“
Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.
”
”
Jean-Paul Sartre
“
On vis och," he told himself.
Dawn to dusk. A phrase that meant two things in his native tongue.
A fresh start. A good end.
”
”
Victoria E. Schwab (A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic, #3))
“
We’ve chased the dawn, Anastasia, now the dusk.
”
”
E.L. James (Fifty Shades Darker (Fifty Shades, #2))
“
There is only one day left, always starting over: It is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.
”
”
Jean-Paul Sartre
“
There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.
”
”
W.E.B. Du Bois (Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept)
“
I began to know that each morning reasserted the problems of night before, that sleep suspended all but changed nothing, that you couldn’t make yourself over between dawn and dusk.
”
”
John Knowles (A Separate Peace)
“
Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.
”
”
Terry Tempest Williams (When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice)
“
Waking At Night
The blue river is grey at morning
and evening. There is twilight
at dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark
wondering if this quiet in me now
is a beginning or an end.
”
”
Jack Gilbert (The Dance Most of All: Poems)
“
I would tell you stories from dawn to dusk if it meant filling your eyes with happiness.
”
”
Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
“
From flame to ashes, dawn to dusk, for the rest of our lives, be mine always, Desmond Flynn.
”
”
Laura Thalassa (Rhapsodic (The Bargainer, #1))
“
I will stay by your side until the fire in the sun grows cold and the light of the moon is no more. Until time blots out the stars.
”
”
Elizabeth Lim (Unravel the Dusk (The Blood of Stars, #2))
“
Farewell sweet earth and northern sky,
for ever blest, since here did lie
and here with lissom limbs did run
beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun,
Lúthien Tinúviel
more fair than Mortal tongue can tell.
Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled;
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this―
the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea―
that Lúthien for a time should be.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Silmarillion)
“
Above, the stars faded behind the misty sky, and the sun fanned its light upon us. We melted into each other until the dawn slid into dusk, and the sun paled into the moon, and the stars, once lost, became found again.
”
”
Elizabeth Lim (Spin the Dawn (The Blood of Stars, #1))
“
The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon 'Hell and Damnation'—upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment. We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in theology. The outward and visible punishment of every wrong deed that men do, the repeated declaration that anything can be gotten by anyone at any time by prayer.
[Essay entitled 'On Christianity', published posthumously]
”
”
W.E.B. Du Bois (Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays and Articles)
“
They are twilight creatures, beings of dawn and dusk, of standing between one thing and another, of not quite and almost, of borderlands and shadows.
”
”
Holly Black (The Darkest Part of the Forest)
“
Carlos: So, what, were they psychos, or...
Seth: Did they look like psychos? Is that what they looked like? They were vampires. Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are!
”
”
Quentin Tarantino (From Dusk Till Dawn)
“
I know that for every dawn, dusk must unravel its darkness.
”
”
Elizabeth Lim (Unravel the Dusk (The Blood of Stars, #2))
“
Our troubles are but mayflies, rising and falling between the turn of dawn and dusk. And then they are gone to the houses of memory, you and I will remain, Yukiko.
”
”
Jay Kristoff (Stormdancer (The Lotus Wars, #1))
“
All the mortal world is a lethal enemy during those hours between dawn and dusk.
”
”
Anne Rice
“
You are dawn and she is midnight. And despite the mist of the half-light, together you see more clearly in the dusk.
”
”
Samantha Young (Shades of Blood (Warriors of Ankh, #3))
“
Life had taught her that we all require big and small lies in order to survive, just as much as we need air. She used to say that if during one single day, from dawn to dusk, we could see the naked reality of the world, and of ourselves, we would either take our own lives or lose our minds.
”
”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón (The Angel's Game (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #2))
“
My name is Zak Bagans. I've never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. So I set out on a quest to capture what I once saw onto video....With no big camera crews following us around, I am joined only by my fellow investigator Nick Groff and our equipment tech Aaron Goodwin. The three of us will travel to the some of most highly active paranormal locations, where we will spend an entire night, being locked down from dusk until dawn....Raw...Extreme...These are our Ghost Adventures.
”
”
Zak Bagans
“
A poor old Widow in her weeds
Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;
Not too shallow, and not too deep,
And down came April -- drip -- drip -- drip.
Up shone May, like gold, and soon
Green as an arbour grew leafy June.
And now all summer she sits and sews
Where willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,
Teasle and pansy, meadowsweet,
Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit;
Brown bee orchis, and Peals of Bells;
Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells;
Like Oberon's meadows her garden is
Drowsy from dawn to dusk with bees.
Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,
And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes;
And all she has is all she needs --
A poor Old Widow in her weeds.
”
”
Walter de la Mare (Peacock Pie)
“
Dawn and dusk are mutual friends of the sun; one opens the door for him to a brand new day and the other one has to shut it to embrace the darkness of night.
”
”
Munia Khan
“
From dawn to dusk I spent my time in the real world. Only in my dreams at night could I indulge my fantasies.
”
”
Edogawa Rampo (The Edogawa Rampo Reader)
“
In short, our gentleman became so caught up in reading that he spent his nights reading from dusk till dawn and his days reading from sunrise to sunset, and so with too little sleep and too much reading his brains dried up, causing him to lose his mind.
”
”
Edith Grossman (Don Quixote)
“
Oh,to be walking through Leningrad white night after white night, the dawn to dusk all smelting together like platinum ore, Tatiana thought, turning away to the wall, again to the wall, the wall, as ever. Alexander, my nights, my days, my every thought. You will fall away from me in just a while, won't you, and I'll be whole again, and I will go on and feel for someone else, the way everyone does.
But my innocence is forever gone.
”
”
Paullina Simons (The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman, #1))
“
There is no dusk to be,
There is no dawn that was,
Only there's now, and now,
And the wind in the grass.
”
”
Archibald MacLeish
“
It’s the end of the day, but it feels like dawn, and a new beginning. It comes to me that both twilight periods are, in fact, symmetrical events on opposite sides of midnight, a cycle of endless creation and destruction, an Ouroboros.
”
”
Florian Armas (The Shamans at the End of Time)
“
The moon went slowly down in loveliness; she departed into the depth of the horizon, and long veil-like shadows crept up the sky through which the stars appeared. Soon, however, they too began to pale before a splendour in the east, and the advent of the dawn declared itself in the newborn blue of heaven. Quieter and yet more quiet grew the sea, quiet as the soft mist that brooded on her bosom, and covered up her troubling, as in our tempestuous life the transitory wreaths of sleep brook upon a pain-racked soul, causing it to forget its sorrow. From the east to the west sped those angels of the Dawn, from sea to sea, from mountain-top to mountain-top, scattering light from breast and wing. On they sped out of the darkness, perfect, glorious; on, over the quiet sea, over the low coast-line, and the swamps beyond, and the mountains above them; over those who slept in peace and those who woke in sorrow; over the evil and the good; over the living and the dead; over the wide world and all that breathes or as breathed thereon.
”
”
H. Rider Haggard (She (She, #1))
“
The writing of poetry is a chancy business, it's currency solitude and loss, its tools coffee and too much wine, its hours midnight, dawn, and dusk, and unlike other trade the hours asleep are not time off.
”
”
Keith Miller (The Book of Flying)
“
I just want to be floating, suspended here in my California time capsule with neither yesterday's dusk or tomorrow's dawn anywhere on the horizon.
”
”
Sarah Ockler (Twenty Boy Summer)
“
The world is full of stories, and no matter how much time we spend in it—alive or dead—there’s never time to learn them all. They just go by so quickly.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day)
“
He got out of bed and peeped through the blinds. To the east and opposite to him gardens and an apple-orchard lay, and there in strange liquid tranquility hung the morning star, and rose, rilling into the dusk of night the first grey of dawn. The street beneath its autumn leaves was vacant, charmed, deserted.
”
”
Walter de la Mare (The Return)
“
... But I'm annoying you to no purpose with my arguments. A person whose house is only open on the west can't see the sun rise at dawn; it's only seen when the sun sets at dusk. If one tries to compare the color and appearance of the two, one will go on arguing forever...
...The fault lies not with the vision but with the closed windows. If you look out of only one opening till the day you die, you'll ever see anything new.
”
”
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
“
Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk.
”
”
Susan Merrell
“
Why didn't you write all this time?
Did you not remember us in a song?
A dance?
In the skies littered with stars?
Did you not get drunk?
Why didn’t you write all this time?
Did you not remember us in a film?
A book?
In idyllic dusks and dawns?
Did you not get high?
It is good that you didn't.
For all is well.
I am drunk and dazed.
I have already forgotten you
and your bewitching ways.
”
”
Kamand Kojouri
“
Life is an act and we are all actors in the arena of life. We all do act each day from dawn to dusk. Some act well but some act to cover their acts
”
”
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
“
She was his dawn of bliss
He was her dusk of wounds,
Each day they came up to
See and touch
They couldn't stay for long
But they looked perfect together ~
”
”
Tanya Gambhir
“
Nothing is black and white. There may be day and night, but not without the dawn and the dusk.
”
”
Hannah Hart
“
The moon is more interesting than the unchanging sun. That is surely why it is used in poetry and the sun is not—unless one talks of dawn or dusk, when the sun briefly hovers on the edge of day.
”
”
Liza Dalby (The Tale of Murasaki)
“
He fell in love with Manhattan's skyline, like a first-time brothel guest falling for a seasoned professional. He mused over her reflections in the black East River at dusk, dawn, or darkest night, and each haloed light-in a tower or strung along the jeweled and sprawling spider legs of the Brooklyn Bridge's spans-hinted at some meaning, which could be understood only when made audible by music and encoded in lyrics.
”
”
Arthur Phillips (The Song Is You)
“
In between waking up from bed in the morning and going back in the evening, let something happen. God will bless that “something” for you.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Become a Better You)
“
A man does not need to be a wizard to know truth from falsehood, not if he has eyes. You need only learn to read a face. Look at the eyes. The mouth. The muscles here, at the corners of the jaw, and here, where the neck joins the shoulders." He touched her lightly with two fingers. "Some liars blink. Some stare. Some look away. Some lick their lips. Many coer their mouths just before they tell a lie, as if to hide their deceit. Other signs may be more subtle, but they are always there. A false smile and a true one may look alike, but they are as different as dusk from dawn.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4))
“
Say the planet is born at midnight and it runs for one day. First there is nothing. Two hours are lost to lava and meteors. Life doesn’t show up until three or four a.m. Even then, it’s just the barest self-copying bits and pieces. From dawn to late morning—a million million years of branching—nothing more exists than lean and simple cells. Then there is everything. Something wild happens, not long after noon. One kind of simple cell enslaves a couple of others. Nuclei get membranes. Cells evolve organelles. What was once a solo campsite grows into a town. The day is two-thirds done when animals and plants part ways. And still life is only single cells. Dusk falls before compound life takes hold. Every large living thing is a latecomer, showing up after dark. Nine p.m. brings jellyfish and worms. Later that hour comes the breakout—backbones, cartilage, an explosion of body forms. From one instant to the next, countless new stems and twigs in the spreading crown burst open and run. Plants make it up on land just before ten. Then insects, who instantly take to the air. Moments later, tetrapods crawl up from the tidal muck, carrying around on their skin and in their guts whole worlds of earlier creatures. By eleven, dinosaurs have shot their bolt, leaving the mammals and birds in charge for an hour. Somewhere in that last sixty minutes, high up in the phylogenetic canopy, life grows aware. Creatures start to speculate. Animals start teaching their children about the past and the future. Animals learn to hold rituals. Anatomically modern man shows up four seconds before midnight. The first cave paintings appear three seconds later. And in a thousandth of a click of the second hand, life solves the mystery of DNA and starts to map the tree of life itself. By midnight, most of the globe is converted to row crops for the care and feeding of one species. And that’s when the tree of life becomes something else again. That’s when the giant trunk starts to teeter.
”
”
Richard Powers (The Overstory)
“
Bosch knew the dawn had nothing on the dusk. Dawn always came up ugly, as if the sun was clumsy and in a hurry. The dusk was smoother, the moon more graceful. Maybe it was because the moon was more patient. In life and nature, Bosch thought, darkness always waits.
”
”
Michael Connelly (The Closers (Harry Bosch, #11; Harry Bosch Universe, #15))
“
These streets belong to us because we decided not to punch the time clock. We decided to see what and f*ck is going on out here when all those other people are going to sleep. So we walk from dusk until dawn and we rule.
”
”
Keith Kekic (Nightwalkers)
“
From flame to ashes, dawn to dusk, for the rest of our lives, be mine always...
And the mountains may rise and fall, and the sun might wither away, and the sea may claim the land and swallow the sky. But you will always be mine. And the stars might fall from the heavens, and night might cloak the earth, but until darkness dies, I will always be yours. - Callie and Desmond
”
”
Laura Thalassa (Rhapsodic (The Bargainer, #1))
“
How many more burdens do you think you can bear alone? How many more years can I go on alone, without you? Our days are filled from dawn to dusk, honey, but our lives are empty.
”
”
Leila Meacham (Roses (Roses, #2))
“
If you don't look before the dusk and beyond the dawn, you won't be able to see the sun. (Soar)
”
”
Soar (Yours, poetically: Special Deluxe Edition of Selected Poems and Quotes)
“
Then I, Wrath, son of Wrath, do take you as my shellan, to watch over and care for you and any begotten young we may have, sure as I would and will my kingdom, and its citizenry. You shall be mine fore’ermore—your enemies are mine own, your bloodline to mix with mine own, your dusks and your dawns to share only with me. This bond shall ne’er be torn asunder by forces within or without—and”—here he paused—“there shall be one and only one female for all mine days, and you shall be that only queen.
”
”
J.R. Ward (The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #12))
“
Her hair gives dawn it's fire, her eyes give dusk her soul"
He knew how to use his voice to melt a girl's heart, to make a girl want to believe. I steeled myself against the seductive words. "Excuse me?"
"It's a line of poetry describing a beautiful girl, one who doesn't seem to know it.
”
”
Elizabeth Chandler (No Time to Die (Dark Secrets, #3))
“
West stood and strode to the door. “Is this what it’s like to have a family?” he asked irritably. “Endless arguing, and talking about feelings from dawn to dusk? When the devil can I do as I please and not have to account to a half-dozen people for it?”
“When you live alone on an island with a single palm tree and a coconut,” Kathleen snapped. “And even then, I’m sure you would find the coconut far too demanding.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
“
I'm an alien in my own world, a writer without words, a musician without a piano, a magician without a wand. I am fooled by infinite words that rush in my blood, yet imprisoned by the very thoughts of silence. I'm a gray green fallow leaf on trees and abandoned on the streets, a never-ending spring season and an eternal autumn. I'm the golden of the sun and the silver of the moon, the fog of dawn and the amber of dusk. I'm the white and the red flag , the obedient and the rebel. I am the coward in the brave, and the child in the man. I am, but a writer.
”
”
Nema Al-Araby (Remnants and Ashes)
“
Animal spirits often will appear during the hours between dusk and dawn; also known as the “tween times”. They will always give you something. It may be just a simple pause within the chaos of life to remind you that there is more to life than the details of living it, working it and paying for it. It may be a shred of insight or a flash of recognition that comes to you in a fleeting thought or maybe in a dream in the tween times of your own mind.
”
”
Kate McGahan (Jack McAfghan's - The Lizard from Rainbow Bridge: A True Tale of an Animal Spirit Angel (Jack McAfghan Pet Loss Series Book 2))
“
Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience; to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder upon it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of the moon and the colors of the dawn and dusk.
”
”
Barry Lopez (Arctic Dreams)
“
As I understand it, the Celts venerated all sorts of plexus-type things: the seashore, dawn, dusk, the edge of the forest - anything that was neither here nor there, so to speak.
”
”
Stephen R. Lawhead (The Paradise War (The Song of Albion, #1))
“
Dreading dusk, fearing night, praying for dawn.
”
”
Gregory J. Saunders
“
I close my eyes, and words from an old book flow from my lips. “From flame to ashes, dawn to dusk, for the rest of our lives, be mine always, Desmond Flynn.” All
”
”
Laura Thalassa (Rhapsodic (The Bargainer, #1))
“
Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience; to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of the moon and the colors of the dawn and dusk.
”
”
N. Scott Momaday
“
The mighty trojans fell, and so did i.
A wooden horse you were not, yet in a pool of my own blood i lie.
Dawn follows every dusk, and all that rises - fall it must.
So, my blood shall find its way and trickle down your eyes.
The day your deeds of today, eventually make you cry.
”
”
Anurag Anand (The Quest For Nothing)
“
The old gods are everywhere,” she says. “They swim in the river, and grow in the field, and sing in the woods. They are in the sunlight on the wheat, and under the saplings in spring, and in the vines that grow up the side of that stone church. They gather at the edges of the day, at dawn, and at dusk.
”
”
Victoria E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
The desert landscape is always at its best in the half-light of dawn or dusk. The sense of distance lacks: a ridge nearby can be a far-off mountain range, each small detail can take on the importance of a major variant on the countryside's repetitious theme. The coming of day promises a change; it is only when the day had fully arrived that the watcher suspects it is the same day returned once again--the same day he has been living for a long time, over and over, still blindingly bright and untarnished by time.
”
”
Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky)
“
When people know you too well, they eventually see your damage, your weirdness, carelessness, and mean streak. They see how ordinary you are after all, that whatever it was that distinguished you in the beginning is the least of who you actually are. This will turn out to be the greatest gift we can offer another person: letting them see, every so often, beneath all the trappings and pretense to the truth of us.
”
”
Anne Lamott (Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage)
“
Courage~ What makes the flag on the mast to wave? What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot?~Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz
”
”
L. Frank Baum
“
Normally death came at night, taking a person in their sleep, stopping their heart or tickling them awake, leading them to the bathroom with a splitting headache before pouncing and flooding their brain with blood. It waits in alleys and metro stops. After the sun goes down plugs are pulled by white-clad guardians and death is invited into an antiseptic room.
But in the country death comes, uninvited, during the day. It takes fishermen in their longboats. It grabs children by the ankles as they swim. In winter it calls them down a slope too steep for their budding skills, and crosses their skies at the tips. It waits along the shore where snow met ice not long ago but now, unseen by sparkling eyes, a little water touches the shore, and the skater makes a circle slightly larger than intended. Death stands in the woods with a bow and arrow at dawn and dusk. And it tugs cars off the road in broad daylight, the tires spinning furiously on ice or snow, or bright autumn leaves.
”
”
Louise Penny (Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1))
“
It was like dawn, and then dusk cascading over the Himalayas. First, the gradual brightening over snow and contour, then the shining, sparkling sun mirrored; and then as the moment of joy passed – the lingering colour-changing light; reluctant to leave. That faint, bittersweet almost-light, and then indigo outlines and inky black.
”
”
Radhika Mukherjee (Our Particular Shadows (Shadow Stories, #1))
“
The Sun by Czeslaw Milosz
All colors come from the sun. And it does not have
Any particular color, for it contains them all.
And the whole Earth is like a poem
While the sun above represents the artist.
Whoever wants to paint the variegated world
Let him never look straight up at the sun
Or he will lose the memory of things he has seen.
Only burning tears will stay in his eyes.
Let him kneel down, lower his face to the grass,
And look at the light reflected by the ground.
There he will find everything we have lost:
The stars and the roses, the dusks and the dawns.
Warsaw, 1943
”
”
Czesław Miłosz (Collected Poems)
“
People aren’t so good at being good to one another. We try hard enough, but something essential was left out in the making of us, some hard little patch of stone in the fertile soil that’s supposed to be our hearts. We get hung up on the bad, and we focus on it until it grows, and the whole crop is lost.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day)
“
She was a woman with a broom or a dust-
pan or a washrag or a mixing spoon in her hand. You saw
her cutting piecrust in the morning, humming to it, or you
saw her setting out the baked pies at noon or taking them in,
cool, at dusk. She rang porcelain cups like a Swiss bell ringer
to their place. She glided through the halls as steadily as a
vacuum machine, seeking, finding, and setting to rights. She
made mirrors of every window, to catch the sun. She strolled
but twice through any garden, trowel in hand, and the flowers
raised their quivering fires upon the warm air in her wake.
She slept quietly and turned no more than three times in a
night, as relaxed as a White glove to which, at dawn, a brisk
hand will return. Waking, she touched people like pictures,
to set their frames straight.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Dandelion Wine)
“
In short, our gentleman became so immersed in his reading that he spent whole nights from sundown to sunup and his days from dawn to dusk in poring over his books, until, finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. He filled his imagination with everything he had read, with enchantments, knightly encounters, battles, challenges, wounds, with tales of love and its torments, and all sorts of impossible things, and as a result had come to believe that all these fictitious happenings were true; they were more real to him than anything else in the world.
”
”
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote)
“
The quality it had now, in fresh untempered sunlight, was neither faerie nor austere; the changing shadows of dusk and midnight had vanished with the darkness and the rain, and walls and roof and towers were bathed in the radiance that comes only in the first hours of the day, soft, new-washed, the delicate aftermath of dawn. The people who slept within must surely bear some imprint of this radiance in themselves, must turn instinctively to the light seeping through the shutters, while the ghostly dreams and sorrows of the night slipped away, finding sanctuary in the unwakened forest trees the sun had not yet touched.
”
”
Daphne du Maurier (The Scapegoat)
“
It was clear to her now, Happiness was a seductive illusion. No one as fucked up as her deserved one drop of joy. But oh god was it delicious when it fell into her lap for a little while. (Such a pretty face) she muses (with such a bruised and battered soul). When the dawn of a promise fades into the dusk of reality, all that remains is the nightmare. Sweet, sweet loneliness. Shadows come to play and prey on her beaten mind. Her lovely little dreams of poison.
”
”
Solange nicole (Dreams of Poison)
“
Or I would be the rain itself, wreathing over the island, mingling in the quiet of moist places, filling its pores with its saturated breaths. And I would be the wind, whispering through the tangled woods, running airy fingers over the island’s face, tingling in the chill of concealed places, sighing secrets in the dawn. And I would be the light, flinging over the island, covering it with flash and shadow, shining on rocks and pools, softening to a touch in the glow of dusk. If I were the rain and wind and light, I would encircle the island like the sky surrounding earth, flood through it like a heart driven pulse, shine from inside it like a star in flames, burn away to blackness in the closed eyes of its night. There are so many ways I could love this island, if I were the rain.
”
”
Richard Nelson (The Island Within)
“
Beyond the table, there is an altar, with candles lit for Billie Holiday and Willa Carter and Hypatia and Patsy Cline. Next to it, an old podium that once held a Bible, on which we have repurposed an old chemistry handbook as the Book of Lilith. In its pages is our own liturgical calendar: Saint Clementine and All Wayfarers; Saints Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt, observed in the summer with blueberries to symbolize the sapphire ring; the Vigil of Saint Juliette, complete with mints and dark chocolate; Feast of the Poets, during which Mary Oliver is recited over beds of lettuce, Kay Ryan over a dish of vinegar and oil, Audre Lorde over cucumbers, Elizabeth Bishop over some carrots; The Exaltation of Patricia Highsmith, celebrated with escargots boiling in butter and garlic and cliffhangers recited by an autumn fire; the Ascension of Frida Khalo with self-portraits and costumes; the Presentation of Shirley Jackson, a winter holiday started at dawn and ended at dusk with a gambling game played with lost milk teeth and stones. Some of them with their own books; the major and minor arcana of our little religion.
”
”
Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties: Stories)
“
Twilight, the only time of the day when the light and dark meet and become one. The bright powerful light of the day, calmly surrenders before the engulfing duskiness of the night. And the dense whelming darkness of the night yields before the surreal dawning saffron of the morning. The only two moments of the day that absolve the difference between ‘dark and light’. (Page 71)
”
”
Neena Verma (A Mother's Cry... A Mother's Celebration)
“
At once guardian of endeavour and assassin of dreams, the necessity of a daily routine exemplifies the tragic contradiction at the broken heart of every human being: in order for us to continue to live, every morning a part of us must die. Dusk, dawn, all time signifies decline, and yet with every rising of the sun we cling to hope.
”
”
Panayotis Cacoyannis (REIMAGINING BEN)
“
I had come to the canyon with expectations. I wanted to see snowy egrets flying against the black schist at dusk; I saw blue-winged teal against the green waters at dawn. I had wanted to hear thunder rolling in the thousand-foot depths; I heard the guttural caw of four ravens…what any of us had come to see or do fell away. We found ourselves at each turn with what we had not imagined.
”
”
Barry Lopez (Crossing Open Ground)
“
If you’re alive, you’re a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers, and embellishers—these are our common ancestors. The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong only to a chosen few, but they are wrong and they are also annoying. We are all the chosen few. We are all makers by design. Even if you grew up watching cartoons in a sugar stupor from dawn to dusk, creativity still lurks within you. Your creativity is way older than you are, way older than any of us. Your very body and your very being are perfectly designed to live in collaboration with inspiration, and inspiration is still trying to find you—the same way it hunted down your ancestors.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
“
Ivanov: I am a bad, pathetic and worthless individual. One needs to be pathetic, too, worn out and drained by drink, like Pasha, to be still fond of me and to respect me. My God, how I despise myself! I so deeply loathe my voice, my walk, my hands, these clothes, my thoughts. Well, isn't that funny, isn't that shocking? Less than a year ago I was healthy and strong, I was cheerful, tireless, passionate, I worked with these very hands, I could speak to move even Philistines to tears, I could cry when I saw grief, I became indignant when I encountered evil. I knew inspiration, I knew the charm and poetry of quiet nights when from dusk to dawn you sit at your desk or indulge you mind with dreams. I believed, I looked into the future as into the eyes of my own mother... And now, my God, I am exhausted, I do not believe, I spend my days and nights in idleness.
”
”
Anton Chekhov (Ivanov (Plays for Performance Series))
“
People usually associate the colour pink with weakness and naiveté; but I associate this colour with the most beautiful parts of the day— dawn and dusk! And in my searching through mystical writings, I have found that pink is actually related to the utmost levels of the Tree of Life. I've also seen it in pictures of the sky surrounding the most magnificent Aurora Borealis! So pink is strong and wonderful.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
To every hour, its mystery. At dawn, the riddles of life and light. At noon, the conundrums of solidity. At three, in the hum and heat of the day, a phantom moon, already high. At dusk, memory. And at midnight? Oh, then the enigma of time itself; of a day that will never come again passing into history while we sleep.
”
”
Clive Barker (Sacrament)
“
Tell me, as a pagan, who do you worship?'
'Worship?'
'That's right. I imagine you must have a pretty wide open field. So to whom do you set up your household altar? To whom do you bow down? To whom do you pray to at dawn and at dusk?'
'The female principle. It's an empowerment thing. You know.'
'Indeed. And this female principle of yours. Does she have a name?'
'She's the goddess within us all. She doesn't need a name.'
'Ah,' said Wednesday, with a wide monkey grin, 'so do you hold mighty bacchanals in her honour? Do you drink blood wine under the full moon, while scarlet candles burn in silver candle holders? Do you step naked into the seafoam, chanting ecstactically to your nameless goddess while the waves lick at your legs, lapping your thighs like the tongues of a thousand leopards?
”
”
Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))
“
I'm a mean mother-hmmnhmmnh man of God," she informed me. "Except that I'm a woman, of course."
"You just quoted something, didn't you?" I asked.
"Yes, I did," Molly agreed. She seemed calm but her heart was beating fat. "From Dusk Till Dawn. Its a vampire movie with George Clooney."
"Is it too late to get a different priest?" Choo wondered. "Like maybe one who quotes The Bible?
”
”
Elliott James (Charming (Pax Arcana, #1))
“
Stories never told,
disappeared in the dawn mist
and sunset blaze.
Like a movie kiss,
not real,
but still overwhelms and entices lustfulness,
turns me into pleasure
and a connoisseur of love.
Flying to the heavens above
followed by the yearning hope
that you will always be close to me,
that you will not disperse when
we revel in one another.
Secrets to be kept in one of these terracotta walls
that fade away through the dusk,
feeling the scented candles of musk,
just you and I,
two rebels of love,
that challenge the logic, the meaning, and sense.
”
”
Tatjana Ostojic (Baghdad Nights)
“
A Halt
Lie still, my soul, the Sun of Grace
Is warm within this garden space
Beneath tall kindly trees.
The quiet light is green and fair;
A fragrance fills the swooning air;
Lie still, and take thine ease.
This silent noon of Jesu's love
Is warm about thee and above-
A tender Lord is He.
Lie still an hour- this place is His
He has a thousand pleasaunces,
And each all fair and fragrant is,
And each is all for thee.
Then, Jesu, for a little space
I rest me in this garden place,
All sweet to scent and sight.
Here, from this high-road scarce withdrawn,
I thrust my hot hands in the lawn
Cool yet with dew of far-off dawn
And saturate with light.
But ah, dear Saviour, human-wise,
I yearn to pierce all mysteries,
To catch Thine Hands and see Thine Eyes
When evening sounds begin.
There, in Thy white Robe, Thou wilt wait
At dusk beside some orchard gate,
And smile to see me come so late,
And, smiling, call me in.
”
”
Robert Hugh Benson
“
You’ve found that there is something that can make you feel, and make you feel present: sex. Not the routine, dusk-and-dawn sex of a trusted, established relationship, but illicit, dangerous sex. Sex that is novel and leaves you sore; that is experienced in the gaps between your mundane, moral life; that is strange and breathless and addictive.
”
”
Sarah Hall (How to Paint a Dead Man)
“
He traced the constellations as they slid their way across the roof of the world from dusk till dawn. The precision of it, the quiet orderliness of the stars, gave him a sense of freedom. There was nothing he was going through that the stars had not seen before, somewhere, some time on this earth. Given enough time, their memory would close over his life like healing a wound. All would be forgotten, all suffering erased.
”
”
M.L. Stedman (The Light Between Oceans)
“
Perfection"
Every oak will lose a leaf to the wind.
Every star-thistle has a thorn.
Every flower has a blemish.
Every wave washes back upon itself.
Every ocean embraces a storm.
Every raindrop falls with precision.
Every slithering snail leaves its silver trail.
Every butterfly flies until its wings are torn.
Every tree-frog is obligated to sing.
Every sound has an echo in the canyon.
Every pine drops its needles to the forest floor.
Creation's whispered breath at dusk comes
with a frost and leaves within dawn's faint mist,
for all of existence remains perfect, adorned,
with a dead sparrow on the ground.
(Poem titled : 'Perfection' by R.H.Peat)
”
”
R.H. Peat
“
Thus all art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But I do care when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent.
”
”
W.E.B. Du Bois (Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays and Articles)
“
One thing you'll learn when you're in the business of selling utter shite to the Great British Public is that there's really no bottom to where they'll go. Shit food, shit TV, shit bands, shit films, shit houses. There is absolutely no fucking bottom with this stuff. The shittier you can make it - a bad photocopy of a bad photocopy of what was a shit idea in the first place - the more they'll eat it up with a big fucking spoon, from dawn till dusk, from now until the end of time. It's too good.
”
”
John Niven (Kill Your Friends)
“
The silence was more profound than that of midnight: and to me the silence of a summer morning is more touching than all other silence, because, the light being broad and strong, as that of noon-day at other seasons of the year, it seems to differ from perfect day, chiefly because man is not yet abroad: and thus, the peace of nature, and of the innocent creatures of God, seems to be secure and deep, only so long as the presence of man, and his restless and unquiet spirit, are not there to trouble its sanctity.
”
”
Thomas de Quincey (Confessions of an English Opium Eater)
“
Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the greatest figure of the 19th century. Certainly of the five masters - Napoleon, Bismarck, Victoria, Browning and Lincoln, Lincoln is to me the most human and lovable. And I love him not because he was perfect but because he was not and yet triumphed. The world is full of illegitimate children. The world is full of folk whose taste was educated in the gutter. The world is full of people born hating and despising their fellows. To these I love to say: See this man. He was one of you and yet he became Abraham Lincoln.
”
”
W.E.B. Du Bois (Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays and Articles)
“
Somewhere in those weeks Tatiana’s innocence was lost. The innocence of honesty was gone forever, for she knew she would have to live in deceit, every day in verse and prose, in close quarters, in the same bed, every night when her foot touched Dasha’s, she would live in deceit. Because she felt for him. But what Tatiana felt for Alexander was true. What Tatiana felt for Alexander was impervious to the drumbeat of conscience. Oh, to be walking through Leningrad white night after white night, the dawn and the dusk all smelting together like platinum ore, Tatiana thought, turning away to the wall, again to the wall, to the wall, as ever. Alexander, my nights, my days, my every thought. You will fall away from me in just a while, won’t you, and I’ll be whole again, and I will go on and feel for someone else, the way everyone does. But my innocence is forever gone.
”
”
Paullina Simons (The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman, #1))
“
Think of all the things that you, alone, don't have to do. You don't have to turn out your light when you want to read, because somebody else wants to sleep. You don't have to have the light on when you want to sleep, because somebody else wants to read. You don't have to...lie awake listening to snores, or be vivacious when you're tired, or cheerful when you're blue, or sympathetic when you're bored. You probably have your bathroom all go yourself too, which is unquestionably one of Life's Great Blessings...From dusk until dawn, you can do exactly as you please, which, after all, is a pretty good allotment in this world where a lot of conforming is expected of everyone.
”
”
Marjorie Hillis
“
The melody drifted into an aching silence. Austin lifted his head, and she saw his tears, trailing along his cheeks, glistening in the moonlight.
She slipped from beneath the blankets, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. "What were you playing?" she asked reverently, not wanting to disturb the ambiance that remained in the room.
"That was my heart breaking," he said, his voice ragged.
She felt as though her own heart might shatter as she took a step toward him. "Austin—"
"Don't stop loving me, Loree. You want me to learn what those little black bugs on those pieces of paper mean, I'll learn. You want me to play the violin from dawn until dusk, hell, I'll play till midnight, just don't stop loving me."
She flung her arms around his neck and felt his arms come around her back, the violin tapping against her backside. "Oh, Austin, I couldn't stop loving you if I wanted."
"I do know how to love, Loree. I just don't know how to keep a woman loving me."
"I'll always love you, Austin," she said trailing kisses over his face. "Always."
She felt a slight movement away from her as he set the violin aside, and then his arms came around her, tighter than before. "Let me love you, Loree. I need to love you."
-Austin and Loree
”
”
Lorraine Heath (Texas Splendor (Texas Trilogy, #3))
“
On a long journey to Glen-Stone
Isailed into its shade
there before me she proudly shone
my decision was already made.
A lass who bore the light of the town
her fur of ivory thread
how she danced is stuck in my crown
and back to this glen my boat led.
Twenty some seasons have since passed
since her eyes and mine both met
through lands unnamed and wildly vast
my blade slaying every threat
Wolf, hawk, fox, and snake
can't stand in my way
my body is weak and it may break,
but not today.
Living in blackness wrought with fright
my steel shattered facing the foes
dusks and dawns darker than night
my fallen companions in rows
Life spilled past me staining the ground
mylimbs growing ever so cold
above villians let out a cackiling sound
telling me i'd never grow old
One dance and one mouse played in my mind
calling me back from the doom
the courage to carry on i did find
to raise me out of my tomb
Wolf, hawk, fox, and snake
can't stand in my way
my body is weak and it may break
though not today
Battered and bruised i stood to my paws
raised what little i owned
predators growled caring not for my cause
of the mouse that shone light off Glen-stone
Wolf, hawk, fox, and snake
can't tand in my way
my body is weak and it may break
though not today. -The Ballad Of The Ivory Lass
”
”
David Petersen
“
THE MEETING"
"Scant rain had fallen and the summer sun
Had scorched with waves of heat the ripening corn,
That August nightfall, as I crossed the down
Work-weary, half in dream. Beside a fence
Skirting a penning’s edge, an old man waited
Motionless in the mist, with downcast head
And clothing weather-worn. I asked his name
And why he lingered at so lonely a place.
“I was a shepherd here. Two hundred seasons
I roamed these windswept downlands with my flock.
No fences barred our progress and we’d travel
Wherever the bite grew deep. In summer drought
I’d climb from flower-banked combe to barrow’d hill-top
To find a missing straggler or set snares
By wood or turmon-patch. In gales of March
I’d crouch nightlong tending my suckling lambs.
“I was a ploughman, too. Year upon year
I trudged half-doubled, hands clenched to my shafts,
Guiding my turning furrow. Overhead,
Cloud-patterns built and faded, many a song
Of lark and pewit melodied my toil.
I durst not pause to heed them, rising at dawn
To groom and dress my team: by daylight’s end
My boots hung heavy, clodded with chalk and flint.
“And then I was a carter. With my skill
I built the reeded dew-pond, sliced out hay
From the dense-matted rick. At harvest time,
My wain piled high with sheaves, I urged the horses
Back to the master’s barn with shouts and curses
Before the scurrying storm. Through sunlit days
On this same slope where you now stand, my friend,
I stood till dusk scything the poppied fields.
“My cob-built home has crumbled. Hereabouts
Few folk remember me: and though you stare
Till time’s conclusion you’ll not glimpse me striding
The broad, bare down with flock or toiling team.
Yet in this landscape still my spirit lingers:
Down the long bottom where the tractors rumble,
On the steep hanging where wild grasses murmur,
In the sparse covert where the dog-fox patters.”
My comrade turned aside. From the damp sward
Drifted a scent of melilot and thyme;
From far across the down a barn owl shouted,
Circling the silence of that summer evening:
But in an instant, as I stepped towards him
Striving to view his face, his contour altered.
Before me, in the vaporous gloaming, stood
Nothing of flesh, only a post of wood.
”
”
John Rawson (From The English Countryside: Tales Of Tragedy: Narrated In Dramatic Traditional Verse)
“
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous"
i
Tell me it was for the hunger
& nothing less. For hunger is to give
the body what it knows
it cannot keep. That this amber light
whittled down by another war
is all that pins my hand
to your chest.
i
You, drowning
between my arms —
stay.
You, pushing your body
into the river
only to be left
with yourself —
stay.
i
I’ll tell you how we’re wrong enough to be forgiven. How one night, after
backhanding
mother, then taking a chainsaw to the kitchen table, my father went to kneel
in the bathroom until we heard his muffled cries through the walls.
And so I learned that a man, in climax, was the closest thing
to surrender.
i
Say surrender. Say alabaster. Switchblade.
Honeysuckle. Goldenrod. Say autumn.
Say autumn despite the green
in your eyes. Beauty despite
daylight. Say you’d kill for it. Unbreakable dawn
mounting in your throat.
My thrashing beneath you
like a sparrow stunned
with falling.
i
Dusk: a blade of honey between our shadows, draining.
i
I wanted to disappear — so I opened the door to a stranger’s car. He was divorced. He was still alive. He was sobbing into his hands (hands that tasted like rust). The pink breast cancer ribbon on his keychain swayed in the ignition. Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here? I was still here once. The moon, distant & flickering, trapped itself in beads of sweat on my neck. I let the fog spill through the cracked window & cover my fangs. When I left, the Buick kept sitting there, a dumb bull in pasture, its eyes searing my shadow onto the side of suburban houses. At home, I threw myself on the bed like a torch & watched the flames gnaw through my mother’s house until the sky appeared, bloodshot & massive. How I wanted to be that sky — to hold every flying & falling at once.
i
Say amen. Say amend.
Say yes. Say yes
anyway.
i
In the shower, sweating under cold water, I scrubbed & scrubbed.
i
In the life before this one, you could tell
two people were in love
because when they drove the pickup
over the bridge, their wings
would grow back just in time.
Some days I am still inside the pickup.
Some days I keep waiting.
i
It’s not too late. Our heads haloed
with gnats & summer too early
to leave any marks.
Your hand under my shirt as static
intensifies on the radio.
Your other hand pointing
your daddy’s revolver
to the sky. Stars falling one
by one in the cross hairs.
This means I won’t be
afraid if we’re already
here. Already more
than skin can hold. That a body
beside a body
must ma
”
”
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
“
Already it is twilight down in the Laredito. Bats fly forth from their roostings in courthouse and tower and circle the quarter. The air is full of the smell of burning charcoal. Children and dogs squat by the mud stoops and gamecocks flap and settle in the branches of the fruit trees. They go afoot, these comrades, down along a bare adobe wall. Band music carries dimly from the square. They pass a watercart in the street and they pass a hole in the wall where by the light of a small forgefire an old man beats out shapes of metal. They pass in a doorway a young girl whose beauty becomes the flowers about.
They arrive at last before a wooden door. It is hinged into a larger door or gate and all must step over the foot-high sill where a thousand boots have scuffled away the wood, where fools in their hundreds have tripped or fallen or tottered drunkenly into the street. They pass along a ramada in a courtyard by an old grape arbor where small fowl nod in the dusk among the gnarled and barren vines and they enter a cantina where the lamps are lit and they cross stooping under a low beam to a bar and belly up one two three.
There is an old disordered Mennonite in this place and he turns to study them. A thin man in a leather weskit, a black and straightbrim hat set square on his head, a thin rim of whiskers. The recruits order glasses of whiskey and drink them down and order more. There are monte games at tables by the wall and there are whores at another table who look the recruits over. The recruits stand sideways along the bar with their thumbs in their belts and watch the room. They talk among themselves of the expedition in loud voices and the old Mennonite shakes a rueful head and sips his drink and mutters.
They'll stop you at the river, he says.
The second corporal looks past his comrades. Are you talking to me?
At the river. Be told. They'll jail you to a man.
Who will?
The United States Army. General Worth.
They hell they will.
Pray that they will.
He looks at his comrades. He leans toward the Mennonite. What does that mean, old man?
Do ye cross that river with yon filibuster armed ye'll not cross it back.
Don't aim to cross it back. We goin to Sonora.
What's it to you, old man?
The Mennonite watches the enshadowed dark before them as it is reflected to him in the mirror over the bar. He turns to them. His eyes are wet, he speaks slowly. The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it. Hell aint half full. Hear me. Ye carry war of a madman's making into a foreign land. Ye'll wake more than the dogs.
But they berated the old man and swore at him until he moved off down the bar muttering, and how else could it be?
How these things end. In confusion and curses and blood. They drank on and the wind blew in the streets and the stars that had been overhead lay low in the west and these young men fell afoul of others and words were said that could not be put right again and in the dawn the kid and the second corporal knelt over the boy from Missouri who had been named Earl and they spoke his name but he never spoke back. He lay on his side in the dust of the courtyard. The men were gone, the whores were gone. An old man swept the clay floor within the cantina. The boy lay with his skull broken in a pool of blood, none knew by whom. A third one came to be with them in the courtyard. It was the Mennonite. A warm wind was blowing and the east held a gray light. The fowls roosting among the grapevines had begun to stir and call.
There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto, said the Mennonite. He had been holding his hat in his hands and now he set it upon his head again and turned and went out the gate.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)