Gone Awry Quotes & Sayings

Until I saw Chardin's painting, I never realized how much beauty lay around me in my parents' house, in the half-cleared table, in the corner of a tablecloth left awry, in the knife beside the empty oyster shell. — Marcel Proust

As I get older, I recognize that my thinking about poetry may or
may not have anything actively to do with my actual work as a
poet. This strikes me as no thing cynically awry but rather
seems again instance of that hapless or possibly happy fact,
we do not as humans seem necessarily aware of what we are
physically or psychically doing at all! — Robert Creeley

When it is perceived that a show has gone awry, the pressure is staggering, and as a writer caught in that storm, it feels like you are being attacked by jackals. — Steven Bochco

Wild Things in Captivity

Wild things in captivity
while they keep their own wild purity
won't breed, they mope, they die.

All men are in captivity,
active with captive activity,
and the best won't breed, though they don't know why.

The great cage of our domesticity
kills sex in a man, the simplicity
of desire is distorted and twisted awry.

And so, with bitter perversity,
gritting against the great adversity,
they young ones copulate, hate it, and want to cry.

Sex is a state of grace.
In a cage it can't take place.
Break the cage then, start in and try. — D.H. Lawrence

Children are being adultified because our economy is depending on them to make purchasing decisions. So they're essentially the victims of a marketing and capitalist machine gone awry. — Douglas Rushkoff

There is much: recognition of the fact that human beings live indeterminate and incomplete lives; recognition of the power exerted over and upon us by our own habits and memories; recognition of the ways in which the world presses in on all of us, for it is an intractable place where many things go awry and go astray, where one may all-too-easily lose one's very self. The epistemological argument is framed by faith, but it stands on its own as an account of willing, nilling, memory, language, signs, affections, delight, the power and the limits of minds and bodies. To the extent that a prideful philosophy refuses to accept these, Augustine would argue, to that extent philosophy hates the human condition itself. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

To simplify things down to their real essence, whenever things go wrong in our lives, whenever our plans go awry and the things we took for granted suddenly disappear, we have a very simple choice. We can either succumb to despair and assume the attitude of the put upon victim, powerless to change our fate, or we can decide to turn the tragedy into an opportunity. — Tony Clark

A marriage, even one that goes awry, generates claims and needs that persist like an afterglow long after the emotional fire is burned out. — Wallis Simpson

Surrounded by them all, she was reminded of the old parental curse - May you have six children just like you. Except that this curse seemed to have gone awry. Miles would have reveled at six children just like himself; he'd have known exactly what to do. Instead, he seemed to have received six children, none in the least like himself, and furthermore, each one different from all the others. As parental revenges went, this was actually much better. — Lois McMaster Bujold

We do not have an ecological crisis. The ecosphere has a human crisis. Our 'story' about our place in the scheme of things has somehow gone awry in the industrial age ... — William E. Rees

asks as I turn. "A bow to your betters won't go awry, doncha — Pierce Brown

He spent the next two days in careful, decisive preparation efficiently conducted around his day job. The three imperatives of his mission were embedded in every action he performed: (1) keep it simple; (2) provide for every contingency; and (3) never panic no matter how much your plan goes awry, which it occasionally did. However, if there were a fourth rule, it would have to be: exploit the fact that most people are fools when it comes to things that actually matter, like their own survival. He had never suffered from that shortcoming. — David Baldacci

It had been, in Robin's view, the most perfect proposal, ever, in the history of matrimony. He had even had a ring in his pocket, which she was now wearing; a sapphire with two diamonds, it fitted perfectly, and all the way into town she kept staring at it on her hand as it rested on her lap. She and Matthew had a story to tell now, a funny family story, the kind you told your children, in which his planning (she loved that he had planned it) went awry, and turned into something spontaneous. She loved the tramps, and the moon, and Matthew, panicky and flustered, on one knee; she loved Eros, and dirty old Piccadilly, and the black cab they had taken home to Clapham. She — Robert Galbraith

As in walking it is your great care not to run your foot upon a nail, or to tread awry, and strain your leg; so let it be in all the affairs of human life, not to hurt your mind or offend your judgment. And this rule, if observed carefully in all your deportment, will be a mighty security to you in your undertakings. — Epictetus

I left the bed as she had left it, unmade and rumpled, coverlets awry, so that her body's print might rest still warm beside my own.
Until the next day I did not go to bathe, I wore no clothes and did not dress my hair, for fear I might erase some sweet caress.
That morning I did not eat, nor yet at dusk, and put no rouge nor powder on my lips, so that her kiss might cling a little longer.
I left the shutters closed, and did not open the door, for fear the memory of the night before might vanish with the wind. — Pierre Louis

Oakbridge did his work with dramatics and prophecies that all would go horribly awry. Having dealt with him over midwinter, Kel wondered why the man hadn't died of a heart attack. Instead he seemed to thrive on disaster and finding people seated in the wrong places. — Tamora Pierce

Is there any finer phrase in the English language than Midsummer Day? There are no words to touch it for conjuring. It is the beginning of blooming roses and ripening corn, of days that stretch on, reaching for midnight until the spangled blue velvet of night descends and beginning again before cockcrow, when the dew jewels the grass like diamonds scattered while the earth slumbers. I, of course, expected rain. Not just rain, but torrential, heaving, biblical rain - the sort to set arks afloat. Everything else had gone awry, why not that? But when I awoke on Midsummer Day, the sun greeted me cordially, coaxing the dew from the grass and the early roses as a light breeze wafted the scent of charred chimney over the gardens. I stood at the window and breathed in deeply all the scents of summer, fresh grass and carp ponds and blossoming herb knots until the whole of it mingled in my head and made me dizzy. A bee floated lazily in the window and out again as if beckoning me to follow. — Deanna Raybourn

My plans often went awry. Much like my thoughts. Hold the phones. Maybe Saan had ADD, too. It would explain a lot. — Darynda Jones

This concept could easily have gone awry. Stories about love tend to go that way sometimes. They wander into the realm of cheese and never return, which I think is a shame, because there is a way to write about romantic love without breaking out the Velveeta. — Veronica Roth

When things are going awry, it's time to put the blinders on and do your job. Just do your job. Don't worry about the other guy, don't worry about the wins and losses, just worry about what the very next play is. — John Riggins

So why did you get shot? One of your witticisms go awry? (Nekoda) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Brilliant blue gazes met. "I swear before you and God that I will. But if something should happen, and this morning should go awry, promise me you'll take care of her. Promise me you'll tell her ... " Ralston paused.
"Tell her what?"
Ralston took a deep breath, the words bringing a tightening in his chest. "Promise me you'll tell her that I was an idiot. That the money didn't matter. That, last night, faced with the terrifying possibility that I had lost her ... I realized that she was the most important thing I had ever had ... because of my arrogance and my unwillingness to accept what has been in my heart for too long ... " He trailed off. "What the hell have I done?"
"It appears that you've gone and fallen in love. — Sarah MacLean

How these humans dispose themselves! Unlike anything else in creation. Or rather like everything else in creation all at once. Legs of one beast. Arms of another. Proportions all awry to a tortoise's eye. Torso too squat. Too little neck. Vastly too much leg. Hands like creatures unto themselves. Senses delicately balanced. And yet each sense dulled by mental acuity. Reason in place of a good nose. Logic instead of a tail. Faith instead of the certain knowledge of instinct. Superstition instead of a shell. — Verlyn Klinkenborg

The native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; and enterprises of great pitch and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action. — William Shakespeare

The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever. — Haruki Murakami

More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined. — Fred Brooks

Frown not, old ghosts, if I be one of those
Who make you utter things you did not say,
And mould you all awry and mar your work;
For whatsoever knows us truly knows
That none can truly write his single day,
And none can write it for him upon earth. — Alfred Tennyson

But it turns out that dopamine is a chemical on double duty in the brain. Along with its role in motor commands, it also serves as the main messenger in the reward systems, guiding a person toward food, drink, mates, and all things useful for survival. Because of its role in the reward system, imbalances in dopamine can trigger gambling, overeating, and drug addiction - behaviors that result from a reward system gone awry. — David Eagleman

I've seen many actors go awry by making the wrong choices early on. — Rose McGowan

Had she been broken and healed all awry, like a bone that had not been properly set? — Kate Forsyth

Dawn Of The Dead is about how we're just a country cannibalizing itself, turning into one shopping mall, and everyone at the mall is just brain-dead, wandering around. Capitalism gone awry, and the worst parts of human nature coming out. All these different things that people read into the films that are all there, very strong anti-Bush sentiments that went into making those films. It's great. I like it when people get it the second or third time, when someone else points it out to them. They don't realize it's been there all along. Those are my favorite movies. — Eli Roth

In the winter of 1987 India was full of iskeems that had gone awry. Agricultural iskeems, political iskeems, economic iskeems, educational iskeems, stop black money iskeems, attract white tourists iskeems, drinkable water iskeems, animal protection iskeems, women's welfare iskeems, nurture children iskeems, don't scan female foetus iskeems, privatization iskeems, medical iskeems, entertainment iskeems, old India iskeems and new India iskeems.
We had mastered the art of nomenclature from the white man.
Grand labels could disguise unforgivable things. — Tarun J. Tejpal

When a pastor continually makes light of the character of our Lord by speaking in scatological tones about the Son of Man's bodily functions in incarnation or wearing T-Shirts that rather mock the King of Righteousness rather than glorify Him, then something is terribly awry. — Steve Camp

Dove had next to no coping mechanisms when it came to social interactions gone awry. When all else failed - the running, the hiding, the dying - all that was left was the giggling.
The moment she thought about trying not to laugh, it became one hundred times worse. — Debra Anastasia

The summer night sky over the Hindu Kush, domed by the Milky Way's mage light, was infinitely splendid. Strewn against this craggy luminosity, millions of tiny stars shone, a diamond heist gone awry. — Sherry Thomas

I raised my hand to wave in case he looked back; but he did not. He rode straight backed, looking forward. He rode like a Howard. We never look back. We have no time for regrets or second thoughts. If a plan goes awry we make another, if one weapon breaks in our hands, we find a second. If the steps fall down before us we overleap them and go up. It is always onwards and upwards for the Howards; and my father was on his way back to court and to the company of the King without a backwards glance for me. — Philippa Gregory

So, if the zombies are coming to town, why exactly are we coming back here?"
"Don't call them that."
"But they are - "
"No, they're not. They're mutants or science gone awry or
something. Anything but zombies." "How would that be better? — Daniel Younger

I think Donald Trump's history has shown that this was a very problematic thing. There were so many ways Iraq could have gone awry once we started, and I don't think most of us spend enough time considering the dangers. — Jeff Sessions

Bootstrapping goes awry when entrepreneurs focus on saving pennies to the detriment of the Big Picture. — Guy Kawasaki

It should be needless to add that policy needs to be somewhat flexible and adaptive since war has a way of frustrating political intentions. It is a blunt instrument, and there are many reasons why cunning plans often go awry, not the least among which is the fact of an enemy with an independent will.
It would be difficult to overstate the significance of this maxim. Maxim 3 insists both that we never forget that war is about peace (see Maxim 2), and, more pointedly, that the making of peace is likely to be more difficult than the waging of war. It is a common, and somewhat understandable, error to assume that if one takes care of the fighting in an efficient manner, and the enemy is duly humbled, somehow the subsequent peace will all but take care of itself. Indeed, to go further, it is by no means unknown for professional soldiers to be less than fascinated by the political consequences of their military efforts. — Colin S. Gray

When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand
a center of gravity. — Adrienne Rich

As a lord was held
for the strength of his body and stoutness of heart.
Much lore he learned, and loved wisdom
but fortune followed him in few desires;
oft wrong and awry what he wrought turned;
what he loved he lost, what he longed for he won not;
and full friendship he found not easily,
nor was lightly loved for his looks were sad.
He was gloom-hearted, and glad seldom
for the sundering sorrow that filled his youth ...
(On Turin Turambar - The Children of Hurin) — J.R.R. Tolkien

I think that no one individual can look at truth. It blinds you. You look at it and you see one phase of it. Someone else looks at it and sees a slightly awry phase of it. But taken all together, the truth is in what they saw though nobody saw the truth intact. — William Faulkner

She had a horror he would die at night.
And sometimes when the light began to fade
She could not keep from noticing how white
The birches looked - and then she would be afraid,
Even with a lamp, to go about the house
And lock the windows; and as night wore on
Toward morning, if a dog howled, or a mouse
Squeaked in the floor, long after it was gone
Her flesh would sit awry on her. By day
She would forget somewhat, and it would seem
A silly thing to go with just this dream
And get a neighbor to come at night and stay.
But it would strike her sometimes, making tea:
_She had kept that kettle boiling all night long, for company._ — Edna St. Vincent Millay

Crazy' is a term that's used incorrectly and far too often. It's also used with stigma and finality." He tapped his head. "We're all chemicals, Adrian. Our bodies, our brains. It's a simple yet vastly sophisticated system, and every so often, something goes awry. A cell mutation. A neuron misfiring. A lack of a neurotransmitter. — Richelle Mead

Rely upon your own judgment; be true to your own conscience; follow the light that is within you; all outward lights are so many will-o'-the-wisps. There will be those who tell you that you are foolish; that your judgment is faulty; that your conscience is all awry, and that the light within you is darkness; but heed them not. If what they say is true, the sooner you, as a searcher of wisdom, find it out the better, and you can only make that discovery by bringing your powers to the test. Therefore, pursue your course bravely. — James Allen

In a musical sense, it seemed like all the good intentions had gone awry, very quickly. I mean, we got back from America and Blur had made The Great Escape, which I thought was a really, truly awful album - so cheesy, like a parody of Parklife, but without the balls or the intellect. And Oasis were enormous and I always found them incredibly dreary. There was this uncritical reverence surrounding the whole thing — Justine Frischmann

Some things a girl has in her to say no to and some things cut her down before she knows she's gone. Sure, some twiggy, thorny snap in her says: no, this is awry, this is a bent thing, in that place that tells her to belly up to the floor before anyone's even shadowed the doorframe. But it don't matter. You can't ask why she did it, when she was warned, when she was told. The plum truth is you would too, if everything impossible stood out there saying you could be loved so perfect the past would go up like a firecracker and shatter across the dark. — Catherynne M Valente

According to the most common interpretation of biblical prophecy, Jesus will return only after things have gone horribly awry. Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency. — Sam Harris

THE NEGLECTED SOUL DOESN'T GO AWAY; IT GOES AWRY — John Ortberg

Manhood isn't something that simply happens to boys as they get older. It's an achievement - something a boy accomplishes, something that can easily go awry. If we ignore the importance of this transition, and fail in our duty as parents to guide boys through it, then we will learn the hard way why traditional cultures invest this transition with so much importance. — Leonard Sax

We never look back. We have no time for regrets or second thoughts. If a plan goes awry we make another, if one weapon breaks in our hands we find a second. If the steps fall down before us we overleap them and go up. — Philippa Gregory

Just when normal life felt almost possible - when the world held some kind of order, meaning, even loveliness (the prismatic spray of light through an icicle; the stillness of a sunrise), some small thing would go awry and the veil of optimism was torn away, the barren world revealed. They learned, somehow, to wait those times out. There was no cure, no answer, no reparation. — David Wroblewski

Authority never matches responsibility. That's one of the great myths and delusions of all times. Winning managers and individual performers at all levels know that effectiveness means building your own network and creating your own authority. Those who succeed always reach far beyond formal deputation, take initiatives, and take the heat when things go awry. That's true in the military in times of war, true for 200 person manufacturing firms, and true at giant automakers or software companies. — Tom Peters

If we hold the married man accountable for finances gone legally awry, then the married woman should be held accountable for children who go awry. — Warren Farrell

A few of these interviews have gone slightly awry, because every now and again there has been the odd conflict of interest between interviews because of the Iron Maiden record, and I am a bit long-winded. — Bruce Dickinson

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. — Robert Burns

Movies don't look hard, but figuring it out, getting the shape of it, getting everybody's character right and having it be funny, make sense and be romantic, it's creating a puzzle. Yes, having been a writer for so long, I have an awareness of when things are going awry, but it doesn't mean I know how to fix them. — Nancy Meyers

For even in the triviality of a single playing card missing from a deck, the world's order is inevitably turned awry. — Yukio Mishima

I've had only one idea in my life - a true idee fixe. To put it as bluntly as possible - the idea of having my own way. 'Control!' expresses it. The control of human behavior. In my early experimental days it was a frenzied, selfish desire to dominate. I remember the rage I used to feel when a prediction went awry. I could have shouted at the subjects of my experiments, 'Behave, damn you! Behave as you ought! — B.F. Skinner

What if a much of a which of a wind
gives the truth to summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry? — E. E. Cummings

The marquess held the weapon out, as formally as if he were passing a sword.
Soberly, Ned accepted it. He placed the sacrificial citrus on the table in front of him, and then with one careful
incision, eviscerated it. He speared deep into its heart, his
hands steady, and then cut it to pieces. Jenny allotted herself one short moment of wistful sorrow for her afterdinner treat gone awry as the juice ran everywhere.
"Enough." She reached out and covered his hand midstab.
"It's dead now," she explained gravely.
He pulled his hand away and nodded. Lord Blakely took back his knife and cleaned it with a handkerchief.
Jenny studied the corpse. It was orange. It was pulpy. It
was going to be a mess to clean up. Most importantly, it gave her an excuse to sit and think of something mystical to say - the only reason for this exercise, really. Lord Blakely
demanded particulars. But in Jenny's profession, specifics were the enemy. — Courtney Milan

We are literally children of the earth, and removed from her our spirits wither or run to various forms of insanity. Unless we can refresh ourselves at least by intermittent contact with nature, we grow awry. — G. M. Trevelyan

February
Boris Pasternak
It's February. Get ink. Weep.
Write the heart out about it, sing
Another song of February
While raucous slush burns black with spring.
Six grivnas* for a buggy ride
Past booming bells, on screaming gears,
Out to a place where drizzles fall
Louder than any ink or tears
Where like a flock of charcoal pears,
A thousand blackbirds, ripped awry
From trees to puddles, knock dry grief
Into the deep end of the eye.
A thaw patch blackens underfoot.
The wind is gutted with a scream.
True verses are the most haphazard,
Rhyming the heart out on a theme.
*Grivna: a unit of currency. — Boris Pasternak

When business executives are making the artistic decisions and don't understand animation, things can go awry. — Don Bluth

Life is haphazard. We plan, and then we deal when the plans go awry. Control is an illusion; best intentions are the best we can do. — Anna Quindlen

If it's not clear enough in the piece, I love it when people things to me they know and I'm interested in but don't yet know. It's when they explain things to me I know and they don't that the conversation goes awry. — Rebecca Solnit

The world is getting weirder. Darker every single day. Things are spinning around faster and faster, and threatening to go completely awry. Falcons and falconers. The center cannot hold. — Jim Butcher

Much of the Soul they talk, but all awry;
And in themselves seek virtue; and to themselves
All glory arrogate, to God give none — John Milton

Something is not right,' Weavyr announced. She crouched lower over one spot in the Wyrd and tugged, redirecting the threads. In the moments that followed, throughout the world, hearts were broken, brilliant careers were launched and dreams were dashed. A volleyball serve also went awry. — Maurissa Guibord

Of persons I will say this: it is difficult to tell when they are running aright but easy to see when something has gone awry. — Neal Stephenson

If a decision-making process is flawed and dysfunctional, decisions will go awry. — Carly Fiorina

Sean is permanently damaged; something is awry in that boy. — Maggie Mitchell

And the whole constant mantra about how 'long-term relationships are hard work' and 'everything has its ups and downs' and 'you're going to be annoyed by their toenails' and 'stick with it' and 'the grass only looks greener' and so on. It's actually very hard to tell when you should split up with someone. All I knew was I was waking up every morning thinking this can't be it, until death. When your relationship is making you feel life's too long, something's gone awry. — Mhairi McFarlane

That my plans have lately gone somewhat awry is the sort of risk one must take if life is to be superb. — Gore Vidal

A lot of people have a dissatisfaction or an anger in them, so as soon as something goes awry, they flip out. — Brigid Brannagh

I'll never forget the first day in Auschwitz, the first time in Mauthausen. At that second place, as time wore on, I also picked them up from the bottom of the great cliff, when their escapes fell awfully awry. There were broken bodies and dead m sweet hearts. Still, it was better than the gas. Some of them I caught when they were only halfway down, Saved you, I'd think, holding their souls in midair as the rest of their being-their physical shells-plummeted to the earth. All of them were like, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The smell like a stove, but still so cold. — Markus Zusak

Fear of failure held me back from being a DIYer for many years, especially after a few early attempts at home improvement projects went awry. — Mark Frauenfelder

This leads me to ask how it came to be that Pluto is Mickey's dog, but Mickey is not Pluto's mouse. Something is awry in the taxonomic class of mammals in the Disney universe. I — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

text of deaths in exorcisms gone awry in the United — Tracy Wilkinson

Menstruation not only carries with it the connotation of a productive system that has failed to produce; it also carries the idea of production gone awry, making products of no use, not to specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap. — Emily Martin

Ten thousand men possess ten thousand hopes. A few bear fruit in happiness; the others go awry. But he who garners day by day the good life, he is happiest. — Gilbert Murray

It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry. — Nikolai Gogol

We have no time for regrets or second thoughts. If a plan goes awry we make another, if one weapon breaks in our hands we find a second. If the steps fall down before us we overleap them and go up. It is always onward and upward — Philippa Gregory