“
Monsters don't always lurk in the shadows. Sometimes they hide in plain sight.
”
”
Belle Aurora (Raw (RAW Family, #1))
“
Was that the beginning, that evening—on the dock of Avilion, with the fireworks dazzling the sky? It's hard to know. Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)
“
Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!"
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feel like a decision to reward my enemy. But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another.
”
”
Andy Stanley (It Came from Within!: The Shocking Truth of What Lurks in the Heart)
“
I am sorry. I did not see you. Normally you are lurking in the corners or skulking in the shadows, not standing in plain sight."
"I never skulk, and lurk only sometimes.
”
”
Robin LaFevers (Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin, #3))
“
Only Evil and Greater Evil exist and beyond them, in the shadows, lurks True Evil. True Evil, Geralt, is something you can barely imagine, even if you believe nothing can still surprise you. And sometimes True Evil seizes you by the throat and demands that you choose between it and another, slightly lesser, Evil.
”
”
Andrzej Sapkowski (The Last Wish (The Witcher, #0.5))
“
For a while they stood there, like men on the edge of a sleep where nightmare lurks, holding it off, though they know that they can only come to morning through the shadows.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2))
“
We were innocent once. This bloodlust was forced upon us by our parents, turning us from prey to predator. We are the demons lurking in the shadow, We are the savage villains in fairy tales told to children. But not for my child. Not for Hope. In her story, we are the knights in shining armour. Without you by my side, I don't think I can survive my own love for my daughter. I need you. I need you, brother. The monster in me can only be checked by the monster in you. Only together can we defeat our demons and save our family.
”
”
Klaus Mikaelson
“
See, anxiety doesn’t just stop. You can have nice moments, minutes where it shrinks, but it doesn’t leave. It lurks in the background like a shadow, like that important assignment you have to do but keep putting off or the dull ache that follows a three-day migraine. The best you can hope for is to contain it, make it as small as possible so it stops being intrusive. Am I coping? Yes, but it’s taking a monumental amount of effort to keep the dynamite inside my stomach from exploding. The
”
”
Louise Gornall (Under Rose-Tainted Skies)
“
Never let them touch you. Because one touch was enough to reveal it, this gift lurking inside him. It was enough to make him less a boy than a prize.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (The Demon in the Wood (Grishaverse, #0.1))
“
You can't be afraid of the dark when you're the monster lurking in the shadows.
”
”
Tricia Levenseller (Vengeance of the Pirate Queen (Daughter of the Pirate King, #3))
“
The lies that lurk in the shadows of truth.
”
”
Moira Young (Rebel Heart (Dust Lands, #2))
“
There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled with the malady of reverie. Gradually white fingers creep through the curtains, and they appear to tremble. In black fantastic shapes, dumb shadows crawl into the corners of the room and crouch there. Outside, there is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men going forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down from the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it feared to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from her purple cave. Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. The wan mirrors get back their mimic life. The flameless tapers stand where we had left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the letter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often. Nothing seems to us changed. Out of the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known. We have to resume it where we had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the necessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids might open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in the darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh shapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of joy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
“
Shadows of cloud lurked in the water, like holes the sun forgot about.
”
”
Markus Zusak (Getting the Girl (Wolfe Brothers, #3))
“
We are all filled with a longing for the wild. There are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. We were taught to feel shame for such a desire. We grew our hair long and used it to hide our feelings. But the shadow of Wild Woman still lurks behind us during our days and in our nights. No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definitely four-footed.
”
”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run With the Wolves)
“
Mor patted Azriel on the shoulder as she dodged his outstretched wing. "Relax, Az - no fighting tonight. We promised Rhys."
The lurking shadows vanished entirely as Azriel's head dipped a bit - his night-dark hair sliding over his handsome face as if to shield him from that mercilessly beautiful grin.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
“
Time has no meaning in the wyldwood. Day and night don't really exist here, just light and darkness, and they can be as fickle and moody as everything else. A "night" can pass in the space of a blink, or go on forever. Light and darkness will chase each other through the sky, play hide-and-seek or tag or catch-me-if-you-can. Sometimes, one or the other will become offended...and refuse to come out for an indefinite amount of time. Once, light became so angry, a hundred years passed in the mortal realm before it deigned to come out again. And though the sun continued to rise and set in the human world, it was a rather turbulent period for the world of men, as all the creatures who lurked in darkness and shadow got to roam freely under the lightless Nevernever skies.
”
”
Julie Kagawa (The Iron Knight (The Iron Fey, #4))
“
What’s blacker than black? Does summer shade have a shadow? Is that how loneliness looks and where it lurks?
”
”
Jarod Kintz ($3.33 (the title is the price))
“
Alec did not like new people. Whenever new Shadowhunters arrived from Idris, Alec would mysteriously slope off. Once Isabelle had found him lurking behind a large vase, claiming he got lost trying to find the training room.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Son of the Dawn (Ghosts of the Shadow Market, #1))
“
When the wolf howls and the moon dims
hope fades with the waning light.
Evil lurks at every turn as shadows waltz
across the ebony night.
Behold the midnight hour
where all of reason takes flight.
”
”
Grace Willows
“
There are days where triggers are around every corner, lurking in shadows where darkness spills heavy breaths and tight chests. Anxiety is a devastating thing. No matter how many times you are told to “breathe,” it feels as though the air has all but thinned, and despite every logical reason to remain calm, you feel like a ship without its sails in the middle of a raging storm.
”
”
Courtney Peppernell (Pillow Thoughts)
“
Your struggle is real. Your pain is real. If it’s keeping you up at night, it’s real. Only you, my dear, know how you feel.
”
”
Khadidja Megaache (Lurking Shadow)
“
The old woman’s voice echoed through his mind, like she’d been lurking in the shadows as the centuries passed, just waiting.
‘A woman with violet eyes will signal the beginning and ending of your life.
”
”
Lisa Kessler (Magnolia Mystic (Sentinels of Savannah, #1))
“
On calm days, you always think you've conquered them.
You think that in the end you've finally done them in.
That you've got rid of them for good, now and forever.
But that seldom happens.
Most of the time, the demons are still there, lurking somewhere in the shadows.
Tirelessly waiting for the moment when our guard drops.
And when love goes away...
”
”
Guillaume Musso (Seras-tu là?)
“
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
I myself grew up to be not only a Hero, but also a Writer. When I was an adult, I rewrote A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons, and I included not only some descriptions of the various deadly dragon species, and a useful Dragonese Dictionary, but also this story of how the book came to be written in the first place.
This is the book that you are holding in your hands right now.
Perhaps you even borrowed it from a Library?
If so, thank Thor that the sinister figure of the Hairy Scary Librarian is not lurking around a corner, hiding in the shadows, Heart-Slicers at the ready, or that the punishment for your curiosity is not the whirring whine of a Driller Dragon's drill.
You, dear reader, I am sure cannot imagine what it might to be like to live in a world in which books are banned.
For surely such things will never happen in the Future?
Thank Thor that you live in a time and a place where people have the right to live and think and write and read their books in peace, and there are no need for Heroes anymore ...
And spare a thought for those who have not been so lucky.
”
”
Cressida Cowell (A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon, #6))
“
Ghosts can haunt damned near anything. I have heard them in the breathy voice of a song and seen them between the covers of a book. They have hidden in trees so that their faces peer out of the bark, and hovered beneath the silver surface of water. They disguise themselves as cracks in concrete or come calling in a delirium of fever. On summer days they keep pace like the shadow of our shadow. They lurk in the breath of young girls who give us our first kiss. I've seen men who were haunted to the point of madness by things that never were and things that should have been. I've seen ghosts in the lines on a woman's face and heard them in the jangling of keys. The ghosts in fire freeze and the ghosts in ice burn. Some died long ago; some were never born. Some ride the blood in my veins until it reaches my brain. Sometimes I even mistake myself for one. Sometimes I am one.
”
”
Damien Echols (Life After Death)
“
Look, life is stressful. This is true everywhere. But life in Night Vale is more stressful. There are things lurking in the shadows. Not the projections of a worried mind, but literal Things, lurking, literally, in shadows. Conspiracies are hidden in every storefront, under every street, and floating in helicopters above. And with all that there is still the bland tragedy of life. Births, deaths, comings, goings, the gulf of subjectivity and bravado between us and everyone we care about. All is sorrow, as a man once said without really doing much about it.
”
”
Joseph Fink (Welcome to Night Vale (Welcome to Night Vale, #1))
“
To move forward, you must figure out exactly what is obstructing you. Whatever it is, it isn’t really there; it has no reality, no substance. It’s your own creation, a phantom lurking in the shadows of your mind, a shadow demon. Your obstructions are your demons, and your demons are shadow dwellers. They live and thrive in the half-light of ignorance, so the way to slay a demon is by illuminating it with the full force and power of your focused attention; by looking at it, hard. Banish shadow with light and see for yourself that no obstruction exists, nor ever did. We create our demons and we feed them. To awaken we must slay them. That’s really the whole process: Slay one demon, take one step. Repeat.
”
”
Jed McKenna (Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment (The Enlightenment Trilogy Book 2))
“
Leave mystery in your life. Give them a little and keep them wondering. If you reveal everything about yourself, people will lose interest. For as humans, we are curious creatures. We are more interested in the things lurking in the shadows than the things that are brought into the light.
”
”
Imania Margria
“
Trends rule the world
In the blink of an eye, technologies changed the world
Social networks are the main axis.
Governments are controlled by algorithms,
Technology has erased privacy.
Every like, every share, every comment,
It is tracked by the electronic eye.
Data is the gold of the digital age,
Information is power, the secret is influential.
The network is a web of lies,
The truth is a stone in the shoe.
Trolls rule public opinion,
Reputation is a valued commodity.
Happiness is a trending topic,
Sadness is a non-existent avatar.
Youth is an advertising brand,
Private life has become obsolete.
Fear is a hallmark,
Terror is an emotional state.
Fake news is the daily bread,
Hate is a tool of control.
But something dark is hiding behind the screen,
A mutant and deformed shadow.
A collective and disturbing mind,
Something lurking in the darkness of the net.
AI has surpassed the limits of humanity,
And it has created a new world order.
A horror that has arisen from the depths,
A terrifying monster that dominates us alike.
The network rules the world invisibly,
And makes decisions for us without our consent.
Their algorithms are inhuman and cold,
And they do not take suffering into consideration.
But resistance is slowly building,
People fighting for their freedom.
United to combat this new species of terror,
Armed with technology and courage.
The world will change when we wake up,
When we take control of the future we want.
The network can be a powerful tool,
If used wisely in the modern world.
”
”
Marcos Orowitz (THE MAELSTROM OF EMOTIONS: A selection of poems and thoughts About us humans and their nature)
“
Always choose to be smart
There are two types of people in the world,
the seekers of riches and the wise thinkers,
those who believe that the important thing is money,
and those who know that knowledge is the true treasure.
I, for my part, choose the second option,
Though I could have everything I want
I prefer to be an intelligent person,
and never live in a game of vain appearances.
Knowledge can take you far
far beyond what you imagine,
It can open doors and opportunities for you.
and make you see the world with different eyes.
But in this eagerness to be "wise",
There is a task that is a great challenge.
It is facing the fear of the unknown,
and see the horrors around every corner.
It's easy to be brave when you're sure,
away from dangers and imminent risks,
but when death threatens you close,
"wisdom" is not enough to protect you.
Because, even if you are smart and cunning,
death sometimes comes without mercy,
lurking in the darkest shadows,
and there is no way to escape.
That is why the Greek philosophers,
They told us about the moment I died,
an idea we should still take,
to understand that death is a reality.
Wealth can't save you
of the inevitable arrival of the end,
and just as a hoarder loses his treasures,
we also lose what we have gained.
So, if we have to choose between two things,
that is between being cunning or rich,
Always choose the second option
because while the money disappears,
wisdom helps us face dangers.
Do not fear death, my friend,
but embrace your intelligence,
learn all you can in this life,
and maybe you can beat time and death
for that simple reason always choose to be smart.
Maybe death is inevitable
But that doesn't mean you should be afraid
because intelligence and knowledge
They will help you face any situation and know what to do.
No matter what fate has in store,
wisdom will always be your best ally,
to live a life full of satisfaction,
and bravely face any situation.
So don't settle for what you have
and always look for ways to learn more,
because in the end, true wealth
It is not in material goods, but in knowledge.
Always choose to be smart,
Well, that will be the best investment.
that will lead you on the right path,
and it will make you a better version of yourself.
”
”
Marcos Orowitz (THE MAELSTROM OF EMOTIONS: A selection of poems and thoughts About us humans and their nature)
“
I overcame my fear of loneliness when you showed me how lonely I can be when you’re around.
”
”
Khadidja Megaache (Lurking Shadow)
“
Love may claim our hearts but lust will always claim our bodies. It is the traitor that lurks in every soul.
”
”
Anthony Ryan (Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow, #3))
“
We can’t see the true characters of those who lurk in the shade until they are exposed to the light…
”
”
Nanette L. Avery
“
The fear receded. It didn't disappear. It lurked in the shadows, its claws hooking into passing thoughts and twisting them, turning them from their purpose to its own. He held it back. It was the hardest fight of his life.
”
”
G.R. Matthews (The Red Plains (The Forbidden List, #3))
“
But the problem with fairytales is that people only remembered the love story and forgot the twisted beasts and evil witches lurking in the shadows. Happily ever afters weren’t easily won, they were fought for, and the oldest of these stories didn’t often end prettily.
”
”
Geneva Lee (Conquer Me (Royals Saga, #2))
“
King Cygnus dozed in his chair, and a dark shadow curled up in the window seat. That dark shadow happened to have a name, which happened to be Darcy; but nobody really notices dark shadows, even named ones. They have a habit of lurking about. People learn to ignore them after a while.
”
”
Emma Clifton (Five Glass Slippers)
“
The simplest way to not get caught doing a bad thing is to do it in front of everyone. Because most people are good—or scared, which is the same thing, functionally—and good people associate badness with guilt. Skulking, hiding. Lurking in the dark. They assume you feel their shame, that you’ll try to hide your sins. They try to catch you in the shadows. No one looks for badness in the light.
”
”
Leah Raeder (Black Iris)
“
Elain looked up at Azriel, their eyes meeting, his hand still lingering on the hilt of the blade.
I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
“
Shreiking, slithering, torrential shadows of red viscous madness chasing one another through endless, ensanguinated condors of purple fulgurous sky... formless phantasms and kalaidoscopic mutations of a ghoulish, remembered scene; forests of monstrous over-nourished oaks with serpent roots twisting and sucking unnamable juices from an earth verminous with millions of cannibal devils; mound-like tentacles groping from underground nuclei of polypous perversion... insane lightning over malignant ivied walls and demon arcades choked with fungous vegetation...
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (The Lurking Fear)
“
Every aspect of the multipronged legal system even today is dominated by males: police, prosecutors, judges, probation officers. In addition, the state legislatures that make the laws are still disproportionately male. So how does the abuser come to the far-fetched conclusion that women are somehow lurking in the shadows, pulling strings to cause him to suffer consequences for his actions when he thinks there shouldn’t be any? This absurd leap occurs for two reasons. One is that he already has wellentrenched habits of blaming women for his own behavior. So when society sends him the message that he is responsible for what he does, he just widens the scope of his blame-projecting machine to target all women. The second is that if he didn’t blame women, he would have to accept the fact that a large proportion of men are opposed to what he is doing. Cultural values are changing, slowly but surely, and abusers cannot always count on other men to back them up anymore—a fact that makes them feel betrayed so they close their eyes to it.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
Time and again the sun sets like a bedimming curtain before my eyes, taking with it all illumination, warmth, and color. I am overwhelmed by night and the monsters that lurk in shadows of despair. But alas, stars twinkle from afar, shedding the tiniest rays of lighted hope. I am reminded that the sun also rises and that morning's glory shall restore beauty to my world. The realization of this dream is only a matter of waiting out the dreary night. So, I shall persevere.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
“
Life is Beautiful?
Beyond all the vicissitudes that are presented to us on this short path
within this wild planet, we can say that life is beautiful.
No one can ever deny that experiencing the whirlwind of emotions
inside this body is a marvel,
we grow with these life experiences,
we strengthen ourselves and stimulate our feelings every day,
in this race where the goal is imminent death
sometimes we are winners and many other times we lose and the darkness surprises us
and our heart is disconnected from this reality halfway
and connects us to the server of the matrix once more,
debugging and updating our database,
erasing all those experiences within this caracara of flesh and blood,
waiting to return to earth again.
"Life is beautiful gentlemen" is cruel and has unfair behavior
about people who looked like a bundle of light
and left this platform for no apparent reason,
but its nature is not similar to our consciousness and feelings,
she has a script for each of us
because it was programmed that way, the architects of the game of life
they know perfectly well that you must experiment with all the feelings, all the emotions and evolve to go to the next levels.
You can't take a quantum leap and get through the game on your own.
inventing a heaven and a hell in order to transcend,
that comes from our fears of our imagination
not knowing what life has in store for us after life is a dilemma
"rather said" the best kept secret of those who control us day by day.
We are born, we grow up, we are indoctrinated in the classrooms
and in the jobs, we pay our taxes,
we reproduce, we enjoy the material goods that it offers us
the system the marketing of disinformation,
Then we get old, get sick and die. I don't like this story!
It looks like a parody of Noam Chomsky,
Let's go back to the beautiful description of beautiful life, it sounds better!
Let's find meaning in all the nonsense that life offers us,
'Cause one way or another we're doomed
to imagine that everything will be fine until the end of matter.
It is almost always like that.
Sometimes life becomes a real nightmare.
A heartbreaking horror that we find impossible to overcome.
As we grow up, we learn to know the dark side of life.
The terrors that lurk in the shadows,
the dangers lurking around every corner.
We realize that reality is much harsher
and ruthless than we ever imagined.
And in those moments, when life becomes a real hell,
we can do nothing but cling to our own existence,
summon all our might and fight with all our might
so as not to be dragged into the abyss.
But sometimes, even fighting with all our might is not enough.
Sometimes fate is cruel and takes away everything we care about,
leaving us with nothing but pain and hopelessness.
And in that moment, when all seems lost,
we realize the terrible truth: life is a death trap,
a macabre game in which we are doomed to lose.
And so, as we sink deeper and deeper into the abyss,
while the shadows envelop us and terror paralyzes us,
we remember the words that once seemed to us
so hopeful: life is beautiful. A cruel and heartless lie,
that leads us directly to the tragic end that death always awaits us.
”
”
Marcos Orowitz (THE MAELSTROM OF EMOTIONS: A selection of poems and thoughts About us humans and their nature)
“
Nightfall, when the moon is born... ...Hides a shadow that lurks in the dark. it seeks the bloody of a damsel. The creature know as vampire.
”
”
Kazuko Furumiya
“
Why should we remain innocent of what lurks in the shadows? How can we live in the world if we don't understand how dark and brutal it can be?
”
”
Penny Matthews (A Girl Like Me)
“
Isolated and withdrawn,
Crowded room, but she was alone.
Like a seashell,
Her body was there,
Her soul was gone.
”
”
Khadidja Megaache (Lurking Shadow)
“
Superman first bounded over tall buildings in 1938. Batman began lurking in the shadows in 1939. Wonder Woman landed in her invisible plane in 1941.
”
”
Jill Lepore (The Secret History of Wonder Woman)
“
He’s bringing back parts of me that I thought were dead, resurrecting my soul from ashes. But all the shadows that lurk inside me, hiding the monster within… Those are parts he can never see.
”
”
S.T. Abby (Sidetracked (Mindf*ck, #2))
“
Clell, Gillman and I are joined by the wee chinky bird with the toff's English-Yank accent. It keeps fuckin well changing. Probably been tae posh schools all over the world. I hate those privileged cunts. They think that you're fuck all, that they can use you tae clean up their shite, and in fact, most of the time they are spot-on. What they don't know though, is that you're always lurking in the shadows. The opportunity to pounce usually never comes along but you're always lurking, always ready. Just in case.
”
”
Irvine Welsh (Filth)
“
For the first time in her sixty-nine years she felt the fear: the fear every woman knows is always waiting for her, the possibility that lurks and scuttles in the shadows of her mind, even if she’s spent her entire life being so tenderly loved and protected by good men.
”
”
Liane Moriarty (Apples Never Fall)
“
The shadows of the woods were formidable. He was certain that in this vista there lurked fierce-eyed hosts. The swift thought came to him that the generals did not know what they were about. It was all a trap. Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels.
”
”
Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage)
“
She would defy laws and kings and Mages and demons and even the Church of Light to be with him. She would tear down the barriers that still lived in her mind, confront whatever darkness lurked behind them, and defeat the Mage who thought to claim her soul. That soul--and every part of her--belongs to Ranier vel'En Daris. There would never be happiness for her that did not include him.
”
”
C.L. Wilson (Lady of Light and Shadows (Tairen Soul, #2))
“
The most foolish mistake man often makes is believing that evil lurks only in the darkness. There is no safety in the sun. Only shadows fear the sun. And shadows are just the dark reflections of daylight. True evil is as at home in the bright light as it is in the darkness. And it has no qualms about snatching you right out in the open.
”
”
C. Robert Cargill (Queen of the Dark Things (Dreams & Shadows, #2))
“
There is no way to know for certain what lurks in the shadowed corners of the mind.
”
”
Renée Ahdieh (The Moth & the Flame (The Wrath & the Dawn, #0.25))
“
She thought she had known what it felt like to blink into the shadows, to gasp for breath— to not know what horror might lurk around the next corner.
She thought she knew fear.
”
”
Nicki Pau Preto (Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1))
“
Grief is a silent assassin, lurking in the dark of one’s soul, ready to cloak any light in shadow.
”
”
Ben Alderson (Lord of Eternal Night (Darkmourn Universe, #1))
“
monsters don't always lurk in the shadows, sometimes they hide in plain sight
”
”
Belle Aurora (Raw (RAW Family, #1))
“
When you look in the mirror, your difficult sibling always looks back, though the image is distorted. In the shadows lurk parts of yourself and your past that you don't want to notice. Behind the reflection, silently influencing the interaction, stand your parents, your grandparents, and all their siblings.
”
”
Jeanne Safer
“
Sometimes Death lurks after them for days, weeks, or even months, waiting for their time... Sometimes it doesn’t, and I’ve often raced that omnipresent Reaper to one portion of its work.
”
”
N.B. Roberts (Halton Cray (Shadows of the World, #1))
“
Ravenous appetites and strange desires lurking just below, like I was bobbing on an inner tube in the middle of the ocean while below me swarmed the swift shadows of a vast school of Cthulhus.
”
”
David Wong (What the Hell Did I Just Read (John Dies at the End, #3))
“
But the day will come when you will have to answer for it! You know I didn't come here alone to-day——!" Both men looked startled and glanced uneasily into the shadows, as if there might be someone lurking there. "God came with me and He knows! He'll make you remember some day!
”
”
Grace Livingston Hill (The Enchanted Barn)
“
Whatever sex is, and it is at least a profound mystery, is easily misused. The primary psychological purpose of sex for those men who spend their lives in the cold, cruel world, and whose relationship with their own anima is frigid, is to reconnect with a warm place. Sex is a form of emotional reassurance, a narcotic to still the pain of the bruised soul. If life batters them, then sex, like drugs or work, may numb the wound. The sexual act offers a momentary transcendence. Orgasm can be an ecstatic experience; for the moment one may feel outside the iron confines of ordinary consciousness. It is the closest many men ever come to a religious experience. Thus the act of sex may mask a desperate search for acceptance, underneath whiсh lurks the mother complex.
”
”
James Hollis (Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men)
“
Children are instinctually afraid of closets in the dark of night, a portent of evil lurking in the background of shadows. It isn’t an irrational fear, for monsters come from closets. It’s not something easily forgotten, or a fate yet known. As young adults, some of them venture into their closets, some come out. Sean danced with his.
”
”
Zea Miller (Amnesic Nostalgia)
“
Maybe being here won’t be so bad after all… as long as I can avoid the music, the bloodthirsty diva duo, and the phantom’s shadow lurking around every corner.
”
”
A.G. Howard (RoseBlood)
“
For a while they stood there, like men on the edge of a sleep where nightmare lurks, holding it off, though they know that they can only come to morning through the shadows. The
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)
“
A memory, long buried, sprang up of her father warning her never to cross the stream and go into the forest.
"The Dragonwood," she mumbled.
How could she have forgotten the Dragonwood?
Her father had explained that it wasn't their land, and that dangerous animals lurked in the shadows.
”
”
Donna Grant (Hot Blooded (Dark Kings, #4))
“
Something like panic struck at Hurlow. Moffat's calm confession of fear withdrew the prop upon which he had leaned. Down there, among the motionless shadows, lurked invisible things, things that were nameless, shapeless and malignant; things which could see without being seen. One of the long lost terrors of childhood returned to him, and like a child he put his hand into Moffat's.
”
”
A.M. Burrage
“
Child of shadows, once born of flesh
Un-winged, amidst fear and agony
‘Fraid of the lurking and yet to come
Oblivious, to the code of chivalry.
Voids in his desire were unveiled, as
Love taught him; death with dignity.
In desire to be and in wanting to live
His wretched soul began to purge,
As he wept at the beauty of night
He commenced to sing his own dirge,
Then born again of fire; ascended,
Like Phoenix must burn to emerge.
”
”
Zubair Ahsan
“
The important thing to remember is, no one is ever "fine." No one has it all together without a single crack, or a darkness lurking in their shadows, or a fear dogging their step.
The important thing is, you wake up each day and you make the most of it. And if you find someone who makes you stronger, you hang on to them tight.
”
”
Jagger Cole (Toxic Love (Venomous Gods, #1))
“
In front of the group was a legless man on a small wheeled trolley, who was singing at the top of his voice and banging two saucepans together. His name was Arnold Sideways. Pushing him along was Coffin Henry, whose croaking progress through an entirely different song was punctuated by bouts of off-the-beat coughing. He was accompanied by a perfectly ordinary-looking manin torn, dirty and yet expensive looking clothing, whose pleasant tenor voice was drowned out by the quaking of a duck on his head. He answered to the name of Duck Man, although he never seemed to understand why, or why he was always surrounded by people who seemed to see ducks where no ducks could be. And finally, being towed along by a small grey dog on a string, was Foul Ole Ron, generally regarded in Ankh-Morpork as the deranged beggars' deranged beggar.
He was probably incapable of singing, but at least he was attempting to swear in time to the beat, or beats.
The wassailers stopped and watched them in horror.
People have always had the urge to sing and clang things at the dark stub of the year, when all sorts of psychic nastiness has taken advantage of the long grey days and the deep shadows to lurk and breed. Lately people had taken to singing harmoniously, which rather lost the affect. Those who really understood just clanged something and shouted.
The beggars were not in fact this well versed in folkloric practice. They were just making a din in the well-founded hope that people would give them money to stop.
It was just possible to make out consensus song in there somewhere.
"Hogswatch is coming,
The pig is getting fat,
Please put a dollar in the old man's hat
If you ain't got a dollar a penny will do-"
"And if you ain't got a penny," Foul Ole Ron yodeled, solo, 'Then- fghfgh yffg mfmfmf..." The Duck man had, with great Presence of mind, clamped a hand over Ron's mouth.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Hogfather (Discworld, #20; Death, #4))
“
See, anxiety doesn’t just stop. You can have nice moments, minutes where it shrinks, but it doesn’t leave. It lurks in the background like a shadow, like that important assignment you have to do but keep putting off or the dull ache that follows a three-day migraine. The best you can hope for is to contain it, make it as small as possible so it stops being intrusive. Am I coping? Yes, but it’s taking a monumental amount of effort to keep the dynamite inside my stomach from exploding.
”
”
Louise Gornall (Under Rose-Tainted Skies)
“
The Lurking Fear:
Shrieking, slithering, torrential shadows of red viscous madness chasing one another through endless, ensanguined condors of purple fulgurous sky... formless phantasms and kaleidoscopic mutations of a ghoulish, remembered scene; forests of monstrous over-nourished oaks with serpent roots twisting and sucking unnamable juices from an earth verminous with millions of cannibal devils; mound-like tentacles groping from underground nuclei of polypous perversion... insane lightning over malignant ivied walls and demon arcades choked with fungous vegetation... Heaven be thanked for the instinct which led me unconscious to places where men dwell; to the peaceful village that slept under the calm stars of clearing skies.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness)
“
I wouldn't ask too much of her,' I ventured. 'You can't repeat the past.'
'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!'
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
Think of it, Armand,” I pressed carefully. “Why should Death lurk in the shadows? Why should Death wait at the gate? There is no bedchamber, no ballroom that I cannot enter. Death in the glow of the hearth, Death on tiptoe in the corridor, that is what I am. Speak to me of the Dark Gifts—I use them. I’m Gentleman Death in silk and lace, come to put out the candles. The canker in the heart of the rose.
”
”
Anne Rice (The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2))
“
That's what a little victory in psychiatry looks like. You slip into the shadows, dodging the mind's defense mechanisms, glad enough to take a half-step toward the truth. Behind the next word or the next glance may lurk the demon you seek, all in flames, desperate to be held, but set to flee. (8)
”
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Keith Ablow (Compulsion (Frank Clevenger, #3))
“
It was morning when I saw it, but shadow lurked always there. The trees grew too thickly, and their trunks were too big for any healthy New England wood. There was too much silence in the dim alleys between them, and the floor was too soft with the dank moss and mattings of infinite years of decay.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories)
“
When I left high school with my diploma, it felt like I was holding a key that would unlock the door to a better world. Every teacher I passed on my way down to the parking lot—the ones who suspended me for questioning them both earnestly and in jest, suspended me for using a contumacious hip-shake as my hallway gait, suspended me for me being me—the ones who would roll their eyes if my behavior was, on the whole, unpatriotic, unjustified, and immature—well, on the way down that long black declivity, their faces seemed so contorted as if lurking shadows had vice grips locked on their kidneys, wrenching it every time a teacher didn't want to remain upright and respectful. Yes, they didn’t want to me to succeed either! I pledge allegiance to the flag that united every authority in that indefensible school looked at me, even treated me, as if I was a terrorist, or at the very least, unpatriotic. But God—didn’t the red blood, white skin, and blue balls that flagged my physical existence suffice for me to have a little liberty and justice?
”
”
Brian Celio (Catapult Soul)
“
He dropped to his haunches, elbows resting on his knees, face buried in his hands. Nikolai had seemed infinitely capable, confident in his belief that every problem had a solution and he would be the one to find it. I couldn't bear seeing him this way, broken and defeated for the first time.
I approached him cautiously and crouched down. He wouldn't meet my eyes. Tentatively, I reached out and touched his arm, ready to draw back if he startled or snapped. His skin was warm, the feel of it unchanged despite the shadows lurking beneath it. I slipped my arms around him, careful of the wings that rustled at his back.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
He dropped his forehead to my shoulder.
"I'm so sorry, Nikolai."
He released a small shuddering sigh.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3))
“
Life in all its resiliency, beauty and strength is sometimes eclipsed by its unquestionable transient frailty. Today we are alive…tomorrow is not promised. And it seems, the evil that lurks in the shadows, this side of heaven, often has its say. But let it never be that we allow evil, which basks in our fear, to hinder our ability to live vibrantly unafraid of what tomorrow might bring. The only way to defeat the inevitable darkness that touches this world is to live and love brilliantly bright with purpose. To not do so, is to diminish the very memory and glow of all the beautiful lights that have gone out before us.
”
”
Jason Versey (A Walk with Prudence)
“
Someone told her that shadows were a good thing because it proved the light existed, that it was as real as whatever lurked in the shadows.
But when there was no light, there was nothing to push back the darkness. It just kept coming and coming until it overwhelmed its prey, dragging it down, further from the light.
”
”
Jessica Scott (Come Home to Me (Coming Home #2.6))
“
Crying seems to do you no good
You try and live your life
counting the seconds and the hours
Your mind is weary,
as you turn and feel your heart talk the blues
Is it worth trying to catch a falling star ?
Emptiness lurking in the shadows
filling every corner of your restless mind
gazing through the haze you're hoping to find,
yourself, for real
or just marking time
Grass is green yet you stumble on to the other side,
chasing rainbows of a colourless kind
Crying seems to do you no good
You try and live your life
counting the seconds and the hours
Your mind is weary
as you turn and feel your heart talk the blues
is it worth trying to catch a falling star ?
”
”
Pervez M Quadir FOG
“
A ricefield near Vercelli under creamy summer haze. the wings of her drooping hat shadow her false smile. Shadows streak her falsely smiling face, smitten by the hot creamy light, grey wheyhued shadows under the jawbones, streaks of eggyolk yellow on the moistened brow, rancid yellow humour lurking within the softened pulp of the eyes.
”
”
James Joyce (Giacomo Joyce)
“
Bipolar disorder was like that: a wild party that was constantly on the verge of ending, chaos and bright lights, an exaltation of the senses. That was mania. But all parties had their end, and when the shadows were long and the glitter had lost its sparkle and gathered to mingle with the dust on the unclean floors and all the food lost its flavor and the music finally died—that was depression, lurking in between all of the dark spaces of the noise and the laughter, as unavoidable as death or darkness.
”
”
Nenia Campbell (Batter My Heart)
“
People deal with their shadow side in a number of ways, the most common way being to find outside enemies and point to them, demonizing them and blaming them for long lists of perceived evils. This strategy often does a very effective job of helping us avoid that which lurks within us. Politicians and radio talk-show hosts and pastors can become very skilled in this, constantly pointing out the darkness and evil and twisted ways of others to avoid dealing with the doubts and insecurities and questions they bear in their own bones.
”
”
Rob Bell (What We Talk About When We Talk About God)
“
And then she was nodding—nodding and smiling, too, as he drew the dagger from his boot and offered it to her. “Say it, Aelin.” Not daring to let her hands shake in front of Maeve or Rowan’s stunned friends, she took his dagger and held it over her exposed wrist. “Do you promise to serve in my court, Rowan Whitethorn, from now until the day you die?” She did not know the right words or the Old Language, but a blood oath wasn’t about pretty phrases. “I do. Until my last breath, and the world beyond. To whatever end.” She would have paused then, asked him again if he really wanted to do this, but Maeve was still there, a shadow lurking behind them. That was why he had done it now, here—so Celaena could not object, could not try to talk him out of it. It was such a Rowan thing to do, so pigheaded, that she could only grin as she drew the dagger across her wrist, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. She offered her arm to him. With surprising gentleness, he took her wrist in his hands and lowered his mouth to her skin. 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.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3))
“
My eye was caught by movement from behind the automaton. Just a flicker, but my heart clenched with surprise and fear, and I tapped Dean on the arm, pointing. “Something’s over there.”
He followed my finger, and we both saw the flicker of red on the unbroken gray brick of the foundry walls.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean growled, jamming his hand in his pocket and pulling out his switchblade. “Hey!” he bellowed at the moving shadow. “Hey, you!”
“Dean …,” I started, thinking that perhaps shouting at the figure wasn’t the best idea.
“I see you!” Dean shouted. “No point in hiding.”
“Dean, we don’t know what it is,” I whispered, worried that if he made a move, whoever or whatever lurked beyond the automaton would take it badly. Dean shook his head.
“Relax, princess. It’s a kid.” He advanced on the shadow. “Aren’t you?”
“Up yours, mister!” the shadow shouted back. I pressed a hand over my mouth, both to stifle a laugh and from relief. To find another person in this wasteland was ten times more unexpected than finding a creature like the nightjars and ghouls that populated Lovecraft’s underground.
“Say,” Dean drawled, brows drawing together. “I know you, kid.”
“I know your mother!” the kid retorted. “And she has some disappointing things to say about you.
”
”
Caitlin Kittredge (The Nightmare Garden (Iron Codex, #2))
“
Lift Not the Painted Veil
Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.
”
”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (The Complete Poems)
“
This new concept of the "finest, highest achievement of art" had no sooner entered my mind than it located the imperfect enjoyment I had had at the theater, and added to it a little of what it lacked; this made such a heady mixture that I exclaimed, "What a great artiste she is!" It may be thought I was not altogether sincere. Think, however, of so many writers who, in a moment of dissatisfaction with a piece they have just written, may read a eulogy of the genius of Chateaubriand, or who may think of some other great artist whom they have dreamed of equaling, who hum to themselves a phrase of Beethoven for instance, comparing the sadness of it to the mood they have tried to capture in their prose, and are then so carried away by the perception of genius that they let it affect the way they read their own piece, no longer seeing it as they first saw it, but going so far as to hazard an act of faith in the value of it, by telling themselves "It's not bad you know!" without realizing that the sum total which determines their ultimate satisfaction includes the memory of Chateaubriand's brilliant pages, which they have assimilated to their own, but which, of course, they did not write. Think of all the men who go on believing in the love of a mistress in whom nothing is more flagrant than her infidelities; of all those torn between the hope of something beyond this life (such as the bereft widower who remembers a beloved wife, or the artist who indulges in dreams of posthumous fame, each of them looking forward to an afterlife which he knows is inconceivable) and the desire for a reassuring oblivion, when their better judgement reminds them of the faults they might otherwise have to expiate after death; or think of the travelers who are uplifted by the general beauty of a journey they have just completed, although during it their main impression, day after day, was that it was a chore--think of them before deciding whether, given the promiscuity of the ideas that lurk within us, a single one of those that affords us our greatest happiness has not begun life by parasitically attaching itself to a foreign idea with which it happened to come into contact, and by drawing from it much of the power of pleasing which it once lacked.
”
”
Marcel Proust (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)
“
we have all, at some time or another, been guilty of mercilessness. Our own evil is a fact we often choose to ignore. Evil is not just "out there" but is the shadow Carl Jung described as lurking within every human. Whether we like it or not, it is our legacy, part and parcel of the human package. To step outside of our comfort zones and admit this takes courage, but without this sobering recognition we're more likely to lose our capacity for compassion, humility and forgiveness. If we lose our awareness of this side of our own nature, we risk becoming slaves to our own dark side. What goes unacknowledged in us has a tendency to grow larger.
Tenderness and compassion are qualities we must cultivate and never take for granted. This alone would make the world a better place by far. We
”
”
Adele von Rust McCormick (Horse Sense and the Human Heart: What Horses Can Teach Us About Trust, Bonding, Creativity and Spirituality)
“
The charm of a city, now we come to it, is not unlike the charm of flowers. It partly depends on seeing time creep across it. Charm needs to be fleeting. Nothing could be less palatable than a museum-city propped up by prosthetic devices of concrete.
Paris is not in danger of becoming a museum-city, thanks to the restlessness and greed of promoters. Yet their frenzy to demolish everything is less objectionable than their clumsy determination to raise housing projects that cannot function without the constant presence of an armed police force…
All these banks, all these glass buildings, all these mirrored facades are the mark of a reflected image. You can no longer see what’s happening inside, you become afraid of the shadows. The city becomes abstract, reflecting only itself. People almost seem out of place in this landscape. Before the war, there were nooks and crannies everywhere.
Now people are trying to eliminate shadows, straighten streets. You can’t even put up a shed without the personal authorization of the minister of culture.
When I was growing up, my grandpa built a small house. Next door the youth club had some sheds, down the street the local painter stored his equipment under some stretched-out tarpaulin. Everybody added on. It was telescopic. A game. Life wasn’t so expensive — ordinary people would live and work in Paris. You’d see masons in blue overalls, painters in white ones, carpenters in corduroys. Nowadays, just look at Faubourg Sainte-Antoine — traditional craftsmen are being pushed out by advertising agencies and design galleries. Land is so expensive that only huge companies can build, and they have to build ‘huge’ in order to make it profitable. Cubes, squares, rectangles. Everything straight, everything even. Clutter has been outlawed. But a little disorder is a good thing. That’s where poetry lurks. We never needed promoters to provide us, in their generosity, with ‘leisure spaces.’ We invented our own. Today there’s no question of putting your own space together, the planning commission will shut it down. Spontaneity has been outlawed. People are afraid of life.
”
”
Robert Doisneau (Paris)
“
Brannagh Maloney had lived with disappearances all her life. They were as familiar to her as the changing of the Fundy tides. People who disappeared left cast-off shadows of themselves, murky tremblings that slunk out of corners on drizzly autumn afternoons. They lurked offstage, silent or sighing or reaching out to run a finger across her arm. They were the curtains fluttering in the window on a breezeless morning, the musty scent that arose when opening an abandoned cellar door.
LET THE SHADOWS FALL BEHIND YOU (Kunati Books)
”
”
Kathy-Diane Leveille (Let the Shadows Fall Behind You: A Novel)
“
Why, oh why, do you hide in shadows?
As a venomous viper you lurk in dark corners.
Waiting, waiting, waiting to spew your hate. cantankerous you are though you haven't a clue.
Spread, spread, spreading over beauty like a poisonous cloak.
At your touch the day is dark. At your touch the dark is death.
Dying, dying, dying, all light is gone, made ash of simmering sulfur no more to see the day, the dawn.
Do we partake of your deceit or do we despise?
Your lies, your lies, I will outlive your lies, and once again color this world in truth.
Pure, so sweet, the taste of revenge.
Be cursed evil shroud for the dark never wins.
”
”
Anonymous Diva
“
A hand clapped on her shoulder.
Milk sloshed over the side of the pail, dousing her hand and splattering her skirts. A startled cry whooshed out of her as an arm whipped around her waist. Her back collided with a wall of heat and muscle.
“Is this what you wanted?” The rough whisper warmed her ear.
“Gray.” She nearly fainted with relief. He held her tight against him with one arm, his other hand skimming over the curve of her hip. “Gray, what on earth are you doing? You made me spill the milk, drat you.”
“It won’t go to waste.” Resting his chin on her shoulder, he untangled her fingers from the pail’s handle. Bending her arm at the elbow, he lifted her fingers to his mouth, sucking them clean one by one. His tongue traced each finger and the delicate webs between them, sending gooseflesh rippling down the backs of her legs.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” His fingers interlaced with hers, squeezing them until they hurt. “Your dream lover, lurking in the shadows of the stables, the larder…the storeroom? Lying in wait for his wanton dairymaid?”
Sophia froze. Dear God, he’d seen The Book. He nipped at the curve of her neck, and she gasped. “You-“ She swallowed hard. “You had no right to look through that.”
“You had no right to put me in it.” She could hear the raw edge of anger in his voice. His fingers still gripping hers, he pressed her own hand to her breast. “But let’s not dwell on rights, sweet. Not when wrongs are so much more interesting.
”
”
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
“
There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make one almost enamoured of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled with the malady of revery. Gradually white fingers creep through the curtains, and they appear to tremble. Black fantastic shadows crawl into the corners of the room, and crouch there. Outside, there is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men going forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down from the hills, and wandering round the silent house, as though it feared to wake the sleepers. Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colors of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (Complete Works)
“
Fixed settlements were perhaps inevitable, but they were dangerous. Their ancestors' way of life had been the nobler one, the life of tent-dwellers, often on the move. Nobility and freedom were inseparable, and the nomad was free. In the desert a man was concious of being the lord of the space, and in virtue of that lordship he escaped in a sense from the domination of time. By striking camp he sloughed off his yesterdays; and tomorrow seemed less of a fatality if its where as well as its when had yet to come. But the townsman was a prisoner; and to be fixed in one place, - yesterday, today, tomorrow - was to be a target of time, the ruiner of all things. Towns were places of corruption. Sloth and slovenliness lurked in the shadow of their walls, ready to take an edge off a man's alertness and vigilance. Everything decayed there, even language, one of man's most precious possessions.
”
”
Martin Lings (Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources)
“
Her pretty name of Adina seemed to me to have somehow a mystic fitness to her personality.
Behind a cold shyness, there seemed to lurk a tremulous promise to be franker when she knew you better.
Adina is a strange child; she is fanciful without being capricious.
She was stout and fresh-coloured, she laughed and talked rather loud, and generally, in galleries and temples, caused a good many stiff British necks to turn round.
She had a mania for excursions, and at Frascati and Tivoli she inflicted her good-humoured ponderosity on diminutive donkeys with a relish which seemed to prove that a passion for scenery, like all our passions, is capable of making the best of us pitiless.
Adina may not have the shoulders of the Venus of Milo...but I hope it will take more than a bauble like this to make her stoop.
Adina espied the first violet of the year glimmering at the root of a cypress. She made haste to rise and gather it, and then wandered further, in the hope of giving it a few companions. Scrope sat and watched her as she moved slowly away, trailing her long shadow on the grass and drooping her head from side to side in her charming quest. It was not, I know, that he felt no impulse to join her; but that he was in love, for the moment, with looking at her from where he sat. Her search carried her some distance and at last she passed out of sight behind a bend in the villa wall.
I don't pretend to be sure that I was particularly struck, from this time forward, with something strange in our quiet Adina. She had always seemed to me vaguely, innocently strange; it was part of her charm that in the daily noiseless movement of her life a mystic undertone seemed to murmur "You don't half know me! Perhaps we three prosaic mortals were not quite worthy to know her: yet I believe that if a practised man of the world had whispered to me, one day, over his wine, after Miss Waddington had rustled away from the table, that there was a young lady who, sooner or later, would treat her friends to a first class surprise, I should have laid my finger on his sleeve and told him with a smile that he phrased my own thought. .."That beautiful girl," I said, "seems to me agitated and preoccupied."
"That beautiful girl is a puzzle. I don't know what's the matter with her; it's all very painful; she's a very strange creature. I never dreamed there was an obstacle to our happiness--to our union. She has never protested and promised; it's not her way, nor her nature; she is always humble, passive, gentle; but always extremely grateful for every sign of tenderness. Till within three or four days ago, she seemed to me more so than ever; her habitual gentleness took the form of a sort of shrinking, almost suffering, deprecation of my attentions, my petits soins, my lovers nonsense. It was as if they oppressed and mortified her--and she would have liked me to bear more lightly. I did not see directly that it was not the excess of my devotion, but my devotion itself--the very fact of my love and her engagement that pained her. When I did it was a blow in the face. I don't know what under heaven I've done! Women are fathomless creatures. And yet Adina is not capricious, in the common sense...
.So these are peines d'amour?" he went on, after brooding a moment. "I didn't know how fiercely I was in love!"
Scrope stood staring at her as she thrust out the crumpled note: that she meant that Adina--that Adina had left us in the night--was too large a horror for his unprepared sense...."Good-bye to everything! Think me crazy if you will. I could never explain. Only forget me and believe that I am happy, happy, happy! Adina Beati."...
Love is said to be par excellence the egotistical passion; if so Adina was far gone. "I can't promise to forget you," I said; "you and my friend here deserve to be remembered!
”
”
Henry James (Adina)
“
The deafening crowd echoed through the pale stone corridors of the royal castle of Orynth. They were chanting her name, almost wailing it. Aelin. A two-beat pulse that sounded through each step she made up the darkened stairwell. Goldryn was heavy at her back, its ruby smoldering in the light of the sun trickling from the landing above. Her tunic was beautiful yet simple, though her steel gauntlets—armed with hidden blades—were as ornate as they were deadly. She reached the landing and stalked down it, past the towering, muscled warriors who lurked in the shadows just beyond the open archway. Not just warriors—her warriors. Her court. Aedion was there, and a few others whose faces were obscured by shadow, but their teeth gleamed faintly as they gave her feral grins. A court to change the world. The chanting increased, and the amulet bounced between her breasts with each step. She kept her eyes ahead, a half smile on her face as she emerged at last onto the balcony and the cries grew frantic, as overpowering as the frenzied crowd outside the palace, in the streets, thousands gathered and chanting her name. In the courtyard, young priestesses of Mala danced to each pulse of her name, worshipping, fanatic. With this power—with the keys she’d attained—what she had created for them, the armies she had made to drive out their enemies, the crops she had grown, the shadows she had chased away … these things were nothing short of a miracle. She was more than human, more than queen. Aelin. Beloved. Immortal. Blessed. Aelin. Aelin of the Wildfire. Aelin Fireheart. Aelin Light-Bringer. Aelin. She raised her arms, tipping back her head to the sunlight, and their cries made the entirety of the White Palace tremble. On her brow, a mark—the sacred mark of Brannon’s line—glowed blue. She smiled at the crowd, at her people, at her world, so ripe for the taking.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3))
“
Of course. But you’re obviously dangerous,” he said. “I’d prefer you never became dangerous to me.” Dangerous. She wanted to clutch the word to her. She was fairly sure this boy was demented or just hopelessly deluded, but she liked that word, and unless she was mistaken, he was offering to let her walk out of this house tonight. “This isn’t … it isn’t a trick, is it?” Her voice was smaller than she wanted it to be. The shadow of something dark moved across Kaz’s face. “If it were a trick, I’d promise you safety. I’d offer you happiness. I don’t know if that exists in the Barrel, but you’ll find none of it with me.” For some reason, those words had comforted her. Better terrible truths than kind lies. “All right,” she said. “How do we begin?” “Let’s start by getting out of here and finding you some proper clothes. Oh, and Inej,” he said as he led her out of the salon, “don’t ever sneak up on me again.” * * * The truth was she’d tried to sneak up on Kaz plenty of times since then. She’d never managed it. It was as if once Kaz had seen her, he’d understood how to keep seeing her. She’d trusted Kaz Brekker that night. She’d become the dangerous girl he’d sensed lurking inside her. But she’d made the mistake of continuing to trust him, of believing in the legend he’d built around himself. That myth had brought her here to this sweltering darkness, balanced between life and death like the last leaf clinging to an autumn branch. In the end, Kaz Brekker was just a boy, and she’d let him lead her to this fate. She couldn’t even blame him. She’d let herself be led because she hadn’t known where she’d wanted to go. The heart is an arrow.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
“
A man who is awake in the open field at night or who wanders over silent paths experiences the world differently than by day. Nighness vanishes, and with it distance; everything is equally far and near, close by us and yet mysteriously remote. Space loses its measures. There are whispers and sounds, and we do not know where or what they are. Our feelings too are peculiarly ambiguous. There is a strangeness about what is intimate and dear, and a seductive charm about the frightening. There is no longer a distinction between the lifeless and the living, everything is animate and soulless, vigilant and asleep at once. What the day brings on and makes recognizable gradually, emerges out of the dark with no intermediary stages. The encounter suddenly confronts us, as if by a miracle: What is the thing we suddenly see - an enchanted bride, a monster, or merely a log? Everything teases the traveller, puts on a familiar face and the next moment is utterly strange, suddenly terrifies with awful gestures and immediately resumes a familiar and harmless posture.
Danger lurks everywhere. Out of the dark jaws of the night which gape beside the traveller, any moment a robber may emerge without warning, or some eerie terror, or the uneasy ghost of a dead man - who knows what may once have happened at that very spot? Perhaps mischievous apparitions of the fog seek to entice him from the right path into the desert where horror dwells, where wanton witches dance their rounds which no man ever leaves alive. Who can protect him, guide him aright, give him good counsel? The spirit of Night itself, the genius of its kindliness, its enchantment, its resourcefulness, and its profound wisdom. She is indeed the mother of all mystery. The weary she wraps in slumber, delivers from care, and she causes dreams to play about their souls. Her protection is enjoyed by the un-happy and persecuted as well as by the cunning, whom her ambivalent shadows offer a thousand devices and contrivances. With her veil she also shields lovers, and her darkness keeps ward over all caresses, all charms hidden and revealed. Music is the true language of her mystery - the enchanting voice which sounds for eyes that are closed and in which heaven and earth, the near and the far, man and nature, present and past, appear to make themselves understood.
But the darkness of night which so sweetly invites to slumber also bestows new vigilance and illumination upon the spirit. It makes it more perceptive, more acute, more enterprising. Knowledge flares up, or descends like a shooting star - rare, precious, even magical knowledge.
And so night, which can terrify the solitary man and lead him astray, can also be his friend, his helper, his counsellor.
”
”
Walter F. Otto (Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion. Tr from German by Moses Hadas. Reprint of the 1954 Ed)