Fragile Quotes & Sayings

Our growing dependence on technologies no one seems to understand or control has given rise to feelings of powerlessness and victimization. We find it more and more difficult to achieve a sense of continuity, permanence, or connection with the world around us. Relationships with others are notably fragile; goods are made to be used up and discarded; reality is experienced as an unstable environment of flickering images. Everything conspires to encourage escapist solutions to the psychological problems of dependence, separation, and individuation, and to discourage the moral realism that makes it possible for human beings to come to terms with existential constraints on their power and freedom. — Christopher Lasch

I wish I were a poet. I've never confessed that to anyone, and I'm confessing it to you, because you've given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet.
Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, 'Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open.'
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we'll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What's real? What isn't real? Maybe those aren't the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on?
I wish I had made things for life to depend on. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Ka-Be is the Lager without the physical discomforts. So that, whoever still has some seeds of conscience, feels his conscience re-awaken; and in the long empty days, one speaks of other things than hunger and work and one begins to consider what they have made us become, how much they have taken away from us, what this life is. In this Ka-Be, an enclosure of relative peace, we have learnt that our personality is fragile, that it is much more in danger than our life; and the old wise ones, instead of warning us 'remember that you must die', would have done much better to remind us of this great danger that threatens us. If from inside the Lager, a message could have seeped out to free men, it would have been this: take care not to suffer in your own homes what is inflicted on us here. — Primo Levi

It occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls; while the beat of the wings of a butterfly in the right place, we are told, can create a hurricane across an ocean. Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkable difficult to kill. — Neil Gaiman

We live through the belief of children ... Regicide is suicide, citizens. Inscribe that in your hearts. The Great Pretend is a fragile construct. — Bill Willingham

To touch this abomination with anything less perfectly attuned to its nature than the carefully dispersed wings of an engine field would be like an ancient, fragile rocket ship falling into a sun, like a wooden sea-ship encountering an atomic blast. — Iain M. Banks

He'd tended her wounds, as she had his, and knew she healed well, healed fast. His resilient, hardheaded cop.
But there were parts inside that tough, disciplined body that remained fragile - perhaps always would. And those vulnerable places pulled at him to protect, to comfort, to do anything he could to spare her a bruise or blow.
The vulnerability undid him even as the strength brought him pride. And the whole of her brought him love beyond the measuring of it. — J.D. Robb

What happened to your face?" Blue asked.
Adam shrugged ruefully. Either he or Ronan smelled like a parking garage. His voice was self-deprecating. "Do you think it makes me look tougher?"
What it did was make him look more fragile and dirty, somehow, like a teacup unearthed from the soil, but Blue didn't say that.
Ronan said, "It makes you look like a loser."
"Ronan," said Gansey.
"I need everyone to sit down!" shouted Maura. — Maggie Stiefvater

Love is like that, fragile and light. No wonder it rests upon our hearts in intangible moments, bids us follow fleeting thoughts and ideas and pursue our abstract imaginings. — Belinda Jeffrey

Then and now, Jesus witnesses that ours is a God who seeks us out and whose kingdom proclaims: Pay attention to what is lost. Be tender to all that is broken, fragile and wounded in our world. Sr. Chris Koellhoffer, I.H.M. — Mark Neilsen

What fragile and unknown threads the destinies of nations and the lives of men are suspended. — Alexandre Dumas

Daisy chains are pretty fragile, and it turns out that families are too. — Cathy Cassidy

This morning when I looked out the roof window
before dawn and a few stars were still caught
in the fragile weft of ebony night
I was overwhelmed. I sang the song Louis taught me:
a song to call the deer in Creek, when hunting,
and I am certainly hunting something as magic as deer
in this city far from the hammock of my mother's belly.
It works, of course, and deer came into this room
and wondered at finding themselves
in a house near downtown Denver.
Now the deer and I are trying to figure out a song
to get them back, to get all of us back,
because if it works I'm going with them.
And it's too early to call Louis
and nearly too late to go home.
[from poem, "Song for the Deer and Myself to Return On"] — Joy Harjo

You've never been married, so you don't know, but it is a fragile thing. Nothing ever goes away, everything stays inside it. It is a different reality. — Aleksandar Hemon

Emotionally and physically, I'm an extremely fragile creation of God; while the strong will and character are formed out of the necessity to protect the vulnerable core. — Sahara Sanders

Very few old folk are happy, Irina. Most of them are poor, aren't healthy, and have no family. It's the most fragile and difficult stage of life, more so than childhood, because it grows worse day by day, and there is no future other than death. — Isabel Allende

A trail twists through the stone cliffs toward Arques. At its end lies a broken man, his soul lifting away from his body, fluttering on a butterfly's wing, as fragile as a dream. — Julie Christine Johnson

He said:To love, we need passion, but also respect. Once, someone told me that all you needed to build lasting happiness was a woman who admired and respected her man. But now, I know that's wrong. Happiness is much more difficult to attain. It's like crossing a suspension bridge; it's fragile, shaky, and there's no guardrail. You have to find your own equilibrium. And for that to happen, it has to rest on two centers of gravity, on both partners. — Duong Thu Huong

Ingrid's skin was the smoothest texture, so pale that it was transparent. I could see the blue veins that ran down her arms, and they made her seem fragile somehow. the way Eric Daniels, my first boyfriend, seemed fragile when I laid my head on his chest and heart his heart beating and thought, Oh. People don't always remember about the blood and the heartbeat. But whenever I looked at Ingrid, I was reminded of the things that kept her alive. — Nina LaCour

We often take these social rituals for granted, but we do so at our own peril. They are more fragile than we think. Like fine crystal, they break easily and are hard to glue back together. — Carmela Soprano

Be humble and kind. Kindness has power in it. Look at Mother Teresa, the truest example of kindness. She was humble, kind, and fragile yet she was also a symbol of power. I have never heard of a woman more powerful than her. When we hear name, we must bow our heads with deep respect. — Debasish Mridha

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy. — Edward P. Morgan

We make believe that even our tongues are bulletproof, as if we are stronger than what these fragile bones can take. — Shinji Moon

There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts. — Neil Gaiman

From my spirit's gray defeat, From my pulse's flagging beat, From my hopes that turned to sand Sifting through my close-clenched hand, From my own fault's slavery, If I can sing, I still am free. For with my singing I can make A refuge for my spirit's sake, A house of shining words, to be My fragile immortality. — Sara Teasdale

I realized that loving people, depending on them, NEEDING them, is just too dangerous. Love is just a way to set you up for a bad fall. It's the rug they pull out from under you at the very moment you decide that everything's going to be fine. We're all so ephemeral. So fragile. And life's so unpredictable. — Dean Koontz

She, with her affection and her gaiety, had been largely responsible for him having rediscovered the meaning of life, her love had driven him to the far corners of the Earth, because he needed to be rich enough to buy some land and live in peace with her for the rest of their days. It was his utter confidence in this fragile creature, that had made him fight with honor, because he knew that after a battle he could forget all the horrors of war in her arms, and that, despite all the women he had known, only there in her arms could he close his eyes and sleep like a child. — Paulo Coelho

I believe that, seven generations beyond us, those who look back on our time will find that it was the cry of the trees that helped to restart the dreaming and foster the understanding that we must dream not only for ourselves but also for our communities and for all that shares life with us in our fragile bubble of air. — Robert Moss

We should have stayed on the moon. We should have made moon the base, instead of building space stations, which are fragile and which fly apart. — Ray Bradbury

Small yet strong in the love of God, like Saint Francis of Assisi, all of us, as Christians, are called to watch over
and protect the fragile world in which we live, and all its peoples. — Pope Francis

Then surely there is an adversary. There is something opposed to you. Something that desires to defeat you. You want to believe your enemy is the disease. You don't want to believe even for a minute that the enemy is your own body, this weak tent of flesh that cannot stand up against a speck of contagion, this fragile weave of muscle, bone, and soul that also cannot resist the power of flame nor the pull of the ground — Susan Meissner

By night, I am free.
No one hears my monsters but me.
My freedom is fragile, though,
Because every morning,
Over and over,
The night is broken by the sun.
It's a good way to die. — Courtney Cole

He knew how she felt. It was the way he felt himself, sometimes, if he woke in the small hours, at three a.m., a time when the world seemed empty and stripped of comforting illusion. A time when you knew you were a mote, transient and fragile in a vast universe, a candle flame in an empty hall. — Terry Pratchett

Asian Homo erectus died without issue and does not enter our immediate ancestry (for we evolved from African populations); Neanderthal people were collateral cousins, perhaps already living in Europe while we emerged in Africa ... In other words, we are an improbable and fragile entity, fortunately successful after precarious beginnings as a small population in Africa, not the predictable end result of a global tendency. We are a thing, an item of history, not an embodiment of general principles. — Stephen Jay Gould

It [ballet] projects a fragile kind of strength and a certain inflexible precision. — Ayn Rand

...human behavior is fragile and unpredictable and often at the mercy of the situation. Every individual still, of course, has a choice as to how to behave, it's just that for many people the situation is the key determinate in that choice. — Laurence Rees

I don't even know how to thank you, Gavin. You've accepted me with every fragile weakness I have, loving me no less than a woman without faults. A woman without fears. Every look, touch, and kiss you've given without judgment of any kind. You've healed every exposed wound, old scar, and piece of pain I brought into this relationship without expecting anything in return. You've shown me what a racing heart feels like, shown me mere thoughts could easily cease with a single kiss. You've shown me what it is to feel truly, wholeheartedly, until the end of time loved. How do I thank you for all of this? — Gail McHugh

I am whelmed, and not overly whelmed, just whelmed about a lot of facets in life - just how fragile life is and the different challenges you have in life, phobias about things. — Kevin Nealon

Crashing into the trembling void
Stretching my hand to you
Losing myself to frigid regret
Is this fragile love
A way
To say
Good-bye — Maggie Stiefvater

Been united by superficial tendrils of the small and the mundane, but the enormous fact of your death was ripping each fragile connection. I said — Rosamund Lupton

At first sight, joy seems to be connected with being different. When you receive a compliment or win an award, you experience the joy of not being the same as others. You are faster, smarter, more beautiful, and it is that difference that brings you joy. But such joy is very temporary. True joy is hidden where we are the same as other people: fragile and mortal. It is the joy of belonging to the human race. It is the joy of being with others as a friend, a companion, a fellow traveler. This is the joy of Jesus, who is Emmanuel: God-with-us. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

In a fragile environment, we need to be aware of ourselves as members of a uniquely powerful species living among other species who are quite as interesting as we are but vulnerable to us because we are cleverer in more destructive ways. — Andrew Motion

The medieval mind, which saw only continuity, seemed so unassailable. It existed in a world which, with all its ups and downs, remained harmoniously ordered and could be taken for granted. It had not developed a sense of history, which is a sense of loss; it had developed no true sense of beauty, which is a gift of assessment. While it was enclosed, this made it secure. Exposed, its world became a fairyland, exceedingly fragile. It was one step from the Kashmiri devotional songs to the commercial jingles of Radio Ceylon; it was one step from the roses of Kashmir to a potful of plasticdaisies. — V.S. Naipaul

Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home
"One swing set, well worn but structually sound, seeks new home. Make memories with your kid or kids so that someday he or she or they will look into the backyard and feel the ache of sentimentality as desperately as I did this afternoon. It's all fragile and fleeting, dear reader, but with this swing set, your child(ren) will be introduced to the ups and downs of human life gently and safely, and may alos learn the most important lesson of all: No matter how hard how you kick, no matter how high you get, you can't go all the way around."
Swing set currently resides near 83rd and Spring Mill. — John Green

The future was also the place where the bad stuff waited in ambush. My children were embarking on their futures in fragile vessels, and I trembled. I wanted to remove obstacles, smooth their way, I wanted to change their childhoods. I needed to be right all the time, I wanted them to listen to me, learn from my mistakes, and save themselves a lot of grief. Well, now I know I can control my tongue, my temper, and my appetites, but that's it. I have no effect on weather, traffic, or luck. I can't make good things happen. I can't keep anybody safe. I can't influence the future and I can't fix up the past.
What a relief. — Abigail Thomas

The nationalism that had been instilled in them for so many generations had produced a citizenry whose ego was so fragile that they refused to acknowledge the rest of the world. — Suki Kim

We can not tell what can happen in a minute.
How fragile is our life.
Soon we are gone and forgotten.
But our memories lives on. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Jem's eyes had widened, and then he'd laughed, a soft laugh. "Did you think I did not know you had a secret?" he'd said. "Did you think I walked into my friendship with you with my eyes shut? I did not know the nature of the burden you carried. But I knew there was a burden." He'd stood up. "I knew you thought yourself poison to all those around you," he'd added. "I knew you thought there to be some corruptive force about you that would break me. I meant to show you that I would not break, that love was not so fragile. Did I do that? — Cassandra Clare

That's certainly a problem. But that's not what I was thinking of. It's just that you are so soft, so fragile. I have to mind my actions every moment that we're together so that I don't hurt you. I could kill you quite easily, Bella, simply by accident." His voice had become just a soft murmur. He moved his icy palm to rest it against my cheek. "If I was too hasty ... if for one second I wasn't paying enough attention, I could reach out, meaning to touch your face, and crush your skull by mistake. You don't realize how
incredibly breakable you are. I can never, never afford to lose any kind of control when I'm with you. — Stephenie Meyer

I enjoy the vibration of the sound against my lips, the heat of her breath against mine. Everything is visceral now, an explosion of sensations and my vision blurs.
She is soft and I am hard and I rage against her, taking her over and over until her eyes glaze and her screaming stops.
Her heart is pounding against my chest and her body is so very fragile.
So I break it. — Courtney Cole

I plead for conservation of human culture, which is much more fragile than nature herself. We needn't destroy other cultures with the force of our own. — Arthur Erickson

Progress is slow, it is uneven, it is fragile and in some parts of the world it is being erased. — Angelina Jolie

Some part of me knew that I could play this part well, or better than well. But I was almost afraid to play it. The line between stage and life was so fragile here that I felt a risk of losing myself somehow. — J.B. Cheaney

You are alive tonight for a reason. You were created to love and to be loved. You were not meant to be alone. You are not alone. You were meant to do life with other people. You need people who know you. You need to know people. Your voice matters. We are certainly strong. But we are also certainly fragile. — Jamie Tworkowski

It was a lesson, Magnus thought, to love while you could, love what was fragile and beautiful and imperiled. Nobody was guaranteed forever. — Cassandra Clare

These fragile, worn, faded, thin, cheap paper-bound books. They smelled of dust, and mould, and age. They smelled, faintly, of pee, and tobacco, and spilled coffee. They smelled like things which had lived.
They smelled like history. — Lavie Tidhar

I didn't know what to call it, what was happening between us, but I liked it. It felt silly and fragile and good. — Ransom Riggs

What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos.
Have a nice day. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The ancient trees are the deep earth's language for speaking to the universe. The earth communicates through trees to the animals and to the birds living above - and to the very heavens. The trees draw the earth's water up from the ground. Then breathing, they return it to the air for the clouds and the blessed rain that falls to begin the cycle anew. She thinks of the thin layer of living things as a fragile space between earth's molten rock core and the frozen outer universe of stars. The thin layer is like her own life here - precious, finite — J.J. Brown

What they all knew was this: Life was fragile. — Kaya McLaren

Unfortunately, mortal life is very fragile, and very short. Yours could be shorter than usual. — Rachel Caine

You exist by the Weavers' grace. Only as long as you are what they expect of you. Do not understand how fragile that is? But if you replace your other, you might be safe. You might make your familiars happy, and then they will always keep you. So if only for my sake, child, hope that happens."
"I don't wish for her to die!"
"Then I will wish it," she replies ruthlessly. — Sangu Mandanna

These earthenware bowls are fragile and easily broken, they are only made of a little clay on which fortune has precariously bestowed a shape, and the same could be said of mankind. — Jose Saramago

All human beings, by virtue of having been born into this world, are immortal beings - not our material bodies; those are sadly quite fragile, inasmuch as they are bound by the laws of matter and time. The spirit, however, is indestructible. It obeys different laws. — Stephen R. Lawhead

Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord,

Who was the Future, died full long ago.

Knowledge which is the Past is folly. Go,

Poor, child, and be not to thyself abhorred.

Around thine earth sun-winged winds do blow

And planets roll; a meteor draws his sword;

The rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord

And the long strips of river-silver flow:

Awake! Give thyself to the lovely hours.

Drinking their lips, catch thou the dream in flight

About their fragile hairs' aerial gold.

Thou art divine, thou livest, - as of old

Apollo springing naked to the light,

And all his island shivered into flowers. — Trumbull Stickney

Some believe that we will eventually sink back to the more simple-minded creatures which we evolved out of and the planet will bring another mind forward." "Isn't that the opposite of evolution?" "Only from a single-species perspective. A planet's life is paramount. It is such a fragile rare event, it should be treasured and nurtured for the potential it brings forth. If that means abdicating our physical dominance for our successors, then that is what we will accept. Such a time is a long way in our future. In terms of evolution, we have only just begun such a journey. — Peter F. Hamilton

I felt overwhelmed. I didn't expect a first kiss to be so ... life altering. In a few brief moments, the rule book of my universe had been rewritten. Suddenly I was a brand new person. I was as fragile as a newborn, but instead of the doctor placing me in my mother's arms, he'd put me in Ren's. What would Ren do with me? Would he draw me near, soothe me, and teach me about this new world or would he reject me and tell the doctor there must be some mistake. There was no way to know. What a breakable and delicate thing a heart was, no wonder I'd kept mine locked away. — Colleen Houck

Some people are like fragile petals, and they don't recover from hardship. Do we blame the petal? Or do we excuse its fragility and mourn its loss? — Aleksandra Layland

And if we had learned anything from this story it was to be cautious of paper
to be mindful of its fragile construction and sharp edges, but mostly to be cautious of what is written on it. — Salvador Plascencia

Brian's face broke out in a wide grin as he slapped Roarke on the back. "That's a woman, isn't it?"
"Delicate as a rose, my Eve. Fragile and quiet natured." He grinned himself when he heard her curse, loud and vicious. "A voice like a flute."
"And you're sloppy in love with her."
"Pitifully. — J.D. Robb

Her father, indulgent in his concern, had opened his library to her, and at last she could read to her heart's content. In all, these past few weeks had been some of the most peaceable of her life. She had the sense of existing inside a fragile pause, a moment of grace. — Helene Wecker

The world had a fragile liquid quality, running at the edges and spinning on previously unrevealed axes. — Scott Lynch

Do you think anger is a sincere emotion or the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? — Andrea Gibson

Possible Ending #16 (Life Imitates Art Imitates Life Imitates Art Imitates): I'd seen this movie. Obvious ending: outright betrayal, lesson learned, life is heartbreak, people who mean well still fuck you over, everyone's sad, greedy, looking out for number one, no consideration for the fragile fat boy whose displayed cynicism only masks a deeper hope that everyone's okay, will ultimately end up all right, that love exists, that happiness may not be stable but at least comes in bursts, that everything worthwhile wasn't just a self-created illusion. — Adam Wilson

My father once told me that American democracy is a people's democracy at heart, and that it therefore can be as great as the American people, or as fallible. It depends on all of us. But our system is more fragile than we know. To sustain it, we must always cherish the ideals on which it was founded, remain vigilant against the dark forces that threaten it, and actively engage in the process of making it work. — George Takei

Life is fragile. Screw all that hesitant bullshit. We were going to go for it. — Charles Sheehan-Miles

He doesn't trouble himself with closing the shutter - total darkness, sense deprivation, might activate his thoughts. Better to stare at something and hope to feel his eyelids grow heavy. Already, his tiredness seems fragile or unreliable, like a pain that comes and goes. He needs to nurture it, and to avoid thoughts at all costs. — Ian McEwan

It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it's going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven't your ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it's reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent. — George Alec Effinger

This basic problem of relevance-cum-subservience has been given an added twist in the modern world, where relevance has become not only hollow but fragile and short-lived. A wider range of choices, a deeper uncertainty of events, a more pressing need for new styles - all this makes for an accelerating turnover of issues, concerns and fads. Nothing tires like a trend or ages faster than a fashion. Today's bold headline is tomorrow's yellowing newsprint. Thus the relevance-hungry liberals achieve relevance, but their victory is Pyrrhic. It is precisely as they win that they lose. As they become relevant to one group or movement, they become irrelevant to another and find themselves rudely dismissed. Far from being in the avant-garde, Christian liberals trot smartly behind the times. Far from being genuinely new or radical, they catch up and announce their discoveries breathlessly, only to see the vanguard disappearing down the road on the trail of a different pursuit. — Os Guinness

I think of you when upon the sea the sun flings her beams.
I think of you when the moonlight shines in silvery streams.
I see you when upon the distant hills the dust awakes;
At night when on a fragile bridge the traveler quakes.
I hear you when the billows rise on high,
With murmur deep.
To tread the silent grove where wander I,
When all's asleep. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I flipped through Xuanzang's records almost 1400 years later, and thought that the written word was a fragile truth. His records were meticulous, but there was a vastness left unsaid. There were spools of thought that fell through the cracks and were swallowed by time. I hungered to know if he ever lost sight of is training, if on empty mountain roads loneliness crept into the sides of his mind till he thought he was mad, if in foreign marketplaces he succumbed to desire or greed or temper. — Mishi Saran

Thy Banners gleam a little, and are furled; Against thy turrets surge His phantom tow'rs; Drugged with his Opiates the nations nod, Refusing still the beauty of thine hours; And fragile is thy tenure of this world Still haunted by the monstrous ghost of God. — George Sterling

Human beings, little bags of thinking water held up briefly by fragile accumulations of calcium ... — Terry Pratchett

They built it so quickly. It's only been a few days since the Bowl of Bones," I murmur back. Anything louder than a whisper might shatter this fragile peace.
Cal's hand stills, his palm flat against my bare skin. "Maven turned against you long before the Bowl of Bones."
I know that now. I know it with every bleeding breath. — Victoria Aveyard

That's not the way it is, Callahan." I grabbed her hands and rolled her closer to me, until our knees touched. "The thing is, we're all fragile. It's just that most of our friends are lucky enough not to know it yet. — Sarina Bowen

My brothers are idiots.
Anyone can see that under the scars and the attitude, Isabeau is more fragile than she looks. And as a reclusive Hound princess, her first introduction to the royal family shouldn't be a dose of Hypnos and four idiots gawking at her.
If I'd managed not to gawk, they sure as hell could have. She was beautiful, fierce, and utterly unlike anyone I'd ever known.
It was really hard not to gawk.
Much better to pace outside her door with one of our Bouviers sitting at the top of the stairs watching me curiously.
"This sucks, Boudicca," I told her. "I don't think we inherited Dad's diplomacy."
She laid her chin on her paws. I could have sworn she rolled her eyes. — Alyxandra Harvey

I hope the day will come when a wasp-waist and a pair of thin shoulders will not be esteemed beauty: we have had our ideas ruined by trash novels, praising 'fragile forms' and 'delicate beauty,' 'dainty waists,' 'snow-drop faces,' and a lot of other nonsense. — Julia McNair Wright

The sturdiest virtue seems fragile. — Laozi

For the novelist or poet, for the scientist or artist, the question is not where do ideas come from, the question is how they come. The how is the mystery. The how is fragile. — E.L. Konigsburg

Basic science provides long-term benefits for ourselves and our fragile planet and should be supported by all the world's societies. — David Lee

How do you find your mount, Miss de Lacy?"
Amy found it a slug. It was clear Rowanford had taken her caution too seriously. This horse would be ideal for a non-equestrian grandmother. "I feel very safe," she said.
"Excellent. I shall take good care of you, Miss de Lacy. Have no fear."
Amy sighed and wished there was a convenient piece of furniture to heft to prove she was not as fragile as she appeared. — Jo Beverley

Marie clasped her hands together and looked vulnerable. Payne flinched. "The only time you don't tell me something is when you think it's dangerous, because being a fragile, sheltered noblewoman, I might faint at the thought of experiencing physical harm like a common person." She sighed, and seemingly from nowhere, produced an enormous cast-iron frying pan easily one hundred centimeters in diameter. "And then," she said sadly, "I have to damage one of the good pans by smacking it against your thick, common skull until you tell me - — Phil Foglio

All I want to say is that life is very fragile. We should live every moment and cherish what we have been given. — Li Bingbing

When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. — Brian Doyle

You can't escape this feeling of disintegration. The world is fragile. But you also can't let it ruin your life. I'm actually a pretty composed person. I guess people imagine I spend my life thinking about crazy, sinister things but I don't, really. It's not like I'm trying to exorcise any demons. — Michael Shannon

How simple and fragile life is. — Danny Scheinmann

There is cruelty in divorce. There is cruelty in forced or unfortunate marriage. We will continue to cry at weddings because we know how bittersweet, how fragile is the truth. We will always need legal divorce just as an emergency escape hatch is crucial in every submarine. No sense, however, in denying that after every divorce someone will be running like a cat, tin cans tied to its tail: spooked and slowed down. — Anne Roiphe

Unlike the victims of the Jewish Holocaust, who were on the whole literate, comparatively wealthy, and positioned to record for history the horror that enveloped them, Cottenham and his peers had virtually no capacity to preserve their memories or document their destruction. The black population of the United States in 1900 was in the main destitute and illiterate. For the vast majority, no recordings, writings, images, or physical descriptions survive. There is no chronicle of girlfriends, hopes, or favorite songs of the dead in a Pratt Mines burial field. The entombed there are utterly mute, the fact of their existence as fragile as a scent in wind. — Douglas A. Blackmon

In a world of fragile self-justification, the truth made no one happy. — Greg Bear

If last night proved anything, it's that life is a strong drink served up in an extremely short - and fragile - shot glass. — Samantha Sotto