Panic Quotes

“Ever been in a spelling bee as a kid? That snowy second after the announcement of the word as you sift your brain to see if you can spell it? It was like that, the blank panic.”

“When it begins it is like a light in a tunnel, a rush of steel andsteam across a torn up life. It is a low rumble, an earthquake in theback of the mind. My spine is a track with cold black steel racing onit, a trail of steam and dust following behind, ghost like. It feelslike my whole life is holding its breath.By the time she leaves the room I am surprised that she can’t see thetrain. It has jumped the track of my spine and landed in my mothers’living room. A cold dark thing, black steel and redwood paneling. Itis the old type, from the western movies I loved as a kid.He throws open the doors to the outside world, to the dark ocean. Ifeel a breeze tugging at me, a slender finger of wind that catches atmy shirt. Pulling. Grabbing. I can feel the panic build in me, theneed to scream or cry rising in my throat.And then I am out the door, running, tumbling down the steps fallingout into the darkened world, falling out into the lifeless ocean. Outinto the blackness. Out among the stars and shadows.And underneath my skin, in the back of my head and down the back of myspine I can feel the desperation and I can feel the noise. I can feelthe deep and ancient ache of loudness that litters across my bones.It’s like an old lover, comfortable and well known, but unwelcome andinappropriate with her stories of our frolicking.And then she’s gone and the Conductor is closing the door. Thedarkness swells around us, enveloping us in a cocoon, pressing flatagainst the train like a storm. I wonder, what is this place?Those had been heady days, full and intense. It’s funny. I rememberthe problems, the confusions and the fears of life we all dealt with.But, that all seems to fade. It all seems to be replaced by images ofthe days when it was all just okay. We all had plans back then,patterns in which we expected the world to fit, how it was to bedeciphered.Eventually you just can’t carry yourself any longer, can’t keep youreyelids open, and can’t focus on anything but the flickering light ofthe stars. Hours pass, at first slowly like a river and then all in arush, a climax and I am home in the dorm, waking up to the ringing ofthe telephone.When she is gone the apartment is silent, empty, almost like a personsleeping, waiting to wake up. When she is gone, and I am alone, I curlup on the bed, wait for the house to eject me from its dying corpse.Crazy thoughts cross through my head, like slants of light in anattic.The Boston 395 rocks a bit, a creaking noise spilling in from theundercarriage. I have decided that whatever this place is, all thesenoises, sensations - all the train-ness of this place - is afabrication. It lulls you into a sense of security, allows you to feelas if it’s a familiar place. But whatever it is, it’s not a train, orat least not just a train.The air, heightened, tense against the glass. I can hear the squeak ofshoes on linoleum, I can hear the soft rattle of a dying man’sbreathing. Men in white uniforms, sharp pressed lines, run past,rolling gurneys down florescent hallways.”

“Too often when we say we feel joyful, we’re really feeling manic. There is a frenetic nature to our joy, a whiff of panic; we’re afraid the moment might end abruptly. But then there are other moments when our joy is more solidly grounded. I am not speaking of a transcendental moment, of bliss, but something less.”

“You don't have to be in our industry to have a panic attack about your career when you're pregnant. Even if you're a lawyer, you can think, 'I'm scared to take time off because I don't want to get passed by.'”

“In these days of instant gratification and electronic wizardry there are still some people, real people, who do not panic when their telephones fail because the batteries need re-charging. Instead they plug, not into an electronic device but into the earth, feel the wind in their hair, listen to the joyous, constant reaffirmation of running water and feel the good sun or refreshing rain on their skin. They, and only they, can be truly re-charged.”

“Hugh Grant, who several times has announced that he was thinking of retiring from acting, has said that he suffers from panic attacks when the cameras start rolling.”

“People were already beginning to forget, what horrible suffering the war had brought them. I did not want to cause fear and panic, but to let people know how dreadful war is and so to stimulate people's powers of resistance.”

“The amygdala is indeed crucial for monitoring our environment and deciding what's worth getting worked up over. Once the amygdala determines this, however, it merely trips another circuit to actually produce the panic.”

“Ready for the cheap escapeOn the brink of self destruction Widespread panic Broken glass inside my head Bleeding down these thoughts ~”

“When you're acting, it's all about you and the person in front of you, and I think in life we forget to apply the same technique, and we get caught up in the panic of what we're trying to do - how overwhelmingly daunting the task of trying to become an actor is.”

“I didn't panic until my chest collapsed and I couldn't breathe. I gasped until I no longer had a throat to do it with. I didn't feel like I was holding my breath - it was more like I had no lungs.”

“Having people wait outside of my house sort of gives me a panic attack. I'm a believer in the concept that people should not be followed and photographed everywhere.”

“Many people believe that eliminating the apparent causes of fear will eliminate it, but fear, like beauty, is part of the world. The fear of fear results in the growth of terror as well as a loss of the beauty and wonder of the world. By fearing fear, we create the room for terror and panic to grow. People become blinded by fear, driven by anxieties, and increasingly ruled by phobias and obsessions. When we fail to recognize how fear works in the world, we become ruled by it. The point is not to become paralyzed with foreboding or be caught in the panic that can grip the collective and cause people to run blindly in the wrong direction. The point is to willingly go where most fear to go, to follow where the fear might lead and face the ways that the world roars at us.”

“The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.”

“Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!O falling fire and piercing cryand panic, and a weak mailed fistclenched ignorant against the sky!”

“Everyone always says, 'Kristen got 'Panic Room' because she looks like Jodie Foster.' But it was actually Nicole Kidman who was supposed to play my mother.”

“I suffer panic attacks, anxiety attacks, seemingly random triggers that immobilise me, render me useless but simultaneously unable to explain myself.”

“Someone may offer you a freshly caught whole large fish, like a salmon or striped bass. Don't panic - take it!”

“The problem with a panic attack is what you're fearing, more than anything, is having a panic attack, so it becomes a cycle.”

“Sometimes I'll go into a shop and speak in a different accent to see if I can pull it off. But then somebody will be like, 'Where did you say you were from again...?' And then I panic, and my accent dissolves, and I pretend like I wasn't doing it in the first place.”