Toni Morrison Quotes

Panic implies that there is no rational thought taking place. That we are frozen and incapable of adjusting. Powerless to logic, and subject to seemingly unthinkable behavior.

Helplessness is such a rotten feeling. There's nothing you can do about it. Being helpless is like being paralyzed. It's sickness. The cure calls for a monumental effort to stand up and start walking somewhere, anywhere. But that takes some doing.

Anger is like a flame blazing up and consuming our self-control, making us think, say, and do things that we will probably regret later.

I think people feel like there are all these things in our lives that we don't really have control over.

I was on my face. I heard the count from one to 10. I kept telling myself that I had to get up, but I couldn't move. I couldn't make myself move. It was the strangest feeling.

The actor is in the hands of a lot of other people, over which he has no control.

I'm familiar with that feeling of silence that comes with a very imminent catastrophe, when you know you have absolutely no control over a situation.

The ghastly thing about being a producer is that, once the curtain goes up, there is nothing you can do. At least when you are in it, you have some measure of control. If something goes wrong, you can maybe put it right. When you are in the audience, there is nothing you can do.

I have a control problem. I hate the feeling of not being in control.

I don't have control over what's on screen, and that's terrifying.

I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

I'm not in charge of my life.

I lost my ability to will things to happen.

There's nothing worse in life than to sit there and be the victim of a process that's outside your control.

It's weird to have no control over something that you're involved in.

If you can't control everything, you can't control anything, not really.

Sometimes I want to control things more than I'm able to.

Don't you find that in a weak physique it is difficult to control the sex - appetite or anger?

It’s all about control. Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to become master of your own destiny, you have more to learn. Parkinson’s is a perfect metaphor for lack of control. Every unwanted movement in my hand or arm, every twitch that I cannot anticipate or arrest, is a reminder that even in the domain of my own being, I am not calling the shots. I tried to exert control by drinking myself to a place of indifference, which just exacerbated the sense of miserable hopelessness.

She knows herself to be at the mercy of events, and she knows by now that events have no mercy.

I am the very slave of circumstance And impulse -- borne away with every breath!

He wanted to think of words that would make some difference but there were none in any language he knew that were sufficient to the moment or that would change a single thing.

I could have screamed, but I didn’t. I could have fought, but I didn’t. I just lay there and let it happen, watching the winter-white sky go gray above me.

Ham smiled. "Cett's going to be furious." Elend shrugged. "He's a paraplegic. What's he going to do? Bite us?