Things Fall Apart Important Quotes

The falcon cannot hear the falconer ~ William Butler Yeats

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings. ~ Chinua Achebe

At the most one could say that his chi or ... personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed. ~ Chinua Achebe

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found. ~ Pema Chodron

When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something. We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way. We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch in on that throbbing quality. (9) ~ Pema Chodron

No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man. ~ Chinua Achebe

There is no story that is not true. ~ Chinua Achebe

Time destroys, Time heals.
Time will take your happiness away,
Time will give you a reason to live.
The wind is stormy,
Tomorrow it will be placid.
Time is making things fall apart today,
But eventually time itself will create a new pathway! ~ Somya Kedia

I was so happy renting in New York City for so long because renting - or at least the way I rented, which involved never lifting a finger to better my surroundings - allows you to let things literally fall apart all around you. Then, when it gets to be too much, you just move on. ~ Maggie Nelson

They say that whatever is meant to be will happen. That if a love is true, it will always come back to you. Bullshit. You can't wait around for love to come back or for something to happen. You have to make it happen. Have you ever heard of someone accomplishing their dreams by waiting around because 'what is meant to be will happen'?
No.
Those people fought for what they wanted and loved. They didn't lean back and wait for their dreams to come rushing at them. Each and every one made their dream come true. They found love because they were searching for it. They didn't let anything get in their way. Every day for the rest of my
life, I will fight for my love and my dreams. I will work to make things stick together instead of working to make them fall apart. ~ Lindsay Paige

Before his dreams had been fragile, insubstantial things, like strands of gossamer and they would fall apart and fade as soon as his eyes opened to the light of a new morning. ~ John Carter

I don't like you, Park," she said, sounding for a second like she actually meant it. "I ... " - her voice nearly disappeared - "think I live for you."
He closed his eyes and pressed his head back into his pillow.
"I don't think I even breathe when we're not together," she whispered. "Which means, when I see you on Monday morning, it's been like sixty hours since I've taken a breath. That's probably why I'm so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we're apart is think about you, and all I do when we're together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I'm so out of control, I can't help myself. I'm not even mine anymore, I'm yours, and what if you decide that you don't want me? How could you want me like I want you?"
He was quiet. He wanted everything she'd just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with 'I want you' in his ears. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Love. Buddha nature. Courage. These are code words for things we don't know in our minds, but any of us could experience them. These are words that point to what life really is when we let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment. ~ Pema Chodron

Sometimes good things the best things coincide fall apart. ~ Marilyn Monroe

Whenever I'm around, nothing good ever happens. You can count on it. If I'm involved, then things go bad. Things are going smoothly, then I step in and wham! they fall apart ~ Haruki Murakami

There's people that get a chance to do the kind of work that changes the world, and make things really different. And there's the kind that just keeps the world from falling apart. ~ Bruce Springsteen

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
The Second Coming ~ Wb Yeats

Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together ~ Marilyn Monroe

I was tired in ways that had nothing to do with sleep. It occurred to me, sitting in the car with her, that I had been trying to hold too many things together that were meant to fall apart. ~ Pete Dexter

Wallets can establish connections and change opinions. Things that fall apart can be glued back by money with astonishing alacrity. ~ Robert Walser

Sometimes there is no way to hold your life together. Sometimes things just have to fall apart. ~ Katherine Center

In her classic book "When Things Fall Apart," Pema Chodron says that everyone and everything is always falling apart. At times we are benefited by personally and collectively 'holding things together.' Can falling apart be a liberating force in our lives? ~ Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

Perhaps it's the word radical that needs rethinking. But what could we angle ourselves toward instead, or in addition? Openness? Is that good enough, strong enough? You're the only one who knows when you're using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you're opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is - working with it rather than struggling against it. You're the only one who knows. And the thing is, even you don't always know. ~ Maggie Nelson

Look at all those cul-de-sacs, the streets that turn in on themselves all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people in their paper houses burning the furniture to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking the beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. ~ John Green

Xinxin Ming or Trust in the Heart


The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference, and heaven and earth are set apart.

If you want the truth [of nonduality] to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease.
When the Way is not understood, the mind chatters endlessly to no avail.

The Perfect Way is vastness without holiness.
Like infinite space it contains all and lacks nothing.
Because you pick and choose, cling and reject, you can't see its Suchness.

Neither be entangled in the world, nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things,
And dualism vanishes of its own accord.

Craving the passivity of Oneness you are filled with activity.
As long as you tarry in dualism,
You will never know Oneness.

If you don't trust in the Heart, you fall into assertion or denial.
In this world of Suchness there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To be in accord with the Way, let go of all self-centered striving.

Denying the world [of duality] is the asserting of it;
Asserting emptiness [oneness] is the denying of it.
The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you go.

To return to the root [the One] is to ~ Sengcan

Before we left home, my hair had already started to fall apart. I decided to pull it into a bun high on my head and attach one of those fake hair things that look like a nest of cute curls. I slapped a tiara on my head and was good to go. I had my weave, my girdle, and my tiara. I was ready to party! ~ Mollie Gross

Accepting who we are is a practice of non-harming. Sadly, much self-help literature contains seeds of harm: We are urged to remake ourselves into someone who will be spiritually or psychologically acceptable, and that acceptance is conditional on our performance in the areas of therapy, growth, or meditation. We are still not accepting ourselves unconditionally, just as we are in this moment, with a full and joyful heart. A more merciful practice begins with acceptance. It begins with the assumption that we were never broken, never defective. By surrendering into a deep acceptance of our own nature - rather than by tearing apart who we are - we actually make more room for genuine, rich, merciful, playful growth and change. If we feel our fundamental strength, creativity, and wisdom, then change is not frightening at all. Things simply fall away when they are ready, making room for the rich harvest underneath. ~ Wayne Muller

It used to be that each time you fell in love, the effort of loving released in you the energy to hold everything together a little longer. Then, after several months or years, when things began to crack apart again, you would fall in love with someone else. New energy would be released, and for a time you and your world would be safe once more.

By now, however, you have exhausted that. There seems to be no energy left - if you had discovered alcohol earlier it might have saved a few broken hearts. For you, alcohol is not the problem - it's the solution: dissolving all the separate parts into one. A universal solvent. An ocean. ~ Ron Butlin

I've often said that the desire to lecture China on how it should behave in the world is wrong. China was around for thousands of years even before America existed. It could even be that China's growing power will allow itself to be slowed down. But as long as this immense empire doesn't fall apart, it will become an important factor in global politics. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

For the first few weeks after we'd gotten back together, I'd been worried that things might fall apart again, not sure that I was up to being in a real relationship, one with actual stakes and feelings and something to lose ~ Morgan Matson

Things fall apart, it's scientific. ~ David Byrne

We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. (10) ~ Pema Chodron

Better for things to fall apart a little now, while you can still put them back together, than for you to wait until there's no hope. ~ Noelle Adams

The Bible tells you that real peace is found in resting in the wisdom of the One who holds all of your "what-ifs" and "if-onlys" in his loving hands. Isaiah captures this well with these comforting words: "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you" (Isa. 26:3). Real, sturdy, lasting peace, peace that doesn't rise and fall with circumstances, isn't to be found in picking apart your life until you have understood all of the components. You will never understand it all because God, for your good and his glory, keeps some of it shrouded in mystery. So peace is found only in trust, trust of the One who is in careful control of all the things that tend to rob you of your peace. ~ Paul David Tripp

- "Do you know the difference between us and them.... We are awake. We sense the truth: that something is deeply wrong with the world.... Deep down, they know it too. The feeling ebbs and flows. Some events cover it up for a time: you fall in love, you get a new job, you win the game. You think that's all you needed, that the feeling will go away, but it doesn't. It returns, again and again. Our species has become exceedingly adept at covering up the feeling. We work ourselves to death. We buy things. We go to parties and ball games. We laugh, shout, and cheer - and worse, we fight, and argue, and say things we don't mean. Alcohol and drugs quiet the most acute episodes. But we are constantly keeping the beast at bay. Underneath it all, our subconscious is crying out for help. For a solution - a cure for the root problem. We're all suffering from the same thing."
- "Which is?"
- "We've been told that it's simply the human condition. But that's not true. Our problem is really very simple: the world is not as it seems."
- "Then what is it?"
- "Science gives you one answer. Religious texts offer countless others. But the human population is slowly tiring of those answers. They are starting not to believe. They are awakening - and that awakening will soon tear the world apart. It will be a catastrophe with no equal. ~ A.G. Riddle

Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters. ~ John Green

When things fall apart, the broken pieces allow all sorts of things to enter, and one of them is the presence of God. ~ Shauna Niequist

Entropy is just a fancy way of saying: things fall apart. ~ Dan Brown

Bad things happen to everyone, but when they do, you can't just fall apart and die. You have to fight back. ~ Alexandra Monir

The word normal would lose all of its meaning if it didn't have an opposite. And if there were no normal people, the world would probably fall apart - because it's normal people who take care of all the normal things like making sure there is food at the grocery store and delivering the mail and putting up traffic lights and making sure our toilets work properly and growing food on farms and flying airplanes safely and making sure the president of the United States has clean suits to wear. ~ Matthew Quick

I've not really had a bad Christmas. Apart from serious things, like when my father died. He rather spoiled the party and I've never forgiven him for falling off the twig on Christmas Day. ~ John Nettles

He glanced over at Luthar, sneering down into his bowl as though it was full of piss. No respect. He glanced over at Ferro, staring yellow knives at him through narrowed eyes. No trust. He shook his head sadly. Without trust and respect the group would fall apart in a fight like walls without mortar.
Still, Logen had won over tougher audiences, in his time. Threetrees, Tul Duru, Black Dow, Harding Grim, he'd fought each one in single combat, and beaten them all. Spared each man's life, and left him bound to follow. Each one had tried their best to kill him, and with good reasons too, but in the end Logen had earned their trust, and their respect, and their friendship even. Small gestures and a lot of time, that was how he'd done it. 'Patience is the chief of virtues,' his father used to say, and 'you won't cross the mountains in a day.' Time might be against them, but there was nothing to be gained by rushing. You have to be realistic about these things. ~ Joe Abercrombie

When you have a family, even though you might move a lot, you collect all of these things. It's the detritus of your family and they become the symbols of your family life, and your unit out in the world. In that moment I wanted to allude to the fact that the way my parents' relationship was falling apart was impacting me and my brother, my parents, but also our symbols. ~ Jesmyn Ward

Mondays are for baklava, which she learned to make by watching her parents. Her mother said that a baklava-maker should have sensitive, supple hands, so she was in charge of opening and unpeeling the paper-thin layers of dough and placing them in a stack in the tray. Her father was in charge of pastry-brushing each layer of dough with a coat of drawn butter. It was systematic yet graceful: her mother carefully unpeeling each layer and placing them in the tray where Sirine's father painted them. It was important to move quickly so that the unbuttered layers didn't dry out and start to fall apart. This was one of the ways that Sirine learned how her parents loved each other- their concerted movements like a dance; they swam together through the round arcs of her mother's arms and her father's tender strokes. Sirine was proud when they let her paint a layer, prouder when she was able to pick up one of the translucent sheets and transport it to the tray- light as raw silk, fragile as a veil.
On Tuesday morning, however, Sirine has overslept. She's late to work and won't have enough time to finish preparing the baklava before starting breakfast. She could skip a day of the desserts and serve the customers ice cream and figs or coconut cookies and butter cake from the Iranian Shusha Bakery two doors down. But the baklava is important- it cheers the students up. They close their eyes when they bite into its crackling layers, all lightness and scent of orange blossoms.
And ~ Diana Abu-Jaber

People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it's the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart. ~ Markus Zusak

He saw himself and his fathers crowding round their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and sacrifice and finding nothing but ashes of bygone days.. ~ Chinua Achebe

There were moments ... when it seemed that all one could be asked was just to keep the ashtrays clean, the bed made, the wastebaskets emptied, as if one never got to the real things because of the constant exhausting battle to keep ordinary life from falling apart. ~ May Sarton

You lose when you take time to fall apart just when things are starting to unravel around you," I tell him in an almost muted tone. "You can eventually have your moment of weakness; you just have to be patient. ~ Kristy Cunning

I would say that nobody is going to work harder for your career than yourself - the one with the vision. No matter how many people you hire, nobody is going to get is as much as yourself does. So it's really important to be your own leader at all times and not hand it all off, otherwise the whole empire will fall apart. ~ Skylar Grey

You were standin' way too close to see it fall apart. And there were things you couldn't hear, 'cause you were listening with your heart. ~ Garth Brooks

Who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted [Nwoye's] young soul
the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul. ~ Chinua Achebe

Life is the most effective school ever created. Once upon a time they made children bow their heads and read books. It would take ages to get anything across." He taps his head. "But we have widgets and datapads now, and we Golds have the lower Colors to do our research. We need not study chemistry or physics. We have computers and others to do that. What we must study is humanity. In order to rule, ours must be the study of political, psychological, and behavioral science - how desperate human beings react to one another, how packs form, how armies function, how things fall apart and why. You could learn this nowhere else but here. ~ Pierce Brown