Shattering Quotes

I think that the resistance against Darwin is not just the difficulty of seeing the power of a spectacularly beautiful explanation: it is the fear of realizing the extraordinary power that such an explanation has in shattering rests of old world views. ~ Carlo Rovelli

God rescues us by breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our resistance. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

What mortal is there, over whose first joys and happiness does not break some storm, dispelling with its icy breath his fanciful illusions, and shattering his altar? ~ Alphonse De Lamartine

Brokenness is the shattering of my self-will - the absolute surrender of my will to the will of God. It is saying "Yes, Lord!" - no resistance, no chafing, no stubbornness - simply submitting myself to His direction and will in my life. ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

You don't want me, and I don't want anybody else. So I'll just be . . . left behind. Left to pick up the pieces of my dreams and my heart when you get up from this table and walk away, shattering them both because the girl who means everything never even gave me a chance to mean something. ~ Elizabeth Hayley

Damn you," said Arithon. In a shattering change of mood, he was laughing. "You have it. But what's my word against the grandiloquent predictions of a maudlin and drunken prophet?"
"Maybe everything," Felirin finished gently. "You're too young to live without dreams. ~ Janny Wurts

You forget what it was like. You'd swear on your life you never will, but year by year it falls away. How your temperature ran off the mercury, your heart galloped flat-out and never needed to rest, everything was pitched on the edge of shattering glass. How wanting something was like dying of thirst. How your skin was too fine to keep out any of the million things flooding by; every color boiled bright enough to scald you, any second of any day could send you soaring or rip you to bloody shreds. ~ Tana French

Anxiety isn't an attack that explodes out of me; it's not a volcano that lies dormant until it's triggered by an earth-shattering event. It's a constant companion. Like a blow fly that gets into the house in the middle of summer, flying around and around. You can hear it buzzing, but you can't see it, can't capture it, can't let it out. ~ Jen Wilde

So let this disappointment do its work
My truest hopes have never failed
They have merely been buried
beneath the shoveled muck of disillusion
or encased in the carapace of self-serving desire.
It is only false hopes that are brittle, shattering like shells of thin glass to reveal the diamond hardness of the unshakeable eternal hopes within.
So shake and shatter all that would hinder my growth, O God. ~ Douglas Kaine McKelvey

God is discovered entirely through creation - the brilliance of a sunset, the powerful roar of a waterfall, the symphony of sounds you hear in the heart of the forest, or the vastness of space and its countless stars. God is the mastermind behind all matter - every earth shattering scientific discovery and mystery that is yet to be unraveled was dreamed and enacted by God. ~ Benjamin F Sullivan

The myth of quantum consciousness sits well with many whose egos have made it impossible for them to accept the insignificant place science perceives for humanity, as modern instruments probe the farthest reaches of space and time. ... quantum consciousness has about as much substance as the aether from which it is composed. Early in this century, quantum mechanics and Einstein's relativity destroyed the notion of a holistic universe that had seemed within the realm of possibility in the century just past. First, Einstein did away with the aether, shattering the doctrine that we all move about inside a universal, cosmic fluid whose excitations connect us simultaneously to one another and to the rest of the universe. Second, Einstein and other physicists proved that matter and light were composed of particles, wiping away the notion of universal continuity. Atomic theory and quantum mechanics demonstrated that everything, even space and time, exists in discrete bits – quanta. To turn this around and say that twentieth century physics initiated some new holistic view of the universe is a complete misrepresentation of what actually took place. ... The myth of quantum consciousness should take its place along with gods, unicorns, and dragons as yet another product of the fantasies of people unwilling to accept what science, reason, and their own eyes tell them about the world. ~ Victor J. Stenger

[Comedies], in the ancient world, were regarded as of a higher rank than tragedy, of a deeper truth, of a more difficult realization, of a sounder structure, and of a revelation more complete. The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man ... Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachments to the forms; comedy, the wild and careless, inexhaustible joy of life invincible. ~ Joseph Campbell

Don't worry," he kept saying. "The overworld can't hurt you if you stay calm." I wasn't calm at all. But my panic was like a poisonous snake at a zoo, staring at me from the other side of thick glass. Only Yamaraj's touch on my arm kept the glass from shattering. His skin seemed to burn against mine. ~ Scott Westerfeld

I already feel like I'm on the edge of shattering into a million pieces. One little shove and I'm not sure how long it would take to put me back together again. ~ Alexa Riley

A dozen cobras moved as one, shattering their bottles. Wine and glass sprayed the room. The snakes sprang for Isyllt's attacker with fangs unfolded. He screamed high and sharp as they uncoiled, long slick bodies whipping through the air. She wasn't sure if their venom could survive death and pickling, but it didn't seem to matter. After several bites, he curled on the floor, weeping and trying to bat the undead snakes away. ~ Amanda Downum

When you give me art - give me something that reaches inside of my core and twists, taking the very breath that sustains me away.
Give me something that wakens me from my lethargy.
Give me something that causes me to ponder and question all that I have come to know; due to my circumstances that I have been allotted in this life.
Give me something that causes me to question my pride and arrogance of knowing that I am right in my thoughts, beliefs and perceptions.
Shake me: as if you had grabbed me and pushed me against the wall - shattering all of my preconceived notions; causing me to break out of the box that I have put others in.
Give me something that scraped over the scar tissue of wounds that you carry within, opening them afresh and causing you pain - real core pain - pain that you had pushed down; pain that now resides in your closet of skeletons.
When you give me art, give me you, or give me nothing at all…
©2014 Suzanne Steele ~ Suzanne Steele

Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.

Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

Was Rorschach.

Does that answer your Questions, Doctor? ~ Alan Moore

It seems that Russia today - dominated by, and accustomed to, autocracy and empire, and lacking strong civic institutions especially after the shattering of its society by the Bolshevik Terror - is destined to be ruled by self-promoting cliques for some time yet. ~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

I might not be able to tell you the things you need to hear with the traditional words you need to hear them in, but I swear to God, Rylee, I will try. And if I can't, then I'll show you. I'll show you with everything I have - anything it takes - where your place is in my life," he murmurs to me, shattering every last form of protection I have guarding my heart. ~ K. Bromberg

We are our own worst enemies. How banal and trite that sounds, but [ ... ] have come to believe that all the greatest truths are trite and banal, when spoken aloud in their simplest and most honest terms. Perhaps they can only be imparted in the Cant, in a language which writes itself onto your heart so that you understand not just the words but all the shattering ramifications of of a sentence which, when heard without true understanding, seems quite risibly simplistic.
We are our own worst enemies.
People die. ~ Hal Duncan

He wanted a fight, yes - but he wanted her willing, not besieged, with his name shattering from her lips like a broken shield as she surrendered. ~ Nenia Campbell

When people say it's a funny thing about them, you will probably be able to control your hysterics. They are only getting ready to announce the shattering fact that they don't like something. And it's not going to be something that's really quite awful, like suttee or apartheid; it's going to be something small. ~ Peg Bracken

My God, that scene in Monster Inc. where the monsters realise that their entire world is founded on hurting children -look at that for a change! Two galumphing cartoon characters making a shattering realisation about their world and their role in sustaining it. A truly epic moment. It's stunning. ~ Russell T. Davies

Sometimes time can play tricks. One moment it idles by, an hour can seem a lifetime, such as when sitting by the river at dusk watching the bats snatching insects above the limpid waters; the breaching fish causing ringed ripples and a satisfying plop. Other times, time flashes by in an immodest fashion. So it is with the start of war. First time quivers with the last strum of a wonderful peace, the note holding in the air, mysterious and haunting, filling the listener with awe. Then, with a rising crescendo the terror starts with uncouth haste; with a boom the listener is shaken from their reverie and delivered into the servitude, of an ear-shattering cacophony. ~ M.A. Lossl

Bells theorem dealt a shattering blow to Einsteins position by showing that the conception of reality as consisting of separate parts, joined by local connections, is incompatible with quantum theory ... Bells theorem demonstrates that the universe is fundamentally interconnected, interdependent, and inseparable. ~ Fritjof Capra

War is a soul-shattering experience for the innocent. ~ Suzy Kassem

Guts," never much of a word outside the hunting season, was a favorite noun in literary prose. People were said to have or to lack them, to perceive beauty and make moral distinctions in no other place. "Gut-busting" and "gut-wrenching" were accolades. "Nerve-shattering," "eye-popping," "bone-crunching" - the responsive critic was a crushed, impaled, electrocuted man. "Searing" was lukewarm. Anything merely spraining or tooth-extracting would have been only a minor masterpiece. "Literally," in every single case, meant figuratively; that is, not literally. This film will literally grab you by the throat. This book will literally knock you out of your chair…

Sometimes the assault mode took the form of peremptory orders. See it. Read it. Go at once…Many sentences carried with them their own congratulations, Suffice it to say…or, The only word for it is…Whether it really sufficed to say, or whether there was, in fact, another word, the sentence, bowing and applauding to itself, ignored…There existed also an economical device, the inverted-comma sneer - the "plot," or his "work," or even "brave." A word in quotation marks carried a somehow unarguable derision, like "so-called" or "alleged…"

"He has suffered enough" meant if we investigate this matter any further, it will turn out our friends are in it, too…

Murders, generally, were called brutal and senseless slayings, to distinguish them from all other murders; nouns thus became glued to adjective ~ Renata Adler

War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even ~ George Orwell

There are times when one cannot accept facts for fear of shattering one's being. As I listened to Ian's news, all of Digit's life, since my first meeting with him as a playful little ball of black fluff ten years earlier, passed through my mind. From that moment on, I came to live within an insulated part of myself. ~ Dian Fossey

I liken an affair to the shattering of a Waterford crystal vase. You can glue it back together, but it will never be the same again. ~ John M. Gottman

By shattering my preconceptions and cultural stereotypes, what materialized was a massive personality who was astonishingly winsome yet gravely terrifying. A man whose breathtaking compassion would draw you in, but whose ferocious honesty could cut and slice like a razor. Someone who was the most controversial, confrontational, divisive, yet compellingly beautiful man who has ever lived. Which is precisely what we would expect if the Creator of the universe happened to invade our world. ~ Timothy J. Stoner

I don't know what a person does that does not have a relationship with God. When he goes to the doctor and the doctors says, 'Hey, you've got less than two months to live and there's nothing we can do for you.' Who do they turn to when you're given something that earth shattering? ~ Si Robertson

And in the city on all sides, the howling of the Hounds rose in an ear-shattering, soul-flailing crescendo. The Lord of Death had arrived, to walk the streets in the City of Blue Fire. ~ Steven Erikson

They were roots, Michael realized. Every memory of Maria was a root she had put inside his body. Too many roots, he thought. If Michael left all that roots could come off, shattering him to pieces. There would be nothing, just small and useless parts. ~ Melinda Metz

He woos, he confronts, he delivers, he heals, he shoots straight, and then he uses intrigue. He lives out before them the most compelling view of God, shows them an incredibly attractive holiness while shattering the religious glaze. But still, he lets them walk away if they choose. ~ John Eldredge

He got up and ran on, pitching himself down the hill, flying through the branches of the firs, leaping roots and rocks without seeing them. As he went, the hill got steeper and steeper, until it was really like falling. He was going too fast and he knew when he came to a stop, it would involve crashing into something, and shattering pain.

Only as he went on, picking up speed all the time, until with each leap he seemed to sail through yards of darkness, he felt a giddy surge of emotion, a sensation that might have been panic but felt strangely like exhilaration. He felt as if at any moment his feet might leave the ground and never come back down. He knew this forest, this darkness, this night. He knew his chances: not good. He knew what was after him. It had been after him all his life. He knew where he was - in a story about to unfold an ending. He knew better than anyone how these stories went, and if anyone could find their way out of these woods, it was him.

("Best New Horror") ~ Joe Hill

Sometimes I get lonesome for a storm. A full blown storm where everything changes. The sky goes through four days in an hour, the trees wail, little animals skitter in the mud and everything gets dark and goes completely wild. But it is really God - playing music in his favourite cathedral in heaven - shattering stained glass - playing a gigantic organ - thundering on the keys - perfect harmony - perfect joy. ~ Joan Baez

This was the problem with having walls so hard and high and unscalable, she supposed. When they came down, they crumbled completely, shattering into nothingness. She felt utterly defenseless right now. ~ L.J.Smith

It starts as a little nagging noise inside my skull, reminding me of what I think I know, and what I can never ever really know. And the noise sets to work inside my head, perpetuating its same pattern until it has grown so loud and so great, it is the only thought I can have. The only obsessive, earth-shattering sound of not mattering that I can hear. It's entirely made up of the pain felt by something already hurt too much. It's like the ruins of something destroyed by being hurt, and how awful it is to exist so alone, as ruins. ~ Ashly Lorenzana

Here was the shattering of the second wall: I had read the Bible many times through, and I saw for myself that it had a holy Author; I saw for myself that it was a canonized collection of sixty-six books with a unified biblical revelation. I heard for myself that when the words "this is mine" came out of my mouth in congregational singing, I was attesting to this one, simple truth: that the line of communication that God ordained for his people required this wrestling with Scripture, and that I truly wanted both to hear God's voice breathed in my life, and I wanted God to hear my pleas. The fog burned away. The whole Bible, each jot and tittle, was my open highway to a holy God. ~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Even choosing the perfect dinner wine loses its earth-shattering importance if your guests happen to be cannibals, and you, the unsuspecting entree. ~ Lois Greiman

Flirting is the promise of sex with no guarantee. A successful brand, then, is the promise and guarantee of a mind shattering experience each and every time. ~ Keith Ferrazzi

And I, God-hated,
I could not rest
Content seizing the rocks merely
And shattering them to smithereens, I must
Undermine her too, her peace.
So she is hell's demanded sacrifice.
Devil, now help me shorten the time of dread.
Let what must happen happen now,
Let her fate break around my head,
Let her come to perdition as I do. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Heartache is so physically real that it needs to be recognized as a sickness, an ailment, a cancer of love. A broken heart is a sad, angry, powerful thing that shakes you by the collar and demands your respect, and it's pummeling me into the mattress, shattering me to pieces. It's as real as the actual heart in my chest. In some ways, it's more real because it flows throughout your whole body, wrapping around your bones and your organs and your blood. It's in everything you do, every breath you take. ~ Karina Halle

Each and every component of our being – from our consciousness as a whole to our least of thoughts, emotions and sensations – yearns for one and only state: an ever-growing expansion, a complete shattering of the sense of contraction and limitation, a total liberation from the confined structure of distinct barriers and sidewalls. ~ Shai Tubali

Chantal's only ruse ... was her shattering simplicity. While a weak man or an imposter is always more complicated than the problem he is trying to solve, and thinking to encompass his adversary, merely keeps prowling interminably around himself, the heroic nature will throw itself into the heart of the danger to turn it to its own use, just as captured artillery is turned about and aimed at the backs of the fleeing enemy. ~ Georges Bernanos

I had seen AIDS patients in India and Africa, and knowing that people were dying even though drugs existed that could help them was shattering for me. ~ Yusuf Hamied

I shall need to courage to do what I'm about to do: speak. And risk the enormous surprise I shall feel at the poverty of the spoken thing. As soon as it's out of my mouth, I'll have to add: that's not it, that's not it! But I cannot be afraid of being ridiculous, I always preferred less to more also out of fear of the ridiculous: because there's also the shattering of modesty. I'm putting off having to speak to myself. Out of fear? And because I don't have a word to say. I don't have a word to say. So why don't I shut up? But if I do not force out the word muteness will swallow me forever in waves. ~ Clarice Lispector

He put his head down and charged at the mirror. Perhaps it was a teleportation door to another section of the city, perhaps a simple doorway to a room beyond. Or perhaps, Alton dared to imagine in those few desperate seconds, this was some interplanar gate that would being him into a strange and unknown plane of existence!
He felt the tingling excitement of adventure pulling him on as he neared the wonderer thing - then he felt only the impact, the shattering glass, and the unyielding stone wall behind it.
Perhaps it was just a mirror. ~ R.A. Salvatore

She was not a rebel princess, shattering enemy castles and killing kings. She was a force of nature. She was a calamity and a commander of immortal warriors of legend. ~ Sarah J. Maas

I discovered for myself and by myself that there is no self to realize
that's the realization I am talking about. It comes as a shattering blow. It hits you like a thunderbolt. You have invested everything in one basket, self-realization, and, in
the end, suddenly you discover that there is no self to discover, no self to realize
and you say to yourself "What the hell have I been doing all my life?!" That blasts you. ~ U.G. Krishnamurti

Along with the sight-clouding dizziness, nausea makes me balk at that milk cream, separates me from the mother and the father who proffer it. "I" want none of that element, sign of their desire; "I" do not want to listen, "I" do not assimilate it. "I" expel it. But since the food is not an "other" for "me," who am only in their desire, I expel myself, I spit myself out, I abject myself with the same motion through which "I" claim to establish myself. That detail, perhaps an insignificant one, but one that they ferret out, emphasize, evaluate, that trifle turns me inside out, guts sprawling; it is thus that they see the "I" am in the process of becoming an other at the expense of my own death, During that course I'm which "I" become, I give birth to myself amid the violence of sobs, of vomit. Mute protest of the symptom, shattering the violence of a convulsion that, to be sure, is inscribed in a symbolic system, but in which, without either wanting or being able to become integrated in order to answer to it, it abreacts. It abjects ~ Julia Kristeva

Sometimes divorce isn't an earth-shattering loss. Sometimes it's just two people waking up out of a fog. ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid

In 2011, actor Johnny Depp told the November issue of Vanity Fair that he felt participating in a photoshoot was akin to rape.

"Well, you just feel like you're being raped somehow. Raped . . . It feels like a kind of weird - just weird, man. But whenever you have a photo shoot or something like that, it's like - you just feel dumb. It's just so stupid," he said.

Likening instances of being flustered or uneasy to the often life-shattering experience of rape has become a far too common comparison in modern lexicon.

The phrase "Facebook rape" is perhaps the most widely used, which implies one person has posted on another person's Facebook account - usually something intended to embarrass the person.

But the casual, flippant use of the term "rape" in instances that do not involve sexual violence is highly problematic in that it trivialises one of the most despicable invasions of a human being.

Desensitising the masses to the term "rape" is just another way the conversation surrounding sexual assault is derailed or diluted in society.

Rape is, and should be considered universally, as a serious societal sickness that occurs within the "toxic silence" that surrounds sexual assault as Tara Moss put so elegantly in her recent Q&A appearance.

Further to that, the use of the term can be a trigger for rape survivors in that it may jolt terrifying memories of their own experience.

According to the ~ Emma Elsworth

My dream as a child was to play with a bass player like Ray Brown, who played with the Oscar Peterson Trio. The feeling I had listening to his work was almost carnal, so to actually play for him was earth-shattering for me. ~ Diana Krall

It is not only in the field of religions but in all ancient studies that preconceived ideas are being uprooted on all sides. The religious take it harder than others because they are committed to a "party line" - usually so deeply committed that a major readjustment produces disillusionment and even disaffection. Yet the discoveries that have proven so upsetting should have been received not with hostility but joy, for if they have a way of shattering the forms in which the labors of scholarship have molded the past, they bring a new substance and reality to things that the learned of another age had never thought possible. ~ Hugh Nibley

It has been said that a disease becomes most acutely critical when the brain is affected. For it is the brain that is constantly directing the siege against all disease forces. The spirit of national selfishness is that brain disease of a people which shows itself in red eyes and clenched fists, in violence of talk and movements, all the while shattering its natural restorative powers. But the power of self-sacrifice, together with the moral faculty of sympathy and co-operation, is the guiding spirit of social vitality. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

My skin is on fire with every touch, every contact, and my body throbs with unfamiliar need. We're dangerously close to throwing caution to the wind. Logan's body pulses and trembles over and under me, and I know he's feeling it too. I want to give into it, to go there with him. I want him to be my first, my last, my one and only. I want to give myself to him fully; heart, mind, body and soul, but I can't. The acknowledgment assaults me with soul-shattering clarity. ~ Siobhan Davis

A whimper escaped her as he slid low between her thighs, his head bending to the swollen place he had been tormenting with his fingers. He put his mouth on her, licking along the delicate, salty strait, spreading her with his thumbs. She tried to sit bolt-upright, but fell back against the pillows as he found what he wanted, his tongue strong and wet.
She was spread beneath him like a pagan sacrifice, illuminated by the daylight that now flooded the room. Merripen worshipped her with hot, glassy licks, savoring the taste of her pleasured flesh. Moaning, she closed her legs around his head, and he turned deliberately to nibble and lick at one pale inner thigh, then the other. Feasting on her. Wanting everything.
Win curled her fingers desperately in his hair, lost to shame as she guided him back, her body arching wordlessly...here, please, more, more, now...and she groaned as he fastened his mouth over her with a fast, flicking rhythm. Pleasure seized her, wrenching an astonished cry from her, holding her stiff and paralyzed for excruciating seconds. Every movement and measure and pulse of the universe had distilled to the compelling, slippery heat, riveted there on that crucial place, and then it all released, the feeling and tension shattering exquisitely, and she was racked with hard, blissful shudders.
Win relaxed helplessly as the spasms faded. She was filled with glowing weariness, a sense of peace too pervasive to allow movement. Merripen let go of her ju ~ Lisa Kleypas

Arrest is an instantaneous, shattering thrust, expulsion, somersault from one state into another. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I was more than willing to put aside the Charley Davidson Book of Etiquette and Mud Wrestling if it resulted in earth-shattering orgasms. ~ Darynda Jones

Sand
And she frequently forgot,
That her body (all our bodies) is a house of sand.
That it had shattered and is shattering still.
Slipping stubbornly through fingers. ~ Han Kang

First bubble baths. Now Disney parks. You're shattering every creep vampire myth I've ever heard. ~ Jeaniene Frost

If you have not touched the rocky wall of a canyon. If you have not heard a rushing river pound over cobblestones. If you have not seen a native trout rise in a crystalline pool beneath a shattering riffle, or a golden eagle spread its wings and cover you in shadow. If you have not seen the tree line recede to the top of a bare crested mountain. If you have not looked into a pair of wild eyes and seen your own reflection. Please, for the good of your soul, travel west. ~ Daniel J. Rice

Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today, these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems ... Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things. ~ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The only way to gain power in a world that is moving too fast is to learn to slow down. And the only way to spread one's influence wide to learn how to go deep. The world we want for ourselves and our children will not emerge from electronic speed but rather from a spiritual stillness that takes root in our souls. Then, and only then, will we create a world that reflects the heart instead of shattering it. ~ Marianne Williamson

At last he stopped, and she stared down at the printed column of words, unable to comprehend a single one. His hand, warm and steady, wound its way around hers, wrapping it like a spider would its prey. She surrendered it to him, unable to watch even as his thumb traced the place, just above her knuckles, where he had once written his number in deep violet. Isobel ceased to breathe. Her heart pounded in her chest, her thoughts shattering into senseless fragments. All the while, her eyes remained trained and unblinking on the open page. Lines without meaning stared up at her, little more than black sticks in an otherwise white world. ~ Kelly Creagh

Suffering breaks our hearts, but the heart can break in two different ways. There's the brittle heart that breaks into shards, shattering the one who suffers as it explodes, and sometimes taking others down when it's thrown like a grenade at the ostensible source of its pain.
Then there's the supple heart, the one that breaks open, not apart, the one that can grow into greater capacity for the many forms of love. Only the supple heart can hold suffering in a way that opens to new life. ~ Parker J. Palmer

He extends a hand, larger than a dinner plate, and I have no choice but to shake it. I think I can feel my metacarpals shattering. Julian jumps to summon our waitress again, mostly to avoid shaking hands with this Goliath. "And a pitcher of mimosas, as soon as humanly possible. ~ Kristopher Jansma

Our estrangement from nature and the unconscious became entrenched roughly two thousand years ago, during the shift from the Age of the Great God Pan to that of Pisces that occurred with the suppression of the pagan mysteries and the rise of Christianity. The psychological shift that ensued left European civilization staring into two millennia of religious mania and persecution, warfare, materialism, and rationalism.
The monstrous forces of scientific industrialism and global politics that have been born into modern times were conceived at the time of the shattering of the symbiotic relationships with the plants that had bound us to nature from our dim beginnings. This left each human being frightened, guilt-burdened, and alone. Existential man was born. ~ Terence McKenna

Love is beautiful, shattering, moving, haunting. Love is everything. ~ Claire Contreras

Some of the most innocuous inventions have proven earth-shattering, with reverberations felt around the planet. The Internet is the poster child for disruptive technology, but even such inventions as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPod have rocked their respective industries by changing how we entertain ourselves. ~ Lynda Resnick

Dreams deny her the freedom she truly seeks. Darkness consumes. Leg muscles burn. She runs away, even while lost in the paradise of sleep. Gravity is a crushing force bearing down on her chest, shattering wings and refusing her flight. A whisper in her mind. You don't belong here. ~ Laura Kreitzer

She was nothing. She'd thought he was her world, and all the while, he'd been plotting to take down her family's club. She'd loved him. He'd used her and then thrown her away, shattering every dream, every hope she'd ever had. ~ Christine Feehan

A successful lie is not fueled by the liar; it is fueled by the willingness of the listener to believe. You can't expose a lie without first shattering the will to believe it. That is why leading people to truth is so much more effective than merely telling them. ~ Neal Shusterman

He held out his elbow in a disingenuously gentlymanly gesture.
"How about we go and have some real fun?"
"What,shattering my one remaining fantasy wasn't enough?" Faeries didn't have wings and bordered on evil; pixies were dirty,feral, and tended to bite' and mermaids had neither glorious hair nor seashell bras. Now this about unicorns. Sometimes reality sucked.
"You can always chase the unicorn, if you want.Take it for a ride."
I shuddered at the thought and sat down, leaning my back against the tree and unzipping my coat. "No,thanks. ~ Kiersten White

History is replete with the seeds of apocalypse. In particular, the 19th/early 20th Century in France was a time of country-shattering events, whether it was the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte (the creation and brutal upending of a whole new social order, within scarcely more than a decade), or the Great War (which devastated the country to a degree that is hard to believe today, wiping out an entire generation in the trenches). It was no great stretch to imagine a magical war engulfing Europe in 1914, and leaving Paris as a field of ruins filled with magical booby traps–the familiar monuments destroyed, the Seine overflowing with the residue of spells.

It's no secret that I'm fascinated by the narrative of war, and of recovery after war: how people struggle to rebuild lives and go on in the wake of world-shattering devastation; how the past can still cast a long, terrible shadow over everything; how the years before the war become a golden thing, regardless of how many injustices and hardships might have been happening then. I'm equally fascinated by history–the narratives that get preserved and enshrined, the stories that are passed down; and the speed with which some things get forgotten while others endure for generations. For me, the vocabulary and tropes of post-apocalypse were a great way to tackle those subjects, and to imagine what would happen in a city that had such a traumatic event in its past. ~ Aliette De Bodard

I think a curse should rest on me - because I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment - and yet - I can't help it - I enjoy every second of it. ~ Winston Churchill

When I started reading the literature of molecular biology, I was stunned by certain descriptions. Admittedly, I was on the lookout for anything unusual, as my investigation had led me to consider that DNA and its cellular machinery truly were an extremely sophisticated technology of cosmic origin. But as I pored over thousands of pages of biological texts, I discovered a world of science fiction that seemed to confirm my hypothesis. Proteins and enzymes were described as 'miniature robots,' ribosomes were 'molecular computers,' cells were 'factories,' DNA itself was a 'text,' a 'program,' a 'language,' or 'data.' One only had to do a literal reading of contemporary biology to reach shattering conclusions; yet most authors display a total lack of astonishment and seem to consider that life is merely 'a normal physiochemical phenomenon. ~ Jeremy Narby

Maybe the way death folds into the most private of spaces encourages us to underestimate the shattering weight of such a devastating loss. Perhaps uninterrupted routines and the daily flow of life force us to forget that losing a loved one to death is confounding, excruciating, sometimes even unbearable. That is, until it is our turn to grieve, and no matter how many people surround us, we end up, at one point or another, feeling totally alone. ~ Edwidge Danticat

This is called a piqué machine, it sews that finest stitch, called piqué, requires far more skill than the other stitches.... This is called a polishing machine and that is called a stretcher and you are called honey and I am called Daddy and this is called living and the other is called dying and this is called madness and this is called mourning and this is called hell, pure hell, and you have to have strong ties to be able to stick it out, this is called trying-to-go-on-as-though-nothing-has-happened and this is called paying-the-full-price-but-in-God's-name-for-what, this is called wanting-to-be-dead-and-wanting-to-find-her-and-to-kill-her-and-to-save-her-from-whatever-she-is-going-through-wherever-on-earth-she-may-be-at-this-moment, this unbridled outpouring is called blotting-out-everything and it does not work, I am half insane, the shattering force of that bomb is too great ... And then they were back at his office again. ~ Philip Roth

The aim is to get as close to nature as possible, shattering the tyranny of cultural values and judgements. In the Vedic approach, self-realization has to be achieved by detached adherence to cultural values and judgements, social roles ~ Devdutt Pattanaik

I would just like to say that opera is no longer about fat people in breastplates shattering wine glasses. ~ Lesley Garrett

Fracking depressed, deep shale shattering ~ Lauren Groff

What makes a story a story is that something changes. Internal, external, small or large, trivial or of earth-shattering importance. Doesn't matter. ~ Sarah Monette

Tucked inside the moments of this great sadness - this feeling of being punctured, scrambling and stricken - were also moments of the brightest, most swollen and logic shattering happiness I've ever experienced. One moment would be a wall of happiness so tall it could not be scaled; the next felt like falling into a pit of sadness that had no bottom. I realized you could not have one without the other, that this great capacity to love and be happy can be experienced only with this great risk of having happiness taken from you - to tremble, always, on the edge of loss. ~ Emily Rapp

The blade slid through the energy. Unaffected, the power swept over, then into Paran. Blinded, he screamed as bitter cold lanced through him, shattering his thoughts, his sense of self. An invisible hand closed around his soul. Mine! The word rang in his head, triumphant and filled with savage glee. You are mine! ~ Steven Erikson

Writing is both bomb and bomb disposal-a necessary shattering of cliche and assumption, and a powerful defusing of the soul-destroying messages of modern life (that nothing matters, nothing changes, money is everything, etc). Writing is a state of being as well as an act of doing. ~ Jeanette Winterson

I tear down Baxter, which loops around the last mile down to Back Cove.
And then I stop short. The buildings have fallen away behind me, giving way to ramshackle sheds, sparsely situated on either side of the cracked and run-down road. Beyond that, a short strip of tall, weedy grass slants down toward the cove.
The water is an enormous mirror, tipped with pink and gold from the sky. In that single, blazing moment as I come around the bend, the sun - curved over the dip of the horizon like a solid gold archway - lets out its final winking rays of light, shattering the darkness of the water, turning everything white for a fraction of a second, and then falls away, sinking, dragging the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it, all the color bleeding away instantly and leaving only dark.
Alex was right. It was gorgeous - one of the best I've ever seen. ~ Lauren Oliver

-But what other people will …?
- Screw other people, screw what they think or have to say about the way you choose to live.
Screw what they expect you to be, screw their rules and screw their set of wrongs and rights too.
You do not get it dear, but all what other people do is shattering you into pieces, they take what suits their perspectives or needs and they'll leave the rest of you as if it's something never worth it.
No one knows you whole but yourself and the only one whom you should give a damn about is yourself… ~ Samiha Totanji

This recognition of the truth we get in the artist's work comes to us as a revelation of new truth. I want to be clear about that. I am not referring to the sort of patronizing recognition we give a writer by nodding our heads and observing, "Yes, yes, very good, very true - that's just what I'm always saying." I mean the recognition of a truth that tells us something about ourselves that we had not been always saying, something that puts a new knowledge of ourselves withint our grasp. It is new, startling, and perhaps shattering, and yet it comes to us with a sense of familiarity. We did not know it before, but the moment the poet has shown it to us, we know that, somehow or other, we had always really known it. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

I was starting to wonder if repetitive exposure to nightly hallucinations resulting in earth-shattering climaxes could have any long-term side effects. ~ Darynda Jones

She didn't say a work, and I gave up trying, because you couldn't hear either one of us over the shattering noise of hearts breaking and the looming shadow of the last word, the one we refused to say. ~ Kami Garcia

The most shattering thought I've ever had is my personal accountability to God one day ~ Leonard Ravenhill

Prophet's neck corded with tension, and he never took his eyes from Tom's face, not even when he broke apart and came so hard it was like he was shattering. "Tommy . . ." A breath, a whisper even, as Tom came on the heels of Prophet's climax like a scream in the night, hot and fast like an electric jolt that stunned him senseless. Prophet's hand broke its hold, curled around Tom's neck, pulling him down so their faces were close, his body shuddering as Tom's hips jerked erratically. His last thought was that their hands were still clasped tight together. ~ S.E. Jakes

In other words, Hitler's soul life was not mature enough at that moment to maintain an awareness of himself and his surroundings when this alien entity entered him. During the following six months during a series of irregular meetings and discussions with Hitler, Walter Stein was to witness a maturing soul development in this enigmatic character through which he became more and more a conscious and responsive tool of the world-shattering purposes of the demonic Spirit which overshadowed him. 'I move like a sleep-walker where Providence dictates,' said Adolf Hitler at a press interview. ~ Trevor Ravenscroft

And he spat in her face. Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand and said, 'You shouldn't have done that.' As Amycus spun round, Harry shouted, 'Crucio!' The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. 'I see what Bellatrix meant,' said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, 'you need to really mean it. ~ J.K. Rowling

IMAGINE YOU ARE Siri Keeton. You wake in an agony of resurrection, gasping after a record-shattering bout of sleep apnea spanning one hundred forty days. You can feel your blood, syrupy with dobutamine and leuenkephalin, forcing its way through arteries shriveled by months on standby. The body inflates in painful increments: blood vessels dilate, flesh peels apart from flesh, ribs crack in your ears with sudden unaccustomed flexion. Your joints have seized up through disuse. You're a stick man, frozen in some perverse rigor vitae. You'd scream if you had the breath. ~ Peter Watts

I mean, if you are directing actors to do one thing and then directing them to do something else entirely because the one thing you wanted them to do may not work, then you are just shattering their confidence in the project. ~ Atom Egoyan

I am talking about ultimate deceit. I am talking about unparalleled treachery. Bottomless lies. Depths that are seen that are previously unimaginable. Darkness and shattering despair that could break bones. Paranoia and horror that could stop the heart cold. All inflicted on one's self by one's self. The soul turns schizophrenic and goes hopelessly insane. ~ Henry Rollins