Quotes About Provocation

Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.

Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at.

I'm sorry if any of you are catholic. I'm not sorry if you're offended, I'm actually just sorry by the fact that you're catholic

I hope this story provokes you as much as it provoked me to write it.

When anger takes over, it acts with uncontrollable rage. We say things, feel things, and do things way out of proportion. Anger is emotional drunkenness.

As a militant troublemaker, I once wrote that it was the duty of every woman worthy of the description to upset men at least three times a day, on principle.

It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren't doing.

'Lolita' was a great wound in the side for me. I stuck my neck out maybe further than I should have and castigated the studio for not getting behind it.

I don't wreck people on purpose - unless they give me a legit reason, but it takes me a lot to do that.

I don't get into record beef. That's the wackest beef. That's not even a beef; that's entertainment. Might as well be a wrestler or something.

If a guy's a very good wrestler or a really good boxer or has a really good high kick, you prepare for that. It's the same when you're going to fight someone who talks a lot of crap.

I knew how to upset the people, and I did it in such a way that it was believable. That's how I made a living at it for 20 years. I don't regret a thing I done or said in wrestling. Nothing.

And as a writer, one of the things that I've always been interested in doing is actually invading your comfort space. Because that's what we're supposed to do. Get under your skin, and make you react.

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

The highest compliment one can give a writer is not to say that one wholeheartedly agrees with his observations, but that he provoked - really, forced - difficult thinking about consequential matters and internal questioning of one's own assumptions, often without quick or clear resolution.

I think the last thing you want to do as a writer, as a storyteller, is to create indifference. I don't necessarily go out of my way to provoke, but I would much rather have a song that triggers a whole myriad of reactions than a song that inspires a shrug of the shoulder.

Writers transform: they throw a hand grenade into the notion of reality that people carry around in their heads. That's very dangerous, very destructive, but not to do it means you are satisfied with the status quo - and that's a kind of danger as well, because a kind of violence is already being perpetuated.

I don't want them to read what I'm writing and say, 'I think that's right,' and agree with me. I want them to read something and then walk away and be haunted by it.

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

Well, your opinion is as good as hers, I think," said Elphaba. "That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

We nonjoyous types suck energy and cheer from the joyous ones; we rely on them to buoy us with their good spirit and to cushion our agitation and anxiety. At the same time, because of a dark element in human nature, we're sometimes provoked to try to shake the enthusiastic, cheery folk out of their fog of illusion—to make them see that the play was stupid, the money was wasted, the meeting was pointless. Instead of shielding their joy, we blast it.

Emma mordía sus labios pálidos, y dando vueltas entre sus dedos a una ramita del polípero que había roto, clavaba sobre Carlos la punta ardiente de sus pupilas, como dos flechas de fuego dispuestas para disparar. Todo —en él le irritaba ahora, su cara, su traje, lo que no decía, su persona entera, en fin, su existencia.

Then, as the priest was emerging somewhat uneasily from his lair, he went straight up to him, looked deep into his eyes, and growled into his face: 'If you weren't wearing skirts, what a punch I'd give you right on your ugly snout, wouldn't I just!

Be it so; but if you drive me to extremity, take care,—it is not always safe to make a woman desperate.