59 Disaster Quotes

We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

If politics and business fail us, of course the military will be called in. In the developing world, the massive and repeated ecological disasters are quite commonly met by the military.

My idea of an amusement park story is getting adventurers to go tour environmental disaster areas. After all, if the entire Great Barrier Reef gets killed, which seems like an extremely lively possibility, what are you going to do with all that rotting limestone?

When shall we see poets born? After a time of disasters and great misfortunes, when harrowed nations begin to breathe again. And then, shaken by the terror of such spectacles, imaginations will paint things entirely strange to those who have not witnessed them.

When struck by a thunderbolt it is unnecessary to consult the Book of Dates as to the precise meaning of the omen.

The oppressive weight of disaster and tragedy in our lives does not arise from a high percentage of evil among the summed total of all acts, but from the extraordinary power of exceedingly rare incidents of depravity to inflict catastrophic damage, especially in our technological age when airplanes can become powerful bombs. (An even more evil man, armed only with a longbow, could not have wreaked such havoc at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.)

Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.

We may yet work up to some serious shooting war, or maybe some acts of urban genocide committed with rogue nuclear weapons. But if that were the case, why would we call that '9/11'? If Washington disappeared in a mushroom cloud, we'd give that huge event a different name.

What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.

Blizzards, floods, volcanos, hurricanes, earthquakes: They fascinate because they nakedly reveal that Mother Nature, afflicted with bipolar disorder, is as likely to snuff us as she is to succor us.

I wrote these two songs ['Coming Out of the Dark' and 'Always Tomorrow'] as a celebration of hope. And, I want to send it out to all of those people who are suffering through this terrible disaster [Hurricane Katrina], and please know that you are not alone -- and you will not be.

'The rock is gonna fall on us,' he stood and told the class The professor put his chalk down and peered out through his glasses But he went on and said; 'I've seen it, high up on the hill If it doesn't fall this year then very soon it will!'

Hurricane [Katrina] hit the Gulf Coast and destroyed much of the Gulf Coast - that was an act of god ... Now what happened to New Orleans, that was a complete failure of the federal government. Complete negligence by the feds.

By forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive Nature accomplishes her beneficent designs- now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and again in the fullness of time an outburst of organic life....

This is just shit. It's happening. No blame. Happening and on the rise it would appear. What can we do to delay it? Probably zilch. To stop it? Likely less. But to survive it? Now that sounds more promising. There is evidence of bad shit having been survived before. Ancient Advice Left in cave by Wise French Caveman: 'When Bigbad Shit come, no run scream hide. Try paint picture of it on wall. Drum to it. Sing to it. Dance to it. This give you handle on it.' So Twister is my try.

I was married once- in San Francisco. I haven't seen her for many years. The great earthquake and fire in 1906 destroyed the marriage certificate. There's no legal proof. Which proves that earthquakes aren't all bad.

If Chicago had been hit, I assure you New Yorkers would not have cared. What was stunning when New York was hit was how the rest of America rushed to New York's defense. New Yorkers would have been like, 'It's tough for them; now let's go back to our Calvin Klein fashion shows.'

If disasters get bad enough, they certainly become national-security threats and the National Guard is called in.

It's by no means a pleasant prospect, but what else is there? I once saw the 82nd Airborne doing rescue and psychological operations in the wreckage of Hurricane Andrew. I respect their dedication, and the population was thrilled to see them.

'Doubtless,' said I, 'what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore.

By appointing Hitler Chancellor of the Reich, you have handed over our sacred German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I prophesy to you this evil man will plunge our Reich into the abyss and will inflict immeasurable woe on our nation. Future generations will curse you in your grave for this action.

I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will. - September 1, 2005. [68]

Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility.

We wanted to not just have a presence there [areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina] and raise awareness in the Hispanic community -- and anyone else who might be watching -- but leave them a little better than when we got there.

'What an unutterable catastrophe!' The apothecary always had the proper expression ready, whatever the occasion.

Something terrible came to the hills and valleys on that meteor, and something terrible - though I know not in what proportion - still remains.

You know the man who told me about it on the bus, as it went up the hill out of Scranton, Pennsylvania, he shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head, and he said (and this is exactly what he said) 'Boy that sure must've been something. Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas. Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas. Of bananas. Just bananas. Thirty thousand pounds. of Bananas-not no driver now. Just bananas!'

Every false philosophy is an imagination of a world propitious to irrational demands and unregulated desires. The false philosopher's dream infects someone in closer touch than himself with everyday experience, this agent of his desire seeks to translate the dream into reality, and disaster follows. It is the Cinderella story in actual life. Rousseau was Robespierre's fairy godmother, Karl Marx was Lenin's, Nietzsche was Hitler's.

The skipper stormed and tore his hair, Hauled on his boots and roared at Marden- 'Nantucket's sunk and here we are Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!'

Magically turning people's old scalar contexts into list contexts is a recipe for several kinds of disaster.

Just before the forecastle sunk, the remaining sailors determined to leave. The steward, with whom the child had always been a great favorite, took it, almost by main force, and plunged with it into the sea; neither reached the shore alive. The Marquis Ossoli was soon afterwards washed away, but his wife remained in ignorance of his fate. The cook, who was the last person that reached the shore alive, said that the last words he heard her speak were: 'I see nothing but death before me, - I shall never reach the shore.' It was between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, and after lingering for about ten hours, exposed to the mountainous surf that swept over the vessel, with the contemplation of death constantly forced upon her mind, she was finally overwhelmed as the foremast fell.

The ship struck at ten minutes after four A.M., and all hands, being mostly in their nightclothes, made haste to the forecastle, the water coming in at once. There they remained; the passengers in the forecastle, the crew above it, doing what they could. Every wave lifed the forecastle roof and washed over those within. The first man got ashore at nine; many from nine to noon. At flood-tide, about half past three o'clock, when the ship broke up entirely, they came out of the forecastle, and Margaret sat with her back to the foremast, with her hands on her knees, her husband and child already drowned. A great wave came and washed her aft. The steward had just before taken her child and started for shore. Both were drowned.

With hue like that when some great painter dips His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.

I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. I was there working with them. I was there guiding things. I was there bringing people there. But I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them.

I mean, why didn't these morons leave New Orleans before the hurricane? I'll tell you why: because they wanted to rape and loot! That's just the way some people are! And if they're black - if the rapists and looters are black - it's not George Bush's fault! We've had these problems ever since the Emancipation Proclamation. Once the whites leave town, all you've got is overwhelming lawlessness. That's not racism, Mr. Snerdley; it's a proven, demonstrable fact. Have you even seen a ghetto in Greenwich, Connecticut? I rest my case.

Urbem neque pro maiestate imperii ornatam et inundationibus incendiisque obnoxiam excoluit adeo, ut iure sit gloriatus marmoream se relinquere, quam latericiam accepisset.

I didn't have a problem with the evacuations in Mississippi or Alabama. They were doing it. Jeb Bush had already ordered evacuations through the Keys as Katrina was making its way through that area. My mistake was in recognizing that, for whatever reason that we might want to discuss later, but for whatever reason, Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco were reticent to order a mandatory evacuation. And if I, Mike Brown, as an individual could have done something to convince them that this was the big one, and they needed to order a mandatory evacuation, I would have done it... My biggest mistake was not recognising by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional.

I've overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it.

This story's not about me. This story's about the worst disaster of the history of our country that stretched every government to its limit and now we have to help these victims, ... That's all I've wanted to do.

And lo! the universal air Seemed lit with ghastly flame; Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes Were looking down in blame

You didn't listen, until the niggaz burned it down/And now Bush can't stop the hit

If a plane's gonna crash, I want to be there to take a picture of it.

For when ?at ?e Helle herde ?e houndez of heuen, He watz ferlyly fayn, vnfolded bylyue; ?e grete barrez of ?e abyme he barst vp at onez, ?at alle ?e regioun torof in riftes ful grete, & clouen alle in lyttel cloutes ?e clyffez aywhere, As lauce leuez of ?e boke ?at lepes in twynne.

The whole disaster was only made possible by the fact that there already existed in the world a similar megalomania, allied to this one in race, to wit, the Jewish.

Thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

We to a little ale-house on the Bankside, over against the Three Cranes, and there stayed till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow; and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. Barbary and her husband away before us. We stayed till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it.

The event that came to be known as The Pulse began at 3:03 p.m., eastern standard time, on the afternoon of October 1. The term was a misnomer, of course, but within ten hours of the event, most of the scientists capable of pointing this out were either dead or insane. The name hardly mattered, in any case. What mattered was the effect.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, 'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.' And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us! [...] George Bush doesn't care about black people.

It's-a-castastrophe!