Berserk Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Berserk. Here they are! All 100 of them:

This is something I know: damaged women? We don't think we deserve kindness. IN fact, when kindness happens to us, we go a little berserk. It's threatening. Deeply. Because if I have to admit how profoundly I need kindness? I have to admit that I hid the me who deserves it down in a sadness well.
Lidia Yuknavitch (The Chronology of Water)
If I have to worry about the ants I crush beneath my feet, I couldn't even walk around
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 1 (Berserk, #1))
That thing was too big to be called a sword. Too big, too thick, too heavy, and too rough, it was more like a large hunk of iron.
Kentaro Miura
Living for the future is more important than trying to avenge the past.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 2 (Berserk, #2))
I’ve had a lot of practice. The Pack contains thirty-two species in seven tribes, each with their own hang-up. Jackals and coyotes pick fights with wolves, because they have an inferiority complex and think they’ve got something to prove. Wolves believe themselves to be superior, marry the wrong people, and then refuse to divorce them because they cling to their ‘mating for life’ idiocy. Hyenas listen to nobody, screw everything, and break out in berserk rages at some perceived slight against one of their own. Cats randomly refuse to follow orders to prove they can. That’s my life. I’ve been at this for fifteen years now. You’re easy by comparison.
Ilona Andrews (Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels, #3))
Do you have a driver's license?" He laughed. "That's important?" "Oh yeah! I'd kill for a driver's license! Hey, maybe that's what the poem means! I'm going to go berserk and start attacking people because they won't let me drive..." "Could be, you never know. But yes, I have a driver's license." I leaned back against the wall, sighing. "Man, that must be so cool." "It ranks right up there with lockers. In fact, sometimes I put my drivers license inside my locker, and it's so cool I worry that the whole thing might explode with the sheer coolness of it all.
Kiersten White (Paranormalcy (Paranormalcy, #1))
He's like six hundred years younger than you are. I refuse to be the moral compass of our cell! Most weekends I have an intoxispell bong attached to my mouth like a respirator. I love scatological humor, and I list 'pranks involving nuclear waste' and 'making demons eat things' as my hobbies.
Kresley Cole (Dreams of a Dark Warrior (Immortals After Dark, #10))
Even if we painstakingly piece together something lost, it doesn't mean things will ever go back to how they were Berserk
Kentaro Miura
In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least it is true that man has no control, even over his own will. Man takes up the sword in order to shield the small wound in his heart sustained in a far-off time beyond remembrance. Man wields the sword so that he may die smiling in some far-off time beyond perception.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 1 (Berserk, #1))
Nix to Declan: Begin transcript— Testing. Hello, hellooo, anybody out there? Check, check, one, two. Soft pee. Puh, puh. Resonance! Sooooooft pee. Alpha bravo disco tango duck. This is Nïx! I’m the Ever-Knowing One, a goddess incandescent, incomparable, and irresistible. But enough about what you think of me. It’s a beautiful day in New Orleans. The wind is out of the east at a steady five knots and clouds look like rabbits … But enough about what you think of me! Now, down to business— Squirrel! Where was I? [Long pause] Why am I in Regin’s car? Bertil, you crawl right back out of that bong this minute! Oh, I remember! I am hereby laying down this track for Magister Declan Chase. If you are a mortal of the recorder peon class, know that Dekko and I go waaaaay back, and he’ll go berserk (snicker snicker) if he doesn’t receive this transmittal. … Chase, riddle me this: what’s beautiful but monstrous, long of tooth but sharp of tooth and soft of mind, and can never ever tell a lie? That’s right. The Enemy of Old can be very useful to you. So use him already. P.S. Your middle name’s about to be spelled r-e-g-r-e-t. And with that, I must bid you adieu. Don’t worry, we’ll catch up very soon. … [Muffled] Who’s mummy’s wittle echolocator? That’s right—you are! —End transcript
Kresley Cole (Dreams of a Dark Warrior (Immortals After Dark, #10))
Don't forget...when you gaze into the darkness...the darkness gazes back into you.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 26)
The place I belong...Maybe it did exist. I was too stupid and stubborn to notice it, but what I really wished for back then was here. Why do I always see these things after they're done and gone?
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 12)
She can't afford to commit more troops,' Holly whispered. 'The gate is her priority, and she needs to have as many Berserkers watching her back as possible. We are secondary at this point.' 'That will be her undoing,' Artemis gasped, already suffering under the weight of the flak jacket. 'Artemis Fowl will never be secondary.' 'I thought you were Artemis Fowl the Second?' said Holly.
Eoin Colfer
It's all right. It's like stumbling on a rock on the roadside. It's petty...a small thing. The place you want to go...is more distant farther off. So...it's all right. You'll stand up. And you'll start walking. Soon...
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 8 (Berserk, #8))
Christ, don't go to the Haunted Houses with Ally and Indy. A few years ago, Indy went berserk and broke through the hay bales they had set up to make the haunted trail and headed into the cornfields. All the employees chased after her but since they were dressed like monsters, Indy lost her mind. They had to call the cops to settle her down." I lost him at "cornfields". "Cornfields?" I whispered. "Yeah." "They have a haunted trail through cornfields?" "Yeah, up in Thornton. Best Haunted House in Denver. Indy and Ally go every year. Why?" "Cornfields freak me out," I admitted. Hank was silent. Then, he said, "You're from Indiana. How in the fuck can cornfields freak you out?" "Cornfields don't freak me out. Cornfields at night freak me out. Haunted cornfields at night freak me out." "You been to many haunted cornfields?" "Dude," I said low. "All cornfields are haunted. Trust me. I know... They whisper to you.
Kristen Ashley (Rock Chick Redemption (Rock Chick, #3))
You’re still not fearing my mighty wrath.” “I’m trying.” “One day I will unleash it and you will flee in terror. Why are you laughing? It’s only the truth. A sphinx in full-on berserker-mode can wreak major destruction and instill fear into the hearts of all who… stop laughing!
Suzanne Wright (Blaze (Dark in You, #2))
I imagined having that bronzed dragon in our fight against the Titan lord Kronos. His monsters would think twice about attacking camp if they have to face that thing. On the other hand, if the dragon decided to go berserk again and attack the campers-that would pretty much stink.
Rick Riordan (The Demigod Files (Percy Jackson and the Olympians))
He was used to being playful with women, teasing while keeping ultimate control. With Luna, he felt like a berserk marauder. He couldn't even spell control, much less utilize it.
Lori Foster (Say No To Joe? (Winston Brothers #5) (Visitation, North Carolina, #1))
Hate is a place where a man who can't stand sadness goes." - Godo
Miura Kentaro (Berserk t.1)
Boredom forces you to ring people you haven’t seen for eighteen years and halfway through the conversation you remember why you left it so long. Boredom means you start to read not only mail-order catalogues but also the advertising inserts that fall on the floor. Boredom gives you half a mind to get a gun and go berserk in the local shopping centre, and you know where this is going. Eventually, boredom means you will take up golf.
Jeremy Clarkson (The World According to Clarkson (World According to Clarkson, #1))
I will never draw my sword for another man again, or be dangled by another mans dream. From now on, I will fight my own battles.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 1 (Berserk, #1))
Like a falling star, he descended on the Tarbh Cró, a Cassiline berserker, his sword biting and slashing like a silver snake.
Jacqueline Carey (Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy, #1))
If you meet god, tell him to just leave me alone!
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Volume 21 (Berserk Meio-Tanko, #21))
From where I stand...you're the same as that idol you worship. Completely hollow.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 16)
We are the centuries... We have your eoliths and your mesoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient impregnated) artifacts. We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do – Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris, telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve and a traveling salesman called Lucifer. We bury your dead and their reputations. We bury you. We are the centuries. Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon’s slap, seek manhood, taste a little godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb: (Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.) Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens – and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn’t the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH! – an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)
Walter M. Miller Jr. (A Canticle for Leibowitz (St. Leibowitz, #1))
Man takes up the sword in order to shield the small wound in his heart sustained in a far-off time beyond remembrance. Man wields the sword so that he may die smiling in some far-off time beyond perception.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 5 (Berserk, #5))
I laughed. "Yeah, right. If anyone gives you trouble, he'll hump their leg like a berserker." "Hey! I haven't humped anyone in months." The demon pursed his lips".
Jaye Wells (Silver-Tongued Devil (Sabina Kane, #4))
He wanted to laugh; the vision of her pounding that wee boy in a fury of berserk rage, hair flying in the wind and a look of blood in her eye, was one he would treasure.
Diana Gabaldon (A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander, #6))
Besides being blind to lots of good things, the GDP also benefits from all manner of human suffering. Gridlock, drug abuse, adultery? Goldmines for gas stations, rehab centers, and divorce attorneys. If you were the GDP, your ideal citizen would be a compulsive gambler with cancer who’s going through a drawn-out divorce that he copes with by popping fistfuls of Prozac and going berserk on Black Friday. Environmental pollution even does double duty: One company makes a mint by cutting corners while another is paid to clean up the mess. By contrast, a centuries-old tree doesn’t count until you chop it down and sell it as lumber.
Rutger Bregman (Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There)
The leaping of one fish would never disturb the flow of the river.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 13)
History is a ghost story. My own childhood has passed into history, and the ghosts I find there are the ghosts of Heroes and dragons and Berserks and witches, and it has become fashionable not to believe in these things anymore. But I believe, for I was there.
Cressida Cowell (How to Break a Dragon's Heart (How to Train Your Dragon, #8))
Ambition comes with a price attached. Of course, that price comes too high if you die for nothing. The reward for ambition too great... is self-destruction!
Kentaro Miura (Berserk Deluxe Edition, Vol. 1)
And when in doubt, take all your clothes off,' said Caleb. 'What for?' 'Sign of a good berserk, taking all your clothes off. Frightens the hell out of the enemy. If anyone starts laughing, stab 'em one.
Terry Pratchett (Interesting Times (Discworld, #17; Rincewind, #5))
You went alone. You were right beside those irreplacable things...yet you couldn't bear to immerse yourself together in sorrow with them. So instead...you ran away so that your own malice could burn within you.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 17)
Things you have now, things you've lost. People who're near by, people who've gone far away. No matter what you choose, truth is, both regret and reluctance are going to follow you around. You just have to make sure you don't make excuses to yourself down the road.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 38 (Berserk, #38))
Dreams. Win or lose... I'm sure you could spend your whole life chasing one.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 7 (Berserk, #7))
I somehow thought you had experience with stealth missions.” . “Domina, I’m a berserker.” “Perhaps you gnawed your shield very quietly?
T. Kingfisher (Paladin's Strength (The Saint of Steel, #2))
You’re going to be all right. You just stumbled over a stone in the road. It means nothing. Your goal lies far beyond this. Doesn’t it? I’m sure you’ll overcome this. You’ll walk again… soon.' – Guts
Kentaro Miura
I am naturally a Nordic — a chalk-white, bulky Teuton of the Scandinavian or North-German forests — a Viking berserk killer — a predatory rover of Hengist and Horsa — a conqueror of Celts and mongrels and founders of Empires — a son of the thunders and the arctic winds, and brother to the frosts and the auroras — a drinker of foemen's blood from new picked skulls — a friend of the mountain buzzards and feeder of seacoast vultures — a blond beast of eternal snows and frozen oceans — a prayer to Odin and Thor and Woden and Alfadur, the raucous shouter of Niffelheim — a comrade of the wolves, and rider of nightmares
H.P. Lovecraft
A dream… it’s something you do for yourself, not for others
Kentaro Miura
Dracula visited the Wolf Department at the Zoological Gardens. "These wolves seem upset at something," he observed. The next morning the cage was all twisted out of shape and the gray wolf Berserker was missing. Dracula had temporarily inherited its body. Dracula had a totally difference experience at the zoo from that of other people.
Elif Batuman (The Idiot)
Beneath an unsinking black sun...through the boundless gloom...our journey continues.
Kentaro Miura
The world doesn't extend in merely two dimensions. There exist profound depths within itself. This world could never be summarized by materialism or any single doctrine. Accept the great mysteries...and explore the universe from within your world. That is the way of magic.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 24)
I wouldn't mind if the consumer culture went poof! overnight because then we'd all be in the same boat and life wouldn't be so bad, mucking about with the chickens and feudalism and the like. But you know what would be absolutely horrible. The worst? ... If, as we were all down on earth wearing rags and husbanding pigs inside abandoned Baskin-Robbins franchises, I were to look up in the sky and see a jet -- with just one person inside even -- I'd go berserk. I'd go crazy. Either everyone slides back into the Dark Ages or no one does.
Douglas Coupland (Shampoo Planet)
I was crying and laughing, snuffing tears and blood, bumping at him with my bound hands, trying awkwardly to thrust them at him so that he could cut the rope. He quit grappling, and clutched me so hard against him that I yelped in pain as my face was pressed against his plaid. He was saying something else, urgently, but I couldn’t manage to translate it. Energy pulsed through him, hot and violent, like the current in a live wire, and I vaguely realized that he was still almost berserk; he had no English.
Diana Gabaldon (A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander, #6))
Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. ... Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll. (1834)
Heinrich Heine
In politics, Bugs Bunny always beats Daffy Duck. Daffy's always going berserk, jumping up and down, yelling. Bugs's got that sly smile, like he always knows what's up, like nothing can ruffle him.
Jeff Greenfield (Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan)
She was ten years old, after all. Alone and helpless and afraid. But here is truth, gentlefriends, no matter the number of suns in your sky. At the heart of it, two kinds of people live in this world or any other: those who flee and those who fight. Your kind has many terms for the latter sort. Berserker. Killer instinct. More balls than brains. And it shouldn’t surprise you, knowing what little you know already, that in the face of this thug and his blade, and laden with memory of her father’s execution never flinch never fear instead of wailing or breaking as another ten-year-old might have, young Mia gripped the stiletto she’d fished from the darkness, and slipped it straight up into the puppy-choker’s eye. The
Jay Kristoff (Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle, #1))
Are ye all right, man?" Ian asked, in the same tone of mild concern he'd heard his da use now and then on his mam or Uncle Jamie. Evidently it was in fact the right tone to take with a Fraser about to go berserk, for William breathed like a grampus for a moment or two, then got himself under control.
Diana Gabaldon (Written in My Own Heart's Blood (Outlander, #8))
The daughter who transports him out of the longed-for American pastoral and into everything that is its antithesis and its enemy, into the fury, the violence, and the desperation of the counterpastoral—into the indigenous American berserk.
Philip Roth (American Pastoral)
With no relation to social status, class, background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart, probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr...to the God named "Dream". Ultimately, to be born, and then to simply live for no better reason...I can't abide such a life. They are...excellent troops. Together we have faced death so many times. They are my valuable comrades, devoting themselves to the dream I envision. But to me, a friend is...something else. Someone who would never depend on another's dream. Someone who wouldn't be compelled by anyone, but would determine and pursue his own reason to live...And should anyone trample that dream, he would oppose him body and soul, even if that threat were me myself. What I think a friend is...is one who is my "Equal".
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 6 (Berserk, #6))
It was too big to be called a sword. Massive, thick, heavy, and far too rough. Indeed, it was a heap of raw iron.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 1 (Berserk, #1))
Winny didn't know what he would do without his books, except probably go berserk and start killing people and making ashtrays out of their skulls even though he didn't smoke and never would.
Dean Koontz (77 Shadow Street)
He wished that he could break out his knitting, but for some reason, people didn’t take you seriously as a warrior when you were knitting. He’d never figured out why. Making socks required four or five double-ended bone needles, and while they weren’t very large, you could probably jam one into someone’s eye if you really wanted to. Not that he would. He’d have to pull the needle out of the sock to do it, and then he’d be left with the grimly fiddly work of rethreading the stitches. Also, washing blood out of wool was possible, but a pain. Still, if he had to suddenly pull out his sword and fend off an attack, there was a chance he’d drop the yarn, and since he’d been feeling masochistic and was using two colors for this current set of socks, there was absolutely no chance the yarn wouldn’t get tangled and then he’d be trying to murder people while chasing the yarn around. And god forbid the tide rose and he went berserk. You never got the knitting untangled after that; you usually just had to throw it away completely.
T. Kingfisher (Paladin's Grace (The Saint of Steel, #1))
Annabelle, what happened to you?” Lillian asked the next morning. “You look dreadful. Why aren’t you wearing your riding habit? I thought you were going to try out the jumping course this morning. And why did you disappear so suddenly last night? It’s not like you to simply vanish without saying—” “I didn’t have a choice in the matter,” Annabelle said testily, folding her fingers around the delicate bowl of a porcelain teacup. Looking pale and exhausted, her blue eyes ringed with dark shadows, she swallowed a mouthful of heavily sweetened tea before continuing. “It was that blasted perfume of yours—as soon as he caught one whiff of it, he went berserk.” Shocked, Lillian tried to take in the information, her stomach plummeting. “It… it had an effect on Westcliff, then?” she managed to ask. “Good Lord, not Lord Westcliff.” Annabelle rubbed her weary eyes. “He couldn’t have cared less what I smelled like. It was my husband who went completely mad. After he caught the scent of that stuff, he dragged me up to our room and…well, suffice it to say, Mr. Hunt kept me awake all night. All night ,” she repeated in sullen emphasis, and drank deeply of the tea. “Doing what?” Daisy asked blankly. Lillian, who was feeling a rush of relief that Lord Westcliff had not been attracted to Annabelle while she was wearing the perfume, gave her younger sister a derisive glance. “What do you think they were doing? Playing a few hands of Find-the-Lady?
Lisa Kleypas (It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2))
Let's put a chimpanzee in a tiny cage fronted by concrete bars. The animal would go berserk, throw itself against the walls, rip out its hair, inflict cruel bites on itself, and in 73% of cases will actually end up killing itself. Let's now make a breach in one of the walls, which we will place next to a bottomless precipice. Our friendly sample quadrumane will approach the edge, he'll look down, but remain at the edge for ages, return there time and again, but generally he won't teeter over the brink; and in all events his nervous state will be radically assuaged.
Michel Houellebecq (Whatever)
He Who Would Live Forever had done an instantaneous back-of-the-envelope calculation and decided that the vicinity of the Chevrolet Suburban was a better strategic alternative than anyplace anywhere near that whitish sandy road above which a gigantic terror-chattering rattlesnake now thrashed in the grip of his boss gone berserk.
Tom Wolfe (A Man in Full)
Legend claimed Berserkers could move with such speed that they seemed invisible to the human eye until the moment they attacked. They possessed unnatural senses: the olfactory acuity of a wolf, the auditory sensitivity of a bat, the strength of twenty men, the penetrating eyesight of an eagle. The Berserkers had once been the most fearless and feared warriors ever to walk Scotland nearly seven hundred years ago. They had been Odin's elite Viking army. Legend claimed they could assume the shape of a wolf or a bear as easily as the shape of a man. And they were marked by a common feature-unholy blue eyes that glowed like banked coals.
Karen Marie Moning (To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander, #2))
My place really was here. I was too foolish and stubborn to notice. But, what I truly hoped for then was here. Why do I always realize it... when I've already lost it.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 12)
It's your life. Do what you want with it.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk Deluxe Edition, Vol. 1)
Hate is a place where a man, who can't stand sadness, goes.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk Deluxe Edition, Volume 6)
...everywhere and nowhere as the March wind begin to rise and moan like a dead Berserker winding his horn, it drifted on the wind, lonely and savage.
Stephen King (Cycle of the Werewolf)
Even these thoughts will slip my mind in time. And then..... ...only... ...the beat of my heart still remains.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 7 (Berserk, #7))
Just because you’re, like, super powerful doesn’t mean people shouldn’t defend you.” But he was looking at her like she was a cute harmless little bunny that was obviously on drugs. She sighed. “You’re still not fearing my mighty wrath.” “I’m trying.” “One day I will unleash it and you will flee in terror. Why are you laughing? It’s only the truth. A sphinx in full-on berserker-mode can wreak major destruction and instill fear into the hearts of all who… stop laughing!
Suzanne Wright (Blaze (The Dark in You, #2))
If you take someone's thoughts and feelings away bit by bit, consistently then they have nothing left, except some gritty, gnawing, shitty little instinct, down there, somewhere worming round the gut, but so far down, so hidden, its impossible to find. Imagine, if you will, a worldwide conspiracy to deny the colour yellow. And whenever you say yellow, they told you, no, that isn't yellow, what the fuck's yellow? Eventually, whenever you saw yellow, you would say; that isn't yellow, course it isn't blue or green or purple, or... you'd say it, yes it is, its yellow and become increasingly hysterical and then go quite berserk.
David Edgar
Few situations—no matter how greatly they appear to demand it—can be bettered by us going berserk. Why do we do it, then? We react because we’re anxious and afraid of what has happened, what might happen, and what is happening. Many of us react as though everything is a crisis because we have lived with so many crises for so long that crisis reaction has become a habit. We react because we think things shouldn’t be happening the way they are. We react because we don’t feel good about ourselves. We react because most people react. We react because we think we have to react. We don’t have to. We don’t have to be so afraid of people. They are just people like us. We don’t have to forfeit our peace. It doesn’t help. We have the same facts and resources available to us when we’re peaceful that are available to us when we’re frantic and chaotic. Actually we have more resources available because our minds and emotions are free to perform at peak level.
Melody Beattie (Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself)
You're going to be alright. You just stumbled over a stone in the road. It means nothing. Your goal lies far beyond this, doesn't it? I'm sure you'll overcome this. You'll walk again...soon.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 3 (Berserk, #3))
The prophecy, like an angered beast, had gone berserk and was destroying his mind with the ferocity of madness . . . until all that he knew, all that was him, all that had become him was left in disarray. To my brother, Ikenna, the fear of death as prophesied by Abulu had become palpable, a caged world within which he was irretrievably trapped, and beyond which nothing else existed.
Chigozie Obioma (The Fishermen)
They took one look at Zip2’s code and began rewriting the vast majority of the software. Musk bristled at some of their changes, but the computer scientists needed just a fraction of the lines of code that Musk used to get their jobs done. They had a knack for dividing software projects into chunks that could be altered and refined whereas Musk fell into the classic self-taught coder trap of writing what developers call hairballs—big, monolithic hunks of code that could go berserk for mysterious reasons.
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future)
Dreams. Win or lose...I'm sure you could spend your whole life chasing one.
Kentaro Miura
Other folk thought the Rage was simple bloodlust, a berserk savagery that neither knew nor cared what its target was, and so it was when it struck without warning. But when a hradani gave himself to it knowingly, it was as cold as it was hot, as rational as it was lethal. To embrace the Rage was to embrace a splendor, a glory, a denial of all restraint but not of reason. It was pure, elemental purpose, unencumbered by compassion or horror or pity, yet it was far more than mere frenzy.
David Weber (Oath of Swords (War God, #1))
The sight of his bare chest brought me to the dribble point. The jeans pushed me right over. No one wore jeans like David. And having caught a glimpse of him without them only made it worse. My imagination went into some sort of sexual berserker rage. The pictures that filled my head ... I have no idea where they all came from. The images were surprisingly raw and detailed. I was quite certain I wasn't flexible enough to achieve some of them.
Kylie Scott (Lick (Stage Dive, #1))
Although Jillian had known what Grimm was before that moment, she was briefly immobilized by the sight of him. It was one thing to know that the man she loved was a Berserker-it was another thing entirely to behold it. He regarded her with such an inhuman expression that if she hadn't peered deep into his eyes, she might have seen nothing of Grimm at all. But there, deep in the flickering blue flames, she glimpsed such love that it rocked her soul. She smiled up at him through her tears. A wounded sound of disbelief escaped him. Jillian gave him the most dazzling smile she could muster and placed her fist to her heart. "And the daughter wed the lion king," she said clearly. An expression of incredulity crossed the warrior's face. His blue eyes widened and he stared at her in stunned silence. "I love you, Gavrael McIllioch." When he smiled, his face blazed with love. He tossed his head back and shouted his joy to the sky.
Karen Marie Moning (To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander, #2))
I think I'll try crying and shouting and biting my way through. Maybe I can change something.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 16)
Victory is for the fucking brave, not the timid and excuse-riddled weak.
Zakk Wylde (Bringing Metal to the Children: The Complete Berserker's Guide to World Tour Domination)
Struggle. Keep struggling and struggling until the end of ends, then struggle some more. There's no fighting just to die.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 13)
Everybody in this room is bored. The poems drag, the voice and gestures irk. He can't be interrupted or ignored. Poor fools, we came here of our own accord And some of us have paid to hear this jerk. Everybody in the room is bored. The silent cry goes up, 'How long, O Lord?' But nobody will scream or go berserk. He won't be interrupted or ignored. Or hit by eggs, or savaged by a horde Of desperate people maddened by his work. Everybody in the room is bored, Except the poet. We are his reward, Pretending to indulge in his every quirk. He won't be interrupted or ignored. At last it's over. How we all applaud! The poet thanks us with a modest smirk. Everybody in the room was bored. He wasn't interrupted or ignored.
Wendy Cope (If I Don't Know)
Anytime I hear about another one of us gone berserk, shooting up his ex’s office or drowning her kids to free herself up for her Internet boyfriend, the question I always ask is not, like every other tongue-clucking pundit in the country, how could this have happened? but why doesn't this happen every day?
Tim Kreider (We Learn Nothing)
In answer, the news of the Gospel is that extraordinary things happen. ... Lear goes berserk on a heath but comes out of it for a few brief hours every inch a king. Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul sets out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ.
Frederick Buechner (Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale)
Christianity — and that is its greatest merit — has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the Cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman [the cross] is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then . . . a play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.
Heinrich Heine
Determination: You can’t manufacture that shit, it’s gotta come from the heart. A lion doesn’t choose to be a lion, that’s just what he is. He knows what’s expected of him, and he gets it fuckin’ done.
Zakk Wylde (Bringing Metal to the Children: The Complete Berserker's Guide to World Tour Domination)
The strategy worked like a charm, and in 1980 Jimmy Carter was swept away like offal by the “Reagan Revolution,” which ushered in eight years of berserk looting of the federal treasury and the economic crippling of the middle class. That was the eighties, folks. That was the feeding frenzy of the New Rich, who found themselves wallowing in excess profits as their maximum income tax rate got chopped down to 31 percent and who were welcomed like brothers in the White House at all hours of the day or night.
Hunter S. Thompson (Better Than Sex (Gonzo Papers Book 4))
I'm scared!!/ But it means I want to live!!
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 21)
Suddenly so many things she'd overheard her brothers and Quinn saying when Grimm had been in residence made sense, and upon reflection she suspected a part of her had always known. Her love was a legendary warrior who had grown to despise himself, cut off from his roots. But now that he was home and given the time to explore those roots, he might be able to make peace with himself at long last.
Karen Marie Moning (To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander, #2))
I was dreaming. On nights of the full moon I'd become a small child and find myself embraced by nostalgic warmth. But when I wake from the dream all that remains is a faint sense of loneliness. That, too, soon fades away. Along with a single tear like morning dew.
Kentaro Miura (ベルセルク 41 [Berserk 41])
It is my perception, that a true friend never relies on another's dream. A person with the potential to be my true friend, must be able to find his reason for life without my help. And, he would have to put his heart and soul into protecting his dream. He would never hesitate to fight for his dream, even against me. For me, a true friend is one who stands equal on those terms.
Griffith (Berserk)
A little rain, a little blood. Black fingernails in August; and going berserk, going bananas. As if entrapped in a tropical heatwave, with dozens of whirlwinds swirling in one’s mind, one thinks of a way out, or a way in: out of the scorching bosom of a volcano, and in – into the centre of a raging hurricane. And tracing the labyrinthine ways of your mind, the haphazard vagaries of your thoughts at ease, the odds and ends of your mental surplus you carelessly throw at the world, one wants to be at a loss, in a maze; amazed, and amazingly unabashed.
Adam Zagajewski
There is a theory that when a planet, like our earth for example, has manifested every form of life, when it has fulfilled itself to the point of exhaustion, it crumbles to bits and is dispersed like star dust throughout the universe. It does not roll on like a dead moon, but explodes, and in the space of a few minutes, there is not a trace of it visible in the heavens. In marine life we have a similar effect. it is called implosion. When an amphibian accustomed to the black depths rises above a certain level, when the pressure to which it adapts itself is lifted, the body bursts inwardly. Are we not familiar with this spectacle in the human being also? The norsemen who went berserk, the malay who runs amuck—are these not examples of implosion and explosion? When the cup is full it runs over. but when the cup and that which it contains are one substance, what then? There are moments when the elixir of life rises to such overbrimming splendor that the soul spills over. In the seraphic smile of the madonnas the soul is seen to flood the psyche. The moon of the face becomes full; the equation is perfect. A minute, a half minute, a second later, the miracle has passed. something intangible, something inexplicable, was given out—and received. In the life of a human being it may happen that the moon never comes to the full. In the life of some human beings it would seem, indeed, that the only mysterious phenomenon observable is that of perpetual eclipse. In the case of those afflicted with genius, whatever the form it may take, we are almost frightened to observe that there is nothing but a continuous waxing and waning of the moon. Rarer still are the anomalous ones who, having come to the full, are so terrified by the wonder of it that they spend the rest of their lives endeavoring to stifle that which gave them birth and being. The war of the mind is the story of the soul-split. When the moon was at full there were those who could not accept the dim death of diminution; they tried to hang full-blown in the zenith of their own heaven. They tried to arrest the action of the law which was manifesting itself through them, through their own birth and death, in fulfillment and transfiguration. Caught between the tides they were sundered; the soul departed the body, leaving the simulacrum of a divided self to fight it out in the mind. Blasted by their own radiance they live forever the futile quest of beauty, truth and harmony. Depossessed of their own effulgence they seek to possess the soul and spirit of those to whom they are attracted. They catch every beam of light; they reflect with every facet of their hungry being. instantly illumined, When the light is directed towards them, they are also speedily extinguished. The more intense the light which is cast upon them the more dazzling—and blinding—they appear. Especially dangerous are they to the radiant ones; it is always towards these bright and inexhaustible luminaries that they are most passionately drawn…
Henry Miller (Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, #1))
best Hitchcock films not made by Hitchcock. Here we go: Le Boucher, the early Claude Chabrol that Hitch, according to lore, wished he’d directed. Dark Passage, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall—a San Francisco valentine, all velveteen with fog, and antecedent to any movie in which a character goes under the knife to disguise himself. Niagara, starring Marilyn Monroe; Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn; Sudden Fear!, starring Joan Crawford’s eyebrows. Wait Until Dark: Hepburn again, a blind woman stranded in her basement apartment. I’d go berserk in a basement apartment.
A.J. Finn (The Woman in the Window)
Double Indemnity, Gaslight, Saboteur, The Big Clock . . . We lived in monochrome those nights. For me, it was a chance to revisit old friends; for Ed, it was an opportunity to make new ones. And we’d make lists. The Thin Man franchise, ranked from best (the original) to worst (Song of the Thin Man). Top movies from the bumper crop of 1944. Joseph Cotten’s finest moments. I can do lists on my own, of course. For instance: best Hitchcock films not made by Hitchcock. Here we go: Le Boucher, the early Claude Chabrol that Hitch, according to lore, wished he’d directed. Dark Passage, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall—a San Francisco valentine, all velveteen with fog, and antecedent to any movie in which a character goes under the knife to disguise himself. Niagara, starring Marilyn Monroe; Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn; Sudden Fear!, starring Joan Crawford’s eyebrows. Wait Until Dark: Hepburn again, a blind woman stranded in her basement apartment. I’d go berserk in a basement apartment.
A.J. Finn (The Woman in the Window)
Last Flowers Appliances have gone berserk I cannot keep up Treading on people’s toes Snot-nosed little punk And I can’t face the evening straight You can offer me escape Houses move and houses speak If you take me then you’ll get relief relief, relief, relief, … And if I’m gonna talk I just wanna talk Please don’t interrupt Just sit back and listen Cause I can’t face the evening straight And you can offer me escape Houses move and houses speak If you take me then you’ll get relief relief, relief, relief, relief… It’s too much Too bright Too powerful Too much Too bright Too powerful Too much Too bright Too powerful Too much
Radiohead
Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist--holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew--moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling.
Zsuzsi Gartner (Better Living Through Plastic Explosives)
Ah, adventure! Ah, romance! Ah, courtly graces and the noble gestures! Don't you wish you knew people like that? Don't you wish we could still walk around in cloaks and boots and breeches, with leather doublets and flowing white dueling shirts and swords strapped around our waists? Of course, if we did, given the way things are today, there'd be people out there lobbying for sword control, and we'd need a National Sword Association and bumper stickers that would read "Swords don't kill people, knights kill people," and there would be a five-day waiting period and background check before you could buy a rapier. We'd have drive-by lungings and people would be afraid of children carrying broadswords to school. "Milady" would be regard as a sexist term and feminists would go absolutely berserk if any woman called a man "Milord." Ralph Nader would probably get quarter horses banned because they are too small and unsafe in a collision and someone would figure out a way to put seat belts and air bags on our saddles. That's why people join the SCA and read fantasy novels, because the real world sucks.
Simon Hawke (The Ambivalent Magician (Reluctant Sorcerer #3))
The scientific world of the time was in the midst of a terrible ferment, with discoveries and realizations coming at an unseemly rate. To many in the ranks of the conservative and the devout, the new theories of geology and biology were delivering a series of hammer blows to mankind's self-regard. Geologists in particular seemed to have gone berserk, to have thrown off all sense of proper obeisance to their Maker... Mankind, it seemed, was now suddenly rather – dare one say it? – insignificant. He may not have been, as he had eternally supposed, specially created.
Simon Winchester (Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883)
As beasts are beneath human restraints, gods are above them... It would be foolish and untruthful to deny the appeal of exalted, godlike intoxication....We have seen the paradox that these godlike exalted moments often correspond to times when the men who have survived them say that they have acted like beasts....Above all, a sense of merely human virtue, a sense of being valued and of valuing anything seems to have fled their lives....However, all of our virtues come from not being gods. Generosity is meaningless to a god, who never suffers shortage or want. Courage is meaningless to a god, who is immortal and can never suffer permanent injury. The godlike berserk state can destroy the capacity for virtue. Whether the berserker is beneath humanity as an animal, above it as a god, or both, he is cut off from all human community when he is in this state.
Jonathan Shay (Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character)
There were in the camp a number of Mexican slaves and these ran forth calling out in spanish and were brained or shot and one of the Delawares emerged from the smoke with a naked infant dangling in each hand and squatted at a ring of midden stones and swung them by the heels each in turn and bashed their heads against the stones so that the brains burst forth through the fontanel in a bloody spew and humans on fire came shrieking forth like berserkers and the riders hacked them down with their enormous knives and a young woman ran up and embraced the bloodied forefeet of Glanton's warhorse.
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the werewolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools!
Bram Stoker (Dracula)
...Maybe I'm once again.../ ...Tryin' to throw away something.../ ...Irreplaceable that I'll never have again?/ To be honest.../ ...As long as I can feel warm.../ ...Isn't that good enough?/ Am I trying to let go.../ ...Of an irreplaceable today for some vague tomorrow I might never find... If it even exists...?/ Even without some big, exaggerated dream.../ ...People go on living.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk Deluxe Edition, Volume 3)
The thing about hatred... it's the place where people who can't look sorrow in the eye without waverin' run off to. Even more than a blood-rusted sword, vengeance is somethin' you soak and sharpen in blood. You sink the blade called your heart deep into blood in order to fix the nicks called sorrow. The more you sharpen, the more it rusts, so you sharpen it again. In the end all that's left is a pile of rust and scraps.
Kentaro Miura (Berserk, Vol. 17)
The things about you I appreciate May seem indelicate: I'd like to find you in the shower And chase the soap for half an hour. I'd like to have you in my power And see your eyes dilate. I'd like to have your back to scour And other parts to lubricate. Sometimes I feel it is my fate To chase you screaming up a tower Or make you cower By asking you to differentiate Nietzsche from Schopenhauer. I'd like successfully to guess your weight And win you at a fête. I'd like to offer you a flower. I like the hair upon your shoulders, Falling like water over boulders. I like the shoulders too: they are essential. Your collar-bones have great potential (I'd like your particulars in folders Marked Confidential). I like your cheeks, I like your nose, I like the way your lips disclose The neat arrangement of your teeth (Half above and half beneath) In rows. I like your eyes, I like their fringes. The way they focus on me gives me twinges. Your upper arms drive me berserk. I like the way your elbows work. On hinges … I like your wrists, I like your glands, I like the fingers on your hands. I'd like to teach them how to count, And certain things we might exchange, Something familiar for something strange. I'd like to give you just the right amount And get some change. I like it when you tilt your cheek up. I like the way you not and hold a teacup. I like your legs when you unwind them. Even in trousers I don't mind them. I like each softly-moulded kneecap. I like the little crease behind them. I'd always know, without a recap, Where to find them. I like the sculpture of your ears. I like the way your profile disappears Whenever you decide to turn and face me. I'd like to cross two hemispheres And have you chase me. I'd like to smuggle you across frontiers Or sail with you at night into Tangiers. I'd like you to embrace me. I'd like to see you ironing your skirt And cancelling other dates. I'd like to button up your shirt. I like the way your chest inflates. I'd like to soothe you when you're hurt Or frightened senseless by invertebrates. I'd like you even if you were malign And had a yen for sudden homicide. I'd let you put insecticide Into my wine. I'd even like you if you were Bride Of Frankenstein Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian's Jekyll and Hyde. I'd even like you as my Julian Or Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan. How melodramatic If you were something muttering in attics Like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean Mathematics. You are the end of self-abuse. You are the eternal feminine. I'd like to find a good excuse To call on you and find you in. I'd like to put my hand beneath your chin, And see you grin. I'd like to taste your Charlotte Russe, I'd like to feel my lips upon your skin I'd like to make you reproduce. I'd like you in my confidence. I'd like to be your second look. I'd like to let you try the French Defence And mate you with my rook. I'd like to be your preference And hence I'd like to be around when you unhook. I'd like to be your only audience, The final name in your appointment book, Your future tense.
John Fuller