Quotes & Sayings About Earthquake

All the Muslims are happy, and Godwilling this earthquake ... will be felt right up to the White House. — Abol-Ghasem Kashani

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake — Jeannette Rankin

Within a couple of weeks even earthquake survivors return to their normal level of unfounded optimism. — Daniel M. Gilbert

Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity, - the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heavens artillery, - but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice. Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggots life, nothing more. Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance. And the fear od death, of God, of the universe, comes over him, - the hope of the Resurrection and the life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence, - it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.
- The White Silence — Jack London

My heart beats so hard, I feel like I have an earthquake inside of me. It's weighing me down and my hands shake with the need of safety and comfort. — Karen Quan

When you're a sportswriter, you learn how to use your imagination and to flex your literary muscle, because it's the same game played over and over again. There's nothing unique or marvelous. It's not an earthquake, or a weird mass murder. It's just the same old game played over and over, and you have to bring out the personalities. You have to drag them kicking and screaming out into the light of day, or you're not a good sportswriter. — Rick Bragg

We all have
to put it as nicely as I can
our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower centres act: they act with terriblepower that sometimes destroys us; but they don't talk ... Since the war the lower centres have become vocal. And the effect is that of an earthquake. For they speak truths that have never been spoken before
truths that the makers of our domestic institutions have tried to ignore. — George Bernard Shaw

Who, on seeing a Parisian apartment house, has never thought of it as indestructible? A bomb, a fire, an earthquake could certainly bring it down, but what else? In the eyes of an individual, of a family, or even a dynasty, a town, street, or house seems unchangeable, untouchable by time, by the ups and downs of human life, to such an extent that we believe we can compare and contrast the fragility of our condition to the invulnerability of stone. — Georges Perec

It was only after the earthquake that the health minister said mental health should be a priority and that the issue was talked about. — Reggie Fils-Aime

For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling in the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of the nation must be startled, the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed: and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. — Frederick Douglass

After an earthquake in Los Angeles - The earth in LA moved more in one hour than Benoit Benjamin did all last season with the Clippers. — Peter Vecsey

What seems dangerous often is not - black snakes, for example, or clear-air turbulence. While things that just lie there, like this beach, are loaded with jeopardy. A yellow dust rising from the ground, the heat that ripens melons overnight - this is earthquake weather. You can sit here braiding the fringe on your towel and the sand will all of a sudden suck down like an hourglass. The air roars. In the cheap apartments onshore, bathtubs fill themselves and gardens roll up and over like green waves. If nothing happens, the dust will drift and the heat deepen till fear turns to desire. Nerves like that are only bought off by catastrophe. — Amy Hempel

Hey, Mr. Nakata. Gramps. Fire! Flood! Earthquake! Revolution! Godzilla's on the loose! Get up! — Haruki Murakami

I long for some terrific disaster. Earthquake. Spectacular explosion. Her mother is messily but instantly and permanently eliminated, along with everybody else for miles around. — Vladimir Nabokov

There are many things in this world I do not know. I do not know how butterflies get out of their cocoons without damaging their wings. I do not know why anyone would boil vegetables when roasting them is tastier. I do not know how to make olive oil, and I do not know why dogs bark before an earthquake, and I do not know why some people voluntarily choose to climb mountains where it is freezing and difficult t breathe, or live in the suburbs, where the coffee is watery and all the houses look alike. — Lemony Snicket

There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state? — Lord Byron

No es buen momento para un terremoto," Lupe used to say. "It's not a good moment for an earthquake. — John Irving

There can be no doubt that the cult of death and the insistence upon portents of the end proceed from a surreptitious desire to see it happen, and to put an end to the anxiety and doubt that always threaten the hold of faith. When the earthquake hits, or the tsunami inundates, or the twin towers ignite, you can see and hear the secret satisfaction of the faithful. Gleefully they strike up: "You see, this is what happens when you don't listen to us!" With an unctuous smile they offer a redemption that is not theirs to bestow and, when questioned, put on the menacing scowl that says, "Oh, so you reject our offer of paradise? Well, in that case we have quite another fate in store for you." Such love! Such care! — Christopher Hitchens

It was the fashion of the times to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will of the Deity; the alterations of nature were connected, by an invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical opinions of the human mind; and the most sagacious divines could distinguish, according to the colour of their respective prejudices, that the establishment of heresy tended to produce an earthquake, or that a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the progress of sin and error. — Edward Gibbon

People, he had said, were always being looked at as points, and they ought to be looked at as lines. There weren't any points, it was false to assume that a person ever was anything. He was always becoming something, always changing, always continuous and moving, like the wiggly line on a machine used to measure earthquake shocks. He was always what he was in the beginning, but never quite exactly what he was; he moved along a line dictated by his heritage and his environment, but he was subject to every sort of variation within the narrow limits of his capabilities.
...
She shut her mind on that too. There was danger in looking at people as lines. The past spread backward and you saw things in perspective that you hadn't seen then, and that made the future ominous, more ominous than if you just looked at the point, at the moment. There might be truth in what Bruce said, but there was not much comfort. — Wallace Stegner

Few literary depictions of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake match the intensity and visceral power of those in Flacco's gripping first novel. The author's screenwriting talent shines in this story of the earth's destructive power and humanity's moral depravity. The emerging maniacal personality, revealed in increasingly gruesome and venomous detail, rivals the Ripper.Dickens meets Hannibal Lecter. Brace yourself. — William Bernhardt

I live a half mile from the San Andreas fault - a fact that bubbles up into my consciousness every time some other part of the world experiences an earthquake. I sometimes wonder whether this subterranean sense of impending disaster is at least partly responsible for Silicon Valley's feverish, get-it-done-yesterday work norms. — Gary Hamel

When the angel spoke, God awoke in the heart of this girl of Nazareth and moved within her like a giant. He stirred and opened His eyes and her soul and saw that in containing Him she contained the world besides. The Annunciation was not so much a vision as an earthquake in which God moved the universe and unsettled the spheres, and the beginning and end of all things came before her in her deepest heart. And far beneath the movement of this silent cataclysm she slept in the infinite tranquility of God, and God was a child curled up who slept in her and her veins were flooded with His wisdom which is night, which is starlight, which is silence. And her whole being was embraced in Him whom she embraced and they became tremendous silence." -Thomas Merton — Thomas Merton

Decide for yourselves as to what you should thing of those who say there is God, that he is the preserver of justice and that he is the protector of all, even after seeing the practice of untouchablity in the form of man being banned from human sight and contact, from walking into the streets, from entering the temples and drawing water from a tank, is rampant in the land, and yet that land is not spared from being razed by an earthquake, burnt by the fiery lava of a volcano, engulfed in a deluge from the ocean, submerged in the chasm of the earth, or fragemented by thunder-storm. — Periyar E.V. Ramasamy

Zack drew alongside her, leaning down to murmur in her ear. Mollie, I'm not leaving you again. If the city burns to the ground for a second time. If an earthquake splits the land in two or a plague saps us dry . . . I am not leaving. I'll show up at your doorstep every morning and every evening for the rest of the year if that's what it takes. — Elizabeth Camden

Thought Experiment: Imagine that you are Johnny Carson and find yourself caught in an intolerable one-on-one conversation at a cocktail party from which there is no escape. Which of the two following events would you prefer to take place: (1) That the other person become more and more witty and charming, the music more beautiful, the scene transformed to a villa at Capri on the loveliest night of the year, while you find yourself more and more at a loss; or (2) that you are still in Beverly Hills and the chandeliers begin to rattle, a 7.5 Richter earthquake takes place, and presently you find yourself and the other person alive and well, and talking under a mound of rubble.
If your choice is (2), explain why it is possible for a true conversation to take place under the conditions of (2) but not (1). — Walker Percy

God's will is hard only when it comes up against our stubbornness, then it is as cruel as a ploughshare and as devastating as an earthquake. — Oswald Chambers

In San Francisco, two people actually saw the earthquake. Jesse Cook, the police sergeant on duty in the produce market, saw it a moment after he became aware of panic among the horses all around him. Years later Cook recalled: "There was a deep rumble, deep and terrible, and then I could see it actually coming up Washington Street. The whole street was undulating. It was as if the waves of the ocean were coming towards me, billowing as they came. — Gordon Thomas

The safest place to be during an earthquake would be in a stationary store. — George Carlin

One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head - just a jog, barely perceptible really - it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. — Christopher Moore

It never ceases to amaze me that in times of amazing human suffering somebody says something that can be so utterly stupid. — Robert Gibbs

Secrets - even in hardened criminals, they were just air pockets lodged under debris at the bottom of an ocean. It might take an earthquake, or you scuba diving down there, sifting through the sludge, but their natural proclivity was always to head straight to the surface - to get out. — Marisha Pessl

Considered purely as effects-driven filmed drama, 'The Day After Tomorrow' checks in somewhere in the middle of one of Hollywood's most absurd and least lamented dead genres, the disaster pic of the '70s. It's a little better than 'Earthquake' but not as good as 'The Towering Inferno,' because it doesn't star Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. — Stephen Hunter

Earthquake report: This is the big one. — Sharon M. Draper

That pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere ... the firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage-scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Una's death struck Samuel like a silent earthquake. He said no brave and reassuring words, he simply sat alone and rocked himself. — John Steinbeck

My daughter is one of my greatest inspirations. She's an environmentalist, she plays piano, she's raising money for the earthquake victims in Nepal. Every day she surprises me and teaches me something. — Patti Smith

We don't suggest that because San Francisco lies on top of an earthquake fault that it should be moved. — John Breaux

I have never seen an adequate description anywhere of the amazement, the uncomprehending horror of the bulk of the American people which preceded the firing of that gun at Sumter. Politicians or far-sighted leaders on both sides knew what was coming. And it is they who have written histories of the war. But to the easy-going millions, busied with their farms or shops, the onrushing disaster was as inexplicable as an earthquake. Their protest arose from sea to sea like the clamor of a gigantic hive of frightened bees. — Rebecca Harding Davis

Do you see those dull stars?" She outlined the formation with her finger.
"A pentagram," whispered Scott.
"Yes, but not just any pentagram. Take a look through the telescope."
Scott approached the eyepiece.
"They're not stars!"
"What do they look like?" asked Jenn.
Scott studied each of the figures.
"It can't be," he stuttered. "Planets?"
"Exactly what I thought."
"But how? They're completely off their orbits."
"The earth's off its axis."
"Mount Etna erupted."
"Greece had a earthquake."
"The whole universe has gone mad!" Scott exclaimed.
"And my friends have supernatural powers," said Jenn. — Katie Mattie

If Spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The generosity of the American public toward the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami has been reflected in the outpouring of support for the Pakistani earthquake victims. — Jon Porter

Elephants can sense danger. They're able to detect an approaching tsunami or earthquake before it hits. Unfortunately, Jack did not have this talent. The day his life was turned completely upside down, he was caught unaware. — Jennifer Richard Jacobson

If an earthquake were to engulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event. — Douglas William Jerrold

Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God, I'm still alive.' But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again. — Barbara Boxer

A great night, with room enough for Heaven to be hidden there from our not too perspicacious eyes. ... It was said that an earthquake shock imperceptible to our senses set those cattle and sheep and horses and pigs crashing through all the hedges of the county. And it was queer: before they had so started lowing and moving Mark was now ready to swear that he had heard a rushing sound. He probably had not! One could so easily self-deceive oneself! The cattle had been panicked because they had been sensible of the presence of the Almighty walking upon the firmament. ... — Ford Madox Ford

Dostoyevsky's indignation at Afanasy Fet's innocent lyrics, "Whispers, timid breath, the nightingales trilled," is well known. This is simply disgraceful, wrote Dostoyevsky indignantly, and he speculated what an insulting impression such empty verses would have made if they'd been given to someone to read during the Lisbon earthquake! Some people protested: Yes, of course, Dostoyevsky is right, but we aren't having an earthquake, and we aren't in Lisbon, and after all, are we not allowed to love, to listen to nightingales, to admire the beauty of a beloved woman? But Dostoyevsky's argument held sway for a long time. It did so because of the way Russians perceive Russian life: as a constant, unending Lisbon earthquake. — Tatyana Tolstaya

Karma, God, Earthquake, Natural disasters,
Posted on May 2, 2015 by Priyavrat Thareja
The Earthquakes, Tsunamis, etc are God's smaller initiatives to a bigger correction, implemented in single steps. The prioritisation of place, time and logistics is set by mankind in inverse relationship to the Karma. — Priyavrat Thareja

I was married once
in San Francisco. I haven't seen her for many years. The great earthquake and fire in 1906 destroyed the marriage certificate. There's no legal proof. Which proves that earthquakes aren't all bad. — W.C. Fields

Like an unexpected wet mop in the face of tired complacency, The Sovereignty Solution works on the receptive mind as a pry bar works on a tightly sealed box. Written with courage and passion, this is a book whose often counterintuitive clarity shakes entombed assumptions like an earthquake. Whether you end up convinced or not, you will never think about American national security the same way ever again. — Adam Garfinkle

Yes
It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That's why we wake
and look out - no guarantees
in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening. — William Stafford

The autumn stars had come out, incredible in number and brilliance, twinkling and almost blinking because of the dust stirred up by the earthquake and the wind, so that the whole sky seemed to tremble, a shaking of diamond chips, a scintillation of sunlight on a black sea. — Ursula K. Le Guin

It was like being in the start of an earthquake. Before that, whatever else happened, however bad things had been, you were at least sure the ground would stay still. — Roland Merullo

How old were you then?" "Fourteen." "Do you remember anything about it?" "Very little." "You don't remember? It was like an earthquake. Apartment doors were flung wide open, people went in and took things and left. No one asked any questions. They deported a quarter of the city. Don't you remember?" "Yes, I do. But the shameful thing is, at the time it didn't seem the most important thing in the world. They explained it to us at school - why it was necessary, why it was expedient. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

God's voice was not in the earthquake, Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake. — Lord Byron

After this, I couldn't hear their voices any longer; for in my ears I heard a sound like a bird's wings flapping in panic. Perhaps it was my heart, I don't know. But if you've ever seen a bird trapped inside the great hall of a temple, looking for some way out, well, that was how my mind was reacting. It had never occurred to me that my mother wouldn't simply go on being sick. I won't say I'd never wondered what might happen if she should die; I did wonder about it, in the same way I wondered what might happen if our house were swallowed up in an earthquake. There could hardly be life after such an event. — Arthur Golden

They penetrate into the recesses of nature, and shew how she works in her hiding places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The only way I'll ever get hurt in the casino is if there's an earthquake and a slot machine falls on my foot. — Jack Benny

Pokemon to choose? According to some reviews, Mudkip is suggested to be the best. When evolved to Swampert, it will have abilities of Surf, Strength and Waterfall while Blaziken and Sceptile will only have Cut and Strength. By level 52, Swampert will be able to learn Earthquake which is a pretty strong move for battles. Speed up battles and texts Since Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire is a big game as you could probably see and there will be a lot of battles and talks. If you will spend most of your time watching the battles and reading the texts, this will take your forever to accomplish things in the game. — Maverick Guides

We have made men proud of most vices, but not of cowardice. Whenever we have almost succeeded in doing so, God permits a war or an earthquake or some other calamity, and at once courage becomes so obviously lovely and important even in human eyes that all our work is undone, and there is still at least one vice of which they feel genuine shame. The danger of inducing cowardice in our patients, therefore, is lest we produce real self-knowledge and self-loathing, with consequent repentance and humility. — C.S. Lewis

People must ask themselves why this earthquake occurred in this area and not in others ... These areas were notorious because of this type of modern tourism, which has become known as "sex tourism" ... Don't they deserve punishment from Allah?! — Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

I couldn't help but be impressed by the magnitude of the earthquake. — Dan Quayle

I will remember this day for the rest of my life. There is nothing you can say. It's just like you won the match after the earthquake and it just feels great. — Elena Vesnina

But Hannah's friend didn't understand the volatile balancing act between art and sanity, that the act of creation was like walking a tightrope during an earthquake. She didn't understand Hannah's stupid need for validation, or that the size of the audience increased the stakes and multiplied the fear. She didn't understand that creativity was dangerous, that, yes, there were some people who could stand before a canvas, paint a sunset that would bring the world to its knees, and return to their loved ones as a complete person who didn't hurt, didn't cry, didn't spill blood to appease the host of fickle muses. But Hannah did. Hannah's best ideas - sometimes her only ideas - were buried beneath the skin. — Jake Vander Ark

Americans rightly asked, if this is the way our government responds to a natural disaster it knew about days in advance, how would it respond to a surprise terrorist attack? How would it respond to an earthquake? — Russ Carnahan

could see people standing on the beach staring at the wave, immobilized, in a trance, as if they were watching a movie. They didn't think that what was happening in the ocean would reach the shore. Even if they ran as fast as they could, they wouldn't have been able to escape it. They were screening a new clip from Thailand or Indonesia. It showed a little boy climbing up the trunk of a tree as the tidal wave flattened the tall palm trees. "The earthquake started near the Sumatra Islands in Indonesia. — Dorit Sliverman

And those who, like you and me, dear reader, go there to die, must get there solely and compulsorily via arrest.
Arrest! Need it be said that it is a breaking point in your life, a bolt of lightning which has scored a direct hit on you? That it is an unassimilable spiritual earthquake not every person can cope with, as a result of which people often slip into insanity?
The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it. Each of us is a center of the Universe, and that Universe is shattered when they hiss at you: "You are under arrest"
If you are arrested, can anything else remain unshattered by this cataclysm? — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Shortly after the 2004 Indonesian earthquake, I read that the earthquake had affected the rotation of the earth, shortening the length of our 24-hour day. Even though the change was extremely slight - only a few microseconds - I found the idea incredibly haunting. — Karen Thompson Walker

A pseudo-event ... comes about because someone has planned it, planted, or incited it. Typically, it is not a train wreck or an earthquake, but an interview. — Daniel J. Boorstin

We'd itch the vermin feasting on our flesh and share the day's many rumors:
The King had declared peace.
No, the King was sending German and Russian mercenaries to destroy us.
A ball of fire as big as a man's head fell from heaven to Hatboro - a good omen. But there'd been an earthquake near York just as a cat gave birth to puppies, which meant the worst. — Laurie Halse Anderson

I remember her, not a girl but the girl. The brains behind the all time top ten comic book vixens only wish they could conjure a a siren the likes of Susan Glenn, beneath my feet my own private earthquake registered an eight when Susan Glenn was near. In her presence all was beautiful before she arrived turned grotesque and in her shadows others became goblinesque, if she approached Susan Glenn she didn't walk she floated, accompanied by Pyrotechnics spectacals that left me feeling a foot tall. She embodied every desireable quality I have ever wanted. In my mind I was a peasant before a Queen. And so Susan Glenn and I were never a thing, if I could do it again, I'd do it differently. — Keifer Sutherland

God speaks to me not through the thunder and the earthquake, nor through the ocean and the stars, but through the Son of Man, and speaks in a language adapted to my imperfect sight and hearing. — William Lyon Phelps

The world, that is, of earthquake and cataclysm, cyclone and devastation; the violent matrix, the real world of unmastered, unmasterable physical stress that is entirely inimical to man because of its indifference. Ocean, forest, mountain, weather - these are the inflexible institutions of that world of unquestionable reality which is so far removed from the social institutions which make up our own world that we men must always, whatever our difference, conspire to ignore them. For otherwise we would be forced to acknowledge our incomparable insignificance and the insignificance of those desires that might be the pyrotechnic tigers of our world and yet, under the cold moon and the frigid round dance of the unspeakably alien planets, are nothing but toy animals cut from coloured paper. — Angela Carter

[In plotting earthquake measurements] the range between the largest and smallest magnitudes seemed unmanageably large. Dr. Beno Gutenberg then made the natural suggestion to plot the amplitudes logarithmically. — Charles Francis Richter

As the whirlwind in its fury teareth up trees, and deformeth the face of nature, or as an earthquake in its convulsions overturneth whole cities; so the rage of an angry man throweth mischief around him. — Akhenaton

Haiti is always talking about decentralization and nothing has been so obvious, perhaps a weakness, as the centralized nature of Haitian society as being revealed by the earthquake. I mean, they lost all these medical training programs because they didn't have them anywhere else. — Paul Farmer

Most friendships, if the end at all, end not by earthquake, but by erosion. Your time together, which you used to take for granted, becomes something you need to schedule.
Slowly you're aware that the easy intimacy you shared got lost somewhere. You talk more and more about the past. — Alex Robinson

I used to sleep nude - until the earthquake. — Alyssa Milano

I do a lot of work with the Red Cross, too. As a reporter, before I went to entertainment news, I tended to follow natural disasters. I went to Charleston, South Carolina, after Hurricane Hugo. I went to Miami the year after they were recovering from Hurricane Andrew. I came to California when they were recovering from a big earthquake. I've seen the Red Cross and how they stay there years after a natural disaster. They're not just there when a disaster is happening. — Nancy O'Dell

How strange it (the earthquake) must all have seemed to them, here where they lived so safely always! They thought such a dreadful thing could happen to others, but not to them. That is the way! — William Dean Howells

Nothing but an imperious intellectual and moral necessity can drive into doubt a religious mind, for it is as though an earthquake shook the foundations of the soul, and the very being quivers and sways under the shock. — Annie Besant

He looked around when he heard a window-rattling roar. "Earthquake? Volcano? Nuclear war?" "Beaver," Peter told him. "I don't care if it is Alaska, you don't have beavers big enough to sound like that. — Nora Roberts

Have I mentioned the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, and the collapse of a section of the Bay Bridge, or the Oakland 'firestorm' of 1991? No need. There are already there, in my narratives that fail to mention them, in my dreams that fail to represent them. — Robert Appelbaum

The outpouring of support from millions of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has been impressive. — Bill Gates

Butterfly effect." "Right. It means small events can have large, whatchamadingit, ramifications. The idea is that if some guy kills a butterfly in China, maybe forty years later - or four hundred - there's an earthquake in Peru. That sound as crazy to you as it does to me?" It did, but I remembered a hoary old time-travel paradox and pulled it out. "Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?" He stared at me, baffled. "Why the fuck would you do that?" That was a good question, so I just told him to go on. — Stephen King

All I know: I could only encounter you, my oasis, coming out of a desert. Deserted myself. This is all right. My futureless and solitary self. When suddenly I hear the voice of the springs--Right away you made me want to sing. To cry. Then to drink. But after the desert, the merest trickle of water sounds like a storm. And ever since, Promethea's every murmur shakes my life like an earthquake. I was asleep. I was not thirsty. It would have been possible for me not to hear the first three tears. Ever since I never sleep. I listen. — Helene Cixous

You still waste time with those things, Lenu? We are flying over a ball of fire. The part that has cooled floats on the lava. On that part we construct the buildings, the bridges, and the streets, and every so often the lava comes out of Vesuvius or causes an earthquake that destroys everything. There are microbes everywhere that make us sick and die. There are wars. There is a poverty that makes us all cruel. Every second something might happen that will cause you such suffering that you'll never have enough tears. And what are you doing? A theology course in which you struggle to understand what the Holy Spirit is? Forget it, it was the Devil who invented the world, not the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Do you want to see the string of pearls that Stefano gave me? — Elena Ferrante

Two days ago I didn't even know this man. Now his absence is an earthquake. — Beth Teliho

Nobody dast blame this man. You don't understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there's no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back - that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple spots on your hat and your finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream boy, it comes with the territory. — Arthur Miller

There's nothing the matter with Hollywood that a good earthquake couldn't cure. — Moss Hart

There comes a terrible moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other neglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives
when the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war, and grey fathers know nothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls forget all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for the shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands. — George Eliot

Somewhere int he flesh of the earth the dreadful earthquake shuddered, the tide walked to and fro on the leash of the moon, rainbows formed, winds swept the sky like giant brooms piling up clouds before them, clouds which writhed into different shapes, melted into rain or darkened, bruised themselves against an unseen antagonist and went on their way, laced with forking rivers of lightning, complete with white electric tributaries. Out of this infinite vision an infinity of details could be drawn, but Sonny had settled on one, and from the endless series a particular beach was chosen and began to form around Laura - a beach of iron-dark sand and shells like frail stars, and a wonderful wide sea that stretched, neither green nor blue, but inked by the approach of night into violet and black, wrinkling with its own salty puzzles, right out to a distant, pure horizon. — Margaret Mahy

Earthquake report: Expect big aftershocks - nothing like this has ever been seen before. — Sharon M. Draper

It is a very important film, Life And Nothing More, in that what was filmed was inspired by a journey I had made just three days after an earthquake. And I speak not only of the film itself but also of the experience of being in that place, where only three days before 50,000 people had died. — Abbas Kiarostami

Elizabeth understood as she never had before. Everyone, all of them had lived secure in the belief that the earth was stable, unchanging, eternal.
Now no one could trust the ground beneath their feet.
Yes, the earthquake was the story of destruction, but not just of things. An earthquake destroyed security. It destroyed complacency. It changed the people who lived through it. — Christina Dodd

Contrary to popular wisdom, you cannot hide from evil in the practice of evil. You can no more master the horrors of the world by immersing yourself in them then one can master an earthquake by standing in front of a collapsing building every Tuesday to see where one gets hit, or if, and when, or how badly. Trauma is not tenderized one itty bit by inviting the host in repeatedly. — John Thomas Allen

Soon the earth will tilt on its axis and begin to dance to the reggae beat to the accompaniment of earthquake. And who can resist the dance of the earthquake, mon? — Peter Tosh

As I write, Johnny Rotten's first moments in "Anarchy in the U.K."-a rolling earthquake of a laugh, a buried shout, then hoary words somehow stripped of all claptrap and set down in the city streets-I AM AN ANTICHRIST-Remain as powerful as anything I know. Listening to the record today-listening to the way Johnny Rotten tears at his lines, and then hurls the pieces at the world; recalling the all-consuming smile he produced as he sang-my back stiffens; I pull away even as my scalp begins to sweat. — Greil Marcus

Earthquake - the earthquake of November 23, 1980, with its infinite destruction - entered into our bones. It expelled the habit of stability and solidity, the confidence that every second would be identical to the next, the familiarity of — Elena Ferrante