- Big Story
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- Nov 07, 2020
Abrupt Quotes
When everything changes at once.
These quotes capture moments that end without warning, a sudden loss, a science experiment gone wrong, or an unexpected jolt of awareness around other people.
- Last Updated on Aug 01, 2026
- More
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- Nov 07, 2020
I find when I'm more awake, I tend to think more of the structure and movement of a tune, abrupt transitions, etc.; things becoming more composed.
- Ending
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- Nov 07, 2020
I don't eat animals. I rescue strays and take injured pigeons to the wildlife rehab. I carry spiders and wasps outside in a cup covered with a 3x5 card. It would only follow that I'd take pause when contemplating the abrupt and apparently brutal ending of a tiny human being's life, or even a potential human being's life.
- Disease
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- Nov 07, 2020
After the abrupt death of my mother, Jane, on Sept. 5, 1991, of a disease called amyloidosis, my dad took up golf at 57. He and my mother had always played tennis - a couples' game of mixed doubles and tennis bracelets and Love-Love. But in mourning, Dad turned Job-like to golf, a game of frustration and golf widows and solitary hours on the range.
- Life
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- Nov 07, 2020
When you go through a long illness, certainly one of cancer, there's a certain release from it and relief that it has come to an end, because the suffering can be unbearable, as opposed to an abrupt stop to life when they go out the door and there's a loved one who never comes home because of some accident.
- Like
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- Nov 07, 2020
The truth is that the history of Mexico is a history in the image of its geography: abrupt and tortuous. Each historical period is like a plateau surrounded by tall mountains and separated from the other plateaus by precipices and divides.
- Matter
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- Nov 07, 2020
However long, it's definitely the presence of other people that brings out the weirdness - that collision of your own way of being with the everyday lives of others, the abrupt awareness - always a surprise no matter how often it's happened - that their lives are very different from your own.
- End
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- Nov 07, 2020
Fossil fuels, including oil, are running out and supplies are getting harder to find. If we do nothing, prices will continue to rise and our reliance on oil will come to an abrupt and tumultuous end, causing global economic and social turmoil.
- Blue
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- Nov 07, 2020
At first, I was able to use a Bunsen burner attached to my mother's gas stove, but the use of the kitchen as a laboratory came to an abrupt end when a minor explosion involving hydrogen sulphide spattered the newly painted decor and changed the colour from blue to dirty green!
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think Americans are very verbal and Aussies are more circumspect, and that can come across as being clearer. It can also come across as abrupt and cold. Some people find me to be abrupt and cold. That's just my personal style.
- Memories
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- Nov 07, 2020
In my work you often get an abrupt shift in time, a jolt. But the emotional logic will take the reader on. I hope. I trust. After all, our memories do not work with any sequential logic.
- Last
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- Nov 07, 2020
Perhaps the greatest Maya mystery of all is the cause of the civilization's abrupt decline. The last dated stela erected at Tikal was put up in A.D. 869; the last anywhere in the Maya world, in 909.
- Best
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- Nov 07, 2020