Hollow Pursuits Quotes

In her glamorous quest for the darkest light and the lowest high, she now found herself wallowing on the bottom of a filthy garbage bin. ~ Terri Blackstock

Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, make it an instrument to burden all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Letting go is the best revenge. It frees your heart for much more satisfying pursuits. ~ Loraine Despres

It has been more than twenty years since she lost her two daughters here, the one who was never given a name or a life, and her precious Usha. With thoughts of Usha comes the physical ache in her heart. There has not been a day since Usha's birth that Kavita has not thought of her, mourned her loss, and prayed for the hollow feelings of grief to melt away. But God has not listened. Or else he has not yet forgiven her. Because the heartache has endured. ~ Shilpi Somaya Gowda

And then she caught the song. She fell upon it and music poured from the fiddle's hollow, bright and liquid like fire out of the heart of the earth. Pierre-Jean drew back and stood mesmerized. The room around Fin stirred as every ear bent to the ring of heartsong. It rushed through Fin and spread to the outermost and tiniest capillary reaches of her body. Her flesh sang. The hairs of her arms and neck roused and stood. She sped the bow across the strings. Her fingers danced on the fingerboard quick as fat raindrops. Every man in the room that night would later swear that there was a wind within it. They would tell their children and lovers that a hurricane had filled the room, toppled chairs, driven papers and sheets before it and blew not merely around them but through them, taking fears, grudges, malice, and contempt with it, sending them spiraling out into the night where they vanished among the stars like embers rising from a bonfire.

And though the spirited cry of the fiddle's song blew through others and around the room and everything in it, Fin sat at the heart of it. It poured into her. It found room in the closets and hollow places of her soul to settle and root. It planted seeds: courage, resolve, steadfastness. Fin gulped it in, seized it, held it fast. She needed it, had thirsted for it all her days. She saw the road ahead of her, and though she didn't understand it or comprehend her part in it, she knew that she needed the ancient and reckless power o ~ A.S. Peterson

Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits. ~ Robin Marantz Henig

My patient was one of those singular and unfortunate people who regard their heart ("a hollow, muscular organ," according to the gruesome definition in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, which Pnin's orphaned bag contained) with a queasy dread, a nervous repulsion, a sick hate, as if it were some strong slimy untouchable monster that one had to be parasitized with, alas. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Masks are the order of the day - and the least I can do is cultivate the illusion that I am gay, serene, not hollow and afraid. ~ Sylvia Plath

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood. ~ Franz Kafka

Gargoyles sat on the battlements- lean they were and the same hideous damp grey as the stone. They looked at her with hollow eyes and rattled their silver chains. They had wings of bats or wings or birds, most of them, and licked their beaks or teeth with forked or double tongues. Two paced restlessly before their platforms; others whined or picked their claws or groomed their mangy fur or feathers or lizard skin or scales. ~ Meredith Ann Pierce

There are three intellectual pursuits, and, so far as I am aware, only three, in which human beings have performed major feats before the age of puberty. They are music, mathematics, and chess. ~ George Steiner

In a hollow of smashed pavement at my feet is a puddle of stagnant water frozen on the surface; it looks like a pane of ancient glass studded with detritus and trapped air bubbles. ~ Anne Garréta

Caves of blue.
Strike the hue.
Westward, burning.
Pages turning.
Indiana.
Ripe banana.
Happiness approaches.
Serpents and roaches.
There once was a god named Apollo
Who plunged in a cave blue and hollow
Upon a three-seater
The bronze fire-eater
Was forced death and madness to swallow ~ Rick Riordan

And on and on it went-that duet between the dumb, praying lady and the big, hollow man who was so full of loving echoes. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

We do not hunt them because we want to save humanity. We hunt them because we like killing them. More than a calling, this is everything to us, our only true reason for living. The hollow place in our hearts are filled with each of their deaths.
We will never stop. ~ Menton3

If you want me to get closer, there are other ways to do it," I said, leaving my statement open-ended. I gave him a pointed look, dropped my hand and turned away, leaving him staring after me. I started to walk toward the ice cream parlor, smiling to myself.
Zack caught up with me, his arms catching me around the waist as he pulled me back against his chest. His lips met the hollow of my neck, just above my collarbone.
"I'd be careful about saying things like, princess," he said, his voice rough and urgent. "I don't think you know what you're insinuating. ~ Monica Alexander

I cried then, holding nothing back. For empty years, yearning for the touch of a hand. Hollow years, lying beside a man I had betrayed, for whom I had no tenderness. For the terrors and doubts and griefs of the day. Cried for him and me and for Mary MacNab, who knew what loneliness was - and what love was, as well. ~ Diana Gabaldon

She did not even have words, only a feeling, a terrible hollow feeling, as if everything inside her had been scooped out raw. ~ Celeste Ng

I think one of my pursuits over the years is trying to answer the question of, 'What else can you do with a voice other than stand in front of a microphone and sing?' ~ Brian Eno

No mighty trance, or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. ~ John Milton

But things are not as they teach us- for the world is hollow and I have touched the sky! ~ Rik Vollaerts

Things are just that - things. They don't make us who we are. They make us look better on the outside, even when we're hollow on the inside. They're an illusion - the shiny objects that distract us from the really important things. ~ Chelle Bliss

Do not mistake me, Inrithi. In this much Conphas is right. You are all staggering drunks to me. Boys who would play at war when you should kennel with your mothers. You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill not daring. It is not a trial of souls, nor the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them.
You have offered me war, and I have accepted. Nothing more. I will not regret your losses. I will not bow my head before your funeral pyres. I will not rejoice at your triumphs. But I have taken the wager. I will suffer with you. I will put Fanim to the sword, and drive their wives and children to the slaughter. And when I sleep, I will dream of their lamentations and be glad of heart. ~ R. Scott Bakker

In the eyes of all of them was the hollow stare of fear, and there was hollowness in their merriment, too. ~ Michael Crichton

A person who questions the value of living has endured a worthless life committed to trivial pursuits. A disoriented person constantly asks whom they are and where must they go. A stupid person fails to realize basic truths and flees from reality. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

These wedding guests could have done without wine, surely without more wine and better wine. But the Father looks with no esteem upon a bare existence, and is ever working, even by suffering, to render life more rich and plentiful. His gifts are to the overflowing of the cup; but when the cup would overflow, he deepens its hollow, and widens its brim. Our Lord is profuse like his Father, yea, will, at his own sternest cost, be lavish to his brethren. He will give them wine indeed. But even they who know whence the good wine comes, and joyously thank the giver, shall one day cry out, like the praiseful ruler of the feast to him who gave it not, Thou hast kept the good wine until now. ~ George MacDonald

There is something deliciously melancholy and haunting about rusting roller coasters, faded fiberglass facades, ferris wheels missing two or three cars, the gradual decay of something meant to be bright and cheerful. -Abandoned Amusement Parks

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. -Edgar Allan Poe

The world thinks eccentricity in great things is genius, but in small things, only crazy. -Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

I'll give you another instance: you know how everybody's into weirdness right now?... A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness. -Tracey Walter "Miller", Repo Man

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. -Mickey Rourke "Henry", Barfly

There is nothing about me. I exist only in the surface of what I create. I am slowly losing my mind. I am form over function. I am a hollow space with a shiny exterior - I can only reflect what I'm shown. I am mortified to be human and it upsets me greatly that, one ~ Rust Cohle True Detective

There are only two noble pursuits in life: knowledge and love. ~ Carlos Salinas

It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Men of different tastes have different pursuits. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Everybody out on the sidewalk is a pedestrian Mercedes, wallowing in entitlement - colliding, snarling, shoving ahead without even the hollow-to-begin-with local euphemism Excuse me. ~ Thomas Pynchon

I'd be sixteen by now," he said slowly.
"Oh, Magnus!" Ragnor wailed. "That's disgusting! How could you? Have you lost your mind?"
"What?" Magnus asked again.
"We agreed eighteen was the cutoff age," said Ragnor. "You, I, and Catarina made a vow."
"A v - Oh, wait. You think I'm dating Raphael?" Magnus asked. "Raphael? That's ridiculous. That's - "
"That's the most revolting idea I've ever heard." Raphael's voice rang out to the ceiling. Probably people in the street could hear him.
"That's a little strong," said Magnus. "And, frankly, hurtful."
"And if I did wish to indulge in unnatural pursuits - and let me be clear, I certainly do not," Raphael continued scornfully, "as if I would choose him. Him! He dresses like a maniac, acts like a fool, and makes worse jokes than the man people throw rotten eggs at outside the Dew Drop every Saturday."
Ragnor began to laugh.
"Better men than you have begged for a chance to win all this," Magnus muttered. "They have fought duels in my honor. One man fought a duel for my honor, but that was a little embarrassing since it is long gone."
"Do you know he spends hours in the bathroom sometimes?" Raphael announced mercilessly. "He wastes actual magic on his hair. On his hair!"
"I love this kid," said Ragnor. ~ Cassandra Clare

I turned around, looking for escape. Behind me was a great obsidian mirror, like the one I had once found in the room with the tree full of memories. In its reflection, the stone halls of Naraka glittered.
"You are not a sadhvi," said a voice.
I looked up, stunned to see Amar standing before me. He helped me to my feet, but I couldn't look at him. Every time I glanced into his face, that flat look of no recognition slashed through me.
He jerked my chin up. "Do not lie to me. Who are you?"
Tears prickled hot behind my eyes and the answer I gave him was so true, I could feel it echoing through all my hollow spaces: "I don't know."
He released his hold on my chin but he didn't step away. "You asked to see me alone. Why?"
Because I love you. ~ Roshani Chokshi