Toll Quotes

The thing that happened in Washington
it happened. All you can do is just grow from it. That took a toll on me. That was probably
I think if I could've bounced mentally out of that situation faster than I did, I would probably still be in the NBA. But since I couldn't understand why they were trying to treat me like that, I basically gave up. I just didn't want to be a part of it anymore. ~ Gilbert Arenas

As the current U.S.-Israel assault raged, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman explained that Israel's tactics in the current attack, as in its invasion of Lebanon in 2006, are based on the sound principle of "trying to 'educate' Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population." That makes sense on pragmatic grounds, as it did in Lebanon, where "the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians - the families and employers of the militants - to restrain Hezbollah in the future."10 And by similar logic, bin Laden's effort to "educate" Americans on 9/11 was highly praiseworthy, as were the Nazi attacks on Lidice and Oradour, Putin's destruction of Grozny, and other notable educational exercises. ~ Noam Chomsky

But sixteen years without optimism had taken a heavy toll; ~ Salman Rushdie

And then I heard them lift a box, And creak across my soul With those same boots of lead, again, Then space began to toll. ~ Emily Dickinson

At least 600,000 men died in the Civil War. Major battles numbered the dead in the thousands; even minor skirmishes killed hundreds...Then why study the death of thirteen men?... Mass death numbs the mind and heart as it numbers its vast toll. Relief from the horror is less possible when we watch old Joe Woods and thirteen-year-old David Shelton plead for life - and then die. ~ Phillip Shaw Pauadan

By the time Brand Appleton reached the castle grounds, he had acquired a significant crowd. Never in the history of Toll had one man needed so many people to arrest him. ~ Frances Hardinge

A lot of people are not used to having death in their lives or anything like that and I think that's not incredibly natural either. So it definitely can take its toll. At the same time I think it's important to face your own mortality, which I do most every day by doing the show, to realize that your life is short and to take the opportunities that you need to take and be fearless. ~ Emily Deschanel

When consumers tried to improve their health by shifting to skim milk, Congress set up a scheme for the powerful dairy industry through which it has quietly turned all that unwanted, surplus fat into huge sales of cheese - not cheese to be eaten before or after dinner as a delicacy, but cheese that is slipped into our food as an alluring but unnecessary extra ingredient. The toll, thirty years later: The average American now consumes as much as thirty-three pounds of cheese a year. ~ Michael Moss

I was glad to have the opportunity, but now I am glad to be rid of it. The constant violence, or the impending threat of it, and the toll of seeing so many casualties, over time, has enveloped me in an environment that weighs as heavily as a wool shroud even on pleasant days. To be the tiller at the wheel of man's hatred for man should be a tour of duty, not a career. - Ashley Crandall ~ Chris Onstad

Sala-manda-stron, look out here we come,
A thief a warrior and a mole.
Though the quest may take its toll,
We'll march until we reach our goal,
~ Brian Jacques

Grief took a terrible toll. It was paid at every birthday, every holiday, each Christmas. It was paid when glimpsing the familiar handwriting, or a hat, or a balled-up sock. Or hearing a creak that could have been, should have been, a footstep. Grief took its toll each morning, each evening, every noon hour as those who were left behind struggled forward. ~ Louise Penny

It was too early for me to interact with the living, and in spite of my general fondness for Sera, she still was another entity and thus a toll on my exhausted mind. ~ Andrew Rowe

Forever only takes its toll on some ~ Ryan Adams

'Grey Gardens' consumed my life for over two and a half years. It really takes its toll on the family. I'm not there to tuck them in, help them with homework and eat dinner with them. When I work on a show, I only have about 20 minutes a day with my family. ~ Christine Ebersole

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me ... -toll
The silver iterance! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When you have kids and you're married ... you know, life takes its toll on you after a while, and then you're just not as creative, you're not as motivated ... And it takes a special person when it's time to dig down and do a record, to really go in there and pour out whatever it is you got in you to put on a record, and that's what we did. ~ Ginuwine

St. Louis is more humid. But after a while, the heat started taking a toll on us, so we started rotating a little more up front trying to stay fresh out here. ~ Leonard Little

Exclusion [of evidence] exacts a heavy toll on both the judicial system and society at large. It almost always requires courts to ignore reliable, trustworthy evidence bearing on guilt or innocence. And its bottom-line effect, in many cases, is to suppress the truth and set the criminal loose in the community without punishment. [internal citations omitted] ~ Samuel Alito

If ever I to the moment shall say:
Beautiful moment, do not pass away!
Then you may forge your chains to bind me,
Then I will put my life behind me,
Then let them hear my death-knell toll,
Then from your labours you'll be free,
The clock may stop, the clock-hands fall,
And time come to an end for me! ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Strangely, the greater the debilitating toll poverty takes on the lives of America's schoolchildren, the more taboo discussions of poverty have become. ~ Linsey McGoey

According to the CDC, cigarettes kill over 435,000 people a year in the United States. Most of us in Danbury were locked away for trading in illegal drugs. The annual death toll of illegal drug addicts, according to the same government study? Seventeen thousand. Heroin or coffin nails, you be the judge. ~ Piper Kerman

It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll. ~ Oswald Chambers

This is what happens to the brain of those living with mental illnesses (more accurately, "brain illnesses"). The brain does not function as it should; life is out of control. The brain alters our bodies; thoughts are distorted, emotions are unregulated, and behaviors we once thought could never occur happen. One of the most challenging, exhausting, and painful phenomena we do as humans is to live and survive with these changes in our minds. The toll it takes on an individual's body and the people in their lives is, tragically, often too much to bear.

-Dr. Daniel J. Reidenberg ~ Kevin Hines

What about me?' said Grantaire. 'I'm here.'
'You?'
'Yes, me.'
'You? Rally Republicans! You? In defence of principles, fire up hearts that have grown cold!'
'Why not?'
'Are you capable of being good for something?'
'I have the vague ambition to be,' said Grantaire.
'You don't believe in anything.'
'I believe in you.'
'Grantaire, will you do me a favour?'
'Anything. Polish your boots.'
'Well, don't meddle in our affairs. Go and sleep off the effects of your absinthe.'
'You're heartless, Enjolras.'
'As if you'd be the man to send to the Maine gate! As if you were capable of it!'
'I'm capable of going down Rue des Grès, crossing Place St-Michel, heading off along Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, taking Rue de Vaugirard, passing the Carmelite convent, turning into Rue d'Assas, proceeding to Rue du Cherche-Midi, leaving the Military Court behind me, wending my way along Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, striding across the boulevard, following Chaussée du Maine, walking through the toll-gate and going into Richefeu's. I'm capable of that. My shoes are capable of that.'
'Do you know them at all, those comrades who meet at Richefeu's?'
'Not very well. But we're on friendly terms.'
'What will you say to them?'
'I'll talk to them about Robespierre, of course! And about Danton. About principles.'
'You?'
'Yes, me. But I'm not being given the credit I deserve. When I put my mind to it, I'm terrific. I've ~ Victor Hugo

Life will take its toll on all of us. We get injured, we get old. It's really sad to try to run away from these harsh realities of life. Looks are not everything. I am not going to look beautiful all the time. ~ Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

I knew people were dying around me on the railway but I didn't really want to know. It was too dispiriting. It was difficult to judge the full toll of casualties and by this stage I had become so self-obsessed, in a true mental battle just to get through each day. I had very few friends at Hellfire Pass and most of us were the same. We all worked so hard that, just trying to survive, each person became more and more insular as it became more difficult. It required a superhuman effort to make it to the end of each day. ~ Alistair Urquhart

The worst stories usually make you think: 'but nobody had to die'.
These are called true stories. ~ Moonshine Noire

Let's all forsake,
The Land of Wake,
And break for the Land of Nod.

Where we can try,
To touch the sky,
Or dance beneath the sod.

A toll for the living,
A toll for the lost,
A toll for the wise ones,
Who tally the cost,

So let's escape,
Due south of Wake,
And make for the Land of Nod. ~ Neal Shusterman

I long for the luxury of being impractical. ~ Neal Shusterman

Until yesterday Mosca had been trapped between two rivers, desperate to get out before winter arrived. Toll had looked like her only means of escape. Now, however, she wondered if she had traded one prison for another, a smaller prison with high walls. If she was not out of it before her allotted time as a visitor ended, then the mysterious night town with its twilight cacophony would claim her. ~ Frances Hardinge

He looked up at her. Age and worry had taken their toll on her frail body, but she was kind and beautiful. And for a moment, memories and thoughts swam to the surface, the world coming into utter clarity. And all of them revolved around Amanda, his wife of fifty years. ~ Crissy Moss

Catching frogs can take a toll on your body. I have repeatedly been battered and actually was knocked out cold when I dove headfirst into a cypress tree. One time, I jumped out of a boat to catch a frog in a thicket, and as I lunged to grab the frog, a purple poisonous thorn stuck me behind the ear. I vomited for three days and my face was badly swollen. If it had stuck me in the temple, I probably would have died. My greatest frog catch occurred after our boat ran aground. I saw the biggest bullfrog I've ever seen! The problem was, there were three snakes in between the frog and me: a cottonmouth water moccasin, a nonvenomous water snake, and then a bigger fish snake. Undeterred, I triple-jumped the three snakes and grabbed the frog in one swoop. Then I triple-jumped back the other way without getting bit. It probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, but, hey, I got the frog! ~ Jase Robertson

Gavar tipped back the last of the malt. He should go easy on it, he knew. He didn't want to end up like Father. But lately he'd been feeling the need for a little pick-me-up. He was still getting the headaches that had been plaguing him ever since Libby was born. That was one thing they never told you about fatherhood: the constant worry, and the toll it took. ~ Vic James

wreckage before the sun went down. The final toll was a hundred and two. Eighty-eight of the dead were children. On the following Wednesday, while the city still lay in stunned silent contemplation of the tragedy, a woman found the head of nine-year-old Robert Dohay caught in the limbs of her back-yard apple tree. There was chocolate on the Dohay lad's teeth and blood in his hair. He was the last of the known dead. Eight children and one adult were never accounted for. It was the worst tragedy in Derry's history, even worse than the fire at the Black Spot in 1930, and it was never explained. All four of the Ironworks' boilers were shut down. Not just banked; shut down. But: ~ Stephen King

Unix is like a toll road on which you have to stop every 50 feet to pay another nickel. But hey! You only feel 5 cents poorer each time. ~ Larry Wall

America today is in danger of drifting from its best traditions. We have allowed false prophets of selfishness to obscure our vision. We have grown numb to a creeping cynicism about progress and public life. We crave human connection yet hide behind walls. We worship the money chase yet decry the toll it exacts on us. We allow the market to dominate our lives, relationships, yearnings and aspirations. We indulge in nostalgia and irony and addictive entertainment, then purge from our hearts any true idealism or passion, any notion that being American should mean something more than "everyday low prices" or "every man for himself." In the midst of this dislocation and disorientation, so many Americans today yearn for higher purpose, for calling
for some assurance that life matters. We wish to believe there is more to our days than is revealed on our screens. Make no mistake: this is a spiritual crisis. ~ Eric Liu

He was having one of those lucid moments that make you, as a loved one of an Alzheimer's victim, forget for a minute or two that this is all really happening.

You can forget about the disease and its toll and confusion and suddenly engage with the same person with whom you conversed profoundly for so many years, until it all started to go haywire. In that moment I wanted to know what I think so many Alzheimer's caregivers crave to understand: Do you know what has become of you? Can you, so lucid now, see how you act when you are not like you are now? Does it make you sad? Does it make you ashamed?

The reprieve right there at the red light was momentary, even illusory. But there for the taking, right in front of me--so obvious that I almost panicked over what to talk about. Do we discuss his beloved baseball? His beloved grandchildren? Me--how I'm doing, how much I miss him?

No. As much out of curiosity as concern, I wanted to talk about him.

"Dad," I said, "you are losing your mind. You know that. How does that make you feel? How are you doing with that?"

"I'm doing the best I can with what God has given me," he said. ~ Mark Shriver

I'm trying to decide
Which way to go
I think I made a wrong turn back there somewhere
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Tried to move but I lost my way
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Stopped to watch my emotions sway
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Knew the toll, but I would not pay
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Cause you never know where the cards may lay
Time to save the world
Where in the world is all the time
So many things I still don't know
So many times I've changed my mind
Guess I was born to make mistakes
But I ain't scared to take the weight
So when I stumble off the path
I know my heart will guide me back ~ Erykah Badu

Jealousy appears to be a redoubtable pitfall for love, on the toll road of self-absorption and unshareability. When love has to remain cloistered and ostentatiously exclusionary, envy may show its pernicious power, cause wounding harms and unchain emotional twisters. ("Why has Shé got stars in the sky?") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Dad would call it my Sisyphus toll. Push a boulder up a hill, pretending it's okay, and come nightfall it - and I - come crashing down. But he forgets the view each time I make it to the top. ~ Marieke Nijkamp

I think I'm in better shape now than I was 10 years ago, but it takes a bigger toll - I get back pain! ~ Alessandra Ambrosio

Discrimination and multiple deprivations of human rights are also frequently part of the problem, sentencing entire populations to poverty ... It is surely a matter of outrage that over half a million women die annually from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. This is nearly half the annual global death toll, and arguably, a direct reflection of the disempowerment of women in social, economic and political life. ~ Navi Pillay

Stress is never a given. There are people who get divorced amicably. There are people who pack up and move with no emotional toll. There is no stressor 'out there' in the world. We experience stress - or we don't - depending on what we believe. ~ Andrew J. Bernstein

The Call to Discipleship And as he passed by he saw Levi, the son of Alpaeus, sitting at the place of toll, and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. (Mark 2.14) THE CALL goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus. How could the call immediately evoke obedience? ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Do not forget that the Arab countries, starting with Algeria and Egypt, are the ones that have paid the heaviest toll because of Islamic terror. ~ Omar Bongo

Caring burns a lot of fuel - psychological and physical, too, if any lifting is involved. The energy tank is soon emptied, and the toll caring takes is well documented. It's called carer burn-out. ~ Laurie Graham

How heavy is the toll of sins and wrong that wealth, power and prestige exact from man. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

People should be entrusted with their own lives. People must be independent in every respect. No one should own anything. Property should be free like people are. The roads should not belong to any one person, in order to stop someone from collecting tolls from travelers. A priest shouldn't take a toll for prayers. A farmhand shouldn't take a toll for the fruits of the earth. The phone company shouldn't take a toll for conversations. Totally free of charge, like the fetus's time inside the mother continues to be after its birth. ~ Kristin Omarsdottir

To care only about your pain and suffering, and disregard the emotional toll of others is hypocritically sub-human. ~ Willie D

They say that life is a highway and its milestones are the years,And now and then there's a toll-gate where you buy your way with tears.It's a rough road and a steep road and it stretches broad and far,But at last it leads to a golden Town where golden Houses are. ~ Joyce Kilmer

The funeral pyre technique was abandoned when it became apparent how great was the toll. There was not enough labor to do it nicely, so a man with a flame-thrower was sent down instead, and he cremated them where they lay. Burned alive, suffocated, crushed - men, women, and children indiscriminately killed. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

The bells which toll for mankind are - most of them, anyway - like the bells of Alpine cattle; they are attached to our own necks, and it must be our fault if they do not make a cheerful and harmonious sound. ~ Peter Medawar

Management is a seven-days-a-week job. The Intensity of it takes it toll on your health. Some people want to go on for ever, and I obviously don't. ~ Kenny Dalglish

Perception requires imagination because the data people encounter in their lives are never complete and always equivocal. For example, most people consider that the greatest evidence of an event one can obtain is to see it with their own eyes, and in a court of law little is held in more esteem than eyewitness testimony. Yet if you asked to display for a court a video of the same quality as the unprocessed data catptured on the retina of a human eye, the judge might wonder what you were tryig to put over. For one thing, the view will have a blind spot where the optic nerve attaches to the retina. Moreover, the only part of our field of vision with good resolution is a narrow area of about 1 degree of visual angle around the retina's center, an area the width of our thumb as it looks when held at arm's length. Outside that region, resolution drops off sharply. To compensate, we constantly move our eyes to bring the sharper region to bear on different portions of the scene we wish to observe. And so the pattern of raw data sent to the brain is a shaky, badly pixilated picture with a hole in it. Fortunately the brain processes the data, combining input from both eyes, filling in gaps on the assumption that the visual properties of neighboring locations are similar and interpolating. The result - at least until age, injury, disease, or an excess of mai tais takes its toll - is a happy human being suffering from the compelling illusion that his or her vision is sharp and clear.
Leonard Mlodinow

The death toll is not nearly high enough ... too many [jihadists] have escaped. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Sports exact too harsh a toll on our beautiful women. Like engendered species, they should be protected, and instead, we exploit them and demand they fly too close to the sun for our amusement. We send them into the arena for an exhausting three-setter, an 18-hole playoff, a 200th lap. The burnout factor is insurmountable. ~ Kevin Bleyer

But the thought we try to deny
Take a toll upon our lives
We struggle on in depths of pride
Tangled up in single minds. ~ Tonya Hurley

And in a way, this was how he had come to see his death, as a series of small ones taking place over the course of his life and leading finally to the main event, which would be so anti-climatic, so undramatic (a sudden violent seizure in his long abused heart, a quick massive flooding of the brain) it would go unnoticed. It was the small deaths occurring over an entire lifetime that took the greater toll. ~ Paule Marshall

All mankind is of one author," he said slowly, " and is one volume. When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. Then there are bits I havena got by heart, but I liked this one: The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth" - and his hand squeezed mine gently - "and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God." "Hmm." I thought about that for a bit. ~ Diana Gabaldon

We need a Nuremberg to put on trial the economic order that they have imposed on us, that every three years kills more men, women and children by hunger and preventable or curable diseases than the death toll in six years of the second world war. ~ Fidel Castro

These small indignities and minor cruelties take a toll. They add to the burden of stress and fatigue that is already present in the workplace and they have real consequences on the every day lives of workers. ~ P. M. Forni

Lie on!' cried the usurer, 'with your iron tongue! Ring merrily for births that make expectants writhe, and marriages that are made in hell, and toll ruefully for the dead whose shoes are worn already! Call men to prayers who are godly because not found out, and ring chimes for the coming in of every year that brings this cursed world nearer to it's end.
No bell or book for me! Throw me on a dunghill, and let me rot there, to infect the air! ~ Charles Dickens

New technologies are wreaking havoc on employment figures - from EZpasses ousting toll collectors to Google-controlled self-driving automobiles rendering taxicab drivers obsolete. ~ Douglas Rushkoff

When the death toll among British troops was added to that of the carriers the official 'butcher's bill' in the East Africa campaign exceeded 100,000 souls. The true figure was undoubtedly much higher: as many a British official admitted, 'the full tale of the mortality among [the] native carriers will never be told'.2 Even 100,000 deaths is a sobering enough figure. It is almost double the number of Australian or Canadian or Indian troops who gave their lives in the Great War; indeed it is equivalent to the combined casualties - the dead and wounded - sustained by Indian troops. It is as if the entire African workforce employed at the time in the mines of South Africa had been wiped out. Yet the East Africa campaign remains, by and large, a forgotten theatre of war. ~ Edward Paice

We're so marinated in the culture of speed that we almost fail to notice the toll it takes on every aspect of our lives - on our health, our diet, our work, our relationships, the environment and our community. ~ Carl Honore

Wrong turns just added more to who you are. I didn't know that they also add to the toll you must pay to go back. ~ Vikki Wakefield

The refusal to feel takes a heavy toll. Not only is there an impoverishment of our emotional and sensory life, flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstaticâ but this psychic numbing also impedes our capacity to process and respond to information. The energy expended in pushing down despair is diverted from more creative uses, depleting the resilience and imagination needed for fresh visions and strategies. ~ Joanna Macy

Hollywood can be a draining industry. For all the glitz and glory and wonderful parts of our business, it takes it's toll on your inner self. ~ Amber Heard

The incredible benefits of practising and applying mindfulness and self-compassion in the workplace are being increasingly recognised by human resource professionals as well as the medical profession, as the stresses of competing in today's global economy take their toll on the mental health and emotional wellbeing of many otherwise talented and enthusiastic individuals in the workplace. ~ Christopher Dines

I swallowed and bit my lower lip, "Maybe freedom is never truly free, as they say," I said into his green eyes, "it comes with a price, and sooner or later, time will come to collect its toll. ~ Julia J. Gibbs

Writing pornography is deadly, nothing duller. I mean a toll-taker has a more exciting life than a pornographer. ~ Fran Lebowitz

Twenty-four years of sneaking cola drinks for breakfast had finally taken its toll, and she had been tossed into sugar-induced hallucination. ~ Lynn Kurland

Are you sure you don't remember? Your mind seems to be working just fine to me."
"You know what? Just forget it. Whatever it was, I forgive you. Give me my backpack so I can go back to the office. We're about to get busted anyway, just standing here."
"If you really do forgive me, then you wouldn't still be going to the office." He tightens his hold on the strap of my backpack.
"Ohmysweetgoodness, Galen, why are we even having this conversation? You don't even know me. What do you care if I change my schedule?" I know I'm being rude. The guy offered to carry my things and walk me to class. And depending on which version of the story I believe, he either asked me out on Monday already, or he did it indirectly a few seconds ago. None of it makes any sense. Why me? Without any effort, I can think of at least ten girls who beat me out in looks, personality, and darker foundation. And Galen could pull any of them.
"What, you don't have a question for my question?" I ask after a few seconds.
"It just seems silly for you to change your schedule over a disagreement about when the Titanic-"
I throw my hands up at him. "Don't you see how weird this is for me?"
"I'm trying to, Emma. I really am. But I think you've had a tough couple of weeks, and it's taking a toll on you. You said every time you're around me something bad happens. But you can't really know for sure that's true, unless you spend more time with me. You should at least acknowledge that." ~ Anna Banks

If you don't enjoy it, then putting in the long hours is going to take their toll. If you don't enjoy it, then putting in the long hours is going to take their toll. ~ Karrie Webb

With 'Noontide Toll', I wanted to cater to a single story but also collectively more than a single story. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

Making a movie takes a toll on your life because it's a commitment, so you put a lot on the back burner. ~ Michael Eklund

As a culture, we've become upset by the tobacco companies advertising to children, but we sit idly by while the food companies do the very same thing. And we could make a claim that the toll taken on the public health by a poor diet rivals that taken by tobacco. ~ Michael Moss

I scowled listening to my back cracking and popping.
Either i was getting old, Wade had fucked me out of alignment, or the stress of the past week had taken more of a toll than I had previously allowed myself to imagine. ~ Ethan Day

There is another problem. Echo chambers can lead people to believe in falsehoods, and it may be difficult or impossible to correct them. Falsehoods take a toll. One illustration is the belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. As falsehoods go, this one is not the most damaging, but it both reflected and contributed to a politics of suspicion, distrust, and sometimes hatred. A ~ Cass R. Sunstein

That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. "& that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. "& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. "& that nobody is wished to see my dead body. "& that no mourners walk behind me at my funeral. "& that no flowers be planted on my grave, "& that no man remember me. "To this I put my name. ~ Thomas Hardy

There's a terrible truth for many women in the picture business: Aging typically takes its toll and means fewer and less desirable roles. ~ Maureen O'Hara

But too much reading had taken its toll. William found that he now thought of prayer as a sophisticated way of pleading with thunderstorms. ~ Terry Pratchett

Practicing self-love means learning how to trust ourselves, to treat ourselves with respect, and to be kind and affectionate toward ourselves. This is a tall order give how hard most of us are on ourselves. I know I can talk to myself in ways that I would never consider talking to another person. How many of us are quick to think, "God, I am so stupid" and "Man, I'm such an Idiot."? Just like calling someone we love stupid or an idiot would be incongruent with practicing love, talking like that to ourselves takes a serious toll on our self-love ~ Brene Brown

Children of the future, watching empires fall. Madness the cup they drink from, self destruction the toll. ~ Ozzy Osbourne

You see, the Highway to Hell is a toll road. Someone has to pay. And, guess what? It ain't gonna be me. ~ John Geddes

In Stalin's famous words, one death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic. In this case, it is not even a particularly good statistic. The very incomprehensibility of what a million horrible and violent deaths might mean, and the impossibility of producing an appropriate response, is perhaps the reason that the events following partition have yielded such a great and moving body of fictional literature and such an inadequate and flimsy factual history. What does it matter to the readers of history today whether there were 200,000 deaths, or 1 million, or 2 million? On that scale, is it possible to feel proportional revulsion, to be five times more upset at 1 million deaths than at 200,000? Few can grasp the awfulness of how it might feel to have their fathers barricaded in their houses and burnt alive, their mothers beaten and thrown off speeding trains, their daughters torn away, raped and branded, their sons held down in full view, screaming and pleading, while a mob armed with rough knives hacked off their hands and feet. All these things happened, and many more like them; not just once, but perhaps a million times. It is not possible to feel sufficient emotion to appreciate this monstrous savagery and suffering. That is the true horror of the events in the Punjab in 1947: one of the vilest episodes in the whole of history, a devastating illustration of the worst excesses to which human beings can succumb. The death toll is just a number. ~ Alex Von Tunzelmann

What I've discovered is that by keeping peace with those who hurt me, I had no peace. Rather, I was in turmoil. I suffered the aftermath of sexual violence. I am the one who has battled for my life. ~ Dana Arcuri

After the Grand Perhaps"

After vespers, after the first snow
has fallen to its squalls, after New Wave,
after the anorexics have curled
into their geometric forms,
after the man with the apparition
in his one bad eye has done red things
behind the curtain of the lid & sleeps,
after the fallout shelter in the elementary school
has been packed with tins & other tangibles,
after the barn boys have woken, startled
by foxes & fire, warm in their hay, every part
of them blithe & smooth & touchable,
after the little vandals have tilted
toward the impossible seduction
to smash glass in the dark, getting away
with the most lethal pieces, leaving
the shards which travel most easily
through flesh as message
on the bathroom floor, the parking lots,
the irresistible debris of the neighbor's yard
where he's been constructing all winter long.
After the pain has become an old known
friend, repeating itself, you can hold on to it.
The power of fright, I think, is as much
as magnetic heat or gravity.
After what is boundless: wind chimes,
fertile patches of the land,
the ochre symmetry of fields in fall,
the end of breath, the beginning
of shadow, the shadow of heat as it moves
the way the night heads west,
I take this road to arrive at its end
where the toll taker passes the night, reading.
I fee ~ Lucie Brock-Broido

It takes an extraordinary toll on me to re-live my experiences, the horrors of my past and the pain I had to endure. And yet, I believe remembering is the only way to promote healing, to promote awareness and accountability. ~ Ger Duany

...Puritanism has made life itself impossible. More than art, more than estheticism, life represents beauty in a thousand variations; it is indeed, a gigantic panorama of eternal change. Puritanism, on the other hand, rests on a fixed and immovable conception of life; it is based on the Calvinistic idea that life is a curse, imposed upon man by the wrath of God. In order to redeem himself man must do constant penance, must repudiate every natural and healthy impulse, and turn his back on joy and beauty.

Puritanism celebrated its reign of terror in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, destroying and crushing every manifestation of art and culture. It was the spirit of Puritanism which robbed Shelley of his children, because he would not bow to the dicta of religion. It was the same narrow spirit which alienated Byron from his native land, because that great genius rebelled against the monotony, dullness, and pettiness of his country. It was Puritanism, too, that forced some of England's freest women into the conventional lie of marriage: Mary Wollstonecraft and, later, George Eliot. And recently Puritanism has demanded another toll--the life of Oscar Wilde. In fact, Puritanism has never ceased to be the most pernicious factor in the domain of John Bull, acting as censor of the artistic expression of his people, and stamping its approval only on the dullness of middle-class respectability. ~ Emma Goldman

Oh, captive, bound, and double-chained!" cried the phantom, "who does not understand the toll of a lifetime of incessant labor by man, an immortal creature! For this flesh must pass into eternity before the good of which it is capable can be understood. How tragic not to know that a Christian spirit working kindly in its little realm of influence, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for the vast opportunities it has to be useful. Not to know that no regret can ever make amends for one missed life's opportunity! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I! ~ Charles Dickens

Being truthful is a necessity because when I'm not being truthful it takes a toll on me. I don't have any room for it in my life. I don't have an across-the-board opinion on honesty in relationships. But for me, personally, it's paramount. ~ Dax Shepard

The waiting began to take its toll. It's a terrifying place. Pressure from the past, pressure from the future. They say too much of either is a mental illness. The future brings anxiety because you don't belong and can't move forward. The past brings depression because you can't go home. Your memories fade and everything you know is gone. ~ Dina Nayeri

Native Americans' families experience living surrounded, living in increasingly small reservations surrounded by the society that destroyed their civilization, and are still stigmatized. For decades and decades, for hundreds of years except in Indian schools, they weren't allowed to speak their language. That stigma takes a terrible toll. ~ Joshua Oppenheimer

By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain. ~ H.G.Wells

Your brain under stress is focused upon surviving and reacting, and less focused upon planning and creating. With chronic stress, your brain learns - and is rewired - to be focused upon survival and reacting only. It has difficulty amping up the area devoted to devising plans for the future. Constant time urgency takes a toll on your body, brain, and emotions. Here ~ Doreen Virtue

I certainly don't like the idea of missionaries. In fact, the whole business fills me with fear and alarm. I don't believe in God, or at least not in the one we've invented for ourselves in England to fulfill our peculiarly English needs, and certainly not in the ones they've invented in America, who supply their servants with toupees, television stations, and, most important, toll-free telephone numbers. I wish that people who did believe in such things would keep them to themselves and not export them to the developing world. ~ Douglas Adams

things started getting better when the people of West Point slum starting singing "No one is coming to save us!" It was a turning point. It meant they understood that local leaders were their best hope for surival. The people were finally in charge of their own future. The story turned from being about the failure of outsiders to the success of community resilience. And in the coming months when West Point slum's death toll fell far short of projections, citizens and local leaders could look at each other and say, "We did this ourselves! ~ Marc Maxmeister

Thus, in moments of catastrophe, when hard decisions needed to be made quickly, all AIs included in their calculations a human death toll governed by a factor called 'pigheadedness'. ~ Neal Asher

All of us are prone to excuse our own mediocre performance. We blame our misfortunes, our disfigurements, our so-called handicaps. Victims of our own rationalization, we say silently to ourselves, 'I'm just too weak,' or 'I'm not cut out for better things.' Others soar beyond our meager accomplishments. Envy and discouragement take their toll. ~ Thomas S. Monson