β
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
β
β
William Shakespeare (As You Like It)
β
I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
β
Hell isβother people!
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
β
I hope the exit is joyful and i hope never to return.
β
β
Frida Kahlo
β
You. O Positive. How many exits?"
"What?...Oh shit, did you just call me by my bloodtype?
β
β
Rachel Caine (The Dead Girls' Dance (The Morganville Vampires, #2))
β
Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.
β
β
Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead)
β
I figured the Nightingale Investigations job application form had the question "Are you hot? Yes. No. If you answered no, please exit the building.
β
β
Kristen Ashley (Rock Chick Revenge (Rock Chick, #5))
β
You are -- your life, and nothing else.
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
β
I don't like having feelings," Eric said coldly, and he left.
That was a tough exit line to top.
β
β
Charlaine Harris (Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse, #3))
β
Your uncle," Poseidon sighed, "has always had a flair for dramatic exits. I think he would've done well as the god of theater.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1))
β
Being different is a revolving door in your life where secure people enter and insecure exit.
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
Exit, pursued by a bear.
β
β
William Shakespeare (The Winter's Tale)
β
It happens like this.
"One day you meet someone and for some inexplicable reason, you feel more connected to this stranger than anyone else--closer to them than your closest family. Perhaps this person carries within them an angel--one sent to you for some higher purpose; to teach you an important lesson or to keep you safe during a perilous time. What you must do is trust in them--even if they come hand in hand with pain or suffering--the reason for their presence will become clear in due time."
Though here is a word of warning--you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn't to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled; the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more.
-------------------------------------------------
It's so dark right now, I can't see any light around me.
That's because the light is coming from you. You can't see it but everyone else can.
β
β
Lang Leav (Love & Misadventure)
β
So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.
β
β
Alan Moore (Batman: The Killing Joke)
β
I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits, and the exit sign.
β
β
Nick Hornby (High Fidelity)
β
But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla (The Gothic Vampire Classic!))
β
This is not an exit.
β
β
Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho)
β
I don't get scared very often," he said finally. "I was scared the first morning I woke up and you weren't here. I was scared when you left me after Vegas. I was scared when I thought I was going to have to tell my dad that Trent had died in that building. But when I saw you across the flames in the basement...I was terrified. I made it to the door, was a few feet from the exit, and I couldn't leave.
"What do you mean? Are you crazy?" I said, my head jerking up to look into his eyes.
"I've never been so clear about anything in my life. I turned around, made my way to that room you were in, and there you were. Nothing else mattered. I didn't even know if we would make it out or not, I just wanted to be where you were, whatever that meant. The only thing I'm afraid of is a life without you, Pigeon."
I leaned up, kissing his lips tenderly. When our mouths parted, I smiled. "Then you have nothing to be afraid of. We're forever.
β
β
Jamie McGuire (Beautiful Disaster (Beautiful, #1))
β
I'm Penryn. I'm named after an exit off Interstate 80."
"Nice." They nod as if to say they understand what it's like to have parents like that.
β
β
Susan Ee (Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1))
β
Thereβs a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over β and let it go. It means leaving whatβs over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.
β
β
Ellen Goodman
β
So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell isβother people!
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
β
A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life-raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead
β
β
Caitlin Moran
β
Ha! to forget. How childish! I feel you in my bones. Your silence screams in my ears. You may nail your mouth shut, you may cut out your tongue, can you keep yourself from existing? Will you stop your thoughts.
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit and Three Other Plays)
β
This place has only three exits, sir: Madness, and Death.
β
β
RenΓ© Daumal (A Night of Serious Drinking)
β
How sweet. That rain. How something that lives only to fall can be nothing but sweet.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.
β
β
Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead)
β
What no one tells you is that the road to accomplishing your goals isnβt a straight line; it looks more like a corn maze. You stopped, you went, you backed up, and took a few wrong turns along the way, but the important thing you had to remember was that there was an exit. Somewhere.
β
β
Mariana Zapata (The Wall of Winnipeg and Me)
β
& remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
I'm a happy person. If you want to be around me, you can either choose to be happy too, or follow the signs to the nearest exit!
β
β
Sharon Swan
β
Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them awayβ¦forever."
The Joker
β
β
Alan Moore (Batman: The Killing Joke)
β
Man is what he wills himself to be.
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit and Three Other Plays)
β
I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It
always made me want to do just the opposite.
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
β
I wish youβd find the exit out of my head.
β
β
Sylvia Plath
β
Pulling the chair out for me, he invited me to sit.
I stood there wondering if I could sprint for the nearest exit. Stupid strappy shoes, I'd never make it.
He leaned in close and whispered in my ear, "I know what you're thinking, and I'm not going to let you escape again. You can either take a seat and have dinner with me like a normal date," he grinned at his word choice, "or," he paused thoughtfully then threatened, "you can sit on my lap while I force-feed you.
β
β
Colleen Houck (Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, #1))
β
I stood my ground. "You evil scientist are all the same--evil. Count me out."
Fang and I brushed past Mr. God and walked quickly but smoothly to the exit. It was barely noon, and I'd already made a huge enemy.
Dang, I'm good.
β
β
James Patterson (Fang (Maximum Ride, #6))
β
The trick was looking past the illusion, because the exit was never as far away as it seemed.
β
β
Lauren DeStefano (Wither (The Chemical Garden, #1))
β
A demigod!" one snarled.
"Eat it!" yelled another.
But that's as far as they got before I slashed a wide arc with Riptide and vaporized the entire front row of monsters.
"Back off!" I yelled at the rest, trying to sound fierce. Behind them stood their instructor--a six-foot tall telekhine with Doberman fangs snarling at me. I did my best to stare him down.
"New lesson, class," I announced. "Most monsters will vaporize when sliced with a celestial bronze sword. This change is completely normal, and will happen to you right now if you don't BACK OFF!"
To my surprise, it worked. The monsters backed off, but there was at least twenty of them. My fear factor wasn't going to last that long.
I jumped out of the cart, yelled, "CLASS DISMISSED!" and ran for the exit.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #4))
β
When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just unremarkable, unintentional, clumsy.
β
β
Griffin McElroy
β
We are all migrants through time.
β
β
Mohsin Hamid (Exit West)
β
Remember, children. For every exit, there is also an entrance. ~ Milligan, The Mysterious Benedict Society
β
β
Trenton Lee Stewart
β
I was having an emotion, and I hate that.
β
β
Martha Wells (Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4))
β
And now, gentlemen, like your manners, I must leave you.
β
β
Dylan Thomas (Rebecca's Daughters)
β
To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while.
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit and Three Other Plays)
β
Laughter, along with madness, seemed to be the only way out, the emergency exit for humans.
β
β
Matt Haig (The Humans)
β
E!" Klaus cried. "E as in Exit!" The Baudelaires ran down E as in Exit, but when they reached the last
cabinet, the row was becoming F as in Falling File Cabinets, G as in Go the Other Way! and H as in How
in the World Are We Going to Escape?
β
β
Lemony Snicket (The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #8))
β
Have you got any soul?" a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues.
β
β
Nick Hornby (High Fidelity)
β
History isn't a premade tapestry that we've got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. We can form it. Make it. We just have to choose to make it.
β
β
R.F. Kuang (Babel)
β
To love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect what is most valuable to you.
β
β
Mohsin Hamid (Exit West)
β
We got off at the next exit, quietly, and, switching drivers, we walked in front of the car. We met and I held him, my hands balled into tight fists around his shoulders, and he wrapped his short arms around me and squeezed tight, so that I felt the heaves of his chest as we realized over and over again that we were still alive. I realized it in waves and we held on to each other crying and I thought, 'God we must look so lame,' but it doesn't matter when you have just now realized, all the time later, that you are still alive.
β
β
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
β
Canβt take a chance that one day, in one spot, somewhere, an exit might appear. We canβt give up. Ever.
β
β
James Dashner (The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner, #1))
β
Now that, my friends, is what we vampires call a good exit.
β
β
Chloe Neill (Twice Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires, #3))
β
When swimming into a dark tunnel,there arrives a point of no return when you no longer have enough breath to double back.your choice is to swim forward into the unknown....and pray for an exit
β
β
Dan Brown (Inferno (Robert Langdon, #4))
β
Do this. Don't do that. Stay back in line. Where's tax receipt? Fill out form. Let's see license. Submit six copies. Exit only. No left turn. No right turn. Queue up and pay fine. Take back and get stamped. Drop deadβ but first get permit.
β
β
Robert A. Heinlein
β
As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
β
when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.
β
β
Mohsin Hamid (Exit West)
β
Well, just remember--all your misery will be waiting for you at the door upon your exit, should you care to pick it up again when you leave.
β
β
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
β
MEMORY'S SO
TREACHEROUS.
ONE MOMENT YOU'RE LOST IN A
CARNIVAL
OF
DELIGHTS,
WITH POIGNANT CHILDHOOD
AROMAS
, THE FLASHING NEON OF
PUBERTY,
ALL THAT SENTIMENTAL
CANDY-FLOSS
...
THE
NEXT
, IT LEADS YOU SOMEWHERE YOU DON'T WANT TO GO...
...SOMEWHERE
DARK
AND
COLD,
FILLED WITH THE DAMP, AMBIGUOUS SHAPES OF THINKS YOU'D HOPED WERE
FORGOTTEN.
MEMORIES
CAN BE
VILE, REPULSIVE
LITTLE
BRUTES.
LIKE
CHILDREN,
I SUPPOSE.
HAHA.
BUT CAN WE LIVE
WITHOUT
THEM?
MEMORIES
ARE WHAT OUR
REASON
IS BASED UPON. IF WE CAN'T
FACE
THEM, WE DENY REASON ITSELF!
ALGHOUGH, WHY
NOT?
WE AREN'T
CONTRACTUALLY TIED DOWN
TO
RATIONALITY!
THERE
IS
NO
SANITY CLAUSE!
SO WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF LOCKED ONTO AN UNPLEASANT TRAIN OF THOUGHT, HEADING FOR THE PLACES IN YOUR PAST WHERE THE SCREAMING IS
UNBEARABLE,
REMEMBER THERE'S ALWAYS
MADNESS.
MADNESS
IS THE
EMERGENCY EXIT...
YOU CAN JUST STEP
OUTSIDE,
AND CLOSE THE DOOR ON ALL THOSE DREADFUL THINGS THAT HAPPENED. YOU CAN LOCK THEM
AWAY...
FOREVER.
β
β
Alan Moore (Batman: The Killing Joke)
β
Some nights you are the lighthouse / some nights the sea / what this means is that I don't know / desire other than the need / to be shattered & rebuilt
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
& so whatβif my feathers
are burning. I
never asked for flight.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
The most beautiful part of your body
is where itβs headed.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
Life is a garden, not a road. We enter and exit through the same gate. Wandering, where we go matters less than what we notice.
β
β
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Catβs Cradle)
β
A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination.
β
β
Caitlin Moran (Moranthology)
β
Chasing a man is not winning. The only thing you win is the loss of your dignity. Confidence is knowing your value, instead of expecting a manβs love to provide you with value.
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
Stars. Or rather, the drains of heaven β waiting. Little holes. Little centuries opening just enough for us to slip through.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
β
Itβs true, and I was really hideous as a preteen. Tall and gawky. I used to bump my head into everything. Still do sometimes. (Kat)
You are my daughter. (Acheron)
Sure I am, I canβt imagine you ever being uncoordinated. (Kat)
Oh, I assure you Iβve nailed quite a few signs with my forehead. Itβs a wonder βExitβ isnβt permanently imprinted right between my eyes. (Acheron)
β
β
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Devil May Cry (Dark-Hunter, #11))
β
If you must know anything, know that the hardest task is to live only once.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.
BENEDICK
Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.
BEATRICE
I took no more pains for those thanks than you take
pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would
not have come.
BENEDICK
You take pleasure then in the message?
BEATRICE
Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's
point ... You have no stomach,
signior: fare you well.
Exit
BENEDICK
Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in
to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that...
β
β
William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)
β
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.
β
β
Lynne Truss (Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation)
β
I didn't know the cost
of entering a song - was to lose
your way back.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
Thereβs an organic grocery store just off the highway exit. I canβt remember the last time I went shopping for food.β A smile glittered in his eyes. βI might have gone overboard.β
I walked into the kitchen, with gleaming stainless-steel appliances, black granite countertops, and walnut cabinetry. Very masculine, very sleek. I went for the fridge first. Water bottles, spinach and arugula, mushrooms, gingerroot, Gorgonzola and feta cheeses, natural peanut butter, and milk on one side. Hot dogs, cold cuts, Coke, chocolate pudding cups, and canned whipped cream on the other. I tried to picture Patch pushing a shopping cart down the aisle, tossing in food as it pleased him. It was all I could do to keep a straight face.
β
β
Becca Fitzpatrick (Silence (Hush, Hush, #3))
β
The regular choreography, entrances and exits of blooms in stages such that the garden looked like an ever-evolving carousel of swirling rainbows and radiant butterflies, seemed condensed. All of the flowers still obeyed some silent urgent command to make their debut. But this year, it definitely unfolded more quickly, as if racing to meet a new compelling deadline.
β
β
John Rachel (Love Connection: Romance in the Land of the Rising Sun)
β
Dear God, if you are a season, let it be the one I passed through
to get here.
Here. That's all I wanted to be.
I promise.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
Although I contemplated suicide many times, and developed concrete plans once or twice, I never gave up. Rather than take the emergency exit, I searched relentlessly for remedies and coping mechanisms. Although often feeling worn down and deeply discouraged, I persisted in hoping better times might come.
β
β
Larry Godwin (Transcending Depression: Quest Without a Compass)
β
Sometimes I ask for too much just to feel my mouth overflow.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
It would have been hilarious if I wasnβt about to die. It was still a little hilarious.
β
β
Martha Wells (Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4))
β
My mother said I could be anything I wanted - but I chose to live.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
Possibly I was overthinking this. I do that; itβs the anxiety that comes with being a part-organic murderbot. The upside was paranoid attention to detail. The downside was also paranoid attention to detail.
β
β
Martha Wells (Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4))
β
So the plan wasn't a clusterfuck, it was just circling the clusterfuck target zone, getting ready to come in for a landing.
β
β
Martha Wells (Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4))
β
i hardened under the last loss. it took something human out of me. i used to be so deeply emotional iβd crumble on demand. but now the water has made its exit. of course i care about the ones around me. iβm just struggling to show it. a wall is getting in the way. i used to dream of being so strong nothing could shake me. now. i am. so strong. that nothing shakes me. and all i dream is to soften.
β
β
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
β
Maybe we pray on our knees because god only listens when weβre this close to the devil.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
And so their memories took on potential, which is of course how our greatest nostalgias are born.
β
β
Mohsin Hamid (Exit West)
β
If you prefer smoke over fire
then get up now and leave.
For I do not intend to perfume
your mind's clothing
with more sooty knowledge.
No, I have something else in mind.
Today I hold a flame in my left hand
and a sword in my right.
There will be no damage control today.
For God is in a mood
to plunder your riches and
fling you nakedly
into such breathtaking poverty
that all that will be left of you
will be a tendency to shine.
So don't just sit around this flame
choking on your mind.
For this is no campfire song
to mindlessly mantra yourself to sleep with.
Jump now into the space
between thoughts
and exit this dream
before I burn the damn place down.
β
β
Adyashanti
β
It was with some surprise that I saw that the person waiting for me at the airport's exit was Adrian. A grin spread over my face, and I picked up the pace. I threw my arms around him, astonishing both of us.
"I have never been happier to see you in my life," I said.
He squeezed me tightly and then let me go, regarding me admiringly. "The dreams never do justice to real life, little dhampir. You look amazing."
"And you look . . ." I studied him. He was dressed as nicely as always. His dark brown hair had that crafted messiness he liked, but his faceβah, well. As I'd noted before, Simon had gotten a few good punches on him. One of Adrian's eyes was swollen and ringed with bruises.
Nonetheless, thinking about him and everything he'd done . . . Well, none of the flaws mattered.
" . . . Gorgeous."
"Liar," he said.
"Couldn't Lissa have healed that black eye away?"
"It's a badge of honor. Makes me seem manly.
β
β
Richelle Mead (Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, #4))
β
I donβt know how they do it. I donβt know how anybody
does it, waking up every morning and eating and moving
from the bus to the assembly line, where the teacherbots
inject us with Subject A and Subject B, and passing
every test they give us. Our parents provide the list of
ingredients and remind us to make healthy choices: one
sport, two clubs, one artistic goal, community service, no
grades below a B, because really, nobodyβs average, not
around here. Itβs a dance with complicated footwork and
a changing tempo.
Iβm the girl who trips on the dance floor and canβt find
her way to the exit. All eyes on me.
β
β
Laurie Halse Anderson (Wintergirls)
β
Don't we touch each other just to prove we're still here?
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
[Ranger] "How's your mental health?" he asked. "I heard about Soder."
[Stephanie] "I'm rattled."
"I have a cure."
Oh, boy.
He put the truck in gear and headed for the exit. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "And that wasn't where I was going. I was going to suggest work."
"I knew that."
He looked over at me and grinned. "You want me bad."
I did. God help me.
β
β
Janet Evanovich
β
Do you know where Jason is?β she asked Dmitri when they exited the morgue.
Dmitri pressed the car remote to unlock the flame red Ferrari parked in the employees-only lot. βTired of your Bluebell already?β A tendril of champagne circled around her senses, cut with something far harder.
Never had she felt that harsh edge in Dmitriβs scent. She pitied the woman he took to his bed today.
βYeah, thatβs it. Iβm building a harem.
β
β
Nalini Singh (Archangel's Consort (Guild Hunter, #3))
β
Gemma talking to Charley...
"Got it. Have you seen my pants?"
"Speaking of which, how did you get home without them?"
"I borrowed a pair of you sweats. I ran into a convenience store with them on. I talked to neighbors out in their yard when I pulled up. And only after I got inside did I realize the had 'Exit Only' written across the back."
"You stole my favorite sweats?"
"I wanted to die."
"It's weird that sweats would make you suicidal. I'd analyze the crap out of that if I were you."
"Do you actually wear those in public?"
"Only when I go out in them
β
β
Darynda Jones (Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (Charley Davidson, #4))
β
Your father is only your father
until one of you forgets. Like how the spine
won't remember its wings
no matter how many times our knees
kiss the pavement. Ocean,
are you listening? The most beautiful part
of your body is wherever
your mother's shadow falls.
β
β
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
β
Every time a couple moves they begin, if their attention is still drawn to one another, to see each other differently, for personalities are not a single immutable color, like white or blue, but rather illuminated screens, and the shades we reflect depend much on what is around us.
β
β
Mohsin Hamid (Exit West)
β
And then we jerked to a stop. Jared was blocking the exit. "Have you lost your mind, Ian?" he asked, shocked and outraged. "What are you doing to her?"
"Did you know about this?" Ian shouted back, shoving me toward Jared and shaking me at him.
"You're going to hurt her!"
"Do you know what she's planning?" Ian roared.
Jared stared at Ian, his face suddenly closed off. He didn't answer. That was answer enough for Ian.
Ian's fist struck Jared so fast that I missed the blow - I just felt the lurch in his body and saw Jared reel back into the dark hall.
"Ian, stop," I begged.
"You stop," he growled back at me.
He yanked me through the arch into the tunnel, then pulled me north. I had to almost run to keep up with his longer stride.
"OΒ΄Shea!" Jared shouted after us.
"I'm going to hurt her?" Ian roared back over his shoulder, not breaking pace. "I am? You hypocritical swine!"
There was nothing but silence and blackness behind us now. I stumbled in the dark, trying to keep up.
He jerked me along faster, and my breath caught in a moan, almost like a cry of pain.
The sound made Ian stumble to a stop. His breathing was hoarse in the darkness.
"Ian, Ian, I..." I chocked, unable to finish. I didn't know what to say, picturing his furious face.
His arms caught me abruptly, yanking my feet out from under me and then catching my shoulders before I could fall. He started running forward again, carrying me now. His hands were not rough and angry like before; he cradled me against his chest.
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Stephenie Meyer (The Host (The Host, #1))
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Remembering's dangerous. I find the past such a worrying, anxious place. "The Past Tense," I suppose you'd call it. Memory's so treacherous. One moment you're lost in a carnival of delights, with poignant childhood aromas, the flashing neon of puberty, all that sentimental candy-floss... the next, it leads you somewhere you don't want to go. Somewhere dark and cold, filled with the damp ambiguous shapes of things you'd hoped were forgotten. Memories can be vile, repulsive little brutes. Like children I suppose. But can we live without them? Memories are what our reason is based upon. If we can't face them, we deny reason itself! Although, why not? We aren't contractually tied down to rationality! There is no sanity clause! So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit⦠you can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away⦠forever.
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Alan Moore (Batman: The Killing Joke)
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Life is similar to a bus ride.
The journey begins when we board the bus.
We meet people along our way of which some are strangers, some friends and some strangers yet to be friends.
There are stops at intervals and people board in.
At times some of these people make their presence felt, leave an impact through their grace and beauty on us fellow passengers while on other occasions they remain indifferent.
But then it is important for some people to make an exit, to get down and walk the paths they were destined to because if people always made an entrance and never left either for the better or worse, then we would feel suffocated and confused like those people in the bus, the purpose of the journey would lose its essence and the journey altogether would neither be worthwhile nor smooth.
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Chirag Tulsiani
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INEZ: Prove it. Prove it was no dream. Itβs what one does, and nothing else, that shows the stuff one's made of.
GARCIN: I died too soon. I wasn't allowed time to - to do my deeds.
INEZ: One always dies too soon - or too late. And yet one's whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are - your life, and nothing else.
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Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
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It might seem odd that in cities teetering at the edge of the abyss young people still go to classβin this case an evening class on corporate identity and product brandingβbut that is the way of things, with cities as with life, for one moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying, and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does.
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Mohsin Hamid (Exit West)
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We are the centuries... We have your eoliths and your mesoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient impregnated) artifacts. We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do β Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris, telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve and a traveling salesman called Lucifer. We bury your dead and their reputations. We bury you. We are the centuries. Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeonβs slap, seek manhood, taste a little godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb: (Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.) Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens β and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isnβt the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH! β an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)
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Walter M. Miller Jr. (A Canticle for Leibowitz (St. Leibowitz, #1))
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...he prayed fundamentally as a gesture of love for what had gone and would go and could be loved in no other way. When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world, so he prayed as a lament, as a consolation, and as a hope....
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Mohsin Hamid (Exit West)
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James dropped Cordeliaβs hands. They were no longer dancing. James turned away from Cordelia without a word and strode across the room toward the newcomers. She stood, frozen in confusion, as James bent to kiss the hand of the stunningly beautiful girl who had just walked into the room. Titters rose on the dance floor. Lucie had stepped back from Matthew, her eyes wide. Alastair and Thomas both turned to look at Cordelia with expressions of surprise.
At any moment, Cordelia knew, her mother would notice that she was drifting in the middle of the dance floor like an abandoned tugboat and charge toward her, and then Cordelia would die. She would die of the humiliation. Cordelia was scanning the room for the nearest exit, ready to flee, when a hand grasped her arm. She was spun around and into an expert grip: a moment later she was dancing again, her feet automatically following her partnerβs.
βThatβs right.β It was Matthew Fairchild. Fair hair, spicy cologne, a blur of a smile. His hands were gentle as he swept her back into the waltz. βJustβtry to smile, and no one will notice anything happened. James and I are practically interchangeable in the public consciousness anyway.β
βJamesβleft,β Cordelia said, in shock.
βI know,β said Matthew. βVery bad form. One should not leave a lady on the dance floor unless something is actually on fire. Iβll have a word.β
βA word,β Cordelia echoed. She was beginning to feel less stunned and more angry. βA word?β
βSeveral words, if it will make you feel better?
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Cassandra Clare (Chain of Gold (The Last Hours, #1))
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I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them. Here is how Shakespeare handles it in "The Winter's Tale," Act 3, Scene 3:
ANTIGONUS: Farewell! A lullaby too rough. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase: I am gone for ever.
And then comes literature's most famous stage direction, "Exit pursued by a bear." All well and good, but here's the way I would handle it:
BERTIE: Touch of indigestion, Jeeves?
JEEVES: No, Sir.
BERTIE: Then why is your tummy rumbling?
JEEVES: Pardon me, Sir, the noise to which you allude does not emanate from my interior but from that of that animal that has just joined us.
BERTIE: Animal? What animal?
JEEVES: A bear, Sir. If you will turn your head, you will observe that a bear is standing in your immediate rear inspecting you in a somewhat menacing manner.
BERTIE (as narrator): I pivoted the loaf. The honest fellow was perfectly correct. It was a bear. And not a small bear, either. One of the large economy size. Its eye was bleak and it gnashed a tooth or two, and I could see at a g. that it was going to be difficult for me to find a formula. "Advise me, Jeeves," I yipped. "What do I do for the best?"
JEEVES: I fancy it might be judicious if you were to make an exit, Sir.
BERTIE (narrator): No sooner s. than d. I streaked for the horizon, closely followed across country by the dumb chum. And that, boys and girls, is how your grandfather clipped six seconds off Roger Bannister's mile.
Who can say which method is superior?"
(As reproduced in
Plum, Shakespeare and the Cat Chap
)
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P.G. Wodehouse (Over Seventy: An Autobiography with Digressions)