“
The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.
”
”
Maya Angelou
“
I am getting incredibly high on a single, astounding fact: that it’s always sunny above the clouds. Always. That every day on earth—every day I have ever had—was secretly sunny, after all.
”
”
Caitlin Moran (How to Build a Girl)
“
Eight full lives,” I whispered against his jaw, my voice breaking. “Eight full lives and I never found anyone I would stay on a planet for, anyone I would follow when they left. I never found a partner. Why now? Why you? You're not of my species. How can you be my partner?”
“It's a strange universe,” he murmured.
“It's not fair,” I complained, echoing Sunny's words. It wasn't fair. How could I find this, find love–now, in this eleventh hour–and have to leave it? Was it fair that my soul and body couldn't reconcile? Was it fair that I had to love Melanie, too? Was it fair that Ian would suffer? He deserved happiness if anyone did. Itwasn't fair or right or even…sane. How could I do this to him?
“I love you,” I whispered.
“Don't say that like you're saying goodbye.”
But I had to. “I, the soul called Wanderer, love you, human Ian. And that will never change, no matter what I might become.” I worded it carefully, so that there would be no lie in my voice.
“If I were a Dolphin or a Bear or a Flower, it wouldn't matter. I would always love you, always remember you. You will be my only partner.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (The Host (The Host, #1))
“
There are always surprises. Life may be inveterately grim and the surprises disproportionately unpleasant, but it would be hardly worth living if there were no exceptions, no sunny days, no acts of random kindness.
”
”
T. Coraghessan Boyle (The Tortilla Curtain)
“
Her sunny side was always up.
”
”
Richard Brautigan (Sombrero Fallout (Arena Books))
“
And I realize that love is as ever-changing as a sky or as an ocean: always there, but not always sunny or clean or calm.
”
”
Katy Evans (Manwhore +1 (Manwhore, #2))
“
Eternally sunny, then.”
“Oh—” He grimaces. “Can’t promise that. Storms always come, they have to — brings balance.
”
”
Jessa Hastings (Magnolia Parks: The Long Way Home (Magnolia Parks Universe, #3))
“
On such sunny, sad mornings I always feel in my bones that there is a chance yet of my not being excluded from Heaven, and that salvation may be granted to me despite the frozen mud and horror in my heart.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire)
“
How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny sefishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they are not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton
“
Hely’s feelings didn’t run very deep; he lived in sunny shallows where it was always warm and bright.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Little Friend (Vintage Contemporaries))
“
He loved her eyes. They were always changing, and Lucas liked to catalogue all their different colors in his mind. When she laughed, her eyes were pale amber, like honey sitting in a glass jar on a sunny window. When he kissed her, they darkened until they were the rich color of mahogany leather, but with strips of red and gold thread shot through. Right now they were turning dark—inviting him to lower his lips to hers.
”
”
Josephine Angelini (Dreamless (Starcrossed, #2))
“
Once he went into the mountains on a clear, sunny day, and wandered about for a long time with a tormenting thought that refused to take shape. Before him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite, as if it went on forever. For a long time he looked and suffered. He remembered now how he had stretched out his arms to that bright, infinite blue and wept. What had tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet, what was this great everlasting feast, to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, and which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises; every morning there is a rainbow over the waterfall; every evening the highest snowcapped mountain, there, far away, at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame; every little fly that buzzes near him in a hot ray of sunlight participates in this whole chorus: knows its place, loves it, and is happy; every little blade of grass grows and is happy! And everything has its path, and everything knows its path, goes with a song and comes back with a song; only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds, a stranger to everything and a castaway.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Idiot)
“
I realized that the childish impression I had always had of my father, as Just Lawgiver, was entirely wrong. We were utterly dependent on this man, who was not only deluded and ignorant, but incompetent in every way. What was more, I knew that my mother was incapable of standing up to him. It was like walking into the cockpit of an airplane and finding the pilot and co-pilot passed out drunk in their seats. And standing outside the Lyceum, I was struck with a black, incredulous horror, which in fact was not at all unlike the horror I had felt at twelve, sitting on a bar stool in our sunny little kitchen in Plano. Who is in control here? I thought, dismayed. Who is flying this plane?
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
Who are you?" Violet asked. It is confusing to fall asleep in the daytime and wake up at night.
"what are you doing with Uncle Monty's reptiles?" Klaus asked. It is also confusing to realize you have been sleeping on stairs, rather than in a bed or sleeping bag.
"Dixnik?" Sunny asked. It is always confusing why anyone would choose to wear a plaid shirt.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #2))
“
It is not always a problem finding the truth, it is however sometimes a problem accepting it.
”
”
sunny-drunk
“
Queen of my tub, I merrily sing,
While the white foam rises high,
And sturdily wash, and rinse, and wring,
And fasten the clothes to dry;
Then out in the free fresh air they swing,
Under the sunny sky.
I wish we could wash from our hearts and our souls
The stains of the week away,
And let water and air by their magic make
Ourselves as pure as they;
Then on the earth there would be indeed
A glorious washing-day!
Along the path of a useful life
Will heart's-ease ever bloom;
The busy mind has no time to think
Of sorrow, or care, or gloom;
And anxious thoughts may be swept away
As we busily wield a broom.
I am glad a task to me is given
To labor at day by day;
For it brings me health, and strength, and hope,
And I cheerfully learn to say-
"Head, you may think; Heart, you may feel;
But Hand, you shall work always!
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
My mother worked for the social services all her life. She always said that in the middle of all the crap, in the thick of it all, you always had a sunny story turning up. Which makes it all worthwhile.' The next words that come are smiling. 'You're my sunny story, Britt-Marie.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (Britt-Marie Was Here)
“
If I could take a bite of the whole world
And feel it on my palate
I’d be more happy for a minute or so...
But I don’t always want to be happy.
Sometimes you have to be
Unhappy to be natural...
Not every day is sunny.
When there’s been no rain for a while, you pray for it to come.
So I take unhappiness with happiness
Naturally, like someone who doesn’t find it strange
That there are mountains and plains
And that there are cliffs and grass...
What you need is to be natural and calm
In happiness and in unhappiness,
To feel like someone seeing,
To think like someone walking,
And when it’s time to die, remember the day dies,
And the sunset is beautiful, and the endless night is beautiful...
That’s how it is and that’s how it should be...
”
”
Alberto Caeiro (The Keeper of Sheep)
“
As she worked, she remembered something her parents had said to her when Klaus was born, and against when they brought Sunny home from the hospital. 'you are the eldest Baudelaire child,' they had said, kindly but firmly. 'And as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger siblings. Promise us that you will always watch out for them and make sure they don't get into trouble.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1))
“
No, Sunny. I shouldn’t be scared. You’re the least scary thing in my life. You’re not just tattooed on my skin. You’re branded on my heart. Woven into the fiber of my being. The most constant and reassuring person in my life. When I close my eyes, I see you. When you’re away from me, I dream about you. When I need someone to lean on, you are always there for me. God. You’ve loved me when I haven’t even been able to love myself.” My hands squeeze her cheeks and tears seep out over them. But she’s smiling up at me like I hung the moon.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
In reading, one should notice and fondle details. There is nothing wrong about the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the sunny trifles of the book have been lovingly collected. If one begins with a readymade generalization, one begins at the wrong end and travels away from the book before one has started to understand it. Nothing is more boring or more unfair to the author than starting to read, say, Madame Bovary, with the preconceived notion that it is a denunciation of the bourgeoisie. We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov
“
I’ve seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Californication, and far as I can tell the coolest thing about writing is all the stuff you do when you’re not writing.
”
”
The Gang (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The 7 Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today)
“
I am a sanguinely optimistic person, I see the bright side, the silver lining, a half-full glass. Hence, my day is always sunny even though the sky foreboding.
”
”
Joseph V. Angeles
“
Therapists instead prefer to take on YAVIS—Young, Attractive, Verbal, Intelligent, and Successful clients.[3] They love an amenable type, someone who is curious about their internal workings and eager to plumb them, someone who’s already read articles in The New Yorker about psychology to familiarize them with the language of metacognition and congruence. Good luck if you’re a regular-ass Joe who’d rather watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
”
”
Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma)
“
A pilot once told me, he always hoped for sunny days. They were the easiest and safest and the flights with the least amount of concern.” “In some way or another, that’s what we all hope for.” “That’s why I share the pictures; we all need a little more hope.
”
”
Marni Mann (When Ashes Fall (Moments in Boston, #1))
“
Blue had never believed in death until then. Not in a real way. It happened to other people, other families, in other places. It happened in hospitals or automobile crashes or battle zones. It happened--now she remembered Gansey's words outside Gwenllian's tomb--with ceremony. With some announcement of itself. It didn't just happen in the attic on a sunny day while she was sitting in the reading room. It didn't just HAPPEN, in only a moment, an irreversible moment. It didn't happen to people she had always known. But it did. And there would now forever be two Blues: the Blue that was before, and the Blue that was after. The one who didn't believe, and the one who did.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle, #3))
“
Dramatic irony is a cruel occurrence, one that is almost always upsetting and I'm sorry to have it appear in this story, but Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have such unfortunate lives that it was only a matter of time before dramatic irony would rear its ugly head.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #2))
“
What a strange, sad man is he!" said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. "In the dark night-time, he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder! And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses my forehead, too, that the little brook would hardly wash it off! But here in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not; nor must we know him! A strange, sad man is he, with is hand always over his heart!
”
”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter)
“
I regard anti-Semitism as ineradicable and as one element of the toxin with which religion has infected us. Perhaps partly for this reason, I have never been able to see Zionism as a cure for it. American and British and French Jews have told me with perfect sincerity that they are always prepared for the day when 'it happens again' and the Jew-baiters take over. (And I don't pretend not to know what they are talking about: I have actually seen the rabid phenomenon at work in modern and sunny Argentina and am unable to forget it.) So then, they seem to think, they will take refuge in the Law of Return, and in Haifa, or for all I know in Hebron. Never mind for now that if all of world Jewry did settle in Palestine, this would actually necessitate further Israeli expansion, expulsion, and colonization, and that their departure under these apocalyptic conditions would leave the new brownshirts and blackshirts in possession of the French and British and American nuclear arsenals. This is ghetto thinking, hardly even fractionally updated to take into account what has changed. The important but delayed realization will have to come: Israeli Jews are a part of the diaspora, not a group that has escaped from it. Why else does Israel daily beseech the often-flourishing Jews of other lands, urging them to help the most endangered Jews of all: the ones who rule Palestine by force of arms? Why else, having supposedly escaped from the need to rely on Gentile goodwill, has Israel come to depend more and more upon it? On this reckoning, Zionism must constitute one of the greatest potential non sequiturs in human history.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
“
Maybe God created the rain to remind us that life isn't always a sunny day.
”
”
Val Irvin Mabayo
“
The key to perseverance is not listening when people tell you that you suck.
”
”
The Gang (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The 7 Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today)
“
Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If i insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.
”
”
Maya Angelou (Letter to My Daughter)
“
After that exercise, the ship of my life might or might not be sailing on calm seas. The challenging days of my existence might or might not be bright and promising. From that encounter on, whether my days are stormy or sunny and if my nights are glorious or lonely, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, I remember there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.
”
”
Maya Angelou (Mom & Me & Mom)
“
Could it really be so hard to just let it rain when it rains and be sunny when it’s sunny without complaining about it? Apparently the mind can’t do it: Why did it have to rain today? It always rains when I don’t want it to. It had all week to rain; it’s just not fair.
”
”
Mickey A. Singer (The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection)
“
When considering marriage, the first thing you need to do is create a proper framework for thinking about whether or not you should actually do it. The first question you have to ask yourself is “Am I totally high on crack?” If the answer is no, then the next question you should ask yourself is “Why, if I’m not totally high on crack, am I even thinking about getting married?
”
”
The Gang (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The 7 Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today)
“
We stand, when we are young, on the sunny slope among the pines, and look across an unknown country to the mountains. There are clouds, but they are edged with light. We do not fear as we dip into the valley; we do not fear the clouds. Thank God for the splendid fearlessness of youth. And as for older travelers whom the Lord has led over the hill and the dale, they have not been given the spirit of fear. They think of the way they have come since they stood on that bright hillside, and their word is always this: There are reasons and reasons for hope and for happiness, and never one for fear.
”
”
Amy Carmichael
“
Everyone wears blindfolds at a High Court trial," the manager replied, "except the judges, of course. Haven't you heard the expression justice is blind?"
"Yes," Klaus said, "but I always thought it meant that justice should be fair and unprejudiced."
"The verdict of the High Court was to take the expression literally," said the manager. "So everyone except the judges must cover their eyes before the trial can begin."
"Scalia," Sunny said. She meant something like, "It doesn't seem like the literal interpretation makes any sense," but her siblings did not think it was wise to translate.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Penultimate Peril (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12))
“
I’d always been suspicious of unrelenting sunniness, what it must be working so hard to conceal.
”
”
Leah Stewart (The Myth of You and Me)
“
Made a decision. I will never let a sunny day happen without me again. Darkness is almost always guaranteed unless some strange thing happens. But the sun...?! Go get some.
”
”
Robin Caldwell
“
As any exceptional actor will tell you, the most important element of acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you’re golden.
”
”
The Gang (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The 7 Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today)
“
Green, which he seldom wore: acquiescent, eager to learn, eager to speak, sunny—why wasn’t he always like this?
”
”
André Aciman (Call Me by Your Name (Call Me by Your Name, #1))
“
In other words, no matter how sunny our skies get, our mind will always imagine just enough clouds to be slightly disappointed.
”
”
Mark Manson (Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope)
“
Even now her body yearned to be closer to him. She wanted to press her nose into his skin and inhale hungrily—he always smelled as if he’d just taken a walk across a sunny meadow. She wanted to rub her palm against his jaw to feel the beginning of stubbles. She wanted to slide her hands underneath his shirt and learn every single shape and texture, with the fierce dedication she’d once put into mastering the Grandes Études.
”
”
Sherry Thomas (Ravishing the Heiress (Fitzhugh Trilogy, #2))
“
Greetings from sunny Seattle, where women are “gals,” people are “folks,” a little bit is a “skosh,” if you’re tired you’re “logy,” if something is slightly off it’s “hinky,” you can’t sit Indian-style but you can sit “crisscross applesauce,” when the sun comes out it’s never called “sun” but always “sunshine,” boyfriends and girlfriends are “partners,” nobody swears but someone occasionally might “drop the f-bomb,” you’re allowed to cough but only into your elbow, and any request, reasonable or unreasonable, is met with “no worries.”
Have I mentioned how much I hate it here?
”
”
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
“
Almost every product promises to change your life: it will make you more beautiful, cleaner, more sexually alluring, and more successful. Born again, as it were. The messages contain promises about the future, unfailingly optimistic, exaggerating, miracle-promising—the same ideology that invites corporate executives to exaggerate profits and conceal losses, but always with a sunny face. The virtual reality of the advertiser and the “good news” of the evangelist complement each other, a match made in heaven.
”
”
Sheldon S. Wolin (Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism)
“
MY DEAR CHILDREN: I rejoice to see you before me today, happy youth of a sunny and fortunate land. Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labor in every country of the world. All this is put into your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honor it, add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the permanent things which we create in common. If you always keep that in mind you will find a meaning in life and work and acquire the right attitude toward other nations and ages.
”
”
Albert Einstein (Ideas and Opinions)
“
Over the years, I’d gradually come to believe that family is like your shadow on a sunny day, always there, just over your shoulder, following you in spirit no matter where you are or what you’re doing. They’re always with you.
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (The Return)
“
Lately she can read a novel in two hours. She has always been an avid reader, but these days she can read much faster. The colors, the conversations, everything is much more vibrant and inclusive, as if opening a book releases genies trapped inside. The scenes and people between their covers sometimes seem more vivid than real life, with their sunny, pearl-toothed characters, the witty conversation, the handsome stranger squeezed into a subway car or knocking about on the street. Sometimes, when she finishes a book at record speed, Dana feels a slight letdown, as if a good friend has hung up the phone in the middle of a conversation.
”
”
Susan H. Crawford (The Pocket Wife)
“
It’s everything, isn’t it? It’s the quiet dinners when not much gets said. It’s the sunny days at the beach. It’s hearing your laughter in my head when I see Kayla giggling. It’s seeing the love in your eyes when you watch our baby sleep. It’s watching the sun rise in your smile and set in your tears. It’s the contentment in seeing you eat and sleep and study and play. It’s the small, everyday things, like never getting tired of watching you tuck that same stubborn strand of hair behind your ear twenty times a day, and it’s the huge life-altering things like seeing your smile and my eyes on our beautiful little girl’s face. It’s knowing that even if you turn away from me forever, I’ll always be the better for having had you in my life.
”
”
Natasha Anders (A Husband's Regret (Unwanted, #2))
“
Life presents itself as a continual deception, in small matters as well as in great. If it has promised, it does not keep its word, unless to show how little desirable the desired object was; hence we are deluded now by hope, now by what was hoped for. If it has given, it did so in order to take. The enchantment of distance shows us paradises that vanish like optical illusions, when we have allowed ourselves to be fooled by them. Accordingly, happiness lies always in the future, or else in the past, and the present may be compared to a small dark cloud driven by the wind over the sunny plain; in front of and behind the cloud everything is bright, only it itself always casts a shadow. Consequently, the present is always inadequate, but the future is uncertain, and the past irrecoverable.
”
”
Arthur Schopenhauer
“
he was always so brave. So resilient, I suppose—that seems to be the word du jour. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel things—many’s the time I saw him weep—but he dealt with his disappointment, with his hardship and grief; he picked himself up and went on, every time. And not like a mad person who refuses to recognize adversity, but like someone who accepts that life is inherently unfair. That the only truly fair thing about it is the randomness of its unfairness.” She topped up their glasses. “I’m telling you all this not because I feel like a stroll down memory lane or because I like to tell my young friends sad stories on sunny Friday evenings; I just— I wanted you to understand. I wanted you to see what a balm love is. What it is to share one’s life, to really share it, so that very little matters outside the certainty of its walls. Because the world is very noisy, Elodie, and although life is filled with joy and wonder, there’s evil and sorrow and injustice, too.
”
”
Kate Morton (The Clockmaker's Daughter)
“
She had grown so accustomed to this exterior that she didn’t always remember what truly lay underneath. Nor did she particularly want to. Why fester in disillusion, bewilderment, and anger when she could float above and pretend to be this sunny, charming girl instead?
”
”
Sherry Thomas (The Burning Sky (The Elemental Trilogy, #1))
“
It is a nice sunny day; his bunions have stopped hurting. There is always something to celebrate, in Gerrit’s view.
”
”
Deborah Moggach (Tulip Fever)
“
... in the middle of all the crap, in the thick of it all, you always had a sunny story turning up. Which makes it all worthwhile.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (Britt-Marie Was Here)
“
Have you always been this anti-social or is it just the apocalypse that’s brought out your sunny personality traits?
”
”
Elle Casey (Kahayatle (Apocalypsis, #1))
“
It is December in Paris. It was already December when I set out from Luanda, leaving the radiance of your gaze behind me. And it will be December yet, even after the month is over, and then will come only more December and winter, and December again and always the same, until l come back to the Sunny Season, and the land which is lit everywhere, always, by your gaze.
”
”
José Eduardo Agualusa (Nação Crioula)
“
There was this wall of ice between us that no amount of sunniness could melt. We had been inseparable before that. I could see him through it. The wall. He was the same as he always was. And he wanted to spend time with me the way he always had. But I was untouchable. He threw himself up against the wall over and over because he couldn't see it. But I couldn't do anything from my side except watch him pick himself up, every time a little more bruised, and do it again.
”
”
Roan Parrish (Small Change (Small Change, #1))
“
But I had heeded the warning, and as is said of juries who have heard inadmissible evidence before it is stricken from the record, suddenly realized that we were on borrowed time, that time is always borrowed, and that the lending agency exacts its premium precisely when we are least prepared to pay and need to borrow more. […] I squirreled away small things so that in the lean days ahead glimmers from the past might bring back the warmth. I began, reluctantly, to steal from the present to pay off debts I knew I’d incur in the future. This, I knew, was as much a crime as closing the shutters on sunny afternoons. But I also knew that in Mafalda’s superstitious world, anticipating the worst was as sure a way of preventing it from happening.
When we went on a walk one night and he told me that he’d soon be heading back home, I realized how futile my alleged foresight had been. Bombs never fall on the same spot; this one, for all my premonitions, fell exactly in my hideaway.
”
”
André Aciman (Call Me by Your Name)
“
I always tell Noah to behave or I’ll sell him on eBay. You’ve got to have some way to keep these little buggers in line or they’ll just walk all over you. It’s a nightmare. Honestly. All the livelong day. Daddy, I want this. Daddy, I want that. Daddy, daddy, daddy! Gimme gimme gimme! I’m like, honest to almighty Christ and sweet and sunny jumped-up Jesus, if you don’t shut up, it’s back to the basement and the duct tape and the handcuffs again and I’m not joking. Now get me a beer, you frikkin’ munchkin!
”
”
Nick Wilgus (Shaking the Sugar Tree (Sugar Tree, #1))
“
Ike always loved the sunshine, and I like to imagine that wherever he is now, it's as sunny as can be. Of course, nobody knows what happens to you after you die, but it's nice to think of my husband someplace very, very hot, don't you think?
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #3))
“
She tries to explain that it is like how we all expect it to be snowy in Antarctica but sunny and warm in Tahiti but if it snowed in Tahiti that would be news because it would be unexpected, but no one bats an eye when snow falls in frozen Antarctica. It takes me a while to process this, that what Layla is saying is that Americans think it’s normal for there to be violence in places where people like me are from, where people like me and people who look like me live. That they all see people like me and think violence sadness war. That’s not true, I say. Syria wasn’t always like how it is now, and it won’t always be like that either.
”
”
Jasmine Warga (Other Words for Home)
“
After that exercise, the ship of my life might or might not be sailing on calm seas. The challenging days of my existence might or might not be bright or promising. From that encounter on, whether my days are stormy or sunny and if my nights are glorious or lonely, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, I remember there is always tomorrow.
”
”
Maya Angelou (Mom & Me & Mom)
“
The way Sunny dressed was also meant to telegraph affluence, though not necessarily taste. He wore white designer shirts with puffy sleeves, acid-washed jeans, and blue Gucci loafers. His shirts’ top three buttons were always undone, causing his chest hair to spill out and revealing a thin gold chain around his neck. A pungent scent of cologne emanated from him at all times. Combined with the flashy cars,
”
”
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
“
Over the years, I'd gradually come to believe that family is like your shadow on a sunny day, always there, just over your shoulder, following you in spirit no matter where you are or what you're doing...With [my grandfather's] passing, however, the days are now endlessly cloudy, and when I glance over my shoulder, there is nothing there at all. I know there are others in my situation, but that doesn't make me feel any better. It just makes me think that no shadows follow them either; that they, like me, often feel entirely alone.
[Trevor Benson]
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (The Return)
“
So I returned to the northern strip of Miami Beach, the valley just far enough north to muffle the piercing South Beach celebratory voices, and just far enough south to dull the glittering lights of the Sunny Isles high rises, and I went to sleep in the city where exhausted people lived exhausted lives, but never stopped once to even ponder sleep--to even dream sleep an option, in the country that breeds ghosts, where the people can't understand why everything real always passes right through their arms. There was so much life out there for all of us, but so few would ever touch it. God, how I wanted to feel.
”
”
Jonathan LaPoma (Developing Minds: An American Ghost Story)
“
Yes, an awful lot of sorrow has sort of quietened down up here. People just wild with grief have brought their relatives up to this hill. We all know how it is... and then time... and sunny days... and rainy days... n' snow... We're all glad they're in a beautiful place and we're coming up here ourselves when our fit's over. Now there are some things we all know but we don't takem' out and look at'm very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and ain't even the stars... everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it.
”
”
Thornton Wilder (Our Town)
“
I felt as though the skin had been peeled away from half of my body. Half my face had been peeled away, and everybody would stare in horror for the rest of my life. Or they would stare at the other half, at the half still intact; I could see them smiling, pretending that the flayed half wasn't there, and talking to the half that was. And I could hear my self screaming at them, I could see myself thrusting my hideous side right up into their unmarred faces to make them properly horrified. 'I was pretty! I was whole! I was sunny, lively little girl! Look, look at what they did to me!' But whatever side they looked at, I would always be screaming, 'Look at the other! Why don't you look at the other!' That's what I thought about in the hospital at night. However they look at me, however they talk to me, however they try to comfort me, I will always be this half-flayed thing. I will never be young, I will never be kind or at peace or in love, and I will hate them all my life.
”
”
Philip Roth (The Ghost Writer)
“
Blue had never believed in death until then.
Not in a real way.
It happened to other people, other families, in other places. It happened in hospitals or automobile crashes or battle zones. It happened — now she remembered Gansey’s words outside Gwenllian’s tomb — with ceremony. With some announcement of itself.
It didn’t just happen in the attic on a sunny day while she was sitting in the reading room. It didn’t just happen, in only a moment, an irreversible moment.
It didn’t happen to people she had always known.
But it did.
And there would now forever be two Blues: the Blue that was before, and the Blue that was after. The one who didn’t believe, and the one who did.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle, #3))
“
life ain't fair. It's always slightly one sided
”
”
Sunny
“
Roland raised his eyebrows. “Thanks to John Farson, the Crimson King’s men won the In-World lands long ago,” he said. But then he smiled. It was a sunny expression so unlike his usual look that seeing it always made Susannah feel dizzy. “But I think we won the only battle that matters. What’s shown in this picture is no more than someone’s wishful fairy-tale.
”
”
Stephen King (The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7))
“
Dad once noted (somewhat morbidly, I thought at the time) that American institutions would be infinitely more successful in facilitating the pursuit of knowledge if they held classes at night, rather than in the daytime, from 8:00 PM to 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. As I ran through the darkness, I understood what he meant. Frank red brick, sunny classrooms, symmetrical quads and courts--it was a setting that mislead kids to believe that Knowledge, that Life itself, was bright, clear, and freshly mowed. Dad said a student would be infinitely better off going out into the world if he/she studied the periodic table of elements, Madame Bovary (Flaubert, 1857), the sexual reproduction of a sunflower for example, with deformed shadows congregating on the classroom walls, the silhouettes of fingers and pencils leaking onto the floor, gastric howls from unseen radiators, and a teacher's face not flat and faded, not delicately pasteled by a golden late afternoon, but serpentine, gargoyled, Cyclopsed by the inky dark and feeble light from a candle. He/she would understand "everything and nothing," Dad said, if there was nothing discernible in the windows but a lamppost mobbed by blaze-crazy moths and darkness, reticent and nonchalant, as darkness always was.
”
”
Marisha Pessl (Special Topics in Calamity Physics)
“
Ian also had issues with Elizabeth’s management, especially the way she siloed the groups off from one another and discouraged them from communicating. The reason she and Sunny invoked for this way of operating was that Theranos was “in stealth mode,” but it made no sense to Ian. At the other diagnostics companies where he had worked, there had always been cross-functional teams with representatives from the chemistry, engineering, manufacturing, quality control, and regulatory departments working toward a common objective. That was how you got everyone on the same page, solved problems, and met deadlines.
”
”
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
“
If I was set an essay on Friday, I’d spend three hours on Saturday morning in the library. Was that normal?
I didn’t know.
What I did know was that I felt less prone to depression and more normal walking through Venice or staring out over the lake in Zurich. At home I wrestled continually with my moods. The black thing inside me gnawed like a rat at my self-esteem and self-confidence. I felt there was a happy person inside me too, who wanted to enjoy life, to be normal, but my feelings of self-loathing and the deep distrust I had towards my father wouldn’t allow that sunny person to come out.
When the black thing had an iron grip on me, I couldn’t even look at my father: Did you do bad things to me when I was little?
Like a line from a song stuck in your brain, the words ran through my head and never once came out of my mouth. Not that I needed to say what was in my mind. I was sure Father could read my thoughts in my moods, in the blank, dead stare of my eyes.
It was hardly surprising that there was always an atmosphere of strain and awkwardness in the house, and the blame was always mine: Alice and her moods, Alice and her anorexia; Alice and her low self-esteem; Alice and her inescapable feelings of loss and emptiness.
”
”
Alice Jamieson (Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind)
“
Sometimes I take her food from the Iranian restaurant she and Ollie liked—the Sunny Acres kitchen staff is happy to warm it up—and sometimes I bring her a DVD or two. She likes the oldies, like with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I always bring her something, and she’s always happy to see me. On her good days she does see me. On her bad ones, she’s apt to call me Olivia. Or Charlotte. That’s my aunt. I also have an uncle.
”
”
Stephen King (Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1))
“
I could say 'I love you'—and I do." Raising his lids, he met her gaze. "But it's not that simple… not for me. I never wanted a wife." He drew in a breath. "I never wanted to love—not you, not any woman. I never wanted to risk it—never wanted to be forced to find out if I could handle the strain. In my family, loving's not easy—it's not a simple sunny thing that makes one merely happy. Love for us—for me—was always going to be dramatic—powerful, unsettling—an ungovernable force. A force that controls me, not the other way about. I knew I wouldn't like it—" His eyes met hers. "And I don't. But… it isn't, it appears, something I have a choice about."
His lips twisted. "I thought I was safe—that I had defenses in place, strong and inviolable, far too steely for any mere woman to break through. And none did,“not for years." He paused. "Until you.
"I can't remember inviting you in, or ever opening the gates—I just turned around one day and you were there—a part of me." He hesitated, studying her eyes, then his face hardened, his voice deepened. "I don't know what will convince you, but I won't ever let you go. You're mine—the only woman I could ever imagine marrying. You can share my life. You know a hock from a fetlock—you know as much about riding as I do. You can be a partner in my enterprises, not a distant spectator standing at the periphery. You'll stand at the center of it all, by my side.
”
”
Stephanie Laurens (A Rogue's Proposal (Cynster, #4))
“
Sitting in seat 14A, in the sun, I float on a full-moon, tidal joy unlike anything I've ever experienced. I am getting incredibly high on a single, astounding fact: that it's always sunny above the clouds. Always. That every day on Earth- every day I have ever had- was secretly sunny after all....I feel like I've just flown 600 miles per hour head-on into the most beautiful metaphor of my life: If you fly high enough, if you get above the clouds, it's never-ending summer.
”
”
Caitlin Moran (How to Build a Girl (How to Build a Girl, #1))
“
She shrugged. “I like rain.”
He laughed scornfully. “That’s ridiculous. Nobody likes rain. Nobody ever says, ‘I wish it weren’t so sunny today.’”
She lowered her eyes. “You can’t hear sunshine from the attic,” she said quietly. “And it’s always so quiet. In the summers, especially, with no lessons, and when Akiko-san doesn’t come, it’s . . . it’s empty. Like there’s nobody else but you in the whole world. But when it rained, I could always hear it on the roof, and then I remembered that I wasn’t, you know . . .”
Alone.
Akira blinked.
”
”
Asha Lemmie (Fifty Words for Rain)
“
Of all the Hathaways, Poppy was the one Catherine had always felt the most comfortable with. Poppy was a warm and talkative young woman who loved order and routine. Hers was an essentially sunny and accepting nature, providing a necessary balance to Harry's driven intensity.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4))
“
I went ahead and looked up "discrimination" in the dictionary, and do you know what it means? "The ability to understand that one thing is different from another thing." Yeah! So apparently if I happen to notice that, say, Sylvester Stallone's immense, cut bulk is different from Arnold's insanely massed-up physique, suddenly I'm the bad guy? They're not the same, you guys. Two different giant dudes blasting you in the face is just that—two different giant dudes blasting you in the face. Pretend otherwise and you're just fooling yourself. No, it is NOT all the same in the dark.
”
”
The Gang (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The 7 Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today)
“
Love, that is first and last of all things made,
The light that has the living world for shade,
The spirit that for temporal veil has on
The souls of all men woven in unison,
One fiery raiment with all lives inwrought
And lights of sunny and starry deed and thought,
And alway through new act and passion new
Shines the divine same body and beauty through,
The body spiritual of fire and light
That is to worldly noon as noon to night;
Love, that is flesh upon the spirit of man
And spirit within the flesh whence breath began;
Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime;
Love, that is blood within the veins of time;
That wrought the whole world without stroke of hand,
Shaping the breadth of sea, the length of land,
And with the pulse and motion of his breath
Through the great heart of the earth strikes life and death,
The sweet twain chords that make the sweet tune live
Through day and night of things alternative,
Through silence and through sound of stress and strife,
And ebb and flow of dying death and life:
Love, that sounds loud or light in all men's ears,
Whence all men's eyes take fire from sparks of tears,
That binds on all men's feet or chains or wings;
Love that is root and fruit of terrene things;
Love, that the whole world's waters shall not drown,
The whole world's fiery forces not burn down;
Love, that what time his own hands guard his head
The whole world's wrath and strength shall not strike dead;
Love, that if once his own hands make his grave
The whole world's pity and sorrow shall not save;
Love, that for very life shall not be sold,
Nor bought nor bound with iron nor with gold;
So strong that heaven, could love bid heaven farewell,
Would turn to fruitless and unflowering hell;
So sweet that hell, to hell could love be given,
Would turn to splendid and sonorous heaven;
Love that is fire within thee and light above,
And lives by grace of nothing but of love;
Through many and lovely thoughts and much desire
Led these twain to the life of tears and fire;
Through many and lovely days and much delight
Led these twain to the lifeless life of night.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Tristram of Lyonesse: And Other Poems)
“
Mr. Severin smiled, tiny constellations of reflected chandelier lights glinting in his eyes. "Since I've told you about my tastes... what are yours?"
Cassandra looked down at her folded hands in her lap. "I like trivial things, mostly," she said with a self-deprecating laugh. "Handiwork, such as embroidery, knitting, and needlepoint. I sketch and paint a little. I like naps and teatime, and taking a lazy stroll on a sunny day, and reading books on a rainy afternoon. But I would like two have my own family someday, and... I want to help other people far more than I'm able to now. I take baskets of food and medicine to tenants and acquaintances in the village, but that's not enough. I want to provide real help to people who need it." She sighed shortly. "I suppose that's not very interesting. Pandora's the exciting, amusing twin, the one people remember. I've always been... well, the one who's not Pandora.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels, #6))
“
How, I wonder, staring out my hotel window into black nothingness, can Icelanders possibly be happy living under this veil of darkness? I’ve always associated happy places with palm trees and beaches and blue drinks and, of course, swim-up bars. That’s paradise, right? The global travel industry certainly wants us to think so. Bliss, the ads tell us, lies someplace else, and that someplace else is sunny and eighty degrees. Always. Our language, too, reflects the palm-tree bias. Happy people have a sunny disposition and always look on the bright side of life. Unhappy people possess dark souls and black bile.
”
”
Eric Weiner (The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World)
“
EMBRACE YOUR TRANSFORMATIONS
Transformations are a part of life. We are constantly being changed by things changing around us. Nobody can control that. Nobody can control the environment, the economy, luck, or the moods of others. Compositions change. Positions change. Dispositions change. Experiences change. Opportunities and attitudes change. YOU will change. Never say never unless you can predict the future. Do not only remember people when you are down. Be good to others and always give to others when you can. Every man will fall at some point in their life. But do remember, you are a reflection of the universe and every man experiences the seasons within. Meaning, you will fall many times, but also spring back up. You will have sunny days, but also many bad days where you feel like dying. You never know when you will need help, and help will only remember you if you were good to them when you were UP. Not a singe wave is constant. You are no different. You are like music, a moving composition of vibrations and waves. You will experience happiness, sadness, pain and loss many times. Just learn to enjoy the music and never take setbacks too seriously. They are only temporary. And whenever you do fall , just remember that spring is just around the corner.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
He had, it took me a while to realize, four personalities depending on which bathing suit he was wearing. Knowing which to expect gave me the illusion of a slight advantage. Red: bold, set in his ways, very grown-up, almost gruff and ill-tempered-- stay away. Yellow: sprightly, buoyant, funny, not without barbs-- don't give in too easily; might turn to red in no time. Green, which he seldom wore: acquiescent, eager to learn, eager to speak, sunny--why wasn't he always like this? Blue: the afternoon he stepped into my room from the balcony, the day he massaged my shoulder, or when he picked up my glass and placed it right next to me.
”
”
André Aciman (Call Me by Your Name)
“
Maybe money couldn’t buy you happiness; however, it was still a mood-altering, life-changing, addictive substance. It could purchase you not only pleasure, Harriet had discovered, but ease, patience, convenience. A kind of sunny outlook and frictionless existence where your path through any difficulties could always be smoothed by its liberal application.
”
”
Mhairi McFarlane (Mad about You)
“
reputation for being weird.” “Weird? What do you mean, weird?” “Like… the weather is always different there. It could be sunny everywhere else but when you get there, it’s grey and misty—or it’s raining all over the Cotswolds but completely dry in Tillyhenge… And if you’re driving, the GPS can’t find it, no matter how you give the directions. In fact, it doesn’t even show
”
”
H.Y. Hanna (Dark, Witch & Creamy (Bewitched by Chocolate #1))
“
And so you were in here, chatting with God?"
Bruce stared at her face, studying her features in minute detail. His voice dropped to a soft, velvety whisper. "I wanted to thank Him for my many blessings."
The burning of her eyes increased. She would not cry like some ninny just because Bruce was happy. He was a devout and wonderful person who always looked to the bright side. Knowing that prompted her to say, "You're such a good man, Bruce."
"I'm a fortunate man, in many, many ways." He made a grand gesture toward the glass blocks. "It's a beautiful, sunny day, and my very own church is almost complete."
"It is shaping up. Everyone will like it."
His thumb moved to her bottom lip with a teasing, gentle touch. "Good friends surround me, and I enjoy good health."
"All things you deserve."
He smiled. "And I've been given the greatest gift of all."
"What's that?"
He laughed, tweaked her chin. "You."
"Me?"
He slowly nodded. "God's given me a lot. But best of all, He's given me you." He took her mouth in a long, toe-curling, stomach-tightening kiss, and in a husky rumble: "I'll be thinking Him every day for the rest of my life."
-Bruce and Cyn
”
”
Lori Foster (When Bruce Met Cyn... (Visitation, North Carolina, #3))
“
Cassandra lifted the apple to her lips. The sunny scent was strong as she bit into it. An apple, from a tree in her very own garden, a tree planted many years before that still produced fruit. Year in, year out. It was sweet. Were apples always so sweet?
She yawned. The sun had made her very drowsy. She would sit, just for a little while longer, until the gardener arrived. She took another bite of the apple. The room felt warmer than it had before. As if the range had suddenly begun to work, as if someone else had joined her in the cottage and was beginning to make lunch. Her lids were heavy and she closed her eyes. A bird somewhere sang, a lovely, lonely tune; breeze-blown leaves tapped against the windows, and in the distance the ocean breathed steadily, in and out, in and out, in and out...
”
”
Kate Morton (The Forgotten Garden)
“
My makeup routine always starts with a clean and moisturized face. My skin care routine is simple. I use a face wash at home and soap and water when traveling. I put on eye cream and then moisturizer with at least SPF 15 for a sunny day. In the evening, I cleanse my face to take off any makeup I may have been wearing that day, and then I put on an eye cream and night cream. Always wear sunscreen! If
”
”
Maye Musk (A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success)
“
But now I speculate re the ants' invisible organ of aggregate thought... if, in a city park of broad reaches, winding paths, roadways, and lakes, you can imagine seeing on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon the random and unpredictable movement of great numbers of human beings in the same way... if you watch one person, one couple, one family, a child, you can assure yourself of the integrity of the individual will and not be able to divine what the next moment will bring. But when the masses are celebrating a beautiful day in the park in a prescribed circulation of activities, the wider lens of thought reveals nothing errant, nothing inconstant or unnatural to the occasion. And if someone acts in a mutant un-park manner, alarms go off, the unpredictable element, a purse snatcher, a gun wielder, is isolated, surrounded, ejected, carried off as waste. So that while we are individually and privately dyssynchronous, moving in different ways, for different purposes, in different directions, we may at the same time comprise, however blindly, the pulsing communicating cells of an urban over-brain. The intent of this organ is to enjoy an afternoon in the park, as each of us street-grimy urbanites loves to do. In the backs of our minds when we gather for such days, do we know this? How much of our desire to use the park depends on the desires of others to do the same? How much of the idea of a park is in the genetic invitation on nice days to reflect our massive neuromorphology? There is no central control mechanism telling us when and how to use the park. That is up to us. But when we do, our behavior there is reflective, we can see more of who we are because of the open space accorded to us, and it is possible that it takes such open space to realize in simple form the ordinary identity we have as one multicellular culture of thought that is always there, even when, in the comparative blindness of our personal selfhood, we are flowing through the streets at night or riding under them, simultaneously, as synaptic impulses in the metropolitan brain.
Is this a stretch? But think of the contingent human mind, how fast it snaps onto the given subject, how easily it is introduced to an idea, an image that it had not dreamt of thinking of a millisecond before... Think of how the first line of a story yokes the mind into a place, a time, in the time it takes to read it. How you can turn on the radio and suddenly be in the news, and hear it and know it as your own mind's possession in the moment's firing of a neuron. How when you hear a familiar song your mind adopts its attitudinal response to life before the end of the first bar. How the opening credits of a movie provide the parameters of your emotional life for its ensuing two hours... How all experience is instantaneous and instantaneously felt, in the nature of ordinary mind-filling revelation. The permeable mind, contingently disposed for invasion, can be totally overrun and occupied by all the characteristics of the world, by everything that is the case, and by the thoughts and propositions of all other minds considering everything that is the case... as instantly and involuntarily as the eye fills with the objects that pass into its line of vision.
”
”
E.L. Doctorow (City of God)
“
Deputy sheriffs had always held the power in the jails. They controlled the culture of the place. if they didn't like you or what you were doing in the programs, then you weren't going to succeed. It didn't matter if you had developed a pill that would solve all the prisoners' problems in one swallow. If they thought prisoners were animals who deserved to be treated like garbage, then that's how they were treated.
”
”
Sunny Schwartz (Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption, and One Woman's Fight to Restore Justice to All)
“
As tears become rivers emptying into a sea of pain, there you'll find my heart, smashed into a thousand pieces littered in the rain. Amongst the shadows is where you'll see a glimpse of the woman I used to be. I used to believe in the good of everything, everyone; an optimist...nothing could cloud my day; my world I met him on a sunny June day and knew he was heaven sent the sun shined brighter, the world was happier; here standing in front of me was the one I'd waited my whole life for Him, my destroyer, the man that cracked my universe and taught me things and people weren't always what they seemed and no matter how I tried, there was no longer a sun in sight to see I trusted him, gave my heart to him; he used me; did he ever love me? Does he know what love means? Loyalty? Please! He has none, except to himself... I lost myself in him and his world; who am I? I'm not sure They call me Ananda, I call me damaged I'm not who I used to be and unsure of who I'm supposed to be and there is the problem... I'm a broken reflection of someone I used to know and can never be again am I better or worse after him? My heart is definitely worse, but my spirit--the one thing he couldn't touch is unbroken my spirit survived his wrath and in due time so will I....
”
”
Mychea (My Boyfriend's Wife)
“
He isn’t a friend of Mr. Pontellier’s; he’s a friend of mine. I always knew him—that is, it is only of late that I know him pretty well. But I’d rather talk about you, and know what you have been seeing and doing and feeling out there in Mexico.” Robert threw aside the picture.
“I’ve been seeing the waves and the white beach of Grande Isle; the quiet, grassy street of the Chênière; the old fort at Grande Terre. I’ve been working like a machine, and feeling like a lost soul. There was nothing interesting.”
She leaned her head upon her hand to shade her eyes from the light.
“And what have you been seeing and doing and feeling all these days?” he asked.
“I’ve been seeing the waves and the white beach of Grand Isle; the quiet, grassy street of the Chênière Caminada; the old sunny fort at Grande Terre. I’ve been working with a little more comprehension than a machine, and still feeling like a lost soul. There was nothing interesting.”
“Mrs. Pontellier, you are cruel,” he said, with feeling, closing his eyes and resting his head back in his chair. They remained in silence till old Celestine announced dinner.
”
”
Kate Chopin
“
The oranges were more plentiful than usual that year. They glowed in their arbours of burnished green leaf like lanterns, flickering up there among the sunny woods. It was as if they were eager to celebrate our departure from the little island -- for at last the long-awaited message from Nessim had come, like a summons back to the Underworld. A message which was to draw me back inexorably to the one city which for me always hovered between illusion and reality, between the substance and the poetic images which its very name aroused in me.... Alexandria, the capital of memory!
”
”
Lawrence Durrell (Clea (The Alexandria Quartet, #4))
“
Loneliness is one of the most universal human experiences, but our contemporary Western society has heightened the awareness of our loneliness to an unusual degree. During a recent visit to New York City, I wrote the following note to myself: Sitting in the subway, I am surrounded by silent people hidden behind their newspapers or staring away in the world of their own fantasies. Nobody speaks with a stranger, and a patroling policeman keeps reminding me that people are not out to help each other. But when my eyes wander over the walls of the train covered with invitations to buy more or new products, I see young, beautiful people enjoying each other in a gentle embrace, playful men and women smiling at each other in fast sailboats, proud explorers on horseback encouraging each other to take brave risks, fearless children dancing on a sunny beach, and charming girls always ready to serve me in airplanes and ocean liners. While the subway train runs from one dark tunnel into the other and I am nervously aware where I keep my money, the words and images decorating my fearful world speak about love, gentleness, tenderness and about a joyful togetherness of spontaneous people.
”
”
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life)
“
A boat beneath a sunny sky, Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July – Children three that nestle near, Eager eye and willing ear, Pleased a simple tale to hear – Long has paled that sunny sky: Echoes fade and memories die: Autumn frosts have slain July. As a child, I don’t understand exactly what it is about. I can’t read the significance of Alice reaching the final square and becoming a queen. But I feel the sadness in the poem, and, in this later now, I know why. It’s because everything is in the present tense, even though it cannot all be; either some of it has passed, or some of it hasn’t happened yet. The sky is sunny, but it has paled. The boat is lingering, but it is gone. It’s July, but it’s autumn. This is a riddle, a paradox. Lewis Carroll must be either looking back into the past, feeling the sunshine and the drifting boat as if he were still there . . . or looking forward from the present, imagining a time when the sky and the boat and the summer will have vanished. Which is it? Doesn’t matter. Wherever he stands, he feels both at once. The current, the retrospective, the projected, all are written in the present tense because they are all, always, mixed up together. Because, even as something is happening, it is gone. Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt? Where is the boat? Where is the summer? Where are the children?
”
”
Victoria Coren (For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker)
“
So what's going on with you and your boyfriend?" Eli asked me right before he shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth during breakfast the next morning.
I made a face in the direction of my plate before shooting a glance upward to find Gordo’s eyes on me, a smirk on his face.
"Mason?" I asked, going back to my food.
Eli made a gagging noise, elbowing me hard in the ribs. "I'm not gonna go into details on how disturbing it is that I say ‘your boyfriend’ and you automatically think of fucking Mase."
"He's always calling me his wife, or telling people I don't know that we're getting married," I replied, elbowing him back as hard as he got me. It was partially the truth… but mostly, I didn’t want to talk about the man who had been kissing my shoulder hours ago.
"I love Mase, but it'll be a sunny day in my asshole before you and him get together," he mumbled.
I snorted, biting into my biscuit. "Who the heck else would you be talking about?" I asked, but I knew. Oh, I knew damn well he was referring to Sacha.
Freaking Gordo snickered from across the table before putting his hands up in surrender when I glared at him. "I didn’t say anything."
"Sacha, Flabby. Sacha. Your boyfriend. Your snuggle bug." Eliza finally answered.
Suddenly the half-eaten biscuit on my plate needed to be eaten immediately. I shoved the entire piece into my mouth to avoid the conversation my brother was trying to edge into. I'd had talks about boys with Eli in the past, and they never ended—or started—well. "There's nothing going on between us. We're just friends."
Because we were.
Eli made a noise that sounded like “hmmph” deep in his throat. It was incredulous and disbelieving. Then he asked the question to prove it, his attention back on his band mate. "Gordo, do you think I'm blind?"
Gordo shook his head.
"Gaby, do you think I'm blind?" he asked.
"Not blind, just dumb.” I smiled.
He shot me a frown. A moment later, he threw his arm over my shoulders and started shoving his plate away with his free hand. "Flabby Gaby, that kid is in love with you."
In love.
With me?
I leaned forward and tried to sniff his breath. “Are you still drunk?”
But my brother kept talking before I could keep going. "Anyone with eyes and ears knows that guy thinks you shit out Lucky Charms."
Gordo and I burst out laughing.
"Is that a good thing?" I asked him.
Eliza shoved my face away with his palm, ignoring my commentary again. "And I think that you love him, too."
The noise that came out of my mouth sounded like a hybrid “moo” and squawk at the same time. "I—,” I slammed my mouth shut before opening it again with a sputter. “What?
”
”
Mariana Zapata (Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin)
“
Dear Lily
Don't think me silly,
but I forget what time you said.
Are we meeting at two thirty?
It's gone right from my head.
Did you say Monday or Thursday?
I have quite forgotten what day.
Was it late lunch, or afternoon tea?
Tell me, what did you say?
I think I would like to do Tuesday.
Let's go for a lovely lunch.
Or, if you prefer we could even
go early, and settle for brunch.
A lovely Bistro or Cafe Bar,
or maybe a country pub.
I don't really mind that much,
as long as we get some grub.
Dear Maisie,
Are you going crazy?
We didn't set a date.
You needed to check your diary.
I think you are losing it, mate.
But since you are free on Tuesday,
and that day suits me fine.
Could we meet, about twelve…ish?
Its early I like to dine.
You mentioned the pub, or Bistro,
or some fancy Cafe Bar.
Not sure I like the sound of that,
and I'm not coming in the car.
If the weather is bright and sunny,
we could always dine al fresco.
Failing that, we could just go
get a cake and a cuppa in Tesco.
”
”
Mrs A. Perry
“
„The air was saturated with the finest flour of a silence so nourishing, so succulent, that I could move through it only with a sort of greed, especially on those first mornings of Easter week, still cold, when I tasted it more keenly because I had only just arrived in Combray: before I went in to say good morning to my aunt, they made me wait for a moment, in the first room where the sun, still wintry, had come to warm itself before the fire, already lit between the two bricks and coating the whole room with an odour of soot, having the same effect as one of those great country ‘front-of-the-ovens’, or one of those château mantelpieces, beneath which one sits hoping that outdoors there will be an onset of rain, snow, even some catastrophic deluge so as to add, to the comfort of reclusion, the poetry of hibernation; I would take a few steps from the prayer stool to the armchairs of stamped velvet always covered with a crocheted antimacassar; and as the fire baked like a dough the appetizing smells with which the air of the room was all curdled and which had already been kneaded and made to ‘rise’ by the damp and sunny coolness of the morning, it flaked them, gilded them, puckered them, puffed them, making them into an invisible, palpable country pastry, an immense ‘turnover’ in which, having barely tasted the crisper, more delicate, more highly regarded but also drier aromas of the cupboard, the chest of drawers, the floral wallpaper, I would always come back with an unavowed covetousness to snare myself in the central, sticky, stale, indigestible and fruity smell of the flowered coverlet.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Du côté de chez Swann (À la recherche du temps perdu, #1))
“
I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary’s front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was “Conquer or die.” In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar—for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red—he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)