"It happened in New York, April 10th, nineteen years ago. Even my hand balks at the date. I had to push to write it down, just to keep the pen moving on the paper. It used to be a perfectly ordinary day, but now it sticks up on the calendar like a rusty nail."

Trauma, Memory, Time, Pain

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"It happened in New York, April 10th, nineteen years ago. Even my hand balks at the date. I had to push to write it down, just to keep the pen moving on the paper. It used to be a perfectly ordinary day, but now it sticks up on the calendar like a rusty nail."

Exlpore more Trauma quotes

"Because the past was always around her and might return at any time. It prowled the world searching for her, and she knew it was growing angrier at every passing day."

Nicholas Sparks, American Author

Trauma, Past, Fear, Memory, Escape

"Shock is a merciful condition. It allows you to get through disaster with a necessary distance between you and your feelings."

Lisa Kleypas, American Novelist

Trauma, Disaster, Feelings, Distance, Emotion

"I learned how to stop crying.I learned how to hide inside of myself.I learned how to be somebody else.I learned how to be cold and numb."

Sherman Alexie, American Writer

Trauma, Defense, Survival, Identity

"Have you ever experienced a shattering in your own personal life? Where death, divorce, financial loss, failure, or disaster changed your world to such an extent that you weren't sure how to rebuild again? Clearing the debris from the aftermath is a great first step. It enables you to start with a clean slate so you can rebuild exactly what you desire. Where can you begin?"

Susan C. Young, American Author

Trauma, Recovery, Life, Power, Inspirational

"But my father, a thief in many ways, had robbed me of my concentration."

Mitch Albom, American Writer

Trauma, Family, Pain, Loss, Focus

"Her body was a prison, her mind was a prison. Her memories were a prison. The people she loved. She couldn't get away from the hurt of them. She could leave Eric, walk out of her apartment, walk forever if she liked, but she couldn't escape what really hurt. Tonight even the sky felt like a prison."

Ann Brashares, American Author

Trauma, Prison, Hurt, Memory, Isolation

"The first several years of my life were used to upload incredible amounts of fear, and I just became afraid of everything. I was afraid of my parents, afraid of my classmates, afraid of the streets of Washington, D.C. I would flinch at every gesture."

Henry Rollins, American Musician

Trauma, Fear, Anxiety, Childhood, Memory

"This was true, she knew. Being involved with him gave her the privileged position of knowing him intimately. There were nights when he would wake up sweating, the nightmares returning out of the blue after a peaceful period sometimes weeks long. Growing up in the middle of a fierce civil war could indelibly mark a child. To Mykl, birthdays were always just another year under the belt, where the only reason to celebrate was that you weren't dead yet. She took his hand, squeezed it tight and led him inside."

Christina Engela, South African Author

Trauma, War, Survival, Pain

"It was like waking from a nightmare to a worse nightmare."

Donna Tartt, American Novelist

Trauma, Despair, Realization, Fear

"Between 60 and 80 percent of strippers come from a background of sexual abuse."

Caitlin Moran, British Journalist

Trauma, Abuse, Statistics, Exploitation

Explore more quotes by Donna Tartt

"I think this goes more to the idea of 'relentless irony' than 'divine providence."

Irony

"Is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?"

Courage

"Maybe good luck was like bad luck in that it took a while to sink in."

Luck

"It's so heartbreaking and unnecessary how we lose things. From pure carelessness. Fires, wars. The Parthenon, used as a munitions storehouse. I guess that anything we manage to save from history is a miracle."

Loss

"I think politics is deadly to write about, frankly. If you have a political agenda and you set out to write a novel to prove that, say, capitalism should crumble, then it's going to be a really bad novel. Very few people have been able to deal with political fiction - Dickens, Dostoyevsky. But even Tolstoy got really tiresome when he was talking about the serfs. You have to let characters be characters, not [gruff voice] Mr Capitalism or [girlie voice] Miss Anti-Fur."

Writing

"Fate is cruel but maybe not random. Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn't mean we have to bow and gravel to it."

Fate

"And beauty is terror,' said Julian, 'then what is desire? We think we have many desires, but in fact we have only one. What is it?''To live,' said Camilla.'To live forever,' said Bunny, chin cupped in palm."

Desire

"This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at all humanity and human endeavor from the dawn of time. The writhing loathsomeness of the biological order. Old age, sickness, death. No escape for anyone. Even the beautiful ones were like soft fruit about to spoil. And yet somehow people still kept fucking and breeding and popping out new fodder for the grave, producing more and more new beings to suffer like this was some kind of redemptive, or good, or even somehow morally admirable thing: dragging more innocent creatures into the lose-lose game."

Despair

"It was a myth you couldn't function on opiates: shooting up was one thing but for someone like me-jumping at pigeons beating from the sidewalk, afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder practically to the point of spasticity and cerebral palsy-pills were the key to being not only competent, but high-functioning."

Addiction

"What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can't get there any other way?"

Redemption