Quotes about harm
page 5

“I kissed him until everything that hurt inside me melted into a pool of black water so deep I couldn’t touch the bottom. As long as I was touching him, I wouldn’t drown.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Kiss, Water

“You're so afraid of being hurt that you attack first. Only those who really care about you will weather the assault of your verbal attacks and stay. The rest will fall away.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Weather

“Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself. That hurts the most.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

People, Learning, Time

“Never get involved. That's my motto. I hurt no one. And no one can hurt me.”

Adeline Yen Mah (1937) Author and physician

Variant: Don't trust anyone. Be a cold fish. I hurt no one. And no one can hurt me.
Source: Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter

“I think I needed to be really hurt on the outside so the hurt on the inside would realize that it wasn’t on its own and that it had to come out.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Thinking

“He recognized and accepted this strange new feeling: that he would rather be hurt himself than hurt Alec.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Course of True Love [and First Dates]

Feeling

“Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I've a right to be hurt, I don't intend to show it. (Amy March)”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Hate, Thinking

“Far too many people opened their hearts and lives at the drop of a hat. Why give someone that power over you? Why endow them with the ability to hurt you that much? Let someone in and you were asking for an emotional kicking some day.”

Dorothy Koomson book My Best Friend's Girl

Source: My Best Friend's Girl

People, Heart

“Then she cried without tears, which is said to hurt even more like dry labor.”

Laura Esquivel book Like Water for Chocolate

Source: Like Water for Chocolate

Tear

“You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Love, Way

“He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Variant: Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 25
Context: While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water — laughing at the girl, at the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier... and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

World

“I am really in love with Sam, and it hurts very much.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Love

“So, I can hurt now, or hurt later.”

Steve Martin book Shopgirl

Source: Shopgirl

“But then I didn't run from my challenges. I met them straight on and bashed my head against them, until it left me hurt, bloody, and dazed.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“Ow!" said Horace as the Ranger's fingers probed and poked around the bruise.
Did that hurt?" Halt asked, and Horace looked at him with exasperation.
Of course it did," he said sharply. "That's why I said 'ow!”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Icebound Land

“I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife
inside
because there was no alternative except to hide as long
as possible---
not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:
trying to connect.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Chance

“She cannot chain my soul. Yes, she could hurt me. She'd already done so… I would bleed, or not. Scar, or not. Live, or not. But she could not hurt my soul, not unless I gave it to her.”

Laurie Halse Anderson book Chains

Source: Chains

Soul

“He read it for the same reason an animal tears at a wounded foot: to hurt the pain.”

Nathanael West book Miss Lonelyhearts

Source: Miss Lonelyhearts

Pain, Tear, Reading, Animals

“tiny: maybe there's something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. it's gonna hurt. it's gonna hurt because it matters.”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Love

“I was happy. I loved the night, I loved t so much it almost hurt. In the night everything seemed possible. I wasn't sleepy at all.”

Banana Yoshimoto book Asleep

Source: Asleep

Love, Happiness, Night

“Never miss an opportunity to show your love, especially to those close to you, because we are always at our most cautious with them for fear of being hurt.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Love, Fear

“When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out.

But it's a lie.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

People, Lie

“She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Hope, Game, Time

“I truly believe that while love can hurt, love can also heal…”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Love

“Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Happiness, People, Search, Cry

“Angel screeched with fury and despair to the empty walls around her. "I'm human, do you hear me? It hurts!”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Nevermore

Angels, Despair

“I know about forgiving people and loving them anyway, even after they hurt you.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Home Front

Love, People, Forgiveness

“Good girls don't hurt other people's feelings. Good girls are not overly aggressive, competitive, or boastful. Good girls please others. But what good girls are good for is another question.”

Susan Jane Gilman (1924) American writer

Source: Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World as a SmartMouth Goddess

People, Feeling, Girl, Question

“My mind struggled to formulate a coherent though, any thought. I opened my mouth. "Your pajamas have Eeyore on them."

"I like Eeyore. He's sensible. A sober outlook on life never hurt anyone.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Gunmetal Magic

Life

“It's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt.1, ch.11
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Thinking, Personality

“If while alive you hurt or disappoint people you love, there's no use continuing such behavior when you're dead.”

Anthony Swofford book Jarhead

Source: Jarhead

Love, People, Disappointment, Behavior

“She had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there was nothing physically wrong. She hurt all the time.”

Stephen King book The Shining

Source: The Shining (1977)

Life, Pain, Dreams, Time

“Somewhere in him, a shadow turned mournfully over. You had to run with a night like this so the sadness could not hurt”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Sadness, Night

“Sometimes we have to face the things that hurt us most. Maybe you won’t heal till you do. You haven’t yet.” They both knew that was true. “You can’t move ahead until you bury the past.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Past

“The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

Source: The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)
Context: Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture.

Fear, Suffering

“Women are more attuned to feelings than men are, and if they’re not being truthful, more often than not it’s because they think truth might hurt your feelings. But it doesn’t mean they don’t love you.”

Nicholas Sparks book At First Sight

Mayor Gherkin, Chapter 8, p. 120
Source: 2000s, At First Sight (2005)
Context: ... but what I eventually came to understand was that if a woman truly loves you, you can't always expect her to tell the truth. You see, women are more attuned to feelings than men are, and if they're not being truthful, more often than not it's because they think the truth might hurt your feelings. But it doesn't mean they don't love you.

Love, Women, Men, Truth

“Sometimes the only thing to do is to take the thing that you must have. Even if someone gets hurt.”

Stephen King book Full Dark, No Stars

Source: Full Dark, No Stars

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”

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

Hurtful, Peaceful

“You'll never get to a person's soul until you understand their hurts.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Soul, Understanding, Personality

“Words are tricky. Sometimes you need them to bring out the hurt festering inside. If you don't, it turns gangrenous and kills you…. But sometimes words can break a feeling into pieces.”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956) novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist

Source: Queen of Dreams

Feeling

“I hurt with you. I bled with you - not only because we're bonded but because of the love I have for you. -- Eric Northman”

Charlaine Harris Dead in the Family

Variant: .. I suffered with you. I hurt with you. I bled with you -not only because we're bonded, but because the love I have for you." ~ Eric Northman in Dead in The Family.
Source: Dead in the Family

Love

“But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Baba (58)
Source: The Kite Runner (2003)

Truth, Lie

“I wonder if it's possible to start a new relationship without hurting someone else.”

David Levithan Boy Meets Boy

Variant: I wonder if it's possible to have happiness without it being at someone else's expense.
Source: Boy Meets Boy

“When anybody, no matter how old they are, loses a parent, I think it hurts the same as if you were only five years old, you know? I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Thinking, Parent

“This is a touch game. There are times when you've got to play hurt when you've got to block out the pain.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart

Pain, Game, Time

“Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. -- Dogbert's Motto”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Love, Money, People, Dance

“When you lose someone and it still hurts, that's when you know the love was real.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Love

“It was maddening how your best friend could twist the knobs inside of you so much that it hurt.”

Melissa de la Cruz Blue Bloods

Source: Blue Bloods

“Hurt leads to bitterness, bitterness to anger. Travel too far that road and the way is lost.”

Terry Brooks book The Elfstones of Shannara

Source: The Elfstones of Shannara

Way, Travel, Anger, Hurtful

“A good laugh heals a lot of hurts.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Ring of Endless Light

Source: A Ring of Endless Light

“We learn our lessons; we get hurt; we want revenge. Then we realize that actually, happiness and forgiving people is the best revenge.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Happiness, People, Forgiveness, Revenge

“In the second half of life, people have less power to infatuate you. But they also have much less power to control you or hurt you.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Life, People

“Fear can't hurt you," she said. "When it washes over you, give it no power. It's a snake with no venom. Remember that. That knowledge can save you.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Name of the Star

Fear, Knowledge

“It's just hard to see a friend hurt this much. Especially when you can't do anything except "be there". I want to make him stop hurting, but I can't.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“She grabbed his arm. "Let it be, son!" she cried. "That child ain't hurt!"
"Not hurt! You look into her eyes and tell me she ain't hurt!”

Mildred D. Taylor book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Source: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

“Sometimes, kids want you to hurt the way they hurt.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Way

“Shame resilience is the ability to say, “This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Disappointment, Courage, Success

“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 (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

People, Heart

“How was I supposed to know that you let two little bears hurt you, Goldilocks?"
"Ah, yes, that mouth. I missed it. All mine now.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

“She would wonder what had hurt her when she found her face wet with tears, and then would wonder how she could have been hurt without knowing it.”

George MacDonald book The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Source: The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Tear

“1. Your heart starts hurting when you think about him.”

Bisco Hatori (1975) Japanese manga artist

Source: Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 13

Thinking, Heart

“It was a strange thing, this feeling of empathy. He'd never experienced it before. He realized that what hurt this woman hurt him as well, that what made her bleed caused a hemorrhage of pain within his soul.”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: Wicked Intentions

Pain, Feeling, Soul

“Soon we will be strangers. No, we can never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Intimacy: das Buch zum Film von Patrice Chéreau

History

“Sometimes a question can hurt more than an answer.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Question

“The humble Cumulus humilis - never hurt a soul.”

Gavin Pretor-Pinney (1950) British writer

Source: The Cloudspotter's Guide

Soul

“You can't live your life for other people. You've got to do what's right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love, Life, People

“Tyson! Thank the gods, Annabeth is hurt!"
"You thank the gods that she is hurt?" he asked, puzzled.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

God

“Our purest form of joy comes when people we envy get hurt. That most genuine form of joy.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

People, Joy, Envy

“Of course it hurts", she grumbled, tipping my head further back. "Life sucks. Get over it”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

Life

“I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.”

Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep (1st edition)

Source: A Fire Upon the Deep

Cry

“Who wants that? I'd rather choose to fall in love and be hurt. Sometimes I can't even sleep because I love someone too much. And there's always sadness in our lives. It's that sad feeling that keeps us going. - Usagi/Sailor Moon”

Naoko Takeuchi (1967) Japanese manga artist

Source: Sailor Moon, Vol. 1

Love, Sadness, Feeling, Sleep

“I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can.”

Gregory Maguire book Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Source: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Way, Past, Future

“I wish I could take away your pain. I wish I could go back to when you were born and take you somewhere safe. Far away from all the people who’ve hurt you. (Kiara)
You’re doing that now. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Pain, People

“I love everything about you that hurts.”

Patrick Marber Closer

Variant: I know who you are. I love you. I love everything about you that hurts.
Source: Closer

Love

“My chest hurts… It hurts. The sound of his name is like a knife in my heart.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Heart

“Having a brain hurt so much sometimes.”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

“Sure it will hurt. But so what? Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of anything, even pain.”

Rodman Philbrick book Freak the Mighty

Variant: Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of everything, even pain.
Source: Freak the Mighty

Pain, Way, Thinking

“But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is ialways the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer (1996)
Context: Maybe not, she said as we came to the car. But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is always the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.

Love, World, Way, Boy

“How wonderful to be alive," he thought. "But why does it always hurt?”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago (1957)
Source: El doctor Zhivago

“Words don't hurt you." Which is one of the hugest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnWholly

Pain, Children, World

“The dead do not hurt you; only the living do.”

Tess Gerritsen book The Sinner

Source: The Sinner

Dead

“Our lives are marked and shaped by our regrets. Things we all want to take back and can’t. In a perfect world, we would never hurt the ones we love or cause hurt to befall them. But the world isn’t perfect and neither are we.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

Love, World, Perfection

“The difference between friendship and love is how much you can hurt each other.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

Love, Friendship, Heartbreaking, Hurtful

“Bitterness is the coward's revenge on the world for having been hurt.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

World, Revenge

“There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him, so I buried them, and let them hurt me.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Variant: There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him, so I buried them, and let them hurt me. (p. 181)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 181

Heartbreaking, Hurtful

“Envy hurt exponentially more than heartbreak because your soul was torn in two, half soaring with happiness for another person, half mired in a well of selfpity
and pain.”

Diana Peterfreund (1979) American writer

Source: For Darkness Shows the Stars

Pain, Happiness, Soul, Envy