Quotes about curse
page 2

Dorothy Parker photo

“Once, when I was young and true.
Someone left me sad -
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Variant: A Very Short Song

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
Source: Enough Rope

Marilynne Robinson photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
Holly Black photo
Barbara Kingsolver photo
Rod Serling photo
Alice Hoffman photo

“She liked to disappear, even when she was in the same room as other people. It was a talent, as it was a curse.”

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

Source: The Red Garden

Cassandra Clare photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Libba Bray photo
Maya Angelou photo
Terry Goodkind photo

“Helplessness in the face of a child's suffering is the curse of parenthood.”

Nancy Atherton (1955) American writer

Source: Aunt Dimity's Good Deed

Jodi Picoult photo

“True love can break the most powerful curse”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

Cormac McCarthy photo
Dorothy L. Sayers photo
Rick Riordan photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“I believe that in judging our actions we are more severe than professional judges. We judge not only our actions, but our thoughts, our intentions, our secret curses, our hidden hate.”

Variant: We are more severe judges of our own acts... We judge our thoughts, our intents, our secret curses, our secret hates, not only our acts.
Source: A Spy in the House of Love

Cassandra Clare photo

“lies are curses you place on yourself.”

Dead of Winter

Neal Shusterman photo

“It's a curse to see all that might happen but never know what will.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Challenger Deep

Cinda Williams Chima photo
Rick Riordan photo
Tim Burton photo

“My diagnosis," he said
"for better or worse,
is that your son is the result
of an old pharaoh's curse.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Source: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

Sting photo

“Without the voice of reason, every faith is its own curse."

()”

Sting (1951) English musician

Source: Nothing Like the Sun

Cassandra Clare photo
Anne Rice photo
Rick Riordan photo

“You're already married!" Hera protested. "To me!"
"Curses!" said Zeus. "Er, I mean, of course, dear.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

Bob Dylan photo

“You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went, you can curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.”

Eric Roth (1945) American screenwriter

Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

Holly Black photo
Edna St. Vincent Millay photo
Junot Díaz photo
Seth Grahame-Smith photo

“So long as this country is cursed with slavery, so too will it be cursed with vampires.”

Seth Grahame-Smith (1976) US fiction author

Source: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Harry Truman photo
Lori Foster photo
Carter G. Woodson photo
Rick Riordan photo

“Pluto's pauldrons,” Reyna cursed.”

Source: The Mark of Athena

Salman Rushdie photo
Rick Riordan photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Rick Riordan photo
Meg Cabot photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Scott Lynch photo
Anne Rice photo
Lev Grossman photo
Frank Herbert photo

“Emotions are the curse of logic.”

Source: The Green Brain

“The ordinary man is the curse of civilization.”

Source: The Collector

Rick Riordan photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Neal Shusterman photo
Franz Kafka photo
Kim Harrison photo
Rick Riordan photo

“Curse Hermes and his multi-vitamins!”

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Anthony Doerr photo
Harlan Coben photo
Gustave Flaubert photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“Your great demonstration which marks this day in the City of Washington is only representative of many like observances extending over our own country and into other lands, so that it makes a truly world-wide appeal. It is a manifestation of the good in human nature which is of tremendous significance. More than six centuries ago, when in spite of much learning and much piety there was much ignorance, much wickedness and much warfare, when there seemed to be too little light in the world, when the condition of the common people appeared to be sunk in hopelessness, when most of life was rude, harsh and cruel, when the speech of men was too often profane and vulgar, until the earth rang with the tumult of those who took the name of the Lord in vain, the foundation of this day was laid in the formation of the Holy Name Society. It had an inspired purpose. It sought to rededicate the minds of the people to a true conception of the sacredness of the name of the Supreme Being. It was an effort to save all reference to the Deity from curses and blasphemy, and restore the lips of men to reverence and praise. Out of weakness there began to be strength; out of frenzy there began to be self-control; out of confusion there began to be order. This demonstration is a manifestation of the wide extent to which an effort to do the right thing will reach when it is once begun. It is a purpose which makes a universal appeal, an effort in which all may unite.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

James A. Garfield photo

“Let us learn wisdom from this illustrious example. We have passed the Red Sea of slaughter; our garments are yet wet with its crimson spray. We have crossed the fearful wilderness of war, and have led our four hundred thousand heroes to sleep beside the dead enemies of the Republic. We have heard the voice of God amid the thunders of battle commanding us to wash our hands of iniquity, to 'proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.' When we spurned his counsels we were defeated, and the gulfs of ruin yawned before us. When we obeyed his voice, he gave us victory. And now at last we have reached the confines of the wilderness. Before us is the land of promise, the land of hope, the land of peace, filled with possibilities of greatness and glory too vast for the grasp of the imagination. Are we worthy to enter it? On what condition may it be ours to enjoy and transmit to our children's children? Let us pause and make deliberate and solemn preparation. Let us, as representatives of the people, whose servants we are, bear in advance the sacred ark of republican liberty, with its tables of the law inscribed with the 'irreversible guaranties' of liberty. Let us here build a monument on which shall be written not only the curses of the law against treason, disloyalty, and oppression, but also an everlasting covenant of peace and blessing with loyalty, liberty, and obedience; and all the people will say, Amen.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Speech in the House of Representatives (1866)

C. N. R. Rao photo

“The conditions at IISc were no match to the American centres but it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”

C. N. R. Rao (1934) Indian chemist

How I made it: CNR Rao, Scientist (2010)

Henry Scott Holland photo
Frank Baude photo
Joseph Dietzgen photo
Don Marquis photo

“well boss
mehitabel the cat
has reappeared in her old
haunts with a
flock of kittens

archy she said to me
yesterday
the life of a female
artist is continually
hampered what in hell
have i done to deserve
all these kittens
i look back on my life
and it seems to me to be
just one damned kitten
after another
i am a dancer archy
and my only prayer
is to be allowed
to give my best to my art
but just as i feel
that i am succeeding
in my life work
along comes another batch
of these damned kittens
it is not archy
that i am shy on mother love
god knows i care for
the sweet little things
curse them
but am i never to be allowed
to live my own life
i have purposely avoided
matrimony in the interests
of the higher life
but i might just
as well have been a domestic
slave for all the freedom
i have gained
i hope none of them
gets run over by
an automobile
my heart would bleed
if anything happened
to them and i found it out
but it isn t fair archy
it isn t fair
these damned tom cats have all
the fun and freedom
if i was like some of these
green eyed feline vamps i know
i would simply walk out on the
bunch of them and
let them shift for themselves
but i am not that kind
archy i am full of mother love
my kindness has always
been my curse
a tender heart is the cross i bear
self sacrifice always and forever
is my motto damn them
i will make a home
for the sweet innocent
little things
unless of course providence
in his wisdom should remove
them they are living
just now in an abandoned
garbage can just behind
a made over stable in greenwich
village and if it rained
into the can before i could
get back and rescue them
i am afraid the little
dears might drown
it makes me shudder just
to think of it
of course if i were a family cat
they would probably
be drowned anyhow
sometimes i think
the kinder thing would be
for me to carry the
sweet little things
over to the river
and drop them in myself
but a mother s love archy
is so unreasonable
something always prevents me
these terrible
conflicts are always
presenting themselves
to the artist
the eternal struggle
between art and life archy
is something fierce
yes something fierce
my what a dramatic
life i have lived
one moment up the next
moment down again
but always gay archy always gay
and always the lady too
in spite of hell
well boss it will
be interesting to note
just how mehitabel
works out her present problem
a dark mystery still broods
over the manner
in which the former
family of three kittens
disappeared
one day she was talking to me
of the kittens
and the next day when i asked
her about them
she said innocently
what kittens
interrogation point
and that was all
i could ever get out
of her on the subject
we had a heavy rain
right after she spoke to me
but probably that garbage can
leaks so the kittens
have not yet
been drowned”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

mehitabel and her kittens http://donmarquis.com/reading-room/kittens/
archy and mehitabel (1927)

Silvio Berlusconi photo

“I always win, I'm cursed to win.”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

ANSA (24 May 2003)
2003

Anzia Yezierska photo
John Dryden photo
Marcus Orelias photo

“Knowing’s a blessing, relaying it is the curse.”

Marcus Orelias (1993) American actor, rapper, songwriter, author and entrepreneur

Book VII
Rebel of the Underground (2013)

John Gay photo

“That raven on yon left-hand oak
(Curse on his ill-betiding croak!)
Bodes me no good.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Fable, The Farmer's Wife and the Raven. Comparable to: "It wasn't for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand", Plautus, Aulularia, act iv. sc. 3
Fables (1727)

William Joyce photo

“The people of England will curse themselves for having preferred ruin from Churchill to peace from Hitler.”

William Joyce (1906–1946) British fascist and propaganda broadcaster

Broadcast, Radio Bremen, 2 August 1940.

Joseph Heller photo
Max Scheler photo
Charles Taze Russell photo
Gwendolyn Brooks photo
Jozef Israëls photo

“You cannot know at all what will comes out of you because all your knowledge is running otherwise. What you do not know and what you thought that there would not come at all, that comes out and appears at once, sometimes with a curse and a sigh, and there you have it. - Everything ends well. I made things that I had forgotten for twenty five years. At first I knew them too well, but then I forgot them, I 'had to' forget them. And then I made them. - If some work does not becomes beautiful, well, then you go back to do something else. Worrying doesn't help at all. It will be better later? No, you should not say such things, because you don't know anything about 'becoming better'. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls in Nederlands): Je kunt er niets van weten wat er uit je komt: al je weten komt verkeerd uit: wat je niet weet en heelemaal niet dacht dat er komen zou, dat komt er in eenen, soms met een vloek en een zucht, en daar heb je 't. - Alles komt terecht. Ik heb dingen gemaakt, die ik vergeten had van voor vijf en twintig jaar. Eerst wist ik ze te goed, maar toen vergat ik ze, ik moest ze vergeten en toen maakte ik ze. - Als iets niet mooi wordt, dan ga je maar weer aan wat anders. Tobben geeft niet. Straks beter? Neen, straks beter, dat moet men ook niet meer zeggen. Je weet niet of het straks beter wordt. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)
Quote of Israels, as cited in a letter of A. Verwey, The Hague 28 August 1888, to his wife K. van Vloten; as cited in Briefwisseling 1 juli 1885 tot 15 december 1888 (1995)–Albert Verwey http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/verw008brie01_01/verw008brie01_01_0580.php, pp. 497-98
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1871 - 1900

Jim Gaffigan photo

“I curse in everyday life, but usually when I stub my toe. The topics I'm discussing, it's not necessary to curse. I found [cursing] is a sign that a joke is not finished or well-written.”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

Michael McIntyre (February 9, 2007) "He's bringing home the bacon, from clubs to Super Bowl ads", The Plain Dealer, p. 30.

Lupe Fiasco photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo

“Calica keeps cursing the filth and, whenever he treads on one of the innumerable turds lining the streets, he looks at his dirty shoes instead of at the sky or a cathedral outlined in space. He does not smell the intangible and evocative matter of which Cuzco is made, but only the odor of stew and excrement. It's a question of temperament.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Letter to his mother from Cuzco, Peru (22 August 1953); as quoted in "Making of a Marxist" in The Guardian (16 June 2001) http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,507694,00.html

Hunter S. Thompson photo

“I was also drunk, crazy and heavily armed at all times. People trembled and cursed when I came into a public room and started screaming in German.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

2000s, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century (2004)

Halldór Laxness photo