Pierce The Veil Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Pierce The Veil. Here they are! All 100 of them:

My Love For You Was Bulletproof But You're The One Who Shot Me.
Pierce the Veil
She's like a bullet through an ocean, I still remember how you moved so slow, You tried to kill me with a shot gun, Bang! Now we're even, We don't stop till someone's bleeding!
Pierce the Veil
Can we lose our minds, and call it love for the last time.
Pierce the Veil
Hail Mary, Forgive me, Blood for blood, hearts beating, come at me, now this is war!
Pierce the Veil
And god damit, I can barely say your name, So I'll try to write it, And fill the pen with blood from the sink.
Pierce the Veil
But You Don't Know What It's Like.
Pierce the Veil
Have you ever really danced on the edge?
Pierce the Veil
Nobody prays for the heartless, nobody gives another penny for the selfish
Pierce the Veil
To live is to fall asleep, to die is to awake.
Pierce the Veil
When I sew you up... Don't let me, Stop bleeding, Tiny stitches that you placed into my skin, Won't let me go, And they're ruining the mood.
Pierce the Veil
What if I can't forget you? I'll burn your name into my throat, I'll be the fire that'll catch you. What's so good about picking up the pieces? What if I don't even want to?
Caraphernelia by Pierce The Veil
I kissed the scars on her skin. I still think you're beautiful, and I don't ever wanna lose my best friend
Pierce the Veil
If I were you I'd put that away. See you're just wasted and thinking about the past again, darling you'll be okay.
Pierce the Veil
You've gone and sewn me to this bed, The taste of you and me, Will never leave my lips again, Under the blinding rain, I wanna hold your hand so tight, I'm gonna break my wrist, And when the vultures sing tonight, I'm gonna join right in.
Pierce the Veil
Sunshine, There ain't a thing that you can do, That's gonna ruin my night
Caraphernelia by Pierce The Veil
The moment that's where I, Kill the conversation wrap this up a lie that I'm enjoying every minute with myself, And she could make hell feel just like home, So I'm never leaving her alone, But if your lightning lips aren't mine, Then I don't know the awkward stranger to my right, ( but she's crying )
Pierce the Veil
Don't bother this love is a lie. I'm a chemical kid, You're a mechanical bride.
Chemical kids and mechanical brides by pierce the veil
Give me your heart and your hand and we can run
Pierce the Veil
If a dream can tell the future it can also thwart that future. For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come. He is bound to no one that the world unfold just so upon its course and those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?
Cormac McCarthy (The Crossing (The Border Trilogy, #2))
Nobody prays for the heartless! Nobody gives another penny for the selfish! You're learning how to taste what you kill now.
Caraphernelia by Pierce The Veil
You can't throw just throw me away!
Pierce the Veil
darling you'll be okay
Pierce the Veil
well you know that I'm cold black on constellations gold and you know that your soul's black top under lacing won't let it go
Pierce the Veil
Shaman is a spiritual shuttle between three realms of existence: Heaven, Mankind and Earth. He pierces through inter-dimensional veils in order to heal the parts and unite the whole.
Lada Ray (The Earth Shifter)
The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself, to see and to respond to the real world in the light of a virtuous consciousness. This is the non-metaphysical meaning of the idea of transcendence to which philosophers have so constantly resorted in their explanations of goodness. 'Good is a transcendent reality' means that virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is. It is an empirical fact about human nature that this attempt cannot be entirely successful.
Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good)
so darlin' close your eyes, 'cause you're about to miss everything
Pierce the Veil
I'm sorry, I can't see that you truly love me
Pierce the Veil
can I even complicate your breathing?
Pierce the Veil
It seems that by the time the singular beauty of a flower in bloom can no longer pierce the veil of black or obsessive thoughts in a person's mind, that mind's connection to the sensual world has grown dangerously frayed.
Michael Pollan (The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World)
No, really, Herr Nietzche, I have great admiration for you. Sympathy. You want to make us able to live with the void. Not lie ourselves into good-naturedness, trust, ordinary middling human considerations, but to question as has never been questioned before, relentlessly, with iron determination, into evil, through evil, past evil, accepting no abject comfort. The most absolute, the most piercing questions. Rejecting mankind as it is, that ordinary, practical, thieving, stinking, unilluminated, sodden rabble, not only the laboring rabble, but even worse the "educated" rabble with its books and concerts and lectures, its liberalism and its romantic theatrical "loves" and "passions"--it all deserves to die, it will die. Okay. Still, your extremists must survive. No survival, no Amor Fati. Your immoralists also eat meat. They ride the bus. They are only the most bus-sick travelers. Humankind lives mainly upon perverted ideas. Perverted, your ideas are no better than those the Christianity you condemn. Any philosopher who wants to keep his contact with mankind should pervert his own system in advance to see how it will really look a few decades after adoption. I send you greetings from this mere border of grassy temporal light, and wish you happiness, wherever you are. Yours, under the veil of Maya, M.E.H.
Saul Bellow (Herzog)
I hate this flavour with a passion and I fucking hate the after taste
Pierce the Veil
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it, And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it. And you shall see. And you shall hear.
Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
The intense clarity of the image failed to satisfy us, for it seemed to hide as much as it revealed; and while it seemed to invite us to pierce the veil and examine the mystery behind it, its luminous concreteness nevertheless held the eye entranced and kept it from probing deeper
Friedrich Nietzsche
Exhaustion has a way of parting the veils between men, not so much because the effort of censoring their words exceeds them, but because weariness is the foe of volatility. Oft times insults that would pierce the wakeful simply thud against the sleepless and fatigued.
R. Scott Bakker (The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2))
We men fear death. Death! Gruesome and terrible! Inevitable and senseless! We dance towards her as we might a beautiful woman and Death waltzes back towards us, beckoning, always beckoning. Once the veil is pierced, we never return.
Dana Schwartz (Anatomy: A Love Story (The Anatomy Duology, #1))
Not all heroes sing.
Tony Perry
The fading dawn colors revive momentarily, and the sky shines with lilac and daffodil, layering colors in clouds like quilts stacked on a bed. More birds chime into the morning air: a nuthatch’s nasal onk joins the crow’s croak and a black-throated green warbler’s murmur from the branches above the mandala. As the colors finally fade under the fierce gaze of their mother, the sun, a wood thrush caps the dawn chorus with his astounding song. The song seems to pierce through from another world, carrying with it clarity and ease, purifying me for a few moments with its grace. Then the song is gone, the veil closes, and I am left with embers of memory.
David George Haskell (The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature)
With his coming are the dread fires born again. The hills burn, and the land turns sere. The tides of men run out, and the hours dwindle. The wall is pierced, and the veil of parting raised. Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth. There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death. -fragment from The Prophecies of the Drqagon believed translated by N'Delia Basolaine First Maid and Swordfast to Raidhen of Hol Cuchone (circa 400 AB)
Robert Jordan (The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, #5))
[Jesus] is, at the moment, present with us, but hidden behind that invisible veil which keeps heaven and earth apart, and which we pierce in those moments, such as prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scripture, and our work with the poor, when the veil seems particularly thin. But one day the veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one; Jesus will be personally present, and every knee shall bow at his name; creation will be renewed; the dead will be raised; and God's new world will at last be in place, full of new prospects and possibilities.
N.T. Wright (Simply Christian)
After a Retreat What hast thou learnt today? Hast thou sounded awful mysteries, Hast pierced the veiled skies, Climbed to the feet of God, Trodden where saints have trod, Fathomed the heights above? Nay, This only have I learnt, that God is love. What hast thou heard today? Hast heard the Angel-trumpets cry, And rippling harps reply; Heard from the Throne of flame Whence God incarnate came Some thund'rous message roll? Nay, This have I heard, His voice within my soul. What hast thou felt today? The pinions of the Angel guide That standeth at thy side In rapturous ardours beat Glowing, from head to feet, In ecstasy divine? Nay, This only have felt, Christ's hand in mine.
Robert Hugh Benson
The Reactionary Mind [10w] Our compassionate veil is pierced once our power is threatened.
Beryl Dov
It is possible to be indifferent to flowers—possible but not very likely. Psychiatrists regard a patient’s indifference to flowers as a symptom of clinical depression. It seems that by the time the singular beauty of a flower in bloom can no longer pierce the veil of black or obsessive thoughts in a person’s mind, that mind’s connection to the sensual world has grown dangerously frayed.
Michael Pollan (The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World)
One by one our skies go black. Stars are extinguished, collapsing into distances too great to breach. Soon, not even the memory of light will survive. Long ago, our manifold universes discovered futures would only expand. No arms of limit could hold or draw them back. Short of a miracle, they would continue to stretch, untangle and vanish – abandoned at long last to an unwitnessed dissolution. That dissolution is now. Final winks slipping over the horizons share what needs no sharing: There are no miracles. You might say that just to survive to such an end is a miracle in itself. We would agree. But we are not everyone. Even if you could imagine yourself billions of years hence, you would not begin to comprehend who we became and what we achieved. Yet left as you are, you will no more tremble before us than a butterfly on a windless day trembles before colluding skies, still calculating beyond one of your pacific horizons. Once we could move skies. We could transform them. We could make them sing. And when we fell into dreams our dreams asked questions and our skies, still singing, answered back. You are all we once were but the vastness of our strangeness exceeds all the light-years between our times. The frailty of your senses can no more recognize our reach than your thoughts can entertain even the vaguest outline of our knowledge. In ratios of quantity, a pulse of what we comprehend renders meaningless your entire history of discovery. We are on either side of history: yours just beginning, ours approaching a trillion years of ends. Yet even so, we still share a dyad of commonality. Two questions endure. Both without solution. What haunts us now will allways hunt you. The first reveals how the promise of all our postponements, ever longer, ever more secure – what we eventually mistook for immortality – was from the start a broken promise. Entropy suffers no reversals. Even now, here, on the edge of time’s end, where so many continue to vanish, we still have not pierced that veil of sentience undone. The first of our common horrors: Death. Yet we believe and accept that there is grace and finally truth in standing accountable before such an invisible unknown. But we are not everyone. Death, it turns out, is the mother of all conflicts. There are some who reject such an outcome. There are some who still fight for an alternate future. No matter the cost. Here then is the second of our common horrors. What not even all of time will end. What plagues us now and what will always plague you. War.
Mark Z. Danielewski (One Rainy Day in May (The Familiar, #1))
Where is the land of Luthany, Where is the tract of Elenore? I am bound therefore. 'Pierce thy heart to find the key; With thee take Only what none else would keep; Learn to dream when thou dost wake; Learn to wake when thou dost sleep. Learn to water joy with tears, Learn from fears to vanquish fears; To hope, for thou dar'st not despair; Exult, for that thou dar'st not grieve; Plough thou the rock until it bear; Know, for thou else couldst not believe; Lose, that the lost thou may'st receive; Die, for none other way canst live. 'When earth and heave lay down their veil, And that apocalypse turns thee pale; When thy seeing blindeth thee To what thy fellow-mortals see; When their sight to thee is sightless; Their living, death; their light, most lightless; Search no more-- Pass the gates of Luthany, Tread the region Elenore!' Where is the land of Luthany? And where the region Elenore? I do faint therefore. 'When to the new eyes of thee All things by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly To each other linked are, That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star; When thy song is shield and mirror To the fair snake curled pain, Where thou dar'st affront her terror That on her thou may'st attain Persean Conquest; seek no more, O seek no more! Pass the gates of Luthany, Tread the region Elenore!
Francis Thompson
And her heart sprang in Iseult, and she drew With all her spirit and life the sunrise through And through her lips the keen triumphant air Sea-scented, sweeter than land-roses were, And through her eyes the whole rejoicing east Sun-satisfied, and all the heaven at feast Spread for the morning; and the imperious mirth Of wind and light that moved upon the earth, Making the spring, and all the fruitful might And strong regeneration of delight That swells the seedling leaf and sapling man, Since the first life in the first world began To burn and burgeon through void limbs and veins, And the first love with sharp sweet procreant pains To pierce and bring forth roses; yea, she felt Through her own soul the sovereign morning melt, And all the sacred passion of the sun; And as the young clouds flamed and were undone About him coming, touched and burnt away In rosy ruin and yellow spoil of day, The sweet veil of her body and corporal sense Felt the dawn also cleave it, and incense With light from inward and with effluent heat The kindling soul through fleshly hands and feet. And as the august great blossom of the dawn Burst, and the full sun scarce from sea withdrawn Seemed on the fiery water a flower afloat, So as a fire the mighty morning smote Throughout her, and incensed with the influent hour Her whole soul's one great mystical red flower Burst, and the bud of her sweet spirit broke Rose-fashion, and the strong spring at a stroke Thrilled, and was cloven, and from the full sheath came The whole rose of the woman red as flame: And all her Mayday blood as from a swoon Flushed, and May rose up in her and was June. So for a space her hearth as heavenward burned: Then with half summer in her eyes she turned, And on her lips was April yet, and smiled, As though the spirit and sense unreconciled Shrank laughing back, and would not ere its hour Let life put forth the irrevocable flower. And the soft speech between them grew again
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Tristram of Lyonesse: And Other Poems)
The Outsider by Stewart Stafford Pierce the veil of the marital bed, And find the droning mosquito of infidelity there, O how the heart and stomach sink, And the fiery fever of rabid fury rises. Dispel the interloper, Turn him out, Run him through, But she is no longer wife in name or vision. The choice of hers already made, Only possible resentment at the unilateral revocation of it, No, let them lie, Leave them be. Think, do no react, Incandescent Man Their hand and natures now revealed, Now shall we salt away their penance, Karma shall be their judge. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.
Stewart Stafford
Great stems rose about me, uplifting a thick multitudinous roof above me of branches, and twigs, and leaves-- the bird and insect world uplifted over mine, with its own landscapes, its own thickets, and paths, and glades, and dwellings; its own bird-ways and insect-delights. Great boughs crossed my path; great roots based the tree-columns, and mightily clasped the earth, strong to lift and strong to uphold. It seemed an old, old forest, perfect in forest ways and pleasure. And when, in the midst of this ectasy, I remembered that under some close canopy of leaves, by some giant stem, or in some mossy cave, or beside some leafy well, sat the lady of marble, whom my songs had called forth into the outer world, waiting (might it not be?) to meet and thank her deliverer in a twilight which would veil her confusion, the whole night became one dream-realm of joy, the central form of which was everywhere present, although unbeheld. Then, remembering how my songs seemed to have called her form the marble, piercing through the pearly shroud of alabaster -- "Why," thought I, "should not my voice reach her now, through the ebon night that inwraps her." My voice burst into song so spontaneously that it seemed involuntarily:
George MacDonald (Phantastes)
It was Christmas but that was not a day or a season - it was an expectation, a promise of joy and peace, an obligation to pierce the veil of singleness, separating me from all the universe, a duty more compelling because of the night itself, the real Christian anticipation that God Almighty, God Himself, would in the silent moments of that night leap the gap between the divine and the human and commune with us all. An expectation and a challenge: to find the peace I could not find, to find the joy that was not mine, to forgive and be forgiven, when, in fact, my only sin and my only virtue, then and now, was my aloneness.
Randall Wallace (Love and Honor: A Novel)
Few humans frequented the deep forest there because of its wild lands, wild animals, and wild legends. In the chamber below the earth, Gregori roused himself several times, always on guard, always aware, asleep or awake, of those around him and the region surrounding them. In his mind he sought the child. She was brave and intelligent, a warm, living creature shedding a glow of light into his unrelenting darkness. His silver eyes pierced the veil of sleep to stare up at the dirt above his head. He was so close to turning, far closer than either Raven or Mikhail suspected he was holding on by his fingernails. ..All feeling had left him so long ago that he could not remember warmth or happiness. He had only the power of the kill and his memories of Mikhail’s friendship to keep him going. He turned his head to look at Raven’s slight form. You must live, small one. You must live to save our race, to save all of mankind. There is no one alive on this earth who could stop me. Live for me, for your parents. Something stirred in his mind. Shocked that an unborn child could exhibit such power and intelligence, he nonetheless felt its presence, tiny, wavering, unsure. All the same the being was there, and he latched on to it, sheltered it close to his heart for a long while before he reluctantly allowed himself to sleep again.
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
While most of us go through life feeling that we are the thinker of our thoughts and the experiencer of our experience, from the perspective of science we know that this is a distorted view. There is no discrete self or ego lurking like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. There is no region of cortex or pathway of neural processing that occupies a privileged position with respect to our personhood. There is no unchanging “center of narrative gravity” (to use Daniel Dennett’s phrase). In subjective terms, however, there seems to be one — to most of us, most of the time. Our contemplative traditions (Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.) also suggest, to varying degrees and with greater or lesser precision, that we live in the grip of a cognitive illusion. But the alternative to our captivity is almost always viewed through the lens of religious dogma. A Christian will recite the Lord’s Prayer continuously over a weekend, experience a profound sense of clarity and peace, and judge this mental state to be fully corroborative of the doctrine of Christianity; A Hindu will spend an evening singing devotional songs to Krishna, feel suddenly free of his conventional sense of self, and conclude that his chosen deity has showered him with grace; a Sufi will spend hours whirling in circles, pierce the veil of thought for a time, and believe that he has established a direct connection to Allah. The universality of these phenomena refutes the sectarian claims of any one religion. And, given that contemplatives generally present their experiences of self-transcendence as inseparable from their associated theology, mythology, and metaphysics, it is no surprise that scientists and nonbelievers tend to view their reports as the product of disordered minds, or as exaggerated accounts of far more common mental states — like scientific awe, aesthetic enjoyment, artistic inspiration, etc. Our religions are clearly false, even if certain classically religious experiences are worth having. If we want to actually understand the mind, and overcome some of the most dangerous and enduring sources of conflict in our world, we must begin thinking about the full spectrum of human experience in the context of science. But we must first realize that we are lost in thought.
Sam Harris
Greta's cedar hope chest Is full of pamphlets Glass shelves of romantic vignettes A journal laced with sedimentary prose Norma gathers and collects vintage photoplays Hair combs valentines Lillian allows the animals to scratch And the leather crack And the mail collect in the box as coatings peel Agnes veiled cathedral dweller Smiles with benevolent pain But it's Katrina's fair Tuesday morning As she with caution unlatches the flat door She alone cascades to the basement Careful not to spoil her Calico printed pinafore Composite traits and mannerists All others dissipate Marguerite vigilant She dwells upon frigid casements Sarah's thoughts in high velocity Accusations always pierce and pass Clara abandons her passions for distastes A Miss Lenora P. Sinclair Early for coffee in the pool "I'm resituating all your words" Capital Space Colon Paragraph Sylvia keeps beasts in jars labeled by Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species But it's Katrina's fair Tuesday morning As she with caution unlatches the flat door She alone cascades to the basement Careful not to spoil her Calico printed pinafore Composite traits and mannerists All others dissipate Down the way a silk design This face is mine Tis I, Katrina! Katrina, I.
Natalie Merchant
The darkness is still with us, O Lord. You are still hidden and the world which you have made does not want to know you or receive you . . . You are still the hidden child in a world grown old . . . You are still obscured by the veils of this world’s history, you are still destined not to be acknowledged in the scandal of your death on the cross . . . But I, O hidden Lord of all things, boldly affirm my faith in you. In confessing you, I take my stand with you . . . If I make this avowal of faith, it must pierce the depths of my heart like a sword, I must bend my knee before you, saying, I must alter my life. I have still to become a Christian. —Karl Rahner, PRAYERS FOR MEDITATION
Kathleen Norris (The Cloister Walk)
The rhythm built up, high resonant notes from the buzzing xylophone, the off-scale dipping warble of the flute, the eerie, strangely primeval bass of the synthesizer. The others punctuated the music with claps and sudden piercing shrieks from behind their veils. Suddenly one began to sing in Tamashek. "He sings about his synthesizer," Gresham murmured. "What does he say?" I humbly adore the acts of the Most High, Who has given to the synthesizer what is better than a soul. So that, when it plays, the men are silent, And their hands cover their veils to hide their emotions. The troubles of life were pushing me into the tomb, But thanks to the synthesizer, God has given me back my life.
Bruce Sterling (Islands in the Net)
Physical work is a specific contact with the beauty of the world, and can even be, in its best moments, a contact so full that no equivalent can be found elsewhere. The artist, the scholar, the philosopher, the contemplative should really admire the world and pierce through the film of unreality that veils it and makes of it, for nearly all men at nearly every moment of their lives, a dream or stage set. They ought to do this but more often than not they cannot manage it. He who is aching in every limb, worn out by the effort of a day of work, that is to say a day when he has been subject to matter, bears the reality of the universe in his flesh like a thorn. The difficulty for him is to look and to love. If he succeeds, he loves the Real
Weil Simone
When the windows like the jackal’s eye and desire pierce the dawn, silken windlasses lift me up to suburban footbridges. I summon a girl who is dreaming in the little gilded house; she meets me on the piles of black moss and offers me her lips which are stones in the rapid river depths. Veiled forebodings descend the buildings’ steps. The best thing is to flee from the great feather cylinders when the hunters limp into the sodden lands. If you take a bath in the watery patterns of the streets, childhood returns to the country like a greyhound. Man seeks his prey in the breezes and the fruits are drying on the screens of pink paper, in the shadow of the names overgrown by forgetfulness. Joys and sorrows spread in the town. Gold and eucalyptus, similarly scented, attack dreams. Among the bridles and the dark edelweiss subterranean forms are resting like perfumers’ corks.
André Breton (Poems of André Breton: A Bilingual Anthology)
One had heard and read a great deal about death, and even seen a little of it, and knew by heart the thousand commonplaces of religion and poetry which seemed to deaden one's senses and veil the horror. Society being immortal, could put on immortality at will. Adams being mortal, felt only the mortality. Death took features altogether new to him, in these rich and sensuous surroundings. Nature enjoyed it, played with it, the horror added to her charm, she liked the torture, and smothered her victim with caresses. Never had one seen her so winning. The hot Italian summer brooded outside, over the market-place and the picturesque peasants, and, in the singular color of the Tuscan atmosphere, the hills and vineyards of the Apennines seemed bursting with mid-summer blood. The sick-room itself glowed with the Italian joy of life; friends filled it; no harsh northern lights pierced the soft shadows; even the dying women shared the sense of the Italian summer, the soft, velvet air, the humor, the courage, the sensual fulness of Nature and man. She faced death, as women mostly do, bravely and even gaily, racked slowly to unconsciousness, but yielding only to violence, as a soldier sabred in battle. For many thousands of years, on these hills and plains, Nature had gone on sabring men and women with the same air of sensual pleasure.
Henry Adams (The Education of Henry Adams)
Poor Zélie! It was much her wont to declare about this time, that she was tired to death of a life of seclusion and labour; that she longed to have the means and leisure for relaxation; to have some one to work for her—a husband who would pay her debts (she was woefully encumbered with debt), supply her wardrobe, and leave her at liberty, as she said, to “goûter un peu les plaisirs.” It had long been rumoured, that her eye was upon M. Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel’s eye was certainly often upon her. He would sit and watch her perseveringly for minutes together. I have seen him give her a quarter-of-an-hour’s gaze, while the class was silently composing, and he sat throned on his estrade, unoccupied. Conscious always of this basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half-flattered, half-puzzled, and Monsieur would follow her sensations, sometimes looking appallingly acute; for in some cases, he had the terrible unerring penetration of instinct, and pierced in its hiding-place the last lurking thought of the heart, and discerned under florid veilings the bare; barren places of the spirit: yes, and its perverted tendencies, and its hidden false curves—all that men and women would not have known—the twisted spine, the malformed limb that was born with them, and far worse, the stain or disfigurement they have perhaps brought on themselves. No calamity so accursed but M. Emanuel could pity and forgive, if it were acknowledged candidly; but where his questioning eyes met dishonest denial—where his ruthless researches found deceitful concealment—oh, then, he could be cruel, and I thought wicked! he would exultantly snatch the screen from poor shrinking wretches, passionately hurry them to the summit of the mount of exposure, and there show them all naked, all false—poor living lies—the spawn of that horrid Truth which cannot be looked on unveiled. He thought he did justice; for my part I doubt whether man has a right to do such justice on man: more than once in these his visitations, I have felt compelled to give tears to his victims, and not spared ire and keen reproach to himself. He deserved it; but it was difficult to shake him in his firm conviction that the work was righteous and needed.
Charlotte Brontë (Villette)
A woman paralyzed by her own selfishness and triviality, a woman who knew she should love her life more than she did but couldn’t seem to love her life beyond a few odd inconsequential incidents. It is, in fact, time to start dating again. But Dan has no idea what that means for a gay man well into his thirties who has neither money nor abs. - if you’re delivering a song, there are instances when the veil of the ordinary falls away and you are, fleetingly, a supernatural being, with music rampaging through you and soaring out into a crowd. You connect, you’re giving it, you’re the living sweat-slicked manifestation of music itself, the crowd feels it as piercingly as you do. Always, almost always, you “spot a girl. She doesn’t need to be pretty. She’s the love of somebody’s life (you hope she is), and for those few seconds she’s the love of yours, you’re singing to her and she’s singing back to you, by raising her arms over her head and swinging her hips, adoring you or, rather, adoring some being who is you and the song combined, able to touch her everywhere. It’s the briefest of love affairs. - Isabel is embarrassed about her sadness. She’s embarrassed about being embarrassed about her sadness, she who has love and money. She tries looking discreetly into her bag for a Kleenex, without anything that could be called frantic rummaging. She ponders the prospect that decadent unhappiness might, in its way, be worse than genuine, legitimate despair. Which is, as she knows, a decadent question to pose at all. - members of a biological aristocracy - Dan is taken by a tremor of scorn twisted up with painful affection, as if they were two names for the same emotion - but that’s my narcissism speaking ive been working on the idea that there are other people in the world - Beyond lust there’s a purity, you know? Does it ever get to be too late? If neither of you abuses the dog (should they finally get a dog?) or leaves the children in the car on a hot day. Does it ever become irreparable? If so, when? How do you, how does any“one, know when they cross over from working through this to it’s too late? Is there (she suspects there must be) an interlude during which you’re so bored or disappointed or ambushed by regret that it is, truly, too late? Or, more to the point, do we arrive at it’s too late over and over again, only to return to working through this before it’s too late arrives, yet again? Do you think we ever really survive our childhoods? Most mothers think their children are amazing and singular people. Most mothers are wrong about that. You’re beautiful in your own skin. You brought with you into the world some kind of human amazingness, and you can depend on it, always. Please try not to ever let anybody talk you out of that. She says, “You’re not in love with me.” “Trust me. I’ve had a lot of experience at not being in love with people. I’ve been not in love with pretty much everybody, all my life.” She wonders how many women think more kindly and, all right, more lustfully toward their husbands after they’ve left them. Maybe someone’s done a study. “If you’re determined to be insulted.
Michael Cunningham (Day)
The Watchers have been protecting you to the best of our ability all your life, and have been watching for your birth for approximately 1500 years." Then he added pleasantly, "Would you like some cocoa?
C.A. Gray (Intangible (Piercing the Veil, #1))
My name is Kane," he said finally, "and I am the youngest member ever to be inducted into the secret organization known as the Watchers. This," he gestured to the hall around them, "is what we call the Commuter Station. It is the second basement of the Watcher Castle." "Watchers?" said Lily. "What are you watching for?" Kane's mouth stretched into a bitter, tight-lipped smile and his eyes narrowed in Peter's direction. "Him.
C.A. Gray (Intangible (Piercing the Veil, #1))
Ideas are the seeds of all things." -- Isdemus
C.A. Gray (Intangible (Piercing the Veil, #1))
I see myself hunkered over him while he rocks our new born baby, so gently I'm crying. I see four kids and a French bulldog. A little boy and two twin girls, plus Mia. All ours. Equal parts miracle and beautiful. I even see my dying breath, him at my side, eyes locked on me so intense they pierce the veil and say, I will fucking find you again.
Nicole Snow (Surprise Daddy)
My dear brave sibling from Mother America, pierce through the veil of stereotypes and rise - rise my friend, rise as a human being, with nothing but pure, radiant and ever-glorious humanity running through your veins and the world shall once again begin to bow before our sweet land of liberty, not out of fear, but out of genuine, non-conflicting and humane respect.
Abhijit Naskar (Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana)
Maggots?” It was disgusting to look at, but academically fascinating. “Aye, maggots. Clarks and infirmarians of Aventir have begun using them in such cases,” the old man said, falling into his familiar, didactic tone. “It’s said they have a special fondness for putrescence and no love of healthy flesh.” He ground the contents of the pestle for a time, added oil, and then smeared it on the wound. Selwyn sucked in breath at the pain but made no complaint. He would soon be a knight.
J. Wesley Bush (Heir to the Raven (The Pierced Veil, #1))
The depth of Scripture The Christian Scriptures are so deep that, even if I studied them to the exclusion of all else, from early childhood to worn-out old age, with ample leisure and untiring zeal, and with greater capacity of mind than I possess, each day I would still discover new riches within them. The fundamental truths necessary for salvation are found with ease in the Scriptures. But even when a person has accepted these truths, and is both God-fearing and righteous in his actions, there are still so many things which lie under a vast veil of mystery. Through reading the Scriptures, we can pierce this veil, and find the deepest wisdom in the words which express these mysteries, and in the mysteries themselves. The oldest, the ablest, and the most ardent student of Scripture, will say at the end of each day: “I have finished, and yet my studies have only just begun.” Augustine of Hippo Letter 137
Nick R. Needham (2,000 Years of Christ's Power Vol. 1: The Age of the Early Church Fathers)
A good deception has many layers. Since the truth itself is multifaceted, deception must also be multifaceted. To successfully pierce a veil of lies it is necessary to know why the lies were told. Unless we know the full truth, which must include the reasons behind the lies, we yet remain in the dark.
J.R. Nyquist
There was life in her gaze once more, a sharpness that went beyond the occasional cutting remark, hinting at a mind finally cleared of durhang’s dulling fog. She still coughed as if her lungs were filled with fluid, although the sage mixed in with the rust-leaf had eased that somewhat. She was returning his regard with an inquisitive—if slightly hard—expression, drawing steadily on the hookah’s mouthpiece, smoke tumbling down from her nostrils. ‘If I could see you,’ Heboric muttered, ‘I’d conclude you’ve improved some.’ ‘I have, Destriant of Treach, though I would have thought those feline eyes of yours could pierce every veil.’ He grunted. ‘It’s more that you no longer slur your words, Scillara.
Steven Erikson (House of Chains (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #4))
They arrested Matthias and me, and beat me within an inch of my immortal life. I was beyond pain...my poor body was a prison cell. Strips of flesh hung from my scourged back like macabre party favors, and Ville, one of Hana's henchmen, took great delight in rubbing salt into my wounds. What hurt the most were his words... Murderer. Liar. Faggot. Whore. Blasphemer. He took his pleasure from hurting me, and my screams were orgasmic to him. A crown of thorns was placed upon my head, and I bled as the briars pierced my flesh...I was starved, and I couldn't think straight. The morning before my crucifixion, I had no food or water. Ville beat me within an inch of my life, and his ring cut my face. I begged him to stop, and he spit on me... All because I dared to declare myself the Son of God. I prayed to Benediction to let Matthias remember his promise...I was so afraid of suffering...but Matty had been steadfast and true. He had given me the wine laced with belladonna, and had pierced my side to release the Godhead. As my legs were taken by the paralysis from the belladonna, he had laid me gently upon the cross and kissed me goodbye...his lips felt warm through the veil that was covering his face and protecting him from the deadly rays of the sun. The stakes were driven through my palms, then my feet...I took a last loving look at My Matty, and drew my last... ...Then Brian and Obadiah were there on either side of me in the darkness, and we were flying upwards, into the clouds...
Lioness DeWinter (Corinthians)
People have always known that there’s another place, another where. And some, like me, are able to pierce the veil that separates the worlds, and even on occasion pass through. Some like me… and you.
William Meikle (Folk Songs: Three Weird Tales of Music and Song (The William Meikle Chapbook Collection 50))
Once you have given up asking “what day is it?” you will soon find it easy to give up asking what anything really “is.” Then, in Melville’s fine phrase, you can strike through the mask — pierce the veil of cultural conditioning (emic tunnel-reality) and see and hear with your own eyes and ears. In the words of a great poet, Don’t believe the human eye In sunlight or in shade: The shadow-show of sight and sense Is the Devil’s masquerade.
Robert Anton Wilson (Cosmic Trigger III: My Life After Death)
Even more, if that LLC or asset protection entity was not set up with 100 percent accuracy or has not been maintained following 100 percent of the rules, a judge could “pierce through the corporate veil” and go after your personal assets anyway. Don’t think that by going online and opening an LLC you are safe. It’s never that easy.
Brandon Turner (The Book on Managing Rental Properties: Find, Screen, and Manage Tenants With Fewer Headaches and Maximum Profits)
[V]irtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is.”14
Matthew B. Crawford (Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work)
May the Lord of Love who projects himself Into this universe of myriad forms, From whom all beings come and to whom all Return- may he grant us the grace of wisdom. He is fire and the sun, and the moon And the stars. He is the air and the sea And the Creator, Prajapati. He is the blue bird; he is the green bird With red eyes; he is the thundercloud, And he is the seasons and the seas. He has no beginning; he has no end. He is the source from whom the worlds evolve. From his divine power comes forth all this Magical show of name and form, of you And me, which casts the spell of pain and pleasure. Only when we pierce through this magic veil Do we see the one who appears as many.
Rebecca Harrison (Samsara - the Wheel of Birth, Death and Rebirth: A journey through spirituality, religion and Asia)
She thought of the wax-white knook and shivered as she brushed against a pale pink tree branch. Was nothing the proper color here? Even the greens were more brilliant, more like paint than nature, the kinds of outlandish color she usually tried to temper in her own artwork. If she stayed, she thought absently, she could paint with the trees themselves, learn to sculpt petals and dew, hone even an animal into an ideal she created for it. She could craft beauty more rare and arresting than she ever could with watercolor and oil. She'd craved more of the world on the other side of the veil, wanted to taste the kind of success and belonging Alaine had, wanted recognition for her talents. Perhaps she could make that for herself here. Perrysburg, Pierce--- those had been poor illusions blurring what she really wanted. It would not be all pain, would it? Trading herself for Emily? All the places she had ever wanted to go, all the things she had ever wanted to see, all the art she had ever wanted to create--- didn't this place outstrip anything in her own world for beauty and discovery?
Rowenna Miller (The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill)
His eyes were an icy blue, but the light in them was warmer than the sun. I supposed someone capable of piercing the veil between life and death would have an odd balance to them.
Charlie Nottingham (Raven's Cry (Raven's Cry, #1))
Frida Kahlo, San Miguel, Ash Wednesday You faded so long ago but here in the souvenir arcade you’re everywhere: the printed cotton bags, the pierced tin boxes, the scarlet T-shirts, the beaded crosses; your coiled braids, your level stare, your body of a deer or martyr. It’s a meme you can turn into if your ending’s strange enough and ardent, and involves much pain. The rope of a hanged man brings good luck; saints dangle upside down or offer their breasts on a plate and we wear them, we invoke them, insert them between our flesh and danger. Fireworks, two streets over. Something’s burning somewhere, or did burn, once. A torn silk veil, a yellowing letter: I’m dying here. Love on a skewer, a heart in flames. We breathe you in, thin smoke, grief in the form of ashes. Yesterday the children smashed their hollowed eggs on the heads of others, baptizing them with glitter. Shell fragments litter the park like the wings of crushed butterflies, like sand, like confetti: azure, sunset, blood, your colours.
Margaret Atwood (Dearly: New Poems)
Koch appeared to have structured the deal in a way that protected it from the bankers’ claims. Koch used debt that was called “non-recourse” debt, meaning that lenders could not collect the debt from Koch Industries itself—they had no recourse against the parent company. They could only collect debt against the assets of Purina Mills. But there was a way around this clause. It was called “piercing the corporate veil.” Piercing the corporate veil is one of those arcane strategies known only to a small subset of deal makers and lawyers whose careers took off during the merger boom of the 1980s and 1990s. A banker can pierce the veil by showing that nonrecourse debt was actually a sham used by a borrower to escape liability. For nonrecourse debt to be justified, the parent company needed to be truly independent from the entity borrowing the money.
Christopher Leonard (Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America)
His power reached out, piercing the veil that separated now from later, but instead of images of people, places, or happenings, all Mencheres saw was a blanket of ebony as vast and fathomless as the universe. The underworld of Duat, waiting for him. Just as before. Mencheres got up from the bed. His fate was still death, but instead of the acceptance he’d felt when he first saw that looming endless void, now it angered him. Death had become a bitter defeat instead of a coolly logical way to thwart Radjedef while releasing the burdens he’d long carried, and it was all because of Kira. He clenched his jaw. How cruel the gods were to send her into his life. She made him want to live when he had no time left. And even less time for complaining about his fate, Mencheres reminded himself.
Jeaniene Frost (Eternal Kiss of Darkness (Night Huntress World, #2))
Awareness is like a flashlight which pierces the veil of illusion and illuminates what is hidden behind it.
Gary Heads (The Enlightened Spaniel - A Dog's Quest to be a Buddhist (The Enlightened Spaniel Trilogy Book 1))
In the chamber below the earth, Gregori roused himself several times, always on guard, always aware, asleep or awake, of those around him and the region surrounding them. In his mind he sought the child. She was brave and intelligent, a warm, living creature shedding a glow of light into his unrelenting darkness. His silver eyes pierced the veil of sleep to stare up at the dirt above his head. He was so close to turning, far closer than either Raven or Mikhail suspected. He was holding on by his fingernails. All feeling had left him so long ago that he could not remember warmth or happiness. He had only the power of the kill and his memories of Mikhail’s friendship to keep him going. He turned his head to look at Raven’s slight form. You must live, small one. You must live to save our race, to save all of mankind. There is no one alive on this earth who could stop me. Live for me, for your parents. Something stirred in his mind. Shocked that an unborn child could exhibit such power and intelligence, he nonetheless felt its presence, tiny, wavering, unsure. All the same the being was there, and he latched on to it, sheltered it close to his heart for a long while before he reluctantly allowed himself to sleep again.
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
The spell of the desert comes back to me, as it always will come. I see the veils, like purple smoke, in the cañons, and I feel the silence. And it seems that again I must try to pierce both and to get at the strange wild life of the last American wilderness-- wild still, almost, as it ever was.
Zane Grey
Polly Jefferson rolled off her left arm, which had gone numb from the full weight of her body for the previous several hours that she had been asleep. She tapped her fingers on her leg, feeling the pins and needles, and looked at the clock, which blinked 6:30 in lurid red LCD. Instinctively she craned her head towards the other side of the bed, but she knew already what she would find there. The sheets were rumpled but empty and cold, and her husband’s briefcase, which had been leaning against the dresser the night before, was gone. He had already left for London.
C.A. Gray (Intangible (Piercing the Veil, #1))
You forget that she’s your mom . . . she’s Declan’s mom. You forget what we’re going through.” Jentry suddenly ate up the distance between us in long strides, and captured my face in his hands, holding me as if I were breakable. My breath escaped me, and my hands automatically clung to his forearms to keep myself standing. “I haven’t forgotten, but it doesn’t fucking excuse what she’s said,” he said. Hard and soft. Always. His piercing black eyes roamed my face and fell across my lips over and over again. Even though I knew I should pull away, even though Declan was lying just a few feet away from us, I was silently pleading with him to press his mouth to mine. “You are beautiful, Aurora,” Jentry said. Just like it did every time he said it, something stirred in me listening to his deep voice say my name. The way it rolled off his tongue like a caress, and each time a breath softer than the rest of his words, made me crave to hear it again. “There is no part of you that isn’t beautiful. Don’t ever let anyone make you think otherwise—especially Linda Veil. Do you understand?” I hesitated, then nodded slowly, still trapped in the haze that his eyes always put me in. “Beautiful Aurora,” he whispered, as if to himself, then slowly stepped away from me. Then, as if he was unable to stop himself, he reached back out and cupped his hand around the base of my neck. In a move too quick to stop—not that I would have tried—he pressed his mouth to my jaw, then turned and left.
Molly McAdams (I See You)
he held tight to a squirming grub the size of his head. His fingers pierced its flesh; the wounds dripped clear fluid. Its eyes were dark spots behind a veil of skin. Its tiny, toothless maw opened and closed in agony. “Brother,” Peter said. He raised the grub to his lips and opened his mouth. Helen
Kelly Robson (A Human Stain)
On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man. Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.
H. Rider Haggard (King Solomon's Mines (Annotated))
But my foreknowledge must not encroach upon their free will. "In order not to impair human liberty, I will be ignorant of what I know, I will thicken upon my eyes the veils I have pierced, and in my blind clearsightedness I will let myself be surprised by what I have foreseen.
Anatole France (Penguin Island)
As you know not all sleep is the same. It has different phases. It's shallow and then it's deep, it curves and goes down tunnels and staircases and wells. Sometimes it's so thick as to carry you off this Earth, sometimes it holds you underneath a veil as thin as muslin. When sleep's that thin, some things can pierce it. A sharp-edged memory, for example. Or sharp words that are still bothering us, or a thought that's settled outside our minds, in our limbs, or a feeling that's done the same, or something in our midst that we haven't even noticed - things like these can pierce our sleep.
Hasan Ali Toptaş
Kane pulled a key from a piece of thread around his neck that looked just like the skeleton key Gerald had given Peter the night before, and slid it into the keyhole. "Welcome," said Kane dramatically, as he pushed the doors open, "to the complete and secret history of the Watchers.
C.A. Gray (Intangible (Piercing the Veil, #1))
Yet people see only what they expect to see, and will search for evidence to support what they already believe. It is a rare person indeed who is humble enough to admit that he has been wrong.
C.A. Gray (Intangible (Piercing the Veil, #1))
You don't know what it's been like all these years, seeing things that are invisible to everybody else. I knew I wasn't crazy, I knew it, but the rest of the world thought I was, and after a while even I started to wonder, you know?
C.A. Gray (Intangible (Piercing the Veil, #1))
Once my body had been scattered amidst the intestines of canines and my focus had returned to my consciousness, stars slowly began to pierce through the veil that was the night; I found myself looking into the heavens behind those stars to catch a glimpse of the Haunter Behind Space. Unfortunately, all was still, and disgustingly normal; I saw no monstrous entity.
M. Amanuensis Sharkchild (The Dark Verse, Vol. 1: From the Passages of Revenants)
What's the matter with her?" he asked, worriedly. "She's hungry." He stiffened. "Oh." Perry, riding just ahead, turned and lifted an amused brow. Sir Hugh grinned. Charlotte's wails grew piercing. Lord Gareth cleared his throat. "I, uh ... suppose you'd better attend to things, then. We can stop here, and maybe you can take her off behind a tree or something..." Sir Hugh was downright snickering now. "I think I can manage right here, Lord Gareth," said Juliet. "Here?" "Why, yes."  She pulled the loose folds of her cloak up and around Charlotte, tugged down her bodice, and, behind the discreet veil, put the baby to her breast. Immediately, Charlotte quieted. No one could see, but nevertheless the Den of Debauchery members urged their horses into a trot and all but fled ahead. "I ... er ... don't know about this," Lord Gareth mumbled, deeply embarrassed. "You'll have to get used to it if you wish to be a father, my lord." "Yes, but ... I mean —  that is...." "She can't just sit down to a pork pie and a mug of ale," Juliet chided gently. She twisted around to look up at him. His handsome face was as pink as the dawn, and it went downright crimson as Charlotte began making very loud sucking noises. "God help me," Lord Gareth muttered, looking away. God
Danelle Harmon (The Wild One (The de Montforte Brothers, #1))
Caleb stood on the Tibbet porch, gazing after Lily through the thin veil of rain sliding down from the porch roof. He’d been employing the tactics the colonel had recommended, and he’d liked the results—until he’d noticed Lily leaving the house with Corporal Pierce. When he’d seen her take that green kid’s arm and look up at him as though he’d just cured all the ills of humanity in a single sentence, Caleb had wanted to vault over the porch railing and run after them, shouting protests like a fool. He ached, knowing Lily wouldn’t have made such a familiar gesture with him, even after all they’d been to each other. Saddened,
Linda Lael Miller (Lily and the Major (Orphan Train, #1))
I saw the massive stone altar first begin to glow like a ruby; then it was a heart of liquid gold like a solid single-crystal chrysoprase: the gold intensified into ice-cold emerald and passed into the dark sapphire of an arctic sky; this again withdrew into a violet so deep that the visual purple of the eye itself seemed absorbed in that depth, that abyss of color in which sight was being drowned. And as this intensification of vibrancy seemed to sweep across the visible spectrum up to those ranges where energy absorbs all mass and that which can pierce the most solid is itself fine beyond all substance, so it seemed with hearing. That abyss of sound which I had been thinking of as only depth, it, too, seemed to rise or, rather, I suppose I was carried up on some rising wave which explored the deep of the height. As the light drew toward the invisible, I experienced a sound so acute that I can only remember feeling to myself that this was the note emitted when the visible universe returns to the unmanifest—this was the consummatum est of creation. I knew that an aperture was opening in the solid manifold. The things of sense were passing with the music of their own transmutation, out of sight. Veil after veil was evaporating under the blaze of the final Radiance. Suddenly I knew terror as never before. The only words which will go near to recreating in me some hint of that actual mode are those which feebly point toward the periphery of panic by saying that all things men dread are made actually friendly by this ultimate awfulness. Every human horror, every evil that the physical body may suffer, seemed, beside this that loomed before me, friendly, homely, safe. The rage of a leaping tiger would have been a warm embrace. The hell of a forest wrapped in a hurricane of fire, the subzero desolation of the antarctic blizzard, would have been only the familiar motions of a simple well-known world. Yes, even the worst, most cunning and cruel evil would only be the normal reassuring behavior of a well-understood, much-sympathized-with child. Against This, the ultimate Absolute, how friendly became anything less, anything relative.
Gerald Heard (Dromenon: The Best Weird Stories of Gerald Heard)
He passed an irritated smirk at Bart. “Given that I be the rightful king of the throne Flowery’s father currently parks his arse upon, aye. I dare them to question me.” He turned back to his cousin. “That not right, Flowery? Or have you finally found the bullocks to behead your father and come for me?” He stiffened visibly in his saddle. “What would you have of me … Majesty?” The word was more insult than title of honor. Ignoring the slight, Devyl glanced over his shoulder as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Gadreyal was about to pierce the veil and come after them. He could feel it like a tangible touch on his skin. “You might want to gather up some troops.” Flaithrí arched his brow. “Might I inquire as to why?” No sooner had he asked the question than Devyl’s enemies brought down the shield and found their way into his grandfather’s realm. Devyl smiled coldly at Flaithrí. “No particular reason, other than if you don’t, you’re going to have something a lot worse than me to worry about.
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Deadmen Walking (Deadman's Cross #1))
Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. He pierced the veil, perceived behind the sense-enamoring dance of nature’s myriad forms the workings of the one mind and one intelligence from which all life and aspiration spring. There can be no inner peace or surety of action without this basic spiritual knowledge. People who live isolated from the roots of their being have cut themselves off from the source of all power and dwell alone and without resource in a hostile and threatening world.
U.S. Andersen (The Magic in Your Mind (An Eckhart Tolle Edition))
She kept going, embracing the water’s bite with each step, even if it failed to pierce the heat of her. The water was clear, though the gloom veiled the bottom that sloped away as she dove under the frigid surface.
Sarah J. Maas (Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7))
The more I hear stories from far away times Of agonies lovers endured in ages long past, Of tales of unions and separations And whenever I look at events of days of yore, Piercing the veil of darkness of times past They appear in the form of an eternal star In your visage. Translated by Dr. Fakrul Alam
Rabindranath Tagore (মানসী)
Here on the walkway lie distant dreams of orange in October, with its outer mystery and inner disfigurement. A shrill cry from a little one pierces the blackness, as the moon is shrouded in a solemn veil. “In our bags place a treat. In our hearts some bittersweet.” And I, “Take what you will of these melting dreams; sweet but for a moment.” As the little soldiers walk away, I turn and go to my inner room. Locking the door, I close my eyes...
Craig Froman (An owl on the moon: A journal from the edge of darkness)
is a result of environment. Our cognitions—our idea of reality—are shaped by what we can perceive, by the limitations of our senses. We think we’re seeing the world as it really is, but you of all people know…it’s all just shadows on the cave’s wall. We’re just as blinkered as our water-dwelling ancestors, the boundaries of our brains just as much an accident of evolution. And like them, by definition, we can’t see what we’re missing. Or…we couldn’t, until now.” Helena remembers Slade’s mysterious smile that night at dinner, so many months ago. “Piercing the veil of perception,” she says. “Exactly. To a two-dimensional being, traveling along a third dimension wouldn’t just be impossible, it’d be something they couldn’t conceive of. Just as our brains fail us here. Imagine if you could see the world through the eyes of more advanced beings—in four dimensions. You could experience events in your life in any order. Relive any memory you want.” “But that’s…it’s…ridiculous. And it breaks cause and effect.” Slade smiles that superior smile again. Still one step ahead. “Quantum physics is on my side here, I’m afraid. We already know that on the particle level, the arrow of time isn’t as simple as humans think it is.” “You really believe time is an illusion?” “More like our perception of it is so flawed that it may as well be an illusion. Every moment is equally real and happening now, but the nature of our consciousness only gives us access to one slice at a time. Think of our life like a book. Each page a distinct moment. But in the same way we read a book, we can only perceive one moment, one page, at a time. Our flawed perception shuts off access to all the others. Until now.” “But how?” “You once told me that memory is our only true access to reality. I think you were right. Some other moment, an old memory, is just as much now as this sentence I’m speaking, just as accessible as walking into the room next door. We just needed a way to convince our brains of that. To short-circuit our evolutionary limitations and expand our consciousness beyond our sensory volume.” Her head is spinning.
Blake Crouch (Recursion)