The Possessed Quotes

Not that he regretted having killed the guy in Stockton. The one who'd been ready to shoot him over the five crumpled dollar bills in his jeans pocket. He was quite happy to have sent that particular home boy to hell. ~ L.J.Smith

Then it happened. One night as the rain beat on the slanted kitchen roof a great spirit slipped forever into my life. I held his book in my hands and trembled as he spoke to me of man and the world, of love and wisdom, pain and guilt, and I knew I would never be the same. His name was Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky. He knew more of fathers and sons than any man in the world, and of brothers and sisters, priests and rogues, guilt and innocence. Dostoyevsky changed me. The Idiot, The Possessed, The Brothers Karamazov, The Gambler. He turned me inside out. I found I could breathe, could see invisible horizons. The hatred for my father melted. I loved my father, poor, suffering, haunted wretch. I loved my mother too, and all my family. It was time to become a man, to leave San Elmo and go out into the world. I wanted to think and feel like Dostoyevsky. I wanted to write.
The week before I left town the draft board summoned me to Sacramento for my physical. I was glad to go. Someone other than myself could make my decisions. The army turned me down. I had asthma. Inflammation of the bronchial tubes.
"That's nothing. I've always had it."
"See your doctor."
I got the needed information from a medical book at the public library. Was asthma fatal? It could be. And so be it. Dostoyevsky had epilepsy, I had asthma. To write well a man must have a fatal ailment. It was the only way to deal with the presence of death. ~ John Fante

I think the demon's target is not the possessed; it is us ... the observers ... every person in this house. And I think - I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love: of accepting the possibility that God could ever love us. ~ William Peter Blatty

There is nothing to be found in human eyes, and that is their terrifying and dolorous enigma, their abominable and delusive charm. There is nothing but that which we put there ourselves. That is why honest gazes are only to be found in portraits.

The faded and weary eyes of martyrs, expressions tortured by ecstasy, imploring and suffering eyes, some resigned, others desperate... the gazes of saints, mendicants and princesses in exile, with pardoning smiles... the gazes of the possessed, the chosen and the hysterical... and sometimes of little girls, the eyes of Ophelia and Canidia, the eyes of virgins and witches... as you live in the museums, what eternal life, dolorous and intense, shines out of you! Like precious stones enshrined between the painted eyelids of masterpieces, you disturb us across time and across space, receivers of the dream which created you!

You have souls, but they are those of the artists who wished you into being, and I am delivered to despair and mortification because I have drunk the draught of poison congealed in the irises of your eyes.

The eyes of portraits ought to be plucked out. ~ Jean Lorrain

In that face, deformed by hatred of philosophy, I saw for the first time the portrait of the Antichrist, who does not come from the tribe of Judas, as his heralds have it, or from a far country. The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. Jorge did a diabolical thing because he loved his truth so lewdly that he dared anything in order to destroy falsehood. ~ Umberto Eco

There are no bad kids…well, except for the possessed, and maybe those pesky aliens masquerading as humans. ~ S.K.S. Perry

They were afraid of your authentic love, because authentic love is beyond their control.You are possessed by it. You are not the possessor, you are the possessed. And every society wants you to be in control. The society is afraid of your wild nature, it is afraid of your naturalness, so from the very beginning it starts cutting your wings. And the most basic thing which is dangerous in you is the possibility of love, because if you are possessed by love you can go even against the whole world. ~ Osho

But the conquest of fear was what fascinated them. The continual ecstasy of vanquishing and the consciousness that no one could vanquish them was what attracted them. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. Jorge ~ Umberto Eco

He that cannot cast off a possession has become the possessed ~ Hallie Burton

I got on a Dostoyevsky kick right after college. I started with 'Crime and Punishment,' went on to 'The Possessed' and then 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'The Idiot.' ~ Charlie Trotter

The reasoning is classic in its clarity. If God does not exist, Kirilov is god. If God does not exist, Kirilov must kill himself. Kirilov must therefore kill himself to become god. That logic is absurd, but it is what is needed. ~ Albert Camus

Only on the surface, it seems to me. The only true atheists I've ever met were people in revolt. It wasn't enough for them to coldly deny the existence of God - they had to refuse it, like Bakunin: 'Even if God existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.' They were atheists like Kirilov in The Possessed. They rejected God because they wanted to put man in his place. They were humanists, with lofty ideas about human liberty, human dignity. I don't suppose you recognize yourself in this description. ~ Michel Houellebecq

I've never been so possessed by another person before. She consumes my body and mind in ways that I can't articulate. ~ Krista Ritchie

Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions. ~ Peace Pilgrim

Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind. ~ Oliver Goldsmith

Throughout his career, W.G. Sebald wrote poems that were strikingly similar to his prose. His tone, in both genres, was always understated but possessed of a mournful grandeur. ~ Teju Cole

Where you just possessed?" Cookie asked after a long moment, awe softening her voice. "'Cause let me tell you, sweetheart, if that was possession, I'm selling my soul. ~ Darynda Jones

I think that that's always been a real talent of mine is to be able to spot somebody who has that thing that is so non-definable, that thing that I wish I possessed. ~ Rosie O'Donnell

Her companion, also in black, appeared as a well-formed young woman about 18, completely possessed of that ephemeral precious essence youth, which is itself beauty, irrespective of complexion or contour. ~ Thomas Hardy

What is not fully understood is not possessed. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Life, he knew, had meaning and was fully possessed only as it was remembered and reshaped. ~ Jane Hamilton

Even more useful, he also possessed some eerily precocious form of sage-like wisdom that allowed him to greet both failure and victory as imposters. ~ Mark Frost

You now have learned enough to see That Cats are much like you and me And other people whom we find Possessed of various types of mind. For some are sane and some are mad And some are good and some are bad And some are better, some are worse - But all may be described in verse. ~ Garrison Keillor

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed. ~ Edmund Burke

To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness? ~ Henrik Ibsen

Allow yourself to be possessed by God by receiving Jesus, and you will never be possessed by anything else. ~ Stormie O'martian

Naught is possessed, neither gold, nor land nor love, nor life, nor peace, nor even sorrow nor death, nor yet salvation. Say of nothing: It is mine. Say only: It is with me. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Never self-possessed, or prudent, love is all abandonment. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Part of Obama's persona is self-reliance. He's calm; he's cool; he's self-possessed. In many ways, he has tried to define himself in opposition to Clinton's sometimes needy, often undisciplined, emotionalism. ~ Dee Dee Myers

I die but first I have possessed, And come what may, I have been blessed. ~ Lord Byron

Was it possible that some men possessed so great a force of character that they could stamp themselves upon their words such that no matter where they were read, or when, or in what language, their own distinctive tones would always be heard? ~ Amitav Ghosh

Love seeks not to possess, but to be possessed. ~ Robert Hugh Benson

Elinor ... whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding and coolness of judgment ... her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them. ~ Jane Austen

There are boxers possessed of such remarkable intuition, such uncanny prescience, one would think they were somehow recalling their fights, not fighting them as we watch. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Our minds are malleable. Our minds can be possessed - possessed so gradually that we don't even realize we've lost control. ~ Clemantine Wamariya

No longer possessed by possessions, we may become open enough to become possessed by God. ~ David Adam

Love is a light that never dwelleth in a heart possessed by fear. ~ Bahaullah

I was never sure what possessed Guy and Teo, 2 alien princelings to land in Paris that day. ~ Sally Ann Melia

How can you ever hate someone who once possessed a piece of your heart? A piece of you? ~ Holly Hall

Up to 1870, it was equally said of France and of Italy that they possessed no folk-tales. Yet, within fifteen years from that date, over 1000 tales had been collected in each country. ~ Joseph Jacobs

Less possessing-less possessed.
More possessing-more possessed.
More possessed-less accessed.
Less possessed-more accessed. ~ Mikhail Naimy

What strength he once possessed had left his body and gone to a tiny girl with freckles. ~ Paullina Simons

A free life is still free for great souls. Verily, whoever possesses little is possessed that much less: praised be a little poverty! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

She was a natural in being careless, haggard, even dirty. that made her look adventurous, flirtatious and even promiscuous. though deep inside her pure virginity was intact and unknowingly she ended glowing under tender virginity that she possessed. ~ Apurva Sharma

Patience was a virtue he possessed in abundance. ~ Sylvain Reynard

I think a good role model has to be sexy. Real, empowered, self-possessed women are sexy. When you're really in control of your choices, your mood, your body, and your opinions, people find you sexy. ~ Amanda Palmer

Civilisation will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will stand in awe. ~ Winston Churchill

[On James Gould Cozzens' By Love Possessed:] It is a vast enterprise encompassing all sorts of love, except, naturally, those branches which extend to Jews, Negroes, and people who have lost track of their great-grandparents ... ~ Dorothy Parker

One worth knowing can be quite known, no one worth possessing can be quite possessed - but after all, we were children. ~ William Landay

Because you're very special, Brynne."
"How special, Ethan?" I whispered because I was a little frightened to hear. I was frightened of my own feelings for him already. In such a short time he'd possessed me.
"For me? As special as it gets, baby." He smiled his signature one side up twist and made my stomach flutter. ~ Raine Miller