Ominous Quotes

“Ren watched us as he leaned casually against the table, holding a pair of scissors. I'd never seen a classroom tool look so dangerous.”
― Andrea Cremer, Nightshade

“Nicasia said that as mortal power grows, land and sea ought to be united. And that they would be, either in the way she hoped or the way I should fear.”

“Ominous,” I say.

“It seems I have a singular taste for women who threaten me.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Who are you?"

"I am Death," said the creature. "I thought that was obvious."

"But you're so small!"

"Only because you are small. You are young and far from your Death, September, so I seem as anything would seem if you saw it from a long way off-very small, very harmless. But I am always closer than I appear. As you grow, I shall grow with you, until at the end, I shall loom huge and dark over your bed, and you will shut your eyes so as not to see me.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

“Rain fell on the roofs of the just and the unjust, the saints and the sinners, those who knew peace and those in torment, and tomorrow began at a dark hour.”
― Robert McCammon, Mine

“It was a time for warm embraces, for smiles, for toasts and reconciliations, for renewing old friendships and making new ones, for laughter and kisses.
It was a good time, a golden autumn, a time of peace and plenty.
But winter was coming.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fire & Blood

“When 1:45 came, half the class left, and Danny Hupfer whispered, "If she gives you a cream puff after we leave, I'm going to kill you" - which was not something that someone headed off to prepare for his bar mitzvah should be thinking.
When 1:55 came and the other half of the class left, Meryl Lee whispered, "If she gives you one after we leave, I'm going to do Number 408 to you." I didn't remember what Number 408 was, but it was probably pretty close to what Danny Hupfer had promised.
Even Mai Thi looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, "I know your home." Which sounded pretty ominous.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“The phone rang. Softly, in actuality, yet it seemed loud and ominous, as phones do at night in dark hotel rooms.”
― Jim Thompson, The Nothing Man

“A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid and very luminous...finely molded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“Suddenly, Gabriela felt an unusual hand on her shoulder, branding itself through her clothing. Someone leaned against her body. A head now lay on her shoulder, and blond-reddish strands of hair that were not hers fell over her chest. The hand was glisteningly white with a hint of gray and overflown with blue, halted seams, and rested on Gabriela's hand like a stone on sand.”
― Laura Gentile, Within Paravent Walls

“Is there any phrase more ominous than "you need to see exactly what you've done"?”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“When man has finally fulfilled his death wish by wiping out anything that breathes, including himself, Pan will return to a world made innocent again.”
― Nina Antonia, The Greenwood Faun

“China’s achievement of First World standards will approximately double the entire world’s human resource use and environmental impact. But it is doubtful whether even the world’s current human resource use and impact can be sustained. Something has to give way.”
― Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

“All I could think was, The psychologist lied to us, and suddenly the pressure of her presence far above, guarding the entrance, was pressing down on me in an intolerable way.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

“Then, too, that other effect of the spores, the brightness in my chest, continued to sculpt me as I walked, and by the time I reached the deserted village that told me I was halfway to the lighthouse, I believed I could have run a marathon. I did not trust that feeling. I felt, in so many ways, that I was being lied to.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

“The wind did not blow, not a single tree swayed. The ominous silence overtook Rishabh's heart before he turned to rummage in his archived memories of Shruti.”
― Ashwini Rudra, Delhi via Lucknow: Once, love travelled this route

“Hollow Hall is a stone manor with a tall, crooked tower, the whole thing half-covered in vines and ivy. There's a balcony on the second floor that seems to have a rail of thick roots in place of iron. A curtain of thinner tendrils hangs down from it, like a scraggly beard clotted with dirt. There is something misshapen about the estate that ought to make it charming but instead makes it ominous.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“There is something about seeing someone from behind, something about the way people walk away, that I've found unnervingly intimate. Maybe it's because the back of the body isn't on guard the way the front is-the slouch of the shoulders and the flex in the back muscles, that's the most honest you'll ever see a person.”
― Jessica Knoll, Luckiest Girl Alive

“Across the expanses of northern England a thousand, thousand darknesses, a thousand, thousand places for the King to be. I greet thee, Lord, and bid thee welcome to my heart.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Her arm was outstretched, as though she were reaching for someone she loved, or maybe to ward off some unspoken danger, or maybe even in regret over something she had done. The girl had certainly made enough mistakes in her too-short lifetime. But she couldn’t have known that they would all come crashing down around her tonight.
After all, no one goes to a party expecting to die.”
― Katharine McGee, The Dazzling Heights

“There was . . . a mirror that crawled across the wall in a wooden frame. When I go into Miri's room all I can see, all I can think of is that enormous mirror, like a lake on the wall.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, White Is for Witching

“With those teachings, though, von List blended popular notions about the superiority of the white race and of Germanic
peoples in particular. From his work sprang a movement that called itself Ariosophy-
"the wisdom of the Aryans"-that borrowed
heavily from Theosophy but reworked it to
support an agenda of pan-German racism.
In the years before his death in 1919, von List proclaimed that a mighty leader, "the Strong One from Above," would soon arise and unite the Germanic peoples. He was, of course, quite correct; the year he died, an Austrian veteran named Adolf Hitler, who was strongly influenced by Ariosophy, began his political career.”
― John Michael Greer, The Occult Book: A Chronological Journey from Alchemy to Wicca

“I had run away with him when I should have run from him, and the mark that he left on me could not be so easily removed.”
― Michaela Daphne, Purlieu

“You always carry a black tarot card with you to breakfast?" she asked.
"This is the first time."
"I bet. I gotta ask you though, why the Magician?"
"A friend gave it to me. Why? What do you know about it?"
"I know you got yourself involved with a black-back magician. That means everything is hidden, and backward. You could run into an animal that doesn't act like one. A magical animal like a rougarou. A werewolf that feasts on evil souls."
I put the card in my back pocket, horizontally, so it wouldn't fall out this time.
"Protect your soul, Eggs."
"I'm not evil," I said, already out the door and on the way to see Michael, who seemed more normal to me at that moment than the waitress at Johnny River's.
"We're all capable of it sometimes," she yelled behind me.”
― Margot Berwin, Scent of Darkness

“Perhaps in another time, I would have considered what it meant to meet inside a broken crown. Today, I was too intent on who waited for us there.”
― Sarah K.L. Wilson, Dance With The Sword

“I thought it was a person,' she said, ignoring my question. ‘I thought it was a person. I thought it was.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

“I am convinced now that I and the rest of the expedition were given access to these records for the simple reason that, for certain kinds of classified information, it did not matter what we knew or didn’t know. There was only one logical conclusion: Experience told our superiors that few if any of us would be coming back.”
― Jeff VanderMeer

“Names are stupid, though.
Pretty soon he won't even need his.”
― Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians

“Bliss couldn't recall ever seeing a
sky so black or stars so bright, with the
moon hanging so low over the trees.
The drive had been long and
wearisome, and as they'd been
warned, the hike was steep and
treacherous.”
― Melissa de la Cruz, Wolf Pact, Part III

“Good wombs have borne bad sons.”
― William Shakespeare

“Adelaide Darke hated funerals, but probably not for the same reason other people did. For most, it was because of the grief, raw and twisting in their bellies. For others, it was the fact that attending one was a stark reminder of one’s own unpredictable mortality.
In Adelaide’s case, it was much simpler. She disliked funerals because they made her see things no one was supposed to see. Dead people, specifically.”
― Rosanna Leo, Darke Homecoming