“Life was not easy. Elya worked hard, but bad luck seemed to follow him everywhere. He always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He remembered Madame Zeroni telling him that she had a son in America. Elya was forever looking for him. He’d walk up to complete strangers and ask if they knew someone named Zeroni, or had ever heard of anyone named Zeroni. No one did. Elya wasn’t sure what he’d do if he ever found Madame Zeroni’s son anyway. Carry him up a mountain and sing the pig lullaby to him?”

Louis Sachar

author

Holes

book

Elya

ᐧ

Madame Zeroni

characters

curse

concept

“A lot of people don’t believe in curses. A lot of people don’t believe in yellow-spotted lizards either, but if one bites you, it doesn’t make a difference whether you believe in it or not.”

author

book

ᐧ

concepts

“Supposedly, he had a great-great-grandfather who had stolen a pig from a one-legged Gypsy, and she put a curse on him and all his descendants. Stanley and his parents didn’t believe in curses, of course, but whenever anything went wrong, it felt good to be able to blame someone.”

author

book

character

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concepts

″‘Five days!’ Nate exclaimed. ‘Breaking a curse is no small matter,’ Mozag said. ‘Five days with greenish skin is a small price to pay. While you’re waiting, help yourself to the sardines.‘”

author

book

character

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“But it’s our curse and our blessing to remember the past and to know there’s a future.”

author

book

ᐧ

concepts

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”

author

book

ᐧ

concepts

“But surely the curse was on the land of Oz, not on her.”

Gregory Maguire

author

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

book

ᐧ

characters

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Not for some far-off kinsman, but myself, Shall I expel this poison in the blood; For whoso slew that king might have a mind To strike me too with his assassin hand.”

author

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Thou thyself art thine own bane.”

author

book

character

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ᐧ

concepts

“A blight is on our harvest in the ear, A blight upon the grazing flocks and herds, A blight on wives in travail; and withal Armed with his blazing torch the God of Plague Hath swooped upon our city emptying The house of Cadmus, and the murky realm Of Pluto is full fed with groans and tears.”

author

book

character

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concepts

“Thus then I answer: since thou hast not spared To twit me with my blindness—thou hast eyes, Yet see’st not in what misery thou art fallen.”

author

book

character

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Wretch, may he pine in utter wretchedness!”

author

book

character

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ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Die then, and love the dead if thou must; No woman shall be the master while I live.”

author

book

character

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ᐧ

concepts

author

person

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

characters

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concepts

“Madame Zeroni warned that if he failed to do this, he and his descendants would be doomed for all of eternity. At the time, Elya thought nothing of the curse. He was just a fifteen-year-old kid, and “eternity” didn’t seem much longer than a week from Tuesday. Besides, he liked Madame Zeroni and would be glad to carry her up the mountain.”

author

book

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characters

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ᐧ

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concepts

“Stanley’s mother insists that there never was a curse. She even doubts whether Stanley’s great-great-grandfather really stole a pig. The reader might find it interesting, however, that Stanley’s father invented his cure for foot odor the day after the great-great-grandson of Elya Yelnats carried the great-great-great-grandson of Madame Zeroni up the mountain.”

author

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

characters

ᐧ

ᐧ

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concepts

“If you forget to come back for Madame Zeroni, you and your family will be cursed for always and eternity.”

author

book

ᐧ

characters

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“‘Hello? Aziraphale! For Go—, for Sa—, for somebody’s sake! Aziraphale!‘”

ᐧ

authors

ᐧ

persons

book

ᐧ

characters

ᐧ

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concepts

“Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st, And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends. No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, Unless it be while some tormenting dream Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils. Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog, Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity The slave of nature and the son of hell. Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb. Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins. Thou rag of honour, thou detested—”

author

book

character

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ᐧ

concepts

“O, cursed be the hand that made these holes; Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it; Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence.”

author

book

character

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ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

″ I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth.”

Frantz Fanon

author

Black Skin, White Masks

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

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ᐧ

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concepts

“Would thou were shipp’d to hell Rather than rob me of the people’s hearts!”

author

book

character

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concepts

“My foes I do repute you every one; So trouble me no more, but get you gone.”

author

book

character

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concepts

“You will produce what you say. If you want to know what you will be like five years from now, just listen to what you are saying about yourself. With our words we can either bless our futures or we can curse our futures.”

Joel Osteen

author

I Declare: 31 Promises to Speak Over Your Life

book

future

ᐧ

curse

ᐧ

positive thinking

concepts

“So many black families spend all of their time trying to fix the problems of the past. That is the curse of being black and poor, and it is a curse that follows you from generation to generation. My mother calls it ‘the black tax.’ Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up to zero.”

Trevor Noah

author

Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah

person

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.”

author

ᐧ

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ᐧ

ᐧ

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concepts

“Your evil bird blinded me!” he cried. “For that I curse you! I will see you dead! And you, Narciso, I swear to kill you!”

author

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

characters

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Love can be a terrible curse, Eragon. It can make you overlook even the largest flaws in a person’s behavior.”

author

book

character

ᐧ

concepts

“I understand enough. [...] I understand that Jace trusted you and you traded him away to a man who hated his father and probably hates Jace, too, just because you’re too cowardly to live with a curse you deserved.”

author

book

ᐧ

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characters

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concepts

“I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth--a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow.”

author

book

character

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ᐧ

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concepts

“Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we’ll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.”

author

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Medea: Oh, what misery! … Cursed sons, and a mother for cursing! Death take you all – you and your father … Nurse: Why make the sons share in their father’s guilt?”

author

book

ᐧ

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concepts

“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities - I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished.”

author

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Sometimes...you can cry until there’s nothing wet in you. You can scream and curse to where your throat rebels and ruptures. You can pray, all you want, to whatever god you think will listen. And, still it makes no difference. It goes on, with no sign as to when it might release you. And you know that if it ever did relent...it would not be because it cared.”

Jhonen Vasquez

author

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut Quotes

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Unfortunately, he discovered that the larger she grew the more hideous she would be, and he could think of no remedy for it. ”

author

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Oh, cursed fate! A fraction of a moment later, young Drosselmeier was as ugly as Princess Pirlipat had been. His shrunken body could hardly support the monstrously swollen head with the big protuberant eyes and the wide, hideously yawning mouth. ”

author

book

character

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concepts

“He would cast off his ugliness only if he could kill the son whom Madam Mouserinks had borne after the death of her seven sons with their heads, and if he could win a lady’s heart in spite of his ugliness. ”

author

book

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concepts

“He put it between his teeth, gave his ponytail a good tug, and --crack, crack-- broke the shell into many pieces. Adroitly removing a few fibers from the kernel, he handed it to the princess with a low bow, closed his eyes, and took a step backward. The princess swallowed the kernel, and wonder of wonders!”

author

book

character

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concepts

“The astronomer gazed at the stars and, with the help of Drosselmeier, who was also versed in such matters, drew up Princess Pirlipat’s horoscope. This was no easy matter, for the lines of her destiny crisscrossed and tangles, but at last-oh joy!- as last it was revealed that all Princess Pirlipat had to do to throw off the spell that had made her ugly and to recover her beauty was to eat the sweet kernel of the nut Krakatuk.”

author

book

ᐧ

ᐧ

concepts

“Mrs. Fibonacci has obviously put a math curse on me. Everything I look at or think about has become a math problem.”

Jon Scieszka