Quotes About Helplessness

What does frighten me is the halfway stage. I am afraid of reduction. After a lifetime's independence – yes, selfish independence as my daughter would rightly claim – I am terrified of being reduced to childhood once more, to helplessness, to seas of confusion from which the cruel lucid intervals poke up like rock shoals.

she knew that Grandmother was no longer with them. The dazed look in the old man's eyes told her as much. She wanted to cry — not for Grandmother, who could suffer no more, but for Grandfather, who looked so helpless and bewildered; she did not want him to be unhappy.

There are nineteen words in Yiddish that convey gradations of disparagement from a mild, fluttery helplessness to a state of downright, irreconcilable brutishness. All of them can be usefully employed to pinpoint the kind of individuals I write about.

Some of the best things are done by those with nowhere to turn, by those who don't have time, by those who truly understand the word helpless. they dispense no thought with the calculation of risk and profit, they take no thought for the future, they're forced to spearpoint into the present tense. Thrown over a precipice, you fall or else you fly; you clutch at any hope, however unlikely; however - if I may use such an overworked word - miraculous. What we mean by that is, Against all odds.

Some of the best things are done by those with nowhere to turn, by those who don't have time, by those who truly understand the word helpless. They dispense no thought with the calculation of risk and profit, they take no thought for the future, they're forced to spearpoint into the present tense. - Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)

I'm sorry there is so much pain in this story. I'm sorry it's in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force. But there is nothing I can do to change it.

I remember adapt," says Toby. "It was another way of saying tough luck. To people you weren't going to help

Nothing is ever settled," says Jocelyn. "Every day is different. Isn't it better to do something because you've decided to? Rather than because you have to?" "No, it isn't," says Charmaine. "Love isn't like that. With love, you can't stop yourself." She wants the helplessness, she wants…

Some of the best things are done by those with nowhere to turn, by those who don't have time, by those who truly understand the word helpless. They dispense with the calculation of risk and profit, they take no thought for the future, they're forced at spearpoint into the present tense. Thrown over a precipice, you fall or else you fly; you clutch at any hope, however unlikely; however - if I may use such an overworked word - miraculous. What we mean by that is, Against all odds.

Why, she had never had to do a thing for herself in all her life. There had always been someone to do things for her, to look after her, shelter and protect her and spoil her. It was incredible that she could be in such a fix. Not a friend, not a neighbor to help her. There had always been friends, neighbors, the competent hands of willing slaves. And now in this hour of greatest need, there was no one. It was incredible that she could be so completely alone, and frightened, and far from home.

The desolation and terror of, for the first time, realizing that the mother can lose you, or you her, and your own abysmal loneliness and helplessness without her.

All you can do is keep waiting for your time. There is no use protesting. If you have cruel owners, it's your bad luck. I wish I could die now. Only that can put an end to all my miseries.

I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, I can't do anything to change events anyway.

I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway.

I can't save a boy from a burning building. Instead he must save me from the attempt; he must jump to earth.

They reflect the age in cynicism which cannot comprehend the death of possibilities, fatuous sophisticated indulgence in the parody of the miraculous, decadence whose last refuge is self-ridicule, a mannered helplessness. You saw them; you've known them all your life. You reflect your age differently. You reflect its broken heart.

His throat felt like marble. She could not snap the bones! But he could not throw her off, either, no matter how hard he tried.

He could do little. Brandy might help, he thought, but when he poured some into the hurt man's mouth it ran back out again. Presently a colonel, Johnston's chief of staff, came hurrying into the ravine. But he could do nothing either. He knelt down facing the general. "Johnston, do you know me? Johnston, do you know me?" he kept asking, over and over, nudging the general's shoulder as he spoke. But Johnston did not know him. Johnston was dead.

Can you just saw his arm off while we're here and get me loose? (Amanda) I could do that, but he needs his more. I'd cut yours off before I did his. (Tate) Oh, great, what are you, his Igor? (Amanda) Wrong movie, Igor was Frankenstein's flunky. Renfield is the one you're thinking of, and no, I'm not Renfield. Name's Tate Bennett. Parish coroner. (Tate)

I've definitely had times in my life where I've been depressed and not able to do anything at all.

UFO abductions and related phenomena suggest first that humans are not the preeminent intelligent beings in a universe more or less empty of conscious life. But abductees' experiences also indicate that we are participating in a cosmos that contains intelligent beings that are far more advanced than we are in certain respects and have the power to render us helpless for purposes we are only just beginning to fathom.

He had lost control over his own body, he realized dully.

The power of women! I've never felt so full of mysterious power. Men are a joke. We're so weak physically, so helpless with things. Still, even today. But we're stronger than they are. We can stand their cruelty. They can't stand ours.

life sucks, and I am pretty sure Fate hates me. But there is nothing I can do about any of that.