are brave in our persistence. ~ Kyo Maclear, Birds Art Life: A Year Of Observation

Friend, that was not well spoken; you seem like one who is reckless. So it is that the gods do not bestow graces in all ways on men, neither in stature nor yet in brains or eloquence; for there is a certain kind of man, less noted for beauty, but the god puts comeliness on his words, and they who look toward him are filled with joy at the sight, and he speaks to them without faltering in winning modesty, and shines among those who are gathered, and people look on him as on a god when he walks in the city. Another again in his appearance is like the immortals, but upon his words there is no grace distilled, as in your case the appearance is conspicuous, and not a god even would make it otherwise, and yet the mind there is worthless. ~ Homer

She argued. She cried. She took my faltering, my tortured refusals for something far finer than they really were. At the end of the afternoon, before we left the wood, and with a solemnity and sincerity, a complete dedication of herself that I cannot describe to you because such unconditional promising is another extinct mystery ... she said, Whatever happens I shall never marry anyone but you. ~ John Fowles

So, the gods don't hand out all their gifts at once, not build and brains and flowing speech to all. One man may fail to impress us with his looks but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm, and men look on with delight when he speaks out. Never faltering, filled with winning self-control, he shines forth at assembly grounds and people gaze at him like a god when he walks through the streets. Another man may look like a deathless one on high but there's not a bit of grace to crown his words. Just like you, my fine, handsome friend. ~ Homer

The bride, white of hair, is stooped over her cane Her faltering footsteps need guiding. While down the church aisle, with wan toothless smile, The groom in a wheelchair comes riding. And who is this elderly couple you ask? You'll find, when you've closely explored it, That here is that rare, most conservative pair, Who waited 'til they could afford it. ~ Richard Armour

The feeling, all encompassing, safe and warm like a blanket permanently draped over her shoulders, follows her around. She takes it into the shower, to meals with her mother and sister, to work as she reads out the news script, her voice never faltering. ~ Zainab Omaki

…love grown dutiful is love grown old
a withered cupid faltering at the bow… ~ Lenore Kandel

Shh, I have you, Quinn." His voice was rough as if he had been the one screaming for Gods knew how long. Tears slipped free, the burn at the back of her eyes an afterthought. Shameless, she tucked her head under his chin and wrapped her limbs tight around him. Touch never faltering, he kept the passes long and smooth, almost this side of too strong. It was grounding, as if she needed to be kept tethered to this world until she could inhabit her own skin better. ~ Eva Dresden

As light splinters into darkness, new thoughts may take over in the mind and allow upbeat views to gain power. Thus and so, thoughtfulness readily opens a blistering sky in the faltering shadow of unawareness. ("Absence of Desire") ~ Erik Pevernagie

For pale and trembling anger rushes in
With faltering speech, and eyes that wildly stare,
Fierce as the tiger, madder than the seas,
Desperate and armed with more than human strength. ~ John Armstrong

Faltering thinking and indecisive conduct often result in losing ground and yielding to bleak caginess that generates the redoubtable Buridan's syndrome. As Buridan's ass is placed equally between a stack of hay and a pail of water, it dies of both hunger and thirst. ("The door was still ajar") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Gabbe stepped forward. "Cam's right. I've heard the Scale speak of these shifts." She was tugging on the sleeves of her pale yellow cashmere cardigan as if she would never get warm. "They're called timequakes. They are ripples in our reality."
"And the closer he gets," Roland added, with his usual understated wisdom, "the closer we are to the terminus of his Fall, the more frequent and the more severe the timequakes will become. Time is faltering in preparation for rewriting itself."
"Like the way your computer freezes up more and more frequently before the hard drive crashes and erases your twenty-page term paper?" Miles said. Everyone looked at him in befuddlement. "What?" he asked. "Angels and demons don't do homework? ~ Lauren Kate

Never give birth to children thoughtlessly!' I want to shout it out loud.That is why, stroke by faltering stroke, I've written this all down. ~ Sayo Masuda

A bold, vigorous assault has won many a faltering cause. ~ Ira C. Eaker

Rite To Tyr:

Hail to the One-Handed God!
Hail to Him whose name is Honor
And whose Word is iron,
Who alone never shirks the thankless task
Whose reason is Lawful Necessity.
Hail to the Lord of Swords,
Who gave a weapon-bearing hand
To see that what must be done was done in truth.
Hail God of the sunset, last single ray of light,
Lord of loyal morality, whose name none takes in vain.
Now must I face loss to do what is right,
O Lord Tyr, and I do not ask for your aid
To take away that loss, that I might hope for ease of action.
As you stood forth knowing you must lose to win,
So I ask only that you keep my back straight,
My arm strong, my hand from trembling,
My voice from faltering, my words from vanishing,
My head up, and my resolve unyielding
As I reach into the challenging maw of my own future. ~ Galina Krasskova

Compared to developed countries, or even to some major emerging countries, burdened by aging populations, financial crises, widening budget deficits, faltering faith in politics and growing social demands, Africa has become the world's last 'New Frontier:' a kind of 'it-continent.' ~ Mo Ibrahim

And our task is harder even than that," he said, "for we also have to invoke the grey fumes without denying the palpitating breath of roses. We have to give glimpses of a world that sometimes seems to work like a machine bent on some inexorable but inscrutable task, with all of us caught in its coils, cogs meshing always with the absurd, frantic pistons pushing away at the futile."

"And yet," he added, his voice now only a murmur which seemed to be a part of the rustling of the withered bushes and the passing noises of the road, "we may also at times suggest a slight faltering in the grinding of the machine, or the brief opening of an unknown vista suggesting that the machine is not all that there is. ~ Mark Valentine

The Night-Swans
by Walter De la Mare

'Tis silence on the enchanted lake,
And silence in the air serene,
Save for the beating of her heart,
The lovely-eyed Evangeline.

She sings across the waters clear
And dark with trees and stars between,
The notes her fairy godmother
Taught her, the child Evangeline.

As might the unrippled pool reply,
Faltering an answer far and sweet,
Three swans as white as mountain snow
Swim mantling to her feet.

And still upon the lake they stay,
Their eyes black stars in all their snow,
And softly, in the glassy pool,
Their feet beat darkly to and fro.

She rides upon her little boat,
Her swans swim through the starry sheen,
Rowing her into Fairyland--
The lovely-eyed Evangeline.

'Tis silence on the enchanted lake,
And silence in the air serene;
Voices shall call in vain again
On earth the child Evangeline.

'Evangeline! Evangeline!'
Upstairs, downstairs, all in vain.
Her room is dim; her flowers faded;
She answers not again. ~ Walter De La Mare

He'll take from your mind the answer best suited to lead you on, to enthrall you. He'll weave a web of deceits so thick you won't see the world through it. He wants your strength and he'll say what he must say to get it. Break the chain, child! You're the strongest of them all! Break the chain and he'll go back
to hell for he has no other place to go in all the wide world to find strength like yours. Don't you see?
He's created it. Bred sister to brother, and uncle to niece, and son to mother, yes, that too, when he had
to do it, to make an ever more powerful witch, only faltering now and then, and gaining what he lost in one generation by even greater strength in the next. What was the cost of Antha and Deirdre if he could have a Rowan! ~ Anne Rice

But the same spirits of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer-lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachment. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with ... It would be too hard indeed (with a faltering voice) if woman's feelings were to be added to all this! ~ Jane Austen

Naval officers were not mother's sort; very few people were her sort in those days, and that was her trouble - a very authentic, human, and plausible difficulty, which made Mother's life one of much suffering. She did not have the self-assurance for wide human experience; she needed to feel liked, admired, surrounded by the approved and familiar. Her haughtiness and chilliness came from apprehension. She would start talking like a grande dame and then stand back rigid and faltering, as if she feared being crushed by her own massively intimidating offensive. ~ Robert Lowell

It was hardly a boom-town, but it was a faltering step in the right direction. ~ Paul Harris

The safety of the country is at stake ... We must let ourselves be killed on the spot rather than retreat ... No faltering can be tolerated today. ~ Joseph Joffre

The God who is ever uttering himself in the changeful profusions of nature; who takes millions of years to form a soul that shall understand him and be blessed; who never needs to be, and never is, in haste; who welcomes the simplest thought of truth or beauty as the return for seed he has sown upon the old fallows of eternity, who rejoices in the response of a faltering moment to the age-long cry of his wisdom in the streets; the God of music, of painting, of building, the Lord of Hosts, the God of mountains and oceans; whose laws go forth from one unseen point of wisdom, and thither return without an atom of loss; the God of history working in time unto christianity; this God is the God of little children, and he alone can be perfectly, abandonedly simple and devoted. ~ George MacDonald

True forgiveness for me has been and is a progression of faltering baby steps through a storm of flying debris. ~ Gwendolyn M. Plano

Jordan loomed over her and a flash of light blinded her momentarily. The knife. Shane felt her newfound courage faltering, felt herself falling back through the years, into the body of that little girl.
No.
She closed her eyes, pictured Matt's face, Gram's face, and felt her strength returning. She would not let Jordan terrify her again. She might fail tonight, she might die, but she would not be his whimpering victim.
Opening her eyes, she braved the flashing glare of the hunting knife he held above her face. She willed her body to lie still as she stared straight into his eyes. With a thrill of triumph, she saw the surprise in the gray eyes that stared back at her.
Neither of them spoke a word, but they both knew the final moves in the game were at hand, and that Shane had just altered the rules. She could see the dawn of awareness in his eyes: She was no longer a mere pawn to toy with as he pleased.
On the other hand, he still had the knife. ~ Jane Taylor Starwood

Because this, after all, was the basic truth they all chose to live by: that love was no finite commodity. That it was not subject to the cruel reckoning of addition and subtraction, that to give to one did not necessarily mean to take from another; that the heart, in its infinite capacity-even the confused and cheating heart of the man in front of her, even the paltry thing now clenched and faltering inside her own chest-could open itself to all who would enter, like a house with windows and doors thrown wide, like the heart of God itself, vast and accommodating and holy, a mansion of rooms without number, full of multitudes without end. ~ Brady Udall

Be clear and smiling for those who are glad to see you.
Someone who is not, let his way darken like a pen leaving a faltering ink trail. ~ Rumi

I don't explain love, Bart. I don't think anyone can. It grows from day to day from having contact with that other person who understands your needs, and you understand theirs. It starts with a faltering flutter that touches your heart and makes you vulnerable to everything beautiful. ~ V.C. Andrews

It was a sunny day, I was carrying a child in a white dress to be christened. The path to the church led up a steep slope, but I held the child in my arms firmly and without faltering. Then suddenly my footing gave way ... I had enough time to put the child down before plunging into the abyss. The child is our idea. In spite of all obstacles it will prevail. ~ Sophie Scholl

Single mothers have as much to teach their children as married mothers and as much love to share
maybe more. Yet their motives are often labeled selfish and single-minded
never mind all the babies brought into the world to snag husbands, "save" faltering marriages or produce heirs. ~ Anne Cassidy

I believe that this nation can only heal from the wounds of racism if we all begin to love blackness. And by that I don't mean that we love only that which is best within us, but that we're also able to love that which is faltering, which is wounded, which is contradictory, incomplete. ~ Bell Hooks

The Choir And Music Of Solitude And Silence -

Silence is a great blue bell
Swinging and ringing, tinkling and singing,
In measure's pleasure, and in the supple symmetry
of the soaring of the immense intense wings
glinting against
All the blue radiance above us and within us, hidden
Save for the stars sparking, distant and unheard in their
singing.
And this is the first meaning of the famous saying,
The stars sang. They are the white birds of silence
And the meaning of the difficult famous saying that the
sons and daughters of morning sang,
Meant and means that they were and they are the children
of God and morning,
Delighting in the lights of becoming and the houses of
being,
Taking pleasure in measure and excess, in listening as in
seeing.

Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage.
Courage is the most desperate, admirable and noble kind of
love.

So that when the great blue bell of silence is stilled and
stopped or broken
By the babel and chaos of desire unrequited, irritated and
frustrated,
When the heart has opened and when the heart has spoken
Not of the purity and symmetry of gratification, but action
of insatiable distraction's dissatisfaction,

Then the heart says, in all its blindness and faltering
emptiness:
There is no God. Because I am hope. And hope must be Delmore Schwartz