Alarming Quotes & Sayings

Calvin: Trick or Treat!
Adult: Where's your costume? What are you supposed to be?
Calvin: I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet, raised to an alarming extent by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak!
... Boy, am I scary or what? — Bill Watterson

A concrete example of this mechanism is found in one of the most alarming phenomena of the last thirty years: the enormous increase in the police force of all countries. The increase of population has inevitably rendered it necessary. However accustomed we may be to it, the terrible paradox should not escape our minds that the population of a great modern city, in order to move about peaceably and attend to its business, necessarily requires a police force to regulate the circulation. But it is foolishness for the party of "law and order" to imagine that these "forces of public authority" created to preserve order are always going to be content to preserve the order that that party desires. Inevitably they will end by themselves defining and deciding on the order they are going to impose- which, naturally, will be that which suits them best. — Ortega Y Gasset

Whenever you avoid alarming situations, you almost always increase your anxiety about them. — Albert Ellis

Novelty's a cloth that wears thin at an alarming rate. — Jill Alexander Essbaum

The reflected version of myself, wet, shaking, rumpled, pinched and slightly stooped, would be alarming were it not for the self-satisfied expression pasted across my face. I would ask the obvious question, "What are you smiling about?" but I already know the answer: "It just gets better from here". — Michael J. Fox

Evie," Lillian interupted impatiently, "men expect to be deceived in these matters. They're happiest that way. If one were straightforward with them the whole prospect of marriage would be too alarming, and none of them would ever do it. — Lisa Kleypas

The Christian family is under attack on all fronts. Christian marriages are disintegrating at an alarming rate. Children are not receiving the proper training and modeling from their Christian parents. And, from my perspective, a major contributor to this tragic slide is usually a husband and father who is not fully assuming his God-ordained role as spiritual leader. — Jim George

They say 74% of everything you're learning in college is a bunch of bullshit you'll never need 83.4% of everything you've got, you bought to satisfy you're greed Because 91% of the world's population links their pssessions to success Even though 88% of the wealthiest 1% of the population drinks to an alarming excess More money more stress. — Todd Snider

Wouldn't it be surprising if a 911 caller actually did begin to describe the tragedy in alarming detail? And dwell on the details, swooning in their splendor? — Michael A. Arnzen

If you love me at all, then you'll get off the damn edge of that roof!" she shouts, her sudden spurt of anger alarming me. "Because I can't take this anymore ... " Her shoulders heave as she cries. "I swear to God, if I lose one more person I love, it's going to kill me. — Jessica Sorensen

A study of rape in Asia drew alarming conclusions about its widespread nature but also introduced the term "sexual entitlement" to explain why so much of it takes place. The report's author, Dr. Emma Fulu, said, "They believed they had the right to have sex with the woman regardless of consent." In other words she had no rights. Where'd they learn that? Feminism, — Rebecca Solnit

Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming. — Garrett Hardin

Ashdowne tilted his head, struck by an alarming feeling. "She's beginning to make a strange sort of sense to me," he said with a mixture of wonder and horror.
Finn, taking his words as a joke, burst into laughter once more, and Ashdowne tried to join in. But he couldn't quite ignore an insidious voice that kept whispering of his doom. — Deborah Simmons

What happened to your lip?" Ravenna said to him. "It looks sore."
Miss Feather's fingers darted to her mouth.
"Thank you for your kind concern, Miss Caulfield." His eyes were very dark blue and still rimmed with the longest lashed Ravenna had ever seen on a man. Beauty and virility and confidence and sheer privileged arrogance combined to remarkable effect. No wonder these silly girls stared. "It was bitten," he said.
"Oh, dear." Lady Penelope pouted sweetly. "That must have been alarming."
"Not terribly. I have been bitten by cats before." The corner of his mouth twitched. "This one," he said, turning his dark, laughing gaze upon Ravenna, "was otherwise charming."

-Ravenna, Vitor, & Lady Penelope — Katharine Ashe

In Scripture the visitation of an angel is always alarming; it has to begin by saying 'Fear not.' The Victorian angel looks as if it were going to say, 'There, there.' The literary symbols are more dangerous [than sculptures and pictures] because they are not so easily recognized as symbolical. Those of Dante are best. Before his angels we sink in awe. — Kathryn Lindskoog

We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny ... The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witch hunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist. — E.B. White

Being kind modified the extraordinary, alarming otherness of him, which was threefold - large, male and American. — Kate Atkinson

The alarming lack of ideas that is recognizable in all acts of culture, politics, organization of life, and the rest is explained by this, and the weakness of the modernist constructers of functionalist cities is only a particularly visible example of it. Intelligent specialists only ever have the intelligence to play the game of specialists: hence the fearful conformity and fundamental lack of imagination that make them admit that this or that product is useful, good, necessary. In fact, the root of the reigning lack of imagination cannot be understood if one does not have access to the imagination of lack
that is to conceiving what is absent, forbidden, and hidden, and yet possible, in modern life. — Tom McDonough

The present catches up to the future with alarming speed - I had forgotten that. — Lena Coakley

Force plays a much larger part in the government of the world than it did before 1914, and what is especially alarming, force tends increasingly to fall into the hands of those who are enemies of civilization. — Bertrand Russell

With so much evidence of depleting natural resources, toxic waste, climate change, irreparable harm to our food chain and rapidly increasing instances of natural disasters, why do we keep perpetuating the problem? Why do we continue marching at the same alarming beat? — Yehuda Berg

Our emphasis on science has resulted in an alarming rise in world populations, the demand and ever-increasing emphasis of science to improve their standards and maintain their vigor. I have been forced to the conclusion that an over-emphasis of science weakens character and upsets life's essential balance. — Charles Lindbergh

The population of the planet is increasing at an alarming rate, and yet each day human beings manage to destroy ten species. — Frederick Lenz

The circle of salt's potential victims grew at an alarming rate. Part of Dahl's research into the evils of salt involved breeding a strain of salt-sensitive rats, in which he induced hypertension by feeding them commercially prepared baby food that contained added sodium. In April 1970, newspapers ran an Associated Press report about Dahl's findings under scary headlines like "Baby Food Salt May Be Harmful, Researcher Says." The report quoted Dahl calling salted baby food "a needless kind of risk. — Alan Levinovitz

If the teachings of the Protestants in Europe gave birth to the Protestant ethics and the modern civilization, it becomes alarming that most of our charismatic teachings today mainly concentrate on individual aggrandizement — Sunday Adelaja

Die, then!" This alarming counsel split the air. "Die if you must, Mukunda! Never believe that you live by the power of food and not by the power of God! He who has created every form of nourishment, He who has bestowed appetite, will inevitably see that His devotee is maintained. Do not imagine that rice sustains you nor that money or men support you. Could they aid if the Lord withdraws your life breath? They are His instruments merely. Is it by any skill of yours that food digests in your stomach? Use the sword of your discrimination, Mukunda! Cut through the chains of agency and perceive the Single Cause! — Paramahansa Yogananda

I think, for a long time, people just did not know what to do with me. I looked like a Barbie doll, and then I had this voice like I spend my life in a bar, and I said things that were alarming and had ideas that didn't make sense. — Sharon Stone

The other me, who did not mean to drown herself, went under the sea and remained there for a long time. Eventually she surfaced near Japan and people gave her gifts but she had been so long under the sea she did not recognize what they were. She is a sly one. Mostly at night we commune. Night. Harbinger of dream and nightmare and bearer of omens which defy the music of words. In the morning the fear of her going is very real and very alarming. It can make one tremble. Not that she cares. She is the muse. I am the messenger. — Edna O'Brien

Even more alarming were persistent rumors that someone had smuggled an Emotion Amplifier on board 'Mentor'. The so-called joy machines were banned on all planets, except under strict medical control; but there would always be people to whom reality was not good enough, and who would want to try something better. — Arthur C. Clarke

When I first began examining the global-warming scare, I found nothing more puzzling than the way officially approved scientists kept on being shown to have finagled their data, as in that ludicrous "hockey stick" graph, pretending to prove that the world had suddenly become much hotter than at any time in 1,000 years. Any theory needing to rely so consistently on fudging the evidence, I concluded, must be looked on not as science at all, but as simply a rather alarming case study in the aberrations of group psychology. — Christopher Booker

I looked in the mirror once more. The new clothes felt like salt on the raw wounds, but they covered the worst of it, and I looked less alarming, less confronting, less hideous. I smiled at the mirror. I was practising, trying to remember what it was like to be me. — Gregory David Roberts

Just the minute another person is drawn into some one's life, there begin to arise undreamed-of complexities, and from such a simple beginning as sexual desire we find built up such alarming yet familiar phenomena as fetes, divertissements, telephone conversations, arrangements, plans, sacrifices, train arrivals, meetings, appointments, tardiness, delays, marriages, dinners, small pets and animals, calumny, children, music lessons, yellow shades for the windows, evasions, lethargy, cigarettes, candies, repetition of stories and anecdotes, infidelity, ineptitude, incompatibility, bronchial trouble, and many others, all of which are entirely foreign to the original urge and way off the subject. — E.B. White

It's alarming how quickly people adjust to adventures when they are in one. You really have to work at being astonished by life. — Ellen Potter

Man and his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures and agriculture even politics, the most alarming of them all - I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape. — Henry David Thoreau

Our nation's Social Security Trust Fund is depleting at an alarming rate, and failure to implement immediate reforms endangers the ability of Americans to plan for their retirement with the options and certainty they deserve. — Pete Sessions

It was like a blackout in reverse. Since around nine o'clock, no lamps could be switched off, no electrical appliances powered down. If you tried to pull out the plug there was an alarming crackling sound and sparks flew between the outlet and the plug, preventing the circuit from being broken. — John Ajvide Lindqvist

Yes, I know,' she said in answer to the unasked, for there was no time for explanations. 'Yes. My face is spoilt.'

Grandible's jowl wobbled and creased. Then, for the first time that Neverfell could remember, he changed to a Face she had never seen before, a frown more ferocious and alarming than either of the others.

'Who the shambles told you that?' he barked. 'Spoilt? I'll spoil them.' He took hold of her chin and examined her. 'A bit sadder, maybe. A bit wiser. But nothing rotten. You're just growing yourself a rind at last. Still a good cheese. — Frances Hardinge

We're losing biodiversity globally at an alarming rate, and we need a cornucopia of different plants and animals, for the planet's health and our own. — Diane Ackerman

I am also deeply concerned with the widespread, often undiagnosed, incidents of PTSD and the alarming suicide rates amongst our returning soldiers. — Barbara Lee

In alarming proportions the following words have disappeared from architectural publications: beauty, inspiration, magic, sorcery, enchantment, and also serenity, mystery, silence, privacy, astonishment. All of these have found a loving home in my soul. — Luis Barragan

He had come to the supreme crossing of good and evil. He had that gloomy intersection beneath his eyes. On this occasion once more, as had happened to him already in other sad vicissitudes, two roads opened out before him, the one tempting, the other alarming. Which was he to take? — Victor Hugo

If I understand this correctly Christ taught here the alarming doctrine that the desire for honor among men made belief impossible. — A.W. Tozer

My mother belonged to that group of low IQ individuals who find everything alarming and believe that raising your voice is the most effective form of communication. — Annabelle R. Charbit

(It) could involve the AMA and others in an interstate conspiracy of alarming proportions ... — Benedict Fitzgerald

I Guess there is a Limited Gap in this Republic of Bananas due to the DeKay N Y is Le Vice such an alarming Exchange when you Express your Benetton? Ask Tommy, he'll figure! — Natasha Tsakos

Two subsequent incidents of import established CNN: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, which CNN was the only network to cover as it happened, and the 1991 Gulf War, which CNN chronicled round the clock from a proximity as irresistible as it was alarming, bomb blasts and gunfire lighting up TV screens from coast to coast. — Steve Erickson

All knives and forks were working away at a rate that was quite alarming; very few words were spoken; and everybody seemed to eat his utmost, in self defence, as if a famine were expected to set in before breakfast-time to-morrow morning, and it had become high time to assert the first law of nature. — Charles Dickens

Thankfully, the farmers understand my request that the children not be allowed to peer through the windows at me.
It would be alarming for them to see me with their dolls, to see me using the knife on their faces. There are some things children never should see. — Kate Bernheimer

Basque is one of the world's more alarming languages. Only a handful of adult foreigners, they say, have ever managed to learn it. The Devil tried once and mastered only three words - profanities, I assume. — Jan Morris

However, in recent years our nation has seen a sizable influx of illegal immigration that at best highlights some alarming inadequacies and at worst indicates a broken system. — Spencer Bachus

When I took over as chair of the fashion program, I was horrified that only the faculty member was allowed to speak in a critique. I'm talking about perfectly nurturing teachers. But the rule was there would be no call of hands for students to contribute their feedback. It was embedded in the department's culture. That was alarming to me. When I was teaching, I was the least important person in the room as far as I was concerned
my students' points of view mattered most. I wanted to learn who they were and teach them to respect one another's perspectives.
I would start off by saying something like, I am having trouble understanding how this work solves the problem at hand. Here are some things about the work that I appreciate: X, Y, Z. But I see these virtues independent of the problem we're solving. — Tim Gunn

I raised an eyebrow. "You know, you're really good at compliments. Actually, it's surprising that a person with charm like yours has any enemies." The words came out before I could stop them. At this rate I would never be able to ask him about Benjamin Gallow, and it didn't help that every time he looked at me I wanted to melt.
"So, you think I'm charming?" Dante countered, mocking me. "Is that why you keep staring at me?"
"Alarming, not charming. And no, I'm just curious. — Yvonne Woon

It's hard to deny that an alarming number of those who stood for peace, not war, were either killed by deranged lone gunmen or else died in suspicious circumstances. We refer of course to the likes of JFK, Martin Luther King, Benazir Bhutto, Bobby Kennedy and John Lennon, to name but a few. — James Morcan

Watching an adaptation of your novel can be a violent experience: seeing your old jokes suddenly thrust at you can be alarming. But I started to enjoy 'Money' very quickly, and then I relaxed. — Martin Amis

We live in an adolescent society, Neverland, where never growing up seems more the norm than the exception. Little boys wearing expensive suits and adult bodies should not be allowed to run big corporations. They shouldn't be allowed to run governments, armies, religions, small businesses and charities either and just quietly, they make pretty shabby husbands and fathers too. Mankind has become Pankind and whilst "lost boys" abound, there is also an alarming increase in the number of "lost girls. — Daniel Prokop

This morning, as Charlotte approached the brick facade of Hartnett, she found herself overcome with a great sense of dread. It hit her with a strange and sudden force, and she had an overwhelming urge to turn back, get into bed and not go out for about three weeks. She stopped in her tracks. The feeling itself was alarming to Charlotte - was she sensing something? Something dangerous? And was it something supernatural or just middle school? Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. — Anne Ursu

Being natural and matter-of-fact about nudity prevents your children from developing an attitude of shame or disgust about the human body. If parents are very secretive about their bodies and go to great lengths to prevent their children from ever seeing a buttock or breast, children will wonder what is so unusual, and even alarming, about human nudity. — Lee Salk

The two men's eyes widened when they saw me charging toward them. One of them dropped his hold on Grey, letting him sway dangerously over the edge. Both men reached for their guns, but it was too late. I was nearly on them. Fortiter.
I slammed into Grey, my momentum carrying us over the low edge. I briefly heard Karl shout, before the wind filled my ears. We were falling fast, and the pavement rushed up at us at an alarming speed. — Kirby Howell

The world that our children will inherit is going to look substantially different, very quickly, than the world we have today. It's alarming. — Stefanie Powers

The fact that it is such an opaque industry should be alarming," Brad said. "The fact that the people who make the most money want the least clarity possible - that should be alarming, too. — Michael Lewis

It's very alarming to see what's happening in the Muslim world. And it's about time we come to our senses and realize that moderation is the only path that will ensure peace and stability for the Muslim world, and for the wider world. — Najib Razak

But interestingly its [Star City's] technology is all 1970s - still. In fact, it's alarming because you think, "You're not going to send someone up into space in something that old, are you?" But it works and it always has worked and it doesn't fail and it's incredibly reliable. — Danny Boyle

It's alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. — Vladimir Putin

Take, for example, the way in which physicians responded to the high mortality rates of children in orphanages early in the last century. Assuming that microorganisms were to blame, doctors separated children from one another and kept handling by adults to a minimum in order to reduce the risk of infection. Despite these mandates, children continued to die at such alarming rates that both intake forms and death certificates were completed at admission for the sake of efficiency. — Louis Cozolino

I press my face to the window, and I think to myself, There will never be another day like this day. This day will end. Everything passes in front of me with alarming speed, and though I recognize the splendour of the trees and the radiance of the sun, I am detached. This startles and unsettles me. — Kate Mulgrew

There are movies that change the whole way in which films are made, like Klute, where Gordon Willis's photography on the film is so textured, and, they said, too dark. At first this was alarming to people, because they're used to a certain way things are done within the studio system. And the studio is selling a product, so they were wary of people thinking that it's too dark. — Martin Scorsese

So much alarmed that she is quite alarming — George Gordon Byron

This is an aspect of the modern "cultural" mind that is well worth looking into. It shows an alarming degree of dissociation and psychological confusion. — C. G. Jung

A] One is in a different place, so the protective barriers no longer exist. To begin with this can be alarming, but soon one gets used to it and starts understanding how many interesting things there are beyond the walls of one's garden. — Paulo Coelho

Sometimes the person everyone is afraid of alarming or offending has a slightly less fixed idea about what sort of person they are, and they're neither alarmed nor offended. Unaware that others have carved their likes and dislikes in the psychological equivalent of stone, they dare to make exceptions to their own rules in a way that their nearest and dearest might not. — Sophie Hannah

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth. — Samuel Johnson

The most significant and alarming consequence of early maturation is an increased risk for breast cancer in adulthood. — Joel Fuhrman

Most memoirs about alcoholism, promiscuity, and addiction are deep, sobering tales full of scars that will never heal and include alarming statistics and reflection about recovery.
This is not one of those memoirs. — Kate Madison

So the dentist took a trip to his local supermarkets, brought seventy-eight brands of cereal back to his lab, and proceeded to measure the sugar content of each with damning precision. A third of the brands had sugar levels between 10 percent and 25 percent. Another third ranged up to an alarming 50 percent, and eleven climbed even higher still - with one cereal, Super Orange Crisps, packing a sugar load of 70.8 percent. When each cereal brand was cross-referenced with TV advertising records, the sweetest brands were found to be the ones most heavily marketed to kids during Saturday morning cartoons. — Michael Moss

'MaerskKendal' is a rarity with its British flag, the 'LONDON' home port painted on its bow, its two British chief officers, and its portrait of the queen in the mess room, apparently common courtesy on British ships, but a little alarming to me. — Rose George

Voices surround us, always telling us to move faster. It may be our boss, our pastor, our parents, our wives, our husbands, our politicians, or, sadly, even ourselves. So we comply. We increase the speed. We live life in the fast lane because we have no slow lanes anymore. Every lane is fast, and the only comfort our culture can offer is more lanes and increased speed limits. The result? Too many of us are running as fast as we can, and an alarming number of us are running much faster than we can sustain. — Mike Yaconelli

Mr. [Aldous] Huxley has been the alarming young man for a long time, a sort of perpetual clever nephew who can be relied on to flutter the lunch party. Whatever will he say next? How does he think of those things? He has been deplored once or twice, but feeling is in his favor: he is steadily read. He is at once the truly clever person and the stupid person's idea of the clever person; he is expected to be relentless, to administer intellectual shocks. — Elizabeth Bowen

You have an alarming streak of chivalry for a butler. I'd accuse you of aping your betters, but I have met your houseguests. — Caroline Dunford

It's a fact of life that how you dress affects how you are perceived and whether your contribution to a meeting is registered as worth listening to. It was most alarming the way people's attitudes changed when I started wearing my designer suits to committee meetings. Obviously, it's not just the clothes that count; you have got to have something worth saying. But it si true that some people's views are dismissed before they speak because others perceive them as just a secretary! — Stephanie Ellis

People can inhabit anything. And they can be miserable in anything and ecstatic in anything. More and more I think that architecture has nothing to do with it. Of course, that's both liberating and alarming. — Rem Koolhaas

"I go so far as to say, miss, morehover," proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit-"and let my words be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself-that wot my opinions respectin' flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present time." — Charles Dickens

Colonel Bulder, in full military uniform, on horseback, galloping first to one place and then to another, and backing his horse among the people, and prancing, and curvetting, and shouting in a most alarming manner, and making himself very hoarse in the voice, and very red in the face, without any assignable cause or reason whatever. — Charles Dickens

Some fearful sights there be that creep
By night - I mean that harass sleep;
But tenfold more alarming seem these when
They brave the day, to breathe the air like men. — William Batchelder Greene

Today ... when Satan worship is increasing at an alarming rate, we had better be aware of him, his origin, his aims, his abilities, and his limitations. — Billy Graham

Even worse than losing self-confidence, though, is reacting defensively. There are surgeons who will see faults everywhere except in themselves. They have no questions and no fears about their abilities. As a result, they learn nothing from their mistakes and know nothing of their limitations. As one surgeon told me, it is a rare but alarming thing to meet a surgeon without fear. "If you're not a little afraid when you operate," he said, "you're bound to do a patient a grave disservice. — Atul Gawande

It is commonplace to say that silent films are more "dreamlike," but what does that mean? In Nosferatu, it means that the characters are confronted with alarming images and denied the freedom to talk them away. There is no repartee in nightmares. Human speech dissipates the shadows and makes a room seem normal. Those things that live only at night do not need to talk, for their victims are asleep, waiting. — Roger Ebert

In my opinion, one of the greatest animal-welfare problems is the physical abuse of livestock during transportation ... Typical abuses I have witnessed with alarming frequency are; hitting, beating, use of badly maintained trucks, jabbing of short objects into animals, and deliberate cruelty. — Temple Grandin

Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. — Vita Sackville-West

As he plods behind Cameron and Summer, he can't help but stare at Summer's exposed, glistening skin. His thoughts aren't depraved or even mildly in the splasher. In fact, he focuses on the marks of cruelty crisscrossing her back, stomach, and shoulders. He trudges along, drenched, feet swollen, constantly searching for even a hint of a breeze, all while being forced to stare at the alarming network of burns traversing Summer's delicate skin. This latticework of hate reveals a brutal truth - one he can scarcely comprehend. Yes, he's glimpsed and felt her scars before, but this is the first time he's really, truly seen the severity and extent of her life as a slave. With each step, he must digest the monstrosities of her past, leaving him utterly devastated. — Laura Kreitzer

Someday, the people we know, are acquainted to become the people we knew. They leave. They leave to pursue the opportunities laid down in their paths and they leave on account of misunderstandings.
Their absence causes a vacuum, a space, an incompleteness which we believe no one can fill. But someday, someone eventually does and that someone rekindles our hopes for companionship, until the circle continues and is ultimately intervened by the permanence of death.
The future is alarming, as atrocious as the past. And the friendship, the love, the memories either remain in our hearts cherished or are forgotten like an undeserving dream.
Everything eventually fades away, either for the better or worse.
Someday, the people we know, are acquainted to become the people we knew.
But then again, that someday is not today and so we must be a little more appreciative, for the moment, for the times, for the present because someday everything is going to change. — Chirag Tulsiani

Connected with my fable - that this was the very gentleman whose negligent servant left behind him that collection of washing-bills, resulting from a long visit at Northanger, by which my heroine was involved in one of her most alarming adventures. The influence of the viscount and viscountess in their brother's behalf was assisted by that right understanding of Mr. Morland's circumstances which, as soon as the general would allow himself to be informed, they were qualified to give. It taught him that he had been scarcely more misled by Thorpe's first boast of the family wealth than by his subsequent malicious overthrow of it; that — Jane Austen

Gagarin's death was shameful not just because of the loss of a national hero in muddled circumstances, but because of the dangerous flaws revealed in the Soviet military technology of his time. Obviously their radar systems were not capable of simultaneous mapping of aircraft heights and positions, nor of positively identifying one target from another. The implications of this were highly alarming. — Jamie Doran

Her professors were astonished by her leaps of thought, by the finesse and elegance of her insights. She arrived at hypotheses by sheer intuition and with what eventually one of her mentors described as an almost alarming speed; she was like a dancer, he said, out in the cosmos springing weightlessly from star to star. Drones, merely brilliant, crawled along behind with laborious proofs that supported her assertions. — Deborah Eisenberg

An alarming number of parents appear to have little confidence in their ability to "teach" their children. We should help parents understand the overriding importance of incidental teaching in the context of warm, consistent companionship. Such caring is usually the greatest teaching, especially if caring means sharing in the activites of the home. — Raymond S. Moore

Standing alone, photographs promise an understanding they cannot deliver. In the company of words, they take on meaning, but they slough off one meaning and take on another with alarming ease. — Susan Sontag

Female Chauvinist Pigs is smart, alarming, and extremely funny. With nuance and humor, Levy has written both a convincing expos of sex and desire in contemporary America and an important cultural history. I'm giving a copy to my mother. And my sons. — Cathleen Schine

The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and less wasteful. — Wendell Berry

It is alarming ... to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience. — Winston Churchill

We are hurtling towards self-destruction at an alarming rate thanks chiefly to an advertising and propaganda system that goads people from infancy towards apathy, isolation, passivity, helplessness and separation. — Noam Chomsky

Frightening media messages ... pervade the news business, which really ought to be called "the bad news business" for its preoccupation with disaster and destruction. In broadcast journalism, killing is almost always covered, while kindness is almost always ignored. The more alarming a news item is, the more attention it receives. — Michael Medved