Quotes about monster
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“I'm a very neat monster." ~Dexter Morgan”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“The inclination to believe in the fantastic may strike some as a failure in logic, or gullibility, but it’s really a gift. A world that might have Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster is clearly superior to one that definitely does not.”

Chris Van Allsburg (1949) US children's writer and illustrator

World, Failure

“be careful of monsters with teeth”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

“In the time of gods and monsters, what is the worth of a man?”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

God, Time

“Sure the world breeds monsters, but kindness grows just as wild…”

Mary Karr book The Liars' Club

Source: The Liars' Club

World

“All things are true. God's an Astronaut. Oz is Over the Rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live." - Peloquin”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

God

“Your boyfriend is…well, way buff. Monster buff. Lord, king buff. (Sunshine)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Way

“Life is easier when you can write off others as monsters, demon, as horrible threats that must be hated and feared the thing is you can't do that without becoming them, just a little.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

Life, Hate, Fear

“I’d gone with my usual option. I was running through long tunnels filled with demons and monsters and nightmares, because it was easier than going to the gym.”

Jim Butcher book Skin Game

Source: Skin Game

“But if you didn't believe in monsters, then how were you going to be able to keep safe from them?”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“everybody-even monsters-needed a little attention once in a while.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

“There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Stupidity

“What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Life

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Dreams, Sleep

“An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Dreams, Sleep

“I'm battling monsters, I'm pulling you out of the burning buildings/ and you saybut you never come through.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

“It's not about winning, Haven. I'm not a prize to be won. I'm not the princess that needs rescuing from the dragon. I'm the prince and I kill my own monsters. You need to be ok with that. -Anita Blake”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bullet

Source: Bullet

Princess

“Sometimes mortals can be more horrible than monsters.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“I think you have to know who you are. Get to know the monster that lives in your soul. Dive deep into your soul and explore it. I don’t want to renounce my dark side. The truth has always held an enormous interest for me.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

Truth, Soul, Thinking

“Monsters are eternal,” she told him, trying to keep herself from sobbing. “We will remember you and Damasen as heroes, as the best Titan and the best giant. We'll tell our children. We'll keep the story alive. Someday, you will regenerate.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Children

“Is it better to outmonster the monsters or to be quietly devoured?”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bullet

Source: Bullet

“Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Star, Universe

“I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words”

Alfred De Vigny book Stello

Source: Stello

Children, World

“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

World

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”

Primo Levi (1918–1987) Italian chemist, memoirist, short story writer, novelist, essayist

Men, Question

“The bank - the monster has to have profits all the time. It can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

Time, Waiting

“She was a monster, but she was my monster.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

1790s
Variant: The sleep of reason produces monsters.

“Oh my dear, idealists are the cruelest monsters of them all.”

Sarah Vowell (1969) American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator

“I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despise being one myself.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Feeling

“My stomach churned. The monster had mimicked Thalia perfectly. If I'd heard that voice in the dark, calling for help, I would've run straight toward it.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

Help

“Monsters Beware Here Be Dragons”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Strange Candy

“The torment of love can transform people into wretched monsters”

Mathias Malzieu book La Mécanique du cœur

Source: La Mécanique du cœur

Love, People

“A man who loses his privacy loses everything. And a man who gives it up of his own free will is a monster.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Freak is easily spooked. Flesh-eating monsters tend to scare him away. So do fireworks, clowns, and the smell of Sadie's weird British Ribena drink. (Can't blame him on that last one. Sadie grew up in London and developed some pretty strange tastes.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Sobek

Source: The Son of Sobek

Drink

“I always root for the monster.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Hate

“Snoring keeps the monsters away.”

Judy Blume Fudge-a-Mania

Source: Fudge-a-Mania

“The monsters that rose from the dead, they are nothing compared to the ones we carry in our hearts”

Max Brooks book World War Z

Source: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Heart, Dead

“Adults are the real monsters.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

“I know how difficult it can be when the image you've had of something doesn't match its reality; when the friend beside you turns into a monster.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

Reality

“Do not let your zeal for the cause of democracy deceive you as to the fact of the opaque ignorance in which the great bulk of the people of England are wrapt. If you write for the masses politically, and write soundly and honestly, they will not be able at present to appreciate you, and consequently will not support you…There is no remedy for all this but improved education. Such as the tail and the body are, such will be the character of the head. Nature does not produce such monsters as an ignorant or vicious community, and virtuous and wise leaders. In Scotland you are better off because you are better educated. The great body of the English peasants are not a jot advanced in intellect since the days of their Saxon ancestors. I hope you will join us in a cry for schoolmasters as a first step to Radicalism.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to W. Tait (17 August 1838), quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905), p. 127.
1830s

People, Education, Hope, Democracy

“I seem to be the most wordy when it comes to monsters because I'm a bit of a monster freak. I grew up just loving all the Draculas. Especially I just loved watching all the Universal classics. And Bela has been my favorite ever since. I would say though that I have a new favorite Dracula here. I've always loved those movies. And it was such an honor to be cast with this role.”

Silvia Colloca (1977) Singer, actress, author and TV cooking personality

An Interview with Dracula and his Brides (2004)

Love, Universe

“This many-headed monster,
The giddy multitude.”

Philip Massinger The Roman Actor

The Roman Actor (1626), Act iii. Sc. 2. Compare: "Many-headed multitude", Sir Philip Sidney, Defence of Poesy, Book ii; "Many-headed multitude", William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, act ii, scene 3; "This many-headed monster, Multitude", Daniel, History of the Civil War, book ii, st. 13.

“Tombed in the solid night of starless space;
From nearest living orb so far removed,
That light, of all material things most swift,
Myriads on myriads of earth's years must speed,
Ere the mere outskirts of that Stygian gloom,
If ever, it might reach,-at rest eterne,
Lies the cold wreck of an extinguished sun.
Prime glory once of all heaven's radiant host;
Body, for soul of purest light most fit-
'Tween its first darkening, and eclipse complete,
Streamed years which might eternity appear;
While into ether, like the particles,
Invisible, which are the breath of flowers,
The mighty bulk its softer elements
Still ever was exhaling. As when flesh
And sinew of earth's monster Mastodon,
By the slow wasting of the elements,
All are dissolved, and hard, enduring bones
Alone remain,- even so, of this immense,-
When, by the ocean waves of centuries,
Millions succeeding millions, worn away,-
The adamantine skeleton alone,
In darkness, silence, utter solitude,
A ruin for eternity, was left.”

Edwin Atherstone (1788–1872) British writer

Israel in Egypt, Book the First (1861)

Soul, Flowers, Solitude, Light

“The Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of St Germain are kept alive by Bolshevism in Germany. The Peace Treaty and Bolshevism are two heads of one monster. We must decapitate both.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Interview with George Sylvester Viereck, 1923 https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/17/greatinterviews1 1920s

Peace

“For me, I have seen worlds and people begin and end, actually and metaphorically, and it will always be the same. It’s always fire and water.
No matter what your scientific background, emotionally you’re an alchemist. You live in a world of liquids, solids, gases and heat-transfer effects that accompany their changes of state. These are the things you perceive, the things you feel. Whatever you know about their true natures is rafted on top of that. So, when it comes to the day-to-day sensations of living, from mixing a cup of coffee to flying a kite, you treat with the four ideal elements of the old philosophers: earth, air, fire, water.
Let’s face it, air isn’t very glamorous, no matter how you look at it. I mean, I’d hate to be without it, but it’s invisible and so long as it behaves itself it can be taken for granted and pretty much ignored. Earth? The trouble with earth is that it endures. Solid objects tend to persist with a monotonous regularity.
Not so fire and water, however. They’re formless, colorful, and they’re always doing something. While suggesting you repent, prophets very seldom predict the wrath of the gods in terms of landslides and hurricanes. No. Floods and fires are what you get for the rottenness of your ways. Primitive man was really on his way when he learned to kindle the one and had enough of the other nearby to put it out. It is coincidence that we’ve filled hells with fires and oceans with monsters? I don’t think so. Both principles are mobile, which is generally a sign of life. Both are mysterious and possess the power to hurt or kill. It is no wonder that intelligent creatures the universe over have reacted to them in a similar fashion. It is the alchemical response.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 6 (pp. 137-138)

Life, God, Hate, People

“I will contemplate the spectacle of your sea. The viewpoints of our mountains also offer us the limitless spectacle of immensity. The unfillable void has a calming effect... The sea! The sea with its charms saddens me. In its joyful moods, it makes me think of the laughing tiger; in its sad moods it recalls the crocodile’s tears, and in its roaring fury, the caged monster that cannot swallow me up.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote in Courbet's letter to Victor Hugo, 28 November 1864; as cited in Chu, Letters, p. 249; quoted in 'Paysages de Mer - Courbet's The Wave', by Anthony White https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/paysages-de-mer-courbets-the-wave/ 1860s

Sadness, Mountain, Mood, Thinking

“Monster is a compassionate picture without any obvious agenda. And it's effective precisely because it's not a polemic.”

Stephanie Zacharek (1963) American film critic

Review http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2003/12/25/monster/index.html of Monster (2003)

“You really could call the new TVR Cerbera heavy metal were it not fashioned from plastic. The best way to experience this car is to be about seven miles away. As it comes toward you, it's like being in a horror movie. The monster is getting closer. The Thing. The Blob. Terror has no shape. But God, what a noise.”

Jeremy Clarkson book Born to be Riled

Source: Born to be Riled (1999), p. 6

God, Cars, Way, Fashion

“This planet is haunted by us; the other occupants just evade boredom by filling our skies and seas with monsters.”

John A. Keel book The Mothman Prophecies

The Mothman Prophecies (1976)

Sea

“Here we have drug that is not like opium. Opium has all of the good of Dr. Jekyll and all the evil of Mr. Hyde. This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured. Some people will fly into a delirious rage, and they are temporarily irresponsible and may commit violent crimes. Other people will laugh uncontrollably. It is impossible to say what the effect will be on any individual. Those research men who have tried it have always been under control. They have always insisted upon that. … It is dangerous to the mind and body, and particularly dangerous to the criminal type, because it releases all of the inhibitions.”

Harry J. Anslinger (1892–1975) 1st Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics

Hearing on H.R. 6385 (April 1937)

Men, People, Rage, Evil

“Perhaps,
The man-hero is not the exceptional monster,
But he that of repetition is most master.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Give Pleasure

“In examining each local authority's performance, instead of penalising those which attempt to provide for the needs of the elderly and single people and the housing problems in inner city areas, the Government should look at the high unmet need in any inner city area…We would like more home helps working for the council, more day centres for the elderly and better facilities for the physically and mentally handicapped, because in all those areas there are waiting lists, not at the wish of the council but simply because the Government treat our local authority in the same way as every other…The Secretary of State has created a monster in his rate support grant proposals and his rate-capping proposals. He has created the most enormous opposition to himself and the Government. The Government may well squeeze this nasty little measure through the House tonight, but the opposition that they have created will live for a long time. The unity of that opposition will live for even longer. It will destroy him, his Government and this kind of attack on democracy, and it will lead to the election of a Labour Government committed to the restoration of genuine local democracy that has been so shamelessly destroyed by the Government.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/jan/16/rate-support-grant-england in the House of Commons (16 January 1985). 1980s

People, Way, Democracy, Home

“Think about every example, every time someone comes up with religion as the reason why they want to impose it. It is always stupid. It is always imposing bigotry or limitations against somebody else’s freedom because you want to pretend in your special brand of pixie dust that is different from the gods and monsters other people want to make up. That’s what it is all about. There is simply no true religion because literally none of it is true.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Exclusive Interview with Aron Ra – Public Speaker, Atheist Vlogger, and Activist https://conatusnews.com/interview-aron-ra-past-president-atheist-alliance-america/, Conatus News (May 17, 2017)

God, People, Stupidity, Religion

“Punk: Because here is the truth about Las Vegas, here is the truth about the WWE is that it doesn't matter that if you're the best wrestler, it doesn't matter if you're the best talker, it doesn't matter if you're the best overall performer, it doesn't matter if you make the two clowns sitting to my left on commentary look like amateur hour. There is a glass ceiling and nobody is allowed to break it. That's the simple story of this place. The more popular you are, the more money you make. The more you people cheer for any given superstar, the more opportunities you're afforded. Why do you think a guy like John Cena, who has admittedly had the worst year of his career, gets title shot after title shot after title shot after title shot? Or why a lethal grappler, why a serious submission specialist like Daniel Bryan puts a smile on his face and settles himself, belittles himself with catchphrases. Or why a 400 pound monster, Brodus Clay, soils his hands by touching your filthy, ugly, little children to get in the ring so he can shuck and jive for you. Or why an invisible child, Little Jimmy, is better positioned on the flagship show Monday Night RAW than a workhorse like Tyson Kidd.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

WWE Raw

Money, Children, People, Truth

“A year ago we liberated them from the Fascist Monster, and they still sit doing their best to smile politely at us, as hungry as ever, more disease-ridden than ever before, in the ruins of their beautiful city where law and order have ceased to exist. And what is the prize that is to be eventually won? The rebirth of democracy. The glorious prospect of being able one day to choose their rulers from a list of powerful men, most of whose corruptions are generally known and accepted with weary resignation. The days of Benito Mussolini must seem like a lost paradise compared with this.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

Men, Disease, Law, Smile

“You seek up a big monster for him to fight your wars for you.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

Seek Up
Remember Two Things (1993)

War, Fight

“Anyone who can understand that the Buddhist idea of Nirvana is not merely negative, and that the Buddha himself who (like the Superman) 'looks down on suffering humanity like a hillsman on the planes' is not an atheistic monster, will instantly see how this misses the point. Nietzsche was not an atheist, any more than the Buddha was. Anyone who reads the Night Song and the Dance Song in Zarathustra will recognize that they spring out of the same emotion as the Vedic or Gathic hymns or the Psalms of David. The idea of the Superman is a response to the need for salvation in precisely the same way that Buddhism was a response to the 'three signs.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

Source: The Outsider (1956), p. 135

Way, Spring, Idea, Understanding

“The truth is that dinosaurs have always lived with man. They were called dragons for most of human history and man killed most of them. In 1841, a new name "dinosaur" was given to them. It is quite possible that a few are still alive. There have been thousands of sightings of creatures, such as the Loch Ness Monster or the dead dinosaur that washed up on the beach in California in 1925.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: Are you being brainwashed?: Propaganda in science textbooks (2007), pp. 22-23

Truth, History, Dead

“And then as the other world produces serpents, and vipers, malignant, and venomous creatures, and worms, and caterpillars, that endeavour to devour that world produces them, and monsters compiled and complicated of diverse parents, and kinds, so this world, ourselves produces all these in us, in producing diseases and sicknesses of all those sorts; venomous and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases…”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

IV. Mediscque Vocatur; The physician is sent for.
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

World, Disease, Parent

“Television is like a great monster, eating your gags as fast as you say them.”

Ken Dodd (1927–2018) English comedian, singer-songwriter and actor

Quoted in Manchester Evening News, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/entertainment/comedy/s/234/234894_dodds_bolton_bonus.htmlDodd's Bolton bonus, Natalie Anglesey. (2008-04-28)

“The victory of the Cuban Revolution will be a tangible demonstration before all the Americas that peoples are capable of rising up, that they can rise up by themselves right under the very fangs of the monster.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Mobilising for Invasion (1961)
Variant: The victory of the Cuban Revolution will be a tangible demonstration before all the Americas that peoples are capable of rising up, that they can rise up by themselves right under the very fangs of the monster.

People, Victory

“It is said that in ancient days Trichila, an execrable monster with three heads, who was a brother of Rawan, with ten heads, had the sway over this country. No human being could oppose him. But as per the saying of the Prophet, ‘Islam will be elevated and cannot be subdued’, the Faith took root by the efforts of Hazarat Natthar Wali. The monster was slain and sent to the house of perdition. His image namely but-ling worshipped by the unbelievers was cut and the head was separated from the body. A portion of the body went into the ground. Over that spot is the tomb of the Wali, shedding rediance till this day.”

Nathar Shah (969–1039) Muslim missionary

About the legend surrounding the tomb of Nathar Shah at Tiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu). Bahãr-i-Ãzam, translated in English, Madras, 1960. p. 51.

Faith, Effort, Housing, Country

“The biggest challenge [for solar power] is escaping from the economic effects of vendor lock-in where large investments in nuclear and traditional energy sources keep us 'locked-in' to feeding monsters that will bring us down an economic black hole. It's rather like the play The Little Shop of Horrors where a man-eating plant is initially fed small amounts, but then its voracious appetite sends it into a downward spiral swallowing up anyone that gets in its way.”

Derek Abbott (1960) Physicist, engineer

On energy supply and solar power

Way

“There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational- or, in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don't. For instance, the Baudelaire orphans have a fear of Count Olaf, which makes perfect sense, because he is an evil man who wants to destroy them. But if they were afraid of lemon meringue pie, this would be an irrational fear, because lemon meringue pie is delicious and would never hurt a soul. Being afraid of a monster under the bed is perfectly rational, because there may in fact be a monster under your bed at any time, ready to eat you all up, but a fear of realtors is an irrational fear. Realtors, as I'm sure you know, are people who assist in the buying and selling of houses. Besides occasionally wearing an ugly yellow coat, the worst a realtor can do to you is show you a house that you find ugly, so it is completely irrational to be terrified of them. -Lemony Snicket”

Daniel Handler book The Wide Window

The Wide Window (2000)

People, Fear, Soul, Sense

“The future is the place of all potential monsters.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast #35 [@1:51:22]
Podcast

Future

“Love the servant of gold is the greatest,
foulest, most abominable monster
created on earth or amid the sea's waves.”

Torquato Tasso Aminta

Amor servo de l'oro, è il maggior mostro,
Et il più abominabile, e il più sozzo,
Che produca la terra, o 'l mar frà l'onde.
Act II, scene i.
Aminta (1573)

Love, Sea

“Goul or ghul, in Arabic, signifies any terrifying object which deprives people of the use of their senses; hence it became the appellative of that species of monster which was supposed to haunt forests, cemeteries, and other lonely places, and believed not only to tear in pieces the living, but to dig up and devour the dead.”

Brian McNaughton (1935–2004) US author

Attributed to McNaughton online, this actually is a quote from an English edition of The History of the Caliph Vathek (1786) by William Thomas Beckford, as translated by Samuel Henley.
Misattributed

People, Sense, Tear, Dead

“But the world moves on, and the piteous Earth
Still groans in the monster pain;
And the star that leads me points onward yet,
Though the red drops fall like rain!”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

And Thou Too (1888)

Pain, World, Star

“You think that Mr Khomeini, [an] uneducated person … could have planned all this? Masterminded all this, set up all the organization? I know that one man alone could not have done it … I know that a tremendous amount of money was spent … I know that top experts in propaganda were used to show us like tyrants and monsters, and the other side as democratic liberal revolutionaries who want to save the country.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

David Frost (January 1980), The Shah Speaks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKUQUDf5IBo&feature=related (video) Interviews

Money, Thinking, Personality, Country

“I'm exactly right for you, Bella. It would have been effortless for us — comfortable, easy as breathing. I was the natural path your life would have taken. […] If the world was the way it was supposed to be, if there were no monsters and no magic…”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Jacob Black, p. 599
Twilight series, Eclipse (2007)

Life, World, Way, Nature

“To save the audience we must fill the stage with murderers, adulterers and madmen; in short, we must fire a salvo of monsters at them. They are our monster which we will temporarily free ourselves from only to face another day.”

Nélson Rodrigues (1912–1980) Brazilian writer and playwright

Life As It Is, page ii, by Nelson Rodrigues, English translation, Alex Ladd, Host Publications, ISBN 9780924047602 pages

“There is little in common between the organised parading of madness in the eighteenth century and the freedom with which madness came to the fore during the Renaissance. The earlier age had found it everywhere, an integral element of each experience, both in images and in real life dangers. During the classical period, it was also on public view, but behind bars. When it manifested itself it was at a carefully controlled distance, under the watchful eye of a reason that denied all kinship with it, and felt quite unthreatened by any hint of resemblance. Madness had become a thing to be observed, no longer the monster within, but an animal moved by strange mechanisms, more beast than man, where all humanity had long since disappeared.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Part One: 5. The Insane
History of Madness (1961)

Life, Age, Freedom, Animals

“The monster London laugh at me.”

Abraham Cowley Of Solitude

Of Solitude, xi; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“"Einstein's Monsters," by the way, refers to nuclear weapons, but also to ourselves. We are Einstein's monsters, not fully human, not for now.”

Martin Amis book Einstein's Monsters

"Introduction: Thinkability"
Einstein's Monsters (1987)

Way

“Pain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity. Without fear, there could be no humility, and every man would be a monster. The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.”

Dean Koontz book Velocity

Source: Velocity (2005), Chapter 54

Pain, Fear

“I don't believe this country will ever come to grips with child abuse until they make the obvious, simple connection between today's victim and tomorrow's predator. As long as they believe a Ted Bundy or a John Wayne Gacy is a biogenetic mistake as opposed to a beast that was built and a monster that was made, they'll continue to blithely walk around, saying, 'I'm against child abuse.”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

Todd Taylor's interview October 23, 2001, on Razorcake.com.

Country

“Either the USSR was not the country of socialism, in which case socialism didn’t exist anywhere and doubtless, wasn’t possible: or else, socialism was that, this abominable monster, this police state, the power of beasts of prey.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Les Temps modernes (1961), p. 184

Country

“Perhaps it is the human imagination that is the monster,’ he said. ‘I believe no animal suffers from the torments of the imagination. Only man…’
‘The imagination is capable of enacting the very best in us, and the very worst,’ agreed Hor, ‘and I know what mine would like to do to some people.’
‘Your verse is torment enough,’ quipped the architect.
‘And that is why civilized life, morality, ethics and so on, matter. We are half-enlightened, and half-monstrous,’ said Nakht assertively. ‘We must build our civility upon reason and mutual benefit.’
Sobek raised his cup.
‘I salute your reason. I wish it every success.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

ibid
The Rahotep series, Book 2: Tutankhamun

Life, People, Imagination, Suffering

“I decided not to score GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA (1994) when I read the script for the film. The atmosphere was very different. However, when I read the screenplay for GODZILLA VS. DESTROYER, I discovered that it was directly related to GODZILLA - KING OF THE MONSTERS. There was even going to be footage from GODZILLA - KING OF THE MONSTERS in the movie! I felt that since I'd been involved in Godzilla's birth, it was fitting for me to be involved in his death.”

Akira Ifukube (1914–2006) Japanese composer

As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview III" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub3.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1995)

Death, Birth, Reading

“He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, off key, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 24

Dogs

“One of the first things I did when I came on, I said, “I do not want this Kong to be a quadruped. I want him to stand upright, I want a throwback to the 1933 film where he is a biped, because he is a monster. He’s not just a big silverback gorilla, he’s a movie monster.” So I wanted to stand him upright, I wanted to make him tall, and part of that is because I wanted him to feel like this fusion between a god, a man, and a beast. I wanted to make him big enough that, if any of us stood at this table and we looked up at this thing, towered over us, how big does that thing have to be for the first thing that your brain says is, “That’s a god. I’m looking at a god.””

Jordan Vogt-Roberts (1984) American film director

Interview: Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts on Resurrecting an Icon for KONG: SKULL ISLAND http://dailydead.com/interview-director-jordan-vogt-roberts-on-resurrecting-an-icon-for-kong-skull-island/ (March 9, 2017)

God, Feeling, Parting

“So she drank to the point of suicide, because a life which not only lacked love, but couldn't even catch a little indifference, like a net to contain air, was intolerable; because she hadn't a single god, or goddamn thing to do, or anything she could look back on as done—completed or accomplished—only one pleasureless screw which produced an ingrate and a monster upon whom she nevertheless pinned her hopes with exactly the same chance for success as anyone would who tried to drive a nail into a passing cloud—a son to whom she threw her soul at considerable peril, like a stone in a paper boat.”

William H. Gass book The Tunnel

pgs 136-137
The Tunnel (1995)

Love, Life, God, Hope

“I did speak extensively — often quite critically — about the reviled work of Richard Goldschmidt, particularly about aspects of his thought that might merit a rehearing. This material has often been confused with punctuated equlibrium by people who miss the crucial issue of scaling, and therefore regard all statements about rapidity at any level as necessarily unitary, and necessarily flowing from punctuated equilibrium. In fact, as the long treatment in Chapter 5 of this book should make clear, my interest in Goldschmidt resides in issues bearing little relationship with punctuated equilibrium, but invested instead in developmental questions that prompted my first book, Ontogeny and Phylogeny. The two subjects, after all, are quite separate, and rooted in different scales of rapidity — hopeful monsters in genuine saltation, and punctuated equilibrium in macroevolutionary punctuation”

Stephen Jay Gould book The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

produced by ordinary allopatric speciation
Source: The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002), p. 1005

People, Books, Hope, Question

“We know only too well that all over the world, from wayward undergraduate to B. B. C. producer to publisher's reader there are people, otherwise sensible and sane, people who would not believe in six-headed cats and blood-curdling spectral monsters, who yet read some folly about Noah's ark or Atlantis or cataclysmic world-tides, and say, with a contented sigh, "There may be something in it, you know."”

Glyn Daniel (1914–1986) British archaeologist

As quoted in Sumathi Ramaswamy: The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories (University of California Press, 2004) p. 2

People, World, Cats, Reading

“For centuries, 'scientists' have tried to present the dinosaurs as violent monsters because they wanted to scare children. It's no coincidence that most of these men have been atheists or even homosexuals who are possessed by an intense hatred of young boys and girls.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

parody of Dinosaurs of Eden: Tracing the Mystery Through History in Stephenson Billings, " Why Are Liberals Stealing Our Children's Dinosaur Lemonade? http://web.archive.org/web/20120820195648/http://dailybleach.com/why-are-liberals-stealing-our-childrens-dinosaur-lemonade/", Daily Bleach (August 8, 2012) actual page text: "At this stage you may have two questions: Why did animals like T. rex have fierce-looking sharp teeth if they were vegetarians? And why is the world today one in which there is death, disease, suffering and bloodshed everywhere?" Misattributed

Men, Children, Girl, Boy

“Without religion, man is an atheist, woman is a monster. As daughter, sister, wife, and mother, she holds in her hands, under God, the destinies of humanity. In the hours of gloom and sorrow we look to her for sympathy and comfort. Where shall she find strength for trial, comfort for sorrow, save in that gospel which has given a new meaning to the name of "mother", since it rested on the lips of the child Jesus?”

Henry Benjamin Whipple (1822–1901) Bishop of Minnesota

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 618.

God, Religion, Sister, Daughters

“He had employed his mind chiefly on works of fiction, and subjects of fancy; and, by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens.”

William Collins (1721–1759) English poet, born 1721

Samuel Johnson The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1781), "William Collins" http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/4678/50.html Criticism

Love, Imagination, Nature

“Socialism is a monster that will die.”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

Source: Blog of the autor, 27 June 2007 http://korwin-mikke.blog.onet.pl/Socjalizm-to-po-prostu-zaraza,2,ID223835291,n

“Since none of the creatures of the sea were taken on Noah's ark, there would be a strong possibility that some plesiosaurs and maybe even some ichtyosaurs survived the Flood. The violent and turbulent waters of the Flood would surely have killed and buried many of the sea creatures (over 90 percent of fossils found are of marine animals). However, if some had survived the Flood and lived on in the seas for years after, they could help account for many of the legends of sea monsters that have been gathered from all over the world. Remote as it may seem, there could even be the possibility that a few have survived till modern times. After all, it's much easier to believe that they could have survived for several thousand years rather than for nearly a hundred-million years.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved! (2000)

World, Strong, Water, Time

“Let's just ruin all the movies about pterosaurs: they could soar like airplanes, but they couldn't hover like hummingbirds. They couldn't carry things in their feet either, they couldn't perch on tree branches like birds, they didn't look like "bird-monsters", and they didn't look like "lizard-bats". They didn't have four-fingered wings like bats; their wings were based on an elongated pinky finger. The only thing bat-like about them was the way they walked; on all fours. So what are the possibilities for fluffy pterosaurs? We know they were a very diverse and almost certainly colorful group. They looked like a wide range of things, from fluttering bats to darting falcons. Some had powerful shell-crushing jaws and some had ridiculous crests, and some were quite huge. For decades, we were told that Pteranodon was the biggest animal that ever flew, then they discovered Ornithocheirus, then Quetzalcoatlus, then Hatzegopteryx (an apex predator)… These were capable killers of even human-sized prey, with a skull larger than that of even the biggest carnosaurs.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Pterosaurs are Terrible Lizards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_htQ8HJ1cA (December 3, 2013)

Color, Way, Bird, Tree

“Five billion people could drown in Loch Ness, and no one would show above the surface. It is a big lake. […] As of the 1960s, there were over 9,000 sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. Today, there have been over 11,000 such sightings.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution (1996)

People

“The encroachments of Slavery upon our national policy have been like those of a glacier in a Swiss valley. Inch by inch, the huge dragon with his glittering scales and crests of ice coils itself onward, an anachronism of summer, the relic of a bygone world where such monsters swarmed. But it has its limit, the kindlier forces of Nature work against it, and the silent arrows of the sun are still, as of old, fatal to the frosty Python. Geology tells us that such enormous devastators once covered the face of the earth, but the benignant sunlight of heaven touched them, and they faded silently, leaving no trace but here and there the scratches of their talons, and the gnawed boulders scattered where they made their lair. We have entire faith in the benignant influence of Truth, the sunlight of the moral world, and believe that slavery, like other worn-out systems, will melt gradually before it.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

The Election in November 1860 (1860)

Truth, World, Faith, Nature

“I loved New York—every inch of it. It was a little bit scary at that time, but still, the excitement was so strong—visually and intellectually. It was like a monster.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, I have to speak for people who are afraid, 2010

Love, Strong, Time

“Godzilla is an outrageous monster that is played by an outstanding guy! I am a little short, but in my heart burns the spirit of the samurai.”

Kenpachiro Satsuma (1947) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Kenpachiro Satsuma Interview I" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/satsum.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1993)

Guy, Heart

“Finding his mind so filled with “chimeras and fantastic monsters, one after another, without order or purpose,” he [Montaigne] decided to write them down, not directly to overcome them, but to inspect their strangeness at his leisure. So he picked up his pen; the first of the Essays was born.”

Sarah Bakewell book How to Live

Source: How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne in one Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (2010), p. 31.

“I didn't use the music from the scene in which Godzilla dies in GODZILLA - KING OF THE MONSTERS for the one in which he does actually meltdown because Godzilla was not what I was trying to focus on this time. Instead, I tried to focus on the dark side of humanity, which lead to the creation of atomic weapons, and Godzilla.”

Akira Ifukube (1914–2006) Japanese composer

As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview III" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub3.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1995)

Music, Time

“The court scribe pays fulsome homage to the sufis who “planted firmly the Faith of Islam” in this region. The pride of place goes to Hazrat Natthar WalI who took over by force the main temple at Tiruchirapalli and converted it into his khãnqãh. Referring to the destruction of the Sivalinga in the temple, he observes: “The monster was slain and sent to the house of perdition. His image namely but-ling worshipped by the unbelievers was cut and the head separated from the body. A portion of the body went into the ground. Over that spot is the tomb of WalI shedding rediance till this day.” Another sufi, Qãyim Shãh, who came to the same place at a later stage, “was the cause of the destruction of twelve temples.” At Vellore, Hazrat Nûr Muhammad Qãdirî, “the most unique man regarded as the invaluable person of his age,” was the “cause of the ruin of temples” which “he laid waste.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

He chose to be buried “in the vicinity of the temple” which he had replaced with his khãnqãh.
Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume I (1990)

Age, Faith, Housing, Personality

“A second slash ended the monster’s misery. So, he thought, this is how my Earthling ancestors ran their affairs. This is how lands were won, empires expanded, insurrections resisted, prisoners taken, slaves kept, heretics converted, captives made loquacious. For the first time in his life, Minnix felt himself a part of history.
History, he decided, was a terrible idea.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 18 (p. 223)

Life, History, Idea, Time

Quotes about monster page 3

Quotes about monster
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