Days Of Ruin Quotes & Sayings

She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation.
In spirit she walks the city, traces its labyrinths, its dingy mazes: each assignation, each rendezvous, each door and stair and bed. What he said, what she said, what they did, what they did then. Even the times they argued, fought, parted, agonized, rejoined. How they'd loved to cut themselves on each other, taste their own blood. We were ruinous together, she thinks. But how else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? — Margaret Atwood

There must be a new world if there is to be any world at all! ... These days of universal death must be days of universal new birth, if the ruin is not to be total and final! It is Time to make the dullest man consider; and ask himself, Whence he came? Whither he is bound? — Thomas Carlyle

That makes two weeks. Two weeks to change the world, and fourteen days to ruin it. — Markus Zusak

I miss the days of burning your kind at the stake. For generations we have settled for financial ruin and ostracization of your whorish ancestors - but know this, I will personally gut you and put your head on a pike in my parlor. — Heather McVea

There is no one for spying on people's actions like those who are not concerned in them ... They will follow up such and such a man or woman for whole days; they will do sentry duty for hours at a time on the corners of the streets, under alley-way doors at night, in cold and rain; they will bribe errand-porters, they will make the drivers of hackney-coaches and lackeys tipsy, buy a waiting-maid, suborn a porter. Why? For no reason. A pure passion for seeing, knowing, and penetrating into things. A pure itch for talking. And often these secrets once known, these mysteries made public, these enigmas illuminated by the light of day, bring on catastrophies, duels, failures, the ruin of families, and broken lives, to the great joy of those who have "found out everything," without any interest in the matter, and by pure instinct. A sad thing. — Victor Hugo

forgiveness. It is not in denying the hopeless days that take place when others reject us or turn on us. It is not in minimizing the pain we experience at the hands of those who seem bent on ruining our lives. People turn on people. They betray one another. Crass unkindness, vicious plottings, horrible and intentional antagonisms are shown, and calling it a hopeless day hardly describes the extended season of struggle that many of us face at times. But there is a lesson at Calvary. Forgive everyone - anyone - whom you think has failed you, hurt you, offended you. If you think they've done anything to ruin your day, ruin your life, ruin your opportunities, ruin your dreams, or block your goals - forgive them. Forgiving others is the key to living in the liberty of the freeing forgiveness Jesus has given us, and it's the first step toward finding hope for a hopeless day, not to mention opening the door to new days unimagined. — Jack W. Hayford

Ninety-seven saint days a year wouldn't affect the theater, but two Yom Kippurs would ruin it. — Brendan Behan

How we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple to slice into pieces. Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon, that means we're inconsolable. Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. These our bodies, possessed by light. Tell me we'll never get used to it. — Richard Siken

Douglas claimed that in his New Salem days Lincoln "could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together" - a charge that was not merely inaccurate but singularly inappropriate from a senator known to have a fondness for drink - and Lincoln jeered that Douglas's popular-sovereignty doctrine was "as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death. — David Herbert Donald

But maybe he'd always known. Maybe the cool winds of fate and the flag-snap flutter of destiny had always been there, tickling his spine, whispering in his ear it's gonna catch up with you boy one of these days the truth'll come back so you'd better go go go, until finally, Emerson couldn't help but listen. There was only so much ruin the mind could rationalize. There was only so much badness that could be suppressed for so long. His guilt, on its own, was utterly meaningless - just a showy type of magic that changed nothing because changing nothing was the endgame all along. Words like absolution and forgiveness and redemption would never apply to someone like him. Those terms were just abstractions. Names for what other people called the moments between darkness. — Stephanie Kuehn

Lonesome tears
I can't cry them anymore
I can't think of what they're for
Oh they ruin me every time

But I'll try to leave behind some days
These tears just can't erase
I don't need them anymore

How could this love
Ever turning
Never turn its eye on me
How could this love
Ever changing
Never change the way I feel

Lazy sun your eyes catch the light
With the promises that might
Come true for awhile

Oh I'll ride farther than I should
Harder than I could
Just to meet you there

How could this love
Ever turning
Never turn its eye on me
How could this love
Ever changing
Never change the way I feel — Beck

I'd ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you, and I did. — Daniel Handler

Ed, it was everything, those nights on the phone, everything we said until late became later and then later and very late and finally to go to bed with my ear warm and worn and red from holding the phone close close close so as not to miss a word of what it was, because who cared how tired I was in the humdrum slave drive of our days without each other. I'd ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you, and I did. But that's why right there it was doomed. We couldn't only have the magic nights buzzing through the wires. We had to have the days, too, the bright impatient days spoiling everything with their unavoidable schedules, their mandatory times that don't overlap, their loyal friends who don't get along, the unforgiven travesties torn from the wall no matter what promises are uttered past midnight, and that's why we broke up. — Daniel Handler

Should he give free reign to his desires, the bibliomaniac can ruin his life along with the lives of his loved ones. He'll often take better care of his books than of his own health; he'll spend more on fiction than he does on food; he'll be more interested in his library than in his relationships, and, since few people are prepared to live in a place where every available surface is covered with piles of books, he'll often find himself alone, perhaps in the company of a neglected and malnourished cat. When he dies, all but forgotten, his body might fester for days before a curious neighbor grows concerned about the smell. — Mikita Brottman

I live in a small town, a town without much serious crime, but I'll tell you there are days when I see enough mean-spirited ugliness to ruin my lunch. — Toni Dwiggins

We believe that God has set his hand in these last days to accomplish his purposes, to gather together his elect from the four winds, even to fulfil the words which he has spoken by all the holy prophets, to redeem the earth from the power of the curse, to save the human family from the ruin of the fall, and to place mankind in that position which God designed them to occupy before this world came into existence, or the morning stars sang together for joy. We believe in and realize these things. We feel them, we appreciate them, and therefore are we thus assembled together — John Taylor

Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net
Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back.
Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak
Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light
Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight
Like a daunted witch,
quitting castle when real days break.


Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock;
While you stand heroic in coat and tie, I sit
Composed in Grecian tunic and psyche-knot,
Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic:
Which such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate,
What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?



"Conversation Among the Ruins — Sylvia Plath

* * * In the afternoon, when Grace was just about to ruin her dinner with a big bowl of popcorn while looking through various online floral arrangements on her laptop, there was a light tapping at her back door. She pulled the curtain to peek out through the window in the door and was shocked to see Iris. She opened the door. Don't newlyweds lay around in bed for several days after the wedding? — Robyn Carr

People ask sometimes, when they get up the courage, what it's like to lose someone you love. I tell them it's hard, and leave it at that.
I could tell them that it's a crucifixion of the heart. I could say that most days after, I screamed without stopping, even as I moved through the city, even with my mouth closed, even though I didn't make a sound. I could tell them I have this dream, every night, and lose him again, every morning.
But, hey, why ruin their day? So I tell them it's hard. That usually seems to satisfy them. — Cody McFadyen

I think the idea of a 'mental health day' is something completely invented by people who have no clue what it's like to have bad mental health. the idea that your mind can be aired out in twenty-four hours is kind of like saying heart disease can be cured if you eat the right breakfast cereal. mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying 'i don't want to deal with things today' and then can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning announcements with a suicide. — David Levithan

Too afraid to touch anything, I found sitting in the custom made indow cubby the safest place for me to be as I played games with raindrops. Rainy days made the time pass more quickly as I pretended I was the tiniest raindrop on its descent down the glass. My goal would be to not make it to the bottom. I counted on morphing with the other, bigger raindrops and kept count of the times I won and the times I lost. The heaviness of the storm would dictate my luck. The heavier the storm, the more likely gravity would ruin my chances at survival. When I started losing more than I was winning, I rested my forehead on the cold hard glass and asked them if disintegrating on impact was really all that bad. It was time for a new distraction. — Cherry Tigris

When you believe you have found an important scientific fact, and are feverishly curious to publish it, constrain yourself for days, weeks, years sometimes, fight yourself, try and ruin your own experiments, and only proclaim your discovery after having exhausted all contrary hypotheses. But when, after so many efforts you have at last arrived at a certainty, your joy is one of the greatest which can be felt by a human soul. — Louis Pasteur

Dorian strokes my exposed back with the tips of his fingers, sending shockwaves up and down my spine. I gasp from the contact, resisting the urge to beg him for more. He brings his face down to my neck, letting his lips brush my earlobe. "Gabriella, I would love to bend you over this desk right now and pull your dress up past your thighs and over your ass," he murmurs, sex dripping from his soft lips.
"That sounds good to me," I breathe, turning my head a fraction. "What's stopping you?" Never in my life have I been this bold and eager with a man but Dorian has awakened the sleeping sex giant within me. If my days are numbered, I want to at least die happy.
"Oh, I would do it. But I know Aurora will come looking for me and I don't want to be disturbed when I ... ruin you." Ruin me? It sounds so threatening and violent.
I love it. — S.L. Jennings

The stars are out,' Zoe said.
She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to ruin turn the sky orange.
'Amazing,' Bianca said. 'I've never actually seen the Milky Way.'
'This is nothing,' Zoe said. 'In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution.'
'You talk like you're not human,' I said.
Zoe raised an eyebrow. I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?'
'For you,' Thalia corrected. 'Not thee.'
'But you use you for the beginning of a sentence.'
'And for the end,' Thalia said. 'No thou. No thee. Just you.'
Zoe threw up her hands in exasperation. 'I hate this language. It changes too often! — Rick Riordan

One day can make your life. One day can ruin your life. All life is, is four or five days that change everything. — Beverly Donofrio

Those bands, you plan your life around them. You plan vacations around concert dates. You save babysitting money for records. You live for those days when Creem magazine arrives in your dusty mailbox and you frantically flip through it for any information on your favorites. The bands, the musicians that you love, they love you back. And when they quit, when they fall apart, when they die - they ruin that future you thought they'd always be a part of. — Karina Halle

It was everything, those nights on the phone, everything we said until late became later & then later & very late & finally to go to bed with my ear warm & worn & red from holding the phone close, close, close so as not to miss a word of what it was, because who cared how tired I was in the humdrum slave drive of our days without each other? I'd ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you & I did. But that's why right there it was doomed. We couldn't only have the magic nights buzzing through the wires. We had to have the days, too, the bright impatient days spoiling everything with their unavoidable schedules, their mandatory times that don't overlap, their loyal friends who don't get along, the unforgiven travesties torn from the wall no matter what promises are uttered past midnight & that's why we broke up. — Daniel Handler

And as a general rule, which may make all creditors who are inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no men embarrassed are altogether honest, very likely. They conceal something; they exaggerate chances of good luck; hide away the reals state of affairs; say that things are flourishing when they are hopeless; keep a smiling face (a dreary smile it is) upon the verge of bankruptcy
are ready to lay hold of any pretext for delay, or of any money, so as to stave off the inevitable ruin a few days longer. — William Makepeace Thackeray

One day can change your life. One day can ruin your life. All life is is three or four big days that change everything. — Beverly Donofrio

All sex is a form of longing even as it happens. Because it happens against the crush of time. Because the surface of the act is public, a cross-grain of fear and ruin. She wanted her body to remain a secret of the past, untouched by complexity and regret. She was superstitious about talking to doctors in detail. She thought they would take her body over, name all the damaged parts, speak all the awful words. She lay for a long time with her eyes closed, trying to drift into sleep. Then she rubbed the cat's fur and felt her childhood there. It was complete in a touch, everything intact, carried out of old lost houses and fields and summer days into the river of her hand. — Don DeLillo

Near by is an interesting ruin - the meagre remains of an ancient heathen temple - a place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old bygone days when the simple child of Nature, yielding momentarily to sin when sorely tempted, acknowledged his error when calm reflection had shown it him, and came forward with noble frankness and offered up his grandmother as an atoning sacrifice - in those old days when the luckless sinner could keep on cleansing his conscience and achieving periodical happiness as long as his relations held out; — Mark Twain

Well, we all have our good days.
That one bad night can ruin. — Nelson Algren