Quotes & Sayings About Crumbling World

LA is such a crumbling mess of a city. Basically in all my years of travelling, I haven't found another city in the western world that interest me as much as Los Angeles - which might sound like heresy, but most cities, history has already happened and the people living there are sort of living on the bones of the thousand years of history that's already happened there. Whereas LA is always reinventing itself. — Moby

Always, some great culture is dying to enrich the soil of new harvests, some civlization is crumbling to rubbish to be the hill of a more beautiful city, some race is spending itself that a lower and more barbarous world may inherit its stored treasure house. — George Edward Woodberry

Nick shook his head and found to his surprise that he did have tears left after all. He wasn't surprised by a talking cat. The world was crumbling around him and anything could happen. — Garth Nix

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the plan, by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust! — Thomas Paine

The love she left behind will be the reason dreams are reached. She was the rock in a world that was crumbling. Her strength will remain. It's in our hearts. — Abbi Glines

How old the world is! I walk between two eternities ... What is my fleeting existence in comparison with that decaying rock, thatvalley digging its channel ever deeper, that forest that is tottering and those great masses above my head about to fall? I see the marble of tombs crumbling into dust; and yet I don't want to die! — Denis Diderot

12. They had spent a lot of time on the beach, as did everyone for miles around when the sun decided to shine. Theirs was no ordinary beach; it was a gorgeous swathe of golden sand, framed by granite cliffs upon which stood the crumbling walls of an ancient castle. There were caves to explore too, hidden in the cliffs. Children and adults alike would venture deep into them, discovering a dark world that belonged predominantly to birds and sea creatures. — Shani Struthers

But the chapel, that will never be prosaic. Those who have seen it outlined against the sunset or the full moon, those who have seen its sloping leaded roof-top glisten after a shower of rain, those who have looked down upon the world from its summit, all those who have seen these things will remember the poetry that it has taught them. And while each man changes from year to year, going through the continual changes that make a lifetime, the chapel remains always the same. When the rest of Cambridge is crumbling and in ruins, the chapel will still be standing, the last to fall to time as it is the last to fall to climbers. — Whipplesnaith

They were philanthropists, helping out with charitable and cultural causes, but when it came to anything progressive like a new belt-line around Buffalo, or moving toll-barriers, or raising taxes to support a crumbling school system, they drew the lines around what could be done, not what should be done, to protect their insular world of being the best kept secret in the northeast as far as cost of living went. — Patricia Butler

I know it feels like the whole world is crumbling around you right now. And I guess in a way it is, with everything else that's happening. But you know what? It's okay. It's okay that you feel numb. It's okay that you feel like shit. Feel it. Then, once you've had enough of feeling that way, you'll start to move forward. But right now, feel however you want to feel. — J.M. Wilde

So, what's the big emergency, princess? You and ice-boy look fine to me, and the Nevernever isn't crumbling around us. What's going on?"
"I'm pregnant, Puck," I said quietly, and watched his eyebrows shoot into his hair. Briefly,I explained what had happened at Elysium, the oracle's mysterious appearance and invitation, and Grimalkin's instruction to meet him at the Wishing Tree. By the time I was done, Puck was still staring at me openmouthed, struck mute for maybe the second time in his life, and I would've laughed if the situation wasn't so serious.
"Oh," he finally managed. "That's, uh ... Wow. That's not something you hear every day. Not exactly what I was expecting, though the entire prophecy thing does get old after a while." He shook himself, seeming to regain his composure, and glanced at Ash. "So, it's the ever so popular Firstborn Child of Doom prophecy, huh, ice-boy? How very cliche. Why can't it be the third nephew twice removed who's fated to destroy the world? — Julie Kagawa

The third, the dark, was a flux of forms, a perpetual coming together and falling asunder of forms. The light contained the docile elements of a new manifold, the world of the body broken up into the pieces of a toy; the half light, states of peace. But the dark neither elements nor states, nothing but forms becoming and crumbling into the fragments of a new becoming, without love or hate or any intelligible principle of change. Here there was nothing but commotion and the pure forms of commotion. Here he was not free, but a mote in the dark of absolute freedom. He did not move, he was a point in the ceaseless unconditioned generalization and passing away of line. — Samuel Beckett

Now that Sam was dead, there wasn't anything left outside of the dungeons worth fighting for, anyway. Not when Adarlan's Assassin was crumbling apart, and her world with her. — Sarah J. Maas

Murtaugh Allsbrook and his riders spread the news like wildfire. Down every road, over every river, to the north and south and west, through snow and rain and mist, their hooves churning up the dust of each kingdom.
And for every town they told, every tavern and secret meeting, more riders went out.
More and more, until there was not a road they had not covered, until there was not one soul who did not know that Aelin Galathynius was alive - and willing to stand against Adarlan.
Across the White Fangs and the Ruhnns, all the way to the Western Wastes and the red-haired queen who ruled from a crumbling castle. To the Deserted Peninsula and the oasis-fortress of the Silent Assassins. Hooves, hooves, hooves, echoing through the continent, sparking against the cobblestones, all the way to Banjali and the river-front palace of the King and Queen of Eyllwe, still in their midnight mourning clothes.
Hold on, the riders told the world.
Hold on. — Sarah J. Maas

Plum puffs can't minister to a mind diseased or a world that's crumbling to pieces — L.M. Montgomery

The strange white world lay stroked by silence. No birds sang. The garden was no longer there, in this forested land. Nor were the out-buildings nor the old crumbling walls. There lay only a narrow clearing round the house now, hummocked with unbroken snowdrifts, before the trees began, with a narrow path leading away. — Susan Cooper

I think the world is crumbling when I have a bad game. — Tyson Chandler

On Mars, the crumbling remains of ancient civilizations may be found, mutely testifying to the one-time glory of a dying world. — P. E. Cleator

...in the strange dizziness of that moment, the statue every man eventually erects and that hardens in the fire of the years, into which he then creeps and there awaits its final crumbling - that statue was rapidly cracking, it was already collapsing. All that was left was this anguished heart, eager to live, rebelling against the deadly order of the world that had been with him for forty years, and still struggling against the wall that separated him from the secret of all life, wanting to go farther, to go beyond, and to discover, discover before dying, discover at least in order to be, just once to be, for a single second, but forever. — Albert Camus

He shook his head. "I tried. I tried to hold out. But when I swing up like that . . . well, eventually the pendulum swings back. It's hard to explain." "I've been down before." "Not like this," he said. "And I'm not saying that to be a smart-ass. The way I feel . . . it's like the world starts crumbling around me. Every doubt, every fear . . . it eats me. It weighs me down until I'm swallowed in darkness and can't tell what's real or not. And even when I know something's not real . . . like Aunt Tatiana . . . well, it's still hard . . ." I — Richelle Mead

My break was a week long, but we stayed in Rome for three. Afterward we flew to San Francisco, where David's latest project was located; I felt elated, like I'd bypassed Yale and young adulthood and graduated straight into the world. When I recall those first weeks with David among the crumbling buildings of Rome, weeks of feeling deliciously older than old, giddy with my own seriousness, it's probably no accident that I can't think of my life without using the word ruined. — Chad Harbach

When I look down into this fucked out cunt of a whore I feel the whole world beneath me, a world tottering and crumbling, a world used up and polished like a leper's skull. — Henry Miller

The idea of mind separate from body goes far back in time. The most famous expression of this is the idea of the Platonic image discussed in the Socratic Dialogues (circa 350 BC). Socrates and Plato expressed the opinion that the real world was but a shadow of reality, and that reality existed on a higher, purer plane reachable only through and preserved in the mind. The mind was considered immortal and survived the crumbling corpus in which it dwelt. But only enlightened minds, such as theirs, could see true reality. As such, they believed people like themselves ought to be elevated to the position of philosopher kings and rule the world with purity of vision. (A similarly wacky idea was expressed by the fictional air force General Jack D. Ripper in Kubrick's classic dark satire Dr. Strangelove. General Ripper postulated that purity of essence was the most important thing in life.) — James Luce

The fact is that the buildings here were not made to speak to the world as we know it, but to the citizens of the USSR. Visible from afar and unfailingly spectacular, they are effectively monuments, ideological markers endowed with an almost mystical aura by their positioning in space and expressive power. "By its incongruity, by its inhuman stature" writes the philosopher Jacques Derrida, "the monumental dimension serves to emphasize the non-representable nature of the very concept that it evokes." This concept, whether in Grodno, Kiev or Dushanbe, is might. The might of power. A power that would soon become illusory and whose crumbling is indeed manifested by the growing stylistic diversity of this architecture. — Frederic Chaubin

I'm 33 and in my "Jesus year," and I want it all right now. I want a perfect body. I want to have a perfect love affair. I want every member of my family to be healthy and happy. And I want the world to save itself and for America to realize that it has to give up its idea of being an empire. Wait until I hit 40; then it'll all come crumbling down. — Rufus Wainwright

Being a caretaker is, and never will be, an easy job; in fact, it is that hardest job in the world and many times a thankless job. You have to be the pillar of strength even when you feel like you are crumbling to pieces inside. — Jenna Morasca

The Western world may have been undergoing a steady transformation, the young may have thought they had discovered a new way of talking to each other, the old barriers were said to be crumbling from the base. But the famous 'hand on the shoulder' was still applied, perhaps less frequently, perhaps with less pressure. — Ian McEwan

And then, on September 11, the world fractured.
It's beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day and the days that would follow
the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction. — Barack Obama

I feel like my world is crumbling beneath my feet but Damon walks in and I have something to grab onto. It's frightening and comforting all in the same. — J.L. Mac

White as a winding sheet, Masks blowing down the street: Moscow, Paris London, Vienna all are undone. The drums of death are mumbling, rumbling, and tumbling, Mumbling, rumbling, and tumbling, The world's floors are quaking, crumbling and breaking. — Edith Sitwell

I'm going to say this one time and one time only, so you had better listen up. The world is going to hell in a hand basket. We got Jacque running off into ponds like a crazy woman; Fane thinking he's Aqua Man, diving in after her and getting his ass captured by the wicked witch; we have freak lightening shows; thunder that shakes the ground; and wind strong enough to knock you over. And you know what's really scary? It's going to get worse before it gets better. The fan is broken from all the shit that has hit it. Yes, I have a potty mouth. I get to have one when the world as we know it is crumbling around us. — Quinn Loftis

What's wrong?" Elysia asked, concerned. "Is it the fact that the very foundation of our world is crumbling all around us and we're barreling forth into a hellish vision of uncertainty and terror the likes of which have never been seen?"

"Sounds wonderful to me," Edgar said, drifting by. — Gina Damico

Gary's eyes narrowed. "I'm pretty sure I don't like you."
"My world is crumbling," Ryan said. I might have laughed. Because sass. — T.J. Klune

Conventions are convenient. It is inconvenient to say people are dead when they are alive, or alive when they have been buried, or that the world is crumbling when it is, as everyone can see, there as usual. If all A that does not fit B is ipso facto disqualified, we have to tailor A to shape and size to avoid serious trouble, and not all are equally gifted in this art. — R.D. Laing

She's back to find out where she fits and what to do next. She was doing that before but when the truth came out it sent her world crumbling so she ran. It's a fucking miracle she's back here. I want her back here, Nan. You may not want to hear this but I love her. I will stop at nothing to make sure she's safe. She is secure and no one and I do mean no one, not even my sister, makes her feel unwanted. — Abbi Glines

2006 Games -by then, my identity had started to shift. Before that, my identity was in snowboarding. That's how people knew me and that's how I knew myself. That's where I got a lot of my self worth. That began to shift and I started to understand that I didn't get my worth from people or from the things that I did. It was from Christ. If I hadn't had that shift in my life, I think my world would have come crumbling down. — Kelly Clark

For the developing world, the past half-century has been a time of recurring hope and frequent disappointment. Great waves of change have washed over the landscape, from the crumbling of colonial hegemonies in mid-century to the recent collapse of Communist empires. But too often, what rushed in to replace the old order were empty hopes-not only in the false allure of state socialism, non-alignment and single-party rule, but also the false glories of romantic nationalism and narrow tribalism, and the false dawn of runaway individualism. — His Highness The Aga Khan

In a weird way, it's not different from any other kind of joke-telling. You make those calculations about jokes about celebrities: is this a fair hit or not? The stakes were higher because the whole world was crumbling around us, but in terms of joke-telling, it's all about feel. — Michael Schur

Now all of the ideas that I'm talking about, they are not radical ideas. Making public colleges and universities tuition free, that exists in countries all over the world, used to exist in the United States. Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and creating 13 million jobs by doing away with tax loopholes that large corporations now enjoy by putting their money into the Cayman Islands and other tax havens. That is not a radical idea. — Bernie Sanders

No! Kell shouted, reaching toward his brother, uselessly, desperately, but as his hand brushed the nearest person, the darkness leaped like fire from his fingers to the man's chest. He shuddered, and then collapsed, crumbling to ash as his body struck the street stones. Before he hit the ground, the people on either side of him began to fall as well, death rippling in a wave through the crowd, silently consuming everyone. Beyond them, the buildings began to crumble too, and the bridges, and the palace, until Kell was standing alone in an empty world. And then in the silence, he heard a sound: not a sob, or a scream, but a laugh. And it took him a moment to recognize the voice.
It was his. — Victoria Schwab

It must never be forgotten that nothing that is really great in this world has ever been achieved by coalitions, but that it has always been the success of a single victor. Coalition successes bear by the very nature of their origin the germ of future crumbling, in fact of the loss of what has already been achieved. Great, truly world-shaking revolutions of a spiritual nature are not even conceivable and realizable except as the titanic struggles of individual formations, never as enterprises of coalitions. — Adolf Hitler

[Pope] Clement waved his hands in irritation as if to dismiss the very idea. The world is crumbling into ruin. Armies are marching. Men and women are dying everywhere, in huge numbers. Fields are abandoned and towns deserted. The wrath of the Lord is upon us and He may be intending to destroy the whole of creation. People are without leaders and direction. They want to be given a reason for this, so they can be reassured, so they will return to their prayers and their obiediences. All this is going on, and you are concerned about the safety of two Jews? — Iain Pears

I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body. — Ayn Rand

'Untitled' is a time machine that can transport you to 1992, an edgy moment when the art world was crumbling, money was scarce, and artists like Tiravanija were in the nascent stages of combining Happenings, performance art, John Cage, Joseph Beuys, and the do-it-yourself ethos of punk. Meanwhile, a new art world was coming into being. — Jerry Saltz

Standing there in-between two disgusting Dumpsters in some crappy alley
with the whole world crumbling down around me, and hearing Alex say those
words, all the fear I have carried with me since I learned to sit, stand, breathe
since I was told that at the very heart of me was something wrong, something
rotten and diseased, something to be suppressed - since I was told that I was
always just a heartbeat away from being damaged - all of it vanishes at once.
That thing - the heart of hearts of me, the core of my core - stretches and unfurls
even further, soaring like a flag: making me feel stronger than I ever have before. — Lauren Oliver

This was their favorite place to meet. It always felt hidden, forgotten. The gold-lettered World Book encyclopedias from the 1980s. The smell of old glue and crumbling paper, the industrial carpet burning her palms.
It reminded her of what you did when you were a little girl, making little burrows and hideaways. Like boys did with forts. Eli and his friend, stacking sofa cushions, pretending to be sharpshooters. With girls, you didn't call them forts, though it was the same. — Megan Abbott

Jost's lips crush into mine, and I reach out without thinking and pull him closer against me. My hand tangles in his hair, and the web shimmers around us. The rest of the world is perfectly still, but we are in motion, crumbling into one another. — Gennifer Albin

It's about not taking things personally. Even when you feel the world is crumbling around you. It's about choosing happiness over suffering. It's about retraining the way we think. — Laura Munson

Every organization of our government, the best government in the world, is crumbling to pieces. Those who have it in their hands are the ones who are destroying it. How long will it be before the words of the prophet Joseph will be fulfilled? He said if the Constitution of the United States were saved at all it must be done by this people. It will not be many years before these words come to pass. — Brigham Young

We actually know that our crumbling pipelines, roads, and bridges are ticking time bombs. That is why President Obama and Congressional Democrats have pushed to fund jobs that repair our roads, runways, and railways - we can't have first rate American communities with third-world American infrastructure. — Christine Pelosi

She was the rock in a world that was crumbling — Abbi Glines

Not everything." Lily takes a deep breath and begins to pace the room. "Not everything, because you aren't. It may feel like you are, and I totally get it, I really do. The world feels like it's crumbling around you, and it makes you feel like you're broken too, but, Jules, you aren't. You are more than this, you're more than this, this- stupid planet, this stupid country. They're reacting to what they think you are, but it doesn't make it true." She preaches like it hurts her, and I recognize in the back of my mind that this is what she hasn't told herself yet. And still she offers it to me. — Pega Rose

His eyes flew back at me and I could see whole civilizations, cities that he'd built and cherished and planned for, like the model of an entire world, all crumbling. — Lyndsay Faye

There is a red sandy beach in the Minas Basin in Nova Scotia that is unlike any other shore landscape I have ever seen. The world's highest tides wash its shores, and the soft cliffs of Blomidon Provincial Park are constantly crumbling away; whole trees will occasionally slide down to the sea to decay slowly in the wind and brine. — John Burnside

He lifted the slice of cake and bit into it and turned the page. The old musty album with its foxed and crumbling paper seemed to breathe a reek of the vault, turning up one by one these dead faces with their wan and loveless gaze out toward the spinning world, masks of incertitude before the cold glass eye of the camera or recoiling before this celluloid immortality or faces simply staggered into gaga by the sheer velocity of time. Old distaff kin coughed up out of the vortex, thin and cracked and macled and a bit redundant. The landscapes, old backdrops, redundant too, recurring unchanged as if they inhabited another medium than the dry pilgrims shored up on them. Blind moil in the earth's nap cast up in an eyeblink between becoming and done. I am, I am. An artifact of prior races. — Cormac McCarthy

Is it really in our countrys best interest to signal to the enemy that they probably only have to wait us out a little longer because congressional determination to defeat them is crumbling? Doesnt such a resolution further diminish our chances for success at the very time our soldiers are preparing to go into battle? And finally, regardless of our politics is this the time to announce to the world that our president is 'on his own'? — Fred Thompson

High-speed trains in Japan can now reach 375 mph - twice as fast as any public transit train in the United States. America's railroads were once the envy of the world. Today they are in disrepair and we are falling further and further behind the rest of the world. We need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, including rail. When we do that we not only make our country more productive and efficient, we create millions of new jobs. — Bernie Sanders

But then an old man was discovered impaled in a ditch, and once again his world had started crumbling away beneath his feet. He wondered how long he could keep this up. — Henning Mankell

1989 was such a very, very important year in Europe. The wall fell, the Soviet Union was crumbling, and so many things happened - in 15 minutes, the world changed. — Per Petterson

When you have lost your way, when the world appears as if it is
crumbling around you, perhaps, just maybe, you should close your eyes.
By looking outward we forget the strength that is given inward. We can
only see part of the picture with our eyes open. But, when they are closed,
we see as a whole. We concentrate not on what we can see, but on the faith
of what we know to be true. - WHISPERED MUSIC — Rachel Van Dyken

In the space of a single year, a crumbling rural village had sprouted an army town, like a great parasitical growth. The former peacetime aspect of the place was barely discernible. The village pond was where the dragoons watered their horses, infantry exercised in the orchards, soldiers lay in the meadows sunning themselves. All the peacetime institutions collapsed, only what was needed for war remained. Hedges and fences were broken or simply torn down for easier access, and everywhere there were large signs giving directions to military traffic. While roofs caved in, and furniture was gradually used up as firewood, telephone lines and electricity cables were installed. Cellars were extended outwards and downwards to make bomb shelters for the residents; the removed earth was dumped in the gardens. The village no longer knew any demarcations or distinctions between thine and mine.
pp. 36-37 — Ernst Junger

Blood filled my mouth, warm as it dribbled out between my lips. I gazed at Tamlin's masked face one last time.

"Love," I breathed, the world crumbling into a blackness with no end. A pause in Amarantha's magic. "The answer to the riddle...," I got out, chocking on my own blood, "is... love."

Tamlin's eyes went wide before something forever cracked in my spine. — Sarah J. Maas

I don't want to see the dollar strong because the rest of the world is crumbling. I would like to see the dollar strong because the Fed has said it wants it to be strong in the future. — David Malpass

This will be the age of cruel winds, the age of people who become as wolves, who prey upon each other, who are no better than wild beasts. Twilight will come to the world, and the places where the humans live will fall into ruins, flaming briefly, then crashing down and crumbling into ash and devastation. — Neil Gaiman

When your world is in pieces, you can choose to see it as crumbling or building. Your attitude, resilience and determination mark the difference. — Rita Zahara