accidents Quotes

“Who I was before the accident is just a story now. Everything before now, before now, before now, is just a story I carry around. I guess that would apply to anybody in the world. What I need is a new story about who I am.”

“So may you all.”

“Fire was rare in Ember. When there was a fire, it was because there had been an accident—someone had left a dishtowel too close to an electric burner on a stove, or a cord had been frayed and a spark had flown out and ignited curtains.... But it was, of course, possible to start a fire on purpose… The trick was to find a way to make the light last.”

“They’re funny things, Accidents. You never have them till you’re having them.”

“Don’t be offended, but you seem to be one of those people who just attract accidents like a magnet. So… try not to fall into the ocean or get run over or anything, all right?”

“Everyone makes mistakes, even if some are worse than others. Accidents happen.”

“And if When born to misery, as born I was, I met my sire, not knowing whom I met or what I did, and slew him, how canst thou With justice blame the all-unconscious hand?”

″ ‘We’ve had an ACCIDENT!’ the children screamed in a frenzy of delight. ‘But nobody’s killed,’ June Star said with disappointment as the grandmother limped out of the car…”

“Leigh Anne listened to the doctors discuss how bizarrely lucky Sean Junior had been in his collision with the airbag. Then she went back home and relayed the conversation to Michael, who held out his arm. An ugly burn mark ran right down the fearsome length of it. ‘I stopped it,’ he said.”

“It takes two to make an accident.”

“It was you who did it, Lily. You didn’t mean it, but it was you.”

Accidents don’t happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.

“And then, almost as if in response to his plea, Poole waved back. For an instant, Bowman felt the skin prickling at the base of his scalp. The words he was about to call died on his suddenly parched lips. For he knew that his friend could not possibly be alive; and yet he waved.”

“Nobody finishes well by accident.”

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”

″...A new life begins today for Harvey Dent. Dent, a former district attorney became obsessed with the number two when half his face was scarred by acid. Dent believe his disfiguration revealed a hidden, evil side to his nature. He adopted as his personal symbol a dollar coin...”

“Perhaps somewhere, someone has done the research, has calculated the precise odds of a newborn child in the United States of America accidentally being given to the wrong parents. I suspect the likelihood is similar to the chances of being struck by lightning.”

“But the pearls were accidents, and the finding of one was luck, a little pat on the back by God or the gods or both.”

“Sir, I’m sorry, but your wife had an accident this morning, apparently testing a baby-bottle heater. There was an electrical short, and, uh ... well, she died sir. I’m sorry.”

“Some history making is intentional; much of it is accidental.”

“But as he looked down over the other side he slipped-- And there wasn’t any other side of the mountain. He was falling, in thin air. ”

″ J and K are about to cry.”

″ Next from the pileup skinned-knee D and stubbed-toe E and patched up F. ”

″ He ran around puffing and snorting, butting, and pawing the ground as if he were crazy. The five men saw him and they all shouted with joy. Here was the largest and fiercest bull of all. Just the one for the bull fights in Madrid!”

″ Skit skat skoodle doot. Flip flop flee. Everybody running to the coconut tree.”

″ Look who’s coming! It’s black-eyed P, Q R S, and loose-tooth T.”

″ ‘We will have to shut you up where you can’t do any more harm.’ They took him away and shut him in prison.”

“GEORGE HAD TELEPHONED THE FIRE STATION!”

“The firemen rushed into the house. They opened the door. NO FIRE! Only a naughty little monkey.”

“He yanked and pulled with both paws until POP! Off came the button- and off the mattress Corduroy toppled, bang into a tall floor lamp. Over it fell with a crash!

“But when the angry bear saw how polite Papa was, he remembered his manners too.”

“The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown off, and broke his leg.”

“She reached out with her knee and blocked the ball, which bounced against a bookshelf, against a chair, against a footstool, and into Mama’s most favorite lamp, which fell to the floor with a crash!”

“Captain Vince used to fly a helicopter for the Coast Guard, until he lost a let in a dangerous rescue mission.”

″‘Do you want us to have an accident? Do you want us all to get killed?’ I hate it when Dad asks dumb questions like that. What does he expect me to say? ‘Yes, Dad, I want us to have an accident. I want us all to get killed.‘”

A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo’s life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can’t talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands.

″‘It’s me, brother. Your main man, Roberto. And yes, I’m cold. Very cold. It’s no fun bein’ dead.′ ‘I’m sorry, Rob. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ ‘Understood, my man. But when’re you comin’ to keep me company?‘”

“My sister looks like me- the same brown hair, eyes the same shade of gray... She is aways with the fairies, as my grandma used to say. She wasn’t always that way. Three years ago something happened that changed her. An accident. And just like that the sister I knew was gone. Now she doesn’t go out, doesn’t talk much, doesn’t think much as far as I can tell. She just is.”

″ ‘That’s the breakdown train,’ he said. ‘When there’s an accident, the workmen get into the coach and the engine takes them quickly to help the hurt people and to clear and mend the line. The cranes are for lifting heavy things like engines and coaches and freight cars.’ ”

“A boy was the accident of a moment, something as light and brief as a sun-glint on water- but a good trick was something to chuckle over for a hundred years.”

“It is disquieting to learn that vehicular accidents caused by drowsy driving exceed those caused by alcohol and drugs combined.”

She wants to return to her brother to bury him, is contaminated by radiation, and collapses. She wakes up in a provisional hospital in Herleshausen, where she witnesses the hardships of others. She learns of the extent of the disaster from television and a nurse.

A day in the 1990s. Chernobyl is almost forgotten when an accident occurs at the atomic plant in Grafenrheinfeld not far from Schweinfurt. Germany has its own atomic disaster.

“Since his accident he had unconsciously taken to wearing his hat at a rakish angle. This, and the way he always kept his right hand thrust into his breeches pocket, gave him a slightly arrogant air. The arrogance had always been there, but formerly it had come out as pride in his work—not in the way he wore his hat and walked.”

″‘The thing is,’ Mark went on, ‘was it just an accident, or did we want so much to be magic we got that way, somehow? The thing is, each of us ought to make a wish. That’ll prove it one way or the other.‘”

“I remember the stars that night. They were like salt against the sky, like someone spilled the shaker against very dark cloth. That mattered to me, their accidental beauty.”