“
Love makes you foolish. It makes you throw every bit of logic away, do stupid things, dangerous things.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
I know the expression love bloomed is metaphorical, but in my heart in this moment, there is one badass flower, captured in time-lapse photography, going from bud to wild radiant blossom in ten seconds flat.
”
”
Jandy Nelson (The Sky Is Everywhere)
“
The picture of me just after I’d found out Aspen was saving up to marry me. I looked radiant, hopeful, beautiful. I looked like I was in love. And some idiot thought that love was for Prince Maxon.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
"Love is seeing an imperfect person perfectly.. and he is far from being perfect. But there’s something about him that captivates my heart.What’s so good about him anyway? Is it his radiant smile? His charisma? Maybe it’s his attractive face? I don’t know. But..I’m falling.. hard.
”
”
Bianca B. Bernardino (She's Dating the Gangster)
“
Like chaos in a glass cage.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
It was SHE. Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word ‘she.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
The most important words a man can say are, “I will do better.” These are not the most important words any man can say. I am a man, and they are what I needed to say.
The ancient code of the Knights Radiant says “journey before destination.” Some may call it a simple platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we will hurt those around us.
But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination. To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.
I’m certain some will feel threatened by this record. Some few may feel liberated. Most will simply feel that it should not exist. I needed to write it anyway.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3))
“
The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would last through life; he said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
Aidan from the past: He took her hands in his bloodied, callused ones. “Accept me?” His eyes glowed, his lashes spiked from rain.
Declan in the present: He gripped her nape. “I fuckin love you, Regin!” Rain spiked his lashes as he gazed down at her, commanding her, “Love me back!
”
”
Kresley Cole (Dreams of a Dark Warrior (Immortals After Dark, #10))
“
He's like six hundred years younger than you are. I refuse to be the moral compass of our cell! Most weekends I have an intoxispell bong attached to my mouth like a respirator. I love scatological humor, and I list 'pranks involving nuclear waste' and 'making demons eat things' as my hobbies.
”
”
Kresley Cole (Dreams of a Dark Warrior (Immortals After Dark, #10))
“
Don't get pissy with me leech." With a glare, Carrow pressed her print to his torque. "Even tapped out, I can still do a love spell to make you fall in love--with the sun.
”
”
Kresley Cole (Dreams of a Dark Warrior (Immortals After Dark, #10))
“
Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
“
Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root.
”
”
Emma Goldman (Marriage and Love)
“
In all of eternity, no faery born has overcome me in anything.'
Aaah. Pride goeth before the fall, my friend"--Irial stood and clasped Devlin's hand--"but you've already fallen, haven't you?'
And to that, Devlin had no answer.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
You're still... Declan?"--
--Voice hoarse, he said, "Aye, it's me. I will never be your perfect Viking, Regin! I've made unforgivable mistakes. I've no family or friends, and my men hold no love for me. I'm scarred inside and out. And I'm bloody askin' for you anyway!
”
”
Kresley Cole (Dreams of a Dark Warrior (Immortals After Dark, #10))
“
Love can crystallize things. When love is in the air, distressing rain can become a wonderful avalanche of shimmering diamonds. Raindrops are transformed into a flood of sparkling crystal pearls. The power of love can convert rain into a multitude of glittering prisms. The mental seduction of love and a boundless illusion, inflamed by a profound uprising emotion, can change any ordinary incident into a radiant, luminous voyage. ( "Crystallization under an umbrella" )
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
The regular choreography, entrances and exits of blooms in stages such that the garden looked like an ever-evolving carousel of swirling rainbows and radiant butterflies, seemed condensed. All of the flowers still obeyed some silent urgent command to make their debut. But this year, it definitely unfolded more quickly, as if racing to meet a new compelling deadline.
”
”
John Rachel (Love Connection: Romance in the Land of the Rising Sun)
“
Some things are more important than safety.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
For ages you have come and gone
courting this delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Although you appear in earthly form
Your essence is pure Consciousness.
You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
When you lose all sense of self
the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.
Lose yourself completely,
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
You descended from Adam, by the pure Word of God,
but you turned your sight
to the empty show of this world.
Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Why are you so enchanted by this world
when a mine of gold lies within you?
Open your eyes and come ---
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
You were born from the rays of God's Majesty
when the stars were in their perfect place.
How long will you suffer from the blows
of a nonexistent hand?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
You are a ruby encased in granite.
How long will you decieve Us with this outer show?
O friend, We can see the truth in your eyes!
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
After one moment with that glorious Friend
you became loving, radiant, and ecstatic.
Your eyes were sweet and full of fire.
Come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Shams-e Tabriz, the King of the Tavern
has handed you an eternal cup,
And God in all His glory is pouring the wine.
So come! Drink!
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Soul of all souls, life of all life - you are That.
Seen and unseen, moving and unmoving - you are That.
The road that leads to the City is endless;
Go without head and feet
and you'll already be there.
What else could you be? - you are That.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
“
Pride goeth before the fall....but you've already fallen, haven't you?
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.)
“
I am Devlin, brother and advisor to the High Queen, assassin, and keeper of order.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
He gripped her nape. "I fuckin' love you, Regin!" Rain spiked his lashes as he gazed down at her, commanding her,
"Love Me Back
”
”
Gena Showalter
“
He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being."
Jean Valjean about Cossette
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
No ale for the girl, Birgit," Aidan said to the woman. "Do we not have milk?"
Regin's face heated. And all the worse, because she would dearly love some milk.
”
”
Kresley Cole (Dreams of a Dark Warrior (Immortals After Dark, #10))
“
Ada girl, adored girl, [...] I'm a radiant void. I'm convalescing after a long and dreadful illness. You cried over my unseemly scar, but now life is going to be nothing but love and laughter, and corn in cans. I cannot brood over broken hearts, mine is too recently mended.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov
“
You know how it is when two souls meet in a burst of ecstatic volubility, with hearts tickling to hear and to tell, to know everything, to reveal everything, the shared reverence for the other's otherness, a feeling of solitude radiantly snapped by full *contact* - all that?
”
”
Martin Amis (London Fields)
“
If we cooperate with Him in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.
”
”
A.W. Tozer (The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine)
“
Nothing could be taken for granted. Women who loved you tried to cut your throat, while women who didn't even know your name scrubbed your back. Witches could sound like Katharine Hepburn and your best friend could try to strangle you. Smack in the middle of an orchid there might be a blob of jello and inside a Mickey Mouse doll, a fixed and radiant star.
”
”
Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon)
“
She was the most beautiful thing you ever saw. She was radiant. And she was wearing this necklace... When you see the necklace in the painting, it all makes sense. He loved her. Even if she lived to one hundred and five without ever getting an answer.
”
”
Sophie Kinsella (Twenties Girl)
“
She closed Dan's door and walked down the hall to her room. He makes a good boyfriend, she repeated to herself. What the hell was that suppose to mean? She didn't just want a good boyfriend. She wanted that thing Gustav Klimt had captured so perfectly in The Kiss. That radiant, electric, hold-me-tight-so-I don't-fall-from-up-here-in-the-sky feeling of being in love.
Well, don't we all, sweetie?
”
”
Cecily von Ziegesar (All I Want is Everything (Gossip Girl, #3))
“
Like many faeries she knew, he was sculpture-perfect, but instead of being wrought of shadows like those in her court, this faery had a tangled feel to him. Shadow and radiance. He didn‘t look much older than her, until she saw the arrogance in his posture. Then, he reminded her of Irial, of Bananach, of Keenan, of the faeries who walked through courts and crowds confident that they could slaughter everyone in the room. Like chaos in a glass cage.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
There was no God in his heart, he knew; his ideas were still in riot;
there was ever the pain of memory; the regret for his lost youth-yet the
waters of disillusion had left a deposit on his soul, responsibility and a
love of life, the faint stirring of old ambitions and unrealized
dreams......
And he could not tell why the struggle was worth while, why he had
determined to use to the utmost himself and his heritage from the
personalities he had passed...
He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky.
I know myself," he cried, "but that is all.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
“
You cannot force me to make my wishes now" She squared her shoulders and looked at him. "I've read texts.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
But all I could see was her. No skill of mine, no artist anywhere, could’ve immortalized how gorgeous she was. It was impossible to believe she’d ever had any doubts about her body. The firelight shone on her skin, golden and perfect, making her look like some radiant goddess of legend. I wanted to kneel before her and offer eternal obedience.
”
”
Richelle Mead (The Fiery Heart (Bloodlines, #4))
“
Looking for Your Face
From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it
Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for
Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did
I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you
with a hundred eyes
My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold
I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine
Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow
My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you
Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant
for me
the earth and sky
My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Love Poems of Rumi)
“
Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Letter from the Birmingham Jail)
“
What does it mean when a man falls in love with a radiant face across the room? It may mean that he has some soul work to do. His soul is the issue. Instead of pursuing the woman and trying to get her alone, away from her husband, he needs to go alone himself, perhaps to a mountain cabin, for three months, write poetry, canoe down a river, and dream. That would save some women a lot of trouble.
”
”
Robert Bly (Iron John: A Book About Men)
“
I waited here while you talked to Sorcha, who, by the way, is crazy. Now you are off to the mortal world where the crazier one is? ... I was there, Devlin. Bananach could've killed you, and really? We've been bound together for like five minutes and you're suddenly darting off into danger without me. I don't think so.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
This must be
what love is:
a pain so radiant
it cuts through all others.
”
”
Sara Eliza Johnson (Bone Map: Poems (National Poetry Series))
“
To the degree you experience God's love towards you - seeing you as beautiful and radiant - to that degree sex won't ruin your life.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller
“
You brought
me your darkness
& I loved you
with the radiant
tears of a
thousand suns.
”
”
Curtis Tyrone Jones (Mirrors Of The Sun: Finding Reflections Of Light In The Shittiness Of Life)
“
Their love was a bright flower, youthful and radiantly beautiful.
”
”
Madeleine L'Engle (Many Waters (Time Quintet, #4))
“
Even now, she looked radiant to him. How ridiculous that he'd be romanticizing her in these final hours. What could have once been love was now the resignation of a heart long broken.
”
”
Neal Shusterman (Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1))
“
The boy's eyes went to him, and a shock passed through Magnus. They were not Will's eyes, the eyes Magnus remembered being as blue as a night sky in Hell, eyes Magnus has seen both despairing and tender.
This boy has shining golden eyes, like crystal glass filled brimful with crisp white wine and held up to catch the light of a blazing sun. If his skin was luminous, his eyes were radiant. Magnus could not imagine these eyes as tender. The boy was very, very lovely, but his was a beauty like that of Helen of Troy might have had once, disaster written in every line. The light of his beauty made Magnus think of cities burning.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (The Midnight Heir (The Bane Chronicles, #4))
“
She was breathtaking in her beauty and her human spirit, he thought, unable to speak as he gazed upon her. Hers was the sort that would not fade or grow jaded with time and years, but flourish, grow more radiant with life and its experience. Hers was a beauty that no other possessed. A beauty he longed to keep, to hide away, to bask in, himself alone. She had become his. He didn’t know when, whether it had been the moment her fingertips had touched him when he was hurt, or if it had grown, like a seed, slowing spreading until Jane had become the root anchoring the shattered pieces of his heart, pulling them tight together until it resembled the organ it should.
”
”
Charlotte Featherstone (Sinful (Addicted, #2))
“
My mother always says that love is like a snakebite, a venom slowly spreading through your veins.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (Radiant (Unearthly, #2.5))
“
The intimate space of your personal life should be reserved for amazing, beautiful, radiant souls — good, wholesome and loving people.
”
”
Bryant McGill (Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life)
“
The night you gave me my birthday party… you were a young Lieutenant and I was a fragrant phantom, wasn’t I? And it was a radiant night, a night of soft conspiracy and the trees agreed that it was all going to be for the best.
”
”
Zelda Fitzgerald (Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald)
“
He reached out and caressed her face. With a serious expression, he traced the edge of her jaw with his thumb. "You‘re beautiful, Ani. In all of eternity, there‘s never been another faery who could make me want to forget everything and everyone else."
"Because you like the way I look?" She rolled her eyes. "Apparently, my dream mind is shallow."
"No, not the exterior. You… the tempers and follies and passion… even the way you care for that infuriating steed."Devlin gazed at her like she was precious. "Even knowing you could be fatal, I would‘ve said yes."
Her chest hurt like she had held her breath too long as she asked, "To?"
"Whatever you wanted." He didn‘t reach out and pull her into his embrace. Instead, he took one step forward, leaned down, and kissed her.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
She smiled radiantly at the shield, pretending it was Dageus. The three simple words just didn't seem like enough. Love was so much larger than words.
"I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you more than chocolate. I love you more than the whole world is big." She paused, thinking, searching for a way to explain what she felt. "I love you more than artifacts. I love you so much it makes my toes curl just thinking about it."
Pushing her hair back from her face, she donned her most sincere expression. "I love you."
"You can have the confounded shield if you love it that much, lass," Dageus said, sounding utterly bewildered. Chloe felt all the blood drain from her face.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
“
This was a god indeed, a love-god, a warm and radiant god, in whose light White Fang's nature expanded as a flower expands under the sun.
”
”
Jack London (White Fang)
“
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
”
”
Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
“
but it's not always as set as that. Some things, though, feel like they're right. You and me? It's one of those things. I don't know why they see or why things are such a mess, but in the middle of it all, I do know that being around you is one of tue best things that happened to me in, well, ever.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
Consider the stars. Among them are no passions, no wars. They know neither love nor hatred. Did man but emulate the stars, would not his soul become clear and radiant as they are? But man's spirit draws him like a moth to the ephemera of this world, and in their heat he is consumed entire.
”
”
Sarah Monette (Mélusine (Doctrine of Labyrinths, #1))
“
I know the path by heart, by heart- a funny expression, so true. My heart knows right where to go.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (Radiant (Unearthly, #2.5))
“
The deeper the grief, the more radiant the love.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
“
I've read Reverend Kirk, in fact. My uncle's library has quite a few books of your people. I have read Mr. Lang's fairy tales as well. (Katherine Rae O'Flaherty)
"Books are not the same as reality," Devlin stared at her. "My world is not always kind to mortals.
”
”
Melissa Marr (Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4))
“
The sheath that held her soul had assumed significance - that was all. She was a sun, radiant, growing, gathering light and storing it - then after an eternity pouring it forth in a glance, the fragment of a sentence, to that part of him that cherished all beauty and all illusion.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned)
“
Lose yourself,
Lose yourself in this love.
When you lose yourself in this love,
you will find everything.
Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Do not fear this loss,
For you will rise from the earth
and embrace the endless heavens.
Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from this earthly form,
For this body is a chain
and you are its prisoner.
Smash through the prison wall
and walk outside with the kings and princes.
Lose yourself,
Lose yourself at the foot of the glorious King. When you lose yourself
before the King
you will become the King.
Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from the black cloud
that surrounds you.
Then you will see your own light
as radiant as the full moon.
Now enter that silence.
This is the surest way
to lose yourself. . . .
What is your life about, anyway?—
Nothing but a struggle to be someone,
Nothing but a running from your own silence.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved)
“
It’s yummy to love yourself. It feels good. When you truly love yourself, you are radiant, charismatic and irresistible to your SoulMate.
”
”
Annette Vaillancourt (How to Manifest Your SoulMate with EFT: Relationship as a Spiritual Path)
“
The real you is not sad, angry, depressed, ashamed, hurt, bitter or lost. These things are not real. They feel real but they're not. As spiritual beings living a brief human existence, this is not who we are. We are beautiful, radiant, joyful and loving.
”
”
Sue Fitzmaurice
“
In a way he made me think of a child doll, with briliant faintly red-brown glass eyes - a doll that had been found in an attic. I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up, make him evevn more radiant than he was.
"That's what you always want," he said softly... "When you found me under Les Innocents," he said, "you wanted to bathe me with perfume and dress me in velvevt with great embroidered sleeves."
"Yes," I said, "and comb your hair, your beautiful russet hair." My tone was angry. "You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to embrace and good to love.
”
”
Anne Rice
“
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens you have made them, precious and beautiful.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and clouds and storms, and all the weather, through which you give your creatures sustenance.
Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten the night. He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.
Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.
Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, for they will be crowned.
”
”
Francis of Assisi
“
The great mission of our day is not conquering the sea or space, disease or tyranny. The grand quest which calls to the hero in every one of us is to become fully alive--to stand up and claim our birthright, which is inner freedom, love and radiant purpose. By fulfilling this, we transform the world.
”
”
Jacob Nordby
“
I wish that one day someone will love me. Someone will look me in the eyes without fear or pity. Someone will take away the loneliness etched in my heart so that I will know what it’s like to be loved. So I can laugh without tasting the bitterness on my tongue once the sound fades.
”
”
Elizabeth Lim (Her Radiant Curse)
“
He remembered a story Madrigal had told him once: the human tale of the golem. It was a thing shaped of clay in the form of a man, brought to life by carving the symbol aleph into its brow. Aleph was the first symbol of an ancestral human alphabet, and the first letter of the Hebrew word truth; it was the beginning. Watching Karou rise to her feet, radiant in a fall of lapis hai, in a woven dress the colour of tangerines, with a loop of silver beads at her throat and a look of joy and relief and... love... on her beautiful face, Akiva knew that she was his aleph, his truth and beginning. His soul.
”
”
Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1))
“
Everything changed when I met the girl. She penetrated a corner of my soul that had been kept sealed and even I didn't know was there. With her gestures, the scent of her skin, her sudden, intense glances that filled me with overwhelming tenderness, with her dependence that was a kind of unthinking, absolute acceptance, she could rescue me instantly from my confusions and obsessions, my discouragement and failure, or my simple daily routine, and leave me inside a radiant circle made of throbbing energy and powerful certainty, like the effects of an unknown drug that produces unconditional happiness.
”
”
Álvaro Mutis (The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll)
“
I don’t love or hate humans. I respect them. They shape themselves, in a way that we angels do not. They tell lies and sleep around and curse, and they try to define themselves so valiantly. Who am I? they keep asking. Why am I here?
”
”
Cynthia Hand (Radiant (Unearthly, #2.5))
“
I love the prairie! So often I have seen the dawn come and the light flood over the land and everything turn radiant at once, that word "good" so profoundly affirmed in my soul that I am amazed I should be allowed to witness such a thing. There may have been a more wonderful first moment "when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy," but for all I know to the contrary, they still do sing and shout, and they certainly might well. Here on the prairie there is nothing to distract attention from the evening and the morning, nothing on the horizon to abbreviate or to delay. Mountains would seem an impertinence from that point of view.
”
”
Marilynne Robinson (Gilead (Gilead, #1))
“
Some say an army of horsemen,
some of footsoldiers, some of ships,
is the fairest thing on the black earth,
but I say it is what one loves.
It's very easy to make this clear
to everyone, for Helen,
by far surpassing mortals in beauty,
left the best of all husbands
and sailed to Troy,
mindful of neither her child
nor her dear parents, but
with one glimpse she was seduced by
Aphrodite. For easily bent...
and nimbly...[missing text]...
has reminded me now
of Anactoria who is not here;
I would much prefer to see the lovely
way she walks and the radiant glance of her face
than the war-chariots of the Lydians or
their footsoldiers in arms.
”
”
Sappho
“
In love, the Sufi meeting house
And wine-shop are one place;
As are all places where we find
The loved one's radiant race;
And what the Sufis make a show of
Can be found equally
Among the monks, before their cross,
Within a monastery.
”
”
Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz
“
Little-boy love...the cleanest pain I've ever known. Love without desire, conditions, or limits - a pure and radiant glow in the heart that could make me giddy and sad and glorious all at once. Where does it go? Why, in all their experiments, did the Magi never try to capture that purity in a bottle? Perhaps they couldn't.
”
”
Christopher Moore (Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal)
“
Here, Earth-born, over the lilt of the water,
Lisping its music and bearing a burden of light,
Bosoming day as a laughing and radiant daughter…
Here we may whisper unheard, unafraid of the night.
Walking alone…was it splendor, or what, we were bound with?
Deep in the time when summer lets down her hair?
Shadows we loved and the patterns they covered the ground with
Tapestries, mystical, faint in the breathless air.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
“
Awake
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and
choose the sign of your day
The day’s divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach
in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it’s quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose, they croon, the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon,
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.
”
”
The Doors
“
The memory of Esen's fingertips on his face seared him. Part of him yearned for the debasement of that touch again, and an equal part hated Esen for having called pleasure and submissiveness out of him without even realizing what he had done. Eash part hurt. The combined pain of them crushed him.
”
”
Shelley Parker-Chan (She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor, #1))
“
The Weather In Space
Is God being pure force? The wind
Or what commands it? When our lives slow
And we can hold all that we love, it sprawls
In our laps like a gangly doll. When the storm
Kicks up and nothing is ours, we go chasing
After all we're certain to lose, so alive ---
Faces radiant with panic.
”
”
Tracy K. Smith (Life on Mars: Poems)
“
Already the new men are dotted here and there all over the earth. Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognisable: but others can be recognised. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, I say, recognisable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of ‘religious people’ which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. (We must get over wanting to be NEEDED: in some goodish people, specially women, that is the hardest of all temptations to resist.) They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from. When you have recognised one of them, you will recognise the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognise one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be great fun
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
“
Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing fondness for this flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its form with an imperious gesture to him. It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to it he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be a saver of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind.
”
”
Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction)
“
I don’t think that when you love somebody, it ever
really goes away,' Earth said, looking out the window.
'It’s like riding a bike. You can decide you don’t like bike
riding any more, and do soccer for a while, but then when
you get back on a bike, it’s like your body remembers how
to do it without you even having to think about it.' She
looked up at me. 'I think love is like that.
”
”
Jocelyn Davies (A Radiant Sky (A Beautiful Dark, #3))
“
I sat looking at her with rapt attention. My heart was thumping, the blood coursing warmly through my veins. What a wonderful pleasure to be sitting in a human dwelling again, hear a clock ticking, and talk with a lively young girl instead of with myself!
Why don't you say something?"
Ah, how sweet you are!" I said. "I'm sitting here getting fascinated by you, at this moment I'm thoroughly fascinated. I can't help it. You are the strangest person that... Sometimes your eyes are so radiant, I've never seen anything like it, they look like flowers. Eh? No, no, maybe not like flowers but... I'm madly in love with you, and it won't do me a bit of good. What's your name? Really, you must tell me what your name is..."
No, what's your name? Goodness, I almost forgot again! I was thinking all day yesterday that I must ask you. Well, that is, not all day yesterday, I certainly didn't think about you all day yesterday."
Do you know what I've called you? I have called you Ylajali. How do you like it? Such a gliding sound-"
Ylajali?"
Yes."
Is it a foreign language?"
Hmm. No, it's not."
Well, it isn't ugly.
”
”
Knut Hamsun (Hunger)
“
It’s a remarkable fact that the people who have gone the very deepest into the mind—the sages and saints of every religious tradition—all say essentially the same thing: your fundamental nature is pure, conscious, peaceful, radiant, loving, and wise, and it is joined in mysterious ways with the ultimate underpinnings of reality, by whatever name we give That.
”
”
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
“
Eccolo!” he exclaimed.
At the same moment the ground gave way, and with a cry she fell out of the wood. Light and beauty enveloped her. She had fallen on to a little open terrace, which was covered with violets from end to end.
“Courage!” cried her companion, now standing some six feet above. “Courage and love.”
She did not answer. From her feet the ground sloped sharply into view, and violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating the hillside with blue, eddying round the tree stems, collecting into pools in the hollows, covering the grass with spots of azure foam. But never again were they in such profusion; this terrace was the well-head, the primal source whence beauty gushed out to water the earth.
Standing at its brink, like a swimmer who prepares, was the good man. But he was not the good man that she had expected, and he was alone.
George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her…
”
”
E.M. Forster (A Room with a View)
“
And they lived happily ever after” is one of the most tragic sentences in literature. It is tragic because it tells a falsehood about life and has led countless generations of people to expect something from human existence which is not possible on this fragile, imperfect earth. The “happy ending” obsession of Western culture is both a romantic illusions and a psychological handicap. It can never be literally true that love and marriage are unblemished perfections, for any worthwhile life has its trials, its disappointments, and its burning heartaches. Yet who can compare the numbers of people who have unconsciously absorbed this “and they lived happily ever after” illusion in their childhood and have thereafter been disappointed when life has not come up to their expectations and who secretly suffer from the jealous conviction that other married people know a kind of bliss that is denied them..Life is not paradise. It is pain, hardship, and temptation shot through with radiant gleams of light, friendship and love.
”
”
Joshua Loth Liebman (Hope for Man: an optimistic philosophy and guide to self-fulfillment)
“
Every man has his weakness."
"I know they do." She lifted an eyebrow. "I'm still looking for yours."
Cheeky girl. She had to know she took his breath away.
God, she was lovely in the moonlight. She was lovely in sunlight, for that matter, and in the pouring rain. Gabe suspected that even in total darkness, she would be radiant. Because though her features were exquisite, and her lips the pinkish hue of rose petals, her most beautiful feature by far was her heart.
”
”
Tessa Dare (The Wallflower Wager (Girl Meets Duke, #3))
“
When will your sun come - to make everything reborn?
-The burn of your fingers pressed against my being-
I would like to fall asleep in your body again
And make of your smiles an open source
When my life is like a desolate desert
I would like to fall asleep by the light sand of your skin.
Your voice - your voice alone knows how to put an end to my anger
As your lips faint on the pains of my yesterday
When will you come to drape me in your radiant sun?
So that I find life in its first taste
(-The glow of your hair is a roof of moonlight.)
”
”
Emmanuelle Soni-Dessaigne
“
Oh that I could give any idea of the scene; of that sweet, sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead of which she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teeth- remembering whence and how it came; her loving kindness against our grim hate; her tender faith against all our fears and doubting; and we, knowing that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God.
”
”
Bram Stoker (Dracula)
“
It suddenly occurred to both Driggs and Lex, in that very same instant, that neither of them wanted anything more in the world than to tear off every single piece of each other's clothes and make wild, passionate, messy adolescent love under the radiant glow of the full moon.
Their chests rose and fell. A few seconds passed.
"I'm going to sleep," Driggs panted, clambering off the roof.
"Me too," Lex huffed, right behind him.
And without another word they fled to their rooms, slammed the doors, and threw themselves into bed, where they both spent the next five hours dazedly contemplating their respective ceilings.
”
”
Gina Damico
“
You are radiant.”
“Yes, she is.”
Daniel.
She turned to him. His blond hair and violet eyes, the strong cut of his shoulders, the full lips that had brought her back to life a thousand times. They had loved each other even longer than Luce had realized. Their love had been strong since the early days of Heaven. Their relationship spanned the entire story of existence. She knew where she’d first met Daniel on Earth-right here, on the singled fields of Troy while the angels were falling-but there was an earlier story. A different beginning to their love.
When? How had it happened?
She searched for the answer in his eyes-but she knew she wouldn’t find it there. She had to look back in her own soul. She closed her eyes.
”
”
Lauren Kate (Rapture (Fallen, #4))
“
Poor William!" said he, "dear lovely child, he now sleeps with his angel mother! Who that had seen him bright and joyous in his young beauty, but must weep over his untimely loss! To die so miserably; to feel the murderer's grasp! How much more a murderer, that could destroy such radiant innocence! Poor little fellow! one only consolation have we; his friends mourn and weep, but he is at rest. The pang is over, his sufferings are at an end for ever. A sod covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain. He can no longer be a subject for pity; we must reserve that for his miserable survivors.
”
”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
“
But I awoke at three, feeling terribly sad, and feeling rebelliously that I didn't want to study sadness, madness, melancholy, and despair. I wanted to study triumphs, the rediscoveries of love, all that I know in the world to be decent, radiant, and clear. Then the word "love", the impulse to love, welled up in me somewhere above my middle. Love seemed to flow from me in all directions, abundant as water--love for Cora, love for Flora, love for all my friends and neighbors, love for Penumbra. This tremendous flow of vitality could not be contained within its spelling, and I seemed to seize a laundry marker and write "luve" on the wall. I wrote "luve" on the staircase, "luve" on the pantry, "luve" on the oven, the washing machine, and the coffeepot, and when Cora came down in the morning (I would be nowhere around) everywhere she looked she would read "luve", "luve", "luve." Then I saw a green meadow and a sparkling stream. On the ridge there were thatched-roof cottages and a square church tower, so I knew it must be England. I climbed up from the meadow to the streets of the village, looking for the cottage where Cora and Flora would be waiting for me. There seemed to have been some mistake. No one knew their names. I asked at the post office, but the answer here was the same. Then it occurred to me that they would be at the manor house. How stupid I had been! I left the village and walked up a sloping lawn to a Georgian house, where a butler let me in. The squire was entertaining. There were twenty-five or thirty people in the hall, drinking sherry. I took a glass from a tray and looked through the gathering for Flora and my wife, but they were not there. Then I thanked my host and walked down the broad lawn, back to the meadow and the sparkling brook, where I lay on the grass and fell into a sweet sleep.
”
”
John Cheever
“
You have an affair because you are not getting what you want from your loved one. You want more: more love, more sex, more attention, more fun. You want someone to look at you with lust - after years of laundry - transforming you into something radiant. You want it, you need it, you owe it yourself to get it. To live any other way is to be muffled and gray and marching meaninglessly toward death. You want what she gave you at the start (but what you had hoped would expand and intensify instead of shrinking until you find yourself so sad, so resentful, you can barely stand to be you).
You have an affair to get for yourself what you wish would come from the person you love the most. And then you have broken her heart and she can never give you any of it ever again.
”
”
Ariel Levy (The Rules Do Not Apply)
“
You asked what my intentions are, Mrs. Brenner, and I would like to answer your question.” Dibs opened his mouth as if preparing to argue and she glared at him from across the table. Did he really think not to let her state her case in front of his family? He snapped his mouth shut and briskly rubbed a palm across his forehead before tossing that same hand in the air. “My intentions are these.” She gathered her thoughts, folding her hands in her lap. “When David is sad, I intend to make him happy. When he is ill, I intend to make him well. When he is angry or upset, I intend to listen and find the words to make him feel better. When he is depressed, I intend to bring him joy, and when he is hurt, I intend to find the source of his pain and take it away from him.” She bridged the distance to Dibs’s devoted gaze, and radiant love crested the last barricade surrounding her heart. “You see, Mr. and Mrs. Brenner, I’m in love with your son. But I don’t want anything from him. You don’t need to worry because my only intention is to give to him. That’s the way it’s supposed to be when you love someone, isn’t it? To think only of their needs, instead of your own?” She broke off from Dibs and faced his mother. “Those are my intentions, Mrs. Brenner. I hope you find them satisfactory.
”
”
A.J. Nuest
“
I’m about to berate his tactics, to deny any feelings for him, when he cups the nape of my neck and presses his lips to mine, velvety soft. It’s nothing but a peck, yet the flavor of the tart he sampled lingers like a warm, savory bruise—an irresistible torment to the netherling within.
He draws back and my skin glistens, radiant prisms reflected off his face and the cushions. I’m gripping his jacket lapels, yet I don’t even remember reaching for him.
“No more denials,” he says as he presses his left hand over one of mine. “I’ve seen the love in your eyes and in your actions. I felt it yesterday when I held you in my arms, and today, when you came to save me."
”
”
A.G. Howard (Ensnared (Splintered, #3))
“
The young man was sincerely but placidly in love. He delighted in the radiant good looks of his betrothed, in her health, her horsemanship, her grace and quickness at games, and the shy interest in books and ideas that she was beginning to develop under his guidance. She was straightforward, loyal, and brave; she had a sense of humour (chiefly proved by her laughing at his jokes); and he suspected, in the depths of her innocently-gazing soul, a glow of feeling that it would be a joy to waken. But when he had gone the brief round of her he returned discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product. Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile. And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.
”
”
Edith Wharton (The Age of Innocence)
“
Like the sun's rays that cause the seed to stir within its husk, love's radiant energy penetrates the facade of the false self, calling forth resources hidden deep within us. Its warmth wakes up the life inside us, making us want to uncurl, to give birth, to grow and reach for the light. It calls on us to break out of our shell, the personality-husk surrounding the seed potential of all that we could be. The purpose of a seed husk is to protect the tender life within until the time and conditions are right for it to burst forth. Our personality structure serves a similar function. It provides a semblance of security, as a kind of compensation for the loss of our larger being. But when love's warming rays start to wake us up, our ego-shell becomes a barrier restricting our expansion. As the germ of life swells within us, we feel our imprisonment more acutely.....The brighter love's radiance, the darker the shadows we encounter; the more we feel life stirring within us, the more we also feel our dead spots; the more conscious we become, the more clearly we see where we remain unconscious. None of this need dishearten us. For in facing our darkness, we bring to light forgotten parts of our being. In recognizing exactly where we have been unconscious, we become more conscious. And in seeing and feeling the ways we've gone dead, we start to revive and kindle our desire to live more expansively.
”
”
John Welwood
“
You are loved by your Father in Heaven, of whose divine nature you have partaken. And He desires that His Holy Spirit will be near you wherever you go if you will invite it and cultivate it.
There is something of divinity within each of you. You have such tremendous potential with that quality as a part of your inherited nature. Every one of you was endowed by your Father in Heaven with a tremendous capacity to do good in the world. Train your minds and your hands that you may be equipped to serve well in the society of which you are a part. Cultivate the art of being kind, of being thoughtful, of being helpful. Refine within you the quality of mercy which comes as a part of the divine attributes you have inherited.
Some of you may feel that you are not as attractive and and glamorous as you would like to be. Rise above any such feelings, cultivate the light you have within you, and it will shine through as a radiant expression that will be seen by others.
You need never feel inferior. You need never feel that you were born without talents or without opportunities to give them expression. Cultivate whatever talents you have, and they will grow and refine and become an expression of your true self appreciated by others.
”
”
Gordon B. Hinckley
“
I've just come to my room, Livy darling, I guess this was the memorable night of my life. By George, I never was so stirred since I was born. I heard four speeches which I can never forget... one by that splendid old soul, Col. Bob Ingersoll, — oh, it was just the supremest combination of English words that was ever put together since the world began... How handsome he looked, as he stood on that table, in the midst of those 500 shouting men, and poured the molten silver from his lips! What an organ is human speech when it is played by a master! How pale those speeches are in print, but how radiant, how full of color, how blinding they were in the delivery! It was a great night, a memorable night.
I doubt if America has seen anything quite equal to it. I am well satisfied I shall not live to see its equal again... Bob Ingersoll’s music will sing through my memory always as the divinest that ever enchanted my ears. And I shall always see him, as he stood that night on a dinner-table, under the flash of lights and banners, in the midst of seven hundred frantic shouters, the most beautiful human creature that ever lived... You should have seen that vast house rise to its feet; you should have heard the hurricane that followed. That's the only test! People might shout, clap their hands, stamp, wave their napkins, but none but the master can make them get up on their feet.
{Twain's letter to his wife, Livy, about friend Robert Ingersoll's incredible speech at 'The Grand Banquet', considered to be one of the greatest oratory performances of all time}
”
”
Mark Twain (Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings)
“
Long black hair and deep clean blue eyes and skin pale white and lips blood red she's small and thin and worn and damaged. She is standing there.
What are you doing here?
I was taking a walk and I saw you and I followed you.
What do you want.
I want you to stop.
I breathe hard, stare hard, tense and coiled. There is still more tree for me to destroy I want that fucking tree. She smiles and she steps towards me, toward toward toward me, and she opens he r arms and I'm breathing hard staring hard tense and coiled she puts her arms around me with one hand not he back of my head and she pulls me into her arms and she holds me and she speaks.
It's okay.
I breathe hard, close my eyes, let myself be held.
It's okay.
Her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and my heart slows and I stop shaking an the Fury melts into her safety an she holds me and she says.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Something else comes and it makes me feel weak and scared and fragile and I don't want to be hurt and this feeling is the feeling I have when I know I can be hurt and hurt deeper and more terribly than anything physical and I always fight it and control it and stop it but her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and if she let me go right now I would fall and the need and confusion and fear and regret and horror and shame and weakness and fragility are exposed to the soft strength of her open arms and her simple word okay and I start to cry. I start to cry. I want to cry.
It comes in waves. THe waves roll deep and from deep the deep within me and I hold her and she holds me tighter and i let her and I let it and I let this and I have not felt this way this vulnerability or allowed myself to feel this way this vulnerability since I was ten years old and I don't know why I haven't and I don't know why I am now and I only know that I am and that it is scary terrifying frightening worse and better than anything I've ever felt crying in her arms just crying in her ams just crying.
She guides me to the ground, but she doesn't let me go. THe Gates are open and thirteen years of addiction, violence, hell and their accompaniments are manifesting themselves in dense tears and heavy sobs and a shortness of breath and a profound sense of loss. THe loss inhabits, fills and overwhelms me. It is the loss of a childhood of being a Teeenager of normalcy of happiness of love of trust anon reason of God of Family of friends of future of potential of dignity of humanity of sanity f myself of everything everything everything. I lost everything and I am lost reduced to a mass of mourning, sadness, grief, anguish and heartache. I am lost. I have lost. Everything. Everything.
It's wet and Lilly cradles me like a broken Child. My face and her shoulder and her shirt and her hair are wet with my tears. I slow down and I start to breathe slowly and deeply and her hair smells clean and I open my eyes because I want to see it an it is all that I can see. It is jet black almost blue and radiant with moisture. I want to touch it and I reach with one of my hands and I run my hand from the crown along her neck and her back to the base of her rib and it is a thin perfect sheer and I let it slowly drop from the tips of my fingers and when it is gone I miss it. I do it again and again and she lets me do it and she doesn't speak she just cradles me because I am broken. I am broken. Broken.
THere is noise and voices and Lilly pulls me in tighter and tighter and I know I pull her in tighter and tighter and I can feel her heart beating and I know she can feel my heart beating and they are speaking our hearts are speaking a language wordless old unknowable and true and we're pulling and holding and the noise is closer and the voices louder and Lilly whispers.
You're okay.
You're okay.
You're okay.
”
”
James Frey
“
When Elizabeth finally descended the stairs on her way to the dining room she was two hours late. Deliberately.
“Good heavens, you’re tardy, my dear!” Sir Francis said, shoving back his chair and rushing to the doorway where Elizabeth had been standing, trying to gather her courage to do what needed to be done. “Come and meet my guests,” he said, drawing her forward after a swift, disappointed look at her drab attire and severe coiffure. “We did as you suggested in your note and went ahead with supper. What kept you abovestairs so long?”
“I was at prayer,” Elizabeth said, managing to look him straight in the eye.
Sir Francis recovered from his surprise in time to introduce her to the three other people at the table-two men who resembled him in age and features and two women of perhaps five and thirty who were both attired in the most shockingly revealing gowns Elizabeth had ever seen.
Elizabeth accepted a helping of cold meat to silence her protesting stomach while both women studied her with unhidden scorn. “That is a most unusual ensemble you’re wearing, I must say,” remarked the woman named Eloise. “Is it the custom where you come from to dress so…simply?”
Elizabeth took a dainty bite of meat. “Not really. I disapprove of too much personal adornment.” She turned to Sir Francis with an innocent stare. “Gowns are expensive. I consider them a great waste of money.”
Sir Francis was suddenly inclined to agree, particularly since he intended to keep her naked as much as possible. “Quite right!” he beamed, eyeing the other ladies with pointed disapproval. “No sense in spending all that money on gowns. No point in spending money at all.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Elizabeth said, nodding. “I prefer to give every shilling I can find to charity instead.”
“Give it away?” he said in a muted roar, half rising out of his chair. Then he forced himself to sit back down and reconsider the wisdom of wedding her. She was lovely-her face more mature then he remembered it, but not even the black veil and scraped-back hair could detract from the beauty of her emerald-green eyes with their long, sooty lashes. Her eyes had dark circles beneath them-shadows he didn’t recall seeing there earlier in the day. He put the shadows down to her far-too-serious nature. Her dowry was creditable, and her body beneath that shapeless black gown…he wished he could see her shape. Perhaps it, too, had changed, and not for the better, in the past few years.
“I had hoped, my dear,” Sir Francis said, covering her hand with his and squeezing it affectionately, “that you might wear something else down to supper, as I suggested you should.”
Elizabeth gave him an innocent stare. “This is all I brought.”
“All you brought?” he uttered. “B-But I definitely saw my footmen carrying several trunks upstairs.”
“They belong to my aunt-only one of them is mine,” she fabricated hastily, already anticipating his next question and thinking madly for some satisfactory answer.
“Really?” He continued to eye her gown with great dissatisfaction, and then he asked exactly the question she’d expected: “What, may I ask, does your one truck contain if not gowns?”
Inspiration struck, and Elizabeth smiled radiantly. “Something of great value. Priceless value,” she confided.
All faces at the table watched her with alert fascination-particularly the greedy Sir Francis. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense, love. What’s in it?”
“The mortal remains of Saint Jacob.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))