Quotes About Fear

A fear that makes you shrink from the prospect of any further such experience is matched by a compulsion to see more and to understand.

The guy was lying on his back, mostly in shadow, with only the lower half of his body revealed in the dirty-red light, and at first Ken and Teel didn't realize what a horror they'd stumbled across. But when he knelt beside the corpse, Ken was shocked to see that the man's gut had been

Without a window between me and this absolute-black sky, the effect of such undetailed heavens was profound, frightening not just because of the uncanny darkness but also for a reason that eluded me. Or perhaps the reason was not elusive. Maybe I dreaded acknowledging and considering it, for fear that contemplation would soon sweep me out of the main currents of sanity, into a tributary of madness.

Who is more foolish—the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light? —MAURICE FREEHILL

The vision has passed, but he feels as though he is standing above a void, with nothing to support him, that his fall is about to begin, that he'll shatter his bones on the bloody rack and ruin below.

Katie hurries toward whatever confrontation awaits.

Fear is useful when it's on a leash, Avi once said, but it's always a bad dog when you let it run free in your mind.

The Demolished Man.

I didn't mind dying—and being reunited with Stormy, whether in Heaven or in the unknown great adventure she calls "service"—but not until the threat to the children had been identified and met.

Shivering pleasantly, Vince plucked the car keys off the floor where the dead man had dropped them, went into the garage, and opened the Cadillac's trunk, being careful not to touch any surface on which he might leave a clear fingerprint. The trunk was empty. Good. He carried Weatherby's corpse out of the laundry room, put it in the trunk, closed and locked the lid

Lem felt sick, not merely because of what had happened to Wes Dalberg but because of all the deaths yet to come. He was proud of both his management and investigatory skills, and he knew he could handle this case better than anyone else. But he was also a hardheaded pragmatist, incapable of underestimating the enemy or of pretending there would be a quick ending to this nightmare. He would need time and patience and luck to track down the killer, and meanwhile more bodies would pile up.

The flesh on the nape of my neck did the crawly thing that it does so well. Some people say this is God's warning that the devil is near, but I've noticed I also experience it when someone serves me Brussels sprouts.

Although it earned him a living, a suspense writer's imagination made him more aware of the constant proximity of death than were most people. Every dog was a potential rabies carrier. Every strange van passing through the neighborhood was driven by a sexual psychopath who would kidnap and murder any child left unattended for more than three seconds. Every can of soup in the pantry was botulism waiting to happen.

NOT DEAD A chill swept down her back.

Sometimes the vastness of creation filled Jeffy less with a sense of wonder than with reverent dread

the wake of the shriek, gunfire erupts. One, two, three shots.

People don't get attacked by packs of rats in their own homes.

but as the dead

damned might call jealously to the living. Three more shots follow the first three.

But he that dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose. —ANNE BRONTË, "The Narrow Way

Earth's creatures other than humankind. Their lives are short and hard and ever shadowed by threat, and they endure periods of hunger when in their foraging they find nothing, and they persevere through sickness without understanding what it is they suffer, and they have seen others devoured by something bigger with sharper teeth. Yet in spite of all they have to fear, they sleep as if they are safe when unconscious, and they wake to each new day with enthusiasm.

Some are street thugs who will kill you for the contents of your wallet or merely for the thrill of it.

And because your life is yours to shape as you wish with free will, if you entertain too much anxiety about too many things, if you place no trust in providence, what you fear will more often come to pass. We make so many of our own troubles, from mere mishaps to disasters, by dwelling on the possibility of them until the possible becomes inevitable

Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, which he painted in 1781.