β
He's like a drug for you, Bella.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Fall down again, Bella?'
No, Emmett, I punched a werewolf in the face.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Look after my heart - I've left it with you.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
He sighed. "The clouds I can handle. But I can't fight with an eclipse.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
I promise to love you forever - every single day of forever.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
I am Switzerland. I refuse to be affected by territorial disputes between mythical creatures.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
I'm gonna fight for you, until your heart stops beating.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Does it bother you, me being half naked all the time?
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Did you seriously just stamp your foot? I thought girls only did that on TV.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Insecure people only eclipse your sun because theyβre jealous of your daylight and tired of their dark, starless nights.
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
I coveted you. I had no right to want you--but I reached out and took you anyway. And now look what's become of you! Trying to seduce a vampire.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Dream happy dreams. You are the only one who has ever touched my heart. It will always be yours. Sleep,my only love.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.
β
β
Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches)
β
Amazing," Edward muttered. "How can someone so tiny be so annoying?"
Alice laughed. "It's a talent.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.
β
β
G.K. Chesterton
β
Sheβs in love with me, too, you know."
Edward didnβt answer.
Jacob sighed. βBut she doesnβt know it.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Of course, youβd warm up faster if you took your clothes off.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Angry grizzly bears are going to look tame next to what is waiting for you at home." I snapped the phone shut and placed it in her waiting hand. "I'm done.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
You held out your hand, and I took it without stopping to make sense of what I was doing. For the first time in almost a century, I felt hope.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
And the sound of your heart," he continued. "It's the most significant sound in my world. I'm so attuned to it now, I swear I could pick it out from miles away. But neither of these things matter. This," he said, taking my face in his hands. "You. That's what I'm keeping. You'll always be my Bella, you'll just be a little more durable.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
You know I love you right?β
βI know,β he breathed, his arm tightening automatically around my waist. βYou know how much I wish it was enough.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.
β
β
Socrates
β
I'm not going to get myself hurt." I'm too important to let that happen.
~Jaypaw
β
β
Erin Hunter (Eclipse (Warriors: Power of Three, #4))
β
Tonight the sky was utterly black. Perhaps there was no moon tonightβa lunar eclipse, a new moon. A new moon. I shivered, though I wasn't cold.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
β
You are safe inside your mind. No one can reach you there.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
It was quite impossible to describe.
Here is what it looked like.
It looked like a piano sounds shortly after being dropped down a well. It tasted yellow, and it felt Paisley. It smelled like the total eclipse of the moon.
β
β
Terry Pratchett (Sourcery (Discworld, #5; Rincewind, #3))
β
Bella, would you please stop trying to take your clothes off?
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
It's something about the inevitability. How nothing can keep them apart--not her selfishness, or his evil, or even death, in the end...their love is their only redeeming quality.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
You know, Jacob, if it werenβt for the fact that weβre natural enemies and that youβre also trying to steal away the reason for my existence, I might actually like you.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Bella, can you drop the rock, please? Carefully. Donβt hurt yourself.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
There are no rules that can bind you when you find your other half.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
When does real love begin?
At first it was a fire, eclipses, short circuits, lightning and fireworks; the incense, hammocks, drugs, wines, perfumes; then spasm and honey, fever, fatigue, warmth, currents of liquid fire, feast and orgies; then dreams, visions, candlelight, flowers, pictures; then images out of the past, fairy tales, stories, then pages out of a book, a poem; then laughter, then chastity.
At what moment does the knife wound sink so deep that the flesh begins to weep with love?
At first power, power, then the wound, and love, and love and fears, and the loss of the self, and the gift, and slavery. At first I ruled, loved less; then more, then slavery. Slavery to his image, his odor, the craving, the hunger, the thirst, the obsession.
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin (Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of AnaΓ―s Nin (1934-1937))
β
You know, there's a big world out there filled with desperate orphans who would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks just to be eclipsed by the long shadow that is cast by my accomplishments.
β
β
Lemony Snicket
β
I used to think of you that way, you know. Like the sun. My personal sun. You balanced out the clouds nicely for me."
He sighed. "The clouds I can handle. But I can't fight with an eclipse.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood.
β
β
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World Revisited)
β
I may not be a human, but I am a man.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Donβt let what he wants eclipse what you need. He is very dreamy,β she says. βBut he is not the sun. You are.
β
β
Shonda Rhimes (Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person)
β
. . .nothing could eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
...she moved about in a mental cloud of many-coloured idealities, which eclipsed all sinister contingencies by its brightness.
β
β
Thomas Hardy (Tess of the DβUrbervilles)
β
Do you really have any idea how important you are to me? Any concept at all of how much I love you?" He pulled me tighter against his hard chest, tucking my head under his chin.
I pressed my lips against his snow-cold neck. "I know how much I love you," I answered.
You compare one small tree to the entire forest."
I rolled my eyes, but he couldn't see. "Impossible.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Yes, because a vampire slumber party is the pinnacle of safety conscious behavior.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
The only unbearable thing is that nothing is unbearable.
β
β
Christopher Hampton (Total Eclipse)
β
I loved you before I even knew the name for it. Everyday I'd sit beside you, inhaling your scent, looking at your beautiful face. Every night, dreaming about you. You eclipsed everything else. It was you. Always you.
β
β
Heather Anastasiu (Glitch (Glitch, #1))
β
It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless.
β
β
Abraham Joshua Heschel (God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism)
β
I wanted the monster back and that was plainly wrong.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (The Host (The Host, #1))
β
The worst part is that I saw the whole thing -- our whole life. And I want it bad, Jake, I want it all. I want to stay right here and never move. I want to love you and make you happy. And I can't, and it's killing me.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
I'm really glad Edward didn't kill you. Everything's so much more fun with you around." β Emmett Cullen
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
yesterday β i was the moon
today β just an eclipse
something in me travels; some days itβs to the dark
some days itβs to the light
β
β
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
β
Itβs not like love at first sight, really. Itβs more likeβ¦ gravity moves. When you see her, suddenly itβs not the earth holding you here anymore. She does. And nothing matters more than her. And you would do anything for her, be anything for herβ¦ You become whatever she needs you to be, whether thatβs a protector, or a lover, or a friend, or a brother.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
You're my life now and I will do anything to protect you.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Love is like a unique comet that appears rarely in the sky shines as bright as a thousand stars and flies through your galaxy creating light during an eclipse.
β
β
Leesa Abbott
β
You can eclipse the sun, but the truth will always shine through.
β
β
Jaree Francis (Drama, My Favorite Nephew)
β
Gorgeous, glowing rays of light...This was what true beauty and goodness looked like-- a spectral, luminescent gathering of beings so pure it hurt to look directly at them, like the most glorious eclipse, or maybe Heaven itself.
β
β
Lauren Kate (Fallen (Fallen, #1))
β
As long as she wants me, Iβm here.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
You can have me the way i am β bad behavior included β or not at all.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
You are...Well, not exactly the love of my life, because I expect to love you for much longer than that. The love of my existence." -Bella
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Iβm exactly right for you, Bella. It would have been effortless for us β comfortable, easy as breathing. I was the natural path your life would have takenβ¦ If the world was the way it was supposed to be, if there were no monsters and no magic
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
You see, to me, for just a moment, despite all of the colors that touch and grapple with what I see in this world, I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies.
I've seen millions of them.
I've seen more eclipses than I care to remember
β
β
Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
β
This world has been connected...tied to the darkness...soon to be completely eclipsed...there is very much to learn...you understand so little...a meaningless effort...one who knows nothing cannot understand nothing.
β
β
Shiro Amano (Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 1 (Kingdom Hearts, #1))
β
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen.... And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1)
β
Let us say in passing, to be blind and to be loved, is in fact--on this earth where nothing is complete--one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. To have continually at your side a woman, a girl, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her, and because she cannot do without you, to know you are indispensable to someone necessary to you, to be able at all times to measure her affection by the degree of the presence that she gives you, and to say to yourself: She dedicates all her time to me, because I possess her whole love; to see the thought if not the face; to be sure of the fidelity of one being in a total eclipse of the world; to imagine the rustling of her dress as the rustling of wings; to hear her moving to and fro, going out, coming in, talking, singing, to think that you are the cause of those steps, those words, that song; to show your personal attraction at every moment; to feel even more powerful as your infirmity increases; to become in darkness, and by reason of darkness, the star around which this angel gravitates; few joys can equal that. The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves--say rather, loved in spite of ourselves; the conviction the blind have. In their calamity, to be served is to be caressed. Are they deprived of anything? No. Light is not lost where love enters. And what a love! A love wholly founded in purity. There is no blindness where there is certainty.
β
β
Victor Hugo (Les MisΓ©rables)
β
I'm hotter than you!
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
The outside world holds no interest for me without you." -Edward
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
And it's best if you know a good thing is going to happen, like an eclipse or getting a microscope for Christmas. And it's bad if you know a bad thing is going to happen, like having a filling or going to France. But I think it is worst if you don't know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing which is going to happen.
β
β
Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)
β
I'm a pro at weird.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Survival," I said softly. "It's selfish, and it's dark, and we've always been a species willing to do anything to satisfy our needs. Individuals have morals. Mobs have appetites.
β
β
Rachel Caine (Total Eclipse (Weather Warden, #9))
β
I was just wondering why you stabbed him. Not that I object.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Truth is a powerful weapon ... We must be careful how we use it.
β
β
Erin Hunter (Eclipse (Warriors: Power of Three, #4))
β
Yes, I am Irish and Indian, which would be the coolest blend in the world if my parents were around to teach me how to be Irish and Indian. But they're not here and haven't been for years, so I'm not really Irish or Indian. I am a blank sky, a human solar eclipse.
β
β
Sherman Alexie (Flight)
β
Thatβs why it was so impossible to tell him goodbye β because I was in love with him. Too. I loved him, much more than I should, and yet, still nowhere near enough. I was in love with him, but it was not enough to change anything; it was only enough to hurt us both more. To hurt him worse than I ever had.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
If we could bottle your luck, we'd have a weapon of mass destruction on our hands.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
He's like a drug for you, Bella." His voice was still gentle, not at all critical. "I see that you can't live without him now. It's too late. but I would have been healthier for you. Not a drug; I would have been the air, the sun."
The corner of my mouth turned up in a wistful half-smile. "I used to think of you that way, you know. Like the sun. My personal sun. You balanced out the clouds nicely for me."
He sighed. "The clouds I can handle. But I can't fight with an eclipse.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
There s a difference between being in love and being in love with the idea of love.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
[When a religious couple wrote to Sagan about fulfilled prophecies, he wrote back in May 1996:]
If βfulfilled prophecyβ is your criterion, why do you not believe in materialistic science, which has an unparalleled record of fulfilled prophecy? Consider, for example, eclipses.
β
β
Carl Sagan
β
how can a little thing be so annoying?
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
But Iβll never see anyone else, Bella. I only see you. Even when I close my eyes and try to see something else. Ask Quil or Embry. It drives them all crazy
β
β
Stephenie Meyer
β
The reappearance of the crescent moon after the new moon; the return of the Sun after a total eclipse, the rising of the Sun in the morning after its troublesome absence at night were noted by people around the world; these phenomena spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death. Up there in the skies was also a metaphor of immortality.
β
β
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
β
I figured if I played nice, Iβd get more time with you.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
I shuddered at the image in my head, at the word feed. But Jasper wasnβt worried about frightening me, not overprotective like Edward always was.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
While walking down the memory lane, we may discover in the remains of our early days, surprising little details that have been eclipsed under the mantle of forgetfulness or inattention. Those loose shreds in our remembrance can highlight the importance of the fundamentals that steer our daily lives. But they may also entice us to crack the particular value that we impart to trivial matters or quirky actions. Then, we are capable of discerning the uprightness and the truth behind the appearances. ("Dirty bike")
β
β
Erik Pevernagie
β
When we were five, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our answers were thing like astronaut, president, or in my case⦠princess.
When we were ten, they asked again and we answered - rock star, cowboy, or in my case, gold medalist. But now that we've grown up, they want a serious answer. Well, how 'bout this: who the hell knows?!
This isn't the time to make hard and fast decisions, its time to make mistakes. Take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere chill. Fall in love - a lot. Major in philosophy 'cause there's no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind. Then change it again, because nothing is permanent.
So make as many mistakes as you can. That way, someday, when they ask again what we want to be⦠we won't have to guess. We'll know.
[from the movie]
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
You think of me as aβ¦ living stone β hard and cold. Thatβs true. We are set the way we are, and it is very rare for us to experience a real change. When that happens, as when Bella entered my life, it is a permanent change. Thereβs no going backβ¦
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Doesnβt it bother you? That your husbands have become such a headline story, so often mentioned, that they have nearly eclipsed your work and yourself? That all anyone talks about when they talk about you are the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo?β And her answer was quintessential Evelyn.
βNo,β she told me. βBecause they are just husbands. I am Evelyn Hugo. And anyway, I think once people know the truth, they will be much more interested in my wife.
β
β
Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
β
Enjoying the bouquet while resisting the wine." -Edward
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
I have forseen...
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
The best part is coming."
"What's the best part? You swallowing an entire cow whole?"
"No. That's the finale.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Edward: Bella, please stop taking your clothes off!
Bella: Why? Did you wanna do that part?
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
The person that loves the least, controls the relationship
β
β
Zane (Total Eclipse of the Heart)
β
It's late,' he said again, murmuring, almost crooning now, his voice smoother than silk. 'Sleep, my Bella. Dream happy dreams. You are the only one who has ever touched my heart. It will always be yours. Sleep, my only love.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
She reminded me of what it did to her when I left β what it still does to her when I leave. She feels horrible about bringing that up, but sheβs right. Iβll never be able to make up for that, but Iβll never stop trying anyway.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Isabella Swan?β He looked up at me through his impossibly long lashes, his golden eyes soft but, somehow, still scorching. βI promise to love you foreverβevery single day of forever. Will you marry me?β
There were many things I wanted to say, some of them not nice at all, and others more disgustingly gooey and romantic than he probably dreamed I was capable of. Rather than embarrass myself with either, I whispered, βYes.β
βThank you,β he said simply. He took my left hand and kissed each of my fingertips before he kissed the ring that was now mine.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time. To journey is to be born and die each minute...All the elements of life are in constant flight from us, with darkness and clarity intermingled, the vision and the eclipse; we look and hasten, reaching out our hands to clutch; every happening is a bend in the road...and suddenly we have grown old. We have a sense of shock and gathering darkness; ahead is a black doorway; the life that bore us is a flagging horse, and a veiled stranger is waiting in the shadows to unharness us.
β
β
Victor Hugo (Les MisΓ©rables)
β
Cats are to dogs what modern people are to the people we used to have. Cats are slimmer, cleaner, more attractive, disloyal, and lazy. It's easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people (expensive girlfriends, for instance) that it's often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.
β
β
P.J. O'Rourke (Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People)
β
Solar Eclipse
Each morning
I wake invisible.
I make a needle
from a porcupine quill,
sew feet to legs,
lift spine onto my thighs.
I put on my rib and collarbone.
I pin an ear to my head,
hear the waxwing's yellow cry.
I open my mouth for purple berries,
stick on periwinkle eyes.
I almost know what it is to be seen.
My throat enlarges from anger.
I make a hand to hold my pain.
My heart a hole the size of the sun's eclipse.
I push through the dark circle's
tattered edge of light.
All day I struggle with one hair after another
until the moon moves from the face of the sun
and there is a strange light
as though from a kerosene lamp in a cabin.
I pun on a dress,
a shawl over my shoulders.
My threads knotted and scissors gleaming.
Now I know I am seen.
I have a shadow.
I extend my arms,
dance and chant in the sun's new light.
I put a hat and coat on my shadow,
another larger dress.
I put on more shawls and blouses and underskirts
until even the shadow has substance
β
β
Diane Glancy
β
Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.
β
β
G.K. Chesterton (Heretics)
β
For one brief, never-ending second, an entirely different path expanded behind the lids of my tear-wet eyes. As if I were looking through the filter of Jacob's thoughts, I could see exactly what I was going to give up, exactly what this new self-knowledge would not save me from losing. I could see Charlie and RenΓ©e mixed into a strange collage with Billy and Sam and La Push. I could see years passing, and meaning something as they passed, changing me. I could see the enormous red-brown wolf that I loved, always standing as protector if I needed him. For the tiniest fragment of a second, I saw the bobbing heads of two small, black-haired children, running away from me into the familiar forest. When they disappeared, they took the rest of the vision with them.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
I believe that. But I want you to know something β when it comes to all this enemies nonsense, Iβm out. I am a neutral country. I am Switzerland. I refuse to be affected by territorial disputes between mythical creatures. Jacob is family. You are . . . well, not exactly the love of my life, because I expect to love you for much longer than that. The love of my existence. I donβt care whoβs a werewolf and whoβs a vampire. If Angela turns out to be a witch, she can join the party, too.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
β
Kestrel's eyes slipped shut. She faded in and out of sleep. When Arin spoke again, she wasn't sure whether he expected her to to hear him.
'I remember sitting with my mother in a carriage.' There was a long pause. Then Arin's voice came again in that slow, fluid way that showed the singer in him. 'In my memory, I am small and sleepy, and she is doing something strange. Every time the carriage turns into the sun, she raises her hand as if reaching for something. The light lines her fingers with fire. Then the carriage passes through shadows, and her hand falls. Again sunlight beams through the window, and again her hand lifts. It becomes and eclipse.'
Kestrel listened, and it was as if the story itself was an eclipse, drawing its darkness over her.
'Just before I fell asleep,' he said, 'I realized that she was shading my eyes from the sun.'
She heard Arin shift, felt him look at her.
'Kestrel.' She imagined how he would sit, lean forward. How he would look in the glow of the carriage lantern. 'Survival isn't wrong. You can sell your honor in small ways, so long as you guard yourself. You can pour a glass of wine like it's meant to be poured, and watch a man drink, and plot your revenge.' Perhaps his head tilted slightly at this. 'You probably plot even in your sleep.'
There was a silence as long as a smile.
'Plot away, Kestrel. Survive. If I hadn't lived, no one would remember my mother, not like I do.'
Kestrel could no longer deny sleep. It pulled her under.
'And I would never have met you.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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Edward spoke in a voice so peaceful and gentle that it made the words strangely more threatening. "I'm not going to kill you now, because it would upset Bella."
"Hmph," I grumbled.
Edward turned slightly to throw me a quick smile. His face was still calm. "It would bother you in the morning," he said, brushing his fingers across my cheek.
The he turned back to Jacob. "But if you ever bring her back damaged again--and I don't care whose fault it is; I don't care if she merely trips, or if a meteor falls out of the sky and hits her in the head--if you return her to me in less than the perfect condition that I left her in, you will be running with three legs. Do you understand that, mongrel?"
Jacob rolled his eyes.
"who's going back?" I muttered
Edward continued as if he hadn't heard me. "And if you ever kiss her again, I wiil break your jaw for her," he promised, his voice still gentle and velvet deadly.
"What if she wants me to?" Jacob drawled, arrogant.
"Hah!" I snorted.
"If that's what she wants, then I won't object." Edward shrugged, untroubled. "You might want to wait for her to say it, rather than trust your interpretation of body language-but it's your face."
Jacob grinned.
"You wish," I grumbled.
"Yes, he does," Edward murmured.
"Well, if you're done rummaging through my head," Jacob said with a think edge of annoyance, "why don't you go take care of her hand?"
"One more thing," Edward said slowly. "I'll be fighting for her, too. You should know that. I'm not taking anything for granted, and I'll be fighting twice as hard as you will."
"Good," Jacob growled. "it's no fun beating someone who forfeits."
She is mine." Edward's low voice was suddenly dark, not as composed as before, "i did't say I would fight fair."
"Neither did I."
"Best of luck."
Jacob nodded. "Yes, may the best man win."
"That sounds about right...pup.
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Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
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Exposition: the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction--in short, belief--grows ever "truer." The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent.
The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to "landscape" the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.)
Symmetry demands an actual + virtual future too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up--a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone.
Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows--the actual past--from another such simulacrum--the actual future?
One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each "shell" (the present) encased inside a nest of "shells" (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of "now"likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future.
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David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)