Unravelling Quotes & Sayings

You would be hard pressed, I would submit, to find a better pairing of occurrences to illustrate the divine and felonious nature of the human being - a species of organism that is capable of unravelling the deepest secrets of the heavens while at the same time pounding into extinction, for no purpose at all, a creature that never did us any harm and wasn't even remotely capable of understanding what we were doing to it as — Bill Bryson

The big lie perpetrated on Western society is the idea of women's inferiority, a lie so deeply ingrained in our social behaviour that merely to recognize it is to risk unravelling the entire fabric of civilization. — Molly Haskell

Unilateral disarmament by Britain is opposed to our country's best interests, could begin the unravelling of NATO and therefore jeopardise the stability of Europe. — James Callaghan

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story ... Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling it.'
- Sherlock Holmes on John Watson's "pamphlet", "A Study in Scarlet". — Arthur Conan Doyle

Fiddler briefly wondered about those three dragons - where they had gone, what tasks awaited them - then he shrugged. Their appearance, their departure and, in between and most importantly, their indifference to the four mortals below was a sobering reminder that the world was far bigger than that defined by their own lives, their own desires and goals. The seemingly headlong plunge this journey had become was in truth but the smallest succession of steps, of no greater import than the struggles of a termite.
The worlds live on, beyond us, countless unravelling tales.
In his mind's eye he saw his horizons stretch out on all sides, and as they grew ever vaster he in turn saw himself as ever smaller, ever more insignificant.
We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again ... — Steven Erikson

Few value just how fragile a person's psyche is. All those pieces, both the good and bad, the values, the lessons, the beliefs that construct us - they're all woven into the fabric of our being. Once you start pulling out the first thread, the entire person is in danger of unravelling. — Jessica Dotta

There is something the child sees that he does not see; something the child hears that he does not hear; and this something is the most important thing of all. Because he does not understand it, his understanding is more childish than the child's and more simple than simplicity itself; in spite of the many clever wrinkles on his parchment face, and the masterly play of his fingers in unravelling the knots. — Friedrich Nietzsche

You know what?' said Vimes aloud. 'This is going to be the world's first democratically killed dragon. One man, one stab.'
Then you've got to stop them. You can't let them kill it!' said Lady Ramkin.
Vimes blinked at her.
Pardon?' he said.
It's wounded!'
Lady, that was the intention, wasn't it? Anyway, it's only stunned,' said Vimes.
I mean you can't let them kill it like this,' said Lady Ramkin insistently. 'Poor thing!'
What do you want to do, then?' demanded Vimes, his temper unravelling. 'Give it a strengthening dose of tar oil and a nice comfy basket in front of the stove?'
It's butchery!'
Suits me fine!'
But it's a dragon! It's just doing what a dragon does! It never would have come here if people had left it alone!'
Vimes thought: it was about to eat her, and she can still think like this. He hesitated. Perhaps that did give you the right to an opinion ... — Terry Pratchett

And now, what about a Watson? Are we to have a Watson? We are. Death to an author who keeps his unravelling for the last chapter, making all the other chapters but prologue to a five-minute drama. This is no way to write a story. Let us know from chapter to chapter what the detective is thinking. For this he must watsonize or soliloquize; the one is merely a dialogue form of the other, and, by that, more readable. A Watson, then, but not of necessity a fool of a Watson. A little slow, let him be, as so many of us are, but friendly, human, likeable ... — A.A. Milne

To recount these histories is like unravelling a thread: one means only to tell one little part, but then another comes in, and another, for they are all part of the same garment - Tudor, Lancaster, York, Plantagenet. — Margaret George

Reviving Spring, a toast to thy fresh lips! Thy blush is music, and e'en heaven lurks In thy thick perfumed hair that hangs about Thy flowered shoulders like enchanted rain; Thy sigh is song and thy soft breath a balm, Dispelling death
soft loosing his cold grip, Unravelling darkness in the heart of pain, As o'er dank waters rings the laugh of dawn. — William Batchelder Greene

But you're so hypnotizing
You've got me laughing while I sing
You've got me smiling in my sleep
And I can see this unravelling
Your love is where I'm falling
But please don't catch me — Demi Lovato

If the whole world should agree to speak nothing but truth, what an abridgment it would make of speech! And what an unravelling there would be of the invisible webs which men, like so many spiders, now weave about each other! — Washington Allston

I sit still and prepare for the Great Unravelling, but instead find further knots. — Martin Cosgrove

Science is about unravelling nature. — N. R. Narayana Murthy

I remember reading a 'Scientific American' article about the use of new physical techniques - including neutron scattering - as a method for unravelling the structure of the ribosome. I was fascinated. — Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

And from the top of the building I look down upon the world and see the crowds of people in the city I have made and the world that I have created.
This universe, my universe, dies with me. I will jump and I will die and yet, I will live, as I always do.
I will live and die and murder, a massacre of my people. And I watch as the girl's bare feet leap and her naked body falls. Down, down, down, she falls. She drops. Into the fires of a hell of my making. — Emma Rose Kraus

Across the moon-pale scar that marred my forearm, Darian danced in dark ink, the gracefully curving edges of his name unravelling into a spill of colour as joyful and haphazard as the promise of stars. — Alexis Hall

I don't know where the universe came from or what happens to creatures when they die. I don't know if the whole thing's an unravelling accident or an inscrutable design. I don't know how one should live - but I know that one should live, if one can possibly bear it. — Glen Duncan

There is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Rose was unravelling my hard exterior and helping me realize the boy I use to be was still there. I walked around like I had a death wish, taking unnecessary risks because my reason for living had vanished, but now that she was back I had to do everything I possibly could to fight for us; to fight for her. — Teresa Mummert

Wouldn't you rather see the real Amsterdam?' No, Cat, dammit, no! I had no desire to see the real Amsterdam. We had reality back in Berkshire, that's not why we were here; we had no interest in the way things really were. A perfectly co-ordinated schedule of sightseeing was unravelling before my eyes. 'If we don't go to the Anne Frank House today, the whole plan falls apart.' I felt myself getting shrill. — Anonymous

The tapestry of my life was a ruin of unravelling threads. The brightest parts were a nonsensical madman's weaving. And now every day was a grey stitch, laid down with an outpatient's patience, one following the next following the next, a story in lines, like a railway track to nowhere, telling absolutely nothing. — Alexis Hall

The clouds floating white and restless in the sky were those you see only in May or June. They were innocent companions, still young and flighty, who ran playfully across the blue road to hide suddenly behind high mountains, linking arms and running away, sometimes crumpling up like handkerchiefs, sometimes unravelling into streamers, and eventually playing a practical joke by setting themselves down on the mountain like white caps. — Stefan Zweig

It was as if thousands and thousands of little roots and threads of consciousness in him and her had grown together into a tangled mass, till they could crowd no more, and the plant was dying. Now quietly, subtly, she was unravelling the tangle of his consciousness and hers, breaking the threads gently, one by one, with patience and impatience to get clear. — D.H. Lawrence

In the quest of life, we quit living. — Pratik Shah

Poirot was an extraordinary looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet, four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible. I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandyfied little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police. As a detective, his flair had been extraordinary, and he had achieved triumphs by unravelling some of the most baffling cases of the day. — Agatha Christie

A living organism must be studied from two distinct aspects. One of these is the causal-analytic aspect which is so fruitfully applicable to ontogeny. The other is the historical descriptive aspect which is unravelling lines of phylogeny with ever-increasing precision. Each of these aspects may make suggestions concerning the possible significance of events seen under the other, but does not explain or translate them into simpler terms. — Gavin De Beer

There can be no summary and dramatic end to a marriage - only a slow and painful unravelling of a tangled skein of threads too stubborn to be broken. — Wallis Simpson

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling ... — V.S. Naipaul

She could feel her mind pulling loose like knitting, the neat stitches of her artificial days unravelling to become one mangled thread. — Frances Hardinge

Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Even today, I am still very child-like while designing. It's a bit like Christmas - each of your designs you create is like unravelling your presents. — Christian Louboutin