When Things Fall Apart Quotes & Sayings

God often uses desperate moments to wake us up. Only when things start to fall apart do we finally open our eyes. — Kyle Idleman

When Things Fall Apart" and I quote "Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs. — Pema Chodron

There were moments ... when it seemed that all one could be asked was just to keep the ashtrays clean, the bed made, the wastebaskets emptied, as if one never got to the real things because of the constant exhausting battle to keep ordinary life from falling apart. — May Sarton

Love. Buddha nature. Courage. These are code words for things we don't know in our minds, but any of us could experience them. These are words that point to what life really is when we let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment. — Pema Chodron

Life doesn't change when you meet a guy and life doesn't fall apart when you break up with one. We are teaching young female readers the wrong things through books not only expressing this point, but also using these two concepts as turning plot points of novels. — Meghan Blistinsky

But just exactly what is the "good" to which we aspire through doing and eating things that are supposed to be good for us? This question is strictly taboo, for if it were seriously investigated the whole economy and social order would fall apart and have to be reorganized. It would be like the donkey finding out that the carrot dangled before him, to make him run, is hitched by a stick to his own collar.
For the good to which we aspire exists only and always in the future. Because we cannot relate to the sensuous and material present we are most happy when good things are expected to happen, not when they are happening. We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can't slow down enough to enjoy them when they come. We are therefore a civilization which suffers from chronic disappointment - a formidable swarm of spoiled children smashing their toys. — Alan W. Watts

She's one of these beautiful women who's just a nobody and a nothing, and when they make it big, they always fall apart. Money can't do anything for them. Fame only makes things worse. — Anne Rampling

Bad things happen to everyone, but when they do, you can't just fall apart and die. You have to fight back. — Alexandra Monir

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness.
-Pema Chodron, from When Things Fall Apart — Pema Chodron

Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk.
"I have kola," he announced when he sat down, and passed the disc over to his guest.
"Thank you. He who brings kola brings life. But I think you ought to break it," replied Okoye passing back the disc.
"No, it is for you, I think," and they argued like this for a few moments before Unoka accepted the honor of breaking the kola. Okoye, meanwhile, took the lump of chalk, drew some lines on the floor, and then painted his big toe. — Chinua Achebe

When the news you don't want to hear is looming before you like Everest, two things can happen. Tragedy can run you through like a sword, or it can become your backbone. Either you fall apart and sob, or you say, 'Right. What's next? — Jodi Picoult

When you're supposed to be working, work, and when you're supposed to be playing, play. It's a weird tightrope you're walking, but it's only when you get your priorities mixed up that things fall apart. — Gary Keller

You're the only one who knows when you're using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you're opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is - working with it rather than struggling against it. You're the only one who knows. — Pema Chodron

I think about the story while I think about other things. This is an important part of the process: I look at it sideways. If I look straight at it, it produces nothing other than what seem like complicated, brilliant designs that fall apart the following morning. In some way stories mature when you're not looking. — Aleksandar Hemon

I find so many opportunities to fall, to falter, and fail when I refuse to surrender to change. Change will come into my room and rearrange my tidy world. Then like dominoes, one things changed falls upon another until it feels like the world is collapsing around me. But when I yield, when I surrender to the necessary change, I can stand back and look at the beautiful picture created by what seemed to be my world falling apart. — Stella Payton

Even during the worst hardships, when the other things in our lives seem to fall apart, we can still find peace in the eternal love of God. — Armstrong Williams

People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it's the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart. — Markus Zusak

When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart,
you'd stop suffering when they did. — John Green

Sometimes, when things fall apart, it's because you spent so much time being scared that it was too perfect and it slips through your fingers. When you try to hold love too tightly, it leaves you without warning. You have to revel in the ease of it, because even when the hard times come you can overtake them, and fear is just a crutch and the sibling of doubt. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

When things fall apart, the children of the land scurry and scatter like birds escaping a burning sky. — NoViolet Bulawayo

Adversity is a natural part of being human. It is the height of arrogance to prescribe a moral code or health regime or spiritual practice as an amulet to keep things from falling apart. Things do fall apart. It is in their nature to do so. When we try to protect ourselves from the inevitability of change, we are not listening to the soul. We are listening to our fear of life and death, our lack of faith, our smaller ego's will to prevail. To listen to your soul is to stop fighting with life
to stop fighting when things fall apart; when they don't go our away, when we get sick, when we are betrayed or mistreated or misunderstood. To listen to the soul is to slow down, to feel deeply, to see ourselves clearly, to surrender to discomfort and uncertainty and to wait. — Elizabeth Lesser

When I put a quarter into an arcade machine or call up an emulated game on my computer, I do it to escape the world that is a slave to the time that makes things fall apart. I have never played these games to occupy my world. — D. B. Weiss

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know
... nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. perhaps there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched. maybe the only enemy is that we don't like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. but what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. it just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves. — Pema Chodron

Want something else more than success. Success is a lovely thing, but your desire to say something, your worth, and your identity shouldn't rely on it, because it's not guaranteed and it's not permanent and it's not sufficient. So work hard, fall in love with the writing - the characters, the story, the words, the themes - and make sure that you are who you are regardless of your life circumstances. That way, when the good things come, they don't warp you, and when the bad things hit you, you don't fall apart. — Veronica Roth

Control is an illusion - a fact you will learn very fast if you become ill, or have things fall apart in some other way. When we understand vulnerability and suffering as an essential part of being human, our individual fate can be easier to manage. — Harriet Lerner

They say you never know what you would do in a hypothetical situation. We'd all like to think we'd be one of the people who gave up their lifejackets and waved a stoic good-bye from the slanting deck of the titanic, someone who jumped in front of a bullet for a stranger, or turned and raced back up the stairs of one of the towers, in search of someone who needed help rather than our own security. But you just don't know for sure if, when things fall apart, you'll think safety first, or if safety will be the last thing on your mind. — Huntley Fitzpatrick

In this world we like to follow the plot, to think we know what is happening, what is coming next. But these great quantum movies are like spiritual experiences. They start to dismantle the world as we know it, and we find ourselves knowing less and less about what is happening. We do not have to know; there is a Presence behind all this that knows what It is doing. Instead of feeling nervous when things start to dismantle and fall apart, we can accept that we personally do not know, and see it as a good thing. — David Hoffmeister

Dear Delphine,
When you are older I want you to find Chinua Achebe. I want you to read Things Fall Apart. Don't be hardheaded and try to read this book now. Don't be hardheaded, Delphine. You are the smart one, but you are not ready. You can read all its words. Even the African words. But you will not know what Achebe is saying. It is a bad thing to bite into a hard fruit with little teeth. You will say bad things about the fruit when the problem is your teeth.
I want you to read this book. I want you to know Things Fall Apart. Fourteen is a good age to find Chinua Achebe.
Nzila.
Your Mother.
P.S. For now you are eleven. Be eleven. — Rita Williams-Garcia

Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room and broke the figurines on the etagere.(Opening page, 3) — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I've not really had a bad Christmas. Apart from serious things, like when my father died. He rather spoiled the party and I've never forgiven him for falling off the twig on Christmas Day. — John Nettles

Even though I avoid buying clothes that are 'in fashion', choosing things I fall in love with and wearing them till they fall apart - and generally going for vintage when it comes to evening wear - I still, like every woman I know, suffer from occasional pangs of 'clothes guilt'. — Sheherazade Goldsmith

When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so. [ ... ] But I fear for you young people because you do not understand how strong is the bond of kinship. You do not know what it is to speak with one voice. And what is the result? An abominable religion has settled among you. A man can now leave his father and his brothers. He can curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors, like a hunter's dog that suddenly goes mad and turns on his master. I fear for you; I fear for the clan. — Chinua Achebe

When you stop wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you stop suffering when they do. — John Green

Everything that comes together falls apart. When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you stopped suffering when they did. — John Green

Things fall apart, and fade, and when these things happen you just need to pick yourself up and start over, — Evan Reeves

You have to push yourself when you're older because it's very easy to fall into the trap. You start to fall apart - you just have to do your best to paste yourself together. I think doing things and being active is very important. When your mind is busy, you don't hurt so much. — Iris Apfel

Perhaps it's the word radical that needs rethinking. But what could we angle ourselves toward instead, or in addition? Openness? Is that good enough, strong enough? You're the only one who knows when you're using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you're opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is - working with it rather than struggling against it. You're the only one who knows. And the thing is, even you don't always know. — Maggie Nelson

When things fall apart and we can't get the pieces back together, when we lose something dear to us, when they whole thing is just not working and we don't know what to do, this is the time when the natural warmth of tenderness, the warmth of empathy and kindness, are just waiting to be uncovered, just waiting to be embraced. This is our chance to come out of our self-protecting bubble and to realize that we are never alone. This is our chance to finally understand that wherever we go, everyone we meet is essentially just like us. Our own suffering, if we turn toward it, can open us to a loving relationship with the world. — Pema Chodron

Something deep in the human soul awakens as things fall apart. Something in the soul knows that everything in this world can become lost. And something in the soul knows how to survive periods of devastation, disorientation and loss. Descent and falling is the way of the soul from its beginning. We each fell from the womb of life when the waters of the inner sea broke and it came time for us to breathe on our own. — Michael Meade

I was so happy renting in New York City for so long because renting - or at least the way I rented, which involved never lifting a finger to better my surroundings - allows you to let things literally fall apart all around you. Then, when it gets to be too much, you just move on. — Maggie Nelson

Things fall apart, even when you think they're stronger than anything you could ever imagine. — Susane Colasanti

It used to be that each time you fell in love, the effort of loving released in you the energy to hold everything together a little longer. Then, after several months or years, when things began to crack apart again, you would fall in love with someone else. New energy would be released, and for a time you and your world would be safe once more.

By now, however, you have exhausted that. There seems to be no energy left - if you had discovered alcohol earlier it might have saved a few broken hearts. For you, alcohol is not the problem - it's the solution: dissolving all the separate parts into one. A universal solvent. An ocean. — Ron Butlin

If you read 1 John you'll see that love of God and neighbour are very closely tied together. Partly this is because all humans are made in God's image, so that when you love another human you are loving someone who is reflecting God himself. Of course there is a distinction but the minute you try to drive a wedge between the two things start to fall apart. — N. T. Wright

Accepting who we are is a practice of non-harming. Sadly, much self-help literature contains seeds of harm: We are urged to remake ourselves into someone who will be spiritually or psychologically acceptable, and that acceptance is conditional on our performance in the areas of therapy, growth, or meditation. We are still not accepting ourselves unconditionally, just as we are in this moment, with a full and joyful heart. A more merciful practice begins with acceptance. It begins with the assumption that we were never broken, never defective. By surrendering into a deep acceptance of our own nature - rather than by tearing apart who we are - we actually make more room for genuine, rich, merciful, playful growth and change. If we feel our fundamental strength, creativity, and wisdom, then change is not frightening at all. Things simply fall away when they are ready, making room for the rich harvest underneath. — Wayne Muller

Things can fall apart, or threaten to, for many reasons, and then there's got to be a leap of faith. Ultimately, when you're at the edge, you have to go forward or backward; if you go forward, you have to jump together. — Yo-Yo Ma

When you have a family, even though you might move a lot, you collect all of these things. It's the detritus of your family and they become the symbols of your family life, and your unit out in the world. In that moment I wanted to allude to the fact that the way my parents' relationship was falling apart was impacting me and my brother, my parents, but also our symbols. — Jesmyn Ward

There is nothing in this life that can destroy you but yourself. Bad things happen to everyone, but when they do, you can't just fall apart and die. You have to fight back. If you don't, you're the one who loses in the end. But if you do keep going and fight back, you win. — Alexandra Monir

God uses means. Natural laws and human ingenuity are his tools, even when we do not see his hand. He didn't just establish these laws and then step away. As contemporary science reminds us, apparent chaos is ubiquitous. Things should fall apart, but they don't. Not for one moment could the cosmos sustain itself apart from the Father's loving word, which he speaks in his Son and by his Spirit. — Michael S. Horton

when we're in emotional pain, we think it's a mistake, something that needs to be remedied. 'We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It's just like that. — Marian Keyes

Don't be quick to leave the class of discipline; you shall only live to remember the last lesson. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

With my parents, when I was younger, I always had to do two things. If I was acting, I always had to do a sport or something on the arts side of things along with that. That way, if one fell apart, I always had something else to fall back on. — Kaley Cuoco

When things fall apart, the broken pieces allow all sorts of things to enter, and one of them is the presence of God. — Shauna Niequist