Quotes About Torment

“All I can think is that when you torment a person ... the soul dies. When the soul dies, I suppose mercy dies, too.”

— Avi

“The silence stretched out between us as I stared at him, the tears blurring my vision as I waited for him to save me from this torment. Surely he could find a way.”

— Kathryn Michaels

“He was a silent fury who no torment could tame.”

— Jack London

“When a power elite wants to destroy an enemy nation, it turns to propaganda experts to fashion a program of hate. What does it take for the citizens of one society to hate the citizens of another society to the degree that they want to segregate them, torment them, even kill them? It requires a "hostile imagination," a psychological construction embedded deeply in their minds by propaganda that transforms those others into "The Enemy." That image is a soldier's most powerful motive, one that loads his rifle with ammunition of hate and fear. The image of a dreaded enemy threatening one's personal well-being and the society's national security emboldens mothers and fathers to send sons to war and empowers governments to rearrange priorities to turn plowshares into swords of destruction.”

— Philip G. Zimbardo

“Can we make promises to each other, as if we were truly married? Can we swear to be true and faithful and love only each other and all those things? Because I'm in such pain, Margherita, I need to have you, I need to know that you're mine. I've been in torment since I first saw you. No, since I first heard you singing from you tower height. Please, mia bella bianca, please let us swear to each other. Love breaks all spells, I know it does. Wear my ring and let me know-"
She stopped his words with her mouth, cupping both hands about his face. Then she sat back to show him the ring on her finger. "I swear it all. Is that good enough? Because I really need you to kiss me again.”

— Kate Forsyth

“You can go back to blacksmithing in Hintindar and live a quiet happy life. Do me a favor and marry some pretty farm girl and train your son to beat the crap out of imperial knights."
"Sure," Hadrian told him. "And with any luck he'll make friends with a cynical burglar who'll do nothing but torment him.”

— Michael J. Sullivan

“I can't keep doing this to myself, getting my hopes up so high, only to have them come crashing down. I can't keep waiting for him to come to his senses, having my whole emotional state rest on what he decides. What if he never wakes up to how perfect we'd be together? What if I spend another year pining for him - or longer even? In a terrible flash, I see my future stretching out before me: waiting for his calls, rearranging my life around college visits, and decoding texts and instant messages like they could be something real, something true.
This isn't love; this is pure torment.”

— Abby McDonald

“As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. She has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social ruin on any human being. She has never subjected anyone to mental torment, physical torture, least of all to death, for the purpose of upholding or promoting her ideas. She presents herself unstained by cruelties and crimes. But in the Vatican-we have only to recall the Inquisition-the hands that are now raised in appeals to the 'Most Merciful' are crimsoned. They have been steeped in blood!”

— John William Draper

“Being conscious of having done a wicked action leaves stings of remorse behind it, which, like an ulcer in the flesh, makes the mind smart with perpetual wounds; for reason, which chases away all other pains, creates repentance, shames the soul with confusion, and punishes it with torment.”

— Plutarch

“There isn't one kind of happiness, there's all kinds. Decision is torment for anyone with imagination. When you decide, you multiply the things you might have done and now never can.”

— Penelope Fitzgerald

“She seemed dressed in all of me, stretched across my shame.
All the torment and the pain leaked through and covered me.
I'd do anything to have her to myself.
Just to have her for myself
Now I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do when she makes me sane.
She is everything to me.
The unrequited dream
A song that no one sings.
The unattainable, Shes a myth that I have to believe in
All I need to make it real is one more reason
I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do when she makes me sad.”

— Slipknot

“Ella squeezed, wringing a groan from his throat that echoed the torments of the damned. Usually, though, the damned didn't lean into the torment in a silent entreaty for more. Or so she assumed. She didn't think hell was likely to be kinky.”

— Christine Warren

“I did not want to think so much about her. I wanted to take her as an unexpected, delightful gift, that had come and would go again - nothing more. I meant not to give room to the thought that it could ever be more. I knew too well that all love has the desire for eternity and that therein lies its eternal torment. Nothing lasts. Nothing.”

— Erich Maria Remarque

“( ... ) the woman we love ought to swim as slowly as we do, she ought to have no past of her own to look back on happily. But when the illusion of absolute identity vanishes (the girl looks back happily on her past or swims faster), love becomes a permanent source of the great torment we call litost.”

— Milan Kundera

“I once saw many flowers blooming
Upon my way, in indolence
I scorned to pick them in my going
And passed in proud indifference.
Now, when my grave is dug, they taunt me;
Now, when I'm sick to death in pain,
In mocking torment still they haunt me,
Those fragrant blooms of my disdain.”

— Heinrich Heine

“For suddenly above him far and faint his song was taken up, and a voice answering called to him. Maedhros it was that sang amid his torment. But Fingon climbed to the foot of the precipice where his kinsman hung; and then he could go no farther, and he wept when he saw the cruel device of Morgoth. Maedhros therefore, being in anguish without hope, begged Fingon to shoot him with his bow; and Fingon strung an arrow, and bent his bow. And seeing no better hope he cried to Manwe, saying: 'O King to whom birds are dear, speed now this feathered shaft, and recall some pity for the Noldor in their need!' ... Now, even as Fingon bent his bow, there flew down from the high airs Thorondor, King of Eagles, mightiest of all birds that have ever been, whose outstretched wings spanned thirty fathoms; and staying Fingon's hand he took him up, and bore him to the face of the rock where Maethros hung.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“Forgiveness is a process that we have to learn to act upon daily. Anger is weakened by forgiveness. When you forgive, you free yourself from carrying around the torment that the offense has caused you.”

— E'yen A. Gardner

“Hell,huh? Well,hopefully we'll be able to disprove that theory soon.Besides, if it were hell,would I be here with you?"
"I don't know,if hell called for an eternity of annoyance instead of torment,maybe."
"I like you more every day.But neither of us qualifies for hell. We're victims." He smiled, the last word laced with venom. "And if we're occasionally wicked,well, certainly we'd be justified."
i wondered if he was trying to comfort me about Vivian,but he stared into the distance as though anticipating future wickedness. What did he want me to light on fire this time? I didn't think I was up for more destruction.”

— Kiersten White

“In a cruel twist of irony, they achieved the immortality they'd been seeking. It's believed that the hollows can live thousands of years, but it is a life of constant physical torment, of humiliating debasement-feeding on stray animals, living in isolation-and of insatiable hunger for the flesh of their former kin, because our blood is their only hope for salvation. If a hollow gorges itself on enough peculiars, it becomes a wight.”

— Ransom Riggs

“Krampus found me, forced me into servitude-me, the son of Odin, a slave to a low-cast demon. I did not care, did not feel. Hollow of heart and soul, I came to believe this to be my fate, my penance, that I had been spared to bear torment not just for my own vanity and arrogance, but for that of all my forebears.”

— Brom

“I have seen many other fragments of the cross, in other churches. If all were genuine, our Lord's torment could not have been on a couple of planks nailed together, but on an entire forest.”

— Umberto Eco

“A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died in child-bed. She haunts lonely roads, her feet are turned backwards on the ankles, and she leads men to torment.”

— Rudyard Kipling

“Obsessive compulsive" Nikolaus mumble in amusement.
"I would rather eat a grenade than make a line with two different colors!" Remy responded in a pained voice as he pointed at the pad of paper. Thiago snickered as he continued to torment the Cajun with his blue pen.
Speaking of grenades, though ... Brandt had a timing device around here somewhere. What had he done with it?”

— Abigail Roux

“Beautiful women are the torment of my existence.”

— Markus Zusak

“We, helpless infants in arms or creeping quadruped-like on the floor, dreamed our dreams of air flight. Yes; and we endured the torment and torture of nightmare fears of dim and monstrous things. We newborn infants, without experience, were born with fear, with memory of fear; and memory is experience.”

— Jack London

“The Prince found Buttercup waiting unhappily outside his chamber doors.
It's my letter,' she began. 'I cannot make it right.'
Come in, come in,' the Prince said gently. 'Maybe we can help you.' She sat down in the same chair as before. 'All right, I'll close my eyes and listen; read to me.'
Westley, my passion, my sweet, my only my own. Come back, come back. I shall kill myself otherwise. Yours in torment, Buttercup.' She looked at Humperdinck. 'Well? Do you think I'm throwing myself at him?”

— William Goldman

“The only thing that exists is torment, lyricism, and the magnificence of language.”

— John C. Hawkes

“In Czech, according to Milan Kundera, litost is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery.”

— Rabih Alameddine

“Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time's swiftness/ Which is the swiftest of all things: all were eternal torment.”

— William Blake

“Possibly a man who hates the land should dwell on shore forever. Alienation and the long voyages at sea will compel him once again to dream of it, torment him with the absurdity of longing for something that he loathes.”

— Yukio Mishima

“I want you to go back to Tucson and bring me the bottle of tequila I keep in my liquor cabinet. And don't scare Tim."
Volusian remained motionless in that way of his. "My mistress grows increasingly creative in her ways to torment me."
"I thought you'd appreciate it."
"Only in so much as it inspires me to equally creative means to rip you apart when I am able to break free of these bonds and finally destroy you."
"You see? There's a silver lining to everything. Now hurry up.”

— Richelle Mead

“Hell, hell fire, the damnation of hell, eternal damnation, the resurrection of the damnation, everlasting fire, the place of torment, destruction, outer darkness, the worm that never dies, the fire that is not quenched, the place of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, everlasting punishment ... these are the words which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself employs. Away with the miserable nonsense which people talk in this day who tell us that the ministers of the gospel should never speak of hell.”

— J.C. Ryle

“Not only had Navidson carried Karen out of that house, he had picked her up a hundred times over the course of eleven years and carried her fear, her torment, and her distance.”

— Mark Z. Danielewski

“Why does that obstinate little voice in our heads torment us so?' he said, looking round the table. 'Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls - which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn't it also pain that often makes us most aware of self?”

— Donna Tartt

“This (Earth) is hell.
There are no fires, no burning pits of torment, no levels or rings or rivers of lava. When we die, we get put right back on earth to live our miserable existences over and over and over for all eternity.”

— Larissa Ione

“There always seemed to be a reason Kaladin survived when those he'd tried to help died. Some men might have seen that as a blessing, but he saw it as an ironic kind of torment.”

— Brandon Sanderson

“Night is torment. That is why people go to sleep. To avoid clear sight and torment.”

— Dorothy Richardson

“No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbour a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

“What is there to be said about a Church which certainly promises its believers eternal salvation, but at the same time condemns the non-believers, all those who think differently, to an eternal torment in hell? - If that Church absolutely must talk about love, then it should do so very quietly.”

— Arnulf Øverland

“I enjoy the process of writing. The torment comes in getting my bottom on the chair and in front of the typewriter.”

— Caryl Rivers

“I believe a lot in instinct. One should never dull it by wanting to know everything. One shouldn't ask too many questions but do what one does properly, never rush, and never torment oneself.”

— Josef Sudek

“I imagined a psychic pain growing inside him (myself) that demanded some physical outlet. Suicide must have been his attempt to give Pain a body, a representation, to put it outside himself. A need to convert inner torment into some outward tangible wound that all could see. It was almost as though suicide were a last-ditch effort at exorcism, in which the person sacrificed his life in order that the devil inside might die.”

— Phillip Lopate

“Transcending gives a human being a chance to think before acting. And experiencing this beautiful treasury within gets rid of torment and replaces it with happiness, inner peace, creativity intelligence, love, energy. This fuels a real good life and fuels an appreciation for all human beings. It's so powerful and it's a blessing for humanity.”

— David Lynch

“Do not scrutinize so closely whether you are doing much or little, ill or well, so long as what you do is not sinful and that you are heartily seeking to do everything for God. Try as far as you can to do everything well, but when it is done, do not think about it. Try, rather, to think of what is to be done next. Go on simply in the Lord's way, and do not torment yourself. We ought to hate our faults, but with a quiet, calm hatred; not pettishly and anxiously.”

— Saint Francis De Sales

“My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this; that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success ... All human experience proves over and over again, that any success which comes through meanness, trickery, fraud and dishonour, is but emptiness and will only be a torment to its possessor.”

— Frederick Douglass

“You can feel nothing but a torment, and believe nothing but a lie. You will not raise your head to look at all the miracles of life that surround you; but you will run ten miles to see a fight or a death.”

— George Bernard Shaw

“Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant, a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.”

— C.S. Lewis

“The more estimable the offender, the greater the torment.”

— Voltaire

“I have sat through an Italian opera, til, for sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded street, to solace myself with sounds which I was not obliged to follow and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention!”

— Charles Lamb

“An unkind heart is the worst. It is a plague to its possessor, and a torment to those around him.”

— Charles Spurgeon