“
Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire.
”
”
François de La Rochefoucauld (Maxims)
“
Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.
”
”
Émile Zola (Germinal (Les Rougon-Macquart, #13))
“
For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura -- and so goodbye. . . .
”
”
Tennessee Williams (The Glass Menagerie)
“
Birthday wishes don’t always come true, so I don’t waste a chance when I blow out a candle.
”
”
Penelope Douglas (Birthday Girl)
“
I want to remember to celebrate more. I want to remember to experience more joy. I want to allow myself to be happy more frequently. I want to remember, forever, this look on Aaron's face, as he's bullied into blowing out his birthday candles for the very first time.
This is, after all, what we're fighting for, isn't it?
A second chance at joy.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Defy Me (Shatter Me, #5))
“
Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come.
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore
“
Heroes are people who face down their fears. It is that simple. A child afraid of the dark who one day blows out the candle; a women terrified of the pain of childbirth who says, 'It is time to become a mother'. Heroism does not always live on the battlefield.
”
”
David Gemmell (Dark Moon)
“
Absense diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.
”
”
François de La Rochefoucauld
“
Somewhere
someone
thinks they love
someone else
exactly like
I
love you.
Somewhere
someone shakes
from the ripple
of a thousand butterflies
inside a
single stomach.
Somewhere
someone
is packing their
bags
to see the world
with someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is reaching through
the most
terrifying few
feet of space
to hold the
hand
of someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is watching
someone else’s
chest
rise and fall
with the
breath
of slumber.
Somewhere
someone
is pouring
ink like blood
onto pages
fighting
to say the truth
that has
no words.
Somewhere
someone
is waiting
patient
but exhausted
to just
be
with someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is opening
their eyes
to a sunrise
in someplace
they have never
seen.
Somewhere
someone
is pulling out
the petals
twisting the
apple stem
picking up
the heads up penny
rubbing the
rabbits foot
knocking on
wood
throwing
coins into
fountains
hunting for
the only clover
with only 4 leaves
skipping over
the cracks
snapping the
wishbone
crossing their
fingers
blowing out
the candles
sending dandelion
seeds into the
air
ushering eyelashes
off their thumbs
finding the first
star
and waiting for
11:11 on
their clock
to spend their
wishes
on someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is saying
goodbye
but somewhere
someone else
is saying
hello.
Somewhere
someone
is sharing their first
or their last
kiss
with their
or no longer their
someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is wondering
if how they feel
is how the other
they
feels about them
and if both theys
could ever become
a they
together.
Somewhere
someone
is the decoder ring
to all of
the great mysteries
of life
for someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is the treasure map.
Somewhere
someone
thinks they love
someone else
exactly like
I
love you.
Somewhere
someone
is wrong.
”
”
Tyler Knott Gregson
“
One thing I've learnt recently is that blowing out someone else's candle doesn't make yours shine any brighter.
”
”
Zoe Sugg (Going Solo (Girl Online, #3))
“
Go within every day and find the inner strength
so that the world will not blow your candle out.
”
”
Katherine Dunham
“
People always ask, Why does God allow suffering? Why does He allow a child to be beaten? A woman to cry? A holocaust to happen? A good dog to die painfully? Simple truth is, He wants to see for Himself what we’ll do. He’s stood up the candle, put the devil at the wick, and now He wants to see if we blow it out or let it burn down. God is suffering’s biggest spectator.
”
”
Tiffany McDaniel (The Summer that Melted Everything)
“
Listen.
When the wind blows
all your candles out, when the stars
turn to plumes of smoke,
when your mother makes you watch
as the matches burn out in her eyes,
Let me hold your hand, your skin,
the stones you've swallowed in your sleep.
Let me
slip your soul out of your skin
so you can sleep in my palms
for tonight.
”
”
Shinji Moon (The Anatomy of Being)
“
It’s the beating of my heart.
The way I lie awake, playing with shadows slowly climbing up my wall. The gentle moonlight slipping through my window and the sound of a lonely car somewhere far away, where I long to be too, I think. It’s the way I thought my restless wandering was over, that I’d found whatever I thought I had found, or wanted, or needed, and I started to collect my belongings. Build a home. Safe behind the comfort of these four walls and a closed door.
Because as much as I tried or pretended or imagined myself as a part of all the people out there,
I was still the one locking the door every night.
Turning off the phone and blowing out the candles so no one knew I was home.
’cause I was never really well around the expectations of my personality
and I wanted to keep to myself.
and because I haven’t been very impressed lately.
By people,
or places.
Or the way someone said he loved me and then slowly changed his mind.
”
”
Charlotte Eriksson (Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving)
“
Blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make yours shine brighter. Today
”
”
Vi Keeland (Egomaniac)
“
You are not my sunshine. Sorry. You're more like a gust of arctic wind that bursts in and blows out all the candles when the door cracks open.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year)
“
Four wings, two hearts, but only one soul. They connect in the middle, but are separated by a thin line of ash. Its what brings them together, yet rips their feathers apart. They can never truly be together as light and dark. Unless one makes the ultimate sacrifice. Blows out their candle, and joins the other in the dark. Or if the other dares to fly across the line and steals the others light And force them to cross over the line and join the darkness of life. Im not gone, princess. I will come back for you until you give in.
”
”
Jessica Sorensen (Ember (Death Collectors, #1))
“
It me birthday and nobody came...Bigfoot decide do something nice for self for big day and sneak in they house at night and pick out own present and blow out flickering candle of life in they brains. Make a wish, jerks.
”
”
Graham Roumieu
“
Some will see your flame and want to blow it out...others will approach with a candle...
”
”
Lenita Vangellis
“
I don’t think our humanity is on some switch. I think it’s more like candles on a cake. It takes a lot to blow them all out at once.
”
”
Jewel E. Ann (Middle of Knight (Jack & Jill, #2))
“
Did you see her?" the Marid said nervously, looking at her with great dark eyes. "Our daughter. Standing on the Gear. Dis you see her?"
"What?" said September—and then she winked out, like someone blowing out a candle, and all the field was still.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
“
A friend is the wax that keeps the flame lit, an enemy is the wind that blows it out.
”
”
Anthony Liccione
“
276.—Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire.
”
”
François de La Rochefoucauld (Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims)
“
Birthday marks the beginning of a new year, new hopes and new dreams! So, we should never blow out the candle before cutting the cake on such a day. Let the candle burn! Let it spread light everywhere!
”
”
Ziaul Haque
“
That evening, as I watched the sunset’s pinwheels of apricot and mauve slowly explode into red ribbons, I thought: The sensory misers will inherit the earth, but first they will make it not worth living on. When you consider something like death, after which (there being no news flash to the contrary) we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably doesn’t matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, enjoy a nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly. It probably doesn’t matter if, while trying to be modest and eager watchers of life’s many spectacles, we sometimes look clumsy or get dirty or ask stupid questions or reveal our ignorance or say the wrong thing or light up with wonder like the children we all are. It probably doesn’t matter if a passerby sees us dipping a finger into the moist pouches of dozens of lady’s slippers to find out what bugs tend to fall into them, and thinks us a bit eccentric. Or a neighbor, fetching her mail, sees us standing in the cold with our own letters in one hand and a seismically red autumn leaf in the other its color hitting our sense like a blow from a stun gun, as we stand with a huge grin, too paralyzed by the intricately veined gaudiness of the leaf to move.
”
”
Diane Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses)
“
A great man once wrote, "Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire."
If only I were as eloquent as Mr. de la Rochefoucauld...I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. And I want you. And I need your kiss. And your touch on my skin like a man needs water. Always.
”
”
Karen White
“
For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say "I'm going to sleep." And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann's Way)
“
They crashed the front door and grabbed at a woman, though she was not running, she was not trying to escape. She was only standing, weaving from side to side, her eyes fixed upon a nothingness in the wall as if they had struck her a terrible blow upon the head. Her tongue was moving in her mouth, and her eyes seemed to be trying to remember something, and then they remembered and her tongue moved again: "Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
“
You know what I want you to do? I want you to blow out the candle and curse the darkness.
”
”
Mort Sahl (Heartland)
“
Before she cut her birthday cake, she cast a wish, then blew the candles out from his eyes.
”
”
Anthony Liccione
“
The more candles on my cake means I get a little more exercise in blowing them out.
”
”
Donna Lynn Hope
“
Blow out the candles , Katherine," urges her father, and she does, and she's happy. She's happy.
There: that wasn't so difficult, and it mattered. Small things often do. A single pebble in the road can go unnoticed until it becomes stuck inside a horse's hoof, and then oh, the damage it can do.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children, #4))
“
Here is something I never expected to feel: love at first sight for an entire family. But life suprises you. It tells you to close your eyes and blow out the candles, and then sometimes smashes your face into the cake before you can even make a wish. But! Sometimes, every once in a while, you get your wish in. You wish for a boy to spend the summer with, and instead life gives you his whole beauiful family.
”
”
Emery Lord (When We Collided)
“
You can blow out a candle, but you cannot blow out a star.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Never blow out someone else’s candle to try and make your one shine brighter
”
”
Steven P. Aitchison
“
Birthday On your name day I give you the gift of wings Now climb on top the house And jump I’ll blow the candles out
”
”
Till Lindemann (On Quiet Nights)
“
Don't blow out someone’s candle or you'll both end up in the dark.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
She blew out the candle and wished she could blow out her thoughts just as easily.
”
”
Melanie Cellier (The Four Kingdoms Box Set Two (The Four Kingdoms #3-4))
“
A puff of air—whuff!—hits his ears, blows out the candle. He can't be bothered relighting it, because the bourbon is taking over. He'd rather stay in the dark. He can sense Oryx drifting towards him on her soft feathery wings. Any moment now she'll be with him. He sits crouched in the chair with his head down on the desk and his eyes closed, in a state of misery and peace.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1))
“
I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further — for time is the longest distance between two places. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box. I left Saint Louis. I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father’s footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out! For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura — and so goodbye. . .
”
”
Tennessee Williams (The Glass Menagerie)
“
I imagine, then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a grey wreath of smoke. I will vanish into the air and the night. They will blow us all out, one by one, until it is only their own light by which they see themselves.
”
”
Hannah Kent (Burial Rites)
“
Victorian rigidities were such that ladies were not even allowed to blow out candles in mixed company, as that required them to pucker their lips suggestively. They could not say that they were going "to bed"--that planted too stimulating an image--but merely that they were "retiring." It became effectively impossible to discuss clothing in even a clinical sense without resort to euphemisms. Trousers became "nether integuments" or simply "inexpressibles" and underwear was "linen." Women could refer among themselves to petticoats or, in hushed tones, stockings, but could mention almost nothing else that brushed bare flesh.
”
”
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
“
Since you've been gone, Piper, I've become as bad with the sighing as Mom. Sometimes it's the part of a sob that I jsut can't hold back. Sometimes the sigh's more like blowing out birthday candles to make a wish. And sometimes I do it hoping that it'll make you appear—even for just one instant—to laugh at me and tell me to stop.
”
”
Kate Karyus Quinn ((Don't You) Forget About Me)
“
Because I am special.
For the moment that was all she had to say. There would be more, much more, but the four words were like four candles, or the arms of the Crusaders' cross she wore on her sleeve.
Because I am special.
She shut the book and began to blow out the candle, before changing her mind. She sat back in her chair, and watched it glow.
”
”
Debbie Viguié (Crusade (Crusade, #1))
“
Some people will try to blow your candle out to make theirs shine brighter - don't let them! xx
”
”
Linda Mather
“
The winds of tribulation blow out some men's candles of commitment.(Maxwell) Our job in recovery is to protect our candle from those winds.
”
”
Roger Stark (The Waterfall Concept: A Blueprint for Addiction Recovery)
“
Moving on is not like a birthday, you can’t count down the hours ‘til it arrives and you can’t mark it on a calendar and you can’t call up your friends to help you celebrate. You can’t plan for it and you can’t conclude it by blowing out a candle. When moving on happens there will be no announcements, no notifications, no congratulations. There will be no parade; only you will know.
”
”
Stephanie Georgopulos
“
People respond to struggles in different ways. Some feel defeated and beaten down by the burdens they are called to bear. Many begin to blame others for their difficulties and defeats, and they fail to follow the counsel of the Lord. It is a natural tendency to seek the easy road on life’s journey and to become discouraged, filled with doubt, and even depressed when facing life’s struggles.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell, then an Assistant to the Twelve, distinguished the difference in responses to difficulties: ‘The winds of tribulation, which blow out some men’s candles of commitment, only fan the fires of faith of [others]’.
”
”
L. Lionel Kendrick
“
He lays me on the bed. I say, right before he kisses me again, “If you kiss me again, I’m going to knee you in the balls.”
His hands are incredibly soft, like a cloud touching me.
“I won’t let you just…” He searches for the right word. “…fly away from me, Cassie Sullivan.”
He blows out the candle beside the bed.
I feel his kiss more intensely now, in the darkness of the room where his sister died. In the quiet of the house where his family died. In the stillness of the world where the life we knew before the Arrival died. He tastes my tears before I can feel them. Where there would be tears, his kiss.
“I didn’t save you,” he whispers, lips tickling my eyelashes. “You saved me.”
He repeats it over and over, until we fall asleep pressed against each other, his voice in my ear, my tears in his mouth.
“You saved me.
”
”
Rick Yancey (The 5th Wave (The 5th Wave, #1))
“
Did it show the dark side of the heroes in The Hero City? Did it show the violence and the betrayal, the cruelty, the depravity, the bottomless evil in some of those “heroes’” hearts? No, of course not. Why would it? That was our reality and it’s what drove so many people to get snuggled in bed, blow out their candles, and take their last breath. Marty chose, instead, to show the other side, the one that gets people out of bed the next morning, makes them scratch and scrape and fight for their lives because someone is telling them that they’re going to be okay. There’s a word for that kind of lie. Hope.
”
”
Max Brooks (World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War)
“
For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say “I’m going to sleep.” And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book:
”
”
Marcel Proust (In Search Of Lost Time (All 7 Volumes) (ShandonPress))
“
Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes …Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger – anything that can blow your candles out! [LAURA bends over the candles.] – for nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura – and so good-bye.
”
”
Tennessee Williams
“
I had not yet been down to the cellar where I was to sleep. I took a candle with me but was too tired to look around beyond finding a bed, pillow and blanket. Leaving the trap door of the cellar open so that cool, fresh air could reach me, I took off my shoes, cap, apron and dress, prayed briefly, and lay down. I was about to blow out the candle when I noticed the painting hanging at the foot of my bed. I sat up, wide awake now. It was another picture of Christ on the Cross, smaller than the one upstairs but even more disturbing. Christ had thrown his head back in pain, and Mary Magdalene’s eyes were rolling. I Iay back gingerly, unable to take my eyes off it. I could not imagine sleeping in the room with the painting. I wanted to take it down but did not dare. Finally I blew out the candle—I could not afford to waste candles on my first day in the new house. I lay back again, my eyes fixed to the place where I knew the painting hung. I slept badly that night, tired as I was. I woke often and looked for the painting. Though I could see nothing on the wall, every detail was fixed in my mind. Finally, when it was beginning to grow light, the painting appeared again and I was sure the Virgin Mary was looking down at me.
”
”
Tracy Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring)
“
Wrong Planet people will always be hated by certain Rag Tags who love to try and expose what is wrong with you because they simply can’t stand what is right with you. In addition, that jealousy eats up their beauty. That’s why they look the way they do. Rag Tags need to have more faith in themselves. Blowing out someone else’s candle will never make theirs shine any brighter.
That’s why people dislike Fergie, because she’s a true Wrong Planet person. She’s fun and a bit too wild for the Royal Family, and she has a wicked side.
”
”
Karl Wiggins (Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe)
“
Okay," she said as he lit the candle and hummed the birthday song. "You know,this is all very Jake Ryan of you."
"Who's Jake Ryan?"
"The hottie from Sixteen Candles—the best teenage movie ever made. The last scene looks just like this," she said, looking around the room.
"All right, well, don't you go wishing for him when you blow out the candle."
"I love you,Jace. You're the only thing I want.
”
”
Phoebe Lane (Cursive)
“
Mid-Term Break
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying—
He had always taken funerals in his stride—
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'.
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four-foot box, a foot for every year.
”
”
Seamus Heaney
“
The Three-Decker
"The three-volume novel is extinct."
Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.
It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;
But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best—
The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.
Fair held the breeze behind us—’twas warm with lovers’ prayers.
We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.
They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,
And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.
By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,
Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took
With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,
And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.
We asked no social questions—we pumped no hidden shame—
We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:
We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.
We weren’t exactly Yussufs, but—Zuleika didn’t tell.
No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared,
The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.
’Twas fiddle in the forc’s’le—’twas garlands on the mast,
For every one got married, and I went ashore at last.
I left ’em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.
I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.
In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed,
I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!
That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again
Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.
They’re just beyond your skyline, howe’er so far you cruise
In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.
Swing round your aching search-light—’twill show no haven’s peace.
Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!
Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest—
And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest!
But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,
At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,
Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,
You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.
You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;
You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ’neath her leaping figure-head;
While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine
Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!
Hull down—hull down and under—she dwindles to a speck,
With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.
All’s well—all’s well aboard her—she’s left you far behind,
With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.
Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make?
You’re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming’s sake?
Well, tinker up your engines—you know your business best—
She’s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!
”
”
Rudyard Kipling
“
We live in an age of universal inquiry, ergo of universal scepticism. The prophecies of the poet, the dreams of the philosopher and scientist, are being daily realized — things formerly considered mere fairy-tales have become facts — yet, in spite of the marvels of learning and science that are hourly accomplished among us, the attitude of mankind is one of disbelief. “There is no God!” cries one theorist; “or if there be one, I can obtain no proof of His existence!” “There is no Creator!” exclaims another. “The Universe is simply a rushing together of atoms.” “There can be no immortality,” asserts a third. “We are but dust, and to dust we shall return.” “What is called by idealists the SOUL,” argues another, “is simply the vital principle composed of heat and air, which escapes from the body at death, and mingles again with its native element. A candle when lit emits flame; blow out the light, the flame vanishes — where? Would it not be madness to assert the flame immortal? Yet the soul, or vital principle of human existence, is no more than the flame of a candle.
”
”
Marie Corelli (Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22))
“
I turn to Peter and say, “I can’t believe you did this.”
“I baked that cake myself,” he brags. “Box, but still.” He takes off his jacket and pulls a lighter out of his jacket pocket and starts lighting the candles. Gabe pulls out a lit candle and helps him. Then Peter hops his butt on the table and sits down, his legs hanging off the edge. “Come on.”
I look around. “Um…”
That’s when I hear the opening notes of “If You Were Here” by the Thompson Twins. My hands fly to my cheeks. I can’t believe it. Peter’s recreating the end scene from Sixteen Candles, when Molly Ringwald and Jake Ryan sit on a table with a birthday cake in between them. When we watched the movie a few months ago, I said it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen. And now he’s doing it for me.
“Hurry up and get up there before all the candles melt, Lara Jean,” Chris calls out.
Darrell and Gabe help hoist me onto the table, careful not to set my dress on fire. Peter says, “Okay, now you look at me adoringly, and I lean forward like this.”
Chris comes forward and puffs out my skirt a bit. “Roll up your sleeve a little higher,” she instructs Peter, looking from her phone to us. Peter obeys, and she nods. “Looks good, looks good.” Then she runs back to her spot and starts to snap. It takes no effort on my part at all to look at Peter adoringly tonight.
When I blow out the candles and make my wish, I wish that I will always feel for Peter the way I do right now.
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
At noontime in midsummer, when the sun is at its highest and everything is in a state of embroiled repose, flashes may be seen in the southern sky. Into the radiance of daylight come bursts of light even more radiant. Exactly half a year later, when the fjord is frozen over and the land buried in snow, the very same spirit taunts creation. At night cracks in the ice race from one end of the fjord to the other, resounding like gunshots or like the roaring of a mad demon.
The peasants dig tunnels from their door through the drifts over to the cow shed. Where are the trolls and the elves now, and where are the sounds of nature? Even the Beast may well be dead and forgotten. Life itself hangs in suspension - existence has shrunk to nothingness. Now it is only a question of survival. The fox thrashes around in a blizzard in the oak thicket and fights his way out, mortally terrified.
It is a time of stillness. Hoarfrost lies in a timeless shroud over the fjord. All day long a strange, sighing sound is heard from out on the ice. It is a fisherman, standing alone at his hole and spearing eel.
One night it snows again. The air is sheer snow and the wind a frigid blast. No living creature is stirring. Then a rider comes to the crossing at Hvalpsund. There is no difficulty in getting over - he does not even slacken his speed, but rides at a brisk trot from the shore out onto the ice.
The hoofbeats thunder beneath him and the ice roars for miles around. He reaches the other side and rides up onto the land. The horse — a mighty steed not afraid to shake its shanks - cleaves the storm with neck outstretched.
The blizzard blows the rider's ashen cape back and he sits naked, with his bare bones sticking out and the snow whistling about his ribs. It is Death that is out riding. His crown sits on three hairs and his scythe points triumphantly backward.
Death has his whims. He takes it into his head to dismount when he sees a light in the winter night. He gives his horse a slap on the haunch and it leaps into the air and is gone. For the rest of the way Death walks like a carefree man, sauntering absentmindedly along.
In the snow-streaked night a crow is sitting on a wayside branch. Its head is much too large for its body. Its beady eyes sparkle when it sees the wanderer's familiar face, and its cawing turns into silent laughter as it throws its beak wide open, with its spear-like tongue sticking far out. It seems almost ready to fall off the branch with its laughter, but it keeps on looking at Death with consuming merriment.
Death moves on. Suddenly he finds himself beside a man. He raps the man on the back with his fingers and leaves him lying there.
There is a light. Death keeps his eye on the light and walks toward it. He moves into the shaft of light and labors his way over a frozen field. But when he comes close enough to make out the house a strange fervor grips him. He has finally come home - yes, this has been his true home from the beginning. Thank goodness he has now found it again after so much difficulty. He goes in, and a solitary old couple make him welcome. They cannot know that he is anything more than a traveling tradesman, spent and sick. He lies down quickly on the bed without a word. They can see that he is really far gone. He lies on his back while they move about the room with the candle and chat. He forgets them.
For a long time he lies there, quiet but awake. Finally there are a few low moans, faltering and tentative. He begins to cry, and then quickly stops.
But now the moans continue, becoming louder, and then going over to tearless sobs. His body arches up, resting only on head and heels. He stares in anguish at the ceiling and screams, screams like a woman in labor. Finally he collapses, and his cries begin to subside. Little by little he falls silent and lies quiet.
”
”
Johannes V. Jensen (Kongens fald)