Impending Quotes & Sayings

Repetitive, forceful corrections had taught this gentle dog that at a specific spot the handler would always yank the lead. Thus, each time the Newf arrived at that point, she'd freeze for a beat and close her eyes in anticipation of the impending blow. This caused her to lag, which led to another correction, which resulted in more lagging, another correction, ad infinitum.
It was a classic example of canine learned helplessness, whereby a dog learns to accept abuse as a natural, inevitable consequence of living with humans. Repeated corrections had only frightened and confused the animal, and she was trying to protect herself in the only way she knew how. — Joel M. McMains

It was she who had led him to find himself. Picasso had risen to the challenge God had placed before him without even realizing it. In spite of his fears, in the face of her lengthy illness, and now her impending death, he had not abandoned her. Her steadfast love had helped him to become a noble man, and to be there for her in a way he had not been able to be for Conchita. — Anne Girard

Ringil, preparing to hand out some straightforward reassurance, felt mischief sparkle through him instead. It was the call of impending risk, he knew, the itch to action - and a long building irritation with Nyanar that finally flared to life. He put on a breezy grin. But my lord Nyanar! That's what gives life its savor, is it not? Where would we be if the future were always known? — Richard K. Morgan

I took a moment to savor the sensation of impending disastor before telling it to get lost.
"Things are pretty messed up right about now," I began. "What started as a weird phenomenon, something rare, is quickly building into what we might affectionately call 'the Apocalypse. — Lia Habel

Great worship and great sermons contain a wonderful impending, a sense of "watch out, here it comes. — Calvin Miller

The collision was impending and electric, but the moment was soft and sweet: She positively glowed as she looked up at him.
"What," she whispered, palming his face.
Vin took a moment to memorize her features and the way she felt beneath him, seeing her not just through his eyes, but feeling her with his skin and his heart. "Hello, lovely lady ... hello. — J.R. Ward

There is a measure needing courage to adopt and enforce it, which I believe to be of virtue sufficient to redeem the nation in this its darkest hour: one only; I know of no other to which we may rationally trust for relief from impending dangers without and within. — Robert Dale Owen

An ear-splitting screech pierced the silence, followed by another, striking his ears like metal against a hollow bell. The woosh woosh of wind being displaced brought Andrew's attention skyward, and a glacial gust of paralyzing terror raced up his spine. The creature opened its mouth, and a blazing shaft of fire bellowed from above. Andrew barely had enough time to back beneath an awning for protection. Egnatious and Sebastian dove to the side while Firen sidestepped her impending doom, raising the katana in challenge.
The screeching returned, except now the howls were coming from every direction.
Firen's chest heaved. "Did you see that?" she asked, her stormy eyes glinting with rapture and daring as she held her katana out, preparing for the next attack.
"Did I see the dragon?" Sebastian asked, hysteria dangerously rising to the surface. He stood and brushed himself off. "Yes, I bloody well did see that enormous, scaly, fire-breathing dragon. — Laura Kreitzer

She reshelved the sixpack and wrenched herself away to less compelling parts of the store, but it was hard to plan dinner when you felt like throwing up. She returned to the beer shelves like a bird repeating its song. The various beer cans had different decorations but all contained the identical weak low-end brew. It occurred to her to drive to Grand Rapids and buy some actual wine. It occurred to her to drive back to the house without buying anything at all. But then where would she be? A weariness set in as she stood and vacillated: a premonition that none of the possible impending outcomes would bring enough relief or pleasure to justify her current heart-racing wretchedness. She saw, in other words, what it meant to have become a deeply unhappy person. — Jonathan Franzen

Lightning crashed close, and the cabin shuddered beneath a defeaning roar of thunder. Raven swung around and paced to a chair. "Something's going on for sure. That's one of ours doing that."
Shea's hand went to her throat. She could not shake the feeling of impending doom. She turned to Raven. "What do you mean, one of ours?" Why had she agreed to stay and protect Raven? Something evil was watching them, and she couldn't ferret it out. Jacques, where are you?
"The lightning and thunder," Raven replied easily. "One of our males is upset."
"Great. Tantrums, that's all we need," Shea said moodily. Jacques hadn't answered her. Where was he? Couldn't he feel her need?
Raven laughed. "They are great for that, aren't they? — Christine Feehan

Then, just as d'Alembord was about to sell his commission and retire to one of his prospective father-in-law's farms, Napoleon had returned to France. Colonel Ford, worried that he was losing his veteran Captain of skirmishers, had begged d'Alembord to stay for the impending campaign and implicit in the Colonel's plea was a promise that d'Alembord would receive the next vacant majority in the battalion. That enticement was sufficient. The captaincy would sell for fifteen hundred pounds which was a good enough fortune for any young man contemplating marriage, but a majority would fetch two thousand six hundred pounds, and so d'Alembord, with some misgivings, but reassured by the prospects of a fine marriage portion, had agreed to Ford's request. — Bernard Cornwell

The completely profound senselessness of my own existence explodes into it's own blissful freedom. There is no impending moment, no past moment, only this one, and without past there is no sorrow, and without future there can be no loss. — Carol Cassella

The forecast was cloudy with extended periods of consciousness, followed by a stitch in my side and a sense of impending doom swelling to a symphony of demolition — Edward Morris

Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made attempts to alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for titbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived. — Douglas Adams

Ignorance of impending evil is far better than a knowledge of its approach. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

That's because both the job title and the job itself have never existed before. We used the term 'ground-breaking' to describe this position because that is exactly what it is." Leonard Scott leaned forward. "The current Administration is committed to solving the greatest problems of our time - climate change, sustainability, the deficit, the impending crisis stemming from shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare, healthcare, and the problems that our nation faces as a result of an aging population. We are implementing a plan that will address all of these issues and will revolutionize the way that this country looks at retirement. Rather than continuing on in a bankrupt, broken system that meets the needs of no one, we are going to introduce American seniors to a new way of life - a holistic community that will engage them like nothing ever has before. — Alexandra Swann

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

I am certain you will meet a fine man, one who will shower you with jewels and adoration." She snorted. "I don't care about jewels or adoration. I only want a friend." Possessing a will of its own, his fool mouth responded, "I'll always remain your friend." She met his gaze, her lashes spiky with moisture. "Do you promise?" Unable to bear her tears, Vincent lied. "I promise." Eager to remove himself from his deceit, he brought the subject back to her impending marriage. "And I will not see you married to just anyone. It must be a good man, who will treat you with kindness and respect." Lydia rested her head on his chest. "Will he love me?" "Who could not love you? — Brooklyn Ann

The great lesson here taught is for all time. Often the Christian life is beset by dangers, and duty seems hard to perform. The imagination pictures impending ruin before and bondage or death behind. Yet the voice of God speaks clearly, "Go forward." We should obey this command, even though our eyes cannot penetrate the darkness, and we feel the cold waves about our feet. The obstacles that hinder our progress will never disappear before a halting, doubting spirit. Those who defer obedience till every shadow of uncertainty disappears and there remains no risk of failure or defeat, will never obey at all. Unbelief whispers, "Let us wait till the obstructions are removed, and we can see our way clearly;" but faith courageously urges an advance, hoping all things, believing all things. — Ellen G. White

In a while, her eyes felt leaden and she felt sleep overpower her, even as she fought to keep her eyes open. In vain, I tried to churn within her, a little nugget of fear, trying desperately to warn her of impending danger. — Deepti Menon

A new world is not made simply by trying to forget the old. A new world is made with a new spirit, with new values. Our world may have begun that way, but today it is caricature. Our world is a world of things. What we dread most, in the face of the impending debacle, is that we shall be obliged to give up our gewgaws, our gadgets, all the little comforts that have made us so uncomfortable. We are not peaceful souls; we are smug, timid, queasy and quaky. — Henry Miller

Impending war was evidenced by the faraway expression in the older villagers' eyes, the shadows on their faces, not of fear but of sorrow. Because they knew; they had lived through the last war and they remembered the generation of young men who had marched off so willingly and never come back. Those too, like Daddy, who had made it home, but left in France a part of themselves that they could never recover. Who surrendered to moments, periodically, in which their eyes filmed and their lips whitened, and their minds gave over to sights and sounds they wouldn't share but couldn't shake. — Kate Morton

I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom. — Edgar Allan Poe

The banks themselves were doing business on capitals three-fourths of which were fictitious. This fictitious capital ... is now to be lost, and to fall on somebody; it must take on those who have property to meet it, and probably on the less cautious part, who, not aware of the impending catastrophe, have suffered themselves to contract, or to be in debt, and must now sacrifice their property of a value many times the amount of the debt. We have been truly sowing the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind. — Thomas Jefferson

What would you rather talk about?" He blinks not so innocently, knowing exactly how close to the edge I am. "Nothing," I sputter. "I'd rather talk about nothing!" Wes makes a tsking sound. "That doesn't bode well for our impending marriage, sweetheart. Communication is key." I glare at him. "Then tell your mouth to start communicating with my dick, dude. Because if you don't make me come in the next five seconds, I'm going to - " "Going to what?" he mocks, and I moan in dismay when his fingers slip out. Chuckling, Wes climbs up my body, grabs both my wrists and shoves them up over my head. "Tell me what you'll do, Canning. — Sarina Bowen

Anderson!" he snapped murderously, "if you can tear your attention from Miss Danner's bust, the rest of us will be able to finish this meeting." Lauren flushed a vivid pink, but the elderly Anderson turned a purple hue that might be indicative of an impending stroke.
As soon as the last staff member had filed out of the conference room, Lauren ignored Mary's warning look and turned furiously on Nick. "I hope you're satisfied!" she hissed furiously. "You not only humiliated me, you nearly gave that poor old man a heart attack.What do you plan to do for an encore?"
"Fire the first woman who opens her mouth," Nick retorted coldly. He walked around her and strode out of the conference room.
Outraged past all reason, Lauren started after him, but Mary stopped her. "Don't argue with him," she said, gazing after Nick with a beatific smile on her face. She looked as if she had just witnessed a miracle. "In his present mood he'd fire you, and he'd regret that for the rest of his life. — Judith McNaught

Impending death had a way of unexpectedly unearthing the past so that it came together with the present in an unholy coupling. — Abraham Verghese

I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed as a boy, and set off to save my family from impending ruin.
I made it almost to the end of my front garden. — Stephanie Burgis

A chap's impending death has a way of focusing the mind. — Sara Sheridan

Through a liquid state of body high, Holt can feel a dull pain
wash over his body. In any other state of consciousness, he might
have referred to it as panic. His heart gives out simultaneously with a
rush of sound and activity. Somewhere between the paddles introducing
an electrical storm to his chest and the impending minutes of
total blackness, he prays that he'll be able to come back from wherever
it is he's going. Though this panic is the last thing he'll ever feel,
he knows, somehow, that he will. — Bryan Way

I love chocolate cake for breakfast," Peggy stalls, "it sets me up for the day. A little decadence is good for the soul." She's been eating more cake than usual, lately. Impending death does have compensations after all, then, if only chocolate-covered ones. — Menna Van Praag

His eyes are a hazy swirl of
gray, like a thick mass of clouds gathering before an impending storm — Elle Kennedy

See thou, whatsoever be thy name
whether Fate, Life, or Devil! I cast thee down my gauntlet, I challenge thee to battle! Men of faint heart may bow before thy mysterious power, thy face of stone may inspire them with dread, in thy unbroken silence they may discern the birth of calamity and an impending avalanche of woe. But I am daring and strong, and I challenge thee to battle! Let us draw our swords, and join our bucklers, and rain such blows upon each other's crests as shall cause the very earth to shake again! Ha! Come forth and fight with me! — Leonid Andreyev

She put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it, tasting the familiar taste of nicotine, smoke, and impending lung cancer. It felt good. She — Mike Omer

Without impending on your own personal choice, there are going to be those that wear the hat of religion and those that wear the hat of science. I still don't really understand why they can't wear both hats, because personally, I think that they go beautifully together. — Nicolas Cage

We live as if we were unaware of our impending destruction — Soren Kierkegaard

If slavery, limited as it yet is, now threatens to subvert the Constitution, how can we as wise and prudent statesmen, enlarge its boundaries and increase its influence, and thus increase already impending dangers? — William H. Seward

Men can imagine their own deaths, they can see them coming, and the mere though of impending death acts like an aphrodisiac. A dog or rabbit doesn't behave like that. Take birds
in a lean season they cut down on the eggs, or they won't mate at all. They put their energy into staying alive themselves until times get better. But human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else, some new version of themselves, and live on forever.
As a species were doomed by hope, then?
You could call it hope. That, or desperation.
But we're doomed without hope, as well, said Jimmy.
Only as individuals, said Crake cheerfully. — Margaret Atwood

There were times when the fact of impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five minutes of striking. But there were also times when they had the illusion not only of safety but of permanence. — George Orwell

The discovery of a corpse's head on campus has worked as an expedient in getting the administrative staff to work before ten, despite the impending blizzard. — Meg Cabot

We live in an idiotic capitalist self-indulgent society where the sex life of a pop star is more important than impending starvation, land mines and child soldiers in Africa, or more interesting than the world's biggest man-made natural disaster in oil fields of the Middle East. — Peter Menzel

Fast rather than slow, more rather than less
this flashy "development" is linked directly to society's impending collapse. It has only served to separate man from nature. Humanity must stop indulging the desire for material possessions and personal gain and move instead toward spiritual awareness.
Agriculture must change from large mechanical operations to small farms attached only to life itself. Material life and diet should be given a simple place. If this is done, work becomes pleasant, and spiritual breathing space becomes plentiful. — Masanobu Fukuoka

They cowered in a corner as far away as they could from the sound of ripping, tearing and banging. The creature above was frantically trying to find a way through the floor to them.
The terrifying scraping noise signaled that the thing had torn its way through the clean, white woolen carpet that had neatly covered the hard wood floorboards. Now it scraped its claws along the wood trying to find a hold.
In frustration, and after many attempts, it thumped the floor in anger. Screaming a long high-pitched whistle, it smashed itself hard and heavily against the floor.
Dust drifted towards them as they looked to each other for any suggestions to the one impending question upon all of their minds.
How are we going to get out of here alive? — Robert E. Kreig

She said she'd been in relationships with way bigger problems than one of us being a transitory manifestation of impending doom. Like this one girl who liked her computer more than she liked her girlfriend, and another one who smoked. — Seanan McGuire

If you are working with a therapist counselor social worker grief expert minister priest or anyone else who is trying to help you navigate the wilderness of grief and they start talking about the groundbreaking observations of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross suggesting there is an orderly predictable unfolding of grief please please please. Do yourself a favor. Leave. People who are dying often experience five stages of grief: denial anger bargaining depression and acceptance. They are grieving their impending death. This is what Elizabeth Kubler Ross observed. People who are learning to live with the death of a beloved have a different process. It isn't the same. It isn't orderly. It isn't predictable. Grief is wild and messy and unpredictable — Tom Zuba

It might seem odd that in cities teetering at the edge of the abyss young people still go to class - in this case an evening class on corporate identity and product branding - but that is the way of things, with cities as with life, for one moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying, and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does. — Mohsin Hamid

Superstitions, and especially the early cultivation of religion, with its "fear of the Lord" and of unknown mysterious agencies, are especially potent in the development of the instinct of fear. Even the early cultivation of morality and conscientiousness, with their fears of right and wrong, often causes psychoneurotic states in later life. Religious, social, and moral taboos and superstitions, associated with apprehension of threatening impending evil, based on the fear instinct, form the germs of psychopathic affections. — Boris Sidis

We take pictures because we can't accept that everything passes, we can't accept that the repetition of a moment is an impossibility. We wage a monotonous war against our own impending deaths, against time that turns children into that other, lesser species: adults. We take pictures because we know we will forget. We will forget the week, the day, the hour. We will forget when we were happiest. We take pictures out of pride, a desire to have the best of ourselve preserved. We fear that we will die and others will not know we lived. — Michelle Richmond

This book is a story of encounters between Reef peoples and places, ideas, and environments, over more than two centuries, beginning with James Cook's bewildered voyage through a coral maze and ending with the searing mission of reef scientist John "Charlie" Veron to goad us to act over the impending death of the Reef. — Iain McCalman

He took my hand in his. I gasped when our skin touched and looked into his eyes in a kind of shocked wonder, my eyes wide. His hand was smooth and warm, a few degrees warmer than it should be, and that heat sank into me, but it was not his heat that made me gasp. It felt like a storm resided within his skin and the moment our hands met, the storm and heat went raging through my veins, leaving my skin tingling and my heart fluttering while also making my blush deeper. It was like heat lightning, flashes of brilliance without sound that told of an impending storm. It awakened something within me, something I did not know existed, and took my breath away. I had never felt anything like it before. — Jasmine Dubroff

To each his own, I supposed, and I had more important things, like my impending death, to worry about. — Sage Kafsky

The speaker points out the nature of the triumphal procession in 2 Corinthians 2:16-17. He shows that to the victors the aroma of the triumphal procession was sweet but that to the captured prisoners it represented an impending death. 5000 prisoners were necessary for a triumphal procession, and, by contrast, God drew 5000 to Himself in Acts 2. — David McGee

The nerves of the skin send pain signals to the brain to warn us of the danger from and impending injury. In the case of self-inflicted wounding, this pain acts as the body's own defense mechanism to stop one from proceeding in the effort at physical injury. If a person proceeds despite the pain, that means that he or she is motivated by something stronger than the pain, something that makes him or her capable of ignoring or enduring it. — Steven Levenkron

Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art. — Paul Valery

The decrees of the Sovereign Ordainer, as related to fate and predestination, are of two kinds. Both are to be obeyed and accepted. The one is irrevocable, the other is, as termed by men, impending. To the former all must unreservedly submit, inasmuch as it is fixed and settled. God however, is able to alter or repeal it. As the harm that must result from such a change will be greater than if the decree had remained unaltered, all, therefore, should willingly acquiesce in what God hath willed and confidently abide by the same. — Baha'u'llah

But Empire building also bears the seeds of its own destruction. The closer a state comes to the ultimate goal of world domination and one-world government, the less reason is there to maintain its internal liberalism and do instead what all states are inclined to do anyway, i.e., to crack down and increase their exploitation of whatever productive people are still left. Consequently, with no additional tributaries available and domestic productivity stagnating or falling, the Empire's internal policies of bread and circuses can no longer be maintained. Economic crisis hits, and an impending economic meltdown will stimulate decentralizing tendencies, separatist and secessionist movements, and lead to the break-up of Empire. We have seen this happen with Great Britain, and we are seeing it now, with the US and its Empire apparently on its last leg. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe

John the Baptist, who we are told was related by blood to Jesus, was preaching the impending judgement of God, urging repentance and moral reform, and baptizing in the Jordan River those who responded. — Kenneth Scott Latourette

Peace talk when war is impending is hazardous for the talker, and in war time it is criminal. War talk in peace time, which is infinitely more wicked, runs no risk at all. — Charles Clayton Morrison

Confronted with the twin disasters of climate change and an impending oil peak, it is hard to see how anyone could justify the assertion that the need to drive a car which can accelerate from 0 to 60 miles an hour in 4.5 seconds (the Audi S4 for example) overrides the Ethiopians' need to avoid recurrent famines, or the whole world's need to avoid the economic catastrophe we'll suffer if petroleum peaks too soon. — George Monbiot

He had always imagined that some sort of emotional mental equipment was meant to arrive, when he was forty-five, say, or fifty, a kind of kit that would enable him to deal with the impending loss of a parent. If he were only in possession of this equipment, he would be just fine. He would be noble and selfless, wise and philosophical. — David Nicholls

If you will take it into your mind to be sincere in throwing away your life for your master, you will not have the slightest fear or trembling even with the advent of innumerable impending calamities. — Torii Mototada

Without me to struggle against, without the constant chaos of our first growing season, without the pressure of our impending wedding, he seemed to have found his own steady rhythm. I worked my way into it, looking for the harmony this time, instead of conflict. We found easy joy in working together, becoming real partners, instead of combatants, for the first time. — Kristin Kimball

For some people, the beginning is a time of complete chaos. You see bits and pieces of what is before you. You have a sense of what it is you must set out to do. But nothing will form yet. When you sit down to write or paint or form movement, it's like stepping over a cliff or into a dense fog. All you can do is trust that this impending masterpiece is going to somehow manifest itself as you work. But you do know that there is something specific ahead, and you feel the excitement of that. — Vinita Hampton Wright

We were making good time now, barrelling through the bodacious curves of southeastern Utah and ignoring all impending signs of trouble with the van. At least I was.
"You guys happy?" I said.
The kids smiled at me like I was a dog chasing my tail, sweet but stupid, and looked away. — Miriam Toews

Her impending spinsterhood must be bothering her more than she realized if a servant was catching her attention in such a way. Of course, he was a very nicely put together servant. — Kristi Ann Hunter

The weathermen warn us for days of the impending snowstorm that's to arrive Thursday night. The grocery stores have run out of bottle water as people prepare to take shelter in their homes; my God, I think, it's winter, an annual certainty, not the atomic bomb. — Mary Kubica

Gratitude pours forth continually, as if the unexpected had just happened - the gratitude of a convalescent - for convalescence was unexpected ... . The rejoicing of strength that is returning, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future, of impending adventures, of seas that are open again. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Awoke to find three vultures sitting on the fence. Realizing they were a portent of impending death I shot them. — Bridget Allison

The status of our relationship with God has moved from conflict to reconciliation, ensuring peace and communion with God. Our very being is transferred from the impending death of this world to the promised life of God's new creational order, leading us to an increased appetite for that which pleases God and a growing distaste for that which does not please him. Finally, our perspective is altered so that we no longer focus on outward appearances but on a radical interior radiance (vv. 12, 16). — Anonymous

I love language, words, and all the lovely, exciting, and heart wrenching things you can do with them. Pick the right ones, put them in the right order, and you've created a moment in time where the reader forgets about the late car payment, the dirty dishes, the impending workweek. You have created a state of bliss. Or negligence, depending on your perspective. — Darynda Jones

One of the many, many salutary aspects of Barack Obama's impending presidential nomination is the sea change his victory marks in the battle for the mind-set of the American foreign policy establishment. — Eric Alterman

When we are fully mindful of the transience of things - an impending return home from an overseas adventure, a graduation, our child boarding the school bus for the first day of kindergarten, a close colleague changing jobs, a move to a new city - we are more likely to appreciate [be grateful for] and savor the remaining time that we do have. Although bittersweet experiences also make us sad, it is this sadness that prompts us, instead of taking it for granted, to come to appreciate the positive aspects of our vacation, colleague, or hometown; it's 'now or never.' — Sonja Lyubomirsky

The wind blowing across the British Isles was odorous with fear of asylum seekers, infecting everybody with the panic of impending doom, and so articles were written and read, simply and stridently, as though the writers lived in a world in which the present was unconnected to the past, and they had never considered this to be the normal course of history: the influx into Britain of black and brown people from countries created by Britain. Yet he understood. It had to be comforting, this denial of history. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Anyone watching her would have thought her cold, indifferent, but this was the only way she knew to tackle her deepest troubles, to shoo them aside as if they were a cloud of summer gnats, and deal with the task at hand brusquely and efficiently. Hannah always thought of it as her mother's Englishness, that ability to equalize problems so that a scuffed shoe and an impending disaster were almost equally distasteful, but both were born with aplomb. — Laura L. Sullivan

The chief cause for the impending collapse of the world - the cause sufficient in and by itself - is the enormous growth of the human population: the human flood. The worst enemy of life is too much life: the excess of human life. — Pentti Linkola

So far has Western society departed from the ancient taboos against murder, theft, and rape that we are now faced with juvenile delinquents who have no inner check against wantonly assaulting other human beings at random 'for kicks' while we have adult delinquents capable of deliberately planning the extermination of tens of millions of human beings, in carrying out, also doubtless for kicks, a mathematical theory of games. Today our civilization is relapsing into a state far more primitive, far more irrational, than any taboo-ridden society now known-for lack of any effective taboos. If Western man could establish an inviolate taboo against random extermination, our society would enjoy a far more effective safeguard against both private violence and still impending collective nuclear horrors than the United Nations or the fallible mechanisms of Fail-Safe. — Lewis Mumford

To enter into a partnership with one of the many thousands of kinds of fungi, a tree must be very open-literally-because the fungal threads grow into its soft root hairs. There's no research into whether this is painful or not, but as it is something the tree wants, I imagine it gives rise to positive feelings. However the tree feels, from then on, the two partners work together. The fungus not only penetrates and envelops the tree's roots, but also allows its web to roam through the surrounding forest floor. In so doing, it extends the reach of the tree's own roots as the web grows out toward other trees. Here, it connects with other trees' fungal partners and roots. And so a network is created, and now it's easy for the trees to exchange vital nutrients (see chapter 3, "Social Security") and even information-such as an impending insect attack.

This connection makes fungi something like the forest Internet. — Peter Wohlleben

We found that members of expeditions hailing from more hierarchical countries were more likely to die in the Himalayas. Why? Because in countries and cultures that are hierarchical, decision-making tends to be a top-down process. People from these countries are more likely to die on difficult mountain climbs because they are less likely to speak up and less likely to alert leaders to changing conditions and impending problems. — Adam D. Galinsky

Tyler seriously considered fabricating an outbreak of salmonella in the hors d'oeuvres and an impending locust plague, either of which would require everyone to leave now. — Joey W. Hill

Bearing ourselves humbly before God ... we await undismayed the impending assault ... be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parlay; we may show mercy - we shall ask for none. — Winston Churchill

And above all you ought to guard against leading an army to fight which is afraid or which is not confident of victory. For the greatest sign of an impending loss is when one does not believe one can win. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Because around a crisis point, even the tiniest action can assume importance all out of proportion to its size. Consequences multiply and cascade, and anything - a missed telephone call, a match struck during a blackout, a dropped piece of paper, a single moment - can have empire-tottering effects. The Archduke Ferdinand's chauffeur makes a wrong turn onto Franz-Josef Street and starts a world war. Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard steps outside for a smoke and destroys a peace. Hitler leaves orders not to be disturbed because he has a migraine and finds out about the D-Day invasion eighteen hours too late. A lieutenant fails to mark a telegram "urgent" and Admiral Kimmel isn't warned of the impending Japanese attack. "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. — Connie Willis

Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going. — Hunter S. Thompson

Tonight, I should watch the sun set, and think of the impending darkness as a metaphor for my wasted life: once it was bright, and full of potential, and now it is dark and hopeless and bleak. I should not make the mistake of thinking that the moon and the stars represent slim glimmers of hope, or evidence that there is light on the other side. Even if there is light somewhere I will never walk in it again. — John S. Hall

It seems impossible to wheedle his way out of his impending death. No one has before him. But just as a young person feels invincible, he cannot bring himself to accept the looming train as he stands upon the tracks feeling the deep rumbling of the behemoth barreling straight toward him. — M. Starks

IMPENDING DOOM Some dooms tug at your sleeve, some dooms shimmer by, and some dooms bring you to your knees. — Amy Leach

During the night a fine, delicate summer rain had washed the plains, leaving the morning sky crisp and clean. The sun shone warm - soon to bake the earth dry. It cast a purple haze across the plain - like a great, dark topaz. In the trees the birds sang, while the squirrels jumped from branch to branch in seeming good will, belying the expected tension of the coming days. — Cate Campbell Beatty

There are kinds of human problems which really do seem, as our tidy expressions would have it, to "come to a head" and "demand to be dealt with." But there are also problems, often just as serious, which come to nothing that we can recognize or openly deal with. Some long-lived, insidious problems simply slip us off to one side of ourselves. Some gently rob us of just enough energy or faith so that days which once took place on a horizontal plane become an endless series of uphill slogs. And some - like high water working year after year at the roots of a riverside tree - quietly undercut our trust or our hope, our sense of place, or of humor, our ability to empathize, or to feel enthused, and we don't sense impending danger, we don't feel the damage at all, till one day, to our amazement, we find ourselves crashing to the ground. — David James Duncan

No morn ever dawned more favorable than ours did; and no day was every more clouded than the present! Wisdom, and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm. — George Washington

The natural hostility of beasts is laid aside when flying from pursuers; so also when danger is impending the enmity of rivals is ended. — J. K. Bharavi

Cecil Palmer spoke of the horrors of everyday life. Nearly every broadcast told a story of impending doom or death, or worse: a long life lived in fruitless fear of doom or death. It wasn't that Jackie wanted to know all of the bad news of the world. It was that she loved sitting in the dark of her bedroom, swaddled in blankets and invisible radio waves. — Joseph Fink

There is an old saying, "How did you go bankrupt?" And the answer is, "Gradually, and then suddenly." The impending fiscal crisis in the United States will make its appearance in the same way. — Seth Klarman

To emotionally accept impending disaster, to attain the gut-level understanding that the power elite will not respond rationally to the devastation of the ecosystem, is as difficult to accept as our own mortality. The most daunting existential struggle of our time is to ingest this awful truth-intellect ually and emotionally-and continue to resist the forces that are destroying us. — Chris Hedges

Collecting and hoarding seem to be about the loss of others, while philanthropy and de-accessioning are more about the impending loss of self. (Whoever dies with the most toys actually loses.) — Douglas Coupland

Guthrie turned to see who his attacker was. And smiled when he caught her eye.
He had the most devilishly wolfish look about him -- a mixture of impending payback with a snowball and something a wee bit more intimate, like a tackle in the snow. But he wouldn't. Not in front of his clansmen. Not when they weren't courting. At least, she hoped not. — Terry Spear

What does it mean to care? Let me start by saying that the word care has become a very ambivalent word. When someone says: 'I will take care of him!' it is more likely an announcement of an impending attack than of a tender compassion. And besides this ambivalence, the word is most often used in a negative way. 'Do you want coffee or tea?' 'I don't care.' 'Do you want to stay home or go to a movie?' 'I don't care.' 'Do you want to walk or go by car?' 'I don't care.' This expression of indifference toward choices in life has become commonplace. And often it seems that not to care has become more acceptable than to care, and a carefree life-style more attractive than a careful one. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

And there is no question that we are preoccupied by dying. But why? It is because when we die, we leave behind not only the world but also death. That is the paradox of the last hour. Death works with us in the world; it is a power that humanizes nature, that raises existence to being, and it is within each one of us as our most human quality; it is death only in the world - man only knows death because he is man, and he is only man because he is death in the process of becoming. But to die is to shatter the world; it is the loss of person, the annihilation of the being; and so it is also the loss of death, the loss of what in it and for me made it death. As long as I live, I am a mortal man, but when I die, by ceasing to be man I also cease to be mortal, I am no longer capable of dying, and my impending death horrifies me because I see it as it is: no longer death, but the impossibility of dying. — Maurice Blanchot

And because when you die, the world dies, too, at least for you, they assume the world will die for everybody. It's a failure of imagination, in a way - an inability to conceive of the universe without you in it. That's why old people get apocalyptic: they're facing apocalypse, and that part, the private apocalypse, is real. So the closer their personal oblivion gets, the more certain geriatrics project impending doom on their surroundings. Also, there's almost a spitefulness, sometimes. I swear, for some of these bilious Chicken Littles, imminent Armageddon isn't a fear but a fantasy. Like they want the entire planet to implode into a giant black hole. Because if they can't have their martinis on the porch anymore then nobody else should get to sip one, either. — Lionel Shriver

Only now that I loved a grenade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation: I couldn't unlove Augustus Waters. And I didn't want to. — John Green

And while a bald head and a looped ribbon were seen as badges of courage and hope, her reluctant vocabulary and vanishing memories advertised mental instability and impending insanity. Those with cancer could expect to be supported by their community. Alice expected to be an outcast. — Lisa Genova