#misery

But somebody else had spoken Snape’s name, quite softly. “Severus . . .” The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading. Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face. “Severus . . . please . . .” Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore. “Avada Kedavra!” A jet of green light shot from the end of Snape’s wand and hit Dumbledore squarely in the chest. Harry’s scream of horror never left him; silent and unmoving, he was forced to watch as Dumbledore was blasted into the air. For a split second, he seemed to hang suspended beneath the shining skull, and then he fell slowly backward, like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#death #dumbledore #killing-curse #misery #pain

Only one thing mattered: this was not a Horcrux. Dumbledore had weakened himself by drinking that horrible potion for nothing. Harry crumpled the parchment in his hand and his eyes burned with tears as behind him Fang began to howl. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#dumbledore #fang #horcrux #misery #death

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? (Just to give you an idea, Proust's reply was 'To be separated from Mama.') I think that the lowest depth of misery ought to be distinguished from the highest pitch of anguish. In the lower depths come enforced idleness, sexual boredom, and/or impotence. At the highest pitch, the death of a friend or even the fear of the death of a child. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#children #death #fear #friends #idleness

You see, Mersualt, all the misery and cruelty of our civilisation can be measured by this one stupid axiom: happy nations have no history. ↗

— Albert Camus

#happiness #history #misery #death

Love is responsible for nearly every kind of insanity in the world though greed, vanity, and pure meanness contribute their portion to general misery. ↗

— P.N. Elrod

#insanity #life #love #meanness #misery

I have a dream my life would be. So different from this hell I'm living. So different now from what it seem. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed." *Fantine ↗

— Victor Hugo

#life #misery #musical #dreams

I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen, and so I swung into action and wrote a poem, and it was miserable, for that's how I thought poetry worked: you digested experience and shat literature. [from "Mingus at the Showplace"] ↗

— William Matthews

#poetry #teenagers #experience

The misery of other people is only an abstraction [...] something that can be sympathized with only by drawing from one's own experiences. But as it stands, true empathy remains impossible. And so long as it is, people will continue to suffer the pressure of their seemingly singular existence. ↗

— Nicole Krauss

#experiences #loneliness #misery #experience

Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness. Unfortunately the happiness is there. There is always the chance (about eight hundred and fifty to one) that another heart will come to mine. I can't help hoping, and keeping faith, and loving beauty. Quite frequently I am not so miserable as it would be wise to be. ↗

— T.H. White

#faith #happiness #hope #life #love

To be surrounded by sixty people who make your life miserable is to be at a family reunion. But to be surrounded by 600,000 people who make the whole world miserable is to live in Washington DC. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#corruption #family #family-reunion #miserable #misery