Quotes about harm
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“I'm afraid my voice is going to break. I am afraid she is going to hear how much this hurts.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

“It's isn't a secret, unless keeping it hurts.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Secret

“I'll write this all down for you," I said. "I'll put it in a story." I don't know if that's what he wanted to ask me, but it's something everybody wants--for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

“Might not hurt you to pick up a book, just as an experiment."

Whatever. I looked up the definition for 'nerd' in the dictionary. Know what it said?"

"I bet you'll tell me."

" 'If you're reading this, you are one.' "

You're a riot.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Grip of the Shadow Plague

Books, Reading

“People who go to work every day, make sacrifices to raise families, and get through life without hurting other people if they can help it-those are the real heros.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Source: Winter Moon

Life, People, Family, Help

“This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken.”

Stephen R. Donaldson The Wounded Land

Source: The Wounded Land (1980)

Way, Understanding

“Some hurts can never be mended" he said. "No matter how much time passes. They tattoo themselves on our souls”

Yasmine Galenorn (1961) American writer

Soul, Time, Tattoo

“We both know the limits of this relationship. It's understood. And as long as we're both comfortablewith that, nobody get's hurt. It's basic.'
~Oliva, pg 374”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“I’ve got your back. Nothing alive will ever hurt you if I have breath in me. And nothing dead will hurt you if I don’t.” (Kisten)”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: For a Few Demons More

Dead

“Sheep hurt my father, and through my father, sheep have also hurt me.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 26, The Sheep Professor

“Government has no right to hurt a hair on the head of an atheist for his opinions. Let him have a care of his practices.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to John Quincy Adams (16 June 1816). Adams Papers (microfilm), reel 432, Library of Congress. James H. Hutson (ed.), The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 20
1810s
Source: The Portable John Adams

“He snorted. "They were probably scared."
"Scared!" For some reason, that hurt, just a little. She felt her lower lip wobble. "I'm not that bad, am I?"
"Worse," he said cheerfully. "You're hell on wheels. You're just lucky I like hot rods”

Linda Howard (1950) American writer

Source: Mr. Perfect

Hell

“You can't ever tell what's going to hurt people.”

Evelyn Waugh book A Handful of Dust

Source: A Handful of Dust

People

“Friends are honest with each other. Even if the truth hurts.
-Maggie”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Truth

“Love hurts."
Oh, shut UP!" - pg 123”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Final Warning

Love

“Lies hurt people; imagination makes life more fun.”

Dean Koontz book Relentless

Relentless

Life, People, Imagination

“You've got to be hurt and upset; otherwise you can't think of the really good, penetrating, X-rayish phrases.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Thinking

“Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Home, Time, Summer

“Trust me, you can't play the game if you don't know the rules. And if you don't know the rules, someone's bound to get hurt.”

Alyson Nöel book Dark Flame

Source: Dark Flame

Game

“Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known… then went crazy as a loon."

Lisa Simpson”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

World, Beauty, Solitude

“So long as you write it away regularly nothing can really hurt you.”

Shirley Jackson (1916–1965) novelist, short story writer

“We are going to fight. We are going to be hurt. And in the end, we will stand.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

Source: The Drawing of the Three

Fight

“I guess I just don't get the point. It's like, why should you bother getting attached to anything if,

A: It's never gonna last, and
B: It hurts like hell when it's over?”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Hell

“It's fear, Jack. The man deals with a huge amount of fear.'
Because he got hurt?'
No, not entirely. Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination.”

Thomas Harris Red Dragon

Source: Red Dragon

Fear, Penalty, Imagination

“Hate hurts the hater more'n the hated.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Hate

“It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” When a bit of me hurts, I always mind.”

Emma Donoghue Room

Variant: It's called mind over matter. If we don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Source: Room (novel) (2010)

“I feel a little like the moon who took possession of you for a moment and then returned your soul to you. You should not love me. One ought not to love the moon. If you come too near me, I will hurt you.”

Anaïs Nin book Delta of Venus

Source: Delta of Venus

Love, Feeling, Soul

“I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.”

Susanna Kaysen (1948) American writer

Smile

“That hurt querida, that really hurt”

Meg Cabot book Shadowland

Source: Shadowland

“Meg's high-heeled slippers were dreadfully tight, and hurt her, though she would not own it; and Jo's nineteen hair-pins all seemed stuck straight into her head, which was not exactly comfortable; but, dear me, let us be elegant or die.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

“A confession : solitude no longer hurt me.”

Mario Benedetti (1920–2009) Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet

Solitude

“People say the truth hurts. Hell no, it hurts even more if you do a whole bunch of foolishness to try and avoid it.”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter

People, Truth, Hell

“These kinds of fights can never be won - even if you're the victor, you've hurt the other person, and there has to be some loss associated with that.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Loss, Fight, Personality

“Why is there evil in the world? Because sometimes you just wanna fuckin have it, and you don’t care who gets hurt.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

World, Evil

“When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, “Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me and I’m going in again”—my gut reaction is, “What a badass.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Rising Strong

People, Truth

“Most men judge your importance in their lives by how much you can hurt them.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: My Story

Men, Hurtful

“I felt a splinter of guilt wedge into my heart. Charlotte had hurt me; in return, I'd hurt Rob. Maybe that's what we do to the people we love: take shots in the dark and realize too late we've wounded the people we're trying to protect.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Love, People, Heart

“Until I understood why you didn't cry, even though it hurt: there are kinds of pain you couldn't speak out loud.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Pain, Cry

“He's going to hurt you," Al said, looking at Pierce. "I can take care of you, teach you to survive. Be there for you, even if you do hate me."
I shivered. "I don't want him," I said, and Al turned away, seeming smaller somehow.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Black Magic Sanction

Hate

“There are a thousand ways to hurt someone you love that have nothing to do with physical violence.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Cerulean Sins

Source: Cerulean Sins

Love, Way

“There is so much hurt in this game of searching for a mate, of testing, trying. And you realize suddenly that you forgot it was a game, and turn away in tears.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Search, Game, Tear

“This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

Parent, Help

“We may need to ready ourselves to repel boarders.” “With what? One stiletto and hurtful insinuations about their mothers?”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies

“I have come to realize that destiny can hurt a person as much as it can bless them, and I find myself wondering why--out of all the people in all the world I could ever have loved--I had to fall in love with someone who was taken away from me.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Love, People, World, Personality

“I've thrown enough punches in my life to know when someone is hurting.”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Life

“Don't waste your time with fear.. Fear won't keep you safe from being hurt.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

Fear, Time

“I will never hurt you.
I will always help you.
If you are hungry
Ill give you my food.
If you are frightened
I am your friend.
I love you now.
And love does not end.”

Orson Scott Card Songmaster

Source: Songmaster

Love, Food, Help

“Oh, no. We can’t have that. Where you going, Mr. Meanie-Pants? You don’t hurt people then run. That’s just rude. Can the Simi barbecue him, or is he on the ‘No Simi’ eat list?” – Simi”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

People

“It will hurt. Because deep down, I'll know there was someone.. someone I was supposed to have met. Only I'll never meet him. I'll go through my whole life waiting for him to come along, only he never will. What kind of life is that?”

Meg Cabot book Twilight

Source: Twilight

Life, Waiting

“That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

Pain, Way

“Sometimes a man doesn't know how badly he's hurt until someone else probes the wound.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Quest

Source: Assassin's Quest

“You’re a dead man,” Kyle said. “Warren doesn’t take kindly to people who hurt me.”

Patricia Briggs book Frost Burned

Source: Frost Burned

People, Dead

“If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Variant: If you're in trouble or hurt or need–go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help–the only ones.
Source: The Grapes of Wrath

People, Help, Hurtful

“Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Source: My Utmost for his Highest

God

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks — on your body or on your heart — are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”

Anthony Bourdain book The Nasty Bits

The Nasty Bits (2006)

Life, World, Beauty, Travel

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” —MARGERY WILLIAMS”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Truth, Horse

“For what it’s worth: trust your feelings. I can’t promise that you’ll never get hurt again, but I can promise you the risk is worth it.”

Rick Riordan book The Serpent's Shadow

Source: The Serpent's Shadow

Feeling

“The baby!’ Nico grinned, which hurt his face muscles. He wasn’t used to making that expression. ‘Mellie and the kid are all right?”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Baby

“Those you love will not drown or burn. They will fly away.'…'Now we both have people we love who are like birds. They have flown far from anything in this world that can hurt them. They're flying away still.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Incantation

Love, People, World, Bird

“I know why we laugh. We laugh because it hurts, and it's the only thing to make it stop hurting.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Variant: I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting.
Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“It hurts that I can be so full of him while he's so empty of me.”

David Levithan book Another Day

Source: Another Day

“Much as I have no wish to hurt anyone's feelings, my first obligation has not been to be nice but to be true to my perhaps peculiar memories, experiences and feelings.”

Edward Said (1935–2003) Professor of English and literature

Source: Out of Place

Feeling, Memory

“Grudges seldom hurt anyone except the one bearing them.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: One Silent Night

“We do not believe in heaven or hell…; we do not believe in eternal damnation. We believe only in the unavoidable horror of hurting others and of likewise being hurt.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Source: By The Light Of My Father's Smile

Hell

“Everyone's life is a mess. We all make mistakes… and not just little slip-ups. Major mistakes that hurt us and other people.”

James Alan Gardner Trapped

Source: Trapped

Life, People

“Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain, I think. If it didn't matter, it wouldn't matter.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Levels of Life

Pain, Way, Nature, Thinking

“You're beautiful, Roza. So beautiful it hurts me.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Last Sacrifice
Variant: You're so beautiful, it hurts sometimes.
Source: Vampire Academy

Beauty

“Blake took a small roll from the tray on the table, then put it back in favor of a larger one. And maybe a little butter. It certainly couldn't hurt. And jam… no, he drew the line at jam. She was a spy, after all.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: To Catch an Heiress

“Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic?… Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Thinking, Parting

“When two people were in love you had to leave them to it. Especially when you weren't in love and wished that you were. That could embarrass. That could hurt.”

Irvine Welsh book Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance

Source: Ecstasy

Love, People

“I always tell the girls never take it seriously, if you never take it seriously you never get hurt, if you never get hurt you always have fun, and if you ever get lonely just go to the record store and visit your friends.”

Cameron Crowe (1957) Academy Award-winning American writer and film director

Source: Almost Famous

Girl

“Hurt, he'll never be hurt--he's made to hurt other people.”

George Eliot book Silas Marner

Source: Silas Marner

People

“It doesn`t hurt to get more education.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Education

“I can be hurt, she said, only by people I respect.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Then Comes Seduction

People, Hurtful

“Being vulnerable, letting people in, getting hurt… it's all part of being in love.”

Jenny Han book Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Source: Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Love, People, Parting

“You don't know me, but I know about you… I can't make you live longer. I can't stop you from hurting. But I can give you one wish, as someone did for me.”

Lurlene McDaniel (1944) American writer

Source: Sixteen and Dying

“Anyway, there is one thing I have learned and that is not to dress uncomfortably, in styles which hurt: winklepicker shoes that cripple your feet and tight pants that squash your balls. Indian clothes are better.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Shoe, Learning, Clothes

“I'd been hurt, and in response I had acted violently, destroying a little of myself each time I did so.”

John Connolly book The Killing Kind

Source: The Killing Kind

Time

“We're all one thing, like cells in a body. 'Cept we can't see the body. The way fish can't see the ocean. And so we envy each other. Hurt each other. Hate each other. How silly is that? A heart cell hating a lung cell.”

Charlie Kaufman (1958) American screenwriter

Source: Adaptation.: The Shooting Script

Hate, Way, Fish, Heart

“In a perverse way, I was glad for the stitches, glad it would show, that there would be scars. What was the point in just being hurt on the inside? It should bloody well show.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Way, Heartbreaking

“People give pain, are callous and insensitive, empty and cruel… but place heals the hurt, soothes the outrage, fills the terrible vacuum that these human beings make.”

Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American author

Pain, People

“Once, maybe I would have thought you a fool, but… well, that's kind of what trust is, isn't it? A willful self-delusion? You have to shut out that voice that whispers about betrayal, and just hope that your friends aren't going to hurt you.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Hope, Fools, Betrayal

“I have learned that trying again is important and decisivness is good.

I have learned that silence hurts.

I have learned about starting over
and releasing pride.”

Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer

Source: Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

Silence, Learning

“I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he'd been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved one, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Love, Time

“You got to know your limits. Once is enough, but you got to learn. A little caution never hurt anyone. A good woodsman has only one scar on him. No more, no less.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter 24: Shadow Grounds
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Learning

“Memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Context: As I trace the route to his apartment, the twists and turns, and pass once more the old tree opposite his house, I am struck by a sudden thought: memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.

Love, Way, Reality, Memory

“His own voice was older than he was. Ancient, unearthed from some mystical subterranean place… The voice seemed to make his whole body ache. Maybe it made him bleed inside. I wondered if it hurt, if it burned in his throat.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

“Adron! Don’t you hurt him. (Kiara)
I’m not going to hurt him, Mom. I’m going to kill him. (Young Adron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: In Other Worlds

Moms

“The only way a no-legged leopard could hurt you is if it fell out of a tree onto your head.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: My Point... And I Do Have One

Way, Tree

“there is nothing to be done.

only accept it…

and hurt.”

Peter McWilliams (1949–2000) American author and civil liberties advocate

Source: How to Survive the Loss of a Love

“You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Variant: You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was meant to be wooed and won by youth.
Source: My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), Chapter 4 (Sandhurst).
Source: My Early Life, 1874-1904

World