Quotes About Tragedy

Personne ne dirige cette guerre. Tout le monde la subit. On ne voit pas sur qui on tire. Les ennemis comme les camarades n'ont le temps d'avoir un visage qu'une fois morts. Cela dépasse toute mesure humaine.

The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born when we die - although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die before they are born.

Hell of a thing." Bad Jacket shook his head. "He survives that warehouse fire only to fall down a flight of stairs.

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

That is the great mistake about the affections. It is not the rise and fall of empires, the birth and death of kings, or the marching of armies that move them most. When they answer from their depths, it is to the domestic joys and tragedies of life.

It was about this time I began to seriously try to write. I commenced a tragedy which I called "Seneca." I do not remember anything about the work, except that it was laid in ancient Rome, and that Seneca was a philosopher and a senator. I showed the first act to Father, and he gave it back to me with a smile, and the opinion that "it might have been worse."

Lorsqu'une calamité s'est effectivement produite, on ne peut jamais démontrer qu'elle était évitable. Même si l'on en est soi-même convaincu. Et je le suis.

Hamartia (n.) The flaw that precipitates the destruction of a tragic hero. Hamartia is a noble word, with a fine history (the OED says also that it refers particularly to Aristotle's Poetics). If you have any decency or soul, please do not use this word to refer to your own weakness for something such as chocolate. also

There can be funny moments during sad stories

Wherever comes man comes tragedy and comedy also.

And in this respect, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a tragedy, a clash between one very powerful, very convincing, very painful claim over this land and another no less powerful, no less convincing claim.

For intelligence officials, 9/11 was personal.

Do I know that? How the hell can I possibly know that? Only a few hours earlier, Chris, my beloved husband of twenty years, jumped to his death off the roof of a parking garage a mile from our home. Cops came to the house in a pair to tell me, just like in the movies. Ding-dong, your husband's dead. Your life is over. Except it's not.

that August in Sacramento tried to kill people with fire and suffocation.

have the Nazis killed?" she asked, voice dripping with venom. "My uncle's family, I assume," Nate told her, his blood running cold. He had

They were taken from a bridge—the Sunshine Skyway,

Do you believe that evil and tragedy are always planned? You don't think Fortune has anything to do with it?

Every time the phone rings, it's about another body.

Steven's gone," April cried. "My baby's out in the storm, him and the dog are both gone!

The first divorce in the world may have been a tragedy, but the hundred-millionth is not necessarily one.

Filipino people, the people of Tacloban, and Samar, and Cebu, and all these places where so many have died, they are strong not just to have survived this storm, but they are strong to have survived the aftermath of this storm. They have survived for a week now, often with very little food, with very little water, with very little medical attention. Can you imagine the strength it takes to be living in a shack, to be living, sleeping on the streets next to the body of your dead children?

Tragedy, in our times, is politics.

And why wander in these labyrinths? Once more, for aesthetic reasons; because this present infinity, these "vertiginous symmetries," have their tragic beauty. The form is more important than the content.

It is a tragedy beyond the power of language to convey when what has been imposed on women by force becomes a standard of freedom for women: and all the women say it is so.