Unsettling Quotes

1. "If I only acted, I feel like I wouldn't have enough creative expression over my own sensibility, and also if I only acted, the notion of surrendering my fate and future to other people is deeply unsettling to me and it would make me uncomfortable."
Author: Alex Karpovsky

2. "There are settling girls, and there are unsettling girls. The ones who seem to have it in them to be flyers are the ones who want to snuggle into settling. The ones who look as settled as old housedogs want to twist their way into flying. Necessarily, you must be defensive about being a settling sort of girl."
Author: Amruta Patil

3. "She stopped at a red light and turned to face him. "Look. You must know your eyes are truly distracting, and you keep LOOKING at me. I've also never talked to anyone who sounds like a movie trailer announcer before. Your voice is so cool. I'm sure you know that. It's probably part of your famousness. But here in this car it's unsettling, because I have this sensation you might suddenly begin sentences with some dramatic start." She lowered her voice. "like...IN A WORLD, FAR, FAR AWAY..."
Author: Anne Eliot

4. "It was an unsettling thought, that somehow we were sliding back into the smoky dark and that never again would man make something so perfect as this small building."
Author: Bernard Cornwell

5. "Coming back to your native land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a little like waking up from a long coma."
Author: Bill Bryson

6. "Dreams that do come true can be as unsettling as those that don't."
Author: Brett Butler

7. "W-what do you want?"That flat black stare lifted to her face again. This time she felt certain it was pulling her in. "You."She blinked, pressing her thighs together in a feeble attempt to squelch the unsettling throb between them. "I don't understand.""I think you do.""You want me to take his place? I cannot—""No. I want you naked and writhing beneath me."
Author: Cherrie Lynn

8. ". . . You seem upset, Charlie. Is something wrong?Charlie: No, no, I'm okay, I just had to take directions from a mute beaver in a fez to get here, it's unsettling."
Author: Christopher Moore

9. "A good novel should be deeply unsettling - its satisfactions should come from its authenticity and its formal coherence. We must feel something crucial is at stake."
Author: Dana Spiotta

10. "Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before."
Author: Edith Wharton

11. "You never make all things for all people and can't always pander to the broadest denominator. I keep an eye toward doing the themes that interest me. Do they move me? Interest me? Make me think? When I run across something that is provocative in an unsettling way, it appeals to me."
Author: Edward Norton

12. "Silence is the worst. Whenever a thick cloud of silence descends, the yapping voices inside me become all the more audible, rising to the surface one by one. I like to believe I know all the women in this inner harm of mine but perhaps there are those I have never met. Together they make a choir that does not know how to tone down. I call them the Choir of Discordant Voices. It is a bizarre choir, now that I think about it. Not only are they all off-key, none of them can read notes. In fact, there is no music at all in what they do. They all talk at the same time, each in a voice louder than the other, never listening to what is being said. They make me afraid of my own diversity, the fragmentation inside of me. That is why I do not like the quiet. I even find it unpleasant, unsettling."
Author: Elif Shafak

13. "He put his hand on my waist, and my heart began to pound, a rougher rhythm than the music. I held my skirt. Our free hands met. His felt warm and comforting and unsettling and bewildering--all at once."
Author: Gail Carson Levine

14. "In a world where women do not say no, the man is never forced to settle down and make serious choices. His sex drive--the most powerful compulsion in his life--is never used to make him part of civilization as the supporter of a family. If a woman does not force him to make a long-term commitment--to marry--in general, he doesn't. It is maternity that requires commitment. His sex drive only demands conquest, driving him from body to body in an unsettling hunt for variety and excitement in which much of the thrill is in the chase itself.The man still needs to be tamed. His problem is that many young women think they have better things to do than socialize single men."
Author: George Gilder

15. "Bob Dylan continues to release odd and unsettling records, and to do odd and unsettling things on stage. So the term 'still' seems meaningless to me. But the real answer is simple: I listen to Bob Dylan for pleasure more than I listen to anyone else for pleasure."
Author: Greil Marcus

16. "ONE OF THE UNSETTLING THINGS about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn't sure when or where it was going to end."
Author: Ishmael Beah

17. "She stared at me "You have a message," she said. "On you machine."I looked over at my answering machine. Sure enough, the light was blinking. The woman really was a detective."It's some girl," La Guerta said. "She sounds kind of sleepy and happy. You got a girlfriend, Dexter?" there was a strange hint of a challenge in her voice."You know how it is," I said. "Women today are so forward, and when you are as handsome as I am they absolutely fling themselves at your head." Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words; as I said it I couldn't help thinking of the woman's head flung at me not so long ago."Watch out," La Guerta said. "Sooner or later one of them will stick." I had no idea what she thought that meant, but it was a very unsettling image."I'm sure you're right," I said. "Until then, carpe diem.""What?""It's Latin," I said. "It means, complain in the daylight."
Author: Jeff Lindsay

18. "For the record, surgeries aren't pretty. there's a hideous sense of intimately inappropriate exposure to another human being, and it feel something like accidentally walking in on a naked parent. Only there's more gore. Bits are exposed that just shouldn't be out in the open, and they're covered in blood. Its embarrassing, disgusting, and unsettling all at the same time." Harry Dresden, Turn Coat."
Author: Jim Butcher

19. "I had met plain women, even ugly women, whose physical shortcomings had been remedied by the spirit within, their decency and kindness even effecting a kind of transformation upon them, softening the bluntness of their features. This was not such a woman. The blight was inside her, and no restyling of her hair, no careful use of cosmetics, no pretty dresses could have made her any less unsettling than she was."
Author: John Connolly

20. "By the way'[Gabriel] said,' everyone else had better keep out of here. After you spend so much time in lockup, you get to like your space. You get kind of territorial. I wouldn't want anybody to get hurt.' ... Gabriel gave [Kaitlyn] a long, measuring look. Then he flashed a brilliant, unsettling smile. 'You can come in any time you like"
Author: L.J. Smith

21. "It was hypnotic, and then it was unsettling, and finally I became aware of another entity in my universe, sitting on the shore two hundred yards away, smoking a pipe..."
Author: Laurie R. King

22. "How do you get rid of unhappiness? You must release yourself from the prison you have unknowingly placed yourself in. Come to terms with the fact that there are things that you cannot control. But, just because you don't ‘control' something, doesn't mean it's going to fall to pieces. That may be the hardest part. We get bent out of shape when something happens that is out of our control, because we don't understand why it's happening or where it's coming from. It's unsettling. You put your fighting arms up and prepare to battle the world. But, stop for a moment. Think. Where are all of these things coming from?The world is not a wild, untamed place, where things are a free for all. Understand that there is a higher power running the world."
Author: Leigh Hershkovich

23. "To ignore one's spiritual self is unsettling, to say the least. That's a very profound outlook on it."
Author: Linda Blair

24. "No one mentioned such things; it was not a rule, but was considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals."
Author: Lois Lowry

25. "It was unsettling. For a moment he believed she could see straight through his brain. Not that there was much to see. Still, he doubted she'd feel more amiably toward him if, for instance, she could discern how vast an amount of mental space his fantasies of seduction occupied, compared to the cramped corner devoted to the problem of murdered guides and corrupt police."
Author: Loretta Chase

26. "Being in the building with Sarah Palin that night is a transformative and oddly unsettling experience. It's a little like having live cave-level access for the ripping-the-heart-out-with-the-bare-hands scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."
Author: Matt Taibbi

27. "In one way or another, almost every twentysomething client I have wonders, 'Will things work out for me?' The uncertainty behind that question is what makes twentysomething life so difficult, but it is also what makes twentysomething action so possible and so necessary. It's unsettling to not know the future and, in a way, even more daunting to consider that what we are doing with our twentysomething lives might be determining it."
Author: Meg Jay

28. "God's movement is often abrupt and unsettling rather than predictable and settling."
Author: Michael Joseph Brown

29. "It was odd --unsettling, actually-- how love magnified everything. Small joy was turned into overwhelming happiness; worry became heart-stopping fear. It was as if love became a magnifying glass turned on the heart, taking whatever was there and making it appear many times its normal size."
Author: Michael Thomas Ford

30. "It is quite unsettling looking into someone's eyes, especially when you aren't used to it."
Author: Mike May

31. "Dipping into the archive is always an interesting, if sometimes unsettling, proposition. It often begins with anxiety, with the fear that the thing you want won't surface. But ultimately the process is a little like tapping into the unconscious, and can bring with it the ambivalent gratification of rediscovering forgotten selves.Rather than making new pictures why can't I just recycle some of these old ones? Claim "found" photographs from among my boxes? And have this gesture signify "resistance to further production/consumption"? (96)"
Author: Moyra Davey

32. "It's usually best not to ask philosophers anything, precisely because they have the habit of what in the Persian language is called sanud: the profitless consideration of unsettling yet inconsequential things."
Author: Nick Harkaway

33. "You can work, shop, do everything from home, and I find this unsettling."
Author: Patrice Leconte

34. "When the contents of the collective unconscious become activated, they have an unsettling effect on the conscious mind of everyone. When this psychic dynamic is not consciously metabolized, not just within an individual but collectively, the mental state of the people as a whole might well be compared to a psychosis."
Author: Paul Levy

35. "Very close by the CMS shops, hidden about a quarter mile away in the woods, was the prison's rifle range. Correctional officers could spend quality time with their firearms down there, and the hammering of multiple rounds was typical background noise during our workdays. There was something unsettling about toiling away for a prison while listening to your jailers practice shooting you."
Author: Piper Kerman

36. "That's brain tissue. How can you-?" Claire shut her mouth, fast. "Never mind. I don't think I wanna know.""Truly, I think that's best. Please take it." He showed his teeth briefly in a very unsettling grin. "I'm giving you a piece of my mind.""I so wish you hadn't said that."
Author: Rachel Caine

37. "Nico drew his sword. His smile was even more unsettling than his scowl."Underground," he said. "My favorite place."Underground was not Jason's favorite place."
Author: Rick Riordan

38. "Mom was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, Melissa, but can you blame me for worrying? In less than an hour I found out you're being stalked by a killer, sleeping with a stranger, and hiding with him in an empty apartment. You have to admit that sounds…unsettling."
Author: Robin DeJarnett

39. "Companies that are made up of clusters of leaders will actually accelerate their growth by speeding up their rate of innovation as their competition pulls back, build better teams by investing in people while their rivals shrink training budgets, and pick up top talent as their industry peers lay people off. And so fast companies get that unsettling times are actually gifts for them and periods to get so far ahead of the competition that they can never catch up."
Author: Robin S. Sharma

40. "You get weird and unsettling behaviour in the country."
Author: Sara Paretsky

41. "The girl might have an unsettling crying problem, but she was pure steel."
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

42. "I don't like auditions. I feel like they're a very unnatural setting and it's a very unsettling experience. Because you can't help but walk in and feel like you're trying to prove yourself to people. And you should just walk in and be."
Author: Sharni Vinson

43. "I believe that in our culture of simulation, the notion of authenticity is for us what sex was for the Victorians—threat and obsession, taboo and fascination. I have lived with this idea for many years; yet, at the museum, I found the children's position strangely unsettling. For them, in this context, aliveness seemed to have no intrinsic value. Rather, it is useful only if needed for a specific purpose. Darwin's endless forms so beautiful were no longer sufficient unto themselves."
Author: Sherry Turkle

44. "Have you ever been married? Had that thing of someone calling you by a name not your own? It's unsettling. It's like a fictitious person."
Author: Stacy Schiff

45. "The world, although well-lighted with fluorescents and incandescent bulbs and neon, is still full of odd dark corners and unsettling nooks and crannies."
Author: Stephen King

46. "Socrates and Jesus, two teachers of virtue and love, were executed because of the unsettling, threatening power of their souls, which was revealed in their personal lives and in their words."
Author: Thomas Moore

47. "Ah yes, the facts. I've spent my whole life running after them, convinced that if I found demonstrable, incontrovertible facts I would also find some kind of truth. Now aged sixty-three, faced with this war which has only just begun and with an unsettling premonition of what is soon to follow, I'm beginning to think the facts are just a front and that the truth they mask is at best like a Russian doll: as soon as you open it up you find a smaller one inside, then another which is even smaller, then another and another, till finally all you are left with is something the size of a grain.Letters against the war: Letter from Quetta, 2011."
Author: Tiziano Terzani

48. "Why should American atrocities be merely unsettling, but a trip to Hanoi unconscionable?"
Author: Tom Hayden

49. "Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now. History will place him in the pantheon right next to Edison and Ford. More than anyone else of this time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors. With a ferocity that could make working with him as unsettling as it was inspiring, he also built the world's most creative company. And he was able to infuse into its DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism, and imagination that make it likely to be, even decades from now, the company that thrives best at the intersection of artistry and technology."
Author: Walter Isaacson

50. "[All the ancient wisdom] tells us that work is necessary to us, as much a part of our condition as mortality; that good work is our salvation and our joy; that shoddy or dishonest or self-serving work is our curse and our doom. We have tried to escape the sweat and sorrow promised in Genesis - only to find that, in order to do so, we must forswear love and excellence, health and joy.(pg. 44, "The Unsettling of America")"
Author: Wendell Berry

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