Quotes About Fear

How he learned to distinguish fear from the impostor, being afraid. Fear is a force that sharpens your senses. Being afraid is a state of paralysis in which you can't do anything.

It's unbelievable what you can do when the threat to your own life is that bad.

Cooper said nothing. "Jesus." Quinn rubbed at his eyes. "Wait. How does this get him what he wants? Things are worse now for abnorms than ever before. The microchipping, the hate crimes, hell, every third congressman holding press conferences to say we need to lock you all up.

For a moment, the future threatened to swamp him, the terrifying infinity of it, like being alone in the Pacific in the middle of a starless night, all that water and time around and below him, the deepest hole in the planet sucking him down into darkness.

Alzheimer's was far more terrifying than death.

That's insane," said a goateed kid in front of Ethan. "You're locking down the whole city to catch a couple of terrorists? That doesn't make any sense.

The more we fear, the more we need them. And the more we need them, the more powerful they get.

That was the thing about terror: it made rational people act irrationally.

Okay. Life isn't like the movies—you know, how the bad guys just want to be bad guys, villains. In real life, there aren't very many villains. Mostly, people believe they're doing the right thing. Even the ones who are doing bad things usually believe they're heroes, that whatever terrible thing they're doing is to prevent something worse. They're scared.

It's kind of a circle. When people are scared, it's easy for them to decide anything different is evil. To forget that everyone is basically the same, that we all love our families and want regular lives. And what makes it worse is that some people use that. They make others scared on purpose, because they know if they do, everyone will start acting stupid." "But why would they want that?" "It's a way to control people. A way to get what they want.

To bear your weaponry so blatantly before you, to move through the world as a nightmare. The spider regarded him, and he regarded the spider.

A gas man?" Her pupils dilated, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

When people are scared, it's easy for them to decide anything different is evil. To forget that everyone is basically the same, that we all love our families and want regular lives. And what makes it worse is that some people use that. They make others scared on purpose, because they know if they do, everyone will start acting stupid. -But why would they want that? -It's a way to control people. A way to get what they want.

Left untended, the holes through which freedom escapes widen. When politicians restrict our rights in order to "protect us," freedom is lost. When the military refuses to disclose basic facts, freedom is lost. Worst of all, when fear becomes a part of our lives, we willingly surrender freedom for a promise of safety, as if freedom weren't the very basis of safety.

They want us all wound up and mistrusting each other. Norms and abnorms, left and right, rich and poor, all of it. The more we fear, the more we need them. And the more we need them, the more powerful they get.

Because all the talk about preventing a war is bullshit. What they really want is to control it. They want to generate and maintain war at a low simmer. They want us all wound up and mistrusting each other. Norms and abnorms, left and right, rich and poor, all of it. The more we fear, the more we need them. And the more we need them, the more powerful they get.

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

Frightened people want action more than they want correct action. It's in the data.

That was the thing about terror: it made rational people act irrationally. From a certain perspective, the fear was more destructive than the actual killing.

I am scared almost all the time. But I never tell anyone. I can't afford to. I have to go on pretending I'm this confident person, because if I don't, if I'm quiet, I become invisible.

people burn books, and that they ban books is, in a way, a good sign. It's a good sign because it means books have power. When people burn books, it's because they're afraid of what's inside them...

When people burn books, it's because they're afraid of what's inside them, and there's the thing: to be afraid of the contents means that they have power.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

"Why do men feel threatened by women?" I asked a male friend of mine.... "They're afraid women will laugh at them," he said.... Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, "Why do women feel threatened by men?" "They're afraid of being killed," they said.