Quotes About Feeling Awful

“Of course he knew what kinds of thoughts these were: the not-always-true ones, conveniently forgetting the other times, when he and Christine had bickered at the smallest thing, aggravated by the other's mere constant presence, and sometimes even said awful things
irreversible and stinging
that lingered like a foul odor for a long time afterward. Then there were long stretches of calm. And yet the bickering, the irritation, that too was part of the delicate glue that kept them together, still feeling something, even when they grew, sometimes for long periods, bored with each other, tired of each other, before settling back into their more usual, tamed and tamped down but still real and extant love.”

— Daphne Kalotay

“Andrea worked to harden herself to the onslaught of feelings. The problem with feelings was, first you had one, which was generally bad enough. But then you had a feeling about your feeling, and then a feeling about how you were feeling about your feeling, and then another feeling would pop up at the sight of it all, this teetering pyramid of emotion, and all of it would look wrong to Andrea, all her feeling somehow incorrect, too much or too little, too soft or too hard, and another feeling would emerge at the thought of that. It was endless, having feelings. And god forbid someone noticed you having them, as Sophie just had. Then you had feelings about that, about having been seen, and more feelings still about the other person's feelings. Oh, it was awful.”

— Michelle Tea

“Do vampyres play chess? Were there vampyre dorks? How about Barbie-like vampyre cheerleaders? Did any vampyres play in the band? Were there vampyre Emos with their guy-wearing-girl's-pants weirdness and those awful bangs that cover half their faces? Or were they all those freaky Goth kids who didn't like to bathe much? Was I going to turn into a Goth kid? Or worse, an Emo? I didn't particularly like wearing black, at least not exclusively, and I wasn't feeling a sudden and unfortunate aversion to soap and water, nor did I have an obsessive desire to change my hairstyle and wear too much eyeliner.”

— Kristin Cast

“It must be an awful feeling to have love all around you and not feel loved, to be in need and unable to accept whats being offered, to see a world of possibilities but trapped inside your own mind.”

— Tracy L. Darity

“It took me years to stop feeling the guilt she made sure I kept feeling about what happened with him. He is a sick person that molests children, but I felt so bad about it for so long. I couldn't talk to a single person about any of this. No one. And she made me feel so bad about it all that I felt I shouldn't talk about it, even if there was someone. I felt ashamed and thought I was an awful person. Sometimes I still do. My mother abandoned me in the worst ways possible.”

— Ashly Lorenzana

“But what Andy never understood about him was this: he was an optimist. Every month, every week, he chose to open his eyes, to live another day in the world. He did it when he was feeling so awful that sometimes the pain seemed to transport him to another state, one in which everything, even the past that he worked so hard to forget, seemed to fade into a gray watercolor wash. He did it when his memories crowded out all other thoughts, when it took real effort, real concentration, to tether himself to his current life, to keep himself from raging with despair and shame. He did it when he was so exhausted of trying, when being awake and alive demanded such energy that he had to lie in bed thinking of reasons to get up and try again,”

— Hanya Yanagihara

“He was an optimist. Every month, every week, he chose to open his eyes, to live another day in the world. He did it when he was feeling so awful that sometimes the pain seemed to transport him to another state, one in which everything, even the past that he worked so hard to forget, seemed to fade into a gray watercolor wash.”

— Hanya Yanagihara

“Did you ever think about boys?' I say, staring up into the dark.
'There wasn't room,' she whispers, and her voice is unbelievably sad. 'At first, after Connor, I was just waiting. I was going to get a new boyfriend soon- as soon as I was prettier or better, more perfect. But after a while there was no room for anything else. If I though about kissing or sex, I just started feeling ugly, too awful for anything good.”

— Brenna Yovanoff

“It is an awful, just sickening feeling, I discovered, to live with somebody, to exist in the midst of sharing a life, only to realize it is utterly doomed. It was botulism of the soul. I'd had such ambition for building a life together, because I wanted that strength of character and security. But I had overlooked the most important thing: he wasn't right for me. I wasn't right for him. Merely wanting us to be right and good together wasn't enough.”

— Augusten Burroughs

“Saint, hurting is how you know it's real. If he didn't matter, if he was just some guy, even back then it wouldn't have lasted with you the way it has. You can't run from feeling things, even if some of those things are awful, because love opens you up to experiencing emotions you haven't ever felt before.”

— Jay Crownover

“There are certain human truths, like death, that nobody gets to escape, and pain, which everybody not only feels but needs. You have to go through it. So for everybody, at some point-very often for teenagers-the world is a terrible place. The world is a giant, awful black hole of evil conspiracy. Sometimes that's because you have perspective on what the world's really like, and sometimes it's because you've completely lost perspective and you're having a terrible day. But no matter what, everybody shares that feeling, and life is kind of about your ways around that, your ways around certain truths.”

— Joss Whedon

“I was dyslexic before anybody knew what dyslexia was. I was called 'slow'. It's an awful feeling to think of yourself as 'slow' - it's horrible.”

— Robert Benton

“I feel dead, wasted, awful, broken and useless. It's not the kind of feeling you forget.”

— Ned Vizzini

“The terror-the terror, the terror-lingered, and there was something else. It came with the dream, every time, and didn't recede with it but stayed like something a tide had washed in. Something awful-a rank leviathan corpse left to rot on the shore of her mind. It was remorse. But god, that was too bloodless a word for it,. This feeling the dream left her with, it was knives of panic and horror resting bright atop a red and meaty wound-fester of guilt.”

— Laini Taylor

“All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I've never given them more than a passing
thought before. Not just stars - how many other things haven't I noticed in the world , things I know nothing about? I suddenly feel helpless, completely powerless. And I know I'll never outrun that awful feeling.”

— Haruki Murakami

“The stranger's first feeling, when suddenly confronted by that towering and awful apparition wrapped in its shroud of snow, is breath-taking astonishment. It is as if heaven's gates had swung open and exposed the throne. (Twain on seeing the Jungfrau.)”

— Mark Twain

“There was some faint coughing, a moan, and then a man spoke. "Are you all right, darling?" he asked. "Yes," a woman said wearily. "Yes, I'm all right, I guess," and then she added with great feeling, "But you know, Charlie, I don't feel like myself anymore. Sometimes there are about fifteen or twenty minutes in the week when I feel like myself. I don't like to go to another doctor, because the doctor's bills are so awful already, but I just don't feel like myself, Charlie. I just never feel like myself.”

— John Cheever

“It just gets frustrating playing the girlfriend, It's just this awful feeling, sitting in your house, waiting for a script to come. I like to be more proactive.”

— Joey Lauren Adams

“It gives a fellow an awful shiver to hear the first shovelful of dirt and gravel rattle down upon the coffin; but after it is covered, it falls gently and makes no sound. The feeling of rest is perfect. There's no more nagging, no more pain!”

— William Morris Hunt

“The animalism of the brute nature in man is disgusting," he thought, "but as long as it remains in its naked form we observe it from the height of our spiritual life and despise it; and-whether one has fallen or resisted-one remains what one was before. But when that same animalism hides under a cloak of poetry and æsthetic feeling and demands our worship-then we are swallowed up by it completely and worship animalism, no longer distinguishing good from evil. Then it is awful!”

— Leo Tolstoy

“You got no one, then?' she asked.
'No one but enemies.'
'Why aren't you fighting them?'
'Fighting? It's got me everything I have.' And he held his big empty hands up to show her. 'Nothing but an evil reputation and an awful lot of men with a burning need to kill me. Fighting? Hah! The better you are at it, the worse off it leaves you. I've settled some scores, and that can feel grand, but the feeling don't last long. Vengeance won't keep you warm nights, and that's a fact. Overrated. Won't do on its own. You need something else.'
Ferro shook her head. 'You expect too much out of life, pink.'
He grinned. 'And here was me thinking you expect too little.'
'Expect nothing and you won't be disappointed.'
'Expect nothing and you'll get nothing.'
Ferro scowled at him. That was the thing about talk. Somehow it always took her where she did not want to go. Lack of practice, maybe.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“It's hard not to hate. People, things, institutions. When they break your spirit and take pleasure in watching you bleed, hate is the only feeling that makes sense. That's what I need to tell you. To let you know how hard I'm trying not to cave under the weight of all the awful things I feel in my heart. When I look at my day, I realize most of it was spent cleaning up the damage of the day before. In that life I have no future. All I have is distraction and remorse.”

— J-Ax

“Awful to think she was a disapproving mother. Awful to wonder-had she always frightened Amy? Is that why the girl had grown up so fearful, always ducking her head? It was bewildering to Isablle. Bewildering that you could harm a child without even knowing, thinking all the while you were being careful, conscientious. But it was a terrible feeling. More terrible than having Avery Clark forget to come to her house. Knowing that her child had grown up frightened. Except it was cockeyed, all backwards, because, thought Isabelle, glancing back at her daughter, I've been frightened of you.”

— Elizabeth Strout

“There is no doubt that the reason for my awful oversight was over-confidence that sapped my sense of danger. So that is where to look for the cause of bad blunders - in the exulting feeling of self-congratulation.”

— Alexander Kotov

“What is so nice & so unexpected about life is the way it improves as it goes along. I think you should impress this fact on your children because I think young people have an awful feeling that life is slipping past them & they must do something - catch something - they don't quite know what, whereas they've only got to wait & it all comes.”

— Nancy Mitford

“It is impossible for the mind which is not totally destitute of piety, to behold the sublime, the awful, the amazing works of creation and providence; the heavens with their luminaries, the mountains, the ocean, the storm, the earthquake, and the volcano; the circuit of the seasons and the revolutions of empires; without marking in them all the mighty hand of God, and feeling strong emotions of reverence toward the Author of these stupendous works.”

— Timothy Dwight V

“There's something about [pain] that excites me. If I'm feeling really awful about something, it's because I haven't experienced it before. There's something I need to learn from it.”

— Rachael Yamagata

“There's no healthy life possible without some sensual feeling between the husband and wife, but there's nothing in the world more awful than married life when it's the only common ground.”

— Dorothy Canfield Fisher

“I do everything I watch, whether it's like a big comic book film that I've done or something very serious and raw.I do have that initial feeling like I'm the worst, this is awful, my work is - I've let everybody down. I definitely have that.”

— Eva Mendes

“I always feel as if I stood naked for the fire of Almighty God to go through me
and it's rather an awful feeling. One has to be so terribly religious to be an artist.”

— D.H. Lawrence

“It's the beginning of your day. You awake and look around you, feeling perhaps a joyful expectation, or perhaps an awful dread. No matter which, remember this: God loves you with an infinite love.”

— Marianne Williamson