Gnawing Quotes

The last thing we want to admit is that the forbidden fruit on which we have been gnawing since reaching the magic age of twenty-one is the same mealy Golden Delicious that we stuff into our children's lunch boxes. ~ Lionel Shriver

I thought of all the magazine article I'd read on mothers who worked and constantly felt guilty about leaving their children with someone else. I had trained myself to read pieces like that and silently say to myself, 'See how lucky you are?' But it had been gnawing at the inside, that part that didn't fit, that I never let myself even think about. After all, wasn't it a worse kind of guilt to be with your child and to know that you wanted to be anywhere but there? ~ Jodi Picoult

He had a fascinating technique of gnawing his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, as if his teeth were equipped with trolley tracks, and suddenly grabbing it out and gesticulating wit it before he jammed it back. ~ Leslie Ford

Critics must excuse me if I compare them to certain animals called asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them. ~ William Shenstone

We each do the best we can. My best may not be as good as your best, but it's my best. The fact is we know when we are doing our best and when we are not. If we are not doing our best, it leaves us with a gnawing hunger and frustration. But when we do our best, we experience a peace. ~ Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Cloying tendrils of mist searched the city like skeletal fingers reaching deep into crevices, hoping to capture the elusive prey needed to satisfy gnawing hunger... ~ Jillian Kent

This year, everything is going to be different. No one in Fischer Hall is going to die this year. Not even accidentally."
"How are you going to manage that?" Coop asks, gnawing on a Chinese sparerib. "Bubble wrap all your residents? ~ Meg Cabot

Now it was every guilty breath sucked in after a sort-of-lie. It was the drop of the stomach after finding a body. It was the gnawing suspicion that you were leasable, that you were too much trouble, that you were better off dead. It was the shame of wanting something that you shouldn't; it was the ugly thrill of nearly being dead. It was all of those things, all at once. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I hated the gnawing longing that accompanied having everything. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

I suggest some of this broth that Cook made for Mademoiselle,' came Patrice's muffled voice. 'A little Toulouse sausage, some cheese perhaps...'
Gui wolfed down whatever was put in front of him, hunger a gnawing pit in his stomach. Fresh bread and butter, a savory broth made from chicken, then sausage and a slab of cheese, cake made with pears, milk to drink. ~ Laura Madeleine

At least when I was an adult, I had a name for what was wrong with me: manic depression. It's easier to make sense of things - even very disturbing things like sexual acting out and suicidality - when there's a big, fat label slapped on top. But as a child, I knew nothing. I had no diagnosis. All I had was a vague and gnawing awareness that I was different from other children, and that different was not good. Different must be kept hidden. ~ Terri Cheney

There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveler hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding on to the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them. In the same way I am clinging to the tree of life, knowing full well that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand how I have fallen into this torment. And I try licking the honey that once consoled me, but it no longer gives me pleasure. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Junie says that the worst thing about shame is the way it chains you down. The way it holds your mind hostage and won't let you go, gnawing from the inside out, feeding on you like a parasite. ~ Rasmenia Massoud

I want to taste you. Fuck, I need to taste you, it's gnawing at my gut. I want your mouth open and sucking on my tongue, Luxe. ~ V. Theia

There is a line in Verlaine I shall not recall again,
There is a street close by forbidden to my feet,
There's a mirror that's seen me for the very last time,
There is a door that I have locked till the end of the world.
Among the books in my library (I have them before me)
There are some that I shall never open now.
This summer I complete my fiftieth year;
Death is gnawing at me ceaselessly. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

He is no longer mine to lose, but the grief is there, a gnawing sense of disbelief. ~ Lauren Oliver

When the flames of life are gnawing away at your butt, run faster, quicker, and harder than you've ever run before, because I guarantee it that life will condition you, harder than any trainer ever will.
When you state to yourself with the utter most believe, "I will achieve this," than you are on the path, and this is when life throws obstacles left, right, straight on and which other way, but keep going. Because you will make it ~ Mark Donnelly

How does one get a polar bear to stop gnawing on their head? ~ Hetalia

In a rush, the world opened its mouth to her - and it was screaming.
Everywhere - the air around her, the ground beneath her, the stars above - rippled with the soul-wrenching cries of
hunger: the trees and bushes and plants all twisted and bent, their branches and stems clawing the sky in skeletal panic; the
animals and insects, flying and crawling and burrowing, each frantic in its own way, searching incessantly to end the gnawing
demand in its belly; the swarms of people, clotting the world, stuffing themselves only to beg for more, be it food or wealth or
attention - all of them, desperate, insatiable. So very hungry.
All of them, leeching on to her. Sucking her dry. ~ Jackie Morse Kessler

Beside himself with shame and despair, the utterly ruined though perfectly just Mr. Golyadkin dashed headlong away, wherever fate might lead him; but with every step he took, with every thud of his foot on the granite of the pavement, there leapt up as though out of the earth a Mr. Golyadkin precisely the same, perfectly alike, and of a revolting depravity of heart. And all these precisely similar Golyadkins set to running after one another as soon as they appeared, and stretched in a long chain like a file of geese, hobbling after the real Mr. Golyadkin, so there was nowhere to escape from these duplicates - so that Mr. Golyadkin, who was in every way deserving of compassion, was breathless with terror; so that at last a terrible multitude of duplicates had sprung into being; so that the whole town was obstructed at last by duplicate Golyadkins, and the police officer, seeing such a breach of decorum, was obliged to seize all these duplicates by the collar and to put them into the watch-house, which happened to be beside him . . . Numb and chill with horror, our hero woke up, and numb and chill with horror felt that his waking state was hardly more cheerful . . . It was oppressive and harrowing . . . He was overcome by such anguish that it seemed as though some one were gnawing at his heart. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I'm pretty sure my dog, Pip, gets lonely when there is no one to be with him. But we humans can end up with a gnawing worry about that separation possibly becoming a permanent condition. ~ Thomas L. Dumm

Fasting gives you confidence to know that your spirit can master appetite ... and helps to protect against later uncontrolled cravings and gnawing habits. ~ Russell M. Nelson

Positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to inauthenticity, to depression, and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are fidgeting until we die. ~ Martin Seligman

Count Chemenensky was quietly gnawing on something, which, upon further inspection, appeared to be his own tattered clothing. Mon Dieu. ~ Robin Bridges

Worrying is like a toothless dog gnawing on a bone. ~ Kathleen Fields

But I just needed her so much and it never felt like enough and she wasn't consistent and her inconsistency and my insecurity were this horrible match for each other, but I still loved her, because all of me was wrapped up in her, because I'd put all my eggs in someone else's basket, and in the end, after 343 days, I was left with an empty basket and this gnawing endless hole in my gut, but then now I find myself deciding to remember her as a good person with whom I had some good times until we, both of us, got ourselves into an ineradicably bad situation. ~ John Green

Harry had felt the gnawing ache for alcohol from the moment he woke up that morning. First as an instinctive physical craving, then as a panic-stricken fear because he had put a distance between himself and his medicine by not taking his hip flask or any money with him to work. Now the ache was entering a new phase in which it was both a wholly physical pain and a feeling of blank terror that he would be torn to pieces. The enemy below was pulling and tugging at the chains, the dogs were snarling up at him from the pit, somewhere in his stomach beneath his heart. God, how he hated them. He hated them as much as they hated him. ~ Jo Nesbo

Murder was deeply human. A person was killed and a person killed. And what powered the final thrust wasn't a whim, wasn't an event. It was an emotion. Something once healthy and human had become wretched and bloated and finally buried. But not put to rest. It lay there, often for decades, feeding on itself, growing and gnawing, grim and full of grievance. Until it finally broke free of all human restraint. Not conscience, not fear, not social convention could contain it. When that happened, all hell broke loose. And a man became a monster. ~ Louise Penny

What's more fun than gnawing on bones? Necromancy in haunted homes! At first glance it's bright with delight, but you'd better beware - there's a full moon tonight! ~ Rebecca McNutt

count, and it was gnawing at him. When ~ Fancraft

If I have anything to give you through camera, it must be of myself. ... A gnawing burns inside ... to make something of myself worth giving. ~ Minor White

And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings.
Though not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before the mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. ~ James Joyce

Some people, perhaps those with more dignity and less rage gnawing at the roots of their being, are nicer as failures, For me, it was like descending a deep pit that had no bottom ~ Amanda Craig

I was still new to this kind of adrenaline, the immediate release of anger instead of gnawing on it like overdue gum. ~ Catherine Lacey

Missing someone is a vague, unpleasant sensation, like gnawing anxiety. It isn't as concrete as grief, but it's just as pervasive and there's no escaping it. ~ Sue Grafton

Together you and I... we've broken worlds. Who can do what we have done? What our men have done? Yet we put ourselves at the mercy of rats. We free them. Protect them. Die for them. And when we turn our backs, they unveil their little teeth and gnaw at us one bite at a time. And when we turn to face them, they cheer, and we pretend their gnawing hasn't made us weaker. Rats cannot even govern their own appetite. How can they govern themselves? ~ Pierce Brown

In the ensuing two weeks Ian managed to buy back Elizabeth's emeralds and Havenhurst, but he was unable to find a trace of his wife. The town house in London felt like a prison, not a home, and still he waited, sensing somehow that Elizabeth was putting him through this torment to teach him some kind of well-deserved lesson.
He returned to Montmayne, where, for several more weeks, he prowled about its rooms, paced a track in the drawing room carpet, and stared into its marble-fronted fireplaces as if the answer would be there in the flames. Finally he could stand it no more. He couldn't concentrate on his work, and when he tried, he made mistakes. Worse, he was beginning to be haunted with walking nightmares that she'd come to harm-or that she was falling in love with someone kinder than he-and the tormenting illusions followed him from room to room.
On a clear, cold day in early December, after leaving instructions with his footmen, butler, and even his cook that he was to be notified immediately if any word at all was received from Elizabeth, he left for the cottage in Scotland. It was the one place where he might find peace from the throbbing emptiness that was gnawing away at him with a pain that increased unbearably from day to day, because he no longer really believed she would ever contact him. ~ Judith McNaught

The problem isn't just that some people are overfed and others are underfed, lacking enough basic calories to ward off gnawing hunger (though that still remains a real and brutal problem). The new difficulty is that billions of people across the globe are simultaneously overfed and undernourished: rich in calories but poor in nutrients. Our new global diet is replete with sugar and refined carbohydrates yet lacking in crucial micronutrients such as iron and trace vitamins. Malnutrition is no longer just about hunger and stunting; it is also about obesity. ~ Bee Wilson

The sun was up, the room already too warm. Light filtered in through the net curtains, hanging suspended in the air, sediment in a pond. My head felt like a sack of pulp. Still in my nightgown, damp from some fright I'd pushed aside like foliage, I pulled myself up and out of my tangled bed, then forced myself through the usual dawn rituals - the ceremonies we perform to make ourselves look sane and acceptable to other people. The hair must be smoothed down after whatever apparitions have made it stand on end during the night, the expression of staring disbelief washed from the eyes. The teeth brushed, such as they are. God knows what bones I'd been gnawing in my sleep. ~ Margaret Atwood

It felt almost enjoyable, like gnawing on a cuticle: You know you should stop, that it doesnt really feel as good as you think, but you cant quit grinding it away. ~ Gillian Flynn

Your yearning for God must supersede all other desires. It must be like a gnawing hunger and a burning thirst. ~ Billy Graham

Parlor talk seems to me on much more promising ground worrying over conformity than gnawing the bones of Freud. ~ Herman Wouk

All he knew was that the rage was still there, eating inside him, not with the slow stealth of a cancer, but with the rapid, careless ravening of a weasel gnawing at his entrails, or the constant alimentary torment that drives on the shark to his incessant feeding until only death gives him rest. ~ Chet Williamson

Assured that there would be a meal set aside for him somewhere, the beagle pulled his mind off the gnawing emptiness in his stomach, mounted the flattened stump, marched into the center and stood, stock-still, on his vein-coiled, burst of speed legs and gnarled paws--listening! ~ Kevin Moccia

That afternoon I came to understand that one of the deepest purposes of intellectual sophistication is to provide distance between us and our most disturbing personal truths and gnawing fears. ~ Richard Russo

What does Dante say of revenge?' He turned back. 'That it is a sin. A sin of anger, and those who commit it are surrounded by a rank fog, forever tearing each other apart or gnawing at their own limbs. They are trapped in the marsh. ~ Imogen Robertson

The good parts of our relationship felt like a rat walking around and gnawing at the inside of my stomach. ~ Charles Bukowski

The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it. ~ H.L. Mencken

Gnawing at the forefront of Victoria's thoughts was the question that Rob had asked--was she dismissing Ted because he was white? She'd always thought herself to be open-minded, but in her romantic relationships, she'd only dated black men. ~ Trice Hickman

Are too many mouths to feed. One million three hundred thousand more every week! And of all the people who have ever been alive on Earth, more than half are living right now. We are gnawing the planet bare, ~ John D. MacDonald

It had been a conscious decision to pull free. It had taken everything I had to do it, like an animal gnawing a limb off to escape a trap. And somehow I had done it; ~ Donna Tartt

You see the insides of a classier world like that and it sets your own to spinning off-balance, and a tireless gnawing discontent gets to snacking on your guts and spirit. This caliber of a place makes you want to discriminate against yourself, basically, as it reveals you as such a loser. A tiny mote of nothin' much just here to muss up the planet these worthies lived so grandly on and wished they could keep clean of you and yours. I ain't shit! I ain't shit! shouts your brain, and this place proves the point. Oh, ~ Daniel Woodrell

At last the cold crept up my spine; at last it filled me from foot to head; at last I grew so chill and desolate that all thought and pain and awareness came to a standstill. I wasn't miserable anymore: I wasn't anything at all. I was a nothing
a random configuration of molecules. If my heart still beat I didn't know it. I was aware of one thing only; next to the gaping fact called Death, all I knew was nothing, all I did meant nothing, all I felt conveyed nothing. This was no passing thought. It was a gnawing, palpable emptiness more real than the cold. ~ David James Duncan

But sometimes, too, you have this little feeling of knowing, this fuzzy, gnawing sense that someone will become a major something in your life. You just know that theirs will be a life you will enter and become a part of. ~ Deb Caletti

This afternoon, being on Fair Haven Hill, I heard the sound of a saw, and soon after from the Cliff saw two men sawing down a noble pine beneath, about forty rods off. I resolved to watch it till it fell, the last of a dozen or more which were left when the forest was cut and for fifteen years have waved in solitary majesty over the sprout-land. I saw them like beavers or insects gnawing at the trunk of this noble tree, the diminutive manikins with their cross-cut saw which could scarcely span it. It towered up a hundred feet as I afterward found by measurement, one of the tallest probably in the township and straight as an arrow, but slanting a little toward the hillside, its top seen against the frozen river and the hills of Conantum. I watch closely to see when it begins to move. Now the sawers stop, and with an axe open it a little on the side toward which it leans, that it may break the faster. And now their saw goes again. Now surely it is going; it is inclined one quarter of the quadrant, and, breathless, I expect its crashing fall. But no, I was mistaken; it has not moved an inch; it stands at the same angle as at first. It is fifteen minutes yet to its fall. Still its branches wave in the wind, as it were destined to stand for a century, and the wind soughs through its needles as of yore; it is still a forest tree, the most majestic tree that waves over Musketaquid. The silvery sheen of the sunlight is reflected from its needles; it still affords an inaccessible crot ~ Henry David Thoreau

The irony is that the people we tend to vote for actually look down on voters and voting. That's just idiotic, right? That's like a snake eating its own tail! A wolf in a trap gnawing off its own head to escape! ~ Steven Weber

Of course you realize you're leaving me in the position of being the one tell everyone - your mother, Luke, Alec, Izzy, Magnus ... '
'I guess I shouldn't have said there wouldn't be no risk to you,' Clary said meekly.
'That's right,' said Simon. 'Just remember, when your mother's gnawing my ankle like a furious mama bear separated from her cub, I did it for you. ~ Cassandra Clare

I'd gone out into the world, intricately lacing distractions and busywork around the long-gnawing emptiness, only to find I'd merely embellished rather than hidden it. ~ Edward Fahey

The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst - for me, at least - is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything that I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky. ~ Stephen King

To: Anna Oliphant
From: Etienne St. Clair
Subject: Uncommon Prostitues

I have nothing to say about prostitues (other than you'd make a terrible prostitute,the profession is much too unclean), I only wanted to type that. Isn't it odd we both have to spend Christmas with our fathers? Speaking of unpleasant matters,have you spoken with Bridge yet? I'm taking the bus to the hospital now.I expect a full breakdown of your Christmas dinner when I return. So far today,I've had a bowl of muesli. How does Mum eat that rubbish? I feel as if I've been gnawing on lumber.

To: Etienne St. Clair
From: Anna Oliphant
Subject: Christmas Dinner


MUESLY? It's Christmas,and you're eating CEREAL?? I'm mentally sending you a plate from my house. The turkey is in the oven,the gravy's on the stovetop,and the mashed potatoes and casseroles are being prepared as I type this. Wait. I bet you eat bread pudding and mince pies or something,don't you? Well, I'm mentally sending you bread pudding. Whatever that is. No, I haven't talked to Bridgette.Mom keeps bugging me to answer her calls,but winter break sucks enough already. (WHY is my dad here? SERIOUSLY. MAKE HIM LEAVE. He's wearing this giant white cable-knit sweater,and he looks like a pompous snowman,and he keeps rearranging the stuff on our kitchen cabinets. Mom is about to kill him. WHICH IS WHY SHE SHOULDN'T INVITE HIM OVER FOR HOLIDAYS). Anyway.I'd rather not add to the drama.

Stephanie Perkins

People tend to be exquisitely precise when describing pain. We don't just say it hurts, we say it throbs or aches; it's a burning, wrenching, gnawing sensation; it's sharp or dull; it chafes; it stings. But where pain specifies, joy generalizes. It was great! we say. Terrific! Beautiful! Fantastic! ~ Letty Cottin Pogrebin

I hear a lot of people say that the fear of death and the fear of public speaking are two of the main fears in my generation, but I disagree. I think it's the fear of silence. We refuse to turn off our computers, turn off our phones, log off Facebook, and just sit in silence, because in those moments we might actually have to face up to who we really are. We fear silence like it's an invisible monster, gnawing at us, ripping us open, and showing us our dissatisfaction. Silence is terrifying. ~ Jefferson Bethke

I AM KORROK. In the mountains of Uruguay, a goat gets its hoof caught in a posthole and the bone snaps like a twig. The splinter juts from its skin, blood spraying onto white fur. It is stuck like that for three days. Finally, a wolf mother comes along, carrying her pup in her jaws. She lets the pup feed off the goat, gnawing bits of fur and skin and tearing at muscle. The goat feels it and screams and there is pain and pain and neither the goat nor the wolf nor the pup understand their place in the machine. I stand above all, and call them fags. I AM KORROK. ~ David Wong

To bring down your credit card balances, write down the benefits of reducing your debt. No more gnawing feeling that you're throwing money away, perhaps. More money flowing to other financial objectives. Then consult the list when you have doubts. ~ Jean Chatzky

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation. ~ Edmund Burke

Man himself is helpless to detach himself from the gnawing guilt of a heart weighed down with the guilt of sin. But where man has failed, God has succeeded. ~ Billy Graham

Well, make up your mind. I don't have all night." Fidelia set her beer on the porch and removed a set of keys from her skirt pocket. She fumbled with the key, trying to release the trigger lock on her pistol.
"Don't do that," Heather warned her. "You've had too much to drink."
Fidelia snorted. "I'm not drunk. I'm in complete control." She tore off the trigger lock.
Bang! The gun fired, ripping into a nearby oak tree.
The women screamed. Jean-Luc winced.
A squirrel plummeted from the tree and landed in the yard with a thud.
Fidelia shrugged. "I meant to do that. Damned rodent's been gnawing on the house. And stealing all the nuts from our pecan tree."
Heather planted her hands on her hips. "Haven't I told you a million times to keep the locks on?"
Fidelia hung her head, looking properly remorseful. "I'll be more careful." She switched on the safety, then shot Jean-Luc a pointed look. "I know how to deal with a scumbag with nuts. ~ Kerrelyn Sparks

True story: Some homeowner's burning a yard pile just like this one. And he goes inside for lemonade and opens the cabinet under the sink to toss something in the trash, and this rat's down in the bottom, gnawing a chicken bone. The rat had been driving the guy crazy for months, living in the walls and scampering through the attic at night like it had combat boots. So the guy grabs a rolling pin and beats it to death. Then he takes it outside and throws it on the burning pile." "Good story," said Coleman. "What's the problem?" "The rat's not dead. The heat wakes him up. It jumps off the pile and makes a beeline for the house. Except now its fur's on fire. The homeowner tries to intercept, but it zips between his legs, runs back inside and gets in the walls. Ignited the insulation. Whole place burned down. ~ Tim Dorsey

Alice's eyes fell to the bundle she carried. But she only said, 'People from the other side of the mirror want to know who and where and why and what is the name. They have to know everything. They are always gnawing at things and at one another.'
'It's good to want to know things,' Jack said defensively.
'It is? What happens when there is no answer?' she sneered. 'Wanting-to-know is always biting at you. Biting and itching. You want to much. Go back to your own world. You don't belong here ~ Isobelle Carmody

Ashes of Life"

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will, and would that night were here!
But ah! to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again! with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There's this little street and this little house. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

His silence he has indicated that he is willing. He hasn't the strength any more, the excess vitality, for an affair - its danger, its demand performances, the secrecy added like a filigree to your normal life, your gnawing preoccupation with it and with the constant threat of its being discovered and ended. ~ John Updike

There are different kinds of anger. There is the kind that flares bright, like a fire devouring dry wood – an anger that dies as quickly as it ignites. There is the kind that takes its time to rise, but leaves devastation in its wake when it does. And then, there is the anger that is always there, in the pit of your belly – gnawing, biting and twisting – and reminding you of its presence every waking moment. This is the kind that can kill you, if given enough time. ~ Sam J. Charlton

Listen: this story's one you ought to know,
You'll reap the consequence of what you sow.
This fleeting world is not the world where we
Are destined to abide eternally:
And for the sake of an unworthy throne
You let the devil claim you for his own.
I've few days left here, I've no heart for war,
I cannot strive and struggle any more,
But hear an old man's words: the heart that's freed
From gnawing passion and ambitious greed
Looks on kings' treasures and the dust as one;
The man who sells his brother, as you've done,
For this same worthless dust, will never be
Regarded as a child of purity.
The world has seen so many men like you,
And laid them low: there's nothing you can do
But turn to God; take thought then for the way
You travel, since it leads to Judgment Day ~ Abolqasem Ferdowsi

People who know their worth can live austerely; it's the people nagged by the gnawing knowledge of their own cheapness who have that eternal necessity for submerging themselves in what they feel is superlative in material things, as if fine possessions could make them fine. ~ Mabel Seeley

But that was a long time ago and since then a crab has been gnawing at my vitals. All this began in the Metro (first-class) with the phrase - 'l'homme que j'etais, je ne le suis plus. ~ Henry Miller

Had he stood outside my door as I'd stood outside his, fists at his sides, lips drawn back? Did it have him as bad as it had me? Was it eating at him, gnawing at him with the same sharp vicious little teeth that wouldn't let me sleep?
Yes, it was. I could see the rage of insatiable uninvited lust in every line of that dark, stoic face that had once been too subtly etched for me to read. I wasn't the only one lying awake at night, fevered with memories, tossing, turning, soaking my sheets, burning up
not for Fae sex, but him, damn it all to hell, him. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Because people who live their lives this way can look forward to a single destiny, shared with others of this type - though such people do not believe they represent a type, but feel themselves distinguished from the common run of man, who they see as held down by the banal anchors of the world. But while others actually build a life in which things gain meaning and significance, this is not true of the puer. Such a person inevitably looks back on life as it nears its end with a feeling of emptiness and sadness, aware of what they have built: nothing. In their quest for a life without failure, suffer, or doubt, that is what they achieve: a life empty of all those things that make a human life meaningful. And yet they started off believing themselves too special for this world!

But - and here is the hope - there is a solution for people of this type, and it's perhaps not the solution that could have been predicted. The answer for them is to build on what they have begun and not abandon their plans as soon as things start getting difficult. They must work - without escaping into fantasies about being the person who worked. And I don't mean work for its own sake, but they must choose work that begins and ends in a passion, a question that is gnawing at their guts, which is not to be avoided but must be realized and live through the hard work and suffering that inevitably comes with the process.

They must reinforce and build on what is in their life already ~ Sheila Heti

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Boethius moved from considering history from the actor's point of view to a "timeless" eternal view. From the divine perspective, nothing is ever utterly lost, because all of life is possessed by God in the eternal now. Though time was gnawing away at Boethius and stealing all he valued, God was beyond time and loss. Gaining this philosophical vantage allowed the last Roman to become one of the first men of the Middle Ages. ~ John Mark Reynolds

When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound - our own and others' - and it can finally heal. ~ Desmond Tutu

She'd have been gnawing her way through his bedroom walls to sink her avid fingers into his youthful flesh. ~ Margaret Atwood

I have to admit that most of the time I read in the same way that I smoke and chew gum and jiggle my leg a lot. I read a lot, but at the same time I'm not a particularly good or diligent or discriminating reader. I go through maybe close to a thousand or more books a year, but a lot of times I'll only read bits and pieces of any one individual text. There are even certain works that are very important to me (Like Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, for example) that I probably haven't ever read all the way through from beginning to end, just certain passages over and over. I tend to read at stuff, rather that through it, if that makes any sense, and maybe there's something a little bit rodent-like about it, like a gerbil gnawing on woodchips in those, tiny, rapid obsessive bites. ~ Dan Chaon

I've been living off rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I'd draw attention to myself."
He grinned up at Harry, but Harry returned the grin only reluctantly.
"What're you doing here, Sirius?" he said,
"Fulfilling my duty as godfather," said Sirius, gnawing on the chicken bone in a very dog-like way. "Don't worry about me, I'm pretending to be a loveable stray."
He was still grinning, but seeing the anxiety in Harry's face, said more seriously, "I want to be on the spot. Your last letter... well, let's just say things are getting fishier. ~ J.K. Rowling

An armed conflict between nations horrifies us. But the economic war is no better than an armed conflict. This is like a surgical operation. An economic war is prolonged torture. And its ravages are no less terrible than those depicted in the literature on war property so called. We think nothing of the other because we are used to its deadly effects .... The movement against war is sound. I pray for its success. But I cannot help the gnawing fear that the movement will fail if it does not touch the root of all evil-human greed. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

With gloomy face he picked it up And took it to his Mother, Though even he could not suppose That she could make another; For those who perished on the line He did not seem to care, His engine being more to him Than all the people there. And now you see the reason why Our Peter has been ill: He soothes his soul with pigeon-pie His gnawing grief to kill. He wraps himself in blankets warm And sleeps in bed till late, Determined thus to overcome His miserable fate. And if his eyes are rather red, His cold must just excuse it: Offer him pie; you may be sure He never will refuse it. ~ E. Nesbit

Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal. ~ Robert South

According to Auster, proximity is deceptive, and anonymity is not only the misfortune of the masses, of the cities, but also a cancer gnawing away the family and marital unit. Human contact often masks a gulf that only death or distance can bridge. We are separated from others by those very things that also connect us; we are separated from ourselves by the illusion of self-knowledge. Just as we must forget ourselves in order to reach a certain level of self-truth, we must also leave others in order to find them in the prism of memory and separation. That which is closest is often the most enigmatic, and distance, like mourning and wandering, is also an instrument of redemption. ~ Pascal Bruckner

Duroy, who felt light hearted that evening, said with a smile: "You are gloomy to-day, dear master."
The poet replied: "I am always so, young man, so will you be in a few years. Life is a hill. As long as one is climbing up one looks towards the summit and is happy, but when one reaches the top one suddenly perceives the descent before one, and its bottom, which is death. One climbs up slowly, but one goes down quickly. At your age a man is happy. He hopes for many things, which, by the way, never come to pass. At mine, one no longer expects anything - but death."
Duroy began to laugh: "You make me shudder all over."
Norbert de Varenne went on: "No, you do not understand me now, but later on you will remember what I am saying to you at this moment. A day comes, and it comes early for many, when there is an end to mirth, for behind everything one looks at one sees death. You do not even understand the word. At your age it means nothing; at mine it is terrible. Yes, one understands it all at once, one does not know how or why, and then everything in life changes its aspect. For fifteen years I have felt death assail me as if I bore within me some gnawing beast. I have felt myself decaying little by little, month by month, hour by hour, like a house crumbling to ruin. Death has disfigured me so completely that I do not recognize myself. I have no longer anything about me of myself - of the fresh, strong man I was at thirty. I have seen death whiten my black hair ~ Guy De Maupassant

The loneliness felt like an infection I couldn't shake, something hollowing me out from the inside. It wasn't the longing for him that hurt the most; it was the gnawing feeling that no one wanted me and I had no idea when, or if, that would ever change. ~ Jessica Alcott

A pain was gnawing in my chest. I pressed my hands to it, the hollows and hard bones. I sat before my loom and felt at last like the creature Medea had named me: old and abandoned and alone, spiritless and gray as the rocks themselves. ~ Madeline Miller

You don't do pictures because the audience is ready for them. You do them because there's something gnawing at you, something inside. ~ Paul Haggis

Herveus is impervious to emotions, but Aveline has unlocked something in him. He is drowning in a great wave, just trying to get back to the shore. The main memories he has from his childhood are of hunger. Just the echo of the gnawing pain makes him double over clasping his stomach. The other strongest memories are of violence - beatings from strangers leaving him unable to move for days. In all the haunting recollections, it had always been just him, alone. How could I forget my sister? It was like an impenetrable gate had opened in his mind, bringing forth another set of sad blue eyes from a time forgotten. I hadn't been alone ~ Michelle Connor

Tied to the physical, deaf to the eternal, riveted by my own shortcomings, I was thinking only of what a bad choice I'd made when choosing a partner for a chat. This guy was faking timidity to lure someone over. If I said victim, he was likely to start gnawing my neck. If I said vampire, he would demand proof. I hadn't the fangs enough to back that pretension. ~ Christine Wicker

However, traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.

The more people try to push away and ignore internal warning signs, the more likely they are to take over and leave them bewildered, confused, and ashamed. People who cannot comfortably notice what is going on inside become vulnerable to respond to any sensory shift either by shutting down or by going into a panic - they develop a fear of fear itself. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction. All nations and all empires first felt decadence gnawing at them when their birth rate fell off. ~ Benito Mussolini

Some secrets buried away in boxes are peacefully forgotten, just as we hope they'll be. But some refuse to stay in their boxes, popping out at the worst possible times. And then there are those ... that linger and fester, gnawing away from the inside out. ~ Jeanne Birdsall

At night, in the garden, it occurs to you that it might have been your heart that left you as you reached the capital. Your heart might not have travelled well, closed up in its cavity, quivering and gnawing at the bars of your ribcage during the commute. It might be tracking north now, along edgelands, past spoil-heaps and stands of pylons, under motorway passes, back to the higher ground. Back to him. ~ Sarah Hall

How does it happen that, on the one hand, we all share not just a sense that there is such a thing as justice, but a passion for it, a deep longing that things should be put to rights, a sense of out-of-jointness that goes on nagging and gnawing and sometimes screaming at us - and yet, on the other hand, after millennia of human struggle and searching and love and longing and hatred and hope and fussing and philosophizing, we still can't seem to get much closer to it than people did in the most ancient societies we can discover? ~ N. T. Wright

To remember, for instance, that here just a year ago, just at this time, at this hour, on this pavement, I wandered just as lonely, just as dejected as to-day.

And one remembers that then one's dreams were sad, and though the past was no better one feels as though it had somehow been better, and that life was more peaceful, that one was free from the black thoughts that haunt one now; that one was free from the gnawing of conscience - the gloomy, sullen gnawing which now gives me no rest by day or by night.

And one asks oneself where are one's dreams. And one shakes one's head and says how rapidly the years fly by! And again one asks oneself what has one done with one's years.

Where have you buried your best days? Have you lived or not?

Look, one says to oneself, look how cold the world is growing. Some more years will pass, and after them will come gloomy solitude; then will come old age trembling on its crutch, and after it misery and desolation.

Your fantastic world will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die and will fall like the yellow leaves from the trees. . . .

Oh, Nastenka! you know it will be sad to be left alone, utterly alone, and to have not even anything to regret - nothing, absolutely nothing . . . for all that you have lost, all that, all was nothing, stupid, simple nullity, there has been nothing but dreams! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Germany's siege mentality and gnawing sense of encirclement (the need to 'storm out of the fortress' to prevent a Russian attack); Austria-Hungary's hatred of Serbia; Russia's deep fear of Germany; France's vengeful chauvinism; and Britain's ferocious Germanophobia. ~ Paul Ham