Quotes & Sayings About Shaky Ground

To return to antiquity [in literature]: that has been done. To return to the Middle Ages: that too has been done. Remains the present day. But the ground is shaky: so where can you set the foundations? An answer to this question must be found if one is to produce anything vital and hence lasting. All this disturbs me so much that I no longer like to be spoken to about it. — Gustave Flaubert

Then, Patrick, you do feel it too? You do feel ... something? It would be so bleak if you felt nothing. That's what scares women, you know.'
'I do know, and you needn't be scared. I feel something all right.'
'Promise me you'll always treat me as a person.'
'I promise.'
'Promises are so easily given.'
'I'll fulfill this one. Let me show you.'
After a shaky start he was comfortably in the swing of it, having recognised he was on familiar ground after all. Experience had brought him to see that this kind of thing was nothing more than the levying of cock-tax, was reasonable and normal, in fact, even though some other parts of experience strongly suggested that what he had shelled out so far was only a down payment. — Kingsley Amis

Glancing over at Jon, he wondered whether their shaky, three-part arrangement would survive the truth of Baltsaros's compulsion. He scratched the back of his head, turning the metal collar as he thought. If it did spell the end, would he be made to choose? The thought sobered him, and he drifted closer to Jon's side as they walked towards the brightly lit inn. Tom reached out and let his knuckles graze Jon's arm, a hidden touch just to ground him for the span of a heartbeat. Maybe Jon would turn a blind eye. Maybe they'd continue to live in denial that they both loved a fucking monster. Jon smiled at the brief caress, and Tom felt his chest get tight. Love was a bloody, fucking headache. — Bey Deckard

Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the perform-ance of a trained dog on very shaky ground. — Jean Cocteau

If you doubt yourself, then indeed you stand on shaky ground. — Henrik Ibsen

You don't have to disrespect and insult others simply to hold your own ground. If you do, that shows how shaky your own position is. — Red Haircrow

The moment I think about past letdowns or future hypotheticals, I mentally put myself on shaky ground. If I clear my mind of chatter, I can succeed, just like I did in 2006. — Julia Mancuso

The person who takes every opportunity to "pick on" others is often mistakenly called "sadistic". In reality, this person is a misdirected masochist who is working towards his own destruction. The reason a person viciously strikes out against you is because they are afraid of you or what you represent, or are resentful of your happiness. They are weak, insecure, and on extremely shaky ground when you throw your curse, and they make ideal human sacrifices. — Anton Szandor LaVey

You Don't Know What Love Is
But you know how to raise it in me
like a dead girl winched up from a river. How to
wash off the sludge, the stench of our past.
How to start clean. This love even sits up
and blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.
Any day now she'll try to eat solid food. She'll want
to get into the fast car, one low to the ground, and drive
to some cinderblock shithole in the desert
where she can drink and get sick and then
dance in nothing but her underwear. You know
where she's headed, you know she'll wake up
with an ache she can't locate and no money
and a terrible thirst. So to hell
with your warm hands sliding inside my shirt
and your tongue down my throat
like an oxygen tube. Cover me
in black plastic. Let the mourners through. — Kim Addonizio