Quotes about awe
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“Even as an athlete, I am constantly inspired and awed by the stories of Olympians. I was honored to have been asked to exchange ideas in the first charrette.”

Kristi Yamaguchi (1971) American figure skater

"Kristi Yamaguchi Interview" in United States Olympic & Paralympic Museum https://usopm.org/kristi-yamaguchi-interview/

Idea

“Wonderful is the depth of Thy oracles, whose surface is before us, inviting the little ones; and yet wonderful is the depth, O my God, wonderful is the depth. It is awe to look into it; and awe of honour, and a tremor of love. The enemies thereof I hate vehemently. Oh, if Thou wouldest slay them with Thy two-edged sword, that they be not its enemies! For thus do I love, that they should be slain unto themselves that they may live unto Thee.”

Aurelius Augustinus book Confessions

Source: Confessions (c. 397), XII, 14

God, Hate, Love

“I just read them for fun."
"Dictionaries?"
"Yes."
"That doesn't sound like fun. That sounds awful."
"Awful used to mean 'full of awe.' The same meaning as awesome. I learned that from a dictionary."
He blinked.
"See?" She said. "Fun.”

Max Barry (1973) Australian writer

Source: Lexicon

Learning, Reading

“When you hate someone you used to love, and you think he's done something awful - he probably has.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

Love, Hate, Thinking

“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Attributed to Milton at http://quotationsbook.com/quote/31964/#sthash.zAJjMqmY.dpbs, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverence_(emotion)#Quotations, great-quotes.com, and brainyquote.com. <br class="br">Spirituality author Sarah Ban Breathnach writes, in her 1996 Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude: "Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life (is it abundant or is it lacking?) and the world (is it friendly or is it hostile?)." A Milton quotation occurs on the same page. <br class="br">Misattributed

Life, World, Change, Gratitude

“Now I am just an elderly lady who is full of spleen,
who humps around greater Boston in a God-awful hat,
who never lived and yet outlived her time,
hating men and dogs and Democrats.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Men, God, Hate, Dogs

“Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't you think?”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

People, Thinking

“I feel dead, wasted, awful, broken and useless. It's not the kind of feeling you forget.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Feeling, Dead, Forgetting

“Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Variant: She said writting novels was like childbirth: if you truly remembered how awful it got, you'd never do it again.
Source: This Lullaby

“Love can make even nice people do awful things.”

Jude Deveraux (1947) American writer

Love, People

“The highest point a man can obtain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek (1946), Ch. 24

Knowledge, Victory, Despair

“Last time I talked to her she didn't sound like herself. She's depressed. It's awful what happens when people run out of money. They start thinking they're no good.”

Barbara Kingsolver Pigs in Heaven

Source: Pigs in Heaven

Money, People, Thinking, Time

“If I'd known how wrong I was - if I'd had any idea of the awful night that lay ahead - I'd have run after him and never returned to that disgusting circus of blood, that revolting circus of death.”

Darren Shan (1972) Irish writer of English-language fiction under pen name, real name Darren O'Shaughnessy

Death, Idea, Night

“There were drinks and food in full force, and some Moroi guy had a guitar out and was trying to impress girls with his musical skills—which were nonexistent. In fact, his music was so awful that he might have discovered a new way to kill Strigoi.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Food, Music, Way, Guy

“To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O'Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Housing

“Just because a person is beautiful doesn't mean there's no soul beneath. Doesn't mean that person hasn't suffered like everyone else, doesn't mean they don't hope to still be a good human being in an awful world.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

World, Beauty, Hope, Soul

“Awe is what moves us forward.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

“I'm quite sure more people fake an awful lot of everyday human contact. I just fake all of it." --Dexter”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

People

“Social scientists sometimes talk about the concept of "identity". It is the idea that you have a particular vision of the kind of person you are, and you feel awful when you do things that are out of line with that vision.”

Steven D. Levitt (1967) American economist

Source: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Feeling, Idea, Personality

“The reason men are so awful is because some woman has spoiled them.”

Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove

Source: Lonesome Dove

Men

“It struck her all at once that dealing with other human beings was an awful lot of work.”

Anne Tyler book Back When We Were Grownups

Source: Back When We Were Grownups

“There was Tyson moving into the Poseidon cabin, giggling to himself every fifteen seconds and saying, "Percy is my brother?" like he'd just won the lottery.

Aw, Tyson," I'd say. "It's not that simple.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

“Calvin: There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse!
p100”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes
Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Problem

“Nothing's that simple, not even things that are simply awful.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

“There's an awful lot of inactive kindness which is nothing but laziness, not wanting any trouble, confusion, or effort.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

Effort

“Aw, now look at that, you're being sarcastic, aren't you?”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Blue moon

“She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Understanding

“Listen to me: I never married because I was too easily bored. It's an awful, self-defeating trait to have. It's much better to be too easily interested.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.”

Charles Simic (1938) American poet

Religion, Soul, Night

“Aw I don't wanta go to no such thing, I just wanta drink in alleys.'…
But you'll miss all that, just for some old wine.'
There's wisdom in wine, goddam it!' I yelled. 'Have a shot!”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Wisdom, Drink, Wine

“Do not be awe struck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as you can.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

People

“Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?”

Connie Willis Bellwether

Source: Bellwether (1996), Chapter 3 “Tributaries”, Section 3 (p. 119)

Thinking

“Sorry. Was it awful?”
“Being a rat? No. First it was disorienting. I was suddenly at ankle-level with everyone. I thought I'd drunk a shrinking potion, but I couldn't figure out why I had this urge to chew used gum wrappers.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Variant: This world is an awful/ugly place not to have a best friend.
Source: Someone Like You (1998)

Friendship, For Friend, For Bestfriend, Life

“Zach, we have to stop her!"
But Zach just held me. He looked at me with shock and awe and just a little bit of wonder. In spite of everything, I thought that he might laugh.
"Gallagher Girl," he told me, "youthe school.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

Youth, School, Girl

“But now we've finally taken full possession of what is rightfully ours, because everyone must feel their own pain--and as awful as that is, it's also wonderful.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Bruiser

Pain, Feeling

“Anybody who has the courage to raise his eyes and look sanely at the awful human condition… must realize finally that tiny periods of temporary release from intolerable suffering is the most that any individual has the right to expect.”

Flann O'Brien (1911–1966) Irish writer

Courage, Suffering

“An awful realization that I have been fooling myself all my life thinking there was a next thing to do to keep the show going and actually I'm just a sick clown and so is everybody else…”

Jack Kerouac book Big Sur

Source: Big Sur

Life, Fools, Thinking

“I smiled back at her. I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Variant: I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.
Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Smile, Cats, Drink

“It's ideal really. They will come up with a plan. No one will like it. Everyone will feel they have been treated unfairly, but will be happy that their neighbors feel the same. And that is the nature of compromise. Now let's go eat an awful lot.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Feeling, Nature, Happiness

“… hot pink with a star done in rainbow rhinestones on the front. It was god-awful.
I bought it.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

God, Star

“We didn't say anything because there was such an awful lot to say, and no language to say it in.”

William Saroyan book My Name Is Aram

"The Pomegranate Tree"
My Name Is Aram (1940)

“Why do you tell me you love me only when you're drunk or dreaming? she asked. I have awful timing, said Simon”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Love, Dreams, Time

“How vast was a human being's capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn't a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Question, Suffering

“You're getting into some kind of shape, cop."
Aw, come on, now." Butch grinned. "Don't let that shower we took go to your head."
Rhage fired a towel at the male. "Just pointing out your beer gut's gone."
It was a Scotch pot. And I don't miss it.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Eternal

Source: Lover Eternal

Beer

“Aw you'd never hurt me. My face is too pretty. -Adrian Ivashkov”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

Hurt

“This day is going to be awful. It's the sort of day you wouldn't mind losing completely, even if it meant your life would be twenty-four hours shorter.”

Alice Hoffman book Here on Earth

Source: Here on Earth

Life

“.. it's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world… It makes you mean, and violent, and cruel.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Love, World

“I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced that they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference after another.”

Ellen Goodman (1941) American journalist and writer

Attributed

People, World, Change

“LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; NY gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. LA is a jungle.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

God, Feeling, Winter

“There are many sources of spirituality; religion may be the most common, but it is by no means the only. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades.”

Michael Shermer (1954) American science writer

Religion, Sense, Science

“There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

Source: The Rum Diary

Feeling

“He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variant: He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

Dead

“It frightens me the awful truth of how sweet life can be.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Biograph (1985), Up to Me (recorded 1974)

Life, Truth

“There are some awful things in the world, it's true, but there are also some great books.”

Jo Walton book Among Others

Source: Among Others

Books, World

“The house of Life doesn’t trust our family, especially after what Dad and Mom did. Amos said we were raised apart for a reason, so we wouldn’t trigger each other’s magic.”
“Bloody awful reason to keep us apart,” I muttered.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Life, Family, Moms, Housing

“… only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Source: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Way, Sense, Time

“Then spoke the thunder
DA Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed.”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Variant: The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Source: The Waste Land (1922)

Age, Heart

“I'm filled with awe, as I always am, as I watch her transform from a woman who calls me to kill a spider to a woman immune to fear.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Fear

“I still felt like I might hurl, and I thought about how awful that would be in midair.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

“Everything in life has some good in it. And when something awful happens, the goodness stands out even more--it's sad, but that's the truth.”

Banana Yoshimoto book The Lake

Source: The Lake

Life, Truth, Sadness

“Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Life, Way

“I knit the afternoon away. I knit reasons for Elijah to come back. I knit apologies for Emma. I knit angry knots and slipped stitches for every mistake I ever made, and I knit wet, swollen stitches that look awful. I knit the sun down.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Sun

“Don’t worry. I won’t send you off without warning. Just stand there and be awed by my beauty. It’s the safest mode around me. (Savitar)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dark Side of the Moon

Beauty

“I had been afraid of the awful presence of the river, which was the soul of the river, but through her [Ultima] I learned that my spirit shared in the spirit of all things.”

Rudolfo Anaya book Bless Me, Ultima

Source: Bless Me, Ultima

Soul, Learning

“Why are you hanging around, then? Aren't you worried about getting hit?"
"Aw, you'd never hurt me. My face is too pretty.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Hurt

“Her father sagged as relief spread through him. “I thought
something awful was happening.”
She frowned. “Something awful was happening. It could have
got stuck in my hair.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Dark Days

“That prison," I said with heartfelt sincerity, "Was absolutely the most awful thing that has happened to me in my entire life." I could tell by the way he looked at me that he thought my life had been filled with one awful thing after another.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Thief

Source: The Thief

Life, Way, Sincerity

“I take thee… to be my awful wedded husband”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Kiss an Angel

Wedding

“I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.”

Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Depressing, Life, Fear, Strong

“… My point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was. I went crazy as a coot! I admit it! Why can't you?”

Alan Moore book Batman: The Killing Joke

Source: Batman: The Killing Joke

World

“We stand in awe before that which cannot be seen. We respect with every fiber of our being that which cannot be explained.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”

Immanuel Kant book Critique of Practical Reason

Variant: Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Source: Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
Context: Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within. I have not to search for them and conjecture them as though they were veiled in darkness or were in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of my existence. The former begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense, and enlarges my connection therein to an unbounded extent with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into limitless times of their periodic motion, its beginning and continuance. The second begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only by the understanding, and with which I discern that I am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary connection, as I am also thereby with all those visible worlds. The former view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates as it were my importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital power, one knows not how, must again give back the matter of which it was formed to the planet it inhabits (a mere speck in the universe). The second, on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as may be inferred from the destination assigned to my existence by this law, a destination not restricted to conditions and limits of this life, but reaching into the infinite.

Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

Law