Quotes About Fear

The goblins of her fancy lurked in every shadow about her, reaching out their cold, fleshless hands to grasp the terrified small girl who had called them into being. A white strip of birch bark blowing up from the hollow over the brown floor of the grove made her heart stand still. The long-drawn wail of two old boughs rubbing against each other brought out the perspiration in beads on her forehead. The swoop of bats in the darkness over her was as the wings of unearthly creatures.

when the darkness is close to us it is a friend. But when we sorter push it away from us—divorce ourselves from it, so to speak, with lantern light—it becomes an enemy.

Now that the crisis had come she found herself able to confront it coolly - nay, more, to take a curious interest in it under all her secret fear and shame, as if some part of her had detached itself from the rest and was interestingly absorbing impressions and analyzing motives and describing settings.

Seems to me you must always have been afraid to be young. It takes courage, I can tell you that

Mr. Carpenter says fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world. "'Cast it out, Jade,' he says—'cast it out of your heart. Fear is a confession of weakness. What you fear is stronger than you, or you think it is, else you wouldn't be afraid of it. Remember your Emerson—"always do what

Even the most impassioned devotee of the ghost story would admit that the taste for it is slightly abnormal, a survival, perhaps, from adolescence, a disease of deficiency suffered by those whose lives and imaginations do not react satisfactorily to normal experience and require an extra thrill

Would the people in her life still love her if they knew the whole truth about her? Perhaps, but would they love her the same?

To overcome my fear, I shackled myself with hope, its links heavier than any metal known to man.

We each cope differently with the specter of our deaths. Some people deny it. Some pray. Some numb themselves with tequila. I was tempted to do a little of each of those things. But I think we are supposed to try to face it straightforwardly, armed with nothing but courage.

I had a decision to make. To me, it wasn't a hard one: if I could ride, I was going. Crashes were unavoidable in cycling, and so was bad luck, and if you worried about falling off the bike, you'd never get on.

To argue a moral position convincingly these days requires that one speak to (and not depart from) people's love of material well-being, their fascination with efficiency, or their fear of death.

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. From screenplay: Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

The only safe place left is the dark.

He sat where he was, on Mouse, in the grip of terrible indecision. He almost wished something would happen—a sudden attack of Mexicans or something. He might be killed, but at least he wouldn't have to make a choice between disobeying Mr. Gus and disobeying Lorena.

he had learned in his years of tracking Indians that things which seemed impossible often weren't. They only became so if one thought about them too much so that fear took over.

He might die, but at least he could fight first, and not simply pass his days shaking at the expectation of slaughter.

In the night Lorena tried to sort it out in her mind. She had been hungry so much, tired so much, scared so much, that her mind didn't work well anymore. Sometimes she would try to remember something and couldn't—it was as if her mind and memory had gone and hidden somewhere until things were better.

Now speech had left her; fear took its place.

You can scare off a lot of cowboys just by looking mean, I guess.

he had learned in his years of tracking Indians that things which seemed impossible often weren't. They only became so if one thought about them too much so that fear took over. The thing to do was go.

Without risk there was no power, not for a grown man.

Famous Shoes knew the young ranger was scared. Nothing was easier to detect in a man than fear. It showed even in the way he fumbled with his cup while drinking coffee; and it was normal that he would be afraid. He didn't know where he was

it seemed he had to be talking every waking minute as a means of holding his own fears in balance.

He didn't like it that there were men who could scare him so badly that he was even afraid to take a shit.