“
Innocence, Once Lost, Can Never Be Regained. Darkness, Once Gazed Upon, Can Never Be Lost.
”
”
John Milton
“
If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. -Speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854.
”
”
Abraham Lincoln
“
Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Time Regained)
“
There is no forgiveness. For women. A man may lose his honor and regain it again. But a woman cannot. She cannot.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, #1))
“
He doesn't know which is worse, a past he can't regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1))
“
Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this 'reality' as you view your dreams.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
Sometimes, to regain sanity, one had to acknowledge and embrace the madness.
”
”
Morgan Rhodes (Rebel Spring (Falling Kingdoms, #2))
“
There is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life, just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the universe; you are yourself and everyone else, too! It's all the marvelous Play of God. Wake up, regain your humor. Don't worry, just be happy. You are already free!
”
”
Dan Millman (Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives)
“
Redemption is something you have to fight for in a very personal, down-dirty way. Some of our characters lose that, some stray from that, and some regain it.
”
”
Joss Whedon
“
I regained my soul through literature after those times I'd lost it to wild-eyed gypsy girls on the European streets.
”
”
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
“
I’m revoking your warrior status,” he says as he watches Clara and her family.
“I had warrior status?”
“For about thirty seconds.”
“What heinous crime did I commit to lose my exalted status?”
“A true warrior would have retrieved her sword first before doing personal business.”
“I’m all about personal business. Every battle I have is personal.”
“Hmm. Good answer. Maybe you’ll eventually regain your status.”
“I won’t hold my breath.
”
”
Susan Ee (World After (Penryn & the End of Days, #2))
“
Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules
Passions, desires, and fears, is more a king.
”
”
John Milton (Paradise Regained)
“
CALVIN:
Our hero regains consciousness at the feet of a sarcastic alien.
”
”
Bill Watterson
“
In racing, they say that your car goes where your eyes go. The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle.
”
”
Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
Hermione had taken his hand again and was gripping it tightly. He could not look at her, but returned the pressure, now taking deep, sharp gulps of the night air, trying to steady himself, trying to regain control. He should have brought something to give them, and he had not thought of it, and every plant in the graveyard was leafless and frozen. But Hermione raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air, and a wreath of Christmas roses blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his parent's grave.
As soon as he stood up he wanted to leave: He did not think he could stand another moment there. He put his arm around Hermione's shoulders, and she put hers around his waist, and they turned in silence and walked away through the snow, past Dumbledore's mother and sister, back toward the dark church and the out-of-sight kissing gate.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
“
Man's maturity: to have regained the seriousness that he had as a child at play.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
Sometimes you must lose everything to gain it again, and the regaining is the sweeter for the pain of loss.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
“
Anthony Bridgerton leaned back in his leather chair,and then announced,
"I'm thinking about getting married."
Benedict Bridgerton, who had been indulging in a habit his mother detested—tipping his chair drunkenly on the back two legs—fell over.
Colin Bridgerton started to choke.
Luckily for Colin, Benedict regained his seat with enough time to smack him soundly on the back, sending a green olive sailing across the table.
It narrowly missed Anthony's ear.
”
”
Julia Quinn (The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2))
“
If you are an approval addict, your behaviour is as easy to control as that of any other junkie. All a manipulator need do is a simple two-step process: Give you what you crave, and then threaten to take it away. Every drug dealer in the world plays this game.
”
”
Harriet B. Braiker (Who's Pulling Your Strings? How to Break the Cycle of Manipulation and Regain Control of Your Life)
“
Patch backed me into a tree and kissed me, hard.
I regained my breath. "Boys take not everywhere: That was a kiss.
”
”
Becca Fitzpatrick (Finale (Hush, Hush, #4))
“
Chasing a man is not winning. The only thing you win is the loss of your dignity. Confidence is knowing your value, instead of expecting a man’s love to provide you with value.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
When I was young, a teacher had forbidden me to say "more perfect" because she said if a thing is perfect it can't be more so. But by now I had seen enough of life to have regained my confidence in it.
”
”
Norman Maclean (A River Runs Through It and Other Stories)
“
People have fallen in love with words and lost the world. It’s time to regain it.
”
”
Sadhguru
“
Valhalla on the right. Paradise regained on the left. Stuck between a Godiva truffle and a chocolate eclair. Between a rock and a very hard place. Two very hard places from the looks of it.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Beyond the Highland Mist (Highlander, #1))
“
The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world...
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
”
”
Karl Marx (Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right)
“
God isn't the son of Memory; He's the son of Immediate Experience. You can't worship a spirit in spirit, unless you do it now. Wallowing in the past may be good literature. As wisdom, it's hopeless. Time Regained is Paradise Lost, and Time Lost is Paradise Regained. Let the dead bury their dead. If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you've got to die to every other moment.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (The Genius and the Goddess)
“
How strange and foolish is man. He loses his health in gaining wealth. Then, to regain his health he wastes his wealth. He ruins his present while worrying about his future, but weeps in the future by recalling his past. He lives as though death shall never come to him, but dies in a way as if he were never born
”
”
علي بن أبي طالب
“
Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Time Regained)
“
This is…magic?”
Fitz laughed – a full body laugh, like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard [...] “No,” he said when he’d regained control. “Magic is a stupid idea humans came up with to try to explain things they couldn’t understand.
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Keeper of the Lost Cities (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #1))
“
I look down at our linked fingers as I loosen my grasp, but he regains his grip on me. “No, don’t let go of me,” he says.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers,
but by relentless struggle.... Goats are used for sacrificial offerings and not lions.
”
”
B.R. Ambedkar (Writings And Speeches: A Ready Reference Manual)
“
Let truth be told - women do as a rule live through such humiliations, and regain their spirits, and again look about them with an interested eye. While there's life there's hope is a connviction not so entirely unknown to the "betrayed" as some amiable theorists would have us believe.
”
”
Thomas Hardy (Tess of the D’Urbervilles)
“
If all my possessions were taken from me with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of communication, for by it I would soon regain all the rest
”
”
Daniel Webster
“
...she had regained what I thought she had lost forever, the magical sadness which had drawn me to her, the thwarted look that had seemed to say, "Surely I was made for some other purpose than this?
”
”
Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited)
“
I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has really been healed who did not regain his religious outlook.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Modern Man in Search of a Soul)
“
Does everyone feel this way? When I was young, I was perpetually overconfident or insecure. Either I felt completely useless, unattractive, and worthless, or that I was pretty much a success, and everything I did was bound to succeed. When I was confident, I could overcome the hardest challenges. But all it took was the smallest setback for me to be sure that I was utterly worthless. Regaining my self-confidence had nothing to do with success...whether I experienced it as a failure or triumph was utterly dependent on my mood.
”
”
Bernhard Schlink (The Reader)
“
Everyone loses their class when they travel through hell, but only a few will regain it if they remain humble and accept the part they played in their own misery.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/Sing heavenly muse
”
”
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
“
I had learned one of the bitter lessons of life: never try to regain the past, the fire will have become ashes.
”
”
Douglas MacArthur
“
Enlightenment is not a goal to be attained, it is a state-of-being to be regained.
”
”
Kim Chestney (The Psychic Workshop: A Complete Program for Fulfilling Your Spiritual Potential)
“
There, he had seen every thing to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost, and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain her when thrown in his way.
”
”
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
“
Most people think life sucks, and then you die. Not me. I beg to differ. I think life sucks, then you get cancer, then your dog dies, your wife leaves you, the cancer goes into remission, you get a new dog, you get remarried, you owe ten million dollars in medical bills but you work hard for thirty five years and you pay it back and then one day you have a massive stroke, your whole right side is paralyzed, you have to limp along the streets and speak out of the left side of your mouth and drool but you go into rehabilitation and regain the power to walk and the power to talk and then one day you step off a curb at Sixty-seventh Street, and BANG you get hit by a city bus and then you die. Maybe
”
”
Denis Leary
“
A man is not measured by how much he can take and stand but by how fast he regains once fallen.
”
”
George S. Patton Jr.
“
the hope that there she would manage to regain her happiness made her fearless
”
”
Mikhail Bulgakov
“
Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.
”
”
Sinclair Lewis (Babbitt)
“
If we want to regain clarity and perspective in the story of our lives, we must be confronted with a slow process and be ready to take small steps forward without stumbling into dismay along the way. With patient endeavors, we will gradually realign ourselves with the big picture of our lives. ("No handkerchief, when you need it”)
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
Regaining health is more difficult an objective then becoming ill. Becoming ill is a random act of ignorance and regaining health is an intentional effort in frustration.
”
”
Richard Diaz
“
After you've seen behind the facade of a stage set you can't take the play seriously any more. You can't go backwards and regain your ignorance; you have to move forward.
”
”
Zeena Schreck
“
Luck could be earned and created. It could be discovered. It could be regained. After all - I'd found this girl. I'd found my future. I'd found forgiveness. My mother would have been happy for me...
”
”
Tammara Webber (Breakable (Contours of the Heart, #2))
“
Dani regained consciousness, holding 12-year-old Orla’s hand, in the year 1751. Charles was holding the girl’s wrist, but let go immediately. Dani held on. They were standing in a square in the middle of a crowd of several hundred people, in front of a gallows.
”
”
Steven Decker (Time Chain)
“
Not every sky will be blue and not every day is springtime. So on the spiritual path a person learns to find this kind of happiness without needing nice things to happen on the outside. Rather, you find happiness by being who you really are. This isn't mystical. Young children are happy being who they are. The trick is to regain such a state when you are grown and have seen the light and dark sides of life.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (Spiritual Solutions: Answers to Life's Greatest Challenges)
“
You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.
”
”
Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park / Congo)
“
First the flame and then the flood:
In the end it's Blackthorn blood.
Seek thou to forget what's past
First thirteen and then the last.
Search not the book of angels gray,
Red or white will lead you far astray.
To regain what you have lost,
Find the black book at any cost.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices, #1))
“
There were certain qualities you possessed carelessly. And you couldn't retrieve them when they were gone. The very act of caring made them impossible to regain.
”
”
Ann Brashares (Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood (Sisterhood, #3))
“
Wilderness to the people pf America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium.
”
”
Sigurd F. Olson
“
When our vision starts blurring, and we lose sight of the big picture of our lives, the time has come to regain a sense of purpose and direction. By reconnecting with our authentic selves and finding sound milestones, we can discover the tools helping us navigate through the tangle of our life story and create a sense of progress, rekindling our focus and inspiration. ("No handkerchief, when you need it")
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
The childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day.
”
”
John Milton (Paradise Regained)
“
Many toxic parents compare one sibling unfavorably with another to make the target child feel that he's not doing enough to gain parental affection. This motivates the child to do whatever the parents want in order to regain their favor. This divide-and-conquer technique is often unleashed against children who become a little too independent, threatening the balance of the family system.
”
”
Susan Forward (Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life)
“
But the saddest difference between them was that Zazetsky, as Luria said, 'fought to regain his lost faculties with the indomitable tenacity of the damned,' whereas Dr P. was not fighting, did not know what was lost. But who was more tragic, or who was more damned -- the man who knew it, or the man who did not?
”
”
Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales)
“
Reality Check
His lying is not contigent on who you are or what you do. His lying is not your fault. Lying is his choice and his problem, and if he makes that choice with you, he will make it with any other woman he’s with. That doesn’t mean you’re an angel and he’s the devil. It does mean that if he doesn’t like certain things about you, he has many ways to address them besides lying. If there are sexual problems between you, there are many resources available to help you. Nothing can change until you hold him responsible and accountable for lying and stop blaming yourself.
The lies we tell ourselves to keep from seeing the truth about our lovers don’t feel like lies. They feel comfortable, familiar, and true. We repeat them like a mantra and cling to them like security blankets, hoping to calm ourselves and regain our sense that the world works the way we believe it ought to.
Self-lies are false friends we look to for comfort and protection—and for a short time they may make us feel better. But we can only keep the truth at bay for so long. Our self-lies can’t erase his lies, and as we’ll see, the longer we try to pretend they can, the more we deepen the hurt.
”
”
Susan Forward
“
Satan to Jesus: Well, I see someone has a bad case of the hangries. You might want to consider using your godly powers to turn these desert rocks into loaves of bread. Maybe if you engage in some serious carb-loading, you’ll regain what little sense of humor you had before you started this ridiculous hunger strike.
”
”
Spencer C Demetros (The Bible: Enter Here: Bringing God's Word to Life for Today's Teens)
“
As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God's rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word "beautiful.
”
”
Norman Maclean (A River Runs Through It)
“
You must take care to light the matches one at a time. If a powerful emotion should ignite them all at once, they would produce a splendor so dazzling that it would illuminate far beyond what we can normally see; and then a brilliant tunnel would appear before our eyes, revealing the path we forgot the moment we were born, and summoning us to regain the divine origins we had lost. The soul ever longs to return to the place from which it came, leaving the body lifeless.
”
”
Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate)
“
It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it
promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom
that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it,
obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this
people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.
”
”
Étienne de La Boétie
“
When the human race learns to read the language of symbolism, a great veil will fall from the eyes of men. They shall then know truth and, more than that, they shall realize that from the beginning truth has been in the world unrecognized, save by a small but gradually increasing number appointed by the Lords of the Dawn as ministers to the needs of human creatures struggling co regain their consciousness of divinity.
”
”
Manly P. Hall (Melchizedek and the Mystery of Fire)
“
...Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrendered their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.
”
”
John Adams
“
In the history of humanity there are no civilizations or cultures which fail to manifest, in one or a thousand ways, this need for an absolute that is called heaven, freedom, a miracle, a lost paradise to be regained, peace, the going beyond History... There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.... Humanity has always had a nostalgia for the freedom that is only beauty, that is only real; life, plenitude, light.
”
”
Eugène Ionesco
“
And I sit here alone and far from you and it’s night and I’m reflecting on everything all around me and I am thinking of you. I saw it in your eyes, in your love, you too are swinging towards the depths of your own being in longer and longer circles. I saw happiness and pain in your eyes and reflections of the paradises lost and regained and lost again, that terrible loneliness and happiness, yes, and I reflect upon this and I think about you.
(from As I Was Moving Ahead I Occasionally Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, 2000)
”
”
Jonas Mekas
“
Costin regained his serious tone but his eyes softened.
"I won't force you into anything Sally. I know this is all different to you. I've known all my life that I had one perfect mate out there for me. And when I look at you, I'm in awe of what I've been given." Sally blushed as he paused. "I won't leave you unprotected, and allowing other males around you is something that neither I, nor my wolf, will be able to handle. Besides," he said, his eyes twinkling with mischief, "how could you not want to be around all this?"
Sally let out a snort. "You've been around Jen way too much."
"I don't know, she's quite educational."
"Yeah, I don’t think I really want you to be educated by her.
”
”
Quinn Loftis
“
Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Time Regained)
“
My spirits rose as I went deeper; into the forest; but I could not regain my former elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness to be like life itself - not to be created by any argument. Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of pain fill thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill. So, better and worse, I went on, till I came to a little clearing in the forest.
”
”
George MacDonald (Phantastes)
“
Hello, Bradley,' said Mom. She'd regained her composure after my outburst, and now raised her camera. 'Stand close.'
'No, Mom,' I said. 'No pictures.'
'But you're friend's here now,' she said, waving us together. 'Smile!'
'I don't need a picture with-' the flash snapped '-another guy. That's great, Mom, thank you. Send that one to Dad and tell him we're going steady.
”
”
Dan Wells (I Don't Want to Kill You (John Cleaver, #3))
“
Stop her!" Matthias bellowed as he thundered downstairs.
Blake's mouth twisted sideways, hand tightened on the knob. What little breath I'd regained, caught. Heart sputtered to a standstill. Then he swung the door open with a sweep of his arm.
"After you, milday."
My legs didn't hesitate. I vaulted off the porch and hit the driveway running.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?!"
"I'm her knight in shining armor. Seriously, dude, your chivalry needs some work. Ow!
”
”
A. Kirk (Demons at Deadnight (Divinicus Nex Chronicles, #1))
“
Conflict can and should be handled constructively; when it is, relationships benefit. Conflict avoidance is *not* the hallmark of a good relationship. On the contrary, it is a symptom of serious problems and of poor communication.
”
”
Harriet B. Braiker (Who's Pulling Your Strings? How to Break the Cycle of Manipulation and Regain Control of Your Life)
“
The many troubles in your household will tend to your edification, if you strive to bear them all in gentleness, patience, and kindness. Keep this ever before you, and remember constantly that God's loving eyes are upon you amid all these little worries and vexations, watching whether you take them as He would desire. Offer up all such occasions to Him, and if sometimes you are put out, and give way to impatience, do not be discouraged, but make haste to regain your lost composure.
”
”
Francis de Sales
“
I thought, perhaps you might have had something to say, but I see we are nothing to each other. If you're quite convinced that any foolish passion on my part is entirely over, I will wish you good afternoon.'
'What can he mean?' thought Margaret -- 'what could he mean by speaking so, as if I were always thinking that he cared for me, when I know he does not; he cannot. ... But I won't care for him. I surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild, strange, miserable feeling, which tempted me even to betray my own dear Frederick, so that I might but regain his good opinion -- the good opinion of a man who takes such pains to tell me that I am nothing to him. Come! poor little heart! be cheery and brave. We'll be a great deal to one another, if we are thrown off and left desolate.
”
”
Elizabeth Gaskell
“
We gather here today,” said Robert, reaching out his arms expansively, “to honor my son, Alexander Gideon Lightwood, who has single-handedly destroyed the forces of the Endarkened and who defeated in battle the son of Valentine Morgenstern. Alec saved the life of our third son, Max. Along with his parabatai, Jace Herondale, I am proud to say that my son is one of the greatest warriors I have ever known.” He turned and smiled at Alec and Magnus. “It takes more than a strong arm to make a great warrior,” he went on. “It takes a great mind and a great heart. My son has both. He is strong in courage, and strong in love. Which is why I also wanted to share our other good news with you. As of yesterday, my son became engaged to be married to his partner, Magnus Bane—”
A chorus of cheers broke out. Magnus accepted them with a modest wave of his fork. Alec slid down in his chair, his cheeks burning. Jace looked at him meditatively.
“Congratulations,” he said. “I kind of feel like I missed an opportunity.”
“W-what?” Alec stammered.
Jace shrugged. “I always knew you had a crush on me, and I kind of had a crush on you, too. I thought you should know.”
“What?” Alec said again.
Clary sat up straight. “You know,” she said, “do you think there’s any chance that you two could ...” She gestured between Jace and Alec. “It would be kind of hot.”
“No,” Magnus said. “I am a very jealous warlock.”
“We’re parabatai,” Alec said, regaining his voice. “The Clave would—I mean—it’s illegal.”
“Oh, come on,” said Jace. “The Clave would let you do anything you wanted. Look, everyone loves you.” He gestured out at the room full of Shadowhunters. They were all cheering as Robert spoke, some of them wiping away tears. A girl at one of the smaller tables held up a sign that said, ALEC LIGHTWOOD, WE LOVE YOU.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
“
What's this place called?' He told me and, on the instant, it was as though someone had switched off the wireless, and a voice that had been bawling in my ears, incessently, fatuously for days beyond number, had suddenly been cut short; an immense silence followed, empty at first, but gradually, as my outraged sense regained authority, full of a multitude of sweet and natural and long forgotten sounds: for he had spoken a name so familiar to me, a conjuror's name of such ancient power, that, at its mere sound, the phantoms of those haunted late years began to take flight.
”
”
Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited)
“
And it's deadly to us. We can inspire lust, but it's just a shadow. An illusion. Love is a dangerous force." He shook his head. "Love killed the dinosaurs, man."
I'm pretty sure a meteor killed the dinosaurs, Thomas."
He shrugged. "There's a theory making the rounds now that when the meteor hit it only killed off the big stuff. That there were plenty of smaller reptiles running around, about the same size as all the mammals at the time. The reptiles should have regained their position eventually, but they didn't, because the mammals could feel love. They could be utterly, even irrationally devoted to their mates and their offspring. It made them more likely to survive. The lizards couldn't do that. The meteor hit gave the mammals their shot, but it was love that turned the tide.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, #6))
“
they're good fighters, i think proudly as i watch them duke it out. But as the oldest male in the house, it's my duty to break it up. I grab the collar of Carlos's shirt but on Louis's leg and land on the floor with them.
Before I can regain my balance, icy cold water is pored on my back. Turning quickly, I catch mi'ama dousing us all, a bucket poised in her fist abouve us while she is wearing her work uniform. She works as a checker for the local grocery store a couple blocks from our house. It doesn't pay a whole heck of a lot, but we don't need much.
"Get up" she orders, her fiery attitude out in full force.
"Shit, Ma" Carlos says, standing
Mi'ama takes what's left in her bucket, sticks her fingers in the icy water, and flicks the liquid in Carlos's face.
Luis laughs and before he knows it, he gets flicked with water as well. Will they ever learn?
"Any More attitude, Lous?" She asks.
"No, ma'am" Louis says, standing as straight as a soilder.
"You have any more filthy words to come out of that boca of yours, Carlos?" She dips her hand in the water as a warning.
"No, ma'am" echos soldier number two.
"And what abot you, Alejandro?" her eyes narrow into slits as she focuses on me
"What? I was try'in to break it up" I say innocently, giving her my you-can't-resist-me smile.
She flicks water in my face. "That's for not breaking it up sooner. Now get dressed, all of you, and come eat breakfast before school."
So much for my you-can't-resist-me smile
”
”
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
“
For although we know that the years pass, that youth gives way to old age, that fortunes and thrones crumble (even the most solid among them) and that fame is transitory, the manner in which—by means of a sort of snapshot—we take cognisance of this moving universe whirled along by Time, has the contrary effect of immobilising it.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Time Regained)
“
Close your eyes,” Marcus said, his hand moving to her bottom in a circling caress. He brushed his mouth over her forehead and her fragile eyelids. “Rest. You’ll need to regain your strength… because once we’re married, I won’t be able to leave you alone. I’ll want to love you every hour, every minute of the day.” He nestled her more closely against him. “There is nothing on earth more beautiful to me than your smile… no sound sweeter than your laughter… no pleasure greater than holding you in my arms. I realized today that I could never live without you, stubborn little hellion that you are. In this life and the next, you’re my only hope of happiness. Tell me, Lillian, dearest love… how can you have reached so far inside my heart?” He paused to kiss her damp silken skin… and smiled as the wisp of a feminine snore broke the peaceful silence.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2))
“
Through art alone are we able to emerge from ourselves, to know what another person sees of a universe which is not the same as our own and of which, without art, the landscapes would remain as unknown to us as those that may exist on the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from which their light first emanated, whether it is called Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us still each one its special radiance.
”
”
Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time, Vol 6: Time Regained and A Guide to Proust)
“
Wake up! Wake up! Soon the person you believe you are will die - so now, wake up and be content with this knowledge: there is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all ONE, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor, and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life; just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are for more than you imagine. you are the world, you are the universe; you are yourself and everyone else too! It's all the marvelous Play of God. Wake up, regain your humor. Don't worry, just be happy. You are already free!
”
”
Dan Millman (Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives)
“
According to the biblical tradition the absence of work -- idleness -- was a condition of the first man's state of blessedness before the Fall. The love of idleness has been preserved in fallen man, but now a heavy curse lies upon him, not only because we have to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, but also because our sense of morality will not allow us to be both idle and at ease. Whenever we are idle a secret voice keeps telling us to feel guilty. If man could discover a state in which he could be idle and still feel useful and on the path of duty, he would have regained one aspect of that primitive state of blessedness. And there is one such state of enforced and irreproachable idleness enjoyed by an entire class of men -- the military class. It is this state of enforced and irreproachable idleness that forms the chief attraction of military service, and it always will.
”
”
Leo Tolstoy (Война и мир)
“
For two years the battles raged across the lands, one side fighting for conquest, the other for freedom. Othium-powered weapons wreaked havoc on defending armies. The red fire was hard to resist, but the white light was stronger. Gradually the tide turned and the freedom fighters regained control of their lands and their cities. The stage was set for the final battle.
The opposing forces met outside the Ackar city of Erbea in 1302 and the forces of good won the day. The alchemist escaped and was about to take his revenge at a wedding ceremony when he was bound by the white light. All that remained was his heart, or maybe his soul, encapsulated in a piece of red rock.
Dewar the Third succeeded his father and the new king promised a time of peace and prosperity. History would call him the Peacemaker.
Now, two hundred years on, a new Emperor seeks to rule the world, while an illegitimate son sets out on a path towards revenge and a thief begins to learn his trade. It is time for the alchemist to return.
”
”
Robert Reid (The Emperor (The Emperor, the Son and the Thief, #1))
“
Emotional competence requires the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress; the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries; the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past.
What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood. If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss where none exists; and the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others. Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis. Chronic disruption results in ill health.
In each of the individual histories of illness in this book, one or more aspect of emotional competence was significantly compromised, usually in ways entirely unknown to the person involved. Emotional competence is what we need to develop if we are to protect ourselves from the hidden stresses that create a risk to health, and it is what we need to regain if we are to heal. We need to foster emotional competence in our children, as the best preventive medicine.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
So, what's the big emergency, princess? You and ice-boy look fine to me, and the Nevernever isn't crumbling around us. What's going on?"
"I'm pregnant, Puck," I said quietly, and watched his eyebrows shoot into his hair. Briefly,I explained what had happened at Elysium, the oracle's mysterious appearance and invitation, and Grimalkin's instruction to meet him at the Wishing Tree. By the time I was done, Puck was still staring at me openmouthed, struck mute for maybe the second time in his life, and I would've laughed if the situation wasn't so serious.
"Oh," he finally managed. "That's, uh... Wow. That's not something you hear every day. Not exactly what I was expecting, though the entire prophecy thing does get old after a while." He shook himself, seeming to regain his composure, and glanced at Ash. "So, it's the ever so popular Firstborn Child of Doom prophecy, huh, ice-boy? How very cliche. Why can't it be the third nephew twice removed who's fated to destroy the world?
”
”
Julie Kagawa (Iron's Prophecy (The Iron Fey, #4.5))
“
How could I not fall in love with him," she asked. And on the tail end of her words, her bedroom door flew open and closed just as fast.
Jen bent over, panting heavily as she looked up at Sally.
"Hey Sally girl. Who we falling in love with?" Jen asked breathlessly.
"Jen, what's wrong?" Sally paused and then decided on a better question. "What have you done now?"
Jen stood up and took two deep breaths. Seeming to have regained her wind, she spoke quickly.
"First off, I've changed my mind. I don't want you to name your first born after me."
Sally interrupted. "Thank goodness for that," she muttered.
"I want you to name your entire freaking litter after me," Jen growled. "Do you know what I've been through?" Jen's arms were flinging around as she glared at Sally. "I did that little strip tease to try and keep things from escalating with the rest of the pack and Decebel was beyond pissed. I had to sneak out of the gathering room and make a run for it. I've been running through the freaking forest trying to throw him off by changing back and forth so that I could place my clothes that I carried in my freaking muzzle. CARRIED IN MY MUZZLE SALLY! I put them in different places to throw off him off my scent." Jen went over to Sally's window and was trying to judge the danger of using it as an exit.
”
”
Quinn Loftis
“
You see my state, and still increase my pain
I see your face, the need for union regain.
For my welfare, you have no care, I complain
Why do you heal me not from the sickness I disdain?
You bring me down and leave me on the earthly plane;
Return me to my home, by your side let me remain.
Only when I’m dust, your mercy can entertain;
Your flowing spirit stirs up dust of the slain.
Heartbroken of your love, from breathing I abstain
My life you destroy, yet my breathing you sustain.
In the dark night of the soul, I was growing insane,
Drinking from the cups that your features contain.
Suddenly in my arms, you appeared, clear, plain;
With my lips on your lips, my life and soul gain and drain.
Be joyful with Hafiz, with love enemies detain,
With such potent love, impotent foes self-restrain.
مرا میبینی و هر دم زیادت میکـنی دردم
تو را میبینـم و میلـم زیادت میشود هر دم
بـه سامانم نمیپرسی نمیدانم چه سر داری
بـه درمانـم نـمیکوشی نمیدانی مگر دردم
نه راه است این که بگذاری مرا بر خاک و بگریزی
گذاری آر و بازم پرس تا خاک رهـت گردم
ندارم دستت از دامن بجز در خاک و آن دم هـم
کـه بر خاکـم روان گردی به گرد دامنـت گردم
فرورفـت از غم عشقت دمم دم میدهی تا کی
دمار از مـن برآوردی نـمیگویی برآوردم
شـبی دل را به تاریکی ز زلفت باز میجستـم
رخـت میدیدم و جامی هـلالی باز میخوردم
کـشیدم در برت ناگاه و شد در تاب گیسویت
نـهادم بر لـبـت لـب را و جان و دل فدا کردم
تو خوش میباش با حافظ برو گو خصم جان میده
چو گرمی از تو میبینم چه باک از خصم دم سردم
”
”
null
“
The most traumatic aspects of all disasters involve the shattering of human connections. And this is especially true for children. Being harmed by the people who are supposed to love you, being abandoned by them, being robbed of the one-on-one relationships that allow you to feel safe and valued and to become humane—these are profoundly destructive experiences. Because humans are inescapably social beings, the worst catastrophes that can befall us inevitably involve relational loss. As a result, recovery from trauma and neglect is also all about relationships—rebuilding trust, regaining confidence, returning to a sense of security and reconnecting to love. Of course, medications can help relieve symptoms and talking to a therapist can be incredibly useful. But healing and recovery are impossible—even with the best medications and therapy in the world—without lasting, caring connections to others.
”
”
Bruce D. Perry (The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook)
“
The road to the kingdom of childhood, governed by ingenuousness and innocence, is thus regained in the horror of atonement. The purity of love is regained in its intimate truth which, as I said, is that of death. Death and the instant of divine intoxication merge when they both oppose those intentions of Good which are based on rational calculation. And death indicates the instant which, in so far as it is instantaneous, renounces the calculated quest for survival. The instant of the new individual being depended on the death of other beings. Had they not died there would have been no room for new ones. Reproduction and death condition the immortal renewal of life; they condition the instant which is always new. That is why we can only have a tragic view of the enchantment of life, but that is also why tragedy is the symbol of enchantment.
”
”
Georges Bataille (Literature and Evil)
“
The future of the world no longer disturbs me; I do not try still to calculate, with anguish, how long or how short a time the Roman peace will endure; I leave that to the Gods. Not that I have acquired more confidence in their justice, which is not our justice, or more faith in human wisdom; the contrary is true. Life is atrocious, we know. But precisely because I expect little of the human condition, man's periods of felicity, his partial progress, his efforts to begin over again and to continue, all seem to me like so many prodigies which nearly compensate for monstrous mass of ills and defeats, of indifference and error. Catastrophe and ruin will come; disorder will triumph, but order will too, from time to time. Peace will again establish itself between two periods and there regain the meaning which we have tried to give them. Not all our books will perish, nor our statues, if broken, lie unrepaired; other domes and pediments will rise from our domes and pediments; some few men will think and work and feel as we have done, and I venture to count upon such continuators, placed irregularly throughout the centuries, and upon this kind of intermittent immortality.
”
”
Marguerite Yourcenar
“
It is estimated that Josef Stalin killed more than twenty million people during his reign of terror. The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia lost more than a third of their population during the Soviet genocide. The deportations reached as far as Finland. To this day, many Russians deny they ever deported a single person. But most Baltic people harbor no grudge, resentment, or ill will. They are grateful to the Soviets who showed compassion. Their freedom is precious, and they are learning to live within it. For some, the liberties we have as American citizens came at the expense of people who lie in unmarked graves in Siberia. Like Joana for Lina, our freedom cost them theirs.
Some wars are about bombing. For the people of the Baltics, this war was about believing. In 1991, after 50 years of brutal occupation, the three Baltic countries regained their independence, peacefully and with dignity. They chose hope over hate and showed the world that even through the darkest night, there is light. Please research it. Tell someone. These three tiny nations have taught us that love is the most powerful army. Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemy - love reveals to us the truly miraculous nature of the human spirit.
”
”
Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray)
“
...my father had been born from the minds of writers. I believed the Great Creator had flown these writers on the backs of thunderbirds to the moon and told them to write me a father. Writers like Mary Shelley, who wrote my father to have a gothic understanding of the tenderness of all monsters. It was Agatha Christie who created the mystery within my father and Edgar Allan Poe who gave darkness to him in ways that lifted him to the flight of the raven. William Shakespeare wrote my father a Romeo heart at the same time Susan Fenimore Cooper composed him to have sympathy toward nature and a longing for paradise to be regained. Emily Dickinson shared her poet self so my father would know the most sacred text of mankind is in the way we do and do not rhyme, leaving John Steinbeck to gift my father a compass in his mind so he would always appreciate he was east of Eden and a little south of heaven. Not to be left out, Sophia Alice Callahan made sure there was a part of my father that would always remain a child of the forest, while Louisa May Alcott penned the loyalty and hope within his soul. It was Theodore Dreiser who was left the task of writing my father the destiny of being an American tragedy only after Shirley Jackson prepared my father for the horrors of that very thing.
”
”
Tiffany McDaniel (Betty)
“
I was about to reach in the basket to take one when a horse that had been grazing nearby suddenly charged at another horse. Kaden grabbed me and pulled me out of its path. We stumbled back, unable to regain our footing, and both tumbled to the ground. He rolled over me in a protective motion, hovering in case the horse came closer, but it was already gone.
The world snapped to silence. The tall grass waved above us, hiding us from view. He gazed down at me, his elbows straddling my sides, his chest brushing mine, his face inches away.
I saw the look in his eyes. My heart pounded against my ribs.
“Are you all right?” His voice was low and husky.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His face hovered closer to mine. I was going to push away, look away, do something, but I didn’t, and before I knew what was happening, the space between us disappeared. His lips were warm and gentle against mine, and his breath thrummed in my ears. Heat raced through me. It was just as I had imagined that night with Pauline back in Terravin so long ago. Before—
I pushed him away.
“Lia—”
I got to my feet, my chest heaving, busying myself with a loose button on my shirt. “Let’s forget that happened, Kaden.”
He had jumped to his feet too. He grabbed my hand so I had to look at him. “You wanted to kiss me.”
I shook my head, denying it, but it was true. I had wanted to kiss him.
”
”
Mary E. Pearson (The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles, #1))
“
And it is because they contain thus within themselves the hours of the past that human bodies have the power to hurt so terribly those who love them, because they contain the memories of so many joys and desires already effaced for them, but still cruel for the lover who contemplates and prolongs in the dimension of Time the beloved body of which he is jealous, so jealous that he may even wish for its destruction. For after death Time withdraws from the body, and the memories, so indifferent, grown so pale, are effaced in her who no longer exists, as they soon will be in the lover whom for a while they continue to torment but in whom before long they will perish, once the desire that owed their inspiration to a living body is no longer there to sustain them. Profound Albertine, whom I at once saw sleeping, and who was dead.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Time Regained)
“
Liberty
On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand, on the snow
I write your name
On every page read
On all the white sheets
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name
On the golden images
On the soldier’s weapons
On the crowns of kings
I write your name
On the jungle, the desert
The nests and the bushes
On the echo of childhood
I write your name
On the wonder of nights
On the white bread of days
On the seasons engaged
I write your name
On all my blue rags
On the pond mildewed sun
On the lake living moon
I write your name
On the fields, the horizon
The wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name
On the foam of the clouds
On the sweat of the storm
On dark insipid rain
I write your name
On the glittering forms
On the bells of colour
On physical truth
I write your name
On the wakened paths
On the opened ways
On the scattered places
I write your name
On the lamp that gives light
On the lamp that is drowned
On my house reunited
I write your name
On the bisected fruit
Of my mirror and room
On my bed’s empty shell
I write your name
On my dog greedy tender
On his listening ears
On his awkward paws
I write your name
On the sill of my door
On familiar things
On the fire’s sacred stream
I write your name
On all flesh that’s in tune
On the brows of my friends
On each hand that extends
I write your name
On the glass of surprises
On lips that attend
High over the silence
I write your name
On my ravaged refuges
On my fallen lighthouses
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name
On passionless absence
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your name
On health that’s regained
On danger that’s past
On hope without memories
I write your name
By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you
LIBERTY
”
”
Paul Éluard
“
Dear Jack:
I have no idea who he was. But he saved me. From you.
I watched from the doorway as he smacked, punched, and threw you against the wall. You fought back hard- I'll give you that- but you were no match for him.
And when it was over- when you'd finally passed out- the boy made direct eye contact with me. He removed the rag from my mouth and asked me if I was okay.
'Yes. I mean, I think so,' I told him.
But it was her that he was really interested in: the girl who was lying unconscious on the floor. Her eyes were swollen, and there looked to be a trail of blood running from her nose.
The boy wiped her face with a rag. And then he kissed her, and held her, and ran his hand over her cheek, finally grabbing his cell to dial 911.
He was wearing gloves, which I thought was weird. Maybe he was concerned about his fingerprints, from breaking in. But once he hung up, he removed the gloves, took the girl's hand, and placed it on the front of his leg- as if it were some magical hot spot that would make her better somehow. Tears welled up in his eyes as he apologized for not getting there sooner.
'I'm so sorry,' he just kept saying.
And suddenly I felt sorry too.
Apparently it was the anniversary of something tragic that'd happened. I couldn't really hear him clearly, but I was pretty sure he'd mentioned visiting an old girlfriend's grave.
'You deserve someone better,' he told her. 'Someone who'll be open and honest; who won't be afraid to share everything with you.' He draped his sweatshirt over her, kissed her behind the ear, and then promised to love her forever.
A couple minutes later, another boy came in, all out of breath. 'Is she alright?' he asked.
The boy who saved me stood up, wiped his tearful eyes, and told the other guy to sit with her until she woke up. And then he went to find scissors for me. He cut me free and brought me out to the sofa. 'My name's Ben,' he said. 'And help is on the way.'
When the girl finally did wake up, Ben allowed the other guy to take credit for saving her life. I wanted to ask him why, but I haven't been able to speak.
That's what this letter is for. My therapist says that I need to tell my side of things in order to regain my voice. She suggested that addressing my thoughts directly to you might help provide some closure.
So far, it hasn't done the trick.
Never your Jill,
Rachael
”
”
Laurie Faria Stolarz (Deadly Little Voices (Touch, #4))
“
Stephen had been put to sleep in his usual room, far from children and noise, away in that corner of the house which looked down to the orchard and the bowling-green, and in spite of his long absence it was so familiar to him that when he woke at about three he made his way to the window almost as quickly as if dawn had already broken, opened it and walked out onto the balcony. The moon had set: there was barely a star to be seen. The still air was delightfully fresh with falling dew, and a late nightingale, in an indifferent voice, was uttering a routine jug-jug far down in Jack's plantations; closer at hand and more agreeable by far, nightjars churred in the orchard, two of them, or perhaps three, the sound rising and falling, intertwining so that the source could not be made out for sure. There were few birds that he preferred to nightjars, but it was not they that had brought him out of bed: he stood leaning on the balcony rail and presently Jack Aubrey, in a summer-house by the bowling-green, began again, playing very gently in the darkness, improvising wholly for himself, dreaming away on his violin with a mastery that Stephen had never heard equalled, though they had played together for years and years.
Like many other sailors Jack Aubrey had long dreamed of lying in his warm bed all night long; yet although he could now do so with a clear conscience he often rose at unChristian hours, particularly if he were moved by strong emotion, and crept from his bedroom in a watch-coat, to walk about the house or into the stables or to pace the bowling-green. Sometimes he took his fiddle with him. He was in fact a better player than Stephen, and now that he was using his precious Guarnieri rather than a robust sea-going fiddle the difference was still more evident: but the Guarnieri did not account for the whole of it, nor anything like. Jack certainly concealed his excellence when they were playing together, keeping to Stephen's mediocre level: this had become perfectly clear when Stephen's hands were at last recovered from the thumb-screws and other implements applied by French counter-intelligence officers in Minorca; but on reflexion Stephen thought it had been the case much earlier, since quite apart from his delicacy at that period, Jack hated showing away.
Now, in the warm night, there was no one to be comforted, kept in countenance, no one could scorn him for virtuosity, and he could let himself go entirely; and as the grave and subtle music wound on and on, Stephen once more contemplated on the apparent contradiction between the big, cheerful, florid sea-officer whom most people liked on sight but who would have never been described as subtle or capable of subtlety by any one of them (except perhaps his surviving opponents in battle) and the intricate, reflective music he was now creating. So utterly unlike his limited vocabulary in words, at times verging upon the inarticulate.
'My hands have now regained the moderate ability they possessed before I was captured,' observed Maturin, 'but his have gone on to a point I never thought he could reach: his hands and his mind. I am amazed. In his own way he is the secret man of the world.
”
”
Patrick O'Brian (The Commodore (Aubrey/Maturin, #17))