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“He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

“We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Man of an hard heart! Hear me, Proud, Stern, and Cruel! You could have saved me; you could have restored me to happiness and virtue, but would not! You are the destroyer of my Soul; You are my Murderer, and on you fall the curse of my death and my unborn Infant’s! Insolent in your yet-unshaken virtue, you disdained the prayers of a Penitent; But God will show mercy, though you show none. And where is the merit of your boasted virtue? What temptations have you vanquished? Coward! you have fled from it, not opposed seduction. But the day of Trial will arrive! Oh! then when you yield to impetuous passions! when you feel that Man is weak, and born to err; When shuddering you look back upon your crimes, and solicit with terror the mercy of your God, Oh! in that fearful moment think upon me! Think upon your Cruelty! Think upon Agnes, and despair of pardon!”
― Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk

“You'll continue to be a bitch no matter what, but I'm glad you aren't a callous, self-absorbed one.”
― Genna Rulon, Only for You

“You are not a better or wiser person simply because you’ve ceased to care.”
― Clifford Cohen

“A nod at Beatrice who held absolutely still. "She said she would come with me. She insisted on it. She stamped her little foot at me."
He pointed down to her toes as if she were a child yet.
Then he straightened his shoulders. "But I sent her back to the nursery, where she belonged, and told her to play with her dolls instead. As everyone knows, a female on a hunt is a distraction at best and bad luck at worse."

Which explained why Beatrice went into the woods with her hound alone, George thought. She looked now as though she had gone to some other place where she could not hear her father's words and thus could not be hurt by them. George wondered how often she was forced to go to that place.

Did King Helm not see how much she was like him? It seemed she was rejected for any sign of femininity yet also rejected for not showing enough femininity, How could she win?”
― Mette Ivie Harrison, The Princess and the Hound

“Maybe it’s a whole lot less about focusing on the fact that we’re all victims and a whole lot more about the changing the fact that we’re all careless, as that is what victimized all of us in the first place.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“...when you look at the stars, you should tremble - only dullards have become callous to this frisson ...”
― John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

“The world won’t show you mercy when you need it most.”
― Logan Egle, The Emotional Embodiment of Stars

“We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
It's interesting when people die -
Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry

You don't really need to find out what's going on
You don't really want to know just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry”
― Don Henley

“My soul is callous, it is impassive... I put any sentiment whatever at defiance to attain it, with the exception of pleasure. I am mistress of that soul's movements and affections, of its desires, of its impulsions; with me, everything is under the unchallenged control of mind; and there's worse yet... for my mind is appalling. But I am not complaining, I cherish my vices, I abhor virtue; I am the sworn enemy of all religions, of all gods and godlings, I fear neither the ills of life nor what follows death; and when you're like me, you're happy.”
― Marquis de Sade, Juliette

“It is a well-worn truth that cops grow callous, a cliché so tattered that it is even common on television. All cops face things every day that are so gruesome, brutal, and bizarre that no normal human being could deal with them on a daily basis and stay sane. And so they learn not to feel, to grow and maintain a poker-faced whimsy toward all the surprising things their fellow humans find to do to each other. All cops practice not-feeling, and it may be that Miami cops are better at it than others, since they have so many opportunities to learn.”
― Jeff Lindsay, Dexter Is Delicious

“The obstinacy of those people is funny. That someone may simply be fed up with them and their ways and may want to look for another company, that just cannot enter their heads. They can’t believe it. There must be a trick behind it, a dishonest trick, something crooked, something political, something they can understand. They’re so used to sniffing at their own behinds that when someone wants to get a breath of fresh air, to turn at last to something different, and more important, and threatened, something that's got to be
saved at all costs, it's quite beyond them.”
― Romain Gary, The Roots of Heaven

“That politicians
who smiled at us and kissed our babies
blue eyes shining with triumph
well knew we were falling
into our graves
kicked by them
as they counted
our votes.”
― Alice Walker, Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart

“In the grip of perfect comfort, we are dulled to the discomfort of others. From steaming water we can think dispassionately of the Arctic. From a cool sea, the Equator is a theory. In a woman's arms, the loneliness of others has no power to chill. And so Richard Temperley, regaining his vigour beneath the rippling warmth of a hotel bath, must not be censured for his temporary inability to share in the tragedy that lay so near at hand. He was merely accumulating, in his callousness, new strength to deal with it, as you or I might have done in his place.

After the bath, he dressed thoughtfully. Already his sense of responsibility had returned to him, and his resuscitated mind was grappling with its problems.”
― J. Jefferson Farjeon, The Z Murders

“She leaned back in her chair and raised her face to the sun, mildly intoxicated, not so much by the wine as by the scope of this important argument. Seduced, also, by the possibility that she might please herself, simply by wishing it so. As a devil's advocate, he was flawless. And yet, she knew, there was a flaw in his reasoning, just as there was a flaw in his ability to feel.”
― Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac