Being Terrified Quotes & Sayings

35 On that day, when evening had come, He told them, "Let's cross over to the other side of the sea." 36 So they left the crowd and took Him along since He was already in the boat. And other boats were with Him. 37 A fierce windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But He was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion. So they woke Him up and said to Him, "Teacher! Don't you care that we're going to die? " 39 He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Silence! Be still! " The wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 Then He said to them, "Why are you fearful? Do you still have no faith? " 41 And they were terrified and asked one another, "Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey Him! " — Anonymous

There is, to be sure, sometimes only a small difference between being alert to possible danger and allowing oneself to become terrified to the point of paralysis by seeming or imagined portents. — Sherwin B. Nuland

Courage," he said, "is being absolutely terrified of something and doing it anyway. — K.T. Bryan

It's only when we dare to experience the full anxiety of knowing that life doesn't go on forever that we can experience transcendence and get in touch with the infinite. To use an analogy from gestalt psychology, Non-Being is the necessary ground for the figure of Being to make itself known to us. It's only when we're willing to let go of all of our illusions and admit that we are lost and helpless and terrified that we will be free of ourselves and our false securities and ready for what Kierkegaard calls "the leap of faith."
p. 43 — Thomas Cathcart

You're a freak for not being terrified of me. — Andrea Cremer

Do I fear death? No, I am not afraid of being dead because there's nothing to be afraid of, I won't know it. I fear dying, of dying I feel a sense of waste about it and I fear a sordid death, where I am incapacitated or imbecilic at the end which isn't something to be afraid of, it's something to be terrified of. — Christopher Hitchens

But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution, inciting them on the one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means, than those which the indispensable rules of art have prescribed. — Joshua Reynolds

I've never given a speech without being terrified first. — Susan Cain

I went to my first drum n' bass rave when I was 16 and remember being terrified. Looking around, trying to figure out how to dance to this music, watching some girl in some hot pants, trying little ways to learn her movements. — Katy B

Being in love is not actually fear, but the difference between being in a haunted house alone and being with someone: walking through it alone is terrifying, but then you bump into another terrified person, you both look at each other and think, Hey, you're here too. You're still terrified but its OK because you're not terrifed alone. — Cindy Guidry

Before I sat down and became a writer, before I began to do it habitually and for my living, there was a decades-long stretch when I was terrified that it would suck, so I didn't write. I think that marks a lot of people, a real terror at being bad at something, and unfortunately, you are always bad before you can get a little better. — David Rakoff

All of them raced toward his house: Troy, Roger, Arturo, Sam, little Yessica, and to his surprise, Corina. They were yelling and motioning to him. "Go to the back gate! The back gate!" he shouted, and then he saw why they were running with such terrified expressions on their faces. They were being chased by zombified preschoolers around Drake's age. — Rhiannon Frater

It is a curious fact that small boys are more terrified of their babysitters than small girls are. In part, this is because small girls and babysitters, who are usually slightly larger girls, belong to the same species, and therefore understand each other. Small boys, on the other hand, do not understand girls, and therefore being looked after by one is a little like a hamster being looked after by a shark. If you are a small boy, it may be some consolation to you to know that even large boys do not understand girls, and girls, by and large, do not understand boys. This makes adult life very interesting. — John Connolly

I had to stop running. I had to turn and face my life head on. It wasn't enough being like everybody else; I had to be the best, and I was going to show everyone what I was truly made of. I was done with being a terrified princess, constantly waiting to be saved. I was going to be a queen, and, like Vivienne said, I had better start behaving like one. - (Aurora Firedrake) — Farah Oomerbhoy

Wanted to love you. I've wanted to take all the hurt away, to hold you and protect you and make you laugh, and smile, and show you what love is. I've wanted to show you for so long that you are worthy of being loved, for exactly who you are. And I tried to deny that, I tried to convince myself ... that I wasn't good enough, that I would do nothing but hurt you. And I have. And I'm sorry. I was afraid. I was afraid of loving someone as delicate and beautiful and unique as you. I knew I only had one chance, and I was terrified I would make a mess of it and you'd only become sadder, and more convinced you were unlovable. I was afraid of my own shortcomings, and because of that I hurt you. — Sara Wolf

But those days of being too terrified to move or breathe were left behind in my childhood. I've been through too much and it has hardened some primal part of me that no longer panics. — Patricia Cornwell

Shame and discipline won't cut it First, shame is not an agent of change. Like a shot of caffeine in the morning, self-loathing may propel us onto the road of change, but we will find that hatred of self only leads us onto a never-ending roundabout. Like being terrified by a number on the scale in the morning and vowing never to overeat again, a shot of shame may get us through to lunch but never through to our freedom. Self-hatred, shame, and fear - though rampant in so many of our hidden worlds - are simply never going to be capable of creating or sustaining the growth we long for. Yet most women try to use shame as their inner motivator. I know I have. — Stasi Eldredge

I buckle over, sobbing, my head resting against the hard shower tiles. I remember crying like this when Sukey died, the tears harsh, devouring, total. I hadn't known I was capable of being so sad, and the discovery shocked and terrified me. It was like finding an extra door in the house I'd always lived in, and opening it to find that the grief had carved out new rooms, new hallways, an entire black annex of its own. There were dark places in my mind I'd never known existed, and now that I'd seen them I knew they'd always be there, lying in wait, even when the original door had been sealed up. — Hilary T. Smith

Women are terrified of being raped, but somewhere in the back of the womb there is one rebellious nerve end that tingles with curiosity whenever the word is mentioned. — Hunter S. Thompson

Everyone is really afraid of getting out there and not being good. That's the challenge: To be afraid and know people are staring at you and know you might not do all that well, but you do it anyway. What singles out the successful athlete from the ones who never make it past a plateau, it that successful athletes risk failure, even though they are terrified. — Aimee Mullins

When a movie is being made out of a book, there is a mixed reaction on the part of fans because they are both extremely excited and they are also terrified. 'They are going to take my story, and they are going to mess it up; they are going to ruin it; they're going to do this; they're going to do that.' — Cassandra Clare

Starved for affection, terrified of abandonment, I began to wonder if sex was really just an excuse to look deeply into another human being's eyes. — Douglas Coupland

Didn't being out in the storm scare you?"
"Try a couple of high-summer prairie storms in a trailer," she mused. "That either makes you terrified of them or indifferent to them. — Roberta Pearce

Terrified of being alone, yet afraid of intimacy, we experience widespread feelings of emptiness, of disconnection, of the unreality of self. And here the computer, a companion without emotional demands, offers a compromise. You can be a loner, but never alone. You can interact, but need never feel vulnerable to another person. — Sherry Turkle

I'm terrified to lose you, but I am way more terrified of living without you while you're alive and well. For the record, I would rather have a single day of truly being with you than twenty thousand days of going through the motions with someone who doesn't have my heart. I don't care if I never have the chance to grow old and decrepit with you. I want today. I want to watch creepy movies with you and the dogs, burn toast in your apartment. I want to feel you inside of me. I want to experience everything with you while we're both alive. WE ARE BOTH ALIVE. A good life is about quality, not quantity. I just want to be with you for however long that may be. But I can't force you to see things the way I do. When — Penelope Ward

I also remember when I watched Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer [1990] at, like, age 15. That scared the crap out of me. Because it didn't operate inside the usual conventions of the horror genre in the way that I could accept. I can accept horny teenager counselors being murdered at camp. But I couldn't accept the derangement of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, which was that anyone could be murdered at any moment - whole families, with no build-up music and no meaning. It terrified me. — Christopher Bollen

We are terrified by the idea of being terrified. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In a popular teaching story, a man being chased by a tiger leaps off a cliff in his attempt to get away. Fortunately, a tree growing on the side of the cliff breaks his fall. Dangling from it by one arm - tiger pacing above, jutting rocks hundreds of feet below - he yells out in desperation, "Help! Somebody help me!!" A voice responds, "Yes?" The man screams, "God, God, is that you?" Again, "Yes." Terrified, the man says, "God, I'll do anything, just please, please, help me." God responds, "Okay then, just let go." The man pauses for a moment, then calls out, "Is anyone else there? — Tara Brach

I've always been terrified about being bored. I always think being bored is the worst thing. The only strategic decision I ever made as an actor was to try and make each job as different as possible. — Alfred Molina

He had been longing to get at these Frenchmen and to cut them down, their being so near seemed to him now so awful that he could not believe his eyes. "Who are they? What are they running for? Can it be to me? Can they be running to me? And what for? To kill me? Me, whom every one's so fond of?" He recalled his mother's love, the love of his family and his friends, and the enemy's intention of killing him seemed impossible. "But they may even kill me." For more than ten seconds he stood, not moving from the spot, nor grasping his position. The foremost Frenchman with the hook nose was getting so near that he could see the expression of his face. And the excited, alien countenance of the man, who was running so lightly and breathlessly towards him, with his bayonet lowered, terrified Rostov. He snatched up his pistol, and instead of firing with it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran to the bushes with all his might. — Leo Tolstoy

With the accent, it's an internal dialogue that Southerners have with themselves. We kind of carry around that shame, that feeling of being inferior to the North. I think I did lose some of the accent for a while. Because when I was a graduate student, I was terrified at having to get up in front of a roomful of smart New York kids. — Bobbie Ann Mason

As I go off into the big black abyss of my future, I have to admit that I am terrified and also a bit insecure in my decisions. But, I also realize that anyone who has ever gone off into uncharted waters must have felt similar to the way I feel now, which gives me a small ounce of comfort. I don't know how to do what I am doing, I have no way of knowing if this is the right way or not. But I guess I'll never know until I get there. So, this is me, being a pioneer. — Leigh Hershkovich

Being "fearless" isn't about being unafraid, it's about being TERRIFIED and still going for it. — Taylor Swift

We were green: we ripened and grew golden.
The Sea terrified us: we learned how to drown.
Squat and earthbound, we unfolded huge wings.
We started sober: are love's startled drunkards.
You hide me in your cloak of nothingness
Reflect my ghost in your glass of being
I am nothing, yet appear: transparent dream
Where your eternity briefly trembles. — Rumi

I have been blessed with many curses in my life, not the least of which was being born half Lebanese and half American. Throughout my life, these contradictory parts battled endlessly, classed, never coming to a satisfactory conclusion. I shuffled ad nauseam between the need to assert my individuality and the need to belong to my clan, being terrified of loneliness and terrorized of losing myself in relationships. I was the black sheep of my family, yet an essential part of it. — Rabih Alameddine

Being on set is quite difficult, because it's so big and you've got to try and relax, which isn't easy when you know you're in a massive film. I was terrified for quite a long time. — Benedict Cumberbatch

And I knew that the minute I got cocky - the minute I stopped being pants-wettingly terrified of hollowgast - something terrible would happen. — Ransom Riggs

The terror of performing never goes away. Instead, you get very, very comfortable being terrified. — Eric Whitacre

I was born in the wrong body. I'm actually, spiritually, a wolf. It's called being otherkin. It's very important for me to be open about it - coming out transformed my life, and my family. Our dog used to be terrified of storms and postal workers, but I was able to communicate with her, and now she's much more secure and self-grounded. I think of communication as my calling." "Please — Eve Tushnet

I remember learning about the Holocaust when I was in kindergarten and being terrified. I think we even watched a graphic video about it in Jewish day school. Although I was quite young, I remember making these vows to myself such as, I'm never going to love my country so much that I can't leave in a moment's notice. — Jill Soloway

Coming from Britain, I was terrified of meeting all these other artists, because artists over there tend to fight with each other a lot, the premise being that there's not enough room for everybody. — Thom Yorke

It took everything I had to try to convince myself that I wasn't falling for you, Tate. Every single time I was around you, the things I would feel terrified me. I had gone six years thinking I had control of my life and my heart and that nothing could ever hurt me again. But when we were together, there were moments I didn't care if I ever hurt again, because being with you almost felt worth the potential pain. Every time I began to feel that way, I would just push you farther away out of guilt and fear. I felt like I didn't deserve you. I didn't deserve happiness at all, because I'd taken it away from the only two people I had ever loved. — Colleen Hoover

If your friend is sick and dying, the most important thing he wants is not an explanation; he wants you to sit with him. He's terrified of being alone more than anything else. So, God has not left us alone. — Lee Strobel

Being FEARLESS isn't being 100% Not FEARFUL, it's being terrified but you jump anyway ... — Taylor Swift

Always, when I get onto horseback, I'm kind of terrified of being up there. — George Blagden

I'm terrified of being too famous. What I'm really afraid of is that the audiences will go into the theater and not be able to forget that it's me, that fame will stand in the way of my acting. I want to keep being able to change into different shapes and different personalities. — Noomi Rapace

He knows as well as I do what the Why is. It's everything changing when I was ten. It's the bullying and the fear. So much fear of everything, but mostly death. Sudden, out-of-the-blue death. It's also me being terrified of life. It's the giant emptiness in my chest. It's touching my face or my skin and feeling nothing. This is the Why of me staying home in the first place. And the Why of me eating. And the Why of me ending up here. But that doesn't mean I want to die. — Jennifer Niven

Brave is not saying I have no fear. It's being terrified and still moving forward. — Elisa Jimenez

I'm not sure about anything. I hate being in charge. I hate making the decisions. I'm terrified of losing Mark. I'm terrified of losing Emma. I want someone to take over. I'm not as strong as you think. The things I want are wrong and broken things to want. — Cassandra Clare

She wasn't afraid of random war. It was like being struck by lightning, even if the lightning did strike a thousand times a day. No, it wasn't war that terrified Tatiana. It was the resolute chaos of her broken heart. — Paullina Simons

If only one person in the world held down a terrified, struggling, screaming little girl, cut off her genitals with a septic blade, and sewed her back up, leaving only a tiny hole for urine and menstrual flow, the only question would be how severely that person should be punished, and whether the death penalty would be a sufficiently severe sanction. But when millions of people do this, instead of the enormity being magnified millions-fold, suddenly it becomes "culture," and thereby magically becomes less, rather than more, horrible, and is even defended by some Western "moral thinkers," including feminists. — Steven Pinker

I think the actor has a tribal role as the archetypal story teller. I think there was a time when the storyteller, the priest, the healer, were all one person in one body. That person used to weave stories at night around a small fire to keep the tribe from being terrified that sun had gone down. — Ben Kingsley

The major characteristics discoverable by the stranger in Mr F.'s Aunt, were extreme severity and grim taciturnity; sometimes interrupted by a propensity to offer remarks in a deep warning voice, which, being totally uncalled for by anything said by anybody, and traceable to no association of ideas, confounded and terrified the Mind. — Charles Dickens

I'm a night person, but because of being in the film business and having children, my schedule has shifted, and I'm always terrified that I'm going to oversleep. — Timothy Simons

Though Women's Studies was supposed to give a voice to "silenced" women, all too many women who dissent from its orthodoxy have themselves felt silenced by intolerant professors - and students, too. Indeed, while some (generally tenured) older professors like Willingham do dare to challenge Women's Studies dogma, younger initiates, whether students or greenhorn instructors, often act as fierce enforcers of dogma, reiterating it (as did Tholen and Alder at the Beijing +15 session) with all the zeal of fresh converts to a fundamentalist faith and bristling at any violation of Holy Writ. Patai and Koertge quote professors who complain about students being "zombified" by Women's Studies, turned into "ideologically inflamed Stepford Wives" who "utter ... stock phrases" and are plainly "terrified of a thought because if they ever had a serious thought, they might start reflecting on this stuff they're taught to repeat. — Bruce Bawer

The hardest thing about being wanted was the hardest thing about wanting - wanting badly enough that it gave you stomachache, wanting in a way that was partly about kissing and partly about swallowing whole, the way a snake gulps down a mouse or the Big Bad Wolf gulps down Red Riding Hood - wanting turned someone you felt like you knew into a stranger. Whether that person was your brother's best friend or a sleeping prince in a glass prison or a girl who kissed you at a party, the moment you wanted more than just touching your mouth to theirs they became terrifying and you became terrified. — Holly Black

I am afraid of reduction. After a lifetime's independence- yes, selfish independence- I am terrified of being reduced to childhood once more, to helplessness, to seas of confusion from which the cruel lucid intervals poke up like rock shoals. I don't want to sit in my chair and be fed, much less do I want to be handed over to medical professionals. — Rosie Thomas

He let go of the rope one hand at a time and latched onto Lisa's hands. Her fingernails dug into his wrists, but her grip was strong after a summer of lifting girls into the air. It was a tug of war battle between his friends and Shawn's ghost. The wind died down as Shawn gathered all of his energy to pull on Mike. Even though he was terrified of what was happening, Mike knew that Shawn wasn't trying to hurt him. After all these years, he was still trying to find a way out. Shawn wanted to go home too, and he saw the hope of being rescued falling away.
"Shawn! Please! Let me go!" Mike called over the dying wind, "I'll get you help! We'll get you out! Just please! Let me go!"

- Saving Hascal's Horrors — Laura Smith

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It's tough to do that when we're terrified about what people might see or think. — Brene Brown

If I could leave you, that would be one thing, but I can't." My mouth flew open. "Why would you even say that?" "Because it's the right thing to do ... disappear from your life to keep you safe. As long as we're together, you're in danger." "I won't let you," I said, grabbing his shirt,. The thought of being without him terrified me. "If I can't be with you, I don't care what happens to me. — Jamie McGuire

I can't swim and I'm terrified of drowning, but I still love being by water - just not in it. — Sherri Shepherd

This was the thing that terrified me the most - more than the victim, more than the demon, more even than the dark thoughts. It was the fact that the dark thoughts were mine. That I couldn't separate myself from evil, because most of the evil in my life came from inside my own head.
How long could I live like this? I was trying to be two people - a killer on the inside, and a normal person on the outside. I made such a show of being a good, quiet kid, who never caused problem and never got into trouble, but now the monster was out, and I was actually using him - I was actively seeking out another killer. I'd given in. I was trying to be John and Mr. Monster at the same time.
Was I fooling myself, thinking that I could split my life like this? Was it possible to be two people, one good and one bad, or was I forced to be a mix of both - a good person forever tainted by evil? — Dan Wells

When I was a kid, I did want to be a boy. I didn't like to play with dolls, and most of my friends were kind of sensitive, sissy boys. But as I got older, the mystique of being a girl began to interest me. It was confusing what sexuality was, and the responses of other people, but it didn't make me feel terrified or vulnerable. — Mary Gaitskill

Those eyes, they've got a history with mine. They were the first things I saw when I came to, after being hit in the skull with a baseball thrown by Patrick at Little League. They were the fortification I needed at sixteen to ride the chairlift at Sugarloaf, although I am terrified of heights. For almost my whole life, they've told me I'm doing all right, during moments when it was not in my own power to answer. — Jodi Picoult

Countless millions of people live in self-protective mode every day. They're afraid to love and to be loved because they're terrified of being taken. They're desperately afraid of getting trampled, since all of us, to one degree or another, have been trampled in the past. — Tullian Tchividjian

We live in a global village, Neel, where billions of voices babble simultaneously, and in this village a new hierarchy is being established, a new caste-system is being created. Only this time, it is money that sets the tone. Whoever has the most money buys the biggest loudspeaker and is the neo-Brahmin of this new world order. If the ninety-year-old neo-Brahmin on the other side of the earth is terrified of antibiotic resistant flesh-eating bacteria, we must think twice before offering treatment to a twenty-four-year old here. These are the new rules of our global village. — Anirban Bose

Being terrified but going ahead and doing what must be done - that's courage. The one who feels no fear is a fool, and the one who lets fear rule him is a coward. — Piers Anthony

We think we are unique, special and deserving of happiness, but we are terrified of being alone. — Sara Maitland

Not being able to go outside upsets me more than I can say, and I'm terrified our hiding place will be discovered and that we'll be shot. That, of course, is a fairly dismal prospect. — Anne Frank

I am terrified of being bored. — Marie Antoinette

I'm fiercely independent, but I'm also terrified of being alone. — Adam Levine

You're terrified of being alone. Anything you do now will be motivated by that fear. You have to stop worrying about finding love again. It will come when it comes. Get comfortable with being alone. It will empower you. — Jonathan Tropper

She had abruptly flipped from the southern belle and was now putting on the extremely businesslike air of those perfectionist women who'd only worked in the professional world for two or three years before stopping to have children and were now terrified of not being taken seriously. — Rebecca Makkai

These are not men of great imagination, but one can hardly blame them for not being prepared for this particular contingency, the sight of a tweet-jacketed, tenured, middle-aged, senior professor and department chair in a fake nose and glasses, brandishing a live, terrified goose ... (Richard Russo, Straight Man) — Richard Russo

At first, being a female role model really terrified me. But it hasn't turned out to be an awful burden. I get a lot of letters from women who tell me that, after watching Xena, they have bought the Harley-Davidson they always wanted or left an abusive relationship. — Lucy Lawless

When I was tiny, the county fair came through town. Our parents took us, and got tickets for the rides, even though I was scared to death of all of them. Edward was the one who convinced me to go on the merry-go-round. He put me up on one of the wooden horses and he told me the horse was magic, and might turn real right underneath me, but only if I didn't look down. So I didn't. I stared out at the pinwheeling crowd and searched for him. Even when I started to get dizzy or thought I might throw up, the circle would come around again and there he was. After a while, I stopped thinking about the horse being magic, or even how terrified I was, and instead, I made a game out of finding Edward.
I think that's what family feels like. A ride that takes you back to the same place over and over. — Jodi Picoult

He was being really cute and funny. Then he moved in close. I was terrified - I mean, I hardly know him, but it was also sort of exciting. Until we actually kissed.
Kendra, he had dog breath. — Brandon Mull

I have myself always been terrified of plagiarism - of being accused of it, that is. Every writer is a thief, though some of us are more clever than others at disguising our robberies. The reason writers are such slow readers is that we are ceaselessly searching for things we can steal and then pass off as our own: a natty bit of syntax, a seamless transition, a metaphor that jumps to its target like an arrow shot from an aluminum crossbow. — Joseph Epstein

He considered the hard times in his life. All the things he had been afraid of. All those years wasted, he told himself, because I was terrified of being different. That's why all us fifty-four-year-olds end up looking so much alike. All of us are terrified of being different. — Stuart McLean

In her more lucid moments, she knew that half her life had been sacrificed to safeguard her secret heart, to appease that unreasonable, mortal dread she suffered of being suddenly revealed to others in a nakedness of spirit that terrified her more than the concept of God's own retribution itself. — Raymond Kennedy

He'd asked if I felt the pull. I could'nt deny that I did. And that it terrified me.
It wasn't like a crush. It wasn't like seeing a guy and thinking I'd like him to take me to the prom. It was soul-deep, as though he was everything, the one, forever. I had to remind myself that I barely knew the guy. But still I couldn't shake the feeling of being meant for each other - as corny as that sounded. — Rachel Hawthorne

She hears all the voices from when she was little, soothing, strengthening: Don't be scared, not of monsters, not of witches, not of big dogs. And now, snapping loud from every direction: Be scared, you have to be scared, ordering like this is your one absolute duty. Be scared you're fat, be scared your boobs are too big and be scared they're too small. Be scared to walk on your own, specially anywhere quiet enough that you can hear yourself think. Be scared of wearing the wrong stuff, saying the wrong thing, having a stupid laugh, being uncool. Be scared of guys not fancying you; be scared of guys, they're animals, rabid, can't stop themselves. Be scared of girls, they're all vicious, they'll cut you down before you can cut them. Be scared of strangers. Be scared you won't do well enough in your exams, be scared of getting in trouble. Be scared terrified petrified that everything you are is every kind of wrong. Good girl. — Tana French

While I drew, and wept along with the terrified children I was drawing, I really felt the burden I am bearing. I felt that I have no right to withdraw from the responsibility of being an advocate. — Kathe Kollwitz

When I was a kid and I was being introduced to science fiction by watching movies with my Dad, Kubrick is one of those guys that we used to watch, you know, I watched Clockwork Orange at an age that was incredibly inappropriate, but he sat there with me and he explained what was going on and you know, I came to appreciate it even if I was terrified at the time. — Duncan Jones

He's got a heart in his chest.
I see it when I look him in the eyes. I see the agony he feels. He's tortured, twisted, all tied up in knots. He's busy beating himself up inside. But most people don't see that, because they don't look at him. They turn away from the surface, terrified, because what he shows the world can be downright fucking scary. But if they just took a second to really see him, they'd know what I know.
They'd believe what I believe.
And what I believe is this man is far from being a monster. — J.M. Darhower

it was very hard to enjoy the scenery while simultaneously being terrified of colliding with it. — Caimh McDonnell

Any thoughts of being with Parker were long gone, and I knew it was because of my feelings for Travis. I thought about the different paths my life would take from that moment - trusting Travis with a leap of faith and risking the unknown, or pushing him away and knowing exactly where I would end up, which included a life without him - either decision terrified me. — Jamie McGuire

Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it. And, Oprah, can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up - some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal. — Harper Lee

How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world? — John Green

His desperation and misery swept her up like a storm capturing the sea. She turned her mind to even these feelings, because they were his, like his terrified rage in the lift when they had first met, being wrapped in his arms in the cold well, being dazzled by his wonder at the woods and her home and her. Like being a child, awareness of him the morning chorus that woke her and the lullaby that sent her to sleep, his thoughts always her first and last song.
I love you, Kami told him, and cut. — Sarah Rees Brennan

I'm terrified of being poor, I always have been. It's growing up as a Methodist. I'll spend that bit of extra money to get a better seat on a train sometimes, because it's quieter and calmer, but I refuse to spend money on clothes. — Kevin McCloud

An intense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his chest, it was inside his very heart ...
Harry's eyes rolled up into his head. He couldn't see. He was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in his ears as though of water. He was being dragged downward, the roaring growing louder ...
And then, from far away, he heard screaming, terrible, terrified, pleading screams. He wanted to help whoever it was, he tried to move his arms, but couldn't ... a thick white fog was swirling around him, inside him - — J.K. Rowling

In some way, he had belonged to the deepest essence of Varen's being. All the broken pieces of himself that Varen had buried, all those bits that terrified his own mind, all accumulated into one beast, a deranged creature born out of everything he knew he wasn't supposed to do or feel. An entity made of desires and emotions and all the longings Varen could never admit to anyone - not even himself. — Kelly Creagh

Being kind is one of the hardest thing to be in high school because you're so terrified of being cut down yourself that you're always on your guard. But don't be like that. Be kind and you will be truly different. A standout. Unique and happy. — Wendy Wunder

Portia remembered her interview in the small office upstairs ... in which she had been so shy, so terrified about not being good enough, not getting this thing, this chance, which she had only just discovered she wanted very badly. — Jean Hanff Korelitz

You know, house-elves get a very raw deal!" said Hermione indignantly. "It's slavery, that's what it is! That Mr. Crouch made her go up to the top of the stadium, and she was terrified, and he's got her bewitched so she can't even run when they start trampling tents! Why doesn't anyone do something about it?" "Well, the elves are happy, aren't they?" Ron said. "You heard old Winky back at the match . . . 'House-elves is not supposed to have fun' . . . that's what she likes, being bossed around. . . ." "It's people like you, Ron," Hermione began hotly, "who prop up rotten and unjust systems, just because they're too lazy to - — J.K. Rowling

It still would be years before I understood the seriousness of my change of view. Much later, I recognized it in "Revolution," the essay of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who describes the moment when a man on the edge of a crowd looks back defiantly at a policeman - and when that policeman senses a sudden refusal to accept his defining gaze - as the imperceptible moment in which rebellion is born. "All books about all revolutions begin with a chapter that describes the decay of tottering authority or the misery and sufferings of the people," Kapuscinski writes. "They should begin with a psychological chapter - one that shows how a harassed, terrified man suddenly breaks his terror, stops being afraid. This unusual process - sometimes accomplished in an instant, like a shock - demands to be illustrated. Man gets rid of fear and feel free. Without that, there would be no revolution. — Gloria Steinem

But to me, it's a whole
lot more important to find something that makes you unafraid of
being alone, rather than to have so many friends that you wind up
being terrified of solitude. — Mitsuyo Kakuta

Courage is being the only only one who knows how terrified you are. — Tom Clancy

I was terrified of being on stage, and I had to work very hard at a craft to get past that. — Alan Arkin