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His posture spoke of condescension, his expression disinterest. He was all brambles and icicles as he strode closer to her cage.
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Marissa Meyer (Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4))
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In the winter everyones hate was bare if you looked. She saw hate in the icicles that hung from her window; she saw it in the dirty slush on the streets; she heard it in the hail that scratched her window and bit her face; she could see it in the lowered heads hurrying to warm homes β¦
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Hubert Selby Jr. (Last Exit to Brooklyn)
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Of course, when poking the Winter prince,
one had to proceed with caution. There was a fine line
between irritation and having icicles hurled at your
face.
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Julie Kagawa (Summer's Crossing (Iron Fey, #3.5))
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Icicle gave him an amused, arch look. How adorable, a RainWing with a crush on my brother. Winter
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Tui T. Sutherland (Moon Rising (Wings of Fire, #6))
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It is winter, and very cold. There are icicles against the glass, and frost. I am tracing a pattern, before it melts. Before it fades, and is lost for good, like memories
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Suzy Davies (Johari's Window)
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One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns.
Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.
Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.
The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land....
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Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles)
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The icicles wreathing
On trees in festoon
Swing, swayed to our breathing:
Theyβre made of the moon.
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Elinor Wylie
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The day, a compunctious Sunday after a week of blizzards, had been part jewel, part mud. In the midst of my usual afternoon stroll through the small hilly town attached to the girls' college where I taught French literature, I had stopped to watch a family of brilliant icicles drip-dripping from the eaves of a frame house. So clear-cut were their pointed shadows on the white boards behind them that I was sure the shadows of the falling drops should be visible too. But they were not. ("The Vane Sisters")
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Vladimir Nabokov (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now)
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When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit! To-who!βa merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doe blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit! To-who!βa merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
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William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
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When I slept outside in winter, it wasnβt unusual for me to wake up blue in the face with icicles on my nose. In those days, there was no such thing as hypothermia.
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Ozzy Osbourne (I Am Ozzy)
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She saw beauty in ordinary little things and took pleasure in it (and this was just as well because she had had very little pleasure in her life). She took pleasure in a well-made cake, a smoothly ironed napkin, a pretty blouse, laundered and pressed; she liked to see the garden well dug, the rich soil brown and gravid; she loved her flowers. When you are young you are too busy with yourself... you haven't time for ordinary little things but, when you leave youth behind, your eyes open and you see magic and mystery all around you: magic in the flight of a bird, the shape of a leaf, the bold arch of a bridge against the sky, footsteps at night and a voice calling in the darkness, the moment in a theatre before the curtain rises, the wind in the trees, or (in winter) an apple-branch clothed with pure white snow and icicles hanging from from a stone and sparkling with rainbow colours.
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D.E. Stevenson (Vittoria Cottage (Dering Family #1))
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When you die, you don't get to catch snowflakes on your tongue. You don't get to breathe winter in, deep in your lungs. You can't lie in bed and watch for the lights of the passing town plow. You can't suck on an icicle until your forehead hurts.
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Jodi Picoult (The Tenth Circle)
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It was dusk - winter dusk. Snow lay white and shining over the pleated hills, and icicles hung from the forest trees. Snow lay piled on the dark road across Willoughby Wold, but from dawn men had been clearing it with brooms and shovels. There were hundreds of them at work, wrapped in sacking because of the bitter cold, and keeping together in groups for fear of the wolves, grown savage and reckless from hunger.
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Joan Aiken (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (The Wolves Chronicles, #1))
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They say that February is the shortest month, but you know they could be wrong.
Compared, calendar page against calendar page, it looks to be the shortest, all right. Spread between January and March like lard on bread, it fails to reach the crust on either slice. In its galoshes it's a full head shorter than December, although in leap years, when it has growth spurts, it comes up to April's nose.
However more abbreviated than it's cousins it may look, February feels longer than any of them. It is the meanest moon of winter, all the more cruel because it will masquerade as spring, occasionally for hours at a time, only to rip off its mask with a sadistic laugh and spit icicles into every gullible face, behavior that grows quickly old.
February is pitiless, and it's boring. That parade of red numerals on its page adds up to zero: birthdays of politicians, a holiday reserved for rodents, what kind of celebrations are those? The only bubble in the flat champagne of February is Valentine's Day. It was no accident that our ancestors pinned Valentine's day on February's shirt: he or she lucky enough to have a lover in frigid, antsy February has cause for celebration, indeed.
Except to the extent that it "tints the buds and swells the leaves within" February is as useless as the extra r in its name. It behaves like an obstacle, a wedge of slush and mud and ennui holding both progress and contentment at bay.
If February is the color of lard on rye, its aroma is that of wet wool trousers. As for sound, it is an abstract melody played on a squeaky violin, the petty whine of a shrew with cabin fever. O February, you may be little but you're small! Where you twice your tiresome length, few of us would survive to greet the merry month of May.
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Tom Robbins
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The winter traced icicles upon the roofs of houses, turned the land into ivory, lashed the trees with its might. Then it grew silent.
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Silvia Moreno-Garcia (The Lover)
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A Blackberry Winter by Stewart Stafford
Pond ice beneath the hawthorn tree,
Reeds grasping from the frigid sculpture,
Freezing fog clinging to land and foliage,
Nature hindered but still in amelioration.
Horses in crunching frosted footsteps march,
To break the water trough's thick glaze,
And drink thirstily in raw, jagged gulps,
Until the thaw smoothes itself upon milder days.
A swan slips and skates on the icicled river,
Hoarfrost-encrusted rocks a guard of honour,
The Anatidae ascension, maladroit but effective,
Sure to pluck better days from its plumed reign.
Β© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.
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Stewart Stafford
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What builds up castles, tears down mountains, makes some blind, helps others to see? SAND. (Thankee-sai)
What lives in winter, dies in summer, and grows with its roots upward? AN ICICLE. (Blaine, you say true)
Man walks over, man walks under, in time of war he burns asunder? A BRIDGE. (Thankee-sai)
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Stephen King (Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4))
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We have plenty of natural springs in our area. The cool springs have the sweetest water you'll ever taste - hence the name of our town. And it's never too cold for a Montanan to sit in a natural hot spring, even if it means your wet hair turns into icicles."
Her hand rose to cover her mouth, and her eyes widened.
He laughed at her shocked expression.
Pamela lowered her hand.
"Hot springs outdoors? In the winter?"
"Hot springs feel down right good to soak in anytime, especially when the air's cold outside. The hot water soothes sore muscles and is good for what ails you. But I also have a river through my property. I've dammed up a spot that makes for a nice swimming hole when it's hot in the summer."
A blush rose in her cheeks, and she glanced to the side.
"Very refreshing," he teased, just to watch the pink deepen....
Pamela couldn't help the dreamy vision of bathing with him in a hot spring, touching each other as the snowflakes swirled around them. She let out a sigh. So romantic.
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Debra Holland (Beneath Montana's Sky (Mail-Order Brides of the West, #0.5; Montana Sky, #0.5))
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This is the day I begin to hate winter. The snow is a burden, stained brown and black and piled high on the shoulder of the road, eventually freezing into chunks of sharp ice. Rock salt on the road clings to the paint of cars and gives them a ghostly veneer. Pine trees lie between garbage cans with slivers of Christmas tinsel still clinging to the needles, reminding me that the New Year has only just begun. And even when the sky is clear and free of clouds, the sunshine only illuminates dead, brown trees and empty flower beds. This is the day I wish the year would end in November and skip to March.
Icicles hang from the grill of my
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Anthony Muni Jr. (Honestly, I'm Fine)
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Now, there are a few dryadologists who could resist the opportunity to sample faerie food, the enchanted sort served at the tables of the courtly fae---I know several who have dedicated their careers to the subject and would hand over their eye teeth for the opportunity. I stopped at a stand offering toasted cheese---a very strange sort of cheese, threaded with glittering mold. It smelled divine, and the faerie merchant rolled it in crushed nuts before handing it over on a stick, but as soon as it touched my palm, it began to melt. The merchant was watching me, so I put it in my mouth, pantomiming my delight. The cheese tasted like snow and melted within seconds. I stopped next at a stand equipped with a smoking hut. The faerie handed me a delicate fillet of fish, almost perfectly clear despite the smoking. I offered it to Shadow, but he only looked at me with incomprehension in his eyes. And, indeed, when I popped it into my mouth, it too melted flavorlessly against my tongue.
I took a wandering course to the lakeshore, conscious of the need to avoid suspicion. I paused at the wine merchant, who had the largest stand. It was brighter than the others, snow piled up behind it in a wall that caught the lantern light and threw it back in a blinding glitter. I had to look down at my feet, blinking back tears, as one of the Folk pressed an ice-glass into my hand. Like the food, the wine smelled lovely, of sugared apples and cloves, but it slid eerily within the ice, more like oil than wine. Shadow kept growling at it, as he had not with the faerie food, and so I tipped it onto the snow.
Beside the wine merchant was a stand offering trinkets, frozen wildflowers that many of the Folk threaded through their hair or wove through unused buttonholes on their cloaks, as well as an array of jewels with pins in them. I could not compare them to any jewels I knew; they were mostly in shades of white and winter grey, hundreds of them, each impossibly different from the next. I selected one that I knew, without understanding how, was the precise color of the icicles that hung from the stone ledges of the Cambridge libraries in winter. But moments after I pinned it to my breast, all that remained was a patch of damp.
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Heather Fawcett (Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1))
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He hated winter. The same gray sky lay on the ground, day after day, gray as industrial smoke, and in the sky the ground floated like a street that's been salted, and his closets were cold, holes wore through his pockets, and he was lonely, indoors and out, with a loneliness like the loneliness of overshoes or someone else's cough.
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William H. Gass (In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories)
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When you are young you are too busy with yourself β so Caroline thought β you havenβt time for ordinary little things, but, when you leave youth behind, your eyes open and you see magic and mystery all around you: magic in the flight of a bird, the shape of a leaf, the bold arch of a bridge against the sky, footsteps at night and a voice calling in the darkness, the moment in a theatre before the curtain rises, the wind in the trees, or (in winter) an apple-branch clothed with pure white snow and icicles hanging from a stone and sparkling with rainbow colours.
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D.E. Stevenson (Vittoria Cottage (Dering Family #1))
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She lifted her hand to the crystallised branch and stood on tiptoe to break off a single icicle, letting her breath come out in visible wisps as she turned the icicle over, running a finger up and lightly touching the sharp point. Perfect. So natural. So mysterious. Just after a fresh snowfall, everything sure seems so perfect, so clean... so right.
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Justice Tilsher (The Space Between the Seasons)
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Forbearance Arctic breath coils the mountain, Rattling the forestsβ bones. Raindrops cling to branches: Jewelled adornment flung to earth. Trees in winter lose their leaves. Some trees may even fall during storms, but most stand patiently and bear their fortune. They endure rain, snow, wind, and cold. They bear the adornment of glycerin raindrops, glimmering icicles, or crowns of snow without care. They are not concerned when such lustrous splendor is dashed to the ground. They stand, and they wait, the power of their growth apparently dormant. But inside, a burgeoning is building imperceptibly. Theirs is the forbearance of being true to their inner natures. It is with this power that they withstand both the vicissitudes and adornment of life, for neither bad fortune nor good fortune will alter what they are. We should be the same way. We may have great fortune or bad, but we should patiently bear both. No matter what, we must always be true to our inner selves.
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Ming-Dao Deng (365 Tao: Daily Meditations)
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Summary: Winter has been a disappointment to his royal IceWing family, unlike his sister Icicle, who has been raised to challenge the IceWing queen β but now that Icicle has broken the truce and escaped from Jade Mountain Academy, Winter, accompanied by his new clawmates, Moon, Qibli, and Kinkajou, embarks on his own quest to free his brother from the clutches of Queen Scarlet, and win the respect of his family. ISBN
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Tui T. Sutherland (Winter Turning (Wings of Fire, #7))
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Determination drove him to melt her heart; or failing that, shatter it into a million icicles. Either way, she would be his.
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L. Starla (Winter's Mother 1 (Winter's Magic #3))
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Sheβs here,β she whispered. βSheβs in Icicleβs mind. Shhhh.
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Tui T. Sutherland (Winter Turning (Wings of Fire, #7))
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The Hibernal Realm by Stewart Stafford
The compass knows not which way to go,
And Life's submerged in winter's snow,
The path before us fit for sleds,
Dusted with a blizzard's web.
Clear a path and the light the way,
And get us through to break of day,
Step through the ice-encrusted door,
That shows the way to the dawn thaw.
Stay too long in the hibernal realm,
And the chill begins to overwhelm,
Sit, rest, and take respite,
And become at one with fading light.
See The Winter King and then bow down,
With frostbite smile and holly crown,
Icicle sceptre makes the heartbeat slow,
Lonely as the North wind blows.
Β© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.
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Stewart Stafford
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We each share in innumerable physical and emotional experiences. Our like-kind responses to the external world connect every person together whoever walked this earth. Who has not seen death tap dancing amongst the shagged icicles of a winter wonderland? Who has not heard their hearts petals welcome the bloom of springtimeβs opalescence? Who has not experienced the calm of leaves rusting beneath their feet or felt befallen with an overwhelming sense of regeneration after slathered in baptismal wetness by an unexpected rainstorm? Who has not drunk in the smoky smells of leaves burning in October, hunted solace in the singeing embrace of a campfire on a cold winter night, or sought to escape from summers burning blanket of oppression by dunking their overheated stovetop into a mountain stream of clear water? Who has not felt the cold kiss of winter or experienced the melted butter feeling of crawling into bed after a day of hard work? Who is exempt from the punch of hunger in their gut or immune from the enraged screams of an unquenchable thirst? Who has not broken out in a frisson of Goosebumps when passing the graveyard on an ill-omened evening and experienced the electric sensation of ghostly fingernails running down the tapered stem of their spine? Who has not fallen in love at first sight? Who has not danced on the edge of a cliff, stared into the gloom, and asked themselves what if they slipped over the lip? Who has not experienced the existential vertigo, the anxiety of dizziness that freedom brings whenever a human being standing in solitude navigates amongst the tension between the finite and infinite and contemplates the possibility or of the divine shaping reality?
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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Whatβs wrong with you?β Kinkajou blurted. βYou look terrible.β βCould be worse,β Icicle snarled. βI could look like you.
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Tui T. Sutherland (Winter Turning (Wings of Fire, #7))