Numbness Quotes

At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. But, naturally enough, this prudence, this habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight, was ill rewarded. For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague. Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.

~ Albert Camus

I have outlasted all desire,My dreams and I have grown apart;My grief alone is left entire,The gleamings of an empty heart.The storms of ruthless dispensationHave struck my flowery garland numb,I live in lonely desolationAnd wonder when my end will come.Thus on a naked tree-limb, blastedBy tardy winter's whistling chill,A single leaf which has outlastedIts season will be trembling still.

~ Alexander Pushkin

I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.

~ Sylvia Plath

After great pain, a formal feeling comes – The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs – The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,And Yesterday, or Centuries before?The Feet, mechanical, go round – Of Ground, or Air, or Ought – A Wooden way Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone – This is the Hour of Lead – Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow – First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

~ Emily Dickinson

You think being dead inside is bad until someone brings you back to life and stabs you in the chest without the intention of killing you.

~ Denice Envall

The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out stop!When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

~ Bertolt Brecht

Art can blow us out of our pigeon hole. In deafness it may shout or scream, in blindness it may arrest our attention, in numbness it may shake up our mind. If we don’t sense anything at all and take everything for granted, art can kick us in the ass, give a conscience and make us aware. (When is Art?)

~ Erik Pevernagie

Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the outward semblance is the same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

..I let people walk away, the one who loved me, the one who cares for me, I push them to their limits but the saddest part is...I felt nothing, too much pain makes me numb..

~ Gracetamio

Oddly, the burned hand didn't seem to hurt much anymore; it was only numb. It would have been better if there had been pain. Pain was at least real.

~ Stephen King

Pleasure and pain are on the same side of the coin of human experience. The opposite is indifference or numbness.

~ R. N. Prasher

When our mental functioning is whittling away and our mind becomes a lame duck, perception does not form the context anymore and all connections on the social chessboard are conked out. Only patience and endurance may draw us out of the quagmire of numbness and allow us to tear open the cloudy screen that is hiding our points of ‘interest’ and ‘attention’, so long as we focus on the ‘singular moments’ and the ‘appealing details’ in our life. Awareness can help us shape a comprehensive picture for a functional future. (Lost the global story.)

~ Erik Pevernagie

To distort our faces with joy, or wail and weep with sorrow, or collapse in agony, or wallow in sentimentality – wasn’t an inviolable human trait but something we can lose simply by leading dull and dreary lives. ‘A rich emotional life,’ she’d written, ‘is a privilege reserved only for the daring few’.

~ Ryū Murakami

Dissociation is numbness and nothingness; it is a feeling of being lost; it is floating on a cloud that threatens to suffocate; it is automatic speech and action without awareness or control; it is looking at the world and blinking to try to remove the blurry fog; it is hearing and seeing the immediate world and simultaneously feeling very far away; it is raw fear; it is unfamiliarity in familiar places; it is possession; it is being haunted everyday by unknown monsters that can be felt but not seen (at least not by others); it is looking in the mirror and not knowing who is looking back; it is fantasy and imagination; and, above all else, it is survival. Dissociation is all of these things and none of them at once.

~ Noel Hunter

I wasn't glad that I hadn't died. And I wasn't sad that I hadn't. I wasn't anything.

~ Kathleen Rooney

Depression means self-loathing, self-disgust, and the kind of emotional numbness that feels like psychic death.

~ William Deresiewicz

It was strange how in that moment of tragedy, it had seemed so unreal, like an old-fashioned movie reel playing on a screen for my eyes only. The pain and broken heart were blocked off for a little while, leaving me numb with disbelief. Shock is what Dad called it. But after a while, the cruel reality started to seep into my tissues, and my body became a sponge, just sucking it all up until, finally, there was so much grief inside, I couldn't help feeling it.That's how it happened for me. First, the numbness right after she died, next the agonising pain and then the place I was at now—the land of perpetual depression.

~ Karen Ann Hopkins

Ties are straightened and expressions banished.

~ Rana Dasgupta

Numb the dark and you numb the light.

~ Brené Brown

You know, I think the people I feel saddest for are the ones who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder, who felt their emotions floating away and just didn't care. I guess that's what's scariest: not caring about the loss.

~ Douglas Coupland

Someone is going to tell you to get use to this. That feeling of being scared and sad. They're going to say it'll be better when you learn to ignore it. Don't listen to them. Hold on to it, remember it... Don't let yourself forget it. It's too easy to lose.-Carl Grimes

~ Robert Kirkman

Should could no longer feel grief. She was now like a Geiger counter that had been subjected to too much radiation, no longer capable of giving any reaction, noiselessly displaying a reading of zero.

~ Liu Cixin

At the time, I remained relatively calm before that spectacle of horrors, which is perhaps the most telling indication of just how desensitized I had become. The more I witnessed such atrocities and rubbed shoulders with death, the more I desired to stay alive, no matter the cost.

~ Kang Chol-Hwan

Physical pain was easy. It would always pass in the end. All it needed was time - a ticking clock.

~ Sidney Knight

You've faced horrors in these past weeks... I don't know which is worse. The terror you feel the first time you witness such things, or the numbness that comes after it starts to become ordinary.

~ Tasha Alexander

Parched by the deprivation of your love for so long made me forget what a cup brimming with love, on my lips, felt like. Everything that now wets it, only wrinkles it with a bland taste.

~ Abhita Jain

Your instincts may tell you that you can’t survive if you experience feelings. But they are leftover child instincts. They’re the ones that first told you to freeze your feelings. They themselves are frozen and haven’t grown with the rest of you. These instincts don’t know that you’re far more capable of learning to cope with overwhelming emotion now than when you were a [child].

~ Maureen Brady

I don't sleep. I just let my body lie itself into numbness and lie to myself that I can't hear, see, or feel anything.

~ Will Advise

Without love everything can be nothing. Does that make me want to love? No. For me, Ignorance is still better than martyrdom.

~ Ira N. Barin

MOMENTSI saw you firstYou looked exactly The same as beforeTall and awkward and shyI walked towards youMy hands clammy I felt cold insideMy insides were shakingCant runThis is it.U saw meYour face brightenedA smile painted on your faceI missed itYour smileIt brought back the pastYou walkedI walkedNearerIt feels like in theMoviesTwo peopleA boy and a girlMeeting halfwayHoping for a happyEver afterI stopped Right before I reached youI realizedThis isn't like the moviesI turnedI told myselfDon’t smileYou reached meCloseSo closeI felt the urgeTo touch youHug youAnd maybeKiss youThere weren't HellosOnly silent prayersSmiling You reached for my handGiving me somethingYou knew I loveIt was awkwardYou standing thereMe standing thereSo closeToo closeYet so farI looked up to youI tried to ask myselfAre you for real?You smiled widerShy but happyYou left as fastAs you came backIt was for a secondI hated timeI wished it wasA little bit longerWith that,I knewI still want you.

~ Marianne Escobar

No achingJust numbnessSadnessThat feeling as ifU miss himBut then you realized,Maybe he wasn't yours To begin with.AndThere were no memories To Reminisce,Only pain.Because you knewFrom the very beginningHe didn't love u as muchAs you loved him.And that isthe most painfulAnd crucial part.Or maybe not.Maybe it's the truth That there isStill an ounce ofLove that shouldn'tBe there at all.Not after everything.

~ Marianne Escobar

Eventually, however, the denial turned into emptiness and my childhood ended.

~ Floyd C. Forsberg

How much had I missed in these months of despair and numbness?

~ Sarah J. Maas

I walked back to the window to look down at the people who shared this city with me. The people who made every day a series of mediocrities.The unreformed murderers masquerading as businessmen in borrowed suits and debt-laden cars. The voluptuous bimbos floating around in an inexplicable mix of vacuity and despair. The crumbling face of my building looked pretty enough from across the street, but from here I could see how worn it was. I peeled off a satisfying chunk of paint, cement and matter. And I let it fall to the street below.

~ Nasri Atallah

Dissociation gets you through a brutal experience, letting your basic survival skills operate unimpeded…Your ability to survive is enhanced as the ability to feel is diminished…All feeling are blocked; you ‘go away.’ You are disconnected from the act, the perpetrator & yourself…Viewing the scene from up above or some other out-of-body perspective is common among sexual abuse survivors.

~ Renee Fredrickson

Dissociation, a form of hypnotic trance, helps children survive the abuse…The abuse takes on a dream-like, surreal quality and deadened feelings and altered perceptions add to the strangeness. The whole scene does not fit into the 'real world.' It is simple to forget, easy to believe nothing happened.

~ Renee Fredrickson

We conform to pain until we don't notice it anymore, it's what you call — numb — and it tragically blots out our pleasure too.

~ Bryant Mcgill

I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.

~ Sylvia Plath

The DFA and organizations like it have pushed and squeezed and elbowed out all the feeling in the world. They have clamped their fists around a geyser to keep it from exploding.But the pressure eventually builds, and the explosion will always come.

~ Lauren Oliver

When things don't go the way you want them to, sometimes instead of feeling disappointment or heartache, you just become numb.

~ April Mae Monterrosa