Quotes & Sayings About Dreading Something

Nothing could be gained by worrying and dreading the future, borrowing tomorrow's pain for today. — Karen Kingsbury

This is the kind of behavior that I was dreading: she doesn't see that what she's doing is for her, not me. She doesn't see that it's disrespectful. Dismissive. Condescending. As if my reasons aren't real. — Nicole Hardy

Goodreads is actually about fiction not dreading goo. But I have a profile there, anyway... — Michael A. Arnzen

Closing your eyes won't make the awfulness go away. It may be that nothing will. But dwelling on it, dreading the evil, playing out the misery in your head - doesn't this feed the monster? You can't close your eyes to life, but you can choose where your gaze lingers. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Far more than dreading ending up in a care home myself, I dread having to put my husband in one. — Laurie Graham

Aristocrats might shrug, but commoners, dreading any collapse of the social order, wanted the rules of behavior to be observed. — Robert Silverberg

So I am content to tell my simple story, without trying to make things seem better than they were; dreading nothing, indeed, but falsity, which, in spite of one's best efforts, there is reason to dread. — George Eliot

I wish I could explain it so someone could understand it. I'm afraid it's something I can't put into words. There's just this heavy, overwhelming despair - dreading everything. Dreading life. Empty inside, to the point of numbness. It's like there's something already dead inside. My whole being has been pulling back into that void for months. (81) — Kay Redfield Jamison

Have you ever known there was something you needed to do, but found yourself dreading it with everything you were?"
"Once or twice," he said.
"What did you do?"
Runach looked at her steadily. "I did what needed to be done."
"Was the price steep?"
"Very."
Aisling clutched her own bow, wishing her task was nothing more than learning to place an arrow where she wanted it to land. "Did you ever want to run?" She whispered.
He smiled, but it was a pained smile. "I'm not sure I want to answer that."
"Do you think Heroes ever want to run ... ?"
"Only if they come from Neroche."
She blinked, then smiled. — Lynn Kurland

The thing you hope will never happen to you might just happen to someone else instead, who has been spending their life dreading the thing that will happen to you. — Lemony Snicket

I'm dreading it," says Corinne. "Somehow thirty-one sounds like you might only be just past thirty, still almost technically in your twenties. Thirty-two sounds ominously close to thirty-five. — Jojo Moyes

This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip - I keep trying to read it. I have gone back to it so many times, each time dreading it and each time finding it no better than the last time, that by now it has become something of an old friend. My old friend the bad novel. — Lydia Davis

The mind, it occurs to me, is an engine. There is an ambient mode in which the mind sits idling, before there is information. Some minds idle in a kind of dreading crouch, waiting to be offended. Others stand up straight, eyes slightly wide, expecting to be pleasantly surprised. Some minds, imaging the great What Is Out There, imagine it intends doom for them; others imagine there is something out there that may be suffering and in need of their help.
Which is right?
Neither.
Both.
Maybe all of our politics is simply neurology writ large. Maybe there are a finite number of idling modes. Maybe there are just two broad modes, and out of this fact comes our current division. — George Saunders

I think it's your mental attitude. So many of us start dreading age in high school and that's a waste of a lovely life. 'Oh ... I'm 30, oh, I'm 40, oh, 50.' Make the most of it. — Betty White

A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again — W.B.Yeats

All at once I began dreading to look at them as they passed. I saw the close moonlit space where they would surge by, and had curious thoughts about the irredeemable pollution of that space. They would perhaps be the worst of all Innsmouth types--something one would not care to remember. The — H.P. Lovecraft

My eyes darted to her, dreading to see the pain I knew I would find. Please, Melanie, you have to know I only wanted this with you.
I couldn't say the words out loud, but I prayed she would understand, that she could see it in my eyes. — A.L. Jackson

Dreading the trip. I've never seen so much medicine and — Danielle Steel

I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. — Charlotte Bronte

Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all. — W.B.Yeats

I guess I don't think about age too much. I've always felt older than I really am anyway. I'm not dreading getting older and I don't miss the anxiety of being younger. — Steve Buscemi

Was he here? How close? She fought with the same determination she had then to prevent herself from passing out, as though giving in to unconsciousness would be fatal now, as then. Began to breathe more easily. Maybe he wasn't here. She was just spooked. Dreading the kill scene because of all it would bring back to her. Determined, she moved on down the street. 8:05 — William Appel

More and more people each year are going abroad for Christmas ... Fed up with the fact that commercial Christmas starts in October. Fed up with carols. Dreading the arrival of Christmas cards from people they have forgotten to send a card to. Unable to bear yet another family get-together with Auntie Mary puking up in the corner after sampling too much of the punch. You see in the airports the triumphant glitter in the eyes of people who are leaving it all behind, including the hundredth rerun of Miracle on 34th Street. — M.C. Beaton

I dream of the man, but it's fragmented: he's there, but he isn't. He's always one room away, in a place with more rooms than seems possible. I run down endless halls, longing for and dreading him being around the corner. I hear him call out for me and the skin on the back of my neck tightens and prickles. I don't know if I'm running to him, or from him. — Melinda Salisbury

Spending time with Savannah made me wonder whether it was possible to defy the norm. I wanted more of her, and no matter what happened between us, I already knew I'd never forget anything about her. As crazy as it sounded, she was becoming part of me, and I was already dreading the fact that we wouldn't be able to spend the day together tomorrow. Or the day after, or the day after that. Maybe, I told myself, we could beat the odds.' - John — Nicholas Sparks

For art and joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand - fearing naught and dreading no exposure. — James Whistler

She leaned in and hugged me. "I know. Thanks. I love you, too. And for the record, Cheyenne and Landon are soul mates and if they don't end up together, I want you to find a poltergeist to haunt the Easton Heights writers."
She pulled back, smiling at me, then reaching out to ruffle Lend's hair. "Take care of each other, you two obnoxious kids."
Then, throwing her shoulders back and staring straight forward, she walked through the gate. I watched, dreading seeing her turn into dust or something, but gasped in relief and joy as her ruined, unnaturally preserved body blossomed into something new, something strong and proud and undeniably alive.
She turned back, just once, and although she was nearly unrecognizable, I could see our Arianna in her smile that managed to maintain its trademark ironic twist.
"I'm going to miss her," I said.
"What?" Lend shouted.
"I said, I'm going to miss her!"
"I can't hear you! I'm going to miss her! — Kiersten White

That was the worst word Diane could have said. As soon as she said it, Patty knew she'd been dreading just exactly that. That wedge of possibility - misunderstanding - that could turn this into something. A pat on the head might be a caress of the back might be a kiss on the lips might be the roof caving in. — Gillian Flynn

The pilot who is always dreading a rock or a tempest must not complain if he remain a poor fisherman. We must at times trust, something to fortune, for fortune has often some share in what happens. — Pietro Metastasio

A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work. — Ronald Reagan

At night I no longer dreamed, nor did I let my imagination work during the day. The once vibrant escapes of watching myself fly through the clouds in bright blue costumes, were now a thing of the past. When I fell asleep, my soul became consumed in a black void. I no longer awoke in the mornings refreshed; I was tired and told myself that I had one day less to live in this world. I shuffled through my chores, dreading every moment of every day. With no dreams, I found that words like hope and faith were only letters, randomly put together into something meaningless - words only for fairy tales. — Dave Pelzer

Something not from earth," Jean Luc said. The setup was too perfect. Misha looked at me, and I sighed, dreading what he would be unable to stop himself from saying next. "Live long and prosper. — A.E. Jones

It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. — J.K. Rowling

There's no fear in me. Fear, I guess, is rooted entirely in anticipation. Worrying that things won't turn out the way you've planned, that something will hurt; dreading the sorrow to come - all that goes away when you simply accept finality. It — Pittacus Lore

Making the 'An Idiot Abroad' series, I was really dreading going to India; I thought I'd hate it. It was a nightmare, and I was really ill - just like everyone says. — Karl Pilkington

Why was it that when you were looking forward to a specific day, it took forever to arrive, but when you were dreading a day, it was there immediately? — Michelle Madow

Bilbo and Frodo overcome the objections of the Baggins side of themselves in order to embrace the Quests that await them. Sometimes we have the same struggles as they do. The Took in us wants to pursue dreams, and the Baggins part wants to stay safe and conventional. Too often we heed the negative thinking that convinces us that we do not have the time, money, energy, or opportunity to make our desires come true. We think we have too many other obligations blocking our way. Sometimes we also saddle ourselves with the false guilt that tells us it is not right to do anything for ourselves, especially if we have a family to take care of first. We must not abandon our true responsibilities, of course, but would it not be better if we could fulfill them in a way that fed our soul and not just our pocketbook and got us excited about going to work rather than dreading the drudgery? — Anne Marie Gazzolo

I don't like coming home. It keeps me from being nostalgic, which by nature I am. Even before the plane begins its descent, I find myself dreading the questions left unanswered by my childhood. — Stewart O'Nan

She insisted, but he would not receive her. He was not even acting out of necessity: she meant nothing to him anymore. Death had rapidly broken the bonds whose enslavement he had been dreading for several weeks. When he tried to think of Oliviane, nothing presented itself to his mind's eye: the eyes of his imagination and of his vanity had closed. — Marcel Proust

Eating and food are a wonderful part of our life's experience, and half of us are walking around dreading having to figure out what to put in our mouths. — Gabrielle Reece

Oh! to be a child again. My only treasures, bits of shell and stone and glass. To love nothing but maple sugar. To fear nothing but a big dog. To go to sleep without dreading the morrow. To wake up with a shout. Not to have seen a dead face. Not to dread a living one. To be able to believe. — Fanny Fern

I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us. — Dorothy Dix

Some people awake each morning dreading the day looking for the negatives in their lives and in others, while some awaken fresh appreciating the opportunity to contribute to life, making the world a better place and see the positives. Neither is right or wrong for we are human, we all make a conscience choice everyday as to who we shall be. — Mark W. Boyer

Alone, alone, about the dreadful wood / Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind, / Dreading to find its Father. — W. H. Auden

A man who has once perceived, however temporarily and however briefly, what makes greatness of soul, can no longer be happy if he allows himself to be petty, self-seeking, troubled by trivial misfortunes, dreading what fate may have in store for him. The man capable of greatness of soul will open wide the windows of his mind, letting the winds blow freely upon it from every portion of the universe. — Bertrand Russell

We must also make ourselves flexible, to avoid becoming too devoted to the plans we have formed, and we should make the transition to the state that chance has brought us to without dreading a change either in our purpose or our condition, provided that we are not falling prey to fickleness, a vice entirely at odds with repose. — Seneca.

As night goes round the Earth always there are hundreds of thousands of people who should be sleeping, lying awake, fearing a bully, fearing a cruel competition, dreading lest they cannot make good, ill of some illness they cannot comprehend, distressed by some irrational quarrel, maddened by some thwarted instinct or some suppressed perverted desire. — H.G.Wells

One more time? For the audience? he says. His voice isn't angry. It's hollow, which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.
I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go. — Suzanne Collins

After a night filled with cricket chirps - which were less annoying than she'd thought, because they'd reminded her of girl scout camping trips when she and her sister had been younger - the next morning brought her to something she'd been dreading: it was time to feed the frog. She didn't particularly want to be an accomplice to cricket murder, but neither could she let the frog go hungry. The situation wasn't fair to the crickets or to the frog. Or, really, to her. Ugh, matters of life and death were not her forte. — Cate Rowan

Burnett hadn't gotten secure on his feet when Della said, "Don't start giving me crap. All I did was take the long way home. And if I hadn't, some poor girl would - "
"I'm not giving you crap," Burnett said.
Is that because he's saving it all to give to me? Chase stood quiet, dreading what might be forthcoming. — C.C. Hunter

I was dreading all of the ghost stories of working on American television, not in the least, the length. In Britain, a series is six episodes of an hour drama, maybe sometimes eight, but never twenty-two, so I was petrified of that. — Lennie James

But when a system of religion is made to grow out of a supposed system of creation that is not true, and to unite itself therewith in a manner almost inseparable therefrom, the case assumes an entirely different ground. It is then that errors, not morally bad, become fraught with the same mischiefs as if they were. It is then that the truth, though otherwise indifferent itself, becomes an essential, by becoming the criterion that either confirms by corresponding evidence, or denies by contradictory evidence, the reality of the religion itself. In this view of the case it is the moral duty of man to obtain every possible evidence that the structure of the heavens, or any other part of creation affords, with respect to systems of religion. But this, the supporters or partizans of the christian system, as if dreading the result, incessantly opposed, and not only rejected the sciences, but persecuted the professors. — Thomas Paine

I'm dreading the time that is not near As a man on a cross I have no fear I can't believe these words I'm saying You've got to feel your lines — John Frusciante

If what I feel for you is dislike -- for coming between me and my work sometime every day in the last fifteen months --if that's dislike...If being unable to forget your voice, or the way you turn your neck, or the lights in your hair -- if that's dislike...If wanting to hear that you're married and dreading to hear that you're married...If resenting the condescension that pretends you're not out of my reach...Perhaps you can identify these symptoms for me. — Winston Graham

I opine-I think you're a woman of your world,' he said from the far end of the couch. 'I would have a hard time seeing you pressed and powdered, dreading a life of servitude under the name of marriage. You'd die in that mold. I like you as you are, fiery and ill tempered. — Kim Harrison

He was numb except for dreading the loss of numbness. — Thomas Harris

Dreading dusk, fearing night, praying for dawn. — Gregory J. Saunders

I am dreading the publication, for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at. — J.R.R. Tolkien