“There are, he assures her, no such things as curses. There is luck, maybe, bad or good. A slight inclination of each day towards success or failure. But no curses.”

—  Anthony Doerr , book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There are, he assures her, no such things as curses. There is luck, maybe, bad or good. A slight inclination of each da…" by Anthony Doerr?
Anthony Doerr photo
Anthony Doerr 55
American writer 1973

Related quotes

Fritz Leiber photo

“You are not the first to be shocked and horrified by chess,” he assured her. “It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game for lunatics—or else it creates them.”

Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction

“The 64-Square Madhouse” (p. 74); originally published in If, May 1962
Short Fiction, A Pail of Air (1964)

Alethea Kontis photo

“The curse of an interesting life: there are either very good times or very bad times.”

Alethea Kontis (1976) American writer

Source: Enchanted

“Maybe all of her strangeness, her curse, her always feeling like an outsider, had all existed so that she could belong here, with Peter.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Francesco Berni photo

“Cursed be he who e'er has put his trust
Or who henceforth shall trust in woman's heart;
False are they all, and to mankind a curse;
The plain are bad enough, the fair are worse.”

Francesco Berni (1497–1535) Italian poet

Sia maladetto chi si fidò mai,
O vuol fidarsi di donna che sia;
Che false sono e maladette tutte;
E più anche le belle che le brutte.
XXII, 49
Rifacimento of Orlando Innamorato

Muhammad photo

“"One of the worst major wrong actions is for a man to curse his parents." It was said, "O Messenger of Allah, how can a man curse his parents?" He said, "He may curse another man's father who in turn curses his father, and curse his mother and he in turn curses his mother."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 338
Sunni Hadith

Khalil Gibran photo

“Men would bless you or curse you;
The curse, a protest against failure,
The blessing, a hymn of the hunter
Who comes back from the hills
With provision for his mate.”

Khalil Gibran book Jesus, The Son of Man

A Man From Lebanon: Nineteen Centuries Afterward
Jesus, The Son of Man (1928)

Tim Burton photo

“Voodoo girl

But she knows she has a curse on her,
a curse she cannot win.
For if someone gets too close to her,
the pins stick farther in.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Variant: But she knows she has a curse on her,
a curse she cannot win.
For if someone gets too close to her,

the pins stick further in.
Source: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

Эрл Уилсон photo

“Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.”

Эрл Уилсон (1934–2005) American baseball player

“Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts…”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Guardian Galenor in Ch 43 : various pursuits<!-- 418 -->
The Visitor (2002)
Context: People allow themselves to believe an event if it's called a miracle while disdaining the same event if it's called magic. Or vice versa. Life arises naturally; where life is, death is, joy is, pain is. Where joy and pain are, ecstasy and horror are, all part of the pattern. They occur as night and day occur on a whirling planet. They are not individually willed into being and shot at persons like arrows. Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts…

Algernon Charles Swinburne photo

“Who questions with a snake if the snake sting?
Who reasons of the lightning if it burn?
While these things are, deadly will these things be;
And so the curse that comes of cursed faith.”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

John Knox as portrayed in Bothwell : A Tragedy (1874) Act I, Sc. 2.
Bothwell : A Tragedy (1874)
Context: Sins are sin-begotten, and their seed
Bred of itself and singly procreative;
Nor is God served with setting this to this
For evil evidence of several shame,
That one may say, Lo now! so many are they;
But if one, seeing with God-illumined eyes
In his full face the encountering face of sin,
Smite once the one high-fronted head, and slay,
His will we call good service. For myself,
If ye will make a counsellor of me,
I bid you set your hearts against one thing
To burn it up, and keep your hearts on fire,
Not seeking here a sign and there a sign,
Nor curious of all casual sufferances,
But steadfast to the undoing of that thing done
Whereof ye know the being, however it be,
And all the doing abominable of God.
Who questions with a snake if the snake sting?
Who reasons of the lightning if it burn?
While these things are, deadly will these things be;
And so the curse that comes of cursed faith.

Related topics