History never repeats, but there are the obvious precedents that pessimists can reach for: Sarajevo, 1914; the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, 1938. But equally relevant might be the tragically meaningless guarantees Britain extended to Poland in 1939.

Alistair Horne

Gordon Brown is a character from a tragic opera, twisted by ambition and a Presbyterian sense of fateful destiny. He has waited 13 years, mostly in Tony Blair's shadow, for this poisoned chalice and has a pessimist's luck.

A. A. Gill

Cancer is something that, tragically, affects almost all of our lives.

Abbey Clancy

Because Mr. Mandela's early opponents invested so many resources into distorting the true nature of his advocacy, the singular historic moment millions now celebrate could have been tragically lost to guerrilla decontextualization.

Aberjhani

The band 'The Tragically Hip'. They're super well known in Canada, not so much in the U.S. They're a great band and when we were growing up we listened to them all the time, They're icons in Canada.

Adam Gontier

'Mr. Peanut' is not about a man who dreams of killing his wife; that's jacket copy, to me. 'Mr. Peanut' is about the dynamism of marriage and the distances - some tragic, some redemptive - that marriages travel over time, and those travels ain't always pretty.

Adam Ross

I liked Hans Christian Andersen because the tales were so dark and tragic.

Aimee Bender

In sports, I refused to do any interviews that were just going to become human-interest stories. Don't turn me into a tragic heroine.

Aimee Mullins

When we look at the situation in Ferguson, Missouri and the tragic death of Michael Brown, we are reminded of the importance of who we elect to our city councils, who sits on our local board of education committees, who we pick to represent us in Congress, in the Senate and more.

Al Sharpton

Like, I have had moments, which I think most people have, where you'll be watching TV, and it'll be interrupted by some tragic event, and you'll actually find yourself thinking, 'I don't want to hear about this train being derailed! What happened to 'The Flintstones?'

Al Yankovic

What annoys me about most self-help books is that they have no tragic sense. They have no sense that life is fundamentally incomplete rather than accidentally incomplete.

Alain de Botton

Poland is a wildly dramatic and tragic story. It's just unbelievable what went on with those people. How they survive, I don't really know. The Germans had a particular hatred for the Poles; they really considered them subhuman Slavs, and they were very brutal to them.

Alan Furst

You have to take the tragic and turn it to magic.

Alaska

When you see things upside down, the ego can be extraordinarily funny; it's absurd. But it's tragic at the same time.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Marie Cornelie Falcon, who lost her voice while performing - singing the line 'Je suis pret' - 'I am ready.' How much more tragic can you get?

Alexander Chee

Being gay is not a terrible, tragic disease that requires prevention or treatment chosen for you by your parents.

Alice Dreger

In those early days, the important thing was the happy ending. I did not tolerate unhappy endings - for my heroines, anyway. And later on, I began to read things like 'Wuthering Heights,' and very, very unhappy endings would take place, so I changed my ideas completely and went in for the tragic, which I enjoyed.

Alice Munro

History never repeats, but there are the obvious precedents that pessimists can reach for: Sarajevo, 1914; the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, 1938. But equally relevant might be the tragically meaningless guarantees Britain extended to Poland in 1939.

Alistair Horne

I have mixed feelings about Jerusalem. It is fascinating, it is beautiful, it is tragic, and it is extremely attractive to all kinds of fanatics or redeemers, world reformers, self-appointed prophets or messiahs. I find this fascinating, but I don't think I would like to live in the middle of this. I need my distance.

Amos Oz

We had a few tragic accidents in our state, as they've had in every state, from train crashes on down. And really, no text is worth dying for; that is our message to young people. And this is such a new phenomenon when you look at the number of texts and how they've increased exponentially in just the last few years.

Amy Klobuchar

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character.

Andrew Coyle Bradley