“
If you're going to say what you want to say, you're going to hear what you don't want to hear.
”
”
Roberto Bolaño (The Insufferable Gaucho)
“
You jerk."
Grinning, he backed down the steps. "I'll see you at noon, Kitten."
"I hate you," I hissed.
"The feeling's mutual." He glanced over his shoulder. "Twenty bucks says you wear a once-piece swimsuit."
He was insufferable.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Obsidian (Lux, #1))
“
You Illyrian males are insufferable.
Rhys had just said, Good thing we make up for it with impressive wingspans.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
“
So you think that you're a failure, do you? Well, you probably are. What's wrong with that? In the first place, if you've any sense at all you must have learned by now that we pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free.
”
”
Tom Robbins
“
No one is more insufferable than he who lacks basic courtesy.
”
”
Bryant McGill
“
That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger,” said Snape coolly. “Five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3))
“
Who or what are you? Besides insufferably rude?
”
”
Garth Nix (Lirael (Abhorsen, #2))
“
You always wear that necklace," he said. "Is it another gift?" Though she wore gloves, he glanced at her hand - where the amethyst ring always sat - and the spark died from his eyes.
"No." She covered the amulet with her hand. "I found it in my jewellery box and liked the look of it, you insufferably territorial man.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1))
“
I don't want to see you. I don't like you. I don't like your face. You look like an insufferable egotist. You're impertinent. You're too sure of yourself. Twenty years ago I would have punched your face with the greatest of pleasure.
”
”
Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
“
Warning: If you are insufferable, do not walk here. We shall eat you down to the marrow.
”
”
Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1))
“
Ty Grady was a rude, insufferable, egotistical, stinking son of a bitch, and Zane was going to figure out how to tune him out. Otherwise, he just might give in to the pressure and kill the bastard, for the good of humanity.
”
”
Abigail Roux (Cut & Run (Cut & Run, #1))
“
Success didn't spoil me, I've always been insufferable.
”
”
Fran Lebowitz
“
Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.
”
”
Blaise Pascal (Pensées)
“
If you fall and break something, I’m going to be irritated.”
Daemon grabbed my arm as I started to slip.
“Sorry, not all of us can be as awesome---“ I squealed as he slid an arm around my back and lifted be into his arms. Daemon zipped us up the driveway, wind and snow blowing at my face. He put me down, and I stumbled to the side, dizzy. “Could you give me a warning next time?”
He grinned as he knocked on the door. “And miss that look on your face? Never.”
Sometimes I seriously wanted to just punch him in the face, but it made me warm in all the right place to see this side of him again, too.
“You’re insufferable.”
“You like my kind of suffering.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Onyx (Lux, #2))
“
I hate you," he whispered.
"I hate everything about you. Your eyes. Your lips. Your smile." His words grazed her skin when he said, softly, "I find your presence insufferable.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (These Infinite Threads (This Woven Kingdom, #2))
“
We told the Grisha to come alone,” said Kaz.
“I’m afraid that wasn’t possible,” said the man. “Though Zoya is, of course, a force to be reckoned with, Genya’s extraordinary gifts are ill-suited to physical confrontation. I, on the other hand, am well suited to all forms of confrontation, though I’m particularly fond of the physical.”
Kaz’s eyes narrowed. “Sturmhond.”
“He knows me!” Sturmhond said delightedly. He nudged Genya with an elbow. “I told you I’m famous.”
Zoya blew out an exasperated breath. “Thank you. He’s going to be twice as insufferable now.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
“
You tread a precariously thin line between being charmingly headstrong and insufferably pigheaded.
”
”
Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1))
“
I think you're the opposite of insufferable, I suffer you gladly.
”
”
Coco Mellors (Blue Sisters)
“
Life is short but also like terribly and insufferably long at the same time.
”
”
Jenna Marbles
“
His shoulders sagged as he stepped back. Then a half smile made the edge of his lips crook. " You're mad at me."
"And that's amusing because?"
The half smile spread into a lopsideed grin, and he stood up straighter. "You wouldn't be mad if you didn't care. I'm onto you, Alexis."
Oh, that insufferable, arrogant--
”
”
Kalayna Price (Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2))
“
I shouldn't have lost my temper that way. It just pricks his pride, makes him dig in his heels."
"So why did you?" I asked, genuinely curious. It was rare for Nikolai's emotions to get the best of him.
"I don't know," he said, shredding the leaf. "You got angry. I got angry. The room was too damn hot."
"I don't think that's it."
"Indigestion?" he offered.
"It's because you actually care about what happens to this country," I said. "The throne is just a prize to Vasily, something he wants to squabble over like a favorite toy, You're not like that. You'll make a good king."
Nikolai froze. "I…" For once, words seemed to have deserted him. Then a crooked, embarrassed smile crept across his face. It was a far cry from his usual self-assured grin. "Thank you," he said.
I sighed as we resumed our pace. "You're going to be insufferable now, aren't you?"
Nikolai laughed. "I'm already insufferable.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Siege and Storm (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #2))
“
Never judge badly a rage of a very patient heart who had let go many repetitive offenses from insufferable bastards.
”
”
Angelica Hopes (Landscapes of a Heart, Whispers of a Soul (Speranza Odyssey Trilogy, #1))
“
Shut up, you insufferable shitweasel,
”
”
Travis Baldree (Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes, #1))
“
How much nonsense can we take in our lives? And is there any way we can escape it? No, there is not. We are doomed to all kinds of nonsense: the pain nonsense, the nightmare nonsense, the sweat and slave nonsense, and many other shapes and sizes of insufferable nonsense. It is brought to us on a plate, and we must eat it up or face the death nonsense.7
”
”
Thomas Ligotti (The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror)
“
Remember when you used to hate me?”
I laugh-sniff-hiccup. “Well, you used to be insufferable.”
“I think incorrigible is a better word.”
I lean my forehead against the wall and let myself imagine for a moment that it’s his shoulder, warm and firm, beside me. “You’re so full of it.”
“Hey, I just got tortured for you. Easy on the ego.
”
”
Cristin Terrill (All Our Yesterdays)
“
He was secretive, bossy, and regularly insufferable. He had also saved my life a couple of times. And he looked really good in my kitchen.
”
”
Kalayna Price (Grave Witch (Alex Craft, #1))
“
That somehow, this insufferable girl would become the one person I am forever, hopelessly, madly drawn to against my will and possibly even my better judgment.
”
”
Rachel E. Carter (Apprentice (The Black Mage, #2))
“
Someone who is determinedly trying to show God how good he or she is is likely to become an insufferable prig.
”
”
N.T. Wright (After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters)
“
Every form of strength is also a form of weakness,” he once wrote. “Pretty girls tend to become insufferable because, being pretty, their faults are too much tolerated. Possessions entrap men, and wealth paralyzes them. I learned to write because I am one of those people who somehow cannot manage the common communications of smiles and gestures, but must use words to get across things that other people would never need to say.
”
”
Michael Lewis (Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game)
“
Giovanni had awakened an itch, had released a gnaw in me. I realized it one afternoon, when I was taking him to work via the Boulevard Montparnasse. We had bought a kilo of cherries and we were eating them as we walked along. We were both insufferably childish and high-spirited that afternoon and the spectacle we presented, two grown men jostling each other on the wide sidewalk and aiming the cherry pits, as though they were spitballs, into each other's faces, must have been outrageous. And I realized that such childishness was fantastic at my age and the happiness out of which it sprang yet more so; for that moment I really loved Giovanni, who had never seemed more beautiful than he was that afternoon.
”
”
James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room)
“
Solange leaned back against the wall, bored. “Are you done yet?”
“Hell no,” Lucy said. She’d left nose prints on the glass. Nicholas smirked up at her. She blushed. “Ooops. Busted.”
“I told you they could hear your heartbeat,” Solange said.
“Even from up here.”
“I can’t help it. Even if they all know they’re pretty and are insufferably arrogant,” she added louder. “Can they hear that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She glanced at me. “Yummy, right?”
“I’m sure Isabeau would rather recover, not ogle my brothers,”
Solange said. “You remember how stressed you were after the Hypnos?”
“Please,” Lucy scoffed. “This is totally soothing.
”
”
Alyxandra Harvey (Blood Feud (Drake Chronicles, #2))
“
The insufferable arrogance of human beings to think that Nature was made solely for their benefit, as if it was conceivable that the sun had been set afire merely to ripen men's apples and head their cabbages.
”
”
Cyrano de Bergerac
“
No egoism is so insufferable as the Christian with regard to his soul.
”
”
W. Somerset Maugham
“
During an argument that we had,” he tells me, pitch low, “you called me beautiful. And an insufferable ass. But beautiful. I haven’t gotten over it.
”
”
Sarah Hogle (Twice Shy)
“
Do you know why I dislike men like you, Venture?"
"My insufferable charm and wit?" Elend asked. "I doubt it's my good looks – but, compared to that of an obligator, I suppose even my face could be enviable."
Yomen's expression darkened. "How did a man like you ever end up at a table of negotiation?"
"I was trained by a surly Mistborn, a sarcastic Terrisman, and a group of disrespectful thieves.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3))
“
The leader’s Attitude is like a thermostat for the place she works. If her attitude is good, the atmosphere is pleasant, and the environment is easy to work in. But if her attitude is bad, the temperature is insufferable.
”
”
John C. Maxwell (The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization)
“
I can be a badass DJ when I want, but I am also an insufferable music snob.
”
”
Rachel Cohn (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist)
“
If you don’t come back to the Keep, then I’ll be right. And every time you see me, I’ll be insufferably smug.”
“And how’s that different from now?” He laughed and I could see the young carefree boy he had been in his eyes. “You’ve only had a small glimpse of how insufferable and annoying I can be. As the older brother, it’s my birthright.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Magic Study (Study, #2))
“
Praise be to God, have I actually silenced you for once? I should have accused you of treason earlier in our conversation and saved myself your insufferable comments.
”
”
S.A. Chakraborty (The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy, #1))
“
A few glasses of wine can be the difference between finding a man a hilarious companion or an insufferable moron.
”
”
Joe Abercrombie (The First Law Trilogy)
“
Be at peace with being lousy for a while. Chesterton once said that anything worth doing was worth doing badly. He was right. Only an insufferable egoist expects to be brilliant first time out.
”
”
Douglas Wilson (Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life)
“
Los libros son finitos, los encuentros sexuales son finitos, pero el deseo de leer y de follar es infinito, sobrepasa nuestra propia muerte, nuestros miedos, nuestras esperanzas de paz.
”
”
Roberto Bolaño (The Insufferable Gaucho)
“
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was--but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasureable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain--upon the bleak walls--upon the vacant eye-like windows--upon a few rank sedges--and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees--with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium--the bitter lapse into everyday life--the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart--an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe (The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales)
“
Damn, he was bored. It was a fact, he was only now beginning to realise, that the conversation of the drunk is only interesting to the drunk. A few glasses on wine can be the difference between finding a man a hilarious companion or an insufferable moron.
”
”
Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1))
“
Get out of my room, you insufferable man.
”
”
Chelsea Fine (Avow (The Archers of Avalon, #3))
“
I concede that a bad romantic novel is embarrassing and indefensible. So is a bad so-called realistic novel. (And it is usually pretentious into the bargain which is insufferable.) But a good romantic novel is a heart-warming thing which strikes a responsive chord in those who are happy and offers a certain lifting of the spirits to those who are not.
”
”
Mary Burchell
“
What is your name?”
“Of all the non sequiturs. Why do you need to know my name?”
“So that I may hate you more informally.”
“Ah. Well, in that case, you may call me Cyrus.”
“Cyrus,” she said. “You insufferable monster. Where on earth are we going?
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (This Woven Kingdom (This Woven Kingdom, #1))
“
You are completely insufferable, and I can't stop thinking about you.
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Carrie Soto Is Back)
“
I whirled around, but Edan was gone. I let out an exasperated sigh. Never had I met anyone so insufferably pleased with himself.
”
”
Elizabeth Lim (Spin the Dawn (The Blood of Stars, #1))
“
I hate you,” he whispered. Alizeh blinked, her heart pounding too hard in her chest. “I know.” He leaned in then, his throat working, his gaze fixed entirely on her mouth. “I hate everything about you. Your eyes. Your lips. Your smile.” His words grazed her skin when he said, softly, “I find your presence insufferable.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (These Infinite Threads (This Woven Kingdom, #2))
“
With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody's feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody's destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and she had not quite done nothing — for she had done mischief.
”
”
Jane Austen (Emma)
“
But the moment we realize we can feel fulfilled without carrying the burdens of belonging to another—that we can experience rapture without being someone's other half, and therefore beholden to their weaknesses, to their faults and failures and many insufferable fractures—then we're free, aren't we?
”
”
Olivie Blake (The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1))
“
Because we don't know, do we? Everyone knows… How what happens the way it does? What underlies the anarchy of the train of events, the uncertainties, the mishaps, the disunity, the shocking irregularities that define human affairs? Nobody knows. 'Everyone knows' is the invocation of the cliché and the beginning of the banalization of experience, and it's the solemnity and the sense of authority that people have in voicing the cliché that's so insufferable. What we know is that, in an unclichéd way, nobody knows anything. You can't know anything. The things you know you don't know. Intention? Motive? Consequence? Meaning? All the we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.
”
”
Philip Roth (The Human Stain (The American Trilogy, #3))
“
I know quite well that I can appear insufferable and annoying. Worse than that, I know that I can appear insufferable and annoying without intending to do so. (An old definition of a gentleman: someone who is never rude except on purpose.)
”
”
Christopher Hitchens
“
I should like balls infinitely better,' she replied, 'if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of they day.'
'Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball.
”
”
Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
“
I hear you have come to London to be parabatai with our Lucie,” said Cecily. She looked nearly as young as Tessa, though since she wasn’t an immortal warlock, one wondered how she managed it. “I am pleased—it is high time more girls became parabatai. It has been a state monopolized by men for far too long.”
“Well, the first parabatai were male,” Will pointed out, in a manner that made Cordelia wonder if Cecily had once found him insufferable, as she found Alastair.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Chain of Gold (The Last Hours, #1))
“
Slaves, slaves to anything or anyone, despite how much they abhor it, will often cling to that slavery out of fear the alternative would be insufferable.
”
”
Terry Goodkind (Soul Of The Fire (Sword of Truth Book 5))
“
He deserves to have his head on a spike for all to see. Waring: If you are insufferable, do not walk here. We shall eat you down to the marrow.
”
”
Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1))
“
How did a man like you ever end up at a table of negotiation?” “I was trained by a surly Mistborn, a sarcastic Terrisman, and a group of disrespectful thieves,” Elend said, sighing. “Plus, on top of that, I was a fairly insufferable person to begin with. But, kindly continue with your insult—I didn’t mean to interrupt.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3))
“
No one ever tells attractive children how much they suck, and then the rest of us get stuck with insufferable, narcissistic adults who can barely tie their shoes because someone else is busy either doing it for them or congratulating them on their effort. I
”
”
Samantha Irby (We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.)
“
I wish I possessed your particular brand of optimism," Rahim grumbled.
"And what brand would that be?"
"Idiotic."
"Better idiotic than ineffectual."
"Better alive than dead."
"Run home, Rahim-jan," Tariq said. "I can hear your mother calling."
"Insufferable ass.
”
”
Renée Ahdieh (The Wrath and the Dawn (The Wrath and the Dawn, #1))
“
Every form of strength is also a weakness. Pretty girls tend to become insufferable because, being pretty, their faults are too much tolerated. Possessions entrap men, and wealth paralyzes them.
”
”
Michael Lewis (Moneyball)
“
my god! i'm thinking, what incredible shit we've put up with most of our lives - the domestic routine (same old jobs, insufferable arrogance of elected officials, the crafty cheating and the slimy advertising of the businessman, the tedious wars in which we kill our buddies instead of our real enemies back home in the capital, the foul diseased and hideous cities and towns we live in, the constant petty tyranny of automatic washers and automobiles and tv machines and telephones -! ah christ!, i'm thinking, at the same time that i'm waving goodby to that hollering idiot on shore, what intolerable garbage and what utterly useless crap we bury ourselves in day by day, while patiently enduring at the same time the creeping strangulation of the clean white collar and the rich but modest four-in-hand garrote)
”
”
Edward Abbey (Desert Solitaire)
“
I have a hundred-year-old aunt who aspires to sainthood, and whose only wish has been to go into the convent, but no congregation, not even the Little Sisters of Charity, could tolerate her for more than a few weeks, so the family has had to look after her. Believe me, there is nothing so insufferable as a saint, I wouldn't sic one on my worst enemy.
”
”
Isabel Allende (Mi país inventado: Un paseo nostálgico por Chile)
“
Do you know why I dislike men like you, Venture?" Yomen finally asked.
"My insufferable charm and wit?" Elend asked. "I doubt it's my good looks - but, compared to that of an obligator, I suppose even my face could be enviable.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3))
“
The truth is Canada is a cloud-cuckoo-land, an insufferably rich country governed by idiots, its self-made problems offering comic relief to the ills of the real world out there, where famine and racial strife and vandals in office are the unhappy rule.
”
”
Mordecai Richler (Barney's Version)
“
It’s okay to be insufferable as long as you’re aware that you’re being insufferable. At least that’s how I justified it to myself.
”
”
Jessica Knoll (Luckiest Girl Alive)
“
once when this woman was going on and on about how she would never read on download, that there was nothing like a real book and – I promise I normally am never rude to people but she was being truly insufferable – I said, ‘Well, they’re really only for people who read a lot’ which was mean of me but quite satisfying also.
”
”
Jenny Colgan (The Bookshop on the Shore)
“
You could be a gambler. A thief, for all I know. Besides—” He captured her hand and stopped
her from walking on, holding her in place.
“Besides what, you insufferable prude?”
“Prude, eh? Do you need another kiss to remind you what a prude I am?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Then don’t call me names.”
“You started it.
”
”
Gaelen Foley (The Duke (Knight Miscellany, #1))
“
Afraid she and I had a summer romance?" That insufferable grin was still there.
"I hope you did. I certainly enjoyed myself this summer."
The smile faded at that. "What do you mean?"
She brushed an invisible fleck of dust off her red gown. "Let's just say that the son of the Mute Master was far more welcoming than the other Silent Assassins.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (The Assassin and the Underworld (Throne of Glass, #0.4))
“
So you think that you're a failure, do ya? Well, you probably are. What's wrong with that? In the first place, if you have any sense at all, we pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail! But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues)
“
There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.
”
”
Harold Bloom
“
I can’t lie, you insufferable Ironblood,” he chided. “I’m apologizing because I can’t forgive you right now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to kiss you, ma’alor. And it doesn’t mean I don’t like you. I do. I like you, but do you really want me? Someone who can’t touch other people? That’s my reality. I’ll never kiss you without seeing your fate. I’ll never touch you without seeing how you’ll die. Am I someone you could be happy with?” Robb’s brow furrowed. “Screw fate. I’ll tear down the stars for you.
”
”
Ashley Poston (Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron, #1))
“
I nodded. “Where’s your hunter?”
She flinched. “He went home. We thought it would be best.”
Her eyes went from worried to warning. “He’s under Drake protection.”
“So am I, or so I’ve been led to understand.”
“Of course you are,” Lucy said, her nose pressed to the window. “Misunderstanding. No big deal.”
Solange quirked a half smile. “You might try complete sentences, Lucy.”
“Can’t. Busy.”
I was curious despite myself. “What are you doing?”
“Drooling,” Solange explained fondly.
“I totally am,” Lucy admitted, unrepentant. “Just look at them.”
Lucy moved over to give me space. She was watching five of the seven Drake boys repairing the outside wall of the farmhouse, under our window."
"Solange leaned back against the wall, bored. “Are you done yet?”
“Hell no,” Lucy said. She’d left nose prints on the glass. Nicholas smirked up at her. She blushed. “Ooops. Busted.”
“I told you they could hear your heartbeat,” Solange said.
“Even from up here.”
“I can’t help it. Even if they all know they’re pretty and are insufferably arrogant,” she added louder. “Can they hear that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She glanced at me. “Yummy, right?”
“I’m sure Isabeau would rather recover, not ogle my brothers,”
Solange said. “You remember how stressed you were after the Hypnos?”
“Please,” Lucy scoffed. “This is totally soothing.
”
”
Alyxandra Harvey (Blood Feud (Drake Chronicles, #2))
“
People who are hungry don't have the heart to think about others. Sometimes they can't even care for their own family. Hunger quashes man's will to help his fellow man. I've seen fathers steal food from their own children's lunchboxes. As they scarf down the corn they have only one overpowering desire: to placate, if even for just one moment, that feeling of insufferable need.
”
”
Kang Chol-Hwan (The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag)
“
Thinking that you are good can make you bad. Talking about positive behavior can encourage negative behavior. Laozi is clearly on to something when he warns us that consciously trying to be righteous will, in fact, turn us into insufferable hypocrites and that anyone striving to attain virtue is destined to fail.
”
”
Edward Slingerland (Trying Not to Try: The Ancient Art of Effortlessness and the Surprising Power of Spontaneity)
“
The word "utopia" has two meanings. It means both "good place" and "nowhere". That's the way it should be. The happiest places, I think, are the ones that reside just this side of paradise. The perfect person would be insufferable to live with; likewise, we wouldn't want to live in the perfect place, either. "A life time of happiness! No man could bear it: It would be hell on earth," wrote George Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman.
”
”
Eric Weiner (The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World)
“
I do love it when I am right,” Hyacinth said triumphantly.
“Which is fortunate, since I so often am.”
Penelope just looked at her. “You do know that you are
insufferable.”
“Of course.” Hyacinth leaned toward Penelope with a
devilish smile. “But you love me, anyway, admit it.”
“I admit nothing until the end of the evening.”
“After we have both gone deaf?”
“After we see if you behave yourself.”
Hyacinth laughed. “You married into the family. You
have to love me. It’s a contractual obligation.”
“Funny how I don’t recall that in the wedding vows.”
“Funny,” Hyacinth returned, “I remember it perfectly
”
”
Julia Quinn (It's in His Kiss (Bridgertons, #7))
“
Had I catalogued the downsides of parenthood, "son might turn out to be a killer" would never have turned up on the list. Rather, it might have looked something like this:
1. Hassle.
2. Less time just the two of us. (Try no time just the two of us.)
3. Other people. (PTA meetings. Ballet teachers. The kid's insufferable friends and their insufferable parents.)
4. Turning into a cow. (I was slight, and preferred to stay that way. My sister-in-law had developed bulging varicose veins in her legs during pregnancy that never retreated, and the prospect of calves branched in blue tree roots mortified me more than I could say. So I didn't say. I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.)
5. Unnatural altruism: being forced to make decisions in accordance with what was best for someone else. (I'm a pig.)
6. Curtailment of my traveling. (Note curtailment. Not conclusion.)
7. Dementing boredom. (I found small children brutally dull. I did, even at the outset, admit this to myself.)
8. Worthless social life. (I had never had a decent conversation with a friend's five-year-old in the room.)
9. Social demotion. (I was a respected entrepreneur. Once I had a toddler in tow, every man I knew--every woman, too, which is depressing--would take me less seriously.)
10. Paying the piper. (Parenthood repays a debt. But who wants to pay a debt she can escape? Apparently, the childless get away with something sneaky. Besides, what good is repaying a debt to the wrong party? Only the most warped mother would feel rewarded for her trouble by the fact that at last her daughter's life is hideous, too.)
”
”
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
“
For most of the process, nothing but faith, fueled by your own stubbornness, will be pulling you along. The work that you've done on the book so far won't be much comfort, because so much of it will be insufferable crap, until the very last moment, when you figure out how to fix it and everything comes together.
”
”
Kristin Cashore
“
I want you - every inch of you. I want you naked and on your knees before me, I want to stick my tongue in every orifice on your body, and I want to fuck youuntilyou´re begging me to stop
”
”
Z. Stefani (Insufferable Proximity (Insufferable Proximity, #1))
“
It is usually unbearably painful to read a book by an author who knows way less than you do, unless the book is a novel.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
He’s a cocky, egotistical, competitive, selfish, self-righteous egomaniac, and there’s nothing sexy about that.” ~ Heaven
”
”
Z. Stefani (Insufferable Proximity (Insufferable Proximity, #1))
“
A bunny rabbit and a chick went frolicking in the grass together on a sunny day.” “A chick . . . baby chicken?” Kaladin said. “And a what?” “Ah, forgot myself for a moment,” Wit said. “Sorry. Let me make it more appropriate for you. A piece of wet slime and a disgusting crab thing with seventeen legs slunk across the rocks together on an insufferably rainy day. Is that better?
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2))
“
We had bought a kilo of cherries and we were eating them as we walked along. We were both insufferably childish and high-spirited that afternoon and th spectacle we presented, two grown men, jostling each other on the wide sidewalk, and aiming the cherry-pips, as though they were spitballs, into each other's facesm must have been outrageous. And I realized that such childishness was fantastic at my age and the happiness out of which it sprang yet more so; for that moment I really loved Giovanni, who had never seemed more beautiful than he was that afternoon. And, watching his face, I realized that it meant much to me that I could make his face so bright. I saw that I might be willing to give a great deal not to lose that power. And I felt myself flow toward him, as a river rushes when the ice breaks up.
”
”
James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room)
“
Those who bore others are the plebians, the mass, the endless train of humanity in general. Those who bore themselves are the elect, the nobility; and how strange it is that those who don't bore themselves usually bore others, while those who do bore themselves amuse others. The people who do not bore themselves are generally those who are busy in the world in one way or another, but that is just why they are the most boring, the most insufferable, of all.
”
”
Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or, Part I)
“
I twisted, my loose clothes sliding over my shoulders, my waist. I hadn’t realized how much weight I’d lost. Despite things creeping back to normal. I said, “Don’t you have other things to deal with?” “Of course I do,” he said, shrugging. “I have so many things to deal with that I’m sometimes tempted to unleash my power across the world and wipe the board clean. Just to buy me some damned peace.” He grinned, bowing at the waist. Even that casual mention of his power failed to chill me, awe me. “But I’ll always make time for you.” I was hungry—I hadn’t yet eaten. And that was indeed worry glimmering behind the cocky, insufferable grin. So I motioned him to lead the way to that familiar glass table at the end of the hall.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
“
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity,
heavily thickening to empire, I
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops
and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make
fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Qut of the mother; and through the spring exultances,
ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life
is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than
mountains: shine, perishing republic.
But for my children. I would have them keep their dis-
tance from the thickening center; corruption.
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the
monster’s feet there are left the mountajns.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man,
a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught
-–they say--God, when he walked on earth.
”
”
Robinson Jeffers (Selected Poems)
“
Are you gonna put your shirt back on?” she blurted out.
Chase froze, looking over his shoulder at her with the most maddening smile. “Why? Is this bothering you?”
“I just…” Andie sputtered, floundering through her response. “I mean, what if we get pulled over or something?”
“If we get pulled over, this could only work in your favor,” he said, running his hands over his chest.
Andie tried to stifle a laugh. “My God, you’re insufferable.
”
”
Priscilla Glenn (Emancipating Andie)
“
Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his lifespot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes the case, these spritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beconed him to leap down among them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
“
Egwene remembered her pity for poor Meidani. No sister should be treated in such a way. Imprisonment was one thing. But beating a woman down, toying with her, hinting at the torture to come? It was insufferable.
Each of these things was a pain inside of Egwene, a knife to the chest, piercing the heart. As the beating continued, she realized that nothing they could do to her body would ever compare to the pain of soul she felt at seeing the White Tower suffer beneath Elaida's hand. Compared with those internal agonies, the beating was ridiculous.
And so she began to laugh.
”
”
Robert Jordan (The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, #12))
“
I must be myself, I said over and over. I must forget these people buzzing inside my head, I must forget their voices, their smells, their demands, their love, their hate, and be myself, I must be myself, I told myself, as i gazed down at the legs resting so happily on the stool, and I told myself again as I looked up to watch the smoke I'd blown up to the ceiling; I must be myself, because if I failed to be myself, I become the person they wanted me to be; if I had to be that insufferable person, I'd rather be nothing at all. It would be better if I didn't exist,...
”
”
Orhan Pamuk (The Black Book)
“
Permanence has been swept aside by the rapidity of empty images. The pantheon, we discover to our astonishment, is the doghouse of the burning asylum... We think our brain is a marble mausoleum, when in fact it's a house made of cardboard boxes, a shack stranded between an empty field and an endless dusk.
”
”
Roberto Bolaño (The Insufferable Gaucho)
“
I take the paper and open it. There are three Spanish phrases, all written out in his messy handwriting. You are perfect, even in your imperfection. You are completely insufferable, and I can’t stop thinking about you. I want the real thing this time. “You wrote these down? So you could say them to me?” “Yes.” “If I kiss you, will it hurt?” I ask, moving closer to him. “What?” “Your ribs. If I kiss you, will I hurt you?” “No,” he says. “I don’t think so.” I put both of my hands on his face and kiss him. He reaches his good arm across my lower back and pulls me toward him. I’ve kissed him before, years ago. But this feels both familiar and brand-new, like a good stretch, like a deep breath. “I don’t know what this is,” I say. “I don’t know if it’s the real thing or not.” “I don’t care,” he says, kissing me again. He grabs at the hem of my T-shirt and the buttons on my jeans. “I don’t want to hurt you.” “I don’t care about that either,” he says, kissing me again. “You have to be careful,” I say. “Of your ribs.” “Carrie, please,” he says, kissing my neck. “Stop worrying.” And so I do.
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Carrie Soto Is Back)
“
Did you, like, google me or something?”
She frowned. “I don’t know that word.”
“You looked me up,” he said. “Almost like you had some interest in me.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I have an interest in not making you a new set of clothes every other day. I have an interest in you not smelling so bad and walking around my island in smouldering rags.”
“Oh, yeah.” Leo grinned. “You’re really warming up to me.”
Her face got even redder. “You are the most insufferable person I have ever met! I was only returning a favour. You fixed my fountain.”
“That?” Leo laughed. The problem had been so simple he’d almost forgotten about it. One of the bronze satyrs had been turned sideways and the water pressure was off, so it started making an annoying ticking sound, jiggling up and down and spewing water over the rim of the pool. He’d pulled out a couple of tools and fixed it in about two minutes. “That was no big deal. I don’t like it when things don’t work right.”
“And the curtains across the cave entrance?”
“The rod wasn’t level.”
“And my gardening tools?”
“Look, I just sharpened the shears. Cutting vines with a dull blade is dangerous. And the pruners needed to be oiled at the hinge, and—”
“Oh, yeah,” Calypso said, in a pretty good imitation of his voice. “You’re really warming up to me.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus, #4))
“
To My Children,
I'm dedicating my little story to you; doubtless you will be among the very few who will ever read it. It seems war stories aren't very well received at this point. I'm told they're out-dated, untimely and as might be expected - make some unpleasant reading. And, as you have no doubt already perceived, human beings don't like to remember unpleasant things. They gird themselves with the armor of wishful thinking, protect themselves with a shield of impenetrable optimism, and, with a few exceptions, seem to accomplish their "forgetting" quite admirably.
But you, my children, I don't want you to be among those who choose to forget. I want you to read my stories and a lot of others like them. I want you to fill your heads with Remarque and Tolstoy and Ernie Pyle. I want you to know what shrapnel, and "88's" and mortar shells and mustard gas mean. I want you to feel, no matter how vicariously, a semblance of the feeling of a torn limb, a burnt patch of flesh, the crippling, numbing sensation of fear, the hopeless emptiness of fatigue. All these things are complimentary to the province of War and they should be taught and demonstrated in classrooms along with the more heroic aspects of uniforms, and flags, and honor and patriotism. I have no idea what your generation will be like. In mine we were to enjoy "Peace in our time". A very well meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words...less than a year before the whole world went to war. But this gentleman was suffering the worldly disease of insufferable optimism. He and his fellow humans kept polishing the rose colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off. They were sacrificing reason and reality for a brief and temporal peace of mind, the same peace of mind that many of my contemporaries derive by steadfastly refraining from remembering the War that came before.
[excerpt from a dedication to an unpublished short story, "First Squad, First Platoon"; from Serling to his as yet unborn children]
”
”
Rod Serling
“
But man is a frivolous and incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the process of the game, not the end of it. And who knows (there is no saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four, and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be nothing for him to look for. When workmen have finished their work they do at least receive their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to the police-station–and there is occupation for a week. But where can man go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when he has attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd. In fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is after all, something insufferable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead)
“
Oh, how awful is truth on earth! That exquisite creature, that gentle spirit, that heaven - she was a tyrant, she was the insufferable tyrant and torture of my soul! I should be unfair to myself if I didn't say so! You imagine I didn't love her? Who can say that I did not love her! Do you see, it was a case of irony, the malignant irony of fate and nature! We were under a curse, the life of men in general is under a curse! (mine in particular). Of course, I understand now that I made some mistake! Something went wrong. Everything was clear, my plan was clear as daylight: "Austere and proud, asking for no moral comfort, but suffering in silence." And that was how it was. I was not lying, I was not lying! "She will see for herself, later on, that it was heroic, only that she had not known how to see it, and when, some day, she divines, it she will prize me ten times more and will abase herself in the dust and fold her hands in homage" - that was my plan. But I forgot something or lost sight of it. There was something I failed to manage. But, enough, enough! And whose forgiveness am I to ask now? What is done is done. By bolder, man, and have some pride! It is not your fault!...
Well, I will tell the truth, I am not afraid to face the truth; it was her fault, her fault!
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Gentle Spirit)
“
Anger is an energy. It really bloody is. It’s possibly the most powerful one-liner I’ve ever come up with. When I was writing the Public Image Ltd song ‘Rise’, I didn’t quite realize the emotional impact that it would have on me, or anyone who’s ever heard it since. I wrote it in an almost throwaway fashion, off the top of my head, pretty much when I was about to sing the whole song for the first time, at my then new home in Los Angeles. It’s a tough, spontaneous idea. ‘Rise’ was looking at the context of South Africa under apartheid. I’d be watching these horrendous news reports on CNN, and so lines like ‘They put a hotwire to my head, because of the things I did and said’, are a reference to the torture techniques that the apartheid government was using out there. Insufferable. You’d see these reports on TV and in the papers, and feel that this was a reality that simply couldn’t be changed. So, in the context of ‘Rise’, ‘Anger is an energy’ was an open statement, saying, ‘Don’t view anger negatively, don’t deny it – use it to be creative.’ I combined that with another refrain, ‘May the road rise with you’. When I was growing up, that was a phrase my mum and dad – and half the surrounding neighbourhood, who happened to be Irish also – used to say. ‘May the road rise, and your enemies always be behind you!’ So it’s saying, ‘There’s always hope’, and that you don’t always have to resort to violence to resolve an issue. Anger doesn’t necessarily equate directly to violence. Violence very rarely resolves anything. In South Africa, they eventually found a relatively peaceful way out. Using that supposedly negative energy called anger, it can take just one positive move to change things for the better. When I came to record the song properly, the producer and I were arguing all the time, as we always tend to do, but sometimes the arguing actually helps; it feeds in. When it was released in early 1986, ‘Rise’ then became a total anthem, in a period when the press were saying that I was finished, and there was nowhere left for me to go. Well, there was, and I went there. Anger is an energy. Unstoppable.
”
”
John Lydon (Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored)
“
DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was; but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe (The Best Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe)