torture Quotes

“But one concern, one might even say a torment, remained in the middle of this glory. One fact remained inexplicable, the one involving the compass; now for a scholar, such an unexplained phenomenon becomes torture for the intelligence.”

“There are so many things to be tortured about. So many torturous things in this life. Don’t let someone who doesn’t love you be one of them.”

“If a child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children—?”

“But still there are moments when a brother and sister can lay down their instruments of torture for a moment and speak as civilized human beings and Bruno decided to make this one of those moments.”

“Reb Saunders sat back slowly in his chair. And from his lips came a soft, tremulous sigh. He was silent for a moment, his eyes wide, dark, brooding, gazing upon his son. He nodded his head once, as if in final acknowledgment of his tortured victory.”

“If Emma had ever smiled at her, Sara Jolene had not been looking. But Emma had been adept at mental torture.”

“I’d once been fascinated by his legend - all the stories I’d heard before I met him. Now I can feel that same sense of fascination returning. I picture his face, so beautiful even after pain and torture and grief, his blue eyes bright and sincere.”

“To see a wretched criminal squirming in the dock, suffering the tortures of the damned… was to me an exquisite pleasure. Mind you, I took no pleasure in seeing an innocent man there.”

“The image on the page was that of a human corpse. The body had been stripped naked, and its head had been twisted, facing completely backward. On the victim’s chest was a terrible burn. The man had been branded...imprinted with a single word.”

“I imagined the waiting was just part of their game. A way to break me down before the real torture began.”

“Middle school is like this endless horror show. Well, maybe not endless, because it ended, but it really burns into your psyche.”

“God, How boring! The man’s a complete turnip. Take him away and put him in a cage. ”

“No names, no ranks. They just clean.”

“The age of sobriety in punishment had begun.”

“We are now far away from the country of tortures, dotted with wheels, gibbets, gallows, pillories; we are far, too, from that dream of the reformers, less than fifty years before.”

“It was torture for me to try to fit in as a girl among other girls. Girls my own age were a different species entirely.”

“Overhead the swallows dipped down to catch bugs rising from the ground. Then they soared back up beyond the barracks. Hannah watched them for a moment, scarcely breathing. It was as if all nature ignored what went on in the camp. There were brilliant sunsets and soft breezes. Around the commandant’s house, bright flowers were teased by the wind. Once she’d seen a fox cross the meadow to disappear into the forest.“

“All dictators followed the same routine of torture, as if they had all read the manual of sadistic etiquette.”

“Befuddled as he was, he still recognized the yellow steam and rank smell. Birchet was a torture masquerading as a cure.”

“After an eternity of tortured lives, the human fields tasted something that could almost be described as hope.”

“Its steaming atmosphere, laced with purely technical conversation, was both bliss and torture to William. He was drawn to it like a homing pigeon to its loft, yet, once arrived, it was as if the loft door was shut and he was perched outside, only able to watch the other fat, contented pigeons through the wire mesh.”

“It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.”

“I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them.”

“For the first time since the torture, I feel a hint of the old fire that used to roar louder than my fear. But its flame is weak now; as soon as it flickers, it’s blown out by the wind.”