“
It's amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me - such bullshit.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts...
”
”
Robert Fulghum
“
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts
”
”
Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
“
Sticks and stones may break your bones, but Chinese throwing stars get you a dozen stitches.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Dead Beat (The Dresden Files, #7))
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always hurt me.
”
”
Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot (Memoir, #1))
“
Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can hurt like hell.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Lullaby)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but if you want to hurt someone...way down deep, use words.
”
”
Charles Martin (The Mountain Between Us)
“
I hadn't fully realized just how powerful words could be before this. Whoever came up with the saying 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me' was talking out of his or her armpit.
”
”
Malorie Blackman (Noughts & Crosses (Noughts & Crosses, #1))
“
Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can break hearts.
”
”
Tim Minchin
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I might be a vampire so I don't give a shit. I'll heal
”
”
Gena Showalter (Lord of the Vampires (Royal House of Shadows, #1))
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always hurt me. Bones mend and become actually stronger in the very place they were broken and where they have knitted up; mental wounds can grind and ooze for decades and be re-opened by the quietest whisper.
”
”
Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot (Memoir, #1))
“
Sticks and stones and small caliber bullets may break my bones... Words will never, et cetera.
”
”
Jim Butcher (White Night (The Dresden Files, #9))
“
People who say “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” don’t understand how words can be stones, hard and sharp-edged and dangerous and capable of doing so much more harm than anything physical.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Middlegame (Alchemical Journeys, #1))
“
Machines and relatives get most of the yelling. But never trees. As for people, well, the Solomon islanders may have a point. Yelling at living thing does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.
”
”
Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
“
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but names will break our spirit.
”
”
James Howe (The Misfits (The Misfits, #1))
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words...they'll destroy my soul.
”
”
Cassandra Giovanni (Love Exactly)
“
Sticks and stones may break your bones, but watch out for those damn words.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Lullaby)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones,but words will never hurt me.
”
”
Madeleine Urban (Sticks & Stones (Cut & Run, #2))
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones’, as they say in the Middle Worlds, but with the right words you can build a world and make yourself the king of it.
”
”
Joanne Harris (The Gospel of Loki (Loki, #1))
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me - such bullshit.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me.” This is a lie. What we say matters. The unkind things we communicate can soil the best of relationships; even with the deepest of regrets…what lingers is a stain of hurt that may fade but will never truly go away. The wounding words we say are like feathers released in a harsh wind, once said; we will never get them back. ~Jason Versey
”
”
Jason Versey (A Walk with Prudence)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can also hurt me.
Stones and sticks break only skin, while words are ghosts that haunt me.
Slant and curved the word-swords fall, it pierces and sticks inside me.
Bats and bricks may ache through bones, but words can mortify me.
Pain from words has left its' scar, on mind and hear that's tender.
Cuts and bruises have not healed, it's words that I remember.
”
”
Ruby Redfort
“
Stick and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Lullaby)
“
Maddie shrugged at that. She actually looked like she might start chanting, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words from stupid Russian kidnappers can never hurt me.
”
”
Ally Carter (Not If I Save You First)
“
Colin thought about the dork mantra: sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. What a dirty lie.
”
”
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
“
Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts … . — Robert Fulghum
”
”
Patricia Evans (The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words from stupid Russian kidnappers can never hurt me.
”
”
Ally Carter (Not If I Save You First)
“
Strange how mean words can return to ones thoughts, years after they’ve been callously thrown at you. They replay in your mind, spiking a sense of remembered pain. Nasty name calling can be an ugly memory that stabs unexpectedly—not unlike a nightmare where you wake up crying.
Sticks and stones, may break your bones—yet, cruel names can hurt you.
”
”
Nikki Sex (Abuse (Abuse, #1))
“
The Doctor: I just don’t like nastiness, and people getting away with it.
Churchwell: That sounds a rather, if you forgive me, innocent view.
The Doctor: That’s as may be, but I’m sticking to it.
”
”
Paul Magrs (Doctor Who: The Stones of Venice)
“
I always disliked the expression sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me. It is one of the least useful ways of understanding one another, or how words work.
”
”
Eley Williams (The Liar's Dictionary)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me', said some idiot who,
1. Didn't realize HOW much words hurt
2. Wasn't so smart
”
”
Oreo Queen
“
Grown-ups and children are not readily encouraged to unearth the power of words. Adults are repeatedly assured a picture is worth a thousand of them, while the playground response to almost any verbal taunt is 'sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.'
I don't beg so much as command to differ.
”
”
Inga Muscio (Cunt: A Declaration of Independence)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
”
”
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
“
Sticks and Stones may break my bones,
but whips and chains excite me.
So throw me down, tie me up,
and show me how you like me.
”
”
Skye Eagleday (Dark Passions (Dark Romance Boxed Set))
“
Whoever came up with the saying ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’ was talking out of his or her armpit.
”
”
Malorie Blackman (Noughts & Crosses (Noughts & Crosses, #1))
“
The saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” couldn't be further from the truth. Broken bones heal; words can stick with you for a lifetime.
”
”
Madison Beer (The Half of It: A Memoir)
“
Sticks and stones may break bones, but words dig and dig and dig deep into your heart until the hurt resonates, and your heart fails to remember the reason it beats in the first place.
”
”
Jay McLean (Lucas (Preston Brothers, #1))
“
Whoever said ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’ clearly hasn’t been on the receiving end of people who spend the vast majority of their time using hateful words.
”
”
Matt Shaw (The 8th)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.' Yeah, well, whoever wrote that was a friggin' idiot.
”
”
Marley Gibson (The Awakening (Ghost Huntress, #1))
“
sticks and stones may break my bones but words can do permanent damage
”
”
Chuck D. (Public Enemy)
“
What is that old children’s rhyme, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’? Anyone who says that doesn’t understand the power of words. They can cut deeper than any knife, hit harder than any fist, touch parts of you that nothing physical will ever reach, and the wounds that some words leave never heal, because each time the word is thrown at you, labeled on you, you bleed afresh from it. It’s more like a whip that cuts every time, until you feel it must flay the very skin from your bones, and yet outwardly there is no wound to show the world, so they think you are not hurt, when inside part of you dies every time.
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (A Shiver of Light (Merry Gentry, #9))
“
Unkindness is a serial killer.
Death in the flesh sometimes seems like a less excruciating way to succumb than the slow and steady venom unleashed by mean-spirited, cruel words and actions that poison you over time. I guess that’s why I can’t stand the old children’s rhyme: sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Every time I hear it, I think to myself: that’s a lie. You can dodge a rock, but you can’t unhear a word. You can’t undo the intentional damage that some words have on your mind, body, and spirit.
Especially a word like ugly.
”
”
Tarana Burke (Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will break my soul.
”
”
Kathryn Lopez
“
Sticks and stones may break your bones, but I will surely kill you.
”
”
Kate Sweeney (Away From the Dawn (Dawn, #1))
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will make you go into a corner by myself and cry for hours.
”
”
Eric Idle
“
Colin thought about the dork mantra:
sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. What a dirty lie. This, right here, was the true abdominal snowman: it felt like something freezing in his stomach.
"I love you so much and I just want you to love me like I love you," he said as softly as he could. "You don't need a girlfriend, Colin. You need a robot who says nothing but 'I love you.
”
”
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words are merely the smallest element of language capable of containing meaning in isolation and as such can never directly produce the four thousand Newtons force per square centimeter required to break bones.
”
”
Vsauce
“
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts. . . .
”
”
Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
“
Whoever said Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you was an idiot.
”
”
Valerie Burns (Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder (Baker Street Mystery #1))
“
Sticks and stones may break bones, but words can shatter souls. Choose carefully the words you say to others. Choose wisely the words you say to yourself. Words have a way of becoming truths we believe about ourselves. And what we believe, we become.
”
”
L.R. Knost
“
is a broken man an outlaw?"
"More or less." Brienne answered.
Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.
"Then they get a taste of battle.
"For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe.
"They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.
"If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chicken's, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world...
"And the man breaks.
"He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them...but he should pity them as well
”
”
George R.R. Martin
“
Stick and stones may break your bones and words can kill you too
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Lullaby)
“
sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. What a dirty lie.
”
”
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but hollow points expand on impact. -T-shirt
”
”
Lani Lynn Vale (Bang Switch (Code 11-KPD SWAT, #3))
“
They may throw sticks, stones, or bricks, but nothing they do will hurt you. You are protected by God. He is forever got you covered and the enemy is defeated. Their hatred towards you is a reflection of the evilness on their inside which is slowly destroying them. A person like that must deal with the matters of their heart.
”
”
Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Release The Ink)
“
My stomach gets that hollowed-out feeling. It’s amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me—such bullshit.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
Abuse is exploitation of trust and exploitation of authority and I was lucky enough never to suffer from that or from any violation or cruelty, real or imagined.
It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always hurt me.
Bones mend and become actually stronger in the very place they were broken and where they have knitted up; mental wounds can grind and ooze for decades and be re-opened by the quietest whisper.
”
”
Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot (Memoir, #1))
“
What is that old children's rhyme, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me'? Anyone who says that doesn't understand the power of words. They can cut deeper than any knife, hit harder than any fist, touch parts of you that nothing physical will ever reach, and the wounds that some words leave never heal, because each time the word is thrown at you, labeled on you, you bleed afresh from it. It's more like a whip that cuts every time, until you feel it must flay the very skin from your bones, and yet outwardly there is no wound to show the world, so they think you are not hurt, when inside part of you dies every time."~Sholto, from A Shiver of Light
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton
“
Once you understand that you are the thinker of your own thoughts, and that your mind doesn‘t produce ‘reality’, it produces ‘thoughts’, you won’t be as affected by what you think. You’ll see your thinking as something that you are doing – an ability you have that brings your experience of life – rather than as the source of reality. Do you remember the old saying ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me’? Thoughts could be substituted for words. Your thoughts can’t hurt or depress you once you understand that they are just thoughts. When you start to view your own thinking in this more impersonal way (in other words, looking at your thinking instead of being caught in it), you will find yourself becoming free of depression. Your thinking goes on and on, and it will continue to do so for as long as you live. But when you step back from your thinking and simply observe that you are doing it, your mind becomes free, and you open the door to experience.
”
”
Richard Carlson (Stop Thinking, Start Living: Discover Lifelong Happiness)
“
There is an important message here about the power of words, labels, rhetoric, and stereotyped labeling, to be used for good or evil. We need to refashion the childhood rhyme “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me,” to alter the last phrase to “but bad names can kill me, and good ones can comfort me.
”
”
Philip G. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil)
“
Sticks & stones may break your bones & hurtful words can destroy more than you know!
”
”
Timothy Pina
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me, especially when I do not understand them.
”
”
C.S. Forester (Mr. Midshipman Hornblower)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words have the power to destroy me
”
”
Ellie Messe
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but ‘no’ can never hurt me!
”
”
Richard Fenton (Go for No! Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but if you want to hurt someone…way down deep, use words.
”
”
Charles Martin (The Mountain Between Us)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but grenades and air strikes will silence Allah's throne.
”
”
Mingo Kane (Scars of the Prophet: A Novel of War and Romance)
“
Sticks and stones may break your bones, and words – can cut your insides.
”
”
Jen Pollock Michel (Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition and the Life of Faith)
“
Whoever had come up with the chant “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” had been an idiot.
”
”
Nevada Barr (Deep South (Anna Pigeon, #8))
“
Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt. Lies. Words hurt. The words we remember. Well, the hurt feeling the words caused stays with us forever.
”
”
Jill Telford
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me—such bullshit.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts … . — Robert Fulghum Most
”
”
Patricia Evans (The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond)
“
The old saying goes, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Yet, my own negative self-talk is certain to make my words both sticks and stones.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
May sticks and stones break your bones,
And serpents stop your heart.
A spell to poison, requiring fangs & fury
”
”
Alix E. Harrow (The Once and Future Witches)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones but your words were always the hardest.
”
”
Dominic Riccitello
“
Quoyle experienced moments in all colors, uttered brilliancies, paid attention to the rich sound of waves counting stones, he laughed and wept, noticed sunsets, heard music in rain, said I do. A row of shining hubcaps on sticks appeared in the front yard of the Burkes’ house. A wedding present from the bride’s father. For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat’s blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.
”
”
Annie Proulx (The Shipping News)
“
The nursery rhyme “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me” is a lie that every five-year-old knows in their deep waters. Words hurt, because they are one of the only socially acceptable ways we can attack each other.
”
”
Kory Stamper (Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries)
“
As children we are taught, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me!" As adults we teach those same words to our own children while simultaneously we sue one another for defamation or verbal assault. Ah, the naked leading the blind.
”
”
Bryan Oftedahl
“
We must stay conscious of our words. We’ve all heard that little phrase when we were kids. “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Well, I call BULLSHIT! As cute as that is and as much as I wish it were true, it’s not. Words are powerful, they can hurt or they can heal.
”
”
Rachel D. Greenwell (How To Wear A Crown: A Practical Guide To Knowing Your Worth)
“
You'll never walk in my shoes, and I'll never walk in yours. And we shouldn't have to in order to empathise with each other. The saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” couldn't be further from the truth. Broken bones heal; words can stick with you for a lifetime.
”
”
Madison Beer (The Half of It: A Memoir)
“
Stick and stones may break my bones, but verbal abuse is trauma that lasts forever.
”
”
Heidi Hutchinson (Key Change (Common Threads, #3))
“
People who say “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” don’t understand how words can be stones, hard and sharp-edged and dangerous and capable of doing so much more harm than anything physical. If someone chucks a real stone at you on the playground, it leaves a bruise. Bruises heal. Bruises get people in trouble, too; bruises end with detentions for the rock-throwers, with disapproving parents ushered into private offices for serious conversations about bullying and bad behavior. Words almost never end that way. Words can be whispered bullet-quick when no one’s looking, and words don’t leave blood or bruises behind. Words disappear without a trace. That’s what makes them so powerful. That’s what makes them so important. That’s what makes them hurt so much.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Middlegame (Alchemical Journeys, #1))
“
While these young Muslims and young feminists may superficially seem to have little in common, they were indistinguishable from each other in demanding bans and apologies for what they considered offensive, dangerous ideas. Both groups agreed that my advice that 'sticks and stones might break your bones, but words will never hurt me' was an outdated misunderstanding of the fundamental damage that words can inflict on vulnerable individuals.
”
”
Claire Fox (‘I Find That Offensive!’)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’? Anyone who says that doesn’t understand the power of words. They can cut deeper than any knife, hit harder than any fist, touch parts of you that nothing physical will ever reach, and the wounds that some words leave never heal, because each time the word is thrown at you, labeled on you, you bleed afresh from it. It’s more like a whip that cuts every time, until you feel it must flay the very skin from your bones, and yet outwardly there is no wound to show the world, so they think you are not hurt, when inside part of you dies every time.
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (A Shiver of Light (Merry Gentry, #9))
“
What is that old children’s rhyme, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’? Anyone who says that doesn’t understand the power of words. They can cut deeper than any knife, hit harder than any fist, touch parts of you that nothing physical will ever reach, and the wounds that some words leave never heal, because each time the word is thrown at you, labeled on you, you bleed afresh from it. It’s more like a whip that cuts every time, until you feel it must flay the very skin from your bones, and yet outwardly there is no wound to show the world, so they think you are not hurt, when inside part of you dies every time.”
― A Shiver of Light
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton
“
Dominion over his environment was supposed to be a hallmark of man. Now, that dominion is almost wholly vicarious, derived from the past ingenuity of others. In urban and industrial communities it is never direct, physical or spontaneous. Our implements are at twelve removes and we may all live to live inside so many Thermos flasks. It may be well to remember how to use a pair of sticks and a stone.
”
”
Sybille Bedford (A Visit to Don Otavio)
“
Eddie: What has four wheels and flies?
Blaine: (disapproving) THE TOWN GARBAGE WAGON, AS I HAVE ALREADY SAID. ARE YOU SO STUPID OR INATTENTIVE THAT YOU DO NOT REMEMBER? IT WAS THE FIRST RIDDLE YOU ASKED ME.
Eddie: (in his mind) Yes. And what we all missed--because we were fixated on stumping you with some brain-buster out of Roland's past or Jake's book--is that the contest almost ended right there. (to Blaine) You didn't like that one, did you, Blaine?
Blaine: (agreeably) I FOUND IT EXCEEDINGLY STUPID. PERHAPS THAT'S WHY YOU ASKED IT AGAIN. LIKE CALLS TO LIKE, EDDIE OF NEW YORK, IS IT NOT SO?
Eddie: (smiling and shaking his finger) Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Or, as we used to say back in the neighborhood, 'You can rank me to the dogs and back, but I'll never lose the hard-on I use to fuck your mother.'
Jake: Hurry up! If you can do something, DO IT!
Eddie: It doesn't like silly questions. It doesn't like silly games. And we KNEW that. We knew it from Charlie the Choo-Choo. How stupid can you get? Hell, THAT was the book with the answers, not Riddle-De-Dum, but we never saw it. (to Blaine) Blaine: when is a door not a door?
Blaine: (clicking his tongue) WHEN IT'S AJAR, OF COURSE. WOULD YOU DIE WITH SUCH STUPID RIDDLES IN YOUR MOUTH?
”
”
Stephen King (Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4))
“
I was the only one left in the tomb then. I sort of liked it, in a way. It was so nice and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, you’d never guess what I saw on the wall. Another “Fuck you.” It was written with a red crayon or something, right under the glass part of the wall, under the stones. That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive, in fact.
”
”
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)
“
I was the only one left in the tomb then. I sort of liked it, in a way. It was so nice and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, you'd never guess what I saw on the wall. Another "Fuck you." It was written with a red crayon or something, right under the glass part of the wall, under the stones.
That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say "Fuck you." I'm positive, in fact.
”
”
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)
“
longer; it cannot deceive them too much." Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded in confirmation. "As to you," said she, "you would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?" "Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment." "If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?" "Truly yes, madame." "Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of the finest feathers; would you not?" "It is true, madame." "You have seen both dolls and birds to-day," said Madame Defarge, with a wave of her hand towards the place where they had last been apparent; "now, go home!" XVI. Still Knitting Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to the whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few village scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard and terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that the expression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in the village—had a faint and bare existence there, as its people had—that when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In the stone face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the murder was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of old; and on the scarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they all started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares who could find a living there. Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well—thousands of acres of land—a whole province of France—all France itself—lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible
”
”
Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)
“
Game of Thrones - Feast for Crows.
“Ser? My lady?" said Podrick. "Is a broken man an outlaw?"
"More or less," Brienne answered.
Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.
"Then they get a taste of battle.
"For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe.
"They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.
"If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . .
"And the man breaks.
"He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well.
”
”
G R R Martin
“
Sticks and stones may very well break bones, but the rest was all fucking wrong. Words could cripple a person for a lifetime.
”
”
Lindsey Hart (Faking It with Mr Nightshadow)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Although I do remember giving my second-grade teacher a concussion when I hit her with a large edition of Webster’s Dictionary. Does that count?)
”
”
Nancy Christie (Traveling Left of Center and Other Stories)
“
Who says sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me? A guy who has never been hit with a dictionary.
”
”
Full Sea Books (The BIG Triple Joke Book - 1,289 Funny Jokes, Fun Facts & Brain Teaser Riddles!)
“
MY MOTHER’S PHLOX
To send this to you toward the end of summer,
I was forced to rebuild my desktop.
Not in the old-fashioned way,
With saw and eye laid alongside the board
With some rue in my fingers,
But I wanted to create phlox.
Although, god knows, it can’t be done
In three dimensions, as the earth
Has so easily done it, but who can compete
With the earth? No, I wanted only the words
And they have lost themselves in the fields
Or along the gravel road. It’s just as well.
(Floks) n. pl. various plants of the genus Phlox,
Having opposite leaves and flowers,
With variously colored salverform corolla.
Over the years the phlox have spread
Even into the fields beyond the barn,
Into the edge of the woods, inventions
Of themselves in endless designs…
They exhale their faint perfume summer after summer,
And summer after summer it was my nightlong
Intoxicant. It was my potion, my ragged butterfly,
My faulty memory of my mother
Who was the same age then, as I am now.
As then, I was the same age you are now,
When my mother planted these phlox in my garden.
I’m sending them to you by UPS,
Wrapped in plastic in a proper box.
Take them out and stick them in water;
Dig a good bed and spread the roots.
They need almost no care.
They cast their seed; they thrive on neglect.
Later, they may change like the faces you love,
Ravaged and ravishing from year to year.
”
”
Ruth Stone (The Essential Ruth Stone)
“
A circle formed from sticks and stones. The seeds of life in the form of cones, the rocks for strength, the sticks for kin, protect whoever may step within.
”
”
Jessica Dodge (The Forgotten Witch)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." --nursery rhyme, and the first lie we learned in school
”
”
Amy Matayo (They Call Her Dirty Sally)
“
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but my mace will break you first.
”
”
J.R. Mathews (Home Sweet Home (Jake's Magical Market #3))
“
Death in the flesh sometimes seems like a less excruciating way to succumb than the slow and steady venom unleashed by mean-spirited, cruel words and actions that poison you over time. I guess that’s why I can’t stand the old children’s rhyme: sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
”
”
Tarana Burke (Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement)
“
Smart kids get put on a pedestal by parents and teachers alike, and the rest of the class gathers around the base of it throwing rocks, trying to knock them down. People who say ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ don’t understand how words can be stones, hard and sharp-edged and dangerous and capable of doing so much more harm than anything physical.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Middlegame (Alchemical Journeys, #1))
“
sometimes
we see more than a building
more than sticks and stones
it represents the heart.
of peoples memories
You may have been touched too
”
”
levipaultaylor