Quotes About Catastrophe

God, you mean I lost my virginity to the apocalypse?!

Oh, oh! You have destroyed the beautiful world.

Nicht die große, seltne Not der Welt, diese Fluten, die eure Dörfer wegspülen, diese Erdbeben, die eure Städte verschlingen, rühren mich; mir untergräbt das Herz die verzehrende Kraft, die in dem All der Natur verborgen liegt; die nichts gebildet hat, das nicht seinen Nachbar, nicht sich selbst zerstörte. Und so taumle ich beängstigt. Himmel und Erde und ihre webenden Kräfte um mich her: ich sehe nichts als ein ewig verschlingendes, ewig wiederkäuendes Ungeheuer.

Anyone who might have survived—even momentarily, by dint of having been entirely submerged—would have encountered the true meaning of hell, having been simultaneously flash-boiled, asphyxiated, and cooked from within as the blazing fuel–air mix penetrated all nonairtight objects. As

London gold dealers, in describing the day's action [during the 1968 gold crisis], used the un-British words "stampede," "catastrophe," and "nightmare.

Son, different rules apply during the End of the World." I did not know what to say to that.

Time was ," it said. "Time is ," it said. "And time will —"    But the burning meteor then fell upon it, and neither it nor what destroyed it was ever seen again.

Some 5 billion years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth... then the sun will begin to die, life will be extinguished, the oceans will boil and evaporate away.

The loss of India would mark and consummate the downfall of the British Empire. That great organism would pass at a stroke out of life into history.From such a catastrophe there could be no recovery.

If there was a war, a big war, a major war on the planet, it would be a nuclear war, and it would destroy all life, human and subhuman, on planet earth.

Scientists have theorized that when Earth comes to its final days, the only life left on the planet would be in the form of microbes.

If we do destroy most life on this planet, science says it won't be the first time.

despite catastrophes that defy the imagination, daily life goes on, forgetfulness seems to conquer memory, the world keeps mysteriously renewing itself.

Life improves slowly and goes wrong fast, and only catastrophe is clearly visible.

Meeting smaller emergencies and learning to deal with them had given me the confidence to deal with this larger emergency. So, little by little, I found out how to do things. After each catastrophe you don't worry so much the next time, and each time you emerge stronger from your victory.

here is Vesuvius which reminds you every day that the greatest undertaking of powerful men, the most splendid work, can be reduced to nothing in a few seconds by the fire, and the earthquake, and the ash, and the sea.

Cockroach: What is war? Man: How we lost the human race.

inasmuch as a dead rock wants anything—it wants you dead too. So you can go quickly. A landslide can bury you. A lava tube can collapse on you. You can plunge headlong into a crater. A meteoroid can strike your habitat at seventy thousand kilometers per hour. A micrometeorite can bust open your spacesuit. A sudden burst of static electricity can blow

The victims," he said, "looked like a field of timothy grass, blown flat by the wind and rain after a summer storm.

Si des critiques avaient survécu, sans doute auraient-ils reproché à l'auteur quelque chose comme un pessimisme trop caricatural et un manque de foi dans les capacités de l'humanité à se régénérer après le malheur, mais, par chance pour la réception de la pièce, les journalistes et les juges littéraires avaient, comme toute le monde ou presque, été réduits en mottes charbonneuses (Black Village, page 74)

Here is a terrifying system-wide purview: crime, disease, environment, and politics all obey a heinous logic of unknowable dormancy, so that we know them only when they explode, when they present the bill, when the damage is done. It is the damage that constitutes our knowing.

Disaster is my muse.

As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, well in hand.

Words will never be enough to quantify and qualify the many magnitudes of human-caused destruction.