Suspension Of Disbelief Quotes

It's absolutely fine when Wile E. Coyote walks in with a band-aid on his head, after a 3,000-pound rock is dropped on him. That is what Ed Wood meant by the suspension of disbelief. ~ Johnny Depp

[Science fiction is] that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin. It is distinguished from pure fantasy by its need to achieve verisimilitude and win the 'willing suspension of disbelief' through scientific plausibility. ~ Kingsley Amis

This was one of those odd thoughts that came out of the blue and struck me as both clever and logical. Hot chocolate wouldn't be something desert people would naturally gravitate toward. (There are cold deserts, of course, but with two suns I always assumed Tatooine is mostly pretty warm. Now, of course, the Star Wars Essential Atlas and other official material backs up that assumption.) I also caught way more grief for this than I ever expected. Quite a few people took me to task for putting an Earth-based drink into the Star Wars universe. Of course, those same people apparently weren't bothered by the Millennium Falcon, or lightsabers. It was, though, a reminder that you never know what word or image might jolt someone out of their suspension of disbelief. Anyway, why would anyone want to live in that Galaxy Far, Far Away if they don't have chocolate? Inconceivable ... ~ Timothy Zahn

I would go to these Supernatural conventions because, well, one, it's like going to your own version of Disneyland. You're adored for an hour or whatever, and then you walk out and you're nobody again, but, boy, when you're there, it must be what it's like to be Brad Pitt all day, you know? You're the best thing going. And it pays pretty well, too! But I was concurrently loved and hated by everybody, because the suspension of disbelief is, uh, pretty high among Supernatural fans. ~ Kurt Fuller

Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall. ~ Stephen Sondheim

The whole film genre is one of deceit. It is the suspension of disbelief. That's what all theater and all film is based on. ~ Rhys Ifans

There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully - that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too. ~ Peggy Noonan

Harry's suspension of disbelief blew completely out the window.
You're giving me a time machine to treat my sleep disorder.
You're giving me a TIME MACHINE to treat my SLEEP DISORDER.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
"Ehehehehhheheh ... " Harry's mouth said. He was now holding the necklace away from him as though it were a live bomb. Well, no, not as if it were a live bomb, that didn't begin to describe the severity of the situation. Harry held the necklace away from him as though it were a time machine. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

He respected the power of faith, the benevolence of churches, the strength religion gave so many people ... and yet, for him, the one intellectual suspension of disbelief that was imperative if one were truly going to "believe" had always proved too big an obstacle for his academic mind. "I want to believe," he heard himself say. ~ Dan Brown

I'm not a moron, but science fiction to me requires a suspension of disbelief and honest curiosity or fascination in that kind of bullshit. I've just never been able to make that jump, really. I like things to be more organic. ~ Marc Maron

It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief. ~ Lionel Trilling

Suspension of disbelief and that whole question is part of the heart of the 'Leaves of Grass'movie. ~ Edward Norton

Every little thing that people know about you as a person impedes your ability to achieve that kind of terrific suspension of disbelief that happens when an audience goes with an actor and character he's playing. ~ Edward Norton

For a found-footage-style movie, there's a definite advantage in using unknowns, because it helps sell the illusion that it's real. A known actor would get in the way of the suspension of disbelief. ~ Oren Peli

We may exhort ourselves to read tolerantly, we may quote Coleridge on the willing suspension of disbelief until we think ourselves totally suspended in a relativistic universe, and still we will find many books which postulate readers we refuse to become, books that depend on 'beliefs' or 'attitudes' ... which we cannot adopt even hypothetically as our own. ~ Wayne C. Booth

I prefer to think of faith, as Coleridge says of poetry, not as the taking up of belief but as "the willing suspension of disbelief" ... a willingness to be open, to explore, to investigate. ~ Sharon Salzberg

This was the Evangelical Revival that now began to take hold on the propertied class, who, frightened by what was happening in France, were anxiously mending their fences, spiritual as well as political. To escape rationalism's horrid daughter, revolution, they were only too willing to be enfolded in the anti-intellectual embrace of Evangelicalism, even if it demanded faith and good works and a willing suspension of disbelief. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

The infrastructure of the US is a long-term suspension of disbelief that such things won't be exploded deliberately by people who don't create anything. ~ Dave Winer

But the suspension of disbelief could only go so far. ~ Cassandra Clare

When it comes to acting, people talk about the suspension of disbelief that you ask of the audience. Before that starts, you have to, as an actor, suspend your own disbelief. ~ Helena Bonham Carter

I guess love is the real suspension of disbelief. ~ Melissa Bank

That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Some popular quotations smell of airless closets. They exhale the stale imagination of the intellectual lower middle class. "Suspension of disbelief" has become one of them. Dressed up as a scintillating double negation, it serves the pedestrian notion of art as illusion. ~ Rudolf Arnheim

When God is driven to the periphery of the public square, the human spiritual capacity longs for exercise, and it often finds it in the "suspension of disbelief" and activity of the imagination that are available in novels and movies. ~ John Granger

To visit a modern Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) is to enter a world that for all its technological sophistication is still designed on seventeenth-century Cartesian principles: Animals are treated as machines - "production units" - incapable of feeling pain. Since no thinking person can possibly believe this anymore, industrial animal agriculture depends on a suspension of disbelief on the part of the people who operate it and a willingness to avert one's eyes on the part of everyone else. ~ Michael Pollan

Somehow I could lose myself in the ocean the same way I could lose myself in a good book. Maybe it was because both involved suspension
a suspension of weight, a suspension of disbelief
a willingness to surrender to something greater than oneself. ~ Eve Marie Mont

The fantastic is in complicity with the realist model, in the claims that realism makes to represent the true face of reality. It points to the gaps and inadequacies of realism, but does not question the legitimacy of its claims to represent reality. The concept of suspension of disbelief', that beloved criterion of positivist criticism supposedly serving to establish the legitimacy of the fantastic, confirms this hegemony. ~ Michael Richardson

evidently there was such a thing as "the childhood best friends law," by which any relationship involving two such individuals was immediately forgiven regardless of circumstance and then romanticized beyond any reasonable human being's suspension of disbelief. ~ Alice Keats

A little suspension of disbelief will take you a long way. ~ Me

Those who write need that "willing suspension of disbelief ", as Coleridge called it. ~ Elena Ferrante

The stage is suspension of disbelief. Film is a literal medium. ~ Joseph Bologna

I want to regard my public as infinitely intelligent, as understanding notions of the suspension of disbelief and as realising all the time that this is not a slice of life, this is openly a film. ~ Peter Greenaway

Willing Suspension of Disbelief ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I said it seemed to me that most marriages worked in the same way that stories are said to do, through the suspension of disbelief. It wasn't, in other words, perfection that sustained them so much as the avoidance of certain realities. ~ Rachel Cusk

Sometimes I read a script and it's obvious from early on that it's one where the suspension of disbelief has to develop strongly from page one. Some are more reality-based. ~ Gillian Anderson

The more you can create that magic bubble, that suspension of disbelief, for a while, the better. ~ Edward Norton

Our divorce was an optical illusion, surely, because I am often still there, in my old home with my family. I can so easily fool myself, even without a scope, a lens, a patch of sky to measure my trauma, my blues, my perspective or my period of mourning. Suspension of disbelief can be a very real kind of haunting. ~ Jalina Mhyana

It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society; it is belief ~ George Bernard Shaw

What do you know? Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief? ~ Ed Wood

A wish is many things. It is hope and desire and daydreams. It is impossibility and improbability and something in between. It is stardust and well water and spectrums of light in the sky. It is half-melted birthday candles and Christmas lists. It is broken turkey bones, It is the willing suspension of disbelief.
And sometimes it is desperation. It is a hole in your heart that wants filling. It is more-than-anything-in-the-world. ~ John David Anderson

MINISTER: All he has done is to find some means of bewitching the intelligence. He has only induced a radical suspension of disbelief. As in the early days of the cinema, all the citizens are jumping through the screen to lay their hands on the naked lady in the bathtub!
AMBASSADOR: And yet, in fact, their fingers touch flesh.
MINISTER: They believe they do. Yet all they touch is substantial shadow.
AMBASSADOR: And what a beautiful definition of flesh! You know I am only substantial shadow, Minister, but if you cut me, I bleed. Touch me, I palpitate! ~ Angela Carter

Peeta's awake already, sitting on the side of the bed, looking bewildered as the trio of doctors reassure him, flash lights in his eyes, checks his pules. I'm disappointed that mine was not the first face he saw when he woke up, but he sees it now. His features registrer disbelief and something more intense that I can't quite place. Desire? Desperation? Surely both, for he sweeps the doctors aside, leaps to his feets and moves towards me. I run to meet him, my arms extended to embrace him. His hands are reaching for mine too, to caress my face, I think.
My lips are forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat. ~ Suzanne Collins

After running her eyes over pulsing LEDs on the suspension unit, Samantha glanced through a small port at Claire Hyndman's limp body. She looked expectantly at Mih Valanson, one of her senior technicians. "Well? How's it going? Are you succeeding?"
Valanson looked uncomfortable.
"Well?"
"I shouldn't be doing this. Brain-stripping is illegal."
"I do wish you wouldn't call it that," Samantha scolded.
After following Samantha's gaze and looking at Claire Hyndman's pale face, Valanson secretly hoped his efforts would be in vain. ~ Andrew R. Williams

She gasps at the sight that greets her.

The florists have gone to town. There are wild meadow flowers everywhere, in pinks and whites and blues, all lit by tiny fairy lights and soft pink lanterns.

Yes. This will do.

Ana is stunned. She whips around and gapes at me.

"You wanted hearts and flowers."

She stares at me in disbelief.

"You have my heart." And I wave at the room.

"And here are the flowers," she murmurs. "Christian, it's lovely." Her voice is hoarse and I know she's close to tears.

Plucking up my courage, I lead her farther into the room. In the center of the arbor, I sink onto one knee. Ana catches her breath, and her hands fly to her mouth. From my inside jacket pocket, I pull out the ring and hold it up for her.

"Anastasia Steele. I love you. I want to love, cherish, and protect you for the rest of my life. Be mine. Always. Share my life with me. Marry me."

She is the love of my life.

It will only ever be Ana.

Her tears start to fall in earnest but her smile eclipses the moon, the stars, the sun, and all the flowers in the boathouse. ~ E.L. James

So little is actually worthy of belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disapprove ... ~ David Mitchell

I turned around to examine the rest of my temporary prison, and saw an enormous golden eye staring at me, less than ten feet away from where I stood.
I did what any sensible witch would do in my circumstance. I screamed like a scared little girl.
The eye blinked. Once, twice, and then shifted as the dragon turned its head toward me, regarding me with both golden eyes. "I could have eaten you, you know."
I nodded numbly and stammered, "Thank you for not doing that." I knew dragons existed in Faerie, though I'd never seen one before. Dragons are reclusive as a rule and tend to guard their privacy ferociously, so only the overly brave or overly stupid seek them out on purpose. The creature was huge, taking up a good portion of the room with its bulk. Black scales covered its body, and leathery wings were folded against its back. Smoke puffed out of its nostrils for a moment, and my stomach leapt in panic.
"I only eat virgins though."
I stared at the dragon in disbelief, feeling the inexplicable urge to defend my past sexual history. My mouth worked as I struggled to find an appropriate response, and I thought I saw a glint of humor in its golden gaze. ~ Robyn Bachar

Behind it was that vast suspension bridge which always troubles me because it reminds me that in this mechanized age I am as little able to understand my environment as any primitive woman who thinks that a waterfall is inhabited by a spirit, and indeed less so, for her opinion might from a poetical point of view be correct. ~ Rebecca West

Um, excuse me, but, wait. Uh...uh...are all domestic our allies?" came a frail voice from a bushtit whose name roughly translates as Gary.
"During this War, they are all our allies. We will work together," said Kraai.
"Not cats though, right?" asked a yellow-breasted western meadowlark.
Kraai gave his measured answer: "Not every cat is bad."
Mutters of disbelief rose like bubbles. Gary the bushtit, shifting his balance, lifted up his sad twig of a leg stump as a silent rebuttal.
"You're right, Gary. Cats can't be trusted. But everything else. ~ Kira Jane Buxton

God is part of the universe, master architect but not master magician. In this conception, miracles do not represent, as they traditionally have, "the intervention of God in the natural order" or "the suspension of the natural order."10 ~ Terryl L. Givens

It was that prolonged, flat, cheerless week that follows Christmas. My own existence seemed infinitely stagnant, relieved only by work on another book. Those interminable latter days of the dying year create an interval, as it were, of moral suspension: one form of life already passed away before another has had time to assert some new, endemic characteristic. Imminent change of direction is for some reason often foreshadowed by such colourless patches of time. ~ Anthony Powell

The secret of making something work in your lives is first of all, the deep desire to make it work; then the faith and belief that it can work; then to hold that clear definite vision in your consciousness and see it working out step by step, without one thought of doubt or disbelief. ~ Eileen Caddy

Yeah," Danello said, "she's exhausted - we all are. It's been a rough few days."
"I'm fine!"
"No, you're not," Danello mumbled just loud enough for me to hear.
"I don't think there's anything more to discuss," Onderaan said. "Jeatar, this isn't going to work. I want them all out by end of day tomorrow."
I folded my arms. The sooner I got out of here, the better. "Fine by me."
"She didn't mean it," Jeatar said, shooting me a look of pure disbelief. "She spent the last week in a box. ~ Janice Hardy

A true story. One afternoon when our son, Richard, was in fifth grade, my wife called me at work to say he had received a one-day suspension for losing his temper during recess. Because we both worked, this was more of a punishment for us than it was for Richard. He hated going to school anyway. I called the school immediately and attempted to reason with the principal. She refused to understand my point of view, and by the time I finished yelling at her, she had suspended Richard for two more days. ~ Tim Shortridge

There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: - through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom). and then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. ~ Herman Melville

In order to believe clients' accounts of trauma, you need to suspend any pre-conceived notions that you have about what is possible and impossible in human experience. As simple as they may sound, it may be difficult to do so. ~ Aphrodite Matsakis

One thing is certain: your essence in my life is essential. It has been from the beginning. Even when I was a kid, it was as if I were waiting for you to enter the picture. Starting over in a new country, adjusting to the strange calm that takes hold when you've left everything that defines you, I had the feeling of weightless suspension. It stayed with me until the day I met you. ~ Louisa Hall

For better or worse we're in an age of disbelief," Rico said, "An age of science and a need for proof. ~ Bryan Islip

Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age.] ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

By midmorning, my excitement and anticipation had turned into complete misery because of the cold. But all of a sudden two mallard ducks flew by me at eye level. I grabbed my duck call and blew on it about three times. The ducks stopped, turned, floated down, and sat in the decoy spread in front of me. I grabbed my gun, but my body was so cold that I couldn't raise it to my shoulder. Actually, I was even colder than before, because when nature called, I was forced to unzip my coveralls. When I was finished doing my business, my fingers were too numb to zip the coveralls back up!
Despite not being able to shoot, I felt a great sense of pride and accomplishment as I reflected on calling in wild ducks for the first time. It was amazing to me that the ducks were swimming around painted decoys because of the sounds I made with a call. I was instantly hooked and it really didn't matter to me that I was too cold to shoot. Unfortunately, my dad pulled up to my blind in his boat about the same time. He watched the ducks fly away from my decoys. He pointed at them in amazement.
"Why didn't you shoot?" he asked me.
Due to my pride, I decided to tell him, "I didn't want to mess y'all up with my gunfire."
My dad shook his head in disbelief.
"But I called them in with these duck calls I made," I proudly told him. ~ Jase Robertson

RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead. ~ Ambrose Bierce

All of us are writers reading other people's writing, turning pages or clicking to the next screen with pleasure and admiration. All of us absorb other people's words, feeling like we have gotten to know the authors personally in our own ways, even if just a tiny bit. True, we may also harbor jealousy or resentment, disbelief or disappointment. We may wish we had written those words ourselves or berate ourselves for knowing we never could or sigh with relief that we didn't, but thank goodness someone else has. ~ Pamela Paul

What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator'. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

You play with great skill," he said.
"Thank you."
"Is that your favorite piece?"
"It's my most difficult," Helen said, "but not my favorite."
"What do you play when there's no one to hear?"
The gentle question, spoken in that accent with vowels as broad as his shoulders, caused Helen's stomach to tighten pleasurably. Perturbed by the sensation, she was slow to reply. "I don't remember the name of it. A piano tutor taught it to me long ago. For years I've tried to find out what it is, but no one has ever recognized the melody."
"Play it for me."
Calling it up from memory, she played the sweetly haunting chords, her hands gentle on the keys. The mournful chords never failed to stir her, making her heart ache for things she couldn't name. At the conclusion, Helen looked up from the keys and found Winterborne staring at her as if transfixed. He masked his expression, but not before she saw a mixture of puzzlement, fascination, and a hint of something hot and unsettling.
"It's Welsh," he said.
Helen shook her head with a laugh of wondering disbelief. "You know it?"
"'A Ei Di'r Deryn Do.' Every Welshman is born knowing it."
"What is it about?"
"A lover who asks a blackbird to carry a message to his sweetheart."
"Why can't he go to her himself?" Helen realized they were both speaking in hushed tones, as if they were exchanging secrets.
"He can't find her. He's too deep in love- it keeps him from seeing clearly."< ~ Lisa Kleypas

St Mary Magdalene church was on the left-hand side of the road, set back behind a low brick wall, well-trimmed topiary and a narrow fringe of grass studded with lichen-covered gravestones from a hundred years ago. A sign had been tied to the railings: two capital As set inside a blue triangle that was itself set within a blue circle. An arrow pointed towards the church. Milton felt a disconcerting moment of doubt and paused by the gate to adjust the lace of his shoe. He looked up and down the street, satisfying himself that he was not observed. He knew the consequences for being seen in a place like this would be draconian and swift; suspension would be immediate, the termination of his employment would follow soon after, and there was the likelihood of prosecution. He was ready to leave the service, but on his own terms and not like that. ~ Mark Dawson

He said:To love, we need passion, but also respect. Once, someone told me that all you needed to build lasting happiness was a woman who admired and respected her man. But now, I know that's wrong. Happiness is much more difficult to attain. It's like crossing a suspension bridge; it's fragile, shaky, and there's no guardrail. You have to find your own equilibrium. And for that to happen, it has to rest on two centers of gravity, on both partners. ~ Duong Thu Huong

Mrs. Baxter gave his mother a look of disbelief. "So you are saying I should accept these gifts because doing so makes Mr. Livingston more lively?"
The image came to him of his uncle doing a jig, and Ben burst out laughing.
Everyone turned to stare at him.
Ben scrambled for something to say, for he didn't think the jig image would go over well with his uncle. Then he remembered the text from Sunday's sermon. "Well, Reverend Norton says that. 'It's more blessed to give than to receive.' So you're making sure he's blessed, Mrs. Baxter. ~ Debra Holland

On the first day of fifth grade, Liz was sitting on the swing beside Liam's at recess. Falling and flying, her hair fanned out behind her and her eyes were closed, and that was what had caught his attention, her closed eyes. She looked a little bit silly and very much alive, and Liam couldn't stop watching.

Liz, on her part, was aware that the boy beside her was watching, but she loved swinging too much to care what he thought. She loved the wind hitting her face and the brief moment of suspension at the top of the arc and the falling sensation that was magnified by the darkness of her eyelids. She imagined that she was a bird, an angel, a wayward star.

At the height of the arc, she let go. And she flew.

Liam watched with his mouth hanging wide open, expecting her to crumple on the asphalt and die tragically before his eyes.

She didn't, and when she walked away, Liam's heart followed. ~ Amy Zhang

When I describe priming studies to audiences, the reaction is often disbelief. [ ... ] The idea you should focus on, however, is that disbelief is not an option. The results are not made up, nor are they statistical flukes. You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true. More important, you must accept that they are true about you. [ ... ] You do not believe that these results apply to you because they correspond to nothing in your subjective experience. But your subjective experience consists largely of the story that your System 2 tells itself about what is going on. Priming phenomena arise in System 1, and you have no conscious access to them. ~ Daniel Kahneman

His eyes were wide with disbelief. "A stranger approaches you for help in a dark parking lot and you go and help him? That has to be one of the most careless things I've heard in a long time." He crossed his arms and stared down at me. "I bet you think things through, right? Accept candy from strangers and get into vans with a sign that reads free Kittens?" I gasped. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

But then a revelation came crashing down on me. The harshness of it was so fierce I was the one trembling instead of Melanie. My memory flashed back to her Monday night in the parking lot with her messed up hair and smeared makeup. They weren't willingly hitting it in his office. He hadn't turned me away that night because he had been with someone.

Oh, no, it was much worse than that.

I stared at her in disbelief. He had screwed her - the panties were proof of that. But it wasn't by her consent…he had truly raped her.

I gasped. "Oh my God!" My mind shattered with the thoughts of what he had done. To his star…to his son's girlfriend. It was too much. I slammed back against the sink and shook my head. "He raped you, didn't he?"

Her eyes widened in horror. "NO!" she screamed. ~ Katie Ashley

Karsen rounded my car staring at me in disbelief. "Since when do you dress like that?" She pointed at my red tank top and shorts. "Somebody is close to exposing some toe."
I looked down at my closed toed heels.
"Of the camel variety," Karsen explained pointing at my girl parts. I tried to slap her but she took off. And I wasn't in the mood for running. I knew I'd break an ankle in the heels I wore. ~ Holly Hood

Jerott?' said Lymond. 'What are you not saying?' His eyes, as the orderly cavalcade paced through the muddy streets, had not left that forceful aquiline face since they met. And Jerott, Philippa saw with disbelief, flushed. For a moment longer, the strict blue eyes studied him; and then Lymond laughed. 'She's an eighteen-year-old blonde of doubtful virginity? Or more frightful still, an eighteen-year-old blonde of unstained innocence? I shall control my impulses, Jerott, I promise you. I'm only going to throw her out if she looks like a troublemaker, or else so bloody helpless that we'll lose lives looking after her. Not everyone,' he said, in a wheeling turn which caught Philippa straining cravenly to hear, 'is one of Nature's Marco Polos like the Somerville offspring. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

People keep coming up to me and asking, 'How does it feel to be banned for life?' Banned for life. I wasn't banned for life. There was never a word of suspension, probation or ban in that agreement. It was never meant to be part of it. ~ George Steinbrenner

Man who is created alone should be aware that he will also die alone. Yet during his life, he lives almost addicted to possessions ... the only assets one can take with him when one dies is one's belief or disbelief ~ Harun Yahya

Why are you bringing these things up?" I asked softly.
[ ... ]
Serena still wore that cold smile ... Then, without warning, her face fell and she sighed heavily.
"I'm saying all these things, Amelia, because you're my bestie."
Serena's tone was sincere, but it made me scowl at her. The last time she'd called me "bestie," she'd shoved me over the guardrail of a suspension bridge. That kind of thing could really take the shine out of a word. ~ Tara Hudson

The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief - call it what you will - than any book ever written. It has emptied more churches than all the counter-attractions of cinema, motor-bicycle and golf course. ~ A.A. Milne

What did she say?" Lauren breathed.
"She told me to check the oil," Nick replied imperturbably.
Despite his outward attitude of total indifference, Lauren couldn't believe that as a younger man he'd been so vulnerable. Surely having his own mother treat him as if he didn't exist must have hurt him terribly. "Is that all she said?" she asked tightly.
Unaware that Lauren was not sharing his ironic humor in the story,he said, "No-I think she asked me to check the air in her tires too."
Lauren had kept her voice neutral, but inwardly she felt ill. Tears stung her eyes, and she turned her face up to the purpling sky to hide them,pretending to watch the lacy clouds drifting over the moon.
"Lauren?" His voice sounded curt.
"Hmmmm?" she asked,staring steadfastly at the moon.
Leaning forward,he caught her chin and turned her face toward his. He looked at her brimming eyes in stunned disbelief. "You're crying!" he said incredulously.
Lauren waved a dismissing hand at him. "Don't pay any attention to that-I cry at movies too. ~ Judith McNaught

The greatest sin of our generation is that we have forgotten who we are, and that is what has cost us most. We cry out in disbelief and wonder where our sense of unity has gone. ~ Jordan Ervin

I love to speak to five people at the same time and make them pay attention to me while not allowing them to say a word. I answer them before they have a chance to speak. They then change their thoughts and I do it again. They feel both frustrated and hooked to the conversation. I feel both entertained and amused at their disbelief on what is occurring before their eyes. They cannot see that I'm communicating in three ways at the same time, while they're focused in one. And they think I'm smart because I talk too fast, while the truth is that they are not intelligent because they cannot see the obvious in front of their eyes. ~ Robin Sacredfire

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

Lewis appeared beside them, roguish grin on his handsome face. "Miss Macy, as I live and breathe! How I have longed to see you again. Do say you'll dance with me. Nate won't mind if I cut in. Will you, ol' boy?" Nathaniel felt the old stab of jealousy. He glanced from his brother's face - perfectly confident she would agree - to Margaret's. She looked at Lewis squarely and said, "Actually, I would prefer to dance with your brother." Lewis's mouth parted in disbelief. Heart lifting, Nathaniel whirled Margaret away from his stunned brother. It was likely the first time a woman had turned him down for anything. ~ Julie Klassen

I will tell you that I am a child of this century, a child of disbelief and doubt. I am that today and will remain so until the grave. How much terrible torture this thirst for faith has cost me and costs me even now, which is all the stronger in my soul the more arguments I can find against it. And yet, God sends me sometimes instants when I am completely calm; at those instants I love and feel loved by others, and it is at those instances that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This Credo is very simple, here it is: to believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, manly and more powerful than Christ. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky