Minor Tragedy Quotes

I doubt I would have written a line ... unless some minor tragedy had sort of twisted my mind out of the normal rut. ~ Roald Dahl

First my husband, then my parents died. After that I lost my two sisters. When death comes to someone's home it's as if it wants to get as much done as quickly as possible to save coming again for a long time. ~ Guy De Maupassant

It's interesting, Ted," I said, "that whenever something significantly painful happens to you, you rail against God, you rail against what a shitty, terrible world it is. But when something good happens to you, you guess you're lucky. A minor tragedy and it's God's fault. A miraculous blessing and it's a bit lucky. What do you make of that? ~ M. Scott Peck

In every life, no matter how full or empty ones purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes, and to add to other peoples store of it. ~ Charles Dickens

She's Verglas's greatest tragedy and last hope: the Princess Rakel. ~ K.M. Shea

Just for a while": Death's opening chat-up line in His great seduction, before he drugged you with soporific comforts, distracted you with minor luxuries and ensnared you with long-term payment plans.
Join the Rat Race "just for a while."
Concentrate on your career "just for a while."
Move in with your girlfriend "just for a while."
Find a bigger place, out in the burbs "just for a while."
Lie down in that wooden box "just for a while. ~ Christopher Brookmyre

Did you get Mom a birthday present?" Helen asked.
"Yes," Gansey replied. "Myself."
"The gift that keeps on giving."
"I don't think that minor children are required to get gifts for their parents. I'm a dependent. That's the definition of dependent, is it not?"
"You, a dependent!" his sister said, and laughed. "You haven't been a dependent since you were four. You went straight from kindergarten to old man with a studio apartment. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the true worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul ... You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you. ~ Adrian Tan

I was shocked to have to admit to myself that not only had I accepted a complex theory somewhat uncritically, but that I had also actually noticed quite a bit of what was wrong, in the theory as well as in the practice of communism. But I had repressed this -partly out of loyalty to my friends, partly out of loyalty to "the cause", and partly because there is a mechanism of getting oneself more and more deeply involved: once one has sacrificed one's intellectual conscience over a minor point one doesn't wish to give in too easily; one wishes to justify the self-sacrifice by convincing oneself of the fundamental goodness of the cause, which is seen to outweigh any little moral or intellectual compromise that maybe required. With every such moral or intellectual sacrifice one gets more deeply involved. One becomes ready to back one's moral or intellectual investments in the cause with further investments. It's like being eager to throw good money after bad. ~ Karl R. Popper

The tragedy about history - personally and globally - is that while we may learn it we rarely learn from it ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru

I do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the Song of Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of Lear was the work of an uninspired man. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

The Child Custody Protection Act makes it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines for the purpose of obtaining an abortion. ~ Ken Calvert

The greatest tragedy is a life lived and died without knowing Father God intimately and experiencing His love personally. ~ Bob Parr

Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing. ~ Frida Kahlo

I have learned that human existence is essentially tragic. It is only the love of God, disclosed and enacted in Christ, that redeems the human tragedy and makes it tolerable. No, more than tolerable. Wonderful. ~ Mark Twain

The Bishop and Knight, in contradistinction to the Queen and Rook, are called Minor Pieces. ~ Howard Staunton

I was quite shocked at the tone I took and the judgements I had of the relationship that she embarked on, you know, sex with a minor. But it's the stuff of great drama [in Notes On A Scandal]. ~ Cate Blanchett

You know what's weird, though? It's weird that the ark would be such a kids' story, you know? I mean, it's ... really a story about death. Every person who isn't in Noah's family? They die. Every animal, apart from the two of each on the boat? They die. They all die in the flood. Billions of creatures. It's the worst tragedy ever, I finished, my voice tied off by a knot in my chest. I'd been speaking too fast without breathing, and I sucked down air before speaking again. ~ Adam Rex

Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do? ~ G.K. Chesterton

Here's how you think about it: Together you constructed many things throughout your life. Then her body disappeared, but the constructions still remain. Human beings die: That's natural. But to accept her death is to lose all hope. ~ Michael Paterniti

There is a warning. The path of God-exalting joy will cost you your life. Jesus said, "Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." In other words, it is better to lose your life than to waste it. If you live gladly to make others glad in
God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full. This is not a book about how to avoid a wounded life, but how to avoid a wasted life. Some of you will die in the service of Christ. That will not be a tragedy. Treasuring life above Christ is a tragedy. ~ John Piper

If you stretch tragedy, it will always become comedy. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The price you pay for having to deal with those minor problems is far less than the price you pay for not recognizing they're yours. ~ Paulo Coelho

I keep telling you, you don't pay enough attention to the minor characters. A novel should be like a street full of strangers, where no more than two or three people are known to us in depth. ~ Irene Nemirovsky

A formula for comedy is comedy equals tragedy plus time. A difficult or uncomfortable situation takes place, and then you laugh about it later down the road. ~ Brian Regan

Risk is the inevitable product of liberty - and it's responsible not only for great tragedy, but also great triumph. ~ Tony Snow

What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms ... or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy. ~ George R R Martin

It is with regret that I have to say that I am just so tired of being here. I am only fifteen years old, and already I am exhausted. There must be something better out there, don't you think? I have so many minor wounds, little scrapes and bruises, that have become so large in my mind. I do not think I would ever be able to get over them. They say that time heals everything, but how do you erase loss? ~ Lynette Ferreira

A life like this develops the comedy sense. You can't play tragedy while you're living it. ~ Edna Ferber

We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy ... It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong. ~ Robert James Brown

Characters may lend the action a certain colouring, but it is what happens that comes first. To overlook this while watching a tragedy would be like treating a football game simply as the acts of a set of solitary individuals, or as chance for each of them to display 'personality'. The fact that some players behave as though this is precisely what football games are about should not distract us from this point. ~ Terry Eagleton

Life can be at its cruelest with love and dreams. But of course they keep most of us going. ~ Robert Black

His life was a party which tragically came to an early end. ~ David J. Cooper

I'm in love with you, Cody. And I know that this is all complicated and confused in a wholly fucked-up way. Meg's death was a tragedy and the worst kind of waste, but I don't want to lose you because of the fucked-up-way I found you."
"Fucking Ben McCallister. You make me cry more than almost any person I've ever met."
"I shed a few tears myself last night. ~ Gayle Forman

From Geneva, we drove for a time on the motorway illegally without buying a vignette, but our consciences got the better of us and we took a slight deviation on minor roads through the towns that line the north of the lake with tantalising glimpses of the water, before picking up the road that would take us through the mountains. This was quite interesting, but slightly boring after the much more imposing Alps. ~ Kate Foster

And by this very difference tragedy stands apart in relation to comedy, for the latter intends to imitate those who are worse, and the former better, than people are now. ~ Aristotle.

One of my practices comes from an ancient Indian teacher. He taught that when you experience some tragic situation, think about it. If there's no way to overcome the tragedy, then there is no use worrying too much. So I practice that. (The Dalai Lama was referring to the eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva, who wrote, "If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection? And if nothing can be done about it, what use is there for being dejected?") ~ Dalai Lama XIV

People didn't realize it, but they needed myths to survive, just as much now as when their forebears were alive. Perhaps more. Mythology embodied the world's dreams, helped to make sense of the great human problems. Just as the dreams of individuals exist to give subconscious support to their conscious lives, so do myths serve as society's dreams. They uncover the dark, hidden places where mysteries dwell and can turn to nightmare if left untended. They make sense of injustice in archetypal terms. They give men and women a blueprint for how they may respond to success or failure, tragedy or joy. ~ Charles De Lint

MAGHRIBI: Learning is in activity. Learning through words alone is minor activity. ~ Idries Shah

The tragedy of a thoughtless man is not that he doesn't think, but that he thinks that he's thinking ~ Andrzej Majewski