“
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face."
[The Autumnal]
”
”
John Donne (The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose)
“
Why does everything so bad for you always taste so dreamy?
”
”
Colleen Houck (Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, #1))
“
We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that the girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn’t fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides)
“
I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream--I see an American nightmare.
”
”
Malcolm X
“
I’m a miserable cynic (a newer development) and a dreamy romantic (always have been), and it’s such a terrible combination that I don’t know how to tolerate myself.
”
”
Sarah Hogle (You Deserve Each Other)
“
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O Never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
”
”
W.B. Yeats (In the Seven Woods: Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age)
“
I’m confident enough in my masculinity and sexuality that I can say that Ryan Gosling is just dreamy in this movie.
”
”
J. Lynn (Wait for You (Wait for You, #1))
“
We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night — every night, every night — the moment I feigned sleep.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
“
All right, you caught me. I'm secretly obsessed with you and spend all my free time writing about you in my journal. 'Dear Diary, today Will was an ass for the 467th day in a row. He's so dreamy
”
”
Elizabeth Scott (Perfect You)
“
Now I gazed out of my office window. Slowly the world was changing from old-gold to the deep purple which, in the words of that dreamy song Mum was fond of humming, bathes garden walls under the twinkle of starlight.
”
”
Michael Wyndham Thomas (The Erkeley Shadows)
“
Something in me vibrates to a dusky, dreamy smell of dying moons and shadows.
”
”
Zelda Fitzgerald
“
You thought about dragging me into your bed this morning.”
"I thought about stabbing you and running away screaming. You broke into my house without permission and slobbered all over me. You’re a damn lunatic! And don’t give me that line about smelling my desire; I know it’s bullshit."
"I didn’t need to smell you. I could tell by the dreamy look in your eyes and the way your tongue licked the inside of my mouth.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels, #3))
“
And how did your day go?" I asked Ascanio.
He turned to me, a dreamy look on his pretty face. "We killed things. There was blood. Fountains of blood. And then we had barbecue.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Gifts (Kate Daniels, #5.6))
“
How are your eyes?" she asked.
"Well, I've been told they're dreamy, but I'll let you decide for yourself.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
“
Don’t let what he wants eclipse what you need. He is very dreamy,” she says. “But he is not the sun. You are.
”
”
Shonda Rhimes (Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person)
“
Love has the power to create an inviting space in the lives of people. But if daily routine kills dreamy or passionate thoughts, the constraint of the room may become oppressive and the emptiness unbearable. The room loses then its original fullness and turns into a place of nothingness. ( " Another empty room" )
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
Everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy kind of delight.
”
”
W.B. Yeats (Poems)
“
Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
Of course I don't faint at the sight of blood. I jump onto the dance floor and do the Soulja Boy. Get the hell off me, Dr. McDreamy.
”
”
Jennifer Echols (The Ex Games)
“
Happiness is a flow between a playful construction and a painful deconstruction, undulating from a hampering past into a liberating 'now,' escorting a meandering flood of twists and turns, caressing the velvet sand of dreamy beaches or smashing sometimes into the rocks of reality. ("New York at arm's length of desire")
”
”
Erik Pevernagie (Words of Wisdom: Selected and illustrated by his readers)
“
ah,the outdoors," Shallan said. "I visited that mythical place once. It was so very long ago, I've nearly forgotten it. Tell me, does the sun still shine, or is that just my dreamy recollection'
'Surely your studies aren't that bad.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1))
“
Hello' said a vague and dreamy voice from behind them. Harry looked up: Luna Lovegood had drifted over from the Ravenclaw table. Many people were staring at her and few people openly laughing and pointing; she had managed to procure a hat shaped like a life-size lion's head, which was perched precariously on her head.
'I'm supporting Gryffindor' said Luna, pointing unnecessarily at her hat. "Look what it does...'
She reached up and tapped the hat with her wand. It opened its mouth wide and gave an extremely realistic roar that made everyone in the vicinity jump.
'It's good, isn't it?' said Luna happily. 'I wanted to have it chewing up a serpent to represent Slytherin, you know, but there wasn't time. Anyway...good luck, Ronald!
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
“
I can always tell when you're thinking about food. You forget to be the Serious Wolf and you get this dreamy look in your eyes. You know, most people would think you were thinking about a girl. They have no idea that her name is bacon.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Stars (World of Kate Daniels, #9.5))
“
Home will always be here
Unseen, out of sight
Where I disappear and hide
I think dreamy things as I'm waving goodbye
So I'll spread out my wings and fly
”
”
Owl City (Owl City - Ocean Eyes Piano, Vocal and Guitar Chords)
“
We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other, but sometimes, after one of us had read a long portion of the diary out loud, we had to fight back the urge to hug one another or tell each other how pretty we were. We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that the girls were our twins, that we allexisted in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn'y fathom them at all. We knew finally that the girls were really woman in diquise, that they understood love even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides)
“
[...] I grew up out of that strange, dreamy childhood of mine and went into the world of reality. I met with experiences that bruised my spirit - but they never harmed my ideal world. That was always mine to retreat into at will. I learned that that world and the real world clashed hopelessly and irreconcilably; and I learned to keep them apart so that the former might remain for me unspoiled. I learned to meet other people on their own ground since there seemed to be no meeting place on mine. I learned to hide the thoughts and dreams and fancies that had no place in the strife and clash of the market place. I found that it was useless to look for kindred souls in the multitude; one might stumble on such here and there, but as a rule it seemed to me that the majority of people lived for the things of time and sense alone and could not understand my other life. So I piped and danced to other people's piping - and held fast to my own soul as best I could.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G.B. Macmillan from L.M. Montgomery)
“
I’ve heard the expression climbing walls, but I never thought I’d experience it, let alone like that,” she murmured, her mouth curling into what was probably a dreamy smile.
”
”
Jeaniene Frost (Eternal Kiss of Darkness (Night Huntress World, #2))
“
Thorne waved his hand. "They already showed the clips. And now you've achieved the dream of every red-blooded girl under the age of twenty
five"
"Right, my life is a real dream come true."
Thorne wiggled his eyebrow. "Maybe not, but at least dreamy Prince Kai knows your name.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles, #2))
“
Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the opposite: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as "mushy.
”
”
Alain de Botton (On Love)
“
I have never said this to anyone before.” Leo’s voice was like ragged velvet. “But the idea of you with child is the most insanely arousing thing I’ve ever imagined. Your belly all swollen, your breasts heavy, the funny little way you would walk … I would worship you. I would take care of your every need. And everyone would know that I’d made you that way, that you belonged to me.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4))
“
At this season of the year, darkness is a more insistent thing than cold. The days are short as any dream.
”
”
E.B. White (Essays of E.B. White)
“
Come, daddy, Harry doesn't want to talk to us right now. He's just too polite to say it. ~Luna Lovegood
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
“
Faith is not a blind thing; for faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It is not an unpractical, dreamy thing; for faith trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation.
”
”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (All of grace (Summit Books))
“
Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“
I was astonished to see Adrian watching me, a look of contentment on his face. His eyes seemed to study my every feature. Seeing me notice him, he immediately looked away. His usual smirky expression replaced by a dreamy one.
“The mechanic will wait,” he said.
“Yeah, but I’m supposed to meet Brayden soon, I’ll be-” That’s when I got a good look at Adrian. “What have you done? Look at you! You shouldn’t be out here.”
“It’s not that bad.”
He was lying, and we both knew it.
“Come on, we have to get you out of here before you get worse. What were you thinking?”
His expression was astonishingly nonchalant for someone who looked like he would pass out. “It was worth it. You looked…happy
”
”
Richelle Mead
“
We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides)
“
She didn't care about wizards, but she thought Alan Rickman was dreamy.
”
”
Rainbow Rowell (Landline)
“
I love the way you smile,’ he said with a dreamy sleepy expression. “I want to tell you to do it more often, but I don’t.”
I took in every inch of that flawless face. “Why?”
He didn’t even have his eyes open as he responded. “Because you don’t give it to everyone.” His cheek rested against mine, that sweaty chest did the same as he said, “And I don’t plan on sharing you.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (From Lukov with Love)
“
I think I’m under control, that I’ve stripped away all weaknesses. That committing to my mission has made me impervious. I’m wrong. The thought of Barrons smiling brings other thoughts.
Barrons naked.
Dancing.
Dark head thrown back.
Laughing.
The image doesn’t “gently swim up in my mind” in a dreamy sort of way, like I’ve seen in movies. No, this one slams into my head like a nuclear missile, exploding in my brain in graphic detail. I suffocate in a mushroom cloud of pain.
I can’t breathe. I squeeze my eyes shut.
White teeth flashing in his dark face: I get knocked down but I get up again. You’re never gonna keep me down.
I stagger.
But he didn’t get up, the bastard. He stayed down.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Shadowfever (Fever, #5))
“
When she opened her door, Levi was sitting in the hallway, his legs bent in front of him, hunched forward on his knees. He looked up when she stepped out.
“I’m such an idiot,” he said.
Cath fell between his knees and hugged him.
“I can’t believe I said that,” he said. “I can’t even go nine hours without seeing you.
”
”
Rainbow Rowell (Fangirl)
“
The Notebook? You own The Notebook?"
Cam stared at me blankly. "What's wrong with that?"
"Oh, nothing is wrong with that. It's just such a...uh, chick flick."
"I'm confident enough in my masculinity and sexuality that I can say that Ryan Gosling is just dreamy in this movie."
My jaw hit the floor.
The blank expression slipped away and he started laughing. "I'm joking. I don't own The Notebook. Never watched it. Didn't bring any romance movies.
”
”
J. Lynn (Wait for You (Wait for You, #1))
“
And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, 'Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, 'Do bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it.
”
”
Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass)
“
I even read that book you liked so much. The one with the apple on the cover. Wow! That Edward is…how did you put it…dreamy?
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Never Never: Part Two (Never Never, #2))
“
I wouldn't know what to do with [colour]. Colour to me is too real. It's limiting. It doesn't allow too much of a dream. The more you throw black into a colour, the more dreamy it gets… Black has depth. It's like a little egress; you can go into it, and because it keeps on continuing to be dark, the mind kicks in, and a lot of things that are going on in there become manifest. And you start seeing what you're afraid of. You start seeing what you love, and it becomes like a dream.
”
”
David Lynch (Lynch on Lynch)
“
The shy girl she had known at Riverrun had grown into a woman who was by turns proud, fearful, cruel, dreamy, reckless, timid, stubborn, vain, and, above all, inconstant.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
Endless ocean, blue water, dreamy sky,
tranquil beach, love in the air, mind fly high.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
All her grace was in her vagueness. Her voice was soft, her manner languid, her features blurred and dreamy.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Little Friend)
“
The gods heard my prayer, she thought. She felt so numb and dreamy. My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
“
You are a fan of Katy Perry you want her heart you want her soul you love her songs you like her moves she may be a kinda a slut but you still love any way you you dream you laugh you like her songs and you dance-but all you gotta do is have a Teenage Dream.
”
”
Katy Perry
“
Far away beyond the pine-woods,' he answered, in a low dreamy voice, 'there is a little garden. There the grass grows long and deep, there are the great white stars of the hemlock flower, there the nightingale sings all night long. All night long he sings, and the cold, crystal moon looks down, and the yew-tree spreads out its giant arms over the sleepers.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
“
We have gained reality and lost dream. No more lounging under a tree and peering at the sky between one's big and second toes; there's work to be done. To be efficient, one cannot be hungry and dreamy but must eat steak and keep moving.
”
”
Robert Musil (The Man Without Qualities: Volume I)
“
Thus did my siblings and I learn one of the hard lessons of life: the best way to strip the allure and dreaminess from a lifelong dream is, very often, simply to have it come true.
”
”
David James Duncan (The Brothers K)
“
The closer you get to real matter, rock air fire and wood, boy, the more spiritual life is. All these people thinking they're hardheaded materialistic practical types, they don't know shit about matter, their heads are full of dreamy ideas and notions.
”
”
Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)
“
Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry.
”
”
Charles Baudelaire (Intimate Journals)
“
The dreamy days and sticky nights of summer were already calling, as if anything could happen.
”
”
C.J. Carlyon (The Cherry House)
“
With a dreamy sigh, I prop my chin on my fists. “Who knew that one day I’d be on a date with the lead singer from a famous boy band?”
He scowls. “Infinite Gray was not a boy band.”
“Were there any girls in the band?”
“No.”
“That makes you a boy band.”
“It made us an all-male rock group.”
I bite back my smile. He’s so cute when he’s irritated. “Right, like ’N Sync.”
He winces. “Not like ’N Sync. Jesus, watch where you hurl those things. Words hurt, Maggie.
”
”
Lexi Ryan (Unbreak Me (Splintered Hearts, #1))
“
Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young, the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom, and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above, it was green with vegetation, and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.
”
”
Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
“
He had the effect on her of a window being thrown open and fresh air and sunlight being let in
”
”
Elizabeth von Arnim (Vera)
“
Hey,” she murmured. “There are people in the house.”
“There are always people in the house,” I reminded her. “That’s why we escaped up here to the castle tower. Escape plan number . . . hell, I don’t know. I lost count. We haven’t had to come up with some dreamy escape plan in a while.”
Sydney trailed her fingers down the side of my face. “That’s because we’re living it, Adrian. This is the only escape plan we need.
”
”
Richelle Mead (The Ruby Circle (Bloodlines, #6))
“
And this last year I also realized there are different kinds of love. There’s the dreamy kind you always thought you wanted and then there’s the steady one you never understood but the second you let yourself feel it…it’s nothing like you could have imagined in your wildest dreams.
”
”
K.L. Kreig (Black Swan Affair)
“
I think they worried that my grandfather would infect me with some incurable dreaminess from which I’d never recover – that these fantasies were somehow inoculating me against more practical ambitions
”
”
Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1))
“
[She was] a creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was beautiful and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her; with a blind unconscious yearning for something that would link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and give her soul a sense of home in it.
”
”
George Eliot (The Mill on the Floss)
“
The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time.
The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there's a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There's something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody is always sinking. Everyone seems to be from some very old Southern families. Either that or a foreigner. I like the way it is.
There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment. At any time you could run into a ritual honoring some vaguely known queen. Bluebloods, titled persons like crazy drunks, lean weakly against the walls and drag themselves through the gutter. Even they seem to have insights you might want to listen to. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem. Gardens full of pansies, pink petunias, opiates. Flower-bedecked shrines, white myrtles, bougainvillea and purple oleander stimulate your senses, make you feel cool and clear inside.
Everything in New Orleans is a good idea. Bijou temple-type cottages and lyric cathedrals side by side. Houses and mansions, structures of wild grace. Italianate, Gothic, Romanesque, Greek Revival standing in a long line in the rain. Roman Catholic art. Sweeping front porches, turrets, cast-iron balconies, colonnades- 30-foot columns, gloriously beautiful- double pitched roofs, all the architecture of the whole wide world and it doesn't move. All that and a town square where public executions took place. In New Orleans you could almost see other dimensions. There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again. Chronic melancholia hanging from the trees. You never get tired of it. After a while you start to feel like a ghost from one of the tombs, like you're in a wax museum below crimson clouds. Spirit empire. Wealthy empire. One of Napoleon's generals, Lallemaud, was said to have come here to check it out, looking for a place for his commander to seek refuge after Waterloo. He scouted around and left, said that here the devil is damned, just like everybody else, only worse. The devil comes here and sighs. New Orleans. Exquisite, old-fashioned. A great place to live vicariously. Nothing makes any difference and you never feel hurt, a great place to really hit on things. Somebody puts something in front of you here and you might as well drink it. Great place to be intimate or do nothing. A place to come and hope you'll get smart - to feed pigeons looking for handouts
”
”
Bob Dylan (Chronicles, Volume One)
“
The flash of her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness; they no longer gave the impression of looking at the objects around her: they appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond—you would have said out of this world.
”
”
Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights)
“
What's this new shampoo you're wearing?"
"I stole it from Margot. It's juicy pear. Nice, right?"
"It's all right, I guess. But can you go back to the one you used to wear? The coconut one? I love the smell of that one." A dreamy look crosses his face, like evening fog settling over a city.
”
”
Jenny Han (P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2))
“
Please come close enough so that I can see you, and then I will try to do the rest for both of us, because I have not learned my lesson yet and do not possess the faith to believe in the partner who does his side of the thing. But I would love it if you would, because that would be dreamy and then I would also have that faith. I will give you every single treat.
”
”
Jenny Slate (Little Weirds)
“
Once apon a time, Ian's dark, dreamy eyes had made her melt inside. The angle of his head, the wrinkle in the left corner of his lip—they'd obsessed her. And he'd been obsessed right back.
Now all Amy wanted to do was throw her shoe at the screen.
”
”
Peter Lerangis (The Dead of Night (The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers, #3))
“
It's alright" said a dreamy voice from beside Harry as Ron vanished into the coach's dark interior. "You're not going mad or anything. I can see them too."
"Can you?" said Harry desperately, turning to Luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide, silvery eyes.
"Oh yes," said Luna, "I've been able to see them since my first year here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am."
Smiling faintly, she climbed into the musty interior of the carriage after Ron. Not altogether reassured, Harry followed her.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
“
She loved him more than ever. And not because she’d scoured file after file of reports and summaries and data and photographs. Not because he was the dreamy, untouchable Carswell Thorne that she’d imagined kissing on the banks of a starlit river while fireworks exploded overhead and violins played in the background. Now he was the Carswell Thorne who had given her strength in the desert. Who had come for her when she was kidnapped. Who had kissed her when hope was lost and death was imminent.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
“
In a nervous and slender-leaved mimosa grove at the back of their villa we found a perch on the ruins of a low stone wall. She trembled and twitched as I kissed the corner of her parted lips and the hot lobe of her ear. A cluster of stars palely glowed above us between the silhouettes of long thin leaves; that vibrant sky seemed as naked as she was under her light frock. I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own. Her legs, her lovely live legs, were not too close together, and when my hand located what it sought, a dreamy and eerie expression, half-pleasure, half-pain, came over those childish features. She sat a little higher than I, and whenever in her solitary ecstasy she was led to kiss me, her head would bend with a sleepy, soft, drooping movement that was almost woeful, and her bare knees caught and compressed my wrist, and slackened again; and her quivering mouth, distorted by the acridity of some mysterious potion, with a sibilant intake of breath came near to my face. She would try to relieve the pain of love by first roughly rubbing her dry lips against mine; then my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth, while with a generosity that was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, my entrails, I gave her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
“
I have woken up…quite sloshed
from night-mingled rains
a little drugged, by mountain fogs
I have been kidnapped
for years....by a mere kiss.
”
”
Sanober Khan (A Thousand Flamingos)
“
He was tired of everyone believing they knew everything there was to know about him, as if a person never grew, a person never changed, a person was born a weird and dreamy little kid with too-red lips and stayed that way forever just to keep things simple for everyone else.
”
”
Laura Ruby (Bone Gap)
“
A floorboard cracked; knuckles tapped once on the open door. Adam looked up to see Niall Lynch standing in the doorway. No, it was Ronan, face lit bright on one side, in stark shadow on the other, looking powerful and at ease with his thumbs tucked in the pockets of his jeans, leather bracelets looped over his wrist, feet bare.
He wordlessly crossed the floor and sat beside Adam on the mattress. When he held out his hand, Adam put the model into it.
“This old thing,” Ronan said. He turned the front tyre, and again the music played out of it. They sat like that for a few minutes, as Ronan examined the car and turned each wheel to play a different tune. Adam watched how intently Ronan studied the seams, his eyelashes low over his light eyes. Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam.
Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.
That was this kiss.
They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips.
Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window.
He did not understand anything.
It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn’t know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain that all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible.
He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan’s first kiss.
“I’m gonna go downstairs,” Ronan said.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
For the past few years, I've been on a quest for a good old-fashioned date, the kind where the guy calls, makes the plans, picks you up in a car that's not his dad's or his other girlfriend's, and takes you somewhere that shows he put thought into what you might like, not what he might get off on like the latest how-many-naked-boobs-can-we-cram-into-this-movie-to-disguise-the-complete-lack-of-plot movie. I'm looking for the kind of date that starts with good conversation , has a sweet and satisfying middle, and ends with long, slow kisses and the dreamy feeling that you're walking on clouds.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Bloodfever (Fever, #2))
“
context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one's life. I mean, lets face it:when you're eating simple barbecue under a palm tree, and you feel sand between your toes, samba music is playing softly in the backgroud, waves are lapping at the shore a few yards off, a gentle breeze is cooling the sweat on the back of your neck at the hairline, and looking across the table, past the column of empty Red Stripes at the dreamy expression on your companion's face, you realize that in half an hour you're proably going to be having sex on clean white hotel sheets, that grilled chicken leg suddenly tastes a hell of a lot better
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines)
“
taking her hand he led her out into a broad stretch of hard sandy soil that the moon flooded with great splendor. They floated out like drifting moths under the rich hazy light, and as the fantastic symphony wept and exulted and wavered and despaired, Ardita's last sense of reality dropped away, and she abandonded her imagination to the dreamy summer scents of tropial flowers and the infinite starry spaces overhead, feeling that if she opened her eyes it would be to find herself dancing with a ghost in a land created by her own fantasy.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Offshore Pirate)
“
I live there...
Far above the song-filled clouds,
where the dewdrops touch my skin so bare
I live there.
”
”
Sanober Khan (A touch, a tear, a tempest)
“
Will you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine skylarking and chiacking about for one day, one clear, clean, sweet day in a good world in the midst of our living. Yachts run before an unfelt gust with bagnecked pelicans riding above them, the city their twitching backdrop, all blocks and points of mirror light down to the water's edge.
”
”
Tim Winton (Cloudstreet)
“
Flight 2039 to Boston is now boarding at gate 14A," a voice announced over the PA system.
Nellie sighed. "I love Irish accents." She paused. "And Australian accents. And English accents." A dreamy look came over her face. "Theo had an awesome accent."
Dan snorted. "Yeah, there was just that one tiny problem. He turned out to be a two-timing, backstabbing thief.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Black Book of Buried Secrets)
“
And all of a sudden I began to understand his strangeness that made people shrug and mock; his dreaminess, his love of solitude, his silent manner. Now I understood why he sat on the look-out hill of an evening and why he spent a night by himself on the riverbank, why he constantly hearkened to sounds others could not hear and why his eyes would suddenly gleam and his drawn eyebrows twitch. He was a man deeply in love. I felt it was not simply a love for another person, it was somehow an uncommon, expansive love for life and earth. He had kept this love within himself, in his music, in his very being. A person with no feeling, no matter how good his voice, could never have sung like that.
”
”
Chingiz Aitmatov (Jamilia)
“
Will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me becuase it so thoroughly teaches me that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and deed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ? The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting
”
”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“
She shrank into her chair, sure that if he could see her now, he would know. The truth would be evident in every angle of her face.
She loved him more than ever.
And not because she'd scoured file after file of reports and summaries and data and photographs. Not because he was the dreamy, untouchable Carswell Thorne that she'd imagined kissing on the banks of a starlit river while fireworks exploded overhead and violins played in the background.
Now he was Carswell Thorne who had given her strength in the desert. Who had come for her when she was kidnapped. Who had kissed her when hope was lost and death was imminent.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
“
With increasing distance, our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary—the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.
”
”
Edwin Powell Hubble (The Realm of the Nebulae (The Silliman Memorial Lectures Series))
“
Because she looks to the sky so often, people think that her life is sweet, that her eyes are dotted with dreamy stars. But quite the opposite is true and I wish they could see— she looks up so much because all around her it's hard to see without breaking her heart. She once saw in a movie a window sign that said "We're all in the gutter; but some of us are looking at the stars." From that movie onwards, she decided to look up! Doesn't mean her life is sweet, doesn't mean her eyes are dotted with dreamy stars.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
Books are a bad family - there are those you love, and those you are indifferent to; idiots and mad cousins who you would banish except others enjoy their company; wrongheaded but fascinating eccentrics and dreamy geniuses; orphaned grandchildren; and endless brothers-in-law simply taking up space who you wish you could send straight to hell. Except you can't, for the most part. You must house them and make them comfortable and worry about them when they go on trips and there is never enough room.
”
”
Elizabeth McCracken (The Giant's House)
“
I was dancing with an immortal august woman, who had black lilies in her hair, and her dreamy gesture seemed laden with a wisdom more profound than the darkness that is between star and star, and with a love like the love that breathed upon the waters; and as we danced on and on, the incense drifted over us and round us, covering us away as in the heart of the world, and ages seemed to pass, and tempests to awake and perish in the folds of our robes and in her heavy hair.
Suddenly I remembered that her eyelids had never quivered, and that her lilies had not dropped a black petal, or shaken from their places, and understood with a great horror that I danced with one who was more or less than human, and who was drinking up my soul as an ox drinks up a wayside pool; and I fell, and darkness passed over me.
”
”
W.B. Yeats (Rosa Alchemica)
“
Even people whose lives have been made various by learning sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible - nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas - where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their souls have been nourished. Minds that have been unhinged from their old faith and love have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories.
”
”
George Eliot (Silas Marner)
“
Zooey was in dreamy top form. The announcer had them off on the subject of housing developments, and the little Burke girl said she hated houses that all look alike-meaning a long row of identical 'development' houses. Zooey said they were 'nice.' He said it would be very nice to come home and be in the wrong house. To eat dinner with the wrong people by mistake, sleep in the wrong bed by mistake, and kiss everybody goodbye in the morning thinking they were your own family. He said he even wished everybody in the world looked exactly alike. He said you'd keep thinking everybody you met was your wife or your mother or father, and people would always be throwing their arms around each other wherever they went, and it would look 'very nice.
”
”
J.D. Salinger (Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction)
“
We became acquainted with starry skies the girls had gazed at while camping years before, and the boredom of summers traipsing from back yard to front to back again, and even a certain indefinable smell that arose from toilets on rainy nights, which the girls called "sewery." We knew what it felt like to see a boy with his shirt off, and why it made Lux write the name Kevin in purple Magic Marker all over her three-ring binder and even on her bras and panties, and we understood her rage coming home one day to find that Mrs. Lisbon had soaked her things in Clorox, bleaching all the "Kevins" out. We knew the pain of winter wind rushing up your skirt, and the ache of keeping your knees together in class, and how drab and infuriating it was to jump rope while the boys played baseball. We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other, but sometimes, after one of us had read a long portion of the diary out loud, we had to fight back the urge to hug one another or to tell each other how pretty we were. We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that the girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn't fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides)
“
He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while at her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine; the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))
“
The things of your life arrived in their own time, like a train you had to catch. Sometimes this was easy, all you had to do was step onto it, the train was plush and comfortable and full of people smiling at you in a hush, and a conductor who punched your ticket and tousled your head with his big hand, saying, Ain’t you pretty, ain’t you the prettiest girl now, lucky lady taking a big train trip with your daddy, while you sank into the dreamy softness of your seat and sipped ginger ale from a can and watched the world float in magical silence past your window, the tall buildings of the city in the crisp autumn light and then the backs of the houses with laundry flapping and a crossing with gates where a boy was waving from his bicycle, and then the woods and fields and a single cow eating grass.......
.....Because sometimes it was one way, easy, and sometimes it was the other, not easy; the things of your life roared down to you and it was all you could do to grab hold and hang on. Your old life ended, and the train took you away to another...
”
”
Justin Cronin (The Passage (The Passage, #1))
“
We knew the pain of winter wind rushing up your skirt, and the ache of keeping your knees together in class, and how drab and infuriating it was to jump rope while the boys played baseball. We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other, but sometimes, after one of us had read a long portion of the diary out loud, we had to fight back the urge to hug one another or to tell each other how pretty we were. We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that the girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn’t fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides)
“
My grandmother lived a remarkable life. She watched her nation fall to pieces; and even when she became collateral damage, she believed in the power of the human spirit. She gave when she had nothing; she fought when she could barely stand; she clung to tomorrow when she couldn’t find footing on the rock ledge of yesterday. She was a chameleon, slipping into the personae of a privileged young girl, a frightened teen, a dreamy novelist, a proud prisoner, an army wife, a mother hen. She became whomever she needed to be to survive, but she never let anyone else define her.
By anyone’s account, her existence had been full, rich, important—even if she chose not to shout about her past, but rather to keep it hidden. It had been nobody’s business but her own; it was still nobody’s business.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
...it was complicated, she wasn't thinking only of herself but me too, since we'd both been through so many of the same things, she and I, and we were an awful lot alike-too much. And because we'd both been hurt so badly, so early on, in violent and irremediable ways that most people didn't, and couldn't, understand, wasn't it a bit… precarious? A matter of self-preservation? Two rickety and death-driven persons who would need to lean on each other quite so much? not to say she wasn't doing well at the moment, because she was, but all that could change in a flash with either of us, couldn't it? the reversal, the sharp downward slide, and wasn't that the danger? since our flaws and weaknesses were so much the same, and one of us could bring the other down way too quick? and though this was left to float in the air a bit, I realized instantly, and with some considerable astonishment, what she was getting at. (Dumb of me not to have seen it earlier, after all the injuries, the crushed leg, the multiple surgeries; adorable drag in the voice, adorable drag in the step, the arm-hugging and the pallor, the scarves and sweaters and multiple layers of clothes, slow drowsy smile: she herself, the dreamy childhood her, was sublimity and disaster, the morphine lollipop I'd chased for all those years.)
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
“
Go on," Kell told him without taking his eyes from Lila. " Get some rest."
Hastra shifted. "I can't, sir," he said. "I'm to escort Miss Bard--"
"I'll take that charge," cut in Kell. Hastra bit his lip and retreated several steps.
Lila let her forehead come to rest against his, her face so close the features blurred. And yet, that fractured eye shone with frightening clarity.
"You never told me," he whispered.
"You never noticed," she answered. And then, "Alucard did."
The blow landed, and Kell started to pull away when Lila's eyelids fluttered and she swayed dangerously.
He braced her. "Come on," he said gently. "I have a room upstairs. Why don't we--"
A sleepy flicker of amusement. "Trying to get me into bed?"
Kell mustered a smile. "It's only fair. I've spent enough time in yours."
"If I remember correctly," she said, her voice dreamy with fatigue, "you were on top of the bed the entire time."
"And tied to it," observed Kell.
Her words were soft at the edges. "Those were the days..." she said, right before she fell forward. It happened so fast Kell could do nothing but throw his arms around her.
"Lila?" he asked, first gently, and then more urgently. "Lila?"
She murmured against his front, something about sharp knives and soft corners, but didn't rouse, and Kell shot a glance at Hastra, who was still standing there, looking thoroughly embarrassed.
"What have you done?" demanded Kell.
"It was just a tonic, sir," he fumbled, "something for sleep."
"You drugged her?"
"It was Tieren's order," said Hastra, chastised. "He said she was mad and stubborn and no use to us dead." Hastra lowered his voice when he said this, mimicking Tieren's tone with startling accuracy.
"And what do you plan to do when she wakes back up?"
Hastra shrank back. "Apologize?"
Kell made an exasperated sound as Lila nuzzled-- actually nuzzled-- his shoulder.
"I suggest," he snapped at the young man, "you think of something better. Like an escape route."
Hastra paled, and Kell swept Lila up into his arms, amazed at her lightness... Kell swept through the halls until he reached his room and lowered Lila onto the couch.
Hastra handed him a blanket. "Shouldn't you take off her knives?"
"There's not enough tonic in the world to risk it," said Kell.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic, #3))
“
There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral—immoral from the scientific point of view."
"Why?"
"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty hat one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion—these are the two things that govern us. And yet, I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray (Collector's Edition): Including the Uncensored 13 Chapter Version & The Revised 20 Chapter Version)
“
Places I love come back to me like music,
Hush me and heal me when I am very tired;
I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming
In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;
And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley
As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.
I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton,
A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,
The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle
Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
With the winer sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.
Violet now, in veil on veil of evening,
The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far;
A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol
In the heart of the hollow where the dark pools are;
The primrose has opened her pale yellow flowers
And heaven is lighting star after star.
Places I love come back to me like music–
Mid-ocean, midnight, the eaves buzz drowsily;
In the ship's deep churning the eerie phosphorescence
Is like the souls of people who were drowned at sea,
And I can hear a man's voice, speaking, hushed , insistent,
At midnight, in mid-ocean, hour on hour to me.
”
”
Sara Teasdale (The Collected Poems)
“
I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get ride of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it is forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
“
He wordlessly crossed the floor and sat beside Adam on the mattress. When he held out his hand, Adam put the model into it.
“This old thing,” Ronan said. He turned the front tyre, and again the music played out of it. They sat like that for a few minutes, as Ronan examined the car and turned each wheel to play a different tune. Adam watched how intently Ronan studied the seams, his eyelashes low over his light eyes. Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam.
Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.
That was this kiss.
They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips.
Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window.
He did not understand anything.
It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn’t know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain that all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible.
He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan’s first kiss.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this.
If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)