Quotes with harmless

I've crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I've come to a place I never thought I'd have to come to. And I don't know how I got here. It's a strange place. It's a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation.

For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it’s funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I’d squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I’m now told that this is not called “going to sleep” but rather “passing out,” a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.

Most people are like sheep. Nice, harmless creatures who want nothing more than to be left alone so they can graze. But then of course there are wolves. Who want nothing more than to eat the sheep.But there’s a third kind of person. The sheepdog. Sheepdogs have fangs like wolves. But their instinct isn’t predation. It’s protection. All they want, what they live for, is to protect the flock.

Sometimes things happen. Things happen even when you don't intend them to happen. Maybe at the beginning you had good intentions, or no intentions, or intentions you thought were harmless, but before you knew it things got out of control....Sometimes things take on a life of their own. You become powerless. There is nothing you can do to stop certain things from happening.

I wrote "David" because it seemed to me that children, who can love a book more passionately than any grown person, got such a lot of harmless entertainment and not enough real, valuable literature.

I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with.Tell me why you loved them,then tell me why they loved you.Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through.Tell me what the word home means to youand tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s namejust by the way you describe your bedroomwhen you were eight.See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate,and if that day still trembles beneath your bones.Do you prefer to play in puddles of rainor bounce in the bellies of snow?And if you were to build a snowman,would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman armsor would leave your snowman armlessfor the sake of being harmless to the tree?And if you would,would you notice how that tree weeps for youbecause your snowman has no arms to hug youevery time you kiss him on the cheek?Do you kiss your friends on the cheek?Do you sleep beside them when they’re sadeven if it makes your lover mad?Do you think that anger is a sincere emotionor just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?See, I wanna know what you think of your first name,and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mother’s joywhen she spoke it for the very first time.I want you to tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind.Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel.Tell me, knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years oldbeating up little boys at school.If you were walking by a chemical plantwhere smokestacks were filling the sky with dark black cloudswould you holler “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loudor would you whisper“That cloud looks like a fish,and that cloud looks like a fairy!”Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me —how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?See, I wanna know if you believe in any godor if you believe in many godsor better yetwhat gods believe in you.And for all the times that you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself,have the prayers you asked come true?And if they didn’t, did you feel denied?And if you felt denied,denied by who?I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirroron a day you’re feeling good.I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirroron a day you’re feeling bad.I wanna know the first person who taught you your beautycould ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.If you ever reach enlightenmentwill you remember how to laugh?Have you ever been a song?Would you think less of meif I told you I’ve lived my entire life a little off-key?And I’m not nearly as smart as my poetryI just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around mewho have learned the wisdom of silence.Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?And if you do —I want you to tell me of a meadowwhere my skateboard will soar.See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living.I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving,and if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.I wanna know if you bleed sometimesfrom other people’s wounds,and if you dream sometimesthat this life is just a balloon —that if you wanted to, you could pop,but you never would‘cause you’d never want it to stop.If a tree fell in the forestand you were the only one there to hear —if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound,would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist,or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?And lastly, let me ask you this:If you and I went for a walkand the entire walk, we didn’t talk —do you think eventually, we’d… kiss?No, wait.That’s asking too much —after all,this is only our first date.

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that.

LAW 46Never Appear Too PerfectAppearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.

The passage of time will usually extract the venom of most things and render them harmless

He pointed to another number, changing as rapidly as the first, but on a lower trajectory; it rose to a high of 8.79 rem per hour. Several lifetimes of dentists’ X-rays, to be sure; but the radiation outside the storm shelter would have been a lethal dose, so they were getting off lightly. Still, the amount flying through the rest of the ship! Billions of particles were penetrating the ship and colliding with the atoms of water and metal they were huddled behind; hundreds of millions were flying between these atoms and then through the atoms of their bodies, touching nothing, as if they were no more than ghosts. Still, thousands were striking atoms of flesh and bone. Most of those collisions were harmless; but in all those thousands, there were in all probability one or two (or three?) in which a chromosome strand was taking a hit, and kinking in the wrong way: and there it was. Tumor initiation, begun with just that typo in the book of the self. And years later, unless the victim's DNA luckily repaired itself, the tumor promotion that was a more or less unavoidable part of living would have its effect, and there would appear a bloom of Something Else inside: cancer. Leukemia, most likely; and, most likely, death.

The walls of the arch are covered with blood-red jellies that wink and glisten at me by the light of the moon. My father told me they were completely harmless. I don't believe him. Nothing is completely harmless.

. . . even the surprise of harmless others in the house disturbed me. I didn't want my inner rot on display, even accidentally. Living alone was frightening in that way. No one to police the spill of yourself, the ways you betrayed your primitive desires. Like a cocoon built around you, made of your own naked proclivities and never tidied into the patterns of actual human life.

... As for me, I taught the lad the real character of a rifle; and well has he paid me for it. I have fought at his side in many a bloody scrimmage; and so long as I could hear the crack of his piece in one ear, and that of the Sagamore in the other, I knew no enemy was on my back. Winters and summers, nights and days, have we roved the wilderness in company, eating of the same dish, one sleeping while the other watched; and afore it shall be said that Uncas was taken to the torment, and I at hand - There is but a single ruler of us all, whatever maybe the color of the skin, and him I call to witness - that before the Mohican boy shall perish for the want of a friend, good faith shall depart the 'arth and 'Kill-deer' become as harmless as the tooting we'pon of the singer!