Glitter And Shine Quotes

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost.

Honest is how I want to look. The truth doesn't glitter and shine.

When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another.

Consider the fact that maybe…just maybe…beauty and worth aren’t found in a makeup bottle, or a salon-fresh hairstyle, or a fabulous outfit. Maybe our sparkle comes from somewhere deeper inside, somewhere so pure and authentic and REAL, it doesn’t need gloss or polish or glitter to shine.

It's not what you have on the outside that glitters in light, it's what you have on the inside that shines in the dark.

And you, Ring-bearer,’ she said, turning to Frodo. ‘I come to you last who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this.’ She held up a small crystal phial: it glittered as she moved it, and rays of white light sprang from her hand. ‘In this phial,’ she said, ‘is caught the light of Eärendil’s star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. Remember Galadriel and her Mirror!’ Frodo took the phial, and for a moment as it shone between them, he saw her again standing like a queen, great and beautiful.

Have you seen lamplight shine through dusty air, setting the dust motes on fire?” He waved a hand. “Imagine that, spread across the night sky—but ten thousand motes and ten thousand times brighter, glittering like the eyes of all the gods.

Staring at her face, she began to fancy her outer layer had begun to melt away while she wasn't paying attention, and something -- some new skeleton -- was emerging from beneath the softness of her accustomed self. With a deep, visceral ache, she wished her true form might prove to be a sleek and shining one, like a stiletto blade slicing free of an ungainly sheath. Like a bird of prey losing its hatchling fluff to hunt in cold, magnificent skies. That she might become something glittering, something startling, something dangerous.

The truth doesn't glitter and shine.

How can those who incinerate with jealousy at the sight of someone else's external glitter not realize that not everything that shines is a diamond? Only the person wearing new shoes can truly experience the pain; for others, captivating is the allure of new shoes.

the only wall we could ever build against What’s Going On was the glitter and the shine and the synth and the knowing grin that never stops knowing. The show. Because the opposite of fascism isn’t anarchy, it’s theater. When the world is fucked, you go to the theater, you go to the shine, and when the bad men come, all there is left to do is sing them down.

In spring it is the dawn that is most beautiful. As the light creeps over the hills, their outlines are dyed a faint red and wisps of purplish cloud trail over them. In summer the nights. Not only when the moon shines, but on dark nights too, as the fireflies flit to and fro, and even when it rains, how beautiful it is! In autumn, the evenings, when the glittering sun sinks close to the edge of the hills and the crows fly back to their nests in threes and fours and twos; more charming still is a file of wild geese, like specks in the distant sky. When the sun has set, one's heart is moved by the sound of the wind and the hum of the insects. In winter the early mornings. It is beautiful indeed when snow has fallen during the night, but splendid too when the ground is white with frost; or even when there is no snow or frost, but it is simply very cold and the attendants hurry from room to room stirring up the fires and bringing charcoal, how well this fits the season's mood! But as noon approaches and the cold wears off, no one bothers to keep the braziers alight, and soon nothing remains but piles of white ashes.

Bound for your distant home" Bound for your distant home you were leaving alien lands. In an hour as sad as I’ve known I wept over your hands. My hands were numb and cold, still trying to restrain you, whom my hurt told never to end this pain. But you snatched your lips away from our bitterest kiss. You invoked another place than the dismal exile of this. You said, ‘When we meet again, in the shadow of olive-trees, we shall kiss, in a love without pain, under cloudless infinities.’ But there, alas, where the sky shines with blue radiance, where olive-tree shadows lie on the waters glittering dance, your beauty, your suffering, are lost in eternity. But the sweet kiss of our meeting ...... I wait for it: you owe it me .......

How could anybody think of Bach as 'cold' when these [cello] suites seem to shine with the most glittering kind of poetry," Casals said. "As I got on with the study I discovered a new world of space and beauty... the feelings I experienced were among the purest and most intense in my artistic life!

I had a gift too; not the bright and shining coin that was Christopher's. It was my way to turn over all that glittered and look for the tarnish.

Those of us who believe in princesses are often laughed at. But I believe the world needs princesses and dukes and queens and kings. We need people who glitter and shine and make a room silent with their entrance. We need them the same way we need ice cream and soccer and music and stories. Oh, how we need stories.

The stars were his pleasure, but tonight they did not comfort him; they did not make him remember that what happens to us on earth is lost in the endless shine of eternity. Gazing at them-the stars-he thought of the jewelled guitar and its worldly glitter.

She had found a jewel down inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around. But she had been set in the market-place to sell. Been set for still bait. When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks made them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.

You never know if happy memories are going to become sad ones. They glow and shine in the vast realms of our subconscious, making that part of our brain feel like it’s filled with glitter. We pick them up and cradle them like expensive cats, or wriggle into them like they are jumpers we’ve left to warm on a radiator. Until the day when, for one reason or another, life can suddenly make this happy memory into a sad memory instead. Good memories exist in the naivety of not knowing any better.

Because it is the Midwest, no one really glitters because no one has to, it's more of a dull shine, like frequently used silverware.

And so their spirits soared as they took positions own the passageways of battle all night long, and the watchfires blazed among them. Hundreds strong, as stars in the night sky glittering round the moon's brilliance blaze in all their glory when the air falls to a sudden, windless calm... all the lookout peaks stand out and the jutting cliffs and the steep ravines and down from the high heavens bursts the boundless bright air and all the stars shine clear and the shepherd's heart exults - so many fires burned between the ships and the Xanthus' whirling rapids set by the men of Troy, bright against their walls. A thousand fires were burning there on the plain and beside each fire sat fifty fighting men poised in the leaping blaze, and champing oats and glistening barley, stationed by their chariots, stallions waited for Dawn to mount her glowing throne.

Who spilled these stars across the sky like sparkling dust like clouds of light? They pour their milky shine into the deep black bowl above their heads white glittering too many to count.

On the screen it rained and rained confetti, for minutes, and that glitter-rain, plus the cameras flashing and the lights from the billboards and the awesome mass of the crowds in their shiny hats and toothy smiles, made the world pop and shine and blur in a way that makes you sad to be watching it all on your TV screen, in a way that makes you feel like, instead of bringing the action into your living room, the TV cameras are just reminding you of how much you're missing, confronting you with it, you in your pajamas, on your couch, a couple of pizza crusts resting in some orange grease on a paper plate in front of you, your glass of soda mostly flat and watery, the ice all melted, and the good stuff happening miles and miles away from where you're at.

We have mirrorballs in the middle of a dance floor, because they reflect light. They are broken a million times, and that's what makes them so shiny. We have people like that in society, too. They hang there, and every time they break, it entertains us; and when you shine a light on them, it's this glittering, fantastic thing. But then a lot of the time, when the spotlight isn't on them, they're just there, up on a pedestal, but nobody's watching them.

Oh, you tears, I'm thankful that you run. Though you trickle in the darkness, You shall glitter in the sun. The rainbow could not shine if the rain refused to fall; And the eyes that cannot weep are the saddest eyes of all.

Wood does not customarily glitter. Few things do, unless they are attempting to lure something closer to themselves. Sparkle and shine are pleasures reserved for predators, who can afford the risk of courting attention. The exceptions - which exist, for all things must have exceptions - are almost entirely poisonous, and will sicken whatever they lure. So even the exception feeds into the rule, which states that a bright, shimmering thing is almost certainly looking to be seen, and that which hopes to be seen is persuing its own agenda.

Her shining tresses, divided in two parts, encircle the harmonious contour of her white and delicate cheeks, brilliant in their glow and freshness. Her ebony brows have the form and charm of the bow of Kama, the god of love, and beneath her long silken lashes the purest reflections and a celestial light swim, as in the sacred lakes of Himalaya, in the black pupils of her great clear eyes. Her teeth, fine, equal, and white, glitter between her smiling lips like dewdrops in a passion-flower's half-enveloped breast. Her delicately formed ears, her vermilion hands, her little feet, curved and tender as the lotus-bud, glitter with the brilliancy of the loveliest pearls of Ceylon, the most dazzling diamonds of Golconda. Her narrow and supple waist, which a hand may clasp around, sets forth the outline of her rounded figure and the beauty of her bosom, where youth in its flower displays the wealth of its treasures; and beneath the silken folds of her tunic she seems to have been modelled in pure silver by the godlike hand of Vicvarcarma, the immortal sculptor.

Manfried imagined the stars to be jewels shining in the depths of a long-sealed crypt and, drifting off, he almost glimpsed himself prying open the lid of night and stuffing his pockets with the glittering gems.

To the winter forest And nowhere to go This girl runs From all she knows The pressure rises to the top The pressure rises (it won't stop) They want your body They want your soul They want fake smiles That's rock and roll The wolves surrond you A fever dream The wolves surrond you So start the scream Howl, into the night, Howl, until the light, Howl, your turn to fight, Howl, just make it right Howl howl howl howl (Motherfucker) You can't fight fo ever You have to comply If your life isn't working You have to ask why Remember When we were young enough Not to fear tomorrow Or mourn yesterday And we were just Us And time was just Now And we were in Life Not rising through Like arms in a sleeve Because we had time We had time to breathe The bad times are here The bad times have come but life can't be over When it hasn't begun The lake shines and the water's cold All that glitters can turn to gold Silence the music to improve the tune Stop the fake smiles and howl at the moon Howl, into the night, Howl, until the light, Howl, your turn to fight, Howl, just make it right Howl howl howl howl

So here’s the thing about glitter: once it’s out of the bottle, there’s just no way of putting it back. It’s the same with kindness. Once it pours out of your soul, there’s no way of containing it. It just continues to spread from person to person, a shining, sparkling, wonderful thing.

Thinking he knows can be a trap. An ex-professor once told him he had a diamond-hard intellect and he’d been flattered at the time. Now he considers the nature of diamonds. Although sharp and glittering and useful for cutting glass, they shine with reflected light only. They’re no use at all in the dark

We have mirrorballs in the middle of a dance floor because they reflect light; they are broken a million times and that's what makes them so shiny. We have people like that in society too, they hang there and everytime they break it entertains us. And when you shine a light on them, it's this glittering, fantastic thing, but then a lot of the time when the spotlight isn't on them, they're just still there up on a pedestal but nobody's watching them.

What exactly are you doing?' Jacks drawled. The breath left her lungs, and the broken heart scar on her wrist caught fire. She hadn't even heard him enter. Evangeline stopped mid-twirl, her skirts still swishing as she caught his dashing reflection in the mirror. Her heart gave a silly jolt. She tried to stop it. But while Jacks was many terrible things, there was no denying that he was also painfully handsome. It was the golden hair. In certain lights, it looked like real gold, shining over eyes that glittered more than human eyes ever could. So maybe it was the eyes as well. And perhaps she could blame a little on his lips. They were perfect, of course, and right now they were smiling with amusement. 'So this is what you do when I'm not around?' Evangeline felt the sudden urge to hide inside her wardrobe, but she tampered it down as she turned and met his gaze with a smile of her own. 'You think about what I do when you're not around?' 'Careful, Little Fox.' He took a step forward. 'You sound excited by the idea.' 'I'm not, I assure you,' she said, wishing she didn't sound so breathless. 'I merely like the thought that I torment you as much as you torment me.' Jacks flashed one of his dimples, making him look deceptively charming. 'So you're the one who thinks about what I do when you're not around?' 'Only because I know you're up to no good.' 'No good.' He laughed as he said the words. 'I would hope you know by now that I'm up to far worse than just "no good".

For a moment she was truly terrified. This was Abbadon the Cruel. The Angel of Destruction. He could and would destroy her if he had to. If he felt like it. He had destroyed worlds before. He had decimated Paradise in the name of the Morningstar. She trembled in his grasp. All his gentleness, all his kindness, all the bright shining gorgeousness of his love, he had always given to someone else. He had adored Gabrielle, had worshiped her, had written her poems and sang her songs, and for Schuyler there were novels and love notes and sweet kisses and furtive tender meetings by a fireplace. But for his twin, Azrael, he had shown nothing but his anger and violence. His strength and destruction. He saved the best of himself for those who did not deserve it. Never showed his true face to those damnable Daughters of the Light. For Azrael, there was only darkness and annihilation. Rape and carnage. War and pillage. A tear escaped from her eye and glittered in the moonlight.

The light from the setting sun shines through the windows, making his hair glitter like spun gold. My heart squeezes the same way it did when I saw pictures of the Sistine Chapel. A beauty so staggering it makes you feel physically close to God.

Reminiscing in the drizzle of Portland, I notice the ring that’s landed on your finger, a massive insect of glitter, a chandelier shining at the end of a long tunnel. Thirteen years ago, you hid the hurt in your voice under a blanket and said there’s two kinds of women—those you write poems about and those you don’t. It’s true. I never brought you a bouquet of sonnets, or served you haiku in bed. My idea of courtship was tapping Jane’s Addiction lyrics in Morse code on your window at three A.M., whiskey doing push-ups on my breath. But I worked within the confines of my character, cast as the bad boy in your life, the Magellan of your dark side. We don’t have a past so much as a bunch of electricity and liquor, power never put to good use. What we had together makes it sound like a virus, as if we caught one another like colds, and desire was merely a symptom that could be treated with soup and lots of sex. Gliding beside you now, I feel like the Benjamin Franklin of monogamy, as if I invented it, but I’m still not immune to your waterfall scent, still haven’t developed antibodies for your smile. I don’t know how long regret existed before humans stuck a word on it. I don’t know how many paper towels it would take to wipe up the Pacific Ocean, or why the light of a candle being blown out travels faster than the luminescence of one that’s just been lit, but I do know that all our huffing and puffing into each other’s ears—as if the brain was a trick birthday candle—didn’t make the silence any easier to navigate. I’m sorry all the kisses I scrawled on your neck were written in disappearing ink. Sometimes I thought of you so hard one of your legs would pop out of my ear hole, and when I was sleeping, you’d press your face against the porthole of my submarine. I’m sorry this poem has taken thirteen years to reach you. I wish that just once, instead of skidding off the shoulder blade’s precipice and joyriding over flesh, we’d put our hands away like chocolate to be saved for later, and deciphered the calligraphy of each other’s eyelashes, translated a paragraph from the volumes of what couldn’t be said.

And you're right―I don't want nice. I want sparks and fire. I want a romance novel. A Jane Austen movie. A fairy tale.

How the moon triumphs through the endless nights! How the stars throb and glitter as they wheel Their thick processions of supernal lights Around the blue vault obdurate as steel! And men regard with passionate awe and yearning The mighty marching and the golden burning, And think the heavens respond to what they feel. Boats gliding like dark shadows of a dream Are glorified from vision as they pass The quivering moonbridge on the deep black stream; Cold windows kindle their dead glooms of glass To restless crystals; cornice dome and column Emerge from chaos in the splendour solemn; Like faery lakes gleam lawns of dewy grass. With such a living light these dead eyes shine, These eyes of sightless heaven, that as we gaze We read a pity, tremulous, divine, Or cold majestic scorn in their pure rays: Fond man! they are not haughty, are not tender; There is no heart or mind in all their splendour, They thread mere puppets all their marvellous maze.

Metal is from the earth, he thought as he scrutinized. From below: from that realm which is the lowest, the most dense. Land of trolls and caves, dank, always dark. Yin world, in its most melancholy aspect. World of corpses, decay and collapse. Of feces. All that has died, slipping and disintegrating back down layer by layer. The daemonic world of the immutable; the time-that-was. And yet, in the sunlight, the silver triangle glittered. It reflected light. Fire, Mr. Tagomi thought. Not dank or dark object at all. Not heavy, weary, but pulsing with life. The high realm, aspect of yang: empyrean, ethereal. As befits work of art. Yes, that is artist's job: takes mineral rock from dark silent earth transforms it into shining light-reflecting form from sky. Has brought the dead to life. Corpse turned to fiery display; the past had yielded to the future.

Cause everything is better when you add some glitter And you let happiness shine The world would be brighter and a little lighter If we had glitter colored skies Then people would be happy all the time Cause everything is better when you add some glitter" - Everything Is Better When You Add Some Glitter, song by Morgan Lee Scheel

Diwali (Lakshmi Pujan/Amavasya) is the darkest night of the year. And our ancestors have taught us to overcome darkness with light. When the moon is not shining, neither the sun, sky is dark; India glitters. Proud of being part of such a wise and one of the finest tradition. Diwali is practicing "तमसोमा जोतिर्गमय" . . . Happy Diwali to all. May der b light in your life. . .

SAPPHIRE AND DIAMONDS When I look up at Heaven, I see the souls of those who died Beaming down at me, Wanting to scream: “I'm still alive!”, Wishing to scribble across the sapphire sky - Letters to their loved ones, But a million dark oceans stand between us, Between those who passed and the living, Between those of us still stuck below, And those who have crossed over the threshold of time - Where what seems like eternity Is really only a few minutes. So you see, there is no reason to weep over the shining ones - For even though the space that separates us is limitless, The wall of time that divides us is only paper-thin. And one day, we shall all reunite with them, When our souls are released like fish Back into the vast shimmering sea To shine together like Glittering diamonds.

It Was a lovely spring morning, and the sun was shining gloriously. I knew that the rain of the last night must be glittering on the grass and the young leaves; and I heard the birds singing as if they knew far more than mere human beings, and believed a great deal more than they knew. Nobody will persuade me that the birds don't mean it; that they sing from any thing else than gladness of heart.

The land was so distant that no shining roof or glittering window could be any longer seen. The tremendous weight of the shadowed earth had engulfed such frail fetters, such snail-shell encumbrances. Now there was only the liquid shadow of the cloud, the buffeting of the rain, a single darting spear of sunshine, or the sudden bruise of the rainstorm. Solitary trees marked distant hills like obelisks.

The crags of the mountain were ruthless in the moon; cold, deadly and shining. Distance had no meaning. The tangled glittering of the forest roof rolled away, but its furthermost reaches were brought suddenly nearer in a bound by the terrifying effect of proximity in the mountain that they swarmed. The mountain was neither far away nor was it close at hand. It arose starkly, enormously, across the lens of the eye. The hollow itself was a cup of light. Every blade of the grass was of consequence, and the few scattered stones held an authority that made their solid, separate marks upon the brain - each one with its own unduplicated shape: each rising brightly from the ink of its own spilling.

Glint, glisten, glitter, gleam... Tiffany thought a lot about words, in the long hours of churning butte. Onomatopoetic , she'd discovered in the dictionary, meant words that sounded like the thing they were describing, like cuckoo. But she thought there should be a word that sounds like the noise a thing would make if that thing made a noise even though, actually, it doesn't, but would if it did. Glint, for example. If light made a noise as it reflected off a distant window, it'd go glint!And the light of tinsel, all those little glints chiming together, would make a noise like glitterglitter. Gleam was a clean, smooth noise from a surface that intended to shine all day. And glisten was the soft, almost greasy sound of something rich and oily.

There were rockets like a flock of scintillating birds singing with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, and their shining branches dropped glowing flowers down upon the hobbits, disappearing with a sweet scent just before their touched their upturned faces. There were fountains of butterflies that flew glittering into the trees; there were pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned into eagles, or sailing ships, or a phalanx of flying swans; there was a red thunderstorm and a shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang suddenly into the air with a yell like an embattled army, and and came down again into the Water with a hiss like a hundred hot snakes.

Baldini stood up. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset, caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city. On the river shining like gold below him, the ships had disappeared. And a wind must have come up, for gusts were serrating the surface, and it glittered now here, now there, moving ever closer, as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis-d’or over the water. For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini, a shimmering flood of pure gold.

Has it ever occurred to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes." He ran an eye over the hilt, plain cold metal scored with faint grooves for a good grip, glinting in the torchlight. "But a sword... a sword has a voice." "Eh?" "Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy's ear." He wrapped his fingers tightly round the grip. "A gentle warning. A word of caution. Do you hear it?" Logen nodded slowly. "Now," murmured Bayaz, "compare it to the sword half drawn." A foot length of metal hissed out of the sheath, a single silver letter shining near the hilt. The blade itself was dull, but its edge had a cold and frosty glint. "It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?" Logen nodded again, his eye fastened on that glittering edge. "Now compare it to the sword full drawn." Bayaz whipped the long blade from its sheath with a faint ringing sound, brought it up so that the point hovered inches from Logen's face. "It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it?" "Mmm," said Logen, leaning back and staring slightly crosseyed at the shining point of the sword. Bayaz let it drop and slid it gently back into its scabbard, something to Logen's relief. "Yes, a sword has a voice. Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but a sword is a subtle weapon, and suited to a subtle man. You I think, Master Ninefingers, are subtler than you appear." Logen frowned as Bayaz held the sword out to him. He had been accused of many things in his life, but never subtlety. "Consider it a gift. My thanks for your good manners.

God is the Light of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of His Light is as a niche wherein is a lamp (the lamp in a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star) lit from a blessed tree, an olive that is neither of the East nor of the West whose oil wellnigh would shine, even if no life touched it; Light upon Light;

On one of the nights during my journey I wandered out under the sky which was lit with stars and I believed for a moment that soon these stars would cease to glitter, that the nights of the future would be dark beyond dark, that the world itself would undergo a great change, and then I quickly came to see that the change would happen only to me and to the few who knew me; it would be only we who would look at the sky at night in the future and see the darkness before we saw the glitter. We would see the glittering stars as false and mocking, or as bewildered themselves by the night as we were , as leftover things confined to their place, their shining nothing more than a sort of pleading.

She was made to sparkle, to be bright with outside garniture, — to shine and glitter, and be rich in apparel. The only doubt might be whether paste diamonds might not better suit her character.

Ma said that Jack Frost came in the night and made the pictures, while everyone was asleep. Laura thought that Jack Frost was a little man all snowy white, wearing a glittering white pointed cap and soft white knee-boots made of deer-skin. His coat was white and his mittens were white, and he did not carry a gun on his back, but in his hands he had shining sharp tools with which he carved the pictures. Laura and Mary were allowed to take Ma’s thimble and make pretty patterns of circles in the frost on the glass. But they never spoiled the pictures that Jack Frost had made in the night.

First Snow The snow began here this morning and all day continued, its white rhetoric everywhere calling us back to why, how, whence such beauty and what the meaning; such an oracular fever! flowing past windows, an energy it seemed would never ebb, never settle less than lovely! and only now, deep into night, it has finally ended. The silence is immense, and the heavens still hold a million candles; nowhere the familiar things: stars, the moon, the darkness we expect and nightly turn from. Trees glitter like castles of ribbons, the broad fields smolder with light, a passing creekbed lies heaped with shining hills; and though the questions that have assailed us all day remain—not a single answer has been found— walking out now into the silence and the light under the trees, and through the fields, feels like one.

There were opera cloaks stitched of myriad, many-colored silks and furs; there were jewels dripping from arms and throats and ear-tips of white and rose; there were innumerable broad shimmers down the middles of innumerable silk hats; there were shoes of gold and bronze and red and shining black; there were the high-piled, tight-packed coiffures of many women and the slick, watered hair of well-kept men—most of all there was the ebbing, flowing, chattering, chuckling, foaming, slow-rolling wave effect of this cheerful sea of people as to-night it poured its glittering torrent into the artificial lake of laughter…. After

Carrie was one of the ambitious yet common-place girls who wish to shine, without knowing the difference between the glitter of a candle which attracts moths, and the serene light of a star, or the cheery glow of a fire round which all love to gather.

Her shining tresses, divided in two parts, encircle the harmonious contour of her white and delicate cheeks, brilliant in their glow and freshness. Her ebony brows have the form and charm of the bow of Kama, the god of love, and beneath her long silken lashes the purest reflections and a celestial light swim, as in the sacred lakes of Himalaya, in the black pupils of her great clear eyes. Her teeth, fine, equal, and white, glitter between her smiling lips like dewdrops in a passion-flower’s half-enveloped breast. Her delicately formed ears, her vermilion hands, her little feet, curved and tender as the lotus-bud, glitter with the brilliancy of the loveliest pearls of Ceylon, the most dazzling diamonds of Golconda. Her narrow and supple waist, which a hand may clasp around, sets forth the outline of her rounded figure and the beauty of her bosom, where youth in its flower displays the wealth of its treasures; and beneath the silken folds of her tunic she seems to have been modelled in pure silver by the godlike hand of Vicvarcarma, the immortal sculptor.

The Holy Grail, the most precious of all Christ’s bequests to man, lost these thousand years and more, and he could see it glowing in the sky like shining blood and about it, bright as the glittering crown of a saint, rays of dazzling shimmer filled the heaven. Thomas

I feel like I’ve loved you for my whole life, Lilly,” he whispers back, his own voice just as choked as mine. “I just needed to find you.” He lifts his head, his eyes shining, and I watch, spellbound, as a single bead of glittering moisture breaks free and glides down his cheek.

A mimosa tree, green and thin limbed, pushes up through the snow. My grandmother brought the seeds with her from back home. Sometimes, she pulls a chair to the window, looks down over the yard. The promise of glittering sidewalks feels a long time behind us now, no diamonds anywhere to be found. But some days, just after snow falls, the sun comes out, shines down on the promise of that tree from back home joining us here. Shines down over the bright white ground. And on those days, so much light and warmth fills the room that it's hard not to believe in a little bit of everything.

My thoughts Chink against my ribs And roll about like silver hail-stones. I should like to spill them out, And pour them, all shining, Over you. But my heart is shut upon them And holds them straitly. Come, You! and open my heart; That my thoughts torment me no longer, But glitter in your hair.

Today, she is standing at the top of a mountain and appreciating the majestic panoramic view of mesmerizing Himalaya. As a kid, she used to look up in the sky and wish for wings to fly up to the mountains. And now after a long wait of many years, she is standing here and living her dream. It’s the moment when she can’t believe her eyes because what she always dreamed of has come alive. She looks with amazement as if she’s witnessing a miracle. It is the moment of her life. She just wants to feel it. There are beautiful clouds below her and there are snow clad mountain peaks emerging from those clouds. The white peaks shining in blue sky among white clouds look like glittering diamonds to her. The view of the large lush green meadow surrounded by mountains under blue sky with a rainbow circling the horizon has put her in a state of tranquility. As the sun starts drowning in the horizon, the sky begins to boast his mystical colours. The beautiful mix of pink, orange and red looks like creating a twilight saga. She opens her both arm and takes a deep breath to entwine with the nature. The glimmering rays of the moon are paying tribute to her by kissing her warm cheeks and her eyes twinkle in bright moon light. She raises her face towards the moon and senses the flood of memories which she wants to unleash. The cool breeze lifts her ruffled hair and blows her skirt up. She closes her eyes and breathes deep as if she wants to let her know that she is finally here and then she opens her eyes and finds herself on the same wheelchair inside a room with an empty wall in front of her eye. Tears rolls down from her eye but these are the tears of Joy because she is living her dreams today. The feelings comes to her mind while waiting for her daughter who is coming back home today after her first expedition of a high range mountain ~ AB

Dazzling ice stars bombarded the world with rays, which splintered and penetrated the earth, filling earth’s core with their deadly coldness, reinforcing the cold of the advancing ice. And always, on the surface, the indestructible ice-mass was moving forward, implacably destroying all life. I felt a fearful sense of pressure and urgency, there was no time to lose, I was wasting time; it was a race between me and the ice. Her albino hair illuminated my dreams, shining brighter than moonlight. I saw the dead moon dance over the icebergs, as it would at the end of the world, while she watched from the tent of her glittering hair.

Freya was the most beautiful of all the gods. Her golden hair tumbled about her shoulders, and it glinted in the morning light. Freya’s two cats prowled the room, eager to pull her chariot. Around her neck, as golden and shining as her hair, glittered the necklace of the Brisings, made for Freya by dwarfs far underground.

To fill the days up of his dateless year Flame from Queen Helen to Queen Guenevere? For first of all the sphery signs whereby Love severs light from darkness, and most high, In the white front of January there glows The rose-red sign of Helen like a rose: And gold-eyed as the shore-flower shelterless Whereon the sharp-breathed sea blows bitterness, A storm-star that the seafarers of love Strain their wind-wearied eyes for glimpses of, Shoots keen through February's grey frost and damp The lamplike star of Hero for a lamp; The star that Marlowe sang into our skies With mouth of gold, and morning in his eyes; And in clear March across the rough blue sea The signal sapphire of Alcyone Makes bright the blown bross of the wind-foot year; And shining like a sunbeam-smitten tear Full ere it fall, the fair next sign in sight Burns opal-wise with April-coloured light When air is quick with song and rain and flame, My birth-month star that in love's heaven hath name Iseult, a light of blossom and beam and shower, My singing sign that makes the song-tree flower; Next like a pale and burning pearl beyond The rose-white sphere of flower-named Rosamond Signs the sweet head of Maytime; and for June Flares like an angered and storm-reddening moon Her signal sphere, whose Carthaginian pyre Shadowed her traitor's flying sail with fire; Next, glittering as the wine-bright jacinth-stone, A star south-risen that first to music shone, The keen girl-star of golden Juliet bears Light northward to the month whose forehead wears Her name for flower upon it, and his trees Mix their deep English song with Veronese; And like an awful sovereign chrysolite Burning, the supreme fire that blinds the night, The hot gold head of Venus kissed by Mars, A sun-flower among small sphered flowers of stars, The light of Cleopatra fills and burns The hollow of heaven whence ardent August yearns; And fixed and shining as the sister-shed Sweet tears for Phaethon disorbed and dead, The pale bright autumn's amber-coloured sphere, That through September sees the saddening year As love sees change through sorrow, hath to name Francesca's; and the star that watches flame The embers of the harvest overgone Is Thisbe's, slain of love in Babylon, Set in the golden girdle of sweet signs A blood-bright ruby; last save one light shines An eastern wonder of sphery chrysopras, The star that made men mad, Angelica's; And latest named and lordliest, with a sound Of swords and harps in heaven that ring it round, Last love-light and last love-song of the year's, Gleams like a glorious emerald Guenevere's.

Meanwhile, Beowulf gave zero shits.   He dressed himself in glittering gear,   his mail-shirt finely forged, links locked   and loaded. He’d meet this murdering mother   under mere, and amend her existence.   Even if she tried to smother him, his bone-cage   would stay intact. No weakness here. His helmet,   bright against the bleak backdrop, would save his skull   from the watery substrate, from the black mud 1450  and curious currents—hammered gold for a glamour-god,   made by one long gone, jewels and boar-shaped ornaments   imbued by the smith with power to keep other men from dying.   No battle-teeth could test it, no sword slice that shine.   Gold is good.

She will always be with me. I know it through my gasping. Know it through my grasping. I know that I will see the gleam of her in the pocked glitter of the moon, in its embered shine. Know I will see her in the shattered stream of stars across the molasses-dark sky. Know that I will see her in the wrinkling of my hands, the whitening of my hair. After my last breath, at the end of my toil and hours, know it will be her who will ferry me across the Water. Mama. I know it sure as I know the far-off hounds, rooting through the underbrush at the water’s edge, raising their noses to bay all at once, their calls trailing up to whip off in the air: frenzied and starving.

WE SAW THE POWER & WITH IT BUILT A GREAT GREAT GLORY A WORLD YOU CD NOT IMAGINE GOD WAS PLEASD IT WAS A SHINING CRUST OVER THE LAND & SEA WE SUSPENDED ALL LIFE IN AN OZONE LAYER WEIGHTLESS & SELFSUSTAINING CHEMICAL GLITTERING & ROOTLESS WHICH THE ATOM BUILT THAT WE FUSED GOD B TURND AGAINST HIS ARCHANGELS THEY HAD SEEN THAT WE WERE ANTIMATTER

The moment I said Broken Harbor to O’Kelly, every faded scar in my mind had lit up like a beacon. I had walked the glittering lines of those scars, obedient as a farm animal, from that moment straight to this one. I had moved through this case shining like Conor Brennan had shone on that dark road, a blazing signal for predators and scavengers far and wide.

Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son who still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means— this way or that—but for the way facets set off prisms and prisms spin up everywhere and from his own jeweled body he’s cast rainbows—made every shining true color. Now try to tell me—man or woman—your heart was ever once that brave.

Joan Valentine was a tall girl with wheat-gold hair and eyes as brightly blue as a November sky when the sun is shining on a frosty world. There was in them a little of November’s cold glitter, too, for Joan had been through much in the last few years; and experience, even when it does not harden, erects a defensive barrier between its children and the world.

The new High King of Faerie lounges on his throne, his crown resting at an insouciant angle, his long, villainously scarlet cloak pinned at his shoulders and sweeping the floor. An earring shines from the peak of one pointed ear. Heavy rings glitter along his knuckles. His most ostentatious decoration, however, is his soft, sullen mouth. It makes him look every bit the jerk that he is.

When I look up at Heaven, I see the souls of those who died Beaming down at me, Wanting to scream: “I'm still alive!”, Wishing to scribble across the sapphire sky - Letters to their loved ones, But a million dark oceans stand between us, Between those who passed and the living, Between those of us still stuck below, And those who have crossed over the threshold of time - Where what seems like eternity to us, Is really only a few minutes to them. So you see, there is no reason to weep over the shining ones - For even though the space that separates us is limitless, The wall of time that divides us is only paper-thin. And one day, we shall all reunite with them, When our souls are released like fish Back into the vast shimmering sea To shine together like Glittering diamonds.

Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her. She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love. Most humans didn’t love one another nohow, and this mislove was so strong that even common blood couldn’t overcome it all the time. She had found a jewel down inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around. But she had been set in the market-place to sell. Been set for still-bait. When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.

There were rockets like a flight of scintillating birds singing with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, and their shining branches dropped glowing flowers down upon the astonished hobbits, disappearing with a sweet scent just before they touched their upturned faces. There were fountains of butterflies that flew glittering into the trees; there were pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned into eagles, or sailing ships, or a phalanx of flying swans; there was a red thunderstorm and a shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang suddenly into the air with a yell like an embattled army, and came down again into the Water with a hiss like a hundred hot snakes.

Her grey hair was arranged with precision, and her clothes looked excessively new and yet slightly old-fashioned. They were always black and tightly fitting, with an expensive glitter: she was the kind of woman who wore jet at breakfast. Lily had never seen her when she was not cuirassed in shining black, with small tight boots, and an air of being packed and ready to start; yet she never started.

Everything I have ever experienced is made crystalline. Nothing hurts anymore. Hundreds upon thousands of moments glitter in unison, like snowflakes whose elaborate shapes are in full view. How this is possible, I can't say. My every pain and joy, all my deep-rooted sorrows and loves, shine, not as an amalgam but as a whole comprised of distinct singularities, glowing together as one giant nebula.

We are on a great journey, through darkness and dawn, across time, though sometimes I fear that our journey is about to end. We must not succumb to fear or avarice; we must continue to embrace life, seek light, and gather in the charity of night. This is what God wants from us and for us. Mirrors of the past shine with the hue of unborn days, just as stars glitter in the dark night to light our way.

Life's too gorgeous to be sad! Why settle for a frown when you can turn that upside down into a smiley emoji? Dive into the beauty around you, chase those rainbows, and sprinkle glitter on any gray clouds that dare to linger. Remember, happiness is your birthright, so grab it with both hands and twirl it around like a champ! It's your world, so make it sparkle and shine. Remember, happiness is a choice, and today, you choose joy!

That night Serena dressed to meet Zahi. She used a metallic green eye shadow on the top lids and the outer half of the bottom lids so that her eyes looked like a jungle cat's. Two coats of black mascara completed them, and then she smudged a light gold gloss on her lips. She took a red skirt from the closet. The material was snakelike, shimmering black, then red. She slipped it on and tied the black strings of a matching bib halter around her neck and waist. She painted red-and-black glittering flames on her legs and rubbed glossy shine on her arms and chest. Finally, she took the necklace she had bought at the garage sale and fixed it in her hairline like the headache bands worn by flappers back in the 1920's. The jewels hung on her forehead, making her look like an exotic maharani. She sat at her dressing table and painted her toenails and fingernails gold, then looked in the mirror. A thrill jolted through her as it always did. No matter how many times she saw her reflection after the transformation, her image always astonished her. She looked supernatural, a spectral creature, green eyes large, skin glowing, eyelashes longer, thicker. Everything about her was more forceful and elegant- an enchantress goddess. She couldn't pull away from her reflection. It was as if the warrior in her had claimed the night.

Have you ever been lost hope in what you believed so far in life as no meaning? And when started adapting to the life what you got and moving forward, suddenly something comes up and glitters a shine on the hope you lost belief. Your brain is never believed the glitter, but heart attracts to the stuff which you may get hurt. Why I am always been the victim of the life’s crisis. Hope makes the life a life, in the meantime it is the source of all pains.

This is such a beautiful evening. But life doesn’t always glitter like this. People don’t always glitter like this, either. It can be hard to realize that. To really be with someone and see all the parts that don't shine and glow, as well as the parts that do. It can be even harder to let the person you love see your own dark shadows. But it’s not just about the gold — or the shadows. Love is everything all together. The dark and the light. The whole truth. Given freely.

As a world that has no well, Darting bright in forest dell; As a world without the gleam Of the downward-going stream; As a world without the glance Of the ocean's fair expanse; As a world where never rain Glittered on the sunny plain; - Such, my hear, thy world would be, If no love did flow in thee. As a world without the sound Of the rivulets underground; Or the bubbling of the spring Out of darkness wandering; Or the mighty rush and flowing Of the river's downward going; Or the music-showers that drop On the outspread beech's top; Or the ocean's mighty voice, When his lifted waves rejoice;- Such, my soul, thy world would be, If no love did sing in thee. Lady, keep they world's delight; Keep the waters in thy sight. Love hath made me strong to go, For thy sake, to realms below, Where the water's shine and hum Through the darkness never come: Let, I pray, one thought of me Spring, a little well, in thee; Lest thy loveless soul be found Like a dry and thirsty ground.

Celestial Music” I have a friend who still believes in heaven. Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god, she thinks someone listens in heaven. On earth, she’s unusually competent. Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness. We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it. I’m always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality. But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes. Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out according to nature. For my sake, she intervened, brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down across the road. My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains my aversion to reality. She says I’m like the child who buries her head in the pillow so as not to see, the child who tells herself that light causes sadness— My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person— In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We’re walking on the same road, except it’s winter now; she’s telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music: look up, she says. When I look up, nothing. Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees like brides leaping to a great height— Then I’m afraid for her; I see her caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth— In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set; from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall. It’s this moment we’re both trying to explain, the fact that we’re at ease with death, with solitude. My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn’t move. She’s always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image capable of life apart from her. We’re very quiet. It’s peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering— it’s this stillness that we both love. The love of form is a love of endings.

CRICKET A poor little cricket Hidden in the flowery grass, Observes a butterfly Fluttering in the meadow. The winged insect shines with the liveliest colors: Azure, purple, and gold glitter on his wings; Young, handsome, foppish, he hastens from flower to flower, Taking from the best ones. Ah! says the cricket, how his lot and mine Are dissimilar! Lady Nature For him did everything, and for me nothing. I have no talent, even less beauty; No one takes notice of me, they know me not here below; Might as well not exist. As he was speaking, in the meadow Arrives a troop of children. Immediately they are running After this butterfly, for which they all have a longing. Hats, handkerchiefs, caps serve to catch him. The insect in vain tries to escape. He becomes soon their conquest. One seizes him by the wing, another by the body; A third arrives, and takes him by the head. It should not be so much effort To tear to pieces the poor creature. Oh! Oh! says the cricket, I am no more sorry; It costs too dear to shine in this world. How much I am going to love my deep retreat! To live happily, live hidden.

OUR ABILITY TO BOTH RECALL AND FORGET Pieces of holographic film containing multiple images, such as those described above, also provide a way of understanding our ability to both recall and forget. When such a piece of film is held in a laser beam and tilted back and forth, the various images it contains appear and disappear in a glittering stream. It has been suggested that our ability to remember is analogous to shining a laser beam on such a piece of film and calling up a particular image. Similarly, when we are unable to recall something, this may be equivalent to shining various beams on a piece of multiple-image film, but failing to find the right angle to call up the image/memory for which we are searching.

How long have you known about him?” I asked Jesse, using my free hand to gesture toward his guest. “Forever. Nearly as long as I did about you.” “God, Jesse. Why didn’t you say anything?” “He was a shadow of you.” Jesse shrugged. “His background is diluted, his dragon blood les strong. Even with you in his proximity, I wasn’t certain any of his drakon traits would emerge. He hasn’t anywhere near your potential.” “Pardon me,” Armand said, freezingly polite, “but he is still right here with you in this room.” “Do you mean…I did it?” I asked. “I made him figure it out? What he is?” Jesse gave me an assessing look. “Like is drawn to like. We’re all three of us thick with magic now, even if it’s different kinds. It’s inevitable that we’ll feed off one another. The only way to prevent that would be to separate. And even then it might not be enough. Too much has already begun.” “I don’t want to separate from you,” I said. “No.” Jesse lifted our hands and gave mine a kiss. “Don’t worry about that.” Armand practically rolled his eyes. “If you two are quite done, might we talk some sense tonight? It’s late, I’m tired, and your ruddy chair, Holms, is about as comfortable as sitting on a tack. I want to…” But his voice only faded into silence. He closed his eyes and raised a hand to his face and squeezed the bridge of his nose. I noted again those shining nails. The elegance of his bones beneath his flawless skin. Skin that was marble-pale, I realized. Just like mine. “Yes?” I said, more gently than I’d intended. “Excuse me. I’m finding this all a bit…impossible to process. I’m beginning to believe that this is the most profoundly unpleasant dream I’ve ever been caught in.” “Allow me to assure you that you’re awake, Lord Armand,” I retorted, all gentleness gone. “To wit: You hear music no one else does. Distinctive music from gemstones and all sorts of metals. That day I played the piano at Tranquility, I was playing your father’s ruby song, one you must have heard exactly as I did. Exactly as your mother would have. You also have, perhaps, something like a voice inside you. Something specific and base, stronger than instinct, hopeless to ignore. Animals distrust you. You might even dream of smoke or flying.” He dropped his arm. “You got that from the diary.” “No, I got that from my own life. And damned lucky you are to have been brought into this world as a pampered little prince instead of spending your childhood being like this and still having to fend for yourself, as I did.” “Right. Lucky me.” Armand looked at Jesse, his eyes glittering. “And what are you? Another dragon? A gargoyle, perchance, or a werecat?” “Jesse is a star.” The hand went up to conceal his face again. “Of course he is. The. Most. Unpleasant. Dream. Ever.” I separated my hand from Jesse’s, angling for more bread. “I think you’re going to have to show him.” “Aye.” A single blue eye blinked open between Armand’s fingers. “Show me what?

Taking her grandfather’s advice, Anna turned her head toward the sky. Clouds were moving in quickly to cover the moon and stars, but for now the stars were so bright they almost blinded her. She stared up into the sky for several minutes and then closed her eyes. Gradually, her thoughts dissolved in the glistening bounty, and Anna felt herself lifted upward, her body nearly weightless. For a fleeting moment, the world around her fell away. As if drawn by a vision, Anna drifted deep into the night, engulfed in a bright gleam. She had no thoughts, no feelings. The tears in her eyes splintered the light into countless separate beams, leading Anna toward a glittering palace of shining rays. Perfect indifference flooded her body. If only this sensation would last forever!

Let thy gold be cast in the furnace, Thy red gold, precious and bright, Do not fear the hungry fire, With its caverns of burning light; And thy gold shall return more precious, Free from every spot and stain; For gold must be tried by fire, As a heart must be tried by pain! In the cruel fire of Sorrow Cast thy heart, do not faint or wail; Let thy hand be firm and steady, Do not let thy spirit quail; But wait till the trial is over, And take thy heart again; For as gold is tried by fire, So a heart must be tried by pain! I shall know by the gleam and glitter Of the golden chain you wear, By your heart’s calm strength in loving, Of the fire they have had to bear. Beat on, true heart, for ever; Shine bright, strong golden chain; And bless the cleansing fire, And the furnace of living pain!

Most humans didn't love one another nohow, and this mislove was so strong that even common blood couldn't overcome it all the time. She had found a jewel down inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around. But she had been set in the market-place to sell. Been set for still-bait. When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.

The houses crowding along the wide shining sweep without ripple or glitter, stepping into the water in a line of jostling, vague, grey, silvery forms mingled with black masses of shadow, were like a spectral herd of shapeless creatures pressing forward to drink in a spectral and lifeless stream. Here and there a red gleam twinkled within the bamboo walls, warm, like a living spark, significant of human affections, of shelter, of repose. ‘He confessed to me that he often watched these tiny warm gleams go out one by one, that he loved to see people go to sleep under his eyes, confident in the security of to-morrow. “Peaceful here, eh?” he asked. He was not eloquent, but there was a deep meaning in the words that followed. “Look at these houses; there’s not one where I am not trusted. Jove! I told you I would hang on. Ask any man, woman, or child . . .” He paused. “Well, I am all right anyhow.

If we thought that the eyes of such a girl were merely two glittering sequins of mica, we would not be athirst to know her and to unite her life to ours. But we sense that what shines in those reflecting discs is not due solely to their material composition; that it is, unknown to us, the dark shadows of the ideas that this being is conceiving, relative to the people and places that she knows— the turf of racecourses, the sand of cycling tracks over which, pedaling on past fields and woods, she would have drawn me after her, that little Peri, more seductive to me than she of the Persian paradise—the shadows, too, of the home to which she will presently return, of the plans that she is forming or that others have formed for her; and above all that it is she, with her desires, her sympathies, her revulsions, her obscure and incessant will. I knew that I would never possess this young cyclist if I did not possess also what was in her eyes.

The houses were left vacant on the land and the land was vacant because of this. Only the tractor sheds of corrugated iron, silver and gleaming were alive, and they were alive with metal and gasoline and oil, discs of the plows shining. The tractors had lights shining, for there is no day and night for a tractor, and the discs turn the earth in the darkness and they glitter in the daylight. And when a horse stops work and goes into the barn, there is a life and vitality left. There is a breathing and a warmth, and the feet shift on the straw, and the jaws champ on the hay, and the ears and the eyes are alive. There is a warmth of life in the barn and the heat and smell of life, but when the motor of a tractor stops it is as dead as the ore it came from. The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse. Then the corrugated iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is dead. And this is easy and efficient. So easy, that the wonder goes out of work. So efficient, that the wonder goes out of land, the working of it, and with the wonder, the deep understanding and the relation. And in the tractor man the grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who has little understanding and no relation, for nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates, and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt, water, nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more. And the land is so much more than its analysis. The man who is more than his chemistry walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch, that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than it's analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love understands only chemistry, and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself. When the corrugated iron doors are shut he goes home, and his home is not the land.

Griff entered the cave, sword in hand. He had no desire to frighten Astelle, but he had to be prepared for anything. She jumped up from her fireside position with a small stifled scream at his entry, then continued to back fearfully towards the shadowed wall. She was quite alone. Griff could sense no other presence – only hers, and the wonder of it. He sheathed his sword, and gazed upon his long-lost love. Her hair had lost all trace of colour while still retaining the texture of youth, giving the appearance of white silk. There was a pulsating light of a blue-lilac shade which clung to the crown of her head, reflecting in the hair – a soul – a lost spirit – someone who had loved her. She was almost as pale as death, for Torking took far too much blood from her, too frequently. She was also much thinner than she should have been, but for all of this, she was still the most beautiful sight of his life. Her body was ravaged with Torking's bites and claw-marks. She was still wearing his old cloak which Griff instantly recognised, though it was little more than a rag, wrapped around her body and tied on one shoulder. Her beautiful dark eyes, those which had so haunted his dreams, seemed over-large in her pale face, as she stared at him with a mingling of shock, disbelief and joy. Griff took a few hesitant steps towards her, unsure of his reception. ‘Astelle?’ His voice grated with emotion. How often had she yearned to hear him speak her name exactly in that way? ‘Astelle – is it really you?’ He was just as divinely handsome as she remembered, and he looked so fine – he looked magnificent in Gremlen battledress. In the flickering torchlight, the blue krulmesh armour glittered over the black leather tunic. The emerald sheen in his raven hair was vivid as ever. Best of all, his dark forest-green eyes were shining with love, and she suddenly understood that Griff was a hundred times more beautiful than Torking, for his eyes held everything that was good, fine and noble. Astelle's heart almost stopped beating as she gazed at him. Her eyes filled with tears, and her lip trembled as she tried to whisper his name.

Want Could Kill Me Xandria Phillips for Dominique I know this from looking into store fronts taste buds voguing alight from the way treasure glows when I imagine pressing its opulence into your hand I want to buy you a cobalt velvet couch all your haters’ teeth strung up like pearls a cannabis vineyard and plane tickets to every island on earth but my pockets are filled with lint and love alone touch these inanimate gods to my eyelids when you kiss me linen leather gator skin silk satin lace onyx marble gold ferns leopard crystal sandalwood mink pearl stiletto matte nails and plush lips glossed in my 90s baby saliva pour the glitter over my bare skin I want a lavish life us in the crook of a hammock incensed by romance the bowerbird will forgo rest and meals so he may prim and anticipate amenity for his singing lover call me a gaunt bird a keeper of altars shrines to the tactile how they shine for you fold your wings around my shoulders promise me that should I drown in want-made waste the dress I sink in will be exquisite

I serve no man,’ said Aragorn; ‘but the servants of Sauron I pursue into whatever land they may go. There are few among mortal Men who know more of Orcs; and I do not hunt them in this fashion out of choice. The Orcs whom we pursued took captive two of my friends. In such need a man that has no horse will go on foot, and he will not ask for leave to follow the trail. Nor will he count the heads of the enemy save with a sword. I am not weaponless.’ Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of Andúril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out. ‘Elendil!’ he cried. ‘I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dúnadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!’ Gimli and Legolas looked at their companion in amazement, for they had not seen him in this mood before. He seemed to have grown in stature while Éomer had shrunk; and in his living face they caught a brief vision of the power and majesty of the kings of stone. For a moment it seemed to the eyes of Legolas that a white flame flickered on the brows of Aragorn like a shining crown.

Has it ever occurred to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes.” He ran an eye over the hilt, plain cold metal scored with faint grooves for a good grip, glinting in the torchlight. “But a sword… a sword has a voice.” “Eh?” “Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy’s ear.” He wrapped his fingers tightly round the grip. “A gentle warning. A word of caution. Do you hear it?” Logen nodded slowly. “Now,” murmured Bayaz, “compare it to the sword half drawn.” A foot length of metal hissed out of the sheath, a single silver letter shining near the hilt. The blade itself was dull, but its edge had a cold and frosty glint. “It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?” Logen nodded again, his eye fastened on that glittering edge. “Now compare it to the sword full drawn.” Bayaz whipped the long blade from its sheath with a faint ringing sound, brought it up so that the point hovered inches from Logen’s face. “It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it?

The cave was cool and silent- thoroughly carpeted- with the most luxuriant mantle of mosses Alma Whittaker had ever seen. The cave was not merely mossy; it throbbed with moss. It was not merely green; it was frantically green. It was so bright in its verdure that the color nearly spoke, as though- smashing through the world of sight- it wanted to migrate into the world of sound. The moss was a thick, living pelt, transforming every rock surface into a mythical, sleeping beast. Improbably, the deepest corners of the cave glittered the brightest; they were absolutely studded, Alma realized with a gasp, with the jewellike filigree of 'Schistotega pennata.' Goblin's gold, dragon's gold, elfin gold- 'Schistotega pennata' was that rarest of cave mosses, that false gem that gleams like a cat's eye from within the permanent twilight of geologic shade, that unearthly sparkling plant that needs but the briefest sliver of light each day to sparkle like glory forever, that brilliant trickster whose shining facets have fooled so many travelers over the centuries into believing that they have stumbled upon hidden treasure. But to Alma, this 'was' treasure, more stunning than actual riches, for it bedecked the entire cave in the uncanny, glistering, emerald light that she had only ever before seen in miniature, in glimpses of moss seen through a microscope... yet now she was standing fully within it.

Wasanbon sugar, honey and tofu. Together, they make a silky-smooth pastry crust that gently caresses the lips... while the fluffy, sticky white bean paste melts on the tongue. Its mellow and robust flavor wafting up to tickle the nose! And with every bite, the crisp tartness of apples pop like fireworks, glittering brightly and fading, only to sparkle once again. Its sweet deliciousness ripples from the mouth straight up to the brain... a super-heavyweight punch of moist, rich goodness!" "Yeeah!" "Ladies and gentlemen, all the judges have looks on their faces! What on earth could have created a flavor that rapturous?!" "The biggest secret to that flavor is right here, brushed on the underside of the pastry crust... apple butter!" "Apple butter?!" "Hmm..." It's as simple as its name- grated apple, lemon juice and sugar added into melted butter. The distinctive tang of fruit is melded together harmoniously with mellow butter, creating a spread that can add acidity, saltiness and rich body to a dish! "Yet making something like this is no mean feat! Two completely disparate ingredients must be not just mixed but perfectly emulsified together! It's a task akin to perfectly melding oil with water! Even pro chefs have difficulty bringing out the butter's smooth shine without accidentally letting it separate! Managing it all requires mastery of a very specific cooking technique!" "Yes, sir! I did use Monter au Beurre. It's a technique for finishing sauces... ... common in French cooking!

November The month of the drowned dog. After long rain the land Was sodden as the bed of an ancient lake, Treed with iron and bridles. In the sunk lane The ditch - a seep silent all summer - Made brown foam with a big voice: that, and my boots On the lane's scrubbed stones, in the gulleyed leaves, Against the hill's hanging silence; Mist silvering the droplets on bare thorns Slower than the change of daylight. In a let of the ditch a tramp was bundled asleep; Face tucked down into beard, drawn in Under his hair like a hedgehog's. I took him for dead, But his stillness separated from the death Of the rotting grass on the ground. A wind chilled, And a fresh comfort tightened through him, Each hand stuffed deeper into the other sleeve. His ankles, bound with sacking and hairy band, Rubbed each other, resettling. The wind hardened; A puff shook a glittering from the thorns, And against the rains' dragging grey columns Smudged the farms. In a moment The fields were jumping and smoking; the thorns Quivered, riddled with the glassy verticals. I stayed on under the welding cold Watching the tramp's face glisten and the drops on his coat Flash and darken. I thought what strong trust Slept in him - as the trickling furrows slept, And the thorn-roots in their grip on darkness; And the buried stones, taking the weight of winter; The hill where the hare crouched with clenched teeth. Rain plastered the land till it was shining Like hammered lead, and I ran, and in the rushing wood Shuttered by a black oak leaned. The keeper's gibbet had owls and hawks By the neck, weasels, a gang of cats, crows: Some stiff, weightless, twirled like dry bark bits In the drilling rain. Some still had their shape, Had their pride with it; hung, chins on chests Patient to outwait these worst days that beat Their crowns bare and dripped from their feat.

The tailor sidled forward, his long, multi-joined fingers caressing the dress form closest to me. "Ah, yes," he said. "Beautiful, isn't it? The color of storms and oceans, or so we've been told. This dress," he continued, "belonged to Magdalena. She was beautiful- the way you mortals reckon, anyhow- beautiful, but stupid. Oh ho, we had fun with this one, we did, but we used her up too soon. Her fire died, leaving us cold and dark." The dress form beneath the gown was tall and well-formed, the bosom and hips generous, the waist tiny. The dress, a robe à la française, was made from a deep, jewel-toned blue silk, and I could imagine the dramatic coloring of the woman who had worn it: pale skin, dark hair, and blue eyes to match her gown. A breathless beauty, a glittering jewel, and I imagined the Goblin King partaking of her loveliness over and over again, biting the sweet peaches of her cheeks until she was gone. "And this one," Thistle chimed in, pointing to another dress form, "belonged to Maria Emmanuel. Prissy, she was. Refused to do her duty by her lord. She was consecrated to someone else- a carpenter? Something like that. Don't know what the king saw in her, but they were both possessed of a strange devotion to a figure nailed to a wooden cross. She lasted the longest, this prudish nun, not having given herself to king and land, and during her rule, our kingdom suffered. Yet she lasted the longest for that, although she too died in the end, pining for the world above she could see but not touch." This dress form was slim, the gown that hung on it made of an austere gray wool. I could imagine the woman who wore this dress- a pious creature, veiled like a bride of Christ. No beauty, but her eyes would be a clear, luminous gray, shining with the fervor of her passion and faith. Not like Magdalena, whose loveliness would have been carnal and earthly; Maria Emmanuel would have glowed with an inner light, the beauty of a saint or a martyr. The Goblin King was a man of varied tastes, it seemed.

The masses of dense foliage all round became prison walls, impassable circular green ice-walls, surging towards her; just before they closed in, I caught the terrified glint of her eyes. On a winter day she was in the studio, posing for him in the nude, her arms raised in a graceful position. To hold it for any length of time must have been a strain, I wondered how she managed to keep so still; until I saw the cords attached to her wrists and ankles. Instead of the darkness, she faced a stupendous sky-conflagration, an incredible glacial dream-scene. Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all round. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all its creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour. Frozen by the deathly cold emanating from the ice, dazzled by the blaze of crystalline ice-light, she felt herself becoming part of the polar vision, her structure becoming one with the structure of ice and snow. As her fate, she accepted the world of ice, shining, shimmering, dead; she resigned herself to the triumph of glaciers and the death of her world. Fear was the climate she lived in; if she had ever known kindness it would have been different. The trees seemed to obstruct her with deliberate malice. All her life she had thought of herself as a foredoomed victim, and now the forest had become the malign force that would destroy her. In desperation she tried to run, but a hidden root tripped her, she almost fell. Branches caught in her hair, tugged her back, lashed out viciously when they were disentangled. The silver hairs torn from her head glittered among black needles; they were the clues her pursuers would follow, leading them to their victim. She escaped from the forest at length only to see the fjord waiting for her. An evil effluence rose from the water, something primitive, savage, demanding victims, hungry for a human victim. It had been night overhead all along, but below it was still daylight. There were no clouds. I saw islands scattered over the sea, a normal aerial view. Then something extraordinary, out of this world: a wall of rainbow ice jutting up from the sea, cutting right across, pushing a ridge of water ahead of it as it moved, as if the flat pale surface of sea was a carpet being rolled up. It was a sinister, fascinating sight, which did not seem intended for human eyes. I stared down at it, seeing other things at the same time. The ice world spreading over our world. Mountainous walls of ice surrounding the girl. Her moonwhite skin, her hair sparkling with diamond prisms under the moon. The moon’s dead eye watching the death of our world.

...when she left stepped off her stage, she left in a scintillating dazzle, like a fairy queen stepping off her throne. All that shine. And at home? She was a grubby hoarder.

What are these coins & papers? What are these metals glittering and shining? What are these gems, sparkling, red, blue, green? I am richest - I have LOVE in my Heart

The great house glitters with bronze. War has patterned the roof with shining helmets, their horsehair plumes waving in wind, headdress of fighting men. And pegs are concealed under bright greaves of brass that block the iron-tipped arrows. Many fresh-linen corslets are hanging and hollow shields are heaped about the floor, and standing in rows are swords of Chalkidian steel, belt-knives and warrior's kilts. We cannot forget our arms and armor when soon our dreadful duties begin.

In every way, we inhabit the Noosphere, the domain of nous, of mind. This cosmic Noosphere is evolving. Powerful minds are shaping it, making it perfect. One day, it will be transformed into Golgonooza, Blake’s wondrous City of the Imagination. Once enough people are illuminated, its light will shine brighter than all the suns put together. It will illuminate the whole universe. It will be inhabited by glittering Gods, and they shall call it heaven.

My Order emerged,” he breathed and the terror in his voice told me all I needed to about what had happened. “You’re not a Dragon?” I asked, my own voice cracking with fear for him. Father would have been more than furious to discover that his son was anything other than a full blooded Dragon Shifter. It was a matter of pride and respect; he ridiculed families with mixed blood, he believed wholeheartedly in the superiority of our kind. One of his sons being anything other was totally unthinkable. Xavier shook his head slowly, trying to withdraw his hand from mine as footsteps sounded on the stairs behind me but I refused to release him. “It doesn’t change anything for me,” I growled. “You’re still my brother, I don’t care if you’re a Werewolf or a Vampire or a-” “So he told you, did he?” Father’s cold voice came from the doorway behind me and the hairs along the back of my neck stood to attention in warning. Xavier snatched his hand out of mine, blinking away the evidence of the tears which hadn’t even fallen. I stood before him, placing myself between him and Father. “It doesn’t matter,” I said firmly, though the simmering rage in my father’s eyes told a very different story. “I’m the oldest. I’m the first in line anyway, Xavier never wanted to challenge me for that role so-” “Yes, I still have my Heir but I’ve lost the spare. Did he tell you exactly what Order he is?” Father snarled, his eyes changing to their Dragon form and a trail of smoke leaving his nostrils. He was so angry about this that he was battling against the urge to shift. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him look so close to the edge before. “Not yet. But surely it’s not the end of the world if-” “Shift,” Father commanded, his gaze passing me to land on my brother. Xavier got out of his chair and backed up, shaking his head in panic. His skin looked odd though, like there was light shining from within it, trying to break free. “I told you, I’ll get control of it; I won’t shift ever,” he said anxiously. “No one will ever find out that I’m-” “SHIFT!” Father bellowed, using fear to force the change on him. Xavier cried out in panic as the light beneath his skin grew to a powerful glow and he bucked forward as his Order form took over. I backed up as his form changed, giving him room to become- “Fucking hell,” I breathed, my eyes widening in panic. “My thoughts precisely,” Father hissed venomously. Xavier had transformed into a lilac Pegasus complete with golden horn and rainbow patterned wings. His coat shone with glitter in the light of my magical orbs and his wide, horsey eyes looked back at us fearfully. I stared at him with my mouth hanging open, scrambling for something, anything to say. “I... didn’t know we had any recessive Pegasus genes in the bloodline...maybe he's linked to the constellation,” I muttered, unsure what else I could say. Father hated the weaker, more common Orders. He was a Dragon through and through; he loved power, invoking fear and breathing fire. A Pegasus was about as far as you could get to the opposite end of the Order spectrum. They were flying horses who pooped glitter, granted wishes and were... cute. Xavier hadn’t even been lucky enough to have a dark coloured coat, it was lilac. Lilac! (DARIUS POV)

The food that came out of the [industrialized] system was artifically cheap - the price was subsidized by the environment, our wildlife and aquatic life, and our bad health. We just couldn’t see those hidden costs - nor could we grasp how future generations would inherit the effects of our extractive, intensive farming methods. When you add up all the ways the bill is coming due, it takes the shine off the glittering promises of postwar industrialized food. The deal we made with our planet, its creatures, and our rural workforces, all so we could enjoy a slightly cheaper hamburger, might just be the worst deal that was ever made.

They want us to feel small, Eleanor. They want us to be quiet, be predictable, be unimportant, behave. Then they make us think we deserve it. But I think they’re just terrified we’ll stop listening to them and start listening to each other. And do you know why they’re so scared of women like us?” Our gazes met, two sets of glittering eyes shining in shared determination. “Why?” she asked. My answering grin was positively wicked. “Because they damn well should be.

I'll bet you already have many of the materials on hand to create these projects. How do I know? Well, I'm a crafter and I've got a bead stash, too. Doesn't everyone?

Even staunch, black-leather modernists succumb to the lure of the Christmas season with selective touches of silver, gold, and, yes, glitter.

Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of Andúril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out. ‘Elendil!’ he cried. ‘I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dúnadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!’ Gimli and Legolas looked at their companion in amazement, for they had not seen him in this mood before. He seemed to have grown in stature while Éomer had shrunk; and in his living face they caught a brief vision of the power and majesty of the kings of stone. For a moment it seemed to the eyes of Legolas that a white flame flickered on the brows of Aragorn like a shining crown.

The tent where the beer was sold was slushy with black mud. Country people stood sturdily about, some bursting with glee like ripe, rosy apples, others grim, lined and dour like cadaverous cheeses, glistening in the lamplight. The soft greyness outside faintly pricked with stars and seemingly transparent to all eternity had suddenly turned to inky blackness enclosing them tightly in a little glittering cave. All seemed aware of each other's perspiring faces and eager to communicate either good cheer or gloom; or held proudly apart with shining eye-balls and a flashing ring displayed on brown fingers curved round the smooth column of a glass. A man in corduroy trousers and a thick jacket, tilted his battered felt to the back of his head and bravely began to sing above the hurdy-gurdy din.

April and Silence Spring lies desolate. The velvet-dark ditch crawls by my side without reflections. The only thing that shines is yellow flowers. I am carried in my shadow like a violin in its black case. The only thing I want to say glitters out of reach like the silver in a pawnbroker’s.

Slowly, Mapes reached into the neck of her dress, brought out a dark sheath. A black handle with deep finger ridges protruded from it. She took sheath in one hand and handle in the other, withdrew a milk-white blade, held it up. The blade seemed to shine and glitter with a light of its own. It was double-edged like a kindjal and the blade was perhaps twenty centimeters long.

It was as if everything had come together, like the shining coloured-pieces in a kaleidoscope, settling into place to form a perfect, glittering pattern. ... 'We need to make a plan - and quickly. And it's going to have to be the best plan we've ever made.

Other commonplaces go back even further. The proverb we use nowadays, ‘all that glitters is not gold’ is usually traced to Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice Act II Scene iv: All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told. The term “glisters” became glitters in time; it is, in effect, the same word. People had indeed ‘often heard that told’, prior to Shakespeare, Chaucer had it as: “Hit is not al gold, that glareth”. So, it was known in English poetry before Shakespeare even got to it. It is such an obvious truth that it is no surprise to discover that earlier civilisations used the same phrase. The Roman poets Shakespeare appears to have immersed himself in, and from whom Dylan, who also studied them at school, liberally quotes, include, amongst their lines, nōn omne quod nĭtet aurum est (‘Not all that glitters is gold’). It was a Latin proverb and well-known enough as to appear in Corpus Juris Civilis (the Book of Civil Law) some two and a half thousand years ago. Dylan puts a version of this ancient saying into the mouth of a grandparent dispensing a list of clichéd advice. Dylan thus acknowledges, as Shakespeare did, that here was an old truth, while simultaneously giving an intriguing twist to the concept: Grandma said, “Boy, go and follow your heart And you’ll be fine at the end of the line All that’s gold isn’t meant to shine Don’t you and your one true love ever part” As with other things we have heard and read and thought many times in our life, many of us never come across a version of this phrase without either hearing it in Dylan’s voice or thinking of its use in Shakespeare’s play and the extra resonance those bring to it. Such is the power of Bards.

Two lines of columns, tall as forest trees, marched down either side of the echoing space, carved from polished green stone fretted with glittering veins of silver. High above, the ceiling was painted a rich blue-black, marked with a galaxy of shining stars, constellations picked out by golden lines. A deep pool of dark water filled the space before the door, perfectly still, reflecting everything. Another shadowy hall below. Another shadowy night sky beyond

For a heartbeat, something lightning-bright snapped through her and then settled—a thread binding them, tighter and tighter with each pull Rowan took of her blood. Three mouthfuls—his canines pricking against her skin—and then he lifted his head, his lips shining with her blood, his eyes glittering and alive and full of steel. There were no words to do justice to what passed between them in that moment.

Lies may glitter momentarily, but truth shines eternally.

He wants us to resist being charmed by the glitter of city lights and the potpourri of neon signs—some of the things the world uses to distract us. In its place, He wants us to seek only Jesus' dazzling light that shines in the deep niches of a believer's heart.

They say your heart breaks to let the light in, but at some point some of our hearts break so hard and so often that they’re just filled with light, which has no choice but to shine back out. Maybe saints realize that before the rest of us do, which is why they’re always pointing to their hearts. They ask us not to harden against, but open to. They speak in tongues of trinkets, flowers and beads and glitter, small innocent things that insist throughout even the darkest times—bits of bright that are the philosophers’ stone. Strung up and clung to, shapeshifting the world itself.

In the grand scope of things, glitter may not seem like much. But in a way, it’s everything: an offering, evidence of all our striving to shine, shrapnel of the sun itself. What we create from these scraps is how we heal the world, how we so love the world and restore its wholeness. Hand-in-hand in this snaking parade, a human community of broken shards upon a sphere, spinning.

Love doesn’t try to figure shit out, or solve anything. It just shines. Radiant and boundless, dangerous. Refined.

There's a beep. And, in that fraction of a second, I see it all → . . Me in bed, covered in lipstick and talcum powder; falling down the coach aisle; smashing into a hat-stall; climbing under a table; thirty hands in the air; spinning under a spotlight; jumping in the snow; a ponytail, cut off; sitting on a catwalk; standing on a doorstep; my first kiss, on a television set. I see a Japanese fish market and an octopus; a sumo stage; a glass box and a hundred dolls; a shining lake; a zebra crossing; a brand-new sister. I see New York and a governess; a fairground ride; a planetarium; a party; Brooklyn Bridge. Toilet paper and Icarus; dinosaur biscuits; posters; Marrakesh and a monkey; parties of stars. Picnics and coffee; an advertising agency; a doppelganger; an Indian elephant and firework clouds of paint; a cafe, filled with pink. I see Sydney and diving and a fashion show that glittered with gold. In short: I see a whole world, opening behind me. And a new world, opening in front. A world that I fit into perfectly.

Eat glitter and shine all day!

Have you seen lamplight shine through dusty air, setting the dust motes on fire?” He waved a hand. “Imagine that, spread across the night sky—but ten thousand motes and ten thousand times brighter, glittering like the eyes of all the gods.

...His fancy foreign accent shattered her soul. Emeka sounded so genuine, and this struck Chioma lifeless. Her hair swayed and rustled in the air as her heart pounded its way out of her chest. The air tasted sweeter and her eyes glittered in matchless pleasure. Her lips flashed a winning smile... Emeka drew closer to Chioma, slowly and gracefully, panicking her a little. If Uche caught them, it wouldn’t end well. Her face was starting to flush as his came quite closer to hers, not having the slightest clue what he was about to do... His face wore a self-satisfied smirk, and she flustered. She had no idea what to say or what to do... She subsequently fell into his arms and their eyes locked again as they stared hard into each other's smiling eyes, drawing not a single breath. She could remember them perfectly—they were black brown in color under the full moon that shined so bright. His eyes were so clear, too beautiful and just perfect, more like the blue ocean or the morning sun, or the twilight sky. His orbs danced and sparkled just like the stars twinkling above them...

Thomas glanced back at the stairs, excited nerves leaping in his stomach. “Is Eliza coming?” After the words escaped his mouth he realized how comical he sounded. Of course she was coming. “I mean to say, is Eliza ready?” A wide grin washed over Kitty’s face, as if she were hiding something. “She’ll be down shortly.” Thomas nodded and rested his fidgety hands on the back of the embroidered chair. Nathaniel led Kitty to the other seat and helped her to sit. At that moment, the dainty tap of Eliza’s shoes on the stairs forced Thomas to whirl around. Nathaniel came up behind him. “Steady, boy.” Thomas clenched his jaw to keep it from gaping and dropped his hands to his sides. His eyes traced Eliza’s dainty form. She was even more radiant in that gown than he’d imagined and her face glittered with the most magnificent smile he’d ever seen. The fitted gown accentuated her perfect curves and impossibly tiny waist. The white lace around the neckline tickled her creamy skin, while the dusty-pink color drew out the rosy nature of her cheeks and lips. He tried, but he couldn’t stop staring. Her hair was curled like Kitty’s and wrapped with a delicate ribbon that matched the color of her gown. Her creamy complexion and the velvety look of her long neck were so enticing he had to fight the sudden urge to taste it. Eliza curtsied low and dipped her head. Upon rising she lifted her lashes and spoke to him in a tantalizing timbre. “Good evening, Thomas.” Thomas’s heart beat with such profound strength, it ripped every word from his mind. He wanted to say how beautiful she was. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for keeping his distance when she needed him. Even more than that, he wanted to move his face near hers, and inhale her graceful rose scent deep into his lungs before tasting her lips once again. Every appropriate response fled his mind as his blood raced around his body. He bowed. “Good evening, Eliza.” “Do my eyes deceive me?” Nathaniel, back to his charismatic self, pushed Thomas aside and kissed Eliza’s hand as he bowed with dramatic flare. “You are even more alluring than Aphrodite herself, my dear.” Eliza smiled again and giggled low in her throat. “You are too generous, Doctor.” “I am too enamored. You and your sister shine like the stars themselves.” A hearty grin flashed across his proud face. “Shall we go in to dinner?” He took his place beside Kitty and sent a flashing glance to Thomas, no doubt intended to instruct him to make the most of the moment. Thomas could kill himself. Good evening? That’s all he could say? Eliza’s body faced away from him, but she turned in his direction and the rest of her followed, her gown sweeping across the floor. Thomas closed the space between them, offering his arm. “Shall we go in?” Her slender hand grasped his arm. “You look very nice this evening, Thomas.” Thomas’s tongue dried up in his mouth, shriveling his ability to speak. He could never compete with Nathaniel’s theatrical praises. He’d have to just say what he thought. “You’re a vision, Eliza.” Her

And you're right- I don't want nice. I want sparks and fire. I want a romance novel. A Jane Austen movie. A fairy tale.

mother was under virtual sentence of death, and Vicky flew to the bedside and knelt beside her. ‘Oh, Mama,’ she whispered, stricken with guilt. ‘I should have been here.’ Juba heated rounded river stones in the open fire and wrapped them in blankets. They packed them around Robyn’s body, and then covered her with four karosses of wild fur. She fought weakly to throw off the covers, but Mungo held her down. Despite the internal heat of the fever and the external temperature of the hot stones trapped under the furs, her skin was burning dry and her eyes had the flat blind glitter of water-worn rock crystal. Then as the sun touched the tree-tops and the light in the room turned to sombre orange, the fever broke and oozed from the pores of her marble pale skin like the juice of crushed sugar cane from the press. The sweat came up in fat shining beads across her forehead and chin, each drop joining with the others until they ran in thick oily snakes back into her hair, soaking it as though she had been held under water. It ran into her eyes, faster than Mungo could wipe it away. It poured down her neck and wetted and matted the fur of the kaross. It soaked through the thin mattress and pattered like rain on the hard dry floor below. The temperature of her body plunged dramatically, and when the sweat had passed, Juba and the twins sponged her naked body. She had dehydrated and wasted, so that the rack of her ribs stood out starkly, and her pelvis formed a bony hollowed basin. They handled her with exaggerated care, for any rough movement might rupture the delicate damaged walls of the renal blood vessels and bring on the torrential haemorrhage which so often ended this disease. When

I sobbed out the story of the day thus far, too far gone in my relief to see Drake to care that I was watering his tux again. “Kincsem, I understand that it was difficult to be banished in that way. I do not understand why you believe your hands are possessed, but I am confident you will fill me in on that aspect of your day. We must leave now, however. I cannot protect this house, and I will not have you at further risk.” I sniffled and accepted the tissues that he had recently started carrying. “I know. And I want to go. I’m just so glad you’re here. Sometimes things get so overwhelming, and only when you’re around do I feel better.” Drake tipped my chin up, his eyes sparkling with a brilliant emerald light. “That has to be one of the nicest things you’ve said to me. You have made yourself necessary to me, as well.” I balled up my fingers and punched him in the stomach. He laughed as he rubbed his belly, then pulled me tightly against his chest. “All right, I will say it, but you must make note that this fulfills the requirement for the day.” “Too much talking and not enough kissing,” I said as I grabbed his head and pulled it down to me. His kiss was as hot as his dragon fire, scorching more than just my lips. His tongue danced along mine, driving me into squirming against him, wanting what only he could give me. “Give it,” I whispered into his mouth, and quivered to the tips of my toes when he opened his mouth and let his fire sweep through me. It blazed a trail along my veins, burning my blood, carrying me along in an inferno of desire, love, and need. “I love you more than all the treasures of the world, Aisling. Our love will burn for an eternity until we have taken our last breaths, and even then it will continue to shine as a testament to that which we are together, a beacon of passion for all to see like a glittering star in the darkness of the night sky.” “You sure know how to sweep a girl off her feet,” I said, kissing the corners of his delectable mouth as his dragon fire faded away. I felt empty inside without it, as if a part of me was missing, a sadness so profound it made my soul weep. “I love you, too.” “We must leave. I do not like this place.” “I know the feeling

What am I searching for? Maybe its the beliefs I had as a child, that the world is a nice place, that people are genuinely who they say they are, that life is not simply what it is, where the sun shines and the stars glitter for me. Where am I going? I do not know but maybe I am just searching for those beliefs that lead to a happy ending...

You don’t shine in the light, so why keep running from what makes you gloriously radiant? To deny darkness within you is to deny the magical sparkly intuitive rain-bow of light that lives and moves inside your essence. One does not exist without the other. Stop running from that part of your soul and start letting your star-light glitter!

When she turned to accept her crown from Gwyndolyn, Feraan saw that her face was flushed from drink and excitement. Her pale hair cascaded over her shoulders, shining like glittering moonlight. She was warm and soft, and he knew that because he had felt her lips before. The green stems from her flower crown rested above her pointed ears, and though Caelfel was not the picture of nobility, Feraan could admit she was beautiful.

Rancorous ivy. On the other side of the wall, at the edge of the river, the sand burned. The river lay afire. Kingfishers fell like spots across the eyes and laughter was yellow. Every Sunday Omensetter strolled by the river with his wife, his daughters, and his dog. They came by wagon, spoke to people who were off to church, and while Furber preached, they sprawled in the gravel and trailed their feet in the water. Lucy Omensetter lay her swollen body on a flat rock. Furber felt the sun lapping at her ears. It was like a rising blush, and his hands trembled when he held them out to make the bars of the cross. May the Lord bless you and keep you . . . He closed his eyes, drifting off. They would see how moved he was, how intense and sincere he was. Cause His light to shine upon you . . . He would find the footprints of the dog and imprint of their bodies. All the days of your life . . . The brazen parade of her infected person. Watchman. Rainbows like rings of oil around her. Watchman. Shouldn’t we be? I spy you, Fatty, behind the tree. He wanted to rub the memory from his eyes. Glittering. Beads of water stood on her skin and drop fled into drop until they broke and ran, the streaks finally fading. Her navel was inside out—sweet spot where Zeus had tied her. She was so white and glistening, so . . . pale, though darker about the eyes, the nipples dark. Open us to evil. He made a slit in his lids. Burn our hearts. Shawls of sunlight spilled over the backs of the pews. Nay-ked-nessss. The droplets gathered at the point of her elbow and hung there, the sac swelling until it fell and spattered on her foot. Nay . . . nay. To enclose her like the water of the creek had closed her. Nay . . . Proper body for a lover. Joy to be a stone. Please, the peep-watch is over. Please hurry now. Hurry. Get out of my church.

She pressed her fingertips to the cold glass. Outside the night was beautiful but frozen. The trees were still as statues. Above the trees swung a little star, glittering in the deep dark of the night, sometimes obscured by the scurrying cloud, sometimes shining bright, growing in strength.

Chapter 1 A lot of people lounge by pools in L.A., but few of them are truly immortal, no matter how hard they pretend with plastic surgery and exercise. Doyle was truly immortal and had been for over a thousand years. A thousand years of wars, assassinations, and political intrigue, and he’d been reduced to being eye candy in a thong bathing suit by the pool of the rich and famous. He lay at the edge of the pool, wearing almost nothing. Sunlight glittered across the blue, blue water of the pool. The light broke in a jagged dance across his body, as if some invisible hand stirred the light, turning it into a dozen tiny spotlights that coaxed Doyle’s dark body into colors I’d never known his skin could hold. He wasn’t black the way a human being is black, but more the way a dog is black. Watching the play of light on his skin, I realized I’d been wrong. His skin gleamed with blue highlights, a shine of midnight blue along the long muscular sweep of his calf, a flare of royal blue like a stroke of deep sky touched his back and shoulder. Purple to shame the darkest amethyst caressed his hip. How could I ever have thought his skin monochrome? He was a miracle of colors and light, strapped across a body that rippled and moved with muscles honed in wars fought centuries before I was born.

She was wary, trained to expect little of life, grateful for small pleasures, on her guard against promises, accustomed to making the best of things, in the habit of both wanting and not daring to want something more. Now Miracle Polish has come along, with its air of swagger and its taunting little whisper. Why not? it seemed to say. Why on earth not? But the mirrors that strengthened me, that filled me with new life, made Monica bristle. Did she feel that I preferred a false version of her, a glittering version, to the flesh-and-blood Monica with her Band-Aids and big knees and her burden of sorrows? What drew me was exactly the opposite. In the shining mirrors I saw the true Monica, the hidden Monica, the Monica buried beneath years of discouragement. Far from escaping into a world of polished illusions, I was able to see, in the depths of those mirrors, the world no longer darkened by diminishing hopes and fading dreams. There, all was clear, all was possible.

When Madge returned with his mug of ale and a plate of small sandwiches, he smiled and thanked her for fetching them. "It's my job," she said, shrugging. "It's not like I did something extraordinary that deserves a 'thank you.'" "Why should one have to do something extraordinary to receive a 'thank you' for a job well done?" he asked. "It's called chivalry, Madge, and it is not just for knights in shining armour to use on princesses sitting in the castles with their glittering silks and jewels.

Moses built an altar and named it The Lord is My Banner. —Exodus 17:15 (NAS) When a younger friend wanted to have a mentoring Bible study with me, we selected a book on the names of God revealed throughout Scripture. Together, we discovered how God has made Himself known in names: Creator, God Who Sees, God Most High, All-Sufficient One, the Lord Will Provide, the Lord Is Peace, and many more. The one I especially like is the Lord Is My Banner—Jehovah-nissi. We learned that a banner in the days of the Israelite exodus from Egypt was not the flag we think of today, but a bare pole topped with a shiny ornament that glittered in the desert sun. Early in their journey the Israelites refused to enter the land God had promised when scouts reported the inhabitants were “too strong” and “men of great size” (Numbers 13). But after Moses informed them that their lack of trust was going to cost them forty years of desert wandering, they rethought it. The problem was, they decided on a course of action that did not include God. Jehovah-nissi was not out in front leading the way. The incident was disastrous for them, and they endured forty years of wilderness for failure to follow God. There is a place where God shows His banner. If I am hesitant to follow—or off chasing something else—I could likely end up where I don’t want to be. Going my own way once nearly cost me my family. God’s Jehovah-nissi name is really about protection. God’s way leads to the “path of life” (Psalm 16:11). In following, I am protected. Lord, turn my eyes to where You are shining, and I will have found my way. —Carol Knapp Digging Deeper: Mt 16:24; Jn 8:12

Your eyes are like melted gold,” he whispered. “Cat eyes. Do they shine in the dark? A man could get lost in them,” he said, his voice suddenly rough. --- “You’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. “As exotic as Salome, as graceful as a cat, as simple as the wind… and so damned mysterious. What goes on behind those cat eyes? What are you thinking?” She couldn’t answer; instead she shook her head blindly as fresh tears made her eyes glitter.

I hear that every young lady worth meeting this season is there. And some shine especially bright. There’s one my mother says was such a success this season, she turned down seven marriage proposals. Even one from an Earl!” His eyes glittered, his voice became wistful. “A lady like that must be incredible.” Jude got his love of gossip from his mother. “Or incredibly silly,” Sebastian argued. “Who turns down an Earl?” “Someone who is waiting for love,” Jude considered. “Or someone who can afford to be particular.” Sebastian

The sun had just laid the first orange slices on the horizon. It lit up the manicured grounds of the clubhouse on the rise, the rooftops of the condos in the distance, making the country club look a but like Disney World. Birdie had been to Disney World, but she’d never liked it. It didn’t feel like real life. The view was enough to make a person think that God was smiling on Horatio Balmeade. He would never have to worry about frost, unless it might kill his imported pine trees, which had no business being in Georgia in the first place. A person could assume that his club would never have any problems, that it would always be perfect, and that at some point it was inevitable it would swallow up the mess of the orchard. But Birdie saw it differently. She took it as a good omen that the sun, though it was shining on Horatio Balmeade and all of his glittering property, was the exact same color every morning. That is, it was the exact same color as peaches.

November The month of the drowned dog. After long rain the land Was sodden as the bed of an ancient lake, Treed with iron and bridles. In the sunk lane The ditch - a seep silent all summer - Made brown foam with a big voice: that, and my boots On the lane's scrubbed stones, in the gulleyed leaves, Against the hill's hanging silence; Mist silvering the droplets on bare thorns Slower than the change of daylight. In a let of the ditch a tramp was bundled asleep; Face tucked down into beard, drawn in Under his hair like a hedgehog's. I took him for dead, But his stillness separated from the death Of the rotting grass on the ground. A wind chilled, And a fresh comfort tightened through him, Each hand stuffed deeper into the other sleeve. His ankles, bound with sacking and hairy band, Rubbed each other, resettling. The wind hardened; A puff shook a glittering from the thorns, And against the rains' dragging grey columns Smudged the farms. In a moment The fields were jumping and smoking; the thorns Quivered, riddled with the glassy verticals. I stayed on under the welding cold Watching the tramp's face glisten and the drops on his coat Flash and darken. I thought what strong trust Slept in him - as the trickling furrows slept, And the thorn-roots in their grip on darkness; And the buried stones, taking the weight of winter; The hill where the hare crouched with clenched teeth. Rain plastered the land till it was shining Like hammered lead, and I ran, and in the rushing wood Shuttered by a black oak leaned. The keeper's gibbet had owls and hawks By the neck, weasels, a gang of cats, crows: Some stiff, weightless, twirled like dry bark bits In the drilling rain. Some still had their shape, Had their pride with it; hung, chins on chests Patient to outwait these worst days that beat Their crowns bare and dripped from their feet.

As a general matter we find it hard to be really at home with things that shine and glitter. The Westerner uses silver and steel and nickel tableware, and polishes it to a fine brilliance, but we object to the practice. While we do sometimes indeed use silver for teakettles, decanters, or sake cups, we prefer not to polish it. On the contrary, we begin to enjoy it only when the luster has worn off, when it has begun to take on a dark, smoky patina. Almost every householder has had to scold an insensitive maid who has polished away the tarnish so patiently waited for.

Splashing Fireworks by Maisie Aletha Smikle Like earthly stars Fireworks lit the skies Flashing in magnificent grandeur Showing off Its beauty and its splendor Like the colors of the rainbow Sparks flew some violet blue Swimming floating gliding Like starry streams colliding Joining in an ocean of air Then spectacularly disappear Sprinkling glows and glitters Of shining starry litters Glowing and hovering gracefully in the air We sat on a chair And watched and cheer To behold fireworks so dear Mystical magical elliptical Burst of lights so hypnotical Splendidly arrayed beams Appear in glowing streams Showers of light with its mist Mystically disperse without a twist As sporadic lights focus in a parabolic embrace To disseminate in space A precious sight and delight It is to behold fireworks dark at night And to glimpse the bright And beautiful light Oh such graceful outlay Of lights in an array Its beauty to portray The fireworks on display

Grapefruit isn't usually my favorite fruit, even in the citrus family," he said, thoughtful. "But this is something else." He was right. It should have been a simple, maybe even boring dish: grapefruit shaved ice, with thin slices of candied grapefruit and mint leaves on top, all heaped into a frozen grapefruit skin. "I think the word you're looking for is transcendent." Somehow the dish was a thousand times greater than the sum of its parts. Each bite of ice literally melted away in my mouth, transforming into something luscious and concentrated, something that brought me right back to being a little kid in my mom's lap, asking for a spoonful of the grapefruit half she'd sprinkled with sugar. But even better. And it was beautiful, too. I was already imagining the way the miniature shards of ice would glitter in my photo, the way the crystallized grapefruit slices would shine like jewels, how the green shreds of mint would keep it from looking too much like something you'd want to wear around your neck.

But she must have another kind of magic at work because she didn’t seem to feel the pain long. Within moments, her blade flashed up, shining in the early morning sunlight. Silver and bright, it glittered like a jewel—a jewel, I knew with complete certainty, she would drive through my heart if given the opportunity.

Every glittering stone, like every shining metal, is not precious.

Then a Prophet shall arise among you, a dreamer of dreams. He shall shine like the brightness of the Land of Light, and those who follow him shall glitter like the stars forever and ever. --from The Prophecies of Tchang by Bajakesh, Dragonlord of Dumnonia in Dragon Heart.

The water rose up from the swiftly flowing river at the bottom of the Hararscrape, and from where they crouched the setting sun, shining through this curtain of mist, tore the sky into glittering gold, red and purple.

Nennius tells us, what Gildas omits, the name of the British soldier who won the crowning mercy of Mount Badon, and that name takes us out of the mist of dimly remembered history into the daylight of romance. There looms, large, uncertain, dim but glittering, the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Somewhere in the Island a great captain gathered the forces of Roman Britain and fought the barbarian invaders to the death. Around him, around his name and his deeds, shine all that romance and poetry can bestow. Twelve battles, all located in scenes untraceable, with foes unknown, except that they were heathen, are punctiliously set forth in the Latin of Nennius. Other authorities say, “No Arthur; at least, no proof of any Arthur.” It was only when Geoffrey of Monmouth six hundred years later was praising the splendours of feudalism and martial aristocracy that chivalry, honour, the Christian faith, knights in steel and ladies bewitching, are enshrined in a glorious circle lit by victory. Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson. True or false, they have gained an immortal hold upon the thoughts of men. It is difficult to believe it was all an invention of a Welsh writer. If it was he must have been a marvellous inventor. Modern research has not accepted the annihilation of Arthur. Timidly but resolutely the latest and best-informed writers unite to proclaim his reality. They cannot tell when in this dark period he lived, or where he held sway and fought his battles. They are ready to believe however that there was a great British warrior, who kept the light of civilisation burning against all the storms that beat, and that behind his sword there sheltered a faithful following of which the memory did not fail. All four groups of the Celtic tribes which dwelt in the tilted uplands of Britain cheered themselves with the Arthurian legend, and each claimed their own region as the scene of his exploits. From Cornwall to Cumberland a search for Arthur’s realm or sphere has been pursued.The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning. One specimen of this method will suffice: "It is reasonably certain that a petty chieftain named Arthur did exist, probably in South Wales. It is possible that he may have held some military command uniting the tribal forces of the Celtic or highland zone or part of it against raiders and invaders (not all of them necessarily Teutonic). It is also possible that he may have engaged in all or some of the battles attributed to him; on the other hand, this attribution may belong to a later date." This is not much to show after so much toil and learning. Nonetheless, to have established a basis of fact for the story of Arthur is a service which should be respected. In this account we prefer to believe that the story with which Geoffrey delighted the fiction-loving Europe of the twelfth century is not all fancy. If we could see exactly what happened we should find ourselves in the presence of a theme as well founded, as inspired, and as inalienable from the inheritance of mankind as the Odyssey or the Old Testament. It is all true, or it ought to be; and more and better besides. And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round. Let us then declare that King Arthur and his noble knights, guarding the Sacred Flame of Christianity and the theme of a world order, sustained by valour, physical strength, and good horses and armour, slaughtered innumerable hosts of foul barbarians and set decent folk an example for all time.

Be like glitter, shine everywhere people put you in and put you on.

They glittered now, harmless tripod towers of shining metal, in the brightness of the rising sun.

• “sounding much more like himself and at the same time nothing like himself at all” 28 “Pray tell,” Michael echoed, smirking at John with the confidence of a man who has just been catapulted miraculously out of trouble by someone else who has had the misfortune of stumbling into it.” 45 “She lay on her simple cot and stared up at the bare ceiling, a thousand thoughts and memories swirling through her mind like a rainbow of glittering debutantes, each idea more enticing that the last, all jostling for her attention.”46 “She met his regard with a confident, upward tilt of her chin, and discovered in doing so that his eyes were the exact blue of the forget-me-not. This irked her considerably. It wasn’t right that such an indecent man should have such a memorable gaze.” 56 “Wendy knew, however, that sometimes the best way to win an argument was to not engage in it.” 63 “Michael was dressed for the occasion in a pair of tall black boots, polished to such a shine that they could have turned Medusa herself to stone if no mirrors were handy, and the coat was his very best—which is to say, the one upon which he received the most frequent compliments from the ladies.” 67 “He would have burned the entire report to ash and returned it to her in a snuff box, just to make a point, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.” 99 “Ever since the first time he had done so (which had been a bit of an accident), he had been practicing the move, trying to make it faster and even more heart-stopping every time and leaving knee-shaped depressions all across the southeastern fields of England.” 108 “Are you ready to come with me to the ship?” he asked, his voice more gentle than she had ever heard it.” 112 Contemplating the form of his [hook’s] punishment made for a welcome distraction. “Daily bootlicking at dawn. Literally,” he countered. “Followed by mornings of barnacle scraping, lunches of rock soup, afternoons of button polishing, and sea ration suppers.” 152 “I’m Lieutenant John Abbot.” John stressed the lieutenant bit, just for good measure. He knew Wendy had a predilection for science, and he found himself hoping that particular fondness did not extend equally to scientists.” 153 “She had waited so long and worked so hard to reach this place, to stand on the deck of this ship, that she hadn’t noticed how incredible her life had already become.” 169

There looms, large, uncertain, dim but glittering, the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Somewhere in the Island a great captain gathered the forces of Roman Britain and fought the barbarian invaders to the death. Around him, around his name and his deeds, shine all that romance and poetry can bestow. Twelve battles, all located in scenes untraceable, with foes unknown, except that they were heathen, are punctiliously set forth in the Latin of Nennius. Other authorities say, “No Arthur; at least, no proof of any Arthur.” It was only when Geoffrey of Monmouth six hundred years later was praising the splendours of feudalism and martial aristocracy that chivalry, honour, the Christian faith, knights in steel and ladies bewitching, are enshrined in a glorious circle lit by victory. Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson. True or false, they have gained an immortal hold upon the thoughts of men.

He had given in to the idea that because he’d once been lonely and lost, he always would be. He’d believed that love was for fools who couldn’t see the inevitable ending. That hope was always going to die, spitted on someone’s sword. But the tales he’d told himself weren’t just wrong—they were dangerously wrong. They were pain and fear buffed to shine until they glittered like truth.

Test your senses of knowledge; stars are stars in every frame and sense. Never run after those since all the glitter stars are just the stones that, shine of the sun.

The water shines. It has no dimension. I cannot tell whether it is higher or lower than the hill where I am standing. Water, air, and light, float upward together. This is the world of the sky, of the east wind, of the ancestral sea. There is a strange breathlessness in the air. The body is lifted up by the joy of arrival, by the voice of the curlew, by the soaring cries of the gulls. The sky has descended. All things are set apart, made distant. They have a different life, a remoteness they do not possess inland. The sea has risen. Its charismatic glitter towers above.

The Aztec Religion “Huitzilopochtli is first in rank, no one, no one is like unto him: not vainly do I sing (his praises) coming forth in the garb of our ancestors; I shine; I glitter.” —The Hymn of Huitzilopochtli

Now when the first Vingilot was set to sail in the seas of heaven, it rose unlooked for, glittering and bright; and the people of Middle-earth beheld it from afar and wondered, and they took it for a sign, and called it Gil-Estel, the Star of High Hope. And when this new star was seen at evening, Maedhros spoke to Maglor his brother, and he said: 'Surely that is a Silmaril that shines not in the West?' And Maglor answered: 'If it be truly the Silmaril which we saw cast into the sea that rises again by the power of the Valar, then let us be glad: for its glory is seen now by many, and yet secure from all evil.' Then the Elves looked up, and despaired no longer; but Morgoth was filled with doubt.

Honest is how I want to look. The truth doesn't glitter and shine. Here's my passive aggression in action. My idea is to make ugly work in my favor. Establish a low baseline for contrast with my later on. Before and After. The frog and the prince.

Each of us is aware that the glittering particles in the air of the factory are dangerous. The whirling fans that spread the shine do not help our odds. We are confined by the knowledge: every job kills you eventually. Some jobs kill you with a single carefully weighted bullet, while others kill you slowly by floating the pieces and particles of metal over time.

Be careful of your Golden Glitter It may shine upon your Baby Sitter

Vanessa stood on the stage now giving out CDs and T-shirts to outstretched hands. She was dressed as a devil, in a slinky red dress. Glitter made her perfect tanned skin shine. Her blond hair was held back by devil horns and a long sinuous tail twitched behind her. She had lined her large blue eyes with tiny silver gems for this night.

The Paltry Nude Starts On A Spring Voyage" But not on a shell, she starts, Archaic, for the sea. But on the first-found weed She scuds the glitters, Noiselessly, like one more wave. She too is discontent And would have purple stuff upon her arms, Tired of the salty harbors, Eager for the brine and bellowing Of the high interiors of the sea. The wind speeds her on, Blowing upon her hands And watery back. She touches the clouds, where she goes, In the circle of her traverse of the sea. Yet this is meagre play In the scrurry and water-shine, As her heels foam— Not as when the goldener nude Of a later day Will go, like the centre of sea-green pomp, In an intenser calm, Scullion of fate, Across the spick torrent, ceaselessly, Upon her irretrievable way.

And of the shining sword, and of the glittering spear, and of a multitude slain, and of a grievous destruction: and there is no end of carcasses, and they shall fall down on their dead bodies. 4 Because of the multitude of the for nications of the harlot that was beauti ful and agreeable, and that made use of witchcraft, that sold nations through her fornications, and families through her witchcrafts.

The houses were left vacant on the land, and the land was vacant because of this. Only the tractor sheds of corrugated iron, silver and gleaming, were alive; and they were alive with metal and gasoline and oil, the disks of the plows shining. The tractors had lights shining, for there is no day and night for a tractor and the disks turn the earth in the darkness and they glitter in the daylight. And when a horse stops work and goes into the barn there is a life and a vitality left, there is a breathing and a warmth, and the feet shift on the straw, and the jaws champ on the hay, and the ears and the eyes are alive. There is a warmth of life in the barn, and the heat and smell of life. But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the ore it came from. The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse. Then the corrugated iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is dead. And this is easy and efficient. So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of land and the working of it, and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation. And in the tractor man there grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who has little understanding and no relation. For nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates; and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis. The man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself. When the corrugated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land.

like he hadn’t just shattered me with one sentence.

All quiet along the Potomac,” they say, “Except, now and then, a stray picket Is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket. ’Tis nothing—a private or two, now and then, Will not count in the news of the battle; Not an officer lost—only one of the men Moaning out, all alone, his death-rattle.” * * * * * * All quiet along the Potomac to-night, Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; Their tents, in the rays of the clear autumn moon Or the light of the watch-fire, are gleaming. A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind Through the forest-leaves softly is creeping; While stars up above, with their glittering eyes, Keep guard—for the army is sleeping. There’s only the sound of the lone sentry’s tread, As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed Far away in the cot on the mountain. His musket falls slack—his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep— For their mother—may Heaven defend her! The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then, That night, when the love yet unspoken Leaped up to his lips—when low-murmured vows Were pledged to be ever unbroken. Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes, He dashes off tears that are welling, And gathers his gun closer up to its place, As if to keep down the heart-swelling. He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree, The footstep is lagging and weary; Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light, Toward the shade of the forest so dreary. Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves? Was it moonlight so suddenly flashing? It looked life a rifle—“Ha! Mary, good-by!” And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing. All quiet along the Potomac to-night, No sound save the rush of the river; While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead— The picket’s off duty forever!

It's not what you have on the outside that glitters in light, it's what you have on the inside that shines in the dark,

1. After dark, stars glisten like ice, and the distance they span Hides something elemental. Not God, exactly. More like Some thin-hipped glittering Bowie-being—a Starman Or cosmic ace hovering, swaying, aching to make us see. And what would we do, you and I, if we could know for sure That someone was there squinting through the dust, Saying nothing is lost, that everything lives on waiting only To be wanted back badly enough? Would you go then, Even for a few nights, into that other life where you And that first she loved, blind to the future once, and happy? Would I put on my coat and return to the kitchen where my Mother and father sit waiting, dinner keeping warm on the stove? Bowie will never die. Nothing will come for him in his sleep Or charging through his veins. And he’ll never grow old, Just like the woman you lost, who will always be dark-haired And flush-faced, running toward an electronic screen That clocks the minutes, the miles left to go. Just like the life In which I’m forever a child looking out my window at the night sky Thinking one day I’ll touch the world with bare hands Even if it burns. 2. He leaves no tracks. Slips past, quick as a cat. That’s Bowie For you: the Pope of Pop, coy as Christ. Like a play Within a play, he’s trademarked twice. The hours Plink past like water from a window A/C. We sweat it out, Teach ourselves to wait. Silently, lazily, collapse happens. But not for Bowie. He cocks his head, grins that wicked grin. Time never stops, but does it end? And how many lives Before take-off, before we find ourselves Beyond ourselves, all glam-glow, all twinkle and gold? The future isn’t what it used to be. Even Bowie thirsts For something good and cold. Jets blink across the sky Like migratory souls. 3. Bowie is among us. Right here In New York City. In a baseball cap And expensive jeans. Ducking into A deli. Flashing all those teeth At the doorman on his way back up. Or he’s hailing a taxi on Lafayette As the sky clouds over at dusk. He’s in no rush. Doesn’t feel The way you’d think he feels. Doesn’t strut or gloat. Tells jokes. I’ve lived here all these years And never seen him. Like not knowing A comet from a shooting star. But I’ll bet he burns bright, Dragging a tail of white-hot matter The way some of us track tissue Back from the toilet stall. He’s got The whole world under his foot, And we are small alongside, Though there are occasions When a man his size can meet Your eyes for just a blip of time And send a thought like SHINE SHINE SHINE SHINE SHINE Straight to your mind. Bowie, I want to believe you. Want to feel Your will like the wind before rain. The kind everything simply obeys, Swept up in that hypnotic dance As if something with the power to do so Had looked its way and said: Go ahead.

Inside the doorway the passage gleamed as if it were lined with a network of steel. On a second glance, Syme saw that the glittering pattern was really made up of ranks and ranks of rifles and revolvers, closely packed or interlocked. “I must ask you to forgive me all these formalities,” said Gregory; “we have to be very strict here.” “Oh, don’t apologise,” said Syme. “I know your passion for law and order,” and he stepped into the passage lined with the steel weapons. With his long, fair hair and rather foppish frock-coat, he looked a singularly frail and fanciful figure as he walked down that shining avenue of death.

Has it ever occurred to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes." He ran an eye over the hilt, plain cold metal scored with faint grooves for a good grip, glinting in the torchlight. "But a sword... a sword has a voice." "Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy's ear." He wrapped his fingers tightly round the grip. "A gentle warning. A word of caution. Do you hear it?" Logen nodded slowly. "Now," murmured Bayaz, "compare it to the sword half-drawn." A foot length of metal hissed out of the sheath, a single silver letter shining near the hilt. The blade itself was dull, but its edge had a cold and frosty glint. "It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?" Logen nodded again, his eye fastened on that glittering edge. "Now compare it to the sword full drawn." Bayaz whipped the long blade from its sheath with a faint ringing sound, brought it up so that the point hovered inches from Logen's face. "It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it?

That night in our tent, Justin told me how, ten thousand years ago, human beings were migrant—we were like the birds. The average human would see only about a hundred people in her lifetime and would know each one profoundly, deeply bonded. Today, humans in cities will see a hundred beings in just minutes, naming them strangers, a dehumanizing designation. The next morning, I woke to wet rocks glittering in the slanted light, the day’s warmth shining in bars through the sparse canopy of maples. Happy here, I began to fear our next destination, hectic Manhattan—a surreal flip to witnessing ten thousand people a day. In these deep thickets, we walked a path that was streamlined, simple and clear.

My wife and I can't recall how many years we've been married, but we'll never forget our first backpacking trip together. We'd just begun dating and I was her trail-hardened outdoorsman, a knight in shining Cordura, the guy who could handle any wilderness emergency. She was my...well, let's just say I was bent on making a good impression. This was her first backpacking experience and I wanted to have many more with her as my hiking partner. I'd checked and double-checked everything--trail conditions, equipment, weather forecast. I even bought a new stove for the occasion. We set off under overcast skies with packs loaded and spirits high. There was precipitation in the forecast, but it was November and too early for snow, I assured her. (Did I mention that we were just a few miles south of Mount Washington, home to the worst, most unpredictable weather in the Northeast?) As we climbed the few thousand feet up a granite ridge, the trail steadily steepened and we strained a bit under our loads. On top, a gentle breeze pushed a fluffy, light snowfall. The flakes were big and chunky, the kind you chase with your mouth open. Certainly no threat, I told her matter-of-factly. After a few miles, the winds picked up and the snowflakes thickened into a swirling soup. The trail all but dissolved into a wall of white, so I pulled out my compass to locate the three-sided shelter that was to be our base for the night. Eventually we found it, tucked alongside a gurgling freshet. The winds were roaring no, so I pitched our tent inside the shelter for added protection. It was a tight fit, with the tent door only two feet from the log end-wall, but at least we were out of the snowy gale. To ward off the cold and warm my fair belle, I pulled my glittering stove from its pouch, primed it, and confidently christened the burner with a match. She was awestruck by my backwoods wizardry. Color me smug and far too confident. That's when I noticed it: what appeared to be water streaming down the side of the stove. My new cooker's white-gas fuel was bathing the stove base. It was also drenching the tent floor between us and the doorway--the doorway that was zipped tightly shut. A headline flashed through my mind: "Brainless Hikers Toasted in White Mountains." The stove burst into flames that ran up the tent wall. I grabbed a wet sock, clutched the stove base with one hand, and unzipped the tent door with the other. I heaved the hissing fireball through the opening, assuming that was the end of the episode, only to hear a thud as it hit the shelter wall before bouncing back inside to melt some more nylon. My now fairly unimpressed belle grabbed a pack towel and doused the inferno. She breathed a huge sigh of relief, while I swallowed a pound of three of pride. We went on to have a thoroughly disastrous outing. The weather pounded us into submission. A full day of storm later with no letup in sight, we decided to hike out. Fortunately, that slippery, slithery descent down a snowed-up, iced-over trail was merely the end of our first backpacking trip together and not our relationship. --John Viehman

All that is gold does not glitter. Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

I don't know if this is what happens right before you die. Everything I have ever experienced is made crystalline. Nothing hurts any more. Hundreds upon thousands of moments glitter in unison, like snowflakes whose elaborate shapes are in full view. How is this possible, I can't say. My every pain and joy, all my deep-rooted sorrows and loves, shine, not as an amalgam but as a whole comprised of distinct singularities, glowing together as one giant nebula.

Laura asked me to read this poem to you today. As you know, she loved poetry, and when she found this piece she knew right away it was what she wanted to share with all of you: “I give you this one thought to keep. I am with you still. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on the snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awake in the morning’s hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night Do not think of me as gone. I am with you still in each new dawn.

Something that made her sure she was no longer in the Appalachian country she had always known. 4 It was a white tiger, coat tipped with black, fin-shaped markings. It rolled its head and roared, sounding like the MGM lion. Behind it soared a tree—a Tree—bursting up from the earth in a tangle of a hundred trunks that twisted into a looming, sprawling fountain of branches, dripping with leaves and curling mosses, alive with the flitting bodies of tropical birds. A massive red snake, shining and glittering, coursed up the center. The fox trotted up to a gaping split in the bole, tossed a somehow roguish look at Jeanette, and vanished into the depths. That was it, that was the tunnel that went both ways. The tunnel that would take her back to the world she had left, the one where Bobby waited. She started toward it. “Stop where you are. And raise your hands.” A woman in a checked yellow button-down and blue jeans stood in grass that came up to her knees, pointing a pistol at Jeanette. She had come around the side of the Tree, which was, at its base, roughly the size of an apartment building. In the hand that wasn’t holding the pistol she had a canister with a blue rubber band around its middle.

Be safe and strong. Never dull your sparkle for anyone else, flame fiercely into your own glittering future. We are not so unlike, you and I. We're hungry girls with hearts made of glass.' Marietta smiled over the shine of threatening tears. 'It's not like you to so freely admire a weakness.' Dellara's grin reappeared, bloodier than before. 'Who said anything about it being a weakness? Nothing can cut like glass.

And do you know why they’re so scared of women like us?” Our gazes met, two sets of glittering eyes shining in shared determination. “Why?” she asked. My answering grin was positively wicked. “Because they damn well should be.

Through fading eyes, Celaena saw a crown of stars glittering atop Elena’s head, her silver armor shining like a beacon in the blackness.

For the first time since this morning I feel myself relax slightly. I love coming up here, not only because it's quiet and most often empty, but because it's beautiful. The rooftop is designed like a garden with bright mandarin trees and slender bamboos and this gnarl looking plant I can't name and fresh jasmine flowers, Ma's favorite, glimmering everywhere like glitter cluster of star, simming the air with their scents. There are even fairy light strung up around the railings and over the wooden swing set in one corner, though I've never stayed late enough to watch them glow. The view's gorgeous too. From here you can see the entire stretch of the school campus and Beijing rising behind it, all that shining glass and steel reflecting the clouds and the sky. This is my trick to surviving new schools, find a space like this, a place where no one can disturb me, and claim it as my own.

They want us to feel small, Eleanor. They want us to be quiet, be predictable, be unimportant, behave. Then they make us think we deserve it. But I think they’re just terrified we’ll stop listening to them and start listening to each other. And do you know why they’re so scared of women like us?” Our gazes met, two sets of glittering eyes shining in shared determination. “Why?” she asked. My answering grin was positively wicked. “Because they damn well should be.

intellect and he’d been flattered at the time. Now he considers the nature of diamonds. Although sharp and glittering and useful for cutting glass, they shine with reflected light only. They’re no use at all in the dark.

THERE’S A PHOTO I KEEP IN THE TOP left-hand drawer of my desk, a little picture in an old lacquered frame. I used to have it out on my desk, but not any more. In the photo, you’re very young – only one or two years old – and I’m holding you in my arms and we’re standing on a hot beach with the sun shining down on us, sea glittering behind us, sky so blue above. My bikini is the brightest neon pink. I remember that bikini. You’re wearing nothing, your plump legs wrapped around my hip, your small hand pressed against my breast. And my ponytail’s slick and dark from the sea, your hair too, a couple of wet curls on the top of your little head. And I’m looking at you and you’re looking back at me, the two of us looking at each other and laughing. And we’re still just babies, both of us. Nothing has happened to us yet.

But none the less, by some unwritten rule, they all quietly listened to the end of the song and, patient and enduring, did not reveal their mood, but only looked into the glasses before them where, on the shining surface of the plum-brandy, they seemed to see the victories so desired, the fights, the heroes, the glory and the glitter, such as existed nowhere in the world.

Her gaze travels across the scene as she waits for him to return, to the clusters of lovely young things curled around one another in little pockets, impenetrable, slightly terrifying, the power and yet the patheticness of them, the know-all- and know-nothing-ness. It’s not just their youth that glitters, she ponders as she watches them, it’s their backgrounds, their innate privilege, the suggestion in the way they touch their hair, the way they hold their drinks, the way they scroll so nonchalantly through their phones. They come from places that aren’t like the places most people come from and they have the high-gloss veneer of money that shines through the scruffiest of exteriors. Sophie comes from modest houses and cars that drive till they die and state schools and weekly Tesco shops and biscuits off plates at her grandma’s flat every Saturday. She hadn’t missed out on anything: there was always food and holidays abroad and shopping trips to Oxford Street and takeaways on Friday nights; there was always enough of everything. Her life was perfect. But it was matte, not gloss.

Through fading eyes, Celaena saw a crown of stars glittering atop Elena’s head, her silver armor shining like a beacon in the blackness. The demons shrieked, and Elena stretched out a hand, golden light bursting from her palm, forming a wall between them and the dead as she rushed to Celaena’s side and cupped her face in her hands.