“
Nico," I said at last, "shouldn't you be sitting at the Hades table?"
He shrugged. "Technically, yes. But if I sit alone at my table, strange things happen. Cracks open in the floor. Zombies crawl out and start roaming around. It's a mood disorder. I can't control it. That's what I told Chiron. "
"And is it true?" I asked.
Nico smiled thinly. "I have a note from my doctor."
Will raised his hand. "I'm his doctor.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1))
“
It was as if this night were only one of thousands of nights, world without end, night curving into night to make a great arching line of which I couldn’t see the end, a night in which I roamed alone under cold, mindless stars.
”
”
Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1))
“
Nico,” I said at last, “shouldn’t you be sitting at the Hades table?”
He shrugged. “Technically, yes. But if I sit alone at my table, strange things happen. Cracks open in the floor. Zombies crawl out and start roaming around. It’s a mood disorder. I can’t control it. That’s what I told Chiron.”
“And is it true?” I asked.
Nico smiled thinly. “I have a note from my doctor.”
Will raised his hand. “I’m his doctor.”
“Chiron decided it wasn’t worth arguing about,” Nico said. “As long as I sit at a table with other people, like…oh, these guys for instance…the zombies stay away. Everybody’s happier.”
Will nodded serenely. “It’s the strangest thing. Not that Nico would ever misuse his powers to get what he wants.”
“Of course not,” Nico agreed.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1))
“
I become one of those people who walks alone in the dark at night while others sleep or watch Mary Tyler Moore reruns or pull all-nighters to finish up some paper that's due first thing tomorrow. I always carry lots of stuff with me wherever I roam, always weighted down with books, with cassettes, with pens and paper, just in case I get the urge to sit down somewhere, and oh, I don't know, read something or write my masterpiece. I want all my important possessions, my worldly goods, with me at all times. I want to hold what little sense of home I have left with me always.
”
”
Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation)
“
In the meantime, no one should roam the camp alone. Use the buddy system."
"Understood." Will looked at Nico. "Will you be my buddy?"
"You're a dork," Nico announced.
The two of them strolled off bickering.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1))
“
I am an orphan, alone: nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a fish, or fell like a white stone from heaven. In woods and mountains I roam, but I am hidden in the innermost soul of man. I am mortal for everyone, yet I am not touched by the cycle of aeons.
”
”
C.G. Jung
“
Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent,
more perfect than all that a man can invent.
”
”
Roman Payne (The Love of Europa: Limited Time Edition (Only the First Chapters))
“
If you cannot find a good companion to walk with, walk alone, like an elephant roaming the jungle. It is better to be alone than to be with those who will hinder your progress.
”
”
Gautama Buddha (The Dhammapada)
“
She never liked
to be called pretty -
for she was a wildflower.
Roaming alone through deep woods
not caring if she would lose one of her petals.
”
”
Laura Chouette
“
I think about a deserted chessboard. Only the white king on it, standing on the home square. Alone, untethered, safe from threats. Free to roam.
”
”
Ali Hazelwood (Check & Mate)
“
We passed upon the stair,
We spoke of was and when.
Although I wasn't there,
He said I was his friend,
Which came as some surprise.
I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone, a long long time ago
Oh no, not me,
I never lost control.
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world.
I laughed and shook his hand,
And made my way back home.
I searched for form and land,
For years and years I roamed.
I gazed a gazely stare
At all the millions here.
We must have died alone,
A long, long time ago.
Who knows? Not me.
We never lost control.
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world
Who knows? Not me.
We never lost control.
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world
- The Man Who Sold the World
”
”
David Bowie
“
It’s more eerie to be alone in a city that’s lit up and functioning than one that’s a tomb. If everything were silent, one could almost pretend to be in nature. A forest. A meadow. Crickets and birdsong. But the corpse of civilization is as restless as the creatures that now roam the graveyards.
”
”
Isaac Marion (The New Hunger)
“
And Josh wanted to tell her what he knew: that love might look like a shore but turn out to be a desert island, where you roamed alone, talking to yourself, trying to crack open coconuts with your shoe. So thirsty you drank the salt water. So hungry you ate the sand.
”
”
Leah Stewart (The History of Us)
“
What I crave more than anything today is to sit at an outdoor cafe on a cool autumn day. I just want to feel that end-of-the-year breeze as I sip a cup of green tea and take my time with a piece of pumpkin pie. I would slump in my chair and allow my mind to roam wherever it chose. Nothing else in the world epitomizes absolute freedom to me more than that thought. I could be alone or with a friend I know so well that we wouldn't have to speak. Sometimes I wake up in the morning thinking about pumpkin pie.
”
”
Damien Echols (Life After Death)
“
...his eyes a bright gold. "You need me."
He kissed her again, his hands roaming from her jaw down her neck and shoulders. His hips presses forward, and he released her mouth as he slid his body up until his sex pressed, hard and full, against hers. She jerked involuntarily, and he laughed in the same deep way that he had spoken. She growled at him, wolf to wolf.
"There you are, there you are," he said. "Are you just going to let me do this alone?
”
”
Patricia Briggs (Fair Game (Alpha & Omega, #3))
“
I glared at him. “You didn't leave me alone for five minutes, you left me alone for a week. I could have hacked myself to pieces if there's been more than one mango in the house. You could have come home to a very gory scene. The press would have had a field day ... Gay Houseboy In Mango Tragedy. Bears arrested for leaving cub unattended for seven, almost eight whole days with an armed and dangerous killer mango roaming loose about the house.”
“I'd mercifully forgotten just how much of a loquacious tripe peddler you can be,” Shane took me by the shoulders and kissed me on the lips...
”
”
Gillibran Brown (Fun With Dick and Shane (Memoirs of a Houseboy, #1))
“
Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek. When the gods created mankind, they also created death, and they held back eternal life for themselves alone. Humans are born, they live, then they die, this is the order that the gods have decreed. But until the end comes, enjoy your life, spend it in happiness, not despair. Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, bathe and anoint yourself, wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean, let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand, and give your wife pleasure in your embrace. That is the best way for a man to live.
”
”
Stephen Mitchell (The Epic of Gilgamesh)
“
At evening when the lamp is lit,
The tired Human People sit
And doze, or turn with solemn looks
The speckled pages of their books.
Then I, the Dangerous Kitten, prowl
And in the Shadows softly growl,
And roam about the farthest floor
Where Kitten never trod before.
And, crouching in the jungle damp,
I watch the Human Hunter’s camp,
Ready to spring with fearful roar
As soon as I shall hear them snore.
And then with stealthy tread I crawl
Into the dark and trackless hall,
Where 'neath the Hat-tree's shadows deep
Umbrellas fold their wings and sleep.
A cuckoo calls — and to their dens
The People climb like frightened hens,
And I'm alone — and no one cares
In Darkest Africa — downstairs.
”
”
Oliver Herford (The Kitten's Garden of Verses)
“
When I was young I walked all over this country, east and west, and saw no other people than the Apaches. After many summers I walked again and found another race of people had come to take it. How is it? Why is it that the Apaches wait to die—that they carry their lives on their fingernails. They roam over the hills and plains and want the heavens to fall on them. The Apaches were once a great nation; they are now but few, and because of this they want to die and so carry their lives on their fingernails. Many have been killed in battle. You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight to our hearts. Tell me, if the Virgin Mary has walked throughout all the land, why has she never entered the wickiups of the Apaches? Why have we never seen or heard her?
“I have no father nor mother; I am alone in the world. No one cares for Cochise; that is why I do not care to live, and wish the rocks to fall on me and cover me up. If I had a father and mother like you, I would be with them and they with me
”
”
Dee Brown (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West)
“
Like an abandoned dog who cannot find
a smell or a track and roams
along the roads, with no road, like
the child who in a night of the fair
gets lost among the crowd,
and the air is dusty, and the candles
fluttering,--astounded, his heart
weighed down by music and by pain;
that’s how I am, drunk, sad by nature,
a mad and lunar guitarist, a poet,
and an ordinary man lost in dreams,
searching constantly for God among the mists.
”
”
Antonio Machado (Times Alone: Selected Poems)
“
She bore an uncanny resemblance to my mother, but the same beauty bloomed differently in each of them. My mother's fairness was exquisite and untouchable, roaming alone in an abandoned castle. Khalto Bahiyas' beauty took you in immediately. Hers was easy and disclosed hordes of laughter stolen from wherever it could be found. Gravity, sun, and time has scrawled on their faces the travails of hard work, childbirth, and destitution.
”
”
Susan Abulhawa
“
They had to die. They were killing innocent people. (Wulf)
They were surviving, Wulf. You never had to face the choice of being dead at twenty-seven. When most people’s lives are just beginning, we are looking at a death sentence. Have you any idea what it’s like to know you can never see your children grow up? Never see your own grandchildren? My mother used to say we were spring flowers who are only meant to bloom for one season. We bring our gifts to the world and then recede to dust so that others can come after us. When our loved ones die, we immortalize them like this. I have one for my mother and the other four are my sisters. No one will ever know the beauty of my sisters’ laughter. No one will remember the kindness of my mother’s smile. In eight months, my father won’t even have enough of me left to bury. I will become scattered dust. And for what? For something my great-great-great-whatever did? I’ve been alone the whole of my life because I dare not let anyone know me. I don’t want to love for fear of leaving someone like my father behind to mourn me. I will be a vague dream, and yet here you are, Wulf Tryggvason. Viking cur who once roamed the earth raiding villages. How many people did you kill in your human lifetime while you sought treasure and fame? Were you any better than the Daimons who kill so that they can live? What makes you better than us? (Cassandra)
It’s not the same thing. (Wulf)
Isn’t it? You know, I went to your Web site and saw the names listed there. Kyrian of Thrace, Julian of Macedon, Valerius Magnus, Jamie Gallagher, William Jess Brady. I’ve studied history all my life and know each of those names and the terror they wrought in their day. Why is it okay for the Dark-Hunters to have immortality even though most of you were killers as humans, while we are damned at birth for things we never did? Where is the justice in this? (Cassandra)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter, #4))
“
Love hurts.
Think back over romance novels you’ve loved or the genre-defining books that drive our industry. The most unforgettable stories and characters spring from crushing opposition. What we remember about romance novels is the darkness that drives them. Three hundred pages of folks being happy together makes for a hefty sleeping pill, but three hundred pages of a couple finding a way to be happy in the face of impossible odds makes our hearts soar. In darkness, we are all alone.
So don’t just make love, make anguish for your characters. As you structure a story, don’t satisfy your hero’s desires, thwart them. Make sure your solutions create new problems. Nurture your characters doubts and despair. Make them earn the happy ending they want, even better…make them deserve it. Delay and disappointment charge situations and validate character growth. Misery accompanies love. It’s no accident that many of the stories we think of as timeless romances in Western Literature are fiercely tragic: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cupid and Psyche… the pain in them drags us back again and again, hoping that this time we’ll find a way out of the dark.
Only if you let your characters get lost will we get lost in them. And that, more than anything else, is what romance can and should do for its protagonists and its readers: lead us through the labyrinth, skirt the monstrous despair roaming its halls, and find our way into daylight.
”
”
Damon Suede
“
XIV. Of all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They annex ever age to their own; all the years that have gone ore them are an addition to their store. Unless we are most ungrateful, all those men, glorious fashioners of holy thoughts, were born for us; for us they have prepared a way of life. By other men's labours we are led to the sight of things most beautiful that have been wrested from darkness and brought into light; from no age are we shut out, we have access to all ages, and if it is our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human weakness, there is a great stretch of time through which we may roam. We may argue with Socrates, we may doubt32 with Carneades, find peace with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows us to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this paltry and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to the past, which is boundless, which is eternal, which we share with our betters?
”
”
Giordano Bruno (On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds: Five Cosmological Dialogues (Collected Works of Giordano Bruno Book 2))
“
I’m Still Here
Your heart has been heavy since that day—
The day you thought I went away—
I haven’t left you I never would—
You just can’t see me, though I wish that you could.
It might ease the pain that you feel in your heart—
The pain that you’ve felt since you’ve believed us to part.
Try and think of it this way, it might help you see—
That I am right here with you and always will be.
Remember the times we were out in the yard,
You could not always see me yet I hadn’t gone far.
That’s how it is now when you look for my face
I’m still right beside you still filling my place.
I find it to be so very sad,
That seeing and believing seem to go hand in hand,
The love and the loyalty the warmth that I gave,
You felt them, did not see them, but you believed just the same.
I walk with you now like I walked with you then—
My pain is now gone and I lead once again.
My eyes always following you wherever you roam—
Making sure you’re okay and you’re never alone.
Our time was too short yet for me it goes on—
I won’t ever leave you, I’ll never be gone.
I live in your heart as you live in mine—
An endearing love that continues to shine.
The day will come and together we’ll be,
And you’ll say take me home boy, and once again I will lead.
Until that day comes don’t think that I’ve gone—
I’m right here beside you, and my love it lives on.
”
”
Sylvia Browne (All Pets Go To Heaven: The Spiritual Lives of the Animals We Love)
“
The only furniture in the dank space was a flimsy cot. Water dripped steadily in one corner. A hole in the floor appeared to serve as a latrine. What most caught Kendra's eye were the messages scratched on the wall. She roamed the cell, reading the crudely inscribed phrases.
"Seth rules!
Welcome to Seth's House.
Seth rocks!
Seth was here. Now it's your turn.
Seth Sorenson forever.
Enjoy the food!
If you're reading this, you can read.
All roads lead to Seth.
Is it still dripping?
Seth haunts these halls.
You're in a Turkish prison!
Seth is the man!
Use the meal mats as toilet paper." And so forth.
Cold, hopeless, and alone, Kendra found herself giggling at the messages her brother had scrawled. He must have been so bored!
”
”
Brandon Mull (Keys to the Demon Prison (Fablehaven, #5))
“
I am a poor wayfaring stranger Traveling through this world alone But there’s no sickness, toil or danger In that bright world to which I go. I’m going there to see my loved ones I’m going there, no more to roam I’m only going over Jordan I’m only going over home.
”
”
Tana French (The Searcher)
“
He liked to roam alone in the darkness, getting a good look at the underbelly. Out came the characters shellacked by the grey city, years of drink and rain and hope holding them in place. His living was made by moving people, but his favourite pastime was watching them.
”
”
Douglas Stuart (Shuggie Bain)
“
What sorrow is like to the sorrow of one who is alone?
Once I dwelt in the company of the king I loved well,
And my arm was heavy with the weight of the rings he gave,
And my heart weighed down with the gold of his love.
The face the king is like the sun to those who surrounded,.
But now my heart is empty
And I wander along throughout the world.
The groves take on their blossoms,
The trees and meadows grow fair
But the cuckoo, saddest of singers,
Cries forth the only sorrow of the exile,
And now my heart hoes wandering,
In search of what I shall never see more;
All faces are alike to me if I cannot see the face of my king,
And all countries are alike to me
When I cannot see the fair fields and meadows of my home.
So I shall arise and follow my heart in its wandering
For what is the fair meadow of home to me
When I cannot see the face of my king
And the weight on my arm is but a band of gold
When the heart is empty of the weight of love.
And so I shall go roaming
Over the fishers' road
And the road of the great whale
And beyond the country of the wave
With none to bear me company
But the memory of those I loved
And the songs I sang out of a full heart,
And the cuckoo's cry in memory.
”
”
Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Prisoner in the Oak (The Mists of Avalon, #4))
“
For the mind of man alone is free to explore the lofty vastness of the cosmic infinite, to transcend ordinary consciousness, to roam the secret corridors of the brain where past and future melt into one... And universe and individual are linked, the one mirrored in the other, and each contains the other.
”
”
Michael Moorcock
“
I roamed alone;
O, barren dreams.
My echoed voice,
what lonely comfort.
Here is my salvation:
I hear the triumph drum;
the rhythm of the rising,
the long-awaited sun.
”
”
Craig Froman (An Owl on the Moon: A Journal From the Edge of Darkness)
“
There long he sojourned alone and roamed about the shore or fared over the rocks at the ebb, marvelling at the pools and the great weeds, the dripping caverns and the strange sea-fowl that he saw and came to know; but the rise and fall of the water and the voice of the waves was ever to him the greatest wonder and ever did it seem a new and unimaginable thing.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fall of Gondolin (Middle-Earth Universe))
“
I know the sound of each rock and stone
And I embrace what others fear
You are not to roam in this forgotten place
Just the likes of me are welcome here
Everything breathes
And I know each breath
For me it means life
For others, it's death
It's perfectly in balance
Perfectly planned
More than enough
For this man
Like every tree
Stands on it's own
Reaching for the sky
I stand alone
I share my world
With no one else
All by myself
I stand alone
I seen your world
With these very eyes
Don't come any closer
Don't even try
I've felt all the pain
And heard all the lies
But in my world there's no
Compromise
Like every tree
Stands on it's own
Reaching for the sky
I stand alone
I share my world
With no one else
All by myself
I stand alone.
”
”
Bryan White
“
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd Greatly,
have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
”
”
Alfred Tennyson
“
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
that loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known---cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all---
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, my own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle---
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me---
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads---you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
”
”
Alfred Tennyson
“
Leaning down, I kissed his cheek, and as I straightened, he turned wide amber eyes on me. “I see what you don’t.” I ran my hand up and down his arm. “You’re not selfish, even if you have moments of acting like it. We all do. You’re not evil, even if you were created by the greatest evil of them all. You’ve proven to me and yourself that you have free will, and you’ve made the right decisions time and time again.”
As I dragged my hand up his arm, he shuddered. “You’ve accepted who and what I am from the beginning. You’ve never tried to change me or...or hide me. You’ve always trusted me, even when you probably shouldn’t have.” I laughed at that, thinking of the time he’d left me alone in the Palisades club with explicit instructions not to roam off. “You’ve...you’ve celebrated what I am, and very few can claim that. Like I’ve said before, you’re more than the latest Crown Prince. You’re Roth.”
For a moment, he didn’t move or blink. Then wonderment filled his expression as he stared up at me, and finally, the tension eased out of his muscles. “And I’m yours.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Every Last Breath (The Dark Elements, #3))
“
I am an orphan, alone; nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a fish, or fell like a white stone from heaven. In woods and mountains I roam, but I am hidden in the innermost soul of man. I am mortal for everyone, yet I am not touched by the cycle of aeons.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections)
“
Lost count of all the countless things
I've lost throughout the years
Lost friends and time and interest in
The things I should hold dear
Lost sleep just pondering the things
That have been lost to me
Especially the loss of love
I've need desperately
I find it doesn't help at all
To sit around and brood
I find nobody gives a damn
About your petty moods
At least that's what I thought
Until the day you came along
Now, I found my restless soul
Has finally found a home
Lost and found, I'm safe sound
No more drifting aimlessly, I've settled down
I've finally came around
No more to roam, those days are gone
I was alone, now I know I don't have to be
Since your amazing love has found me
”
”
Dolly Parton (Run, Rose, Run)
“
It was as if this night were only one of thousands of nights, world without end, night curving into into night to make a great arching line of which I couldn't see the end, a night in which I roamed alone under cold, mindless stars.
”
”
Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1))
“
I walk the sand alone,
and feel it stirring as I roam,
upon this breathing earth,
where wave on wave begins new birth.
I sense a grand facade,
where colors paint the hand of God.
And in remorseful pain,
I dance the stones of bitter strain.
”
”
Craig Froman (An Owl on the Moon: A Journal From the Edge of Darkness)
“
Those first days before classes started I spent alone in my whitewashed room, in the bright meadows of Hampden. And I was happy in those first days as really I'd never been before, roaming like a sleepwalker, stunned and drunk with beauty.
”
”
Donna Tartt
“
To Roam
Well, I like this world
Well, I like this world
Well, I like this world
I like it how it was
I pray how it was
I like it how it was
Ghosts in the rain
Cold walk of freedom
Well, I'm walking a hallway
I'm walking a hallway
I'm walking a hallway
Said, I'm walking a hallway
I'm walking a hallway
Well, I'm walking a hallway
I am proud and I'm gloried
Thinking 'bout the day what'll surely come
When on the scene, I'm smile evaded
When outta nowhere, I'm gonna run
But I know where I go, I will be gone
Somewhere to run to - if you see
You could see it through my mind
You wouldn't know it - no way
You'd know when my eyes roam
Through the fog and hail and sleet
I missed the snow and nowhere
Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
You should've known where
Should've known where
You should've known where
Should've known better, baby
'Cause I like this world
And I like this world
Some people want to roam
Some people, they roam this world alone
Some people were born to roam
Some people they roam this world alone
Alone
”
”
Robert Pattinson
“
Josh wanted to tell her what he knew: that love might look like a shore but turn out to be a desert island, where you roamed alone, talking to yourself, trying to crack open coconuts with your shoe. So thirsty you drank the salt water. So hungry you ate the sand.
”
”
Leah Stewart (The History of Us: A Novel)
“
Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of
everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself. Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment.
I made up my mind that I would hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that henceforth I would live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer. Even if war were declared, and it were my lot to go, I would grab the bayonet and plunge it, plunge it up to
the hilt. And if rape were the order of the day then rape I would, and with a vengeance. At this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with crime and distress? Had one single element of man's nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the incessant march of history?
By what he calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage. When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the soul thirsts. On whatever crumb
my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If to live is the paramount thing, then I will live, even if I must become a cannibal. Heretofore I have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to preserve the few pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no further. As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.
”
”
Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer (Tropic, #1))
“
Economic insecurity strangles the physical and cultural growth of its victims. Not only are millions deprived of formal education and proper health facilities but our most fundamental social unit—the family—is tortured, corrupted, and weakened by economic insufficiency. When a Negro man is inadequately paid, his wife must work to provide the simple necessities for the children. When a mother has to work she does violence to motherhood by depriving her children of her loving guidance and protection; often they are poorly cared for by others or by none—left to roam the streets unsupervised. It is not the Negro alone who is wronged by a disrupted society; many white families are in similar straits. The Negro mother leaves home to care for—and be a substitute mother for—white children, while the white mother works. In this strange irony lies the promise of future correction.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (King Legacy Book 1))
“
But it is pre-eminently as the deepest layer of my mental soil, as firm sites on which I still may build, that I regard the Méséglise and Guermantes 'ways.' It is because I used to think of certain things, of certain people, while I was roaming along them, that the things, the people which they taught me to know, and these alone, I still take seriously, still give me joy. Whether it be that the faith which creates has ceased to exist in me, or that reality will take shape in the memory alone, the flowers that people shew me nowadays for the first time never seem to me to be true flowers.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann's Way)
“
Select a room where you can be alone and
undisturbed; sit erect, comfortably, but do not lounge; let your thoughts roam
where they will but be perfectly still for from fifteen minutes to half an hour;
continue this for three or four days or for a week until you secure full control of
your physical being.
”
”
Charles F. Haanel (The Master Key System: Unlock your greatest potential)
“
The northern shore was gray, grim, and inhospitable, and Diana knew every inch of its secret landscape, its crags and caves, its tide pools teeming with limpets and anemones. It was a good place to be alone. The island seeks to please, her mother had told her. It was why Themyscira was forested by redwoods in some places and rubber trees in others; why you could spend an afternoon roaming the grasslands on a scoop-neck pony and the evening atop a camel, scaling a moonlit dragonback of sand dunes. They were all pieces of the lives the Amazons had led before they came to the island, little landscapes of the heart.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons, #1))
“
Ever since I’d started riding the train by myself I’d loved to go there alone and roam around until I got lost, wandering deeper and deeper in the maze of galleries until sometimes I found myself in forgotten halls of armor and porcelain that I’d never seen before (and, occasionally, was unable to find again).
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
“
In the wild, cattle roamed as they pleased in herds with a complex social structure. The castrated and domesticated ox wasted away his life under the lash and in a narrow pen, labouring alone or in pairs in a way that suited neither its body nor its social and emotional needs. When an ox could no longer pull the plough, it was slaughtered.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They take from every age to add to their own; all the years that have gone before them are an addition to their store. Unless we are most ungrateful, all those men, glorious tailors of holy thoughts, were born for us; for us they have prepared a way of life. By other men's labours we are led to the sight of things most beautiful that have been wrestled from darkness and brought into light; from no age are we shut out, we have access to all ages, and if it is our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human weakness, there is a great stretch of time through which we may roam. We may argue with Socrates, we may doubt with Carneades, find peace with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows us to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this small and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to the past, which is boundless, which
”
”
Seneca (On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader)
“
November 8th, 1943
At night in bed I see myself alone in a dungeon, without Father and Mother. Or I'm roaming the streets, or the Annex is on fire, or they come in the middle of the night to take us away and I crawl under my bed in desperation. I see everything as if it were actually taking place. And to think it might all happen soon!
(**good metaphor use later on for English)
”
”
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
“
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
”
”
Alfred Tennyson
“
–I'll just play the notes inside my skull alone in the dark where they roam around loose. 'Cause playing like a slave, I'd just step myself straight into a hangman's noose."
On Sissieretta Jones, Jess writes: "See, Sissie would know how to let folks into one mask and out through another. She'd even raise a toast to the mask, jokin about whether folk–black and white–really believed that the opera was wearing her as a mask, or if it just tickled them to see her puttin on that white mask of Vivaldi. Was it her voice or someone else's? they'd seem to ask. Well, it was all her. Every note, in whiteface or blackface or in just plain old American, went straight down to her bones. That's what I heard when I truly listened, anyway. She'd pour those opera songs all over her body and then dress herself in the church frock of hymns. She told me one time, that in order to hear her true voice, she'd had to ask herself about her own masks. What kind of mask might I have on? she said. Because let me tell you, most don't even know they're wearing a mask. You've got to know which masks, how many masks you're wearing before you can put it down and see your true self. Those that do, they know just how to slide in and out of it, how to make the world spin inside it and out of it. How to spread their song all over that mask and make it one with the world, no matter how thick or thin the truth in that song might be.
”
”
Tyehimba Jess (Olio)
“
She bore an uncanny resemblance to my mother, but the same beauty bloomed differently in each of them. My mother's fairness was exquisite and untouchable, roaming alone in an abandoned castle. Khalto Bahiya's beauty took you in immediately. Hers was easy and disclosed hordes of laughter stolen from wherever it could be found. Gravity, sun, and time had scrawled on their faces the travails of hard work, childbirth, and destitution. But even these lines disagreed on their faces. Khalto Bahiya's face incorporated them into her joy and her pain, so that lines appeared and hid according to her expressions and provided frames and curves to her tenderness. Gentle folds nestled her lips and made her face open when she smiled - like an orchid. On Mama, the lines had always seemed incongruous - as if her beauty could accept no change or outside interference. The wrinkles on Mama's face had carved her skin like prison bars, behind which one could discern the perpetual plaint of something grand and sad, still alive and wanting to get out.
”
”
Susan Abulhawa (Mornings in Jenin)
“
show me your face
i crave
flowers and gardens
open your lips
i crave
the taste of honey
come out from
behind the clouds
i desire a sunny face
your voice echoed
saying "leave me alone"
i wish to hear your voice
again saying "leave me alone"
i swear this city without you
is a prison
i am dying to get out
to roam in deserts and mountains
i am tired of
flimsy friends and
submissive companions
i die to walk with the brave
am blue hearing
nagging voices and meek cries
i desire loud music
drunken parties and
wild dance
one hand holding
a cup of wine
one hand caressing your hair
then dancing in orbital circle
that is what i yearn for
i can sing better than any nightingale
but because of
this city's freaks
i seal my lips
while my heart weeps
yesterday the wisest man
holding a lit lantern
in daylight
was searching around town saying
i am tired of
all these beasts and brutes
i seek
a true human
we have all looked
for one but
no one could be found
they said
yes he replied
but my search is
for the one
who cannot be found
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (Rumi: Fountain of Fire)
“
...I want to exist from my own force, like the
sun which gives light and does not suck light. That belongs to the earth. I recall my solar nature and would like to rush to my rising. But ruins stand in my way They say: "With regard to men you should be this or that." My chameleonesque skin shudders. They obtrude upon me and want to color me. But that should no longer be. Neither good nor evil shall be my masters. I push them aside, the laughable survivors, and go on my way again, which leads me to the East. The quarreling powers that for so long stood between me and myself lie behind me.
Henceforth I'm completely alone. I can no longer say to you: "Listen!" or "you should," or "you could," but now I talk only with myself Now no one else can do anything more for me, nothing whatsoever. I no longer have a duty toward you, and you no longer have duties toward me, since I vanish and you vanish from me. I no longer hear requests and no longer make requests of you. I no longer fight and reconcile myself with you, but place silence between you and me.
Your call dies away in the distance, and you cannot find my footprints. Together with the west wind, which comes from the plains of the ocean, I journey across the green countryside, I roam through the forests, and bend the young grass. I talk with trees and the forest wildlife, and the stones show me the way. When I thirst and the source does not come to me, I go to the source. When I starve and the bread does not come to me, I seek my bread and take it where I find it. I provide no help and need no help. If at any time necessity confronts me, I do not look around to see whether there is a helper nearby, but I accept the necessity and bend and writhe and struggle. I laugh, I weep,I swear, but I do not look around me.
On this way, no one walks behind me, and I cross no one's path. I am alone, but I fill my solitariness with my life. I am man enough, I am noise, conversation, comfort, and help enough unto myself And so I wander to the far East. Not that I know any-thing about what my distant goal might be. I see blue horizons before me: they suffice as a goal. I hurry toward the East and my rising- I will my rising.
”
”
C.G. Jung (The Red Book: Liber Novus)
“
For four months of my life, I traveled constantly with Nora, occasionally touching down in the States for a few days. We lived a life of relentless tension, yet it was also often crushingly boring. I had little to do, other than keep Nora company while she dealt with her “mules.” I would roam the streets of strange cities all alone. I felt disconnected from the world even as I was seeing it, a person without purpose or place. This was not the adventure I craved. I was lying to my family about every aspect of my life and growing sick and tired of my adopted drug “family.
”
”
Piper Kerman (Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison)
“
14. A painting from an Egyptian grave, c.1200 BC: a pair of oxen ploughing a field. In the wild, cattle roamed as they pleased in herds with a complex social structure. The castrated and domesticated ox wasted away his life under the lash and in a narrow pen, labouring alone or in pairs in a way that suited neither its body nor its social and emotional needs. When an ox could no longer pull the plough, it was slaughtered. (Note the hunched position of the Egyptian farmer who, much like the ox, spent his life in hard labour oppressive to his body, his mind and his social relationships.)
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
I'm still standing here with my eyes closed
Lost between the deserts and oceans
I'm still wandering
Where should I go yeah
I didn't know there were this many
Paths I can't go and paths I can't take
I never felt this way before
Am I becoming an adult?
This is too hard,
Is this path right for me
I am confused
Never leave me alone
I still believe even though it's unbelievable
To lose your path
Is the way to find that path
Lost my way
Constantly pushing without rest within the harsh rainstorms
Lost my way
Within a complicated world without an exit
Lost my way
Lost my way
No matter how much I wander, I want to believe in my path
Lost my way
Found my way
Lost my way
Found my way
I once saw an ant going somewhere
There is no way to find the path at once
Constantly crashing and crawling forward
To find something to eat, roaming for days
You know
There is a reason for all this frustration
I believe that we're on the right path
If we ever find it
We will return home at once just like an ant
This is too hard,
Is this path right for me
I am so confused
Don't you leave me alone
I still want to believe even though it's unbelievable
To lose your path
Is the way to find that path
Lost my way
Constantly pushing without rest within the harsh rainstorms
Lost my way
Within a complicated world without an exit
Lost my way
Lost my way
I wander, I want to believe in my path
So long
Goodbye to my hope with no promise
So long
Even if I'm slow I will walk with my own feet
Because I know this path is mine to take
Even if I go back, I will reach this path eventually
I never I will never
I will never lose my dream
Lost my way
Constantly pushing without rest within the harsh rainstorms
Lost my way
Within a complicated world without an exit
Lost my way
Lost my way
I wander, I want to believe in my path
Lost my way
Found my way
Lost my way
Found my way
”
”
BTS
“
And so, finding that, for once, I was not sorry to be alone, I said to myself: I am happy. Perfectly happy, I repeated, as my eyes roamed wide over the brilliant desolate sea and the empty contours of the land. Were they, after all, searching for something that was lacking? I hardly knew. A tiny obstinate figure by the dwarf obelisk under an enormous sky, I declared for the third time: I am absolutely happy, absolutely content. And, increasingly overcome by a profound melancholy which I interpreted simply as an appetite for supper I began to walk downhill, towards my sitting room, my holiday task and my lonely bed.
”
”
Christopher Isherwood (Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties)
“
They unrolled away impervious to me as though I were a roaming ghost, not only tonight but always, as though I had never played on them a hundred times, as though my feet had never touched them, as though my whole life at Devon had been a dream, or rather that everything at Devon, the playing fields, the gym, the water hole, and all the other buildings and all the people there were intensely real, wildly alive and totally meaningful, and I alone was a dream, a figment which had never really touched anything. I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.
”
”
John Knowles (A Separate Peace)
“
While it is certainly true that bullies typically pick on children they perceive as weak, it is also true that there is a wide selection of weak children to choose from, so what is it about children with autism that tends to attract their wrath? One key factor is that children with autism tend not to roam in packs! For example, a child with autism may be able to tolerate the stress and required masking of the classroom for a few hours but might need the respite of recess to take a break and be away from other people for a bit. This alone time exposes them to greater risk. But is there anything about the behavior of the child with autism that attracts bullying?
”
”
David William Plummer (Secrets of the Autistic Millionaire: Everything I know about Autism, ASD, and Asperger's that I wish I'd known back then... (Optimistic Autism Book 2))
“
Nico,’ I said at last, ‘shouldn’t you be sitting at the Hades table?’ He shrugged. ‘Technically, yes. But if I sit alone at my table strange things happen. Cracks open in the floor. Zombies crawl out and start roaming around. It’s a mood disorder. I can’t control it. That’s what I told Chiron.’ ‘And is it true?’ I asked. Nico smiled thinly. ‘I have a note from my doctor.’ Will raised his hand. ‘I’m his doctor.’ ‘Chiron decided it wasn’t worth arguing about,’ Nico said. ‘As long as I sit at a table with other people, like … oh, these guys for instance … the zombies stay away. Everybody’s happier.’ Will nodded serenely. ‘It’s the strangest thing. Not that Nico would ever misuse his powers to get what he wants.’ ‘Of course not,’ Nico agreed.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1))
“
She who ever had remained in the depth of my being, in the twilight of gleams and of glimpses; she who never opened her veils in the morning light, will be my last gift to thee, my God, folded in my final song.
Words have wooed yet failed to win her; persuasion has stretched to her its eager arms in vain.
I have roamed from country to country keeping her in the core of my heart, and around her have risen and fallen the growth and decay of my life.
Over my thoughts and actions, my slumbers and dreams, she reigned yet dwelled alone and apart.
many a man knocked at my door and asked for her and turned away in despair.
There was none in the world who ever saw her face to face, and she remained in her loneliness waiting for thy recognition
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore (Gitanjali)
“
O my dark Rosaleen,
Do not sigh, do not weep!
The priests are on the ocean green,
They march along the deep.
There’s wine from the royal Pope,
Upon the ocean green;
And Spanish ale shall give you hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,
Shall give you health, and help, and hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!
Over hills, and thro’ dales,
Have I roam’d for your sake;
All yesterday I sail’d with sails
On river and on lake.
The Erne, at its highest flood,
I dash’d across unseen,
For there was lightning in my blood,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
O, there was lightning in my blood,
Red lighten’d thro’ my blood.
My Dark Rosaleen!
All day long, in unrest,
To and fro, do I move.
The very soul within my breast
Is wasted for you, love!
The heart in my bosom faints
To think of you, my Queen,
My life of life, my saint of saints,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
To hear your sweet and sad complaints,
My life, my love, my saint of saints,
My Dark Rosaleen!
Woe and pain, pain and woe,
Are my lot, night and noon,
To see your bright face clouded so,
Like to the mournful moon.
But yet will I rear your throne
Again in golden sheen;
‘Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
‘Tis you shall have the golden throne,
‘Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!
Over dews, over sands,
Will I fly, for your weal:
Your holy delicate white hands
Shall girdle me with steel.
At home, in your emerald bowers,
From morning’s dawn till e’en,
You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
You’ll think of me through daylight hours
My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,
My Dark Rosaleen!
I could scale the blue air,
I could plough the high hills,
Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer,
To heal your many ills!
And one beamy smile from you
Would float like light between
My toils and me, my own, my true,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
Would give me life and soul anew,
My Dark Rosaleen!
O, the Erne shall run red,
With redundance of blood,
The earth shall rock beneath our tread,
And flames wrap hill and wood,
And gun-peal and slogan-cry
Wake many a glen serene,
Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
The Judgement Hour must first be nigh,
Ere you can fade, ere you can die,
My Dark Rosaleen!
”
”
James Clarence Mangan
“
The conjunction of the 'straightest', most austere product of the Northern hemisphere—the presbyterian, the Anglo-Saxon, the quintessential hyperborean, in his pride and his theology—and the most primitive, regressive, impotent and also the most unselfconscious element that the Antipodes concealed under the sun: the Aboriginals. The clash resulted in the quasi-total extermination of the Antipodean, but the Southern hemisphere has not perhaps pronounced its last word yet.
The Aboriginals were certainly had. They were led to claim for themselves stretches of land which in the days when they had been left alone they had roamed through as nomads with never a thought of ownership. Their claim was directed towards an object they had never possessed and which they would have thought it contemptible and sacrilegious to possess. Typical Western cunning. In return they have palmed off an even deadlier virus on to us—the virus of origins.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (Cool Memories)
“
(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay"
Sittin' in the morning sun
I'll be sittin' when the evening comes
Watching the ships roll in
Then I watch them roll away again, yeah
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time
I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the Frisco Bay
Cuz I've had nothing to live for
And look like nothing's gonna come my way
So, I'm just gon' sit on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time
Looks like nothing's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same, listen
Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone, listen
Two thousand miles I roam
Just to make this dock my home, now
I'm just gon' sit at the dock of a bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time
[Ends in harmonic whistling]
”
”
Otis Redding
“
Next to the assignment of the yellow star, the decision to arrest children between the ages of two and 16, then separate them from their parents, was probably the most significant public relations mistake of the Vichy government and their German partners...the sight of youngsters in busses, roaming the streets alone, or holding their mothers hands as they mounted police vehicles made an impression on gentile Parisians. Police reports following the round-up were especially sensitive to public opinion...'The measures taken against the Israelite have profoundly troubled public opinion. Though the French population is generally anti-Semitic, it nonetheless judges these specific measures as inhumane. It is the separation of children from their parents that most affects the French population and that provokes strong criticism of the government and of the occupying authorities...In general, our measures would have been well-received if they had only been aimed at foreign adults, but many were moved at the fate of the children...
”
”
Ronald C. Rosbottom (When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944)
“
Our parents never structured our studies. "Let 'em learn what they like," my father used to say. "A child will eat a well-balanced diet if she's given a choice of wholesome foods and left alone. If a kid's body knows what it needs to grow and stay healthy, why wouldn't her mind, too?"
To his friends he explained, "My girls have free run of the forest and public library. They have a mother who is around to fix them lunch and define any words don't know. School would only get in the way of that. Besides, if they went to school, they'd spend over two hours a day in the car. Lord knows I could use the company on those drives, but it's better for my kids to stay in the woods."
So while other children were reciting their times tables and asking permission to get drinks of water, Eva and I were free to roam and learn as we pleased. Together we painted murals and made up plays, built forts, raised butterflies, and designed computer games. We made paper, concocted new recipes for cookies, edited newsletters, and caught minnows. We grew gourds and nursed fledglings and played with prisms, and our parents told the state that what we did was school.
For years I studied what I wanted to, when and how I wanted to study it. One book led to another in a random pattern, meandering from interest to interest like a good conversation, and the only thing that connected them was their juxtaposition on the bookshelves in mother's workroom.
”
”
Jean Hegland (Into the Forest)
“
Twirling on the sand, she quotes Emma Goldman to him in a song. “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.” He steps up. Come on, Gia, he says, be in my revolution. She is barefoot on the sand. Where are her stockings? She hasn’t taken them off; they’re not lying in a heap nearby. When his open palm goes around her waist, he can’t feel her corset, he feels velvet and under it the curve of her natural waist and lower back. Suddenly he has three left feet and, usually such a capable dancer, can’t move backward or forward. She steps on his awkward toes a few times, laughs, and they trip and fall to their knees on the sand. What’s gotten into you, Harry, she says. I can’t imagine, he says, his eyes roaming wildly over her flushed and eager face. Both his hands are entwining the narrow space from which her hips begin. It’s late afternoon on the wide Hampton beach; it’s gray and foggy when he kisses her. He’s never kissed Sicilian lips before, only Bostonian. There is a boiling ocean of contrast between the two. Boston girls were born and raised on soil that was frozen from October to April and breathed through perfectly colored mouths that took in chill winds and fog from the stormy harbor. But his Sicilian queen has roamed the Mediterranean meadows and her abundant lips breathed in fearsome fire from Typhonic volcanoes. He kisses her as if they are alone at night—as if she is already his. His arms wrap around her back and press her to him. They become suspended, he floats like a phantom around her in the moist air. He won’t let her go, he can’t.
”
”
Paullina Simons (Children of Liberty (The Bronze Horseman, #0.5))
“
His shining skin drew my attention and I became enslaved to the need to explore every inch of his flesh. His body brought on an ache in me I hadn't known for a long time. Since my ex had dumped me after I'd given him my virginity, I hadn't done more than fool around with guys. The desire to go further had never really risen again. Not until Orion. And I had never, in all my life, wanted anyone like I wanted him.
His beard had been trimmed even shorter for the party, revealing the powerful cut of his jaw and that divine dimple in his cheek. He'd brought me here, alone, cordoning me off from the world. And the blazing intensity in his gaze made me hope that maybe he was about to drop the teacher act for one night and admit he was drawn to me too.
He glanced above us and his brow furrowed heavily. “Up there are a thousand reasons why we can't be together.”
I swallowed thickly, goosebumps rushing along my skin in response to his words. I pressed my back to the cool tiles of the pool and the goosebumps spread deeper, evoking a shiver across my body.
“I'm bound by so many rules I could waste the rest of your evening telling you them,” he said.
“Skip them then, sir.” A smile played around my mouth as a thrill danced in my chest.
He moved closer and rested his hands either side of me on the wall. “I think the time for sirs and professors is over, don't you?”
No answer came from my lips, but my body gave it to him as I reached out and did the one thing I'd dreamed about the most since this all-consuming crush had first started. I brushed my fingers across the stubble on his jaw, resting my thumb over the dimple in his cheek, feeling the tiny rivet in his skin.
The distance parting us suddenly felt like too much; the air was racing over my exposed flesh, chilling me to the core. I needed the heat of his hands, the red hot press of his stomach and chest.
“Lance,” I breathed and his pupils dilated as I met his gaze.
He devoured the space between us and I experienced pure sin as his mouth crushed against mine. It was gunpowder meeting fire and the result was an all-consuming blaze which burned me up from the inside out.
A desperate noise escaped me that would have made me blush if I’d had any scrap of self-awareness left. But that was all it took for him to slam into me full force, hitching my legs up around his waist so fast it made my head spin.
My hands finally got their deepest wish and roamed down the plains of all that gloriously golden skin. But it wasn't enough just to feel the flex of his muscles, I needed more and I took it by scratching against his beautiful shell, wanting to break beneath flesh and bone and burrow my way deeper.
I need more.
(Darcy)
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Ruthless Fae (Zodiac Academy, #2))
“
The power behind words and voices is substantial to life! I dedicated this book to all of you readers before you even read it, to understand- the book of misunderstandings for the misunderstood. To have a voice, when you were made not have one or told not to have one. Maybe if you are like me, trying to get your voice back this is the story you need. Nonetheless, let us not fail to remember all the voices, which will never speak again, for being rejected and misunderstood.'
'Yes, be that voice with this book, this book is for you, to speak up, and be heard.'
'Why?'
'So, there are no more lost and forgotten voices of life. This book is a stepping stone to abolish bullying altogether, along with your help; we can take that step forward, and forget about the past!'
'At this time, I would like you all to take a moment of silence, to remember someone, that is no longer with us. So, they are not forgotten.'
Preface:
'To understand, you must read between the lines of a story just like mine. My wronging if you do not read this book, is you'll find out fast that life is going to suck, and then you make the discovery, that you are going to die alone, and the hex- I have will now be on you.'
'At least that is what I thought; I thought I read, my story before it was written, and this note was the last thing that I was going to write. However, I never realized that there was so much more to life, which I did not appreciate. I came near a stone's throw away from the end. Yet I got additional unplanned lifespans. Yet, was the second chance what I needed?'
'Nevertheless, there were things that I concerned my mind with, which was not substantial to my existence.'
'If anything- learn from me. Try to do the virtuous things I did and not the mistakes I made. Though it is up to you to decide what was good or bad, it is what you feel and believe is morally right in your mind.'
'Yeah- I never really put any thought into what was going to happen to me someday, and the others that are part of my surroundings.'
'However, life goes on, and the existence of what was stands for nothing but- a memory of what you can and cannot have. If you are someone like me, but all I ever wanted was someone that appreciates me. They say life is free or is it. Do I want it- No- not really!'
'The existence of life…!' 'Is what I do not want to have anymore. There must be a way out of all this misery that I live in today? 'They say dying is easy, as well as lasting, and living is difficult and uncertain.' While- I am going to find out!'
'I guess life is all about what you want, need, and love.'
'Likewise, existing in life comes down to what you cannot have in it.'
'All I have to say is don't let anyone or anything pin you down, and make you less than whom you are. Always be whom you were meant to be, regardless of what they say… because who in the hell are they!'
'My story- is somewhat graphic at times, just like looking into a black and white photo of the past in a scrapbook. All the color in it washes away over time, one way or another. Besides all that is left is still frames that keep on fading, and distorting.'
'On the morning I was scheduled to die, I saw my life as if I had lived it to its whole. Oh, the captivating angel beamed lovingly as she roamed forward help me hang myself, a part of me felt death, and other parts of my mind, body, and soul felt as if it would never dye.
”
”
Marcel Ray Duriez (Walking the Halls (Nevaeh))
“
Yes, he thought, to survive, one must not be alone. And one must have a partner of worth. Possess that? And you were richer than any King and queen who e’er roamed the earth.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Diriday is the perfect mount for me."
In that low, deep, beastly growl, he replied, "It's good to know you'll... ride... as I wish."
She flushed. Her toes curled, and her nipples tightened into firm beads that ached to be touched.
How had he done it? She'd said the most obvious thing, and he'd made it clear he wasn't talking about the horse.
He pried her bare fingers from the rail of the stall and kissed them.
"I find Lady Gertrude is a good chaperon," he said.
Eleanor nodded, stricken dumb by the brief brush of his lips that had sent goose bumps racing up her arms.
He placed her hand on his shoulder. "So good, you and I haven't had a moment alone together."
"We're alone now." Unwise to remind him!
He crooned with satisfaction, "So we are."
"So we should go now." She tried to step away, to obey her instincts and flee.
Mr. Knight maneuvered her so that her back was to the post. "Fortunately, Lady Gertrude doesn't ride, and doesn't see that our being together now is a cause of concern."
"It's not." Eleanor tried to speak firmly, yet she ended on a questioning note.
"Lady Gertrude has no imagination." In the dim light, his eyes watched her relentlessly, like a falcon watches a fleeing morsel. In slow increments, he extended his free hand and wrapped it around her waist. "I find myself wondering about you."
When had the situation turned dangerous? "I'm easily understood."
"You're a mystery, one I find myself compelled to solve. I want to know whether you like to kiss with your mouth closed... or open."
She gasped in shock.
"Where you find most pleasure when a man's mouth, my mouth, roams your body."
She wanted to gasp once more, but the gratification she saw in his face stopped her. Yes, he shocked her. He enjoyed shocking her. But she hated being so craven. She yearned to take him back, and out of the depths of that need, she found the nerve to reply, "You may ask me those questions, and mayhap, if I wish, I'll reply. But don't imagine you yourself can discover the answers."
"Ask. What a novel idea." A small smile played across his velvet lips. "Yes, you could tell me, of course, but I find I like to make discoveries on my own." Pulling her close against his body, he sealed them together.
Discoveries? She could tell him about discoveries. She did like being embraced so tightly that her breasts pressed against his chest; and that, and the amusement in his gaze, were reasons enough to leave- at once.
With a twist, she freed herself and ran.
He sprang after her. Two stalls down, he caught her by the waist. He swung her against the gate and held her hard against him.
She stared into his pale blue eyes and with all her heart wished she had some experience in these matters, for she had never felt so helpless in her life.
"I'm not going to hurt you." His voice was deep and heated. "I'm not going to ravish you. I'm just going to kiss you.
”
”
Christina Dodd (One Kiss From You (Switching Places, #2))
“
One thing her trip taught, and that is apparent to scientists studying the pronghorn, is the vital importance of “connectivity.” It is a lesson being learned, and preached, by innovative environmental thinkers all over the West, and it applies to many of the region’s threatened species. It comes down to a simple point: wild animals need to roam. It’s true that putting land aside for our national parks may be, to paraphrase Stegner paraphrasing Lord Bryce, the best idea our country ever had, and it’s also true that at this point we have put aside more than 100 million acres of land, a tremendous accomplishment that we should be proud of. But what we are now learning is that parks are not enough. By themselves they are islands—particularly isolated and small islands—the sort of islands where many conservation biologists say species go to die. That would change if the parks were connected, and connecting the parks, and other wild lands, is the mission of an old friend of Ed Abbey’s, Dave Foreman. Foreman, one of the founders of Earth First!, eventually soured on the politics of the organization he helped create. In recent years he has focused his energy on his Wildlands Project, whose mission is the creation of a great wilderness corridor from Canada to Mexico, a corridor that takes into account the wider ranges of our larger predators. Parks alone can strand animals, and leave species vulnerable, unless connected by what Foreman calls “linkages.” He believes that if we can connect the remaining wild scraps of land, we can return the West to being the home of a true wilderness. He calls the process “rewilding.” Why go to all this effort? Because dozens of so-called protected species, stranded on their eco-islands, are dying out. And because when they are gone they will not return. A few more shopping malls, another highway or gas patch, and there is no more path for the pronghorn. But there is an even more profound reason for trying to return wildness to the West. “We finally learned that wilderness is the arena of evolution,” writes Foreman. Wilderness is where change happens.
”
”
David Gessner (All The Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West)
“
The mind roams more widely in the dark than it does in light. It is no surprise, then, stepping out of the unlit house into the unlit compound to find myself with the sudden thought, What if I inhabited another body and had a different destiny? We have all had these notions, perhaps while standing on a porch over a lake in the summer night as our friends enjoy a party indoors, or maybe on waking alone at three in the morning. Moments of great isolation. And there is that other thought: What if everything changed tonight? What if there is an explosion in the generator house? Nighted color seeps into the mind.
”
”
Teju Cole (Every Day Is for the Thief)
“
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Exodus 20:4-6 A gentleman who had read One Heartbeat Away emailed me one day. He said he was a WWII veteran. He made the fatal error of putting his phone number in his email, so I called him! We had the neatest chat. He was a machine gunner at the Battle of the Bulge! I told my mom that I had history on the telephone. So I picked his brain for a while. He said he had seen a copy of One Heartbeat Away lying on a table at a VA hospital and perused it a bit. He also told me he loves to read, so he figured that if it was left on the table, then he could take it! When he emailed me, he had already read the book once and was half way through it for the second time. He said, “I have three hundred years of Catholicism in my family. After reading this book, I am now trusting Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone, for my salvation.” All I could say was, “Wow!” Then he said, “My mind is sharp as a tack. I love to read. You got any more books?” Well, we sent him everything I had at that time. In his next email, he let me know that he had read One Heartbeat Away three times through, front to back, and he was telling everyone he could about Jesus! If you live in Ohio, there is an 89-year-old evangelist roaming around, so you better watch out! This veteran made the decision to break the cycle of Catholicism in his family. No more rituals. No more good works to get to Heaven. No more, I hope I get there. No more infallibility. He is trusting in the blood of Christ, and nothing else, for the washing away of his sins. He now wants everyone else to have that same blessing as well!
”
”
Mark Cahill (Ten Questions from the King)
“
I inclined toward literature and poetry. I felt more at ease with girls than I did with boys, the latter discomfiting me with their crudeness and violence. For a while this preference was indulged by my parents and teachers, first with knowing sighs as natural melancholy at the loss of Annie and then laughed off. I must be, they joked, a pint-size Romeo pining for my crushes. But when at last I imagined myself as a Romeo, it was Mercutios, not Juliets, for whom I was yearning. More than anything I was alone. I took long solitary walks through the Berkshires, examining plants and watching birds. Among many other things, my time in the Argonne Forest spoiled woods for me. Everyone feels old when they’re sad, even children. Roaming the hills of western Massachusetts, I felt old much of the time. Aware in a vague way of my fundamental difference from other boys, I thought a lot about how, if not to be more like them, then to be the sort of person whom they’d like. When I matriculated at Pittsfield High, I deliberately set out to become more popular, with a grim understanding that this would amount to concealing, not expressing, my inner life.
”
”
Kathleen Rooney (Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey)
“
I’m alone, my new neighbors are assholes, and this con artist is roaming the neighborhood, trying to bring in more of them.
”
”
Alyssa Cole (When No One Is Watching)
“
Caleb’s eyes twinkled with amusement and he caught my cheek in his large hand, kissing me again. There wasn’t as much heat in it but it still made me feel a little weak at the knees. Maybe making nice with one of the Heirs wasn’t the worst choice I’d ever made.
“Caleb?” a harsh voice came from the doorway beside us and fear darted through me as I pulled away from Caleb in surprise.
Darius stood in the hall, the vine which had secured the door burned to a crisp on the ground from his magic. He was scowling at the two of us and seemed even more intimidating than usual. His gaze took in the cards and poker chips all over the floor alongside the less than perfect state of my hair and I was endlessly grateful that he hadn’t turned up five minutes ago.
Caleb didn’t release his hold on me but turned to look at the other Heir with a hint of irritation in his gaze.
“I’m busy,” he said flatly, a clear demand for Darius to leave.
“My father and the other Councillors want to speak to all of the Heirs before we leave. They sent me to look for you,” Darius said, ignoring his friend’s irritation. “Your sister and Lance are already waiting outside for you,” he added to me, his tone dismissive.
Caleb sighed and turned back to look at me but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Darius. He looked my way, meeting my eyes and I almost flinched from the anger I found there.
“I haven’t finished yet,” Caleb said, his eyes roaming over me but I was still trapped in Darius’s gaze.
“Well stop playing with your food and get on with it,” Darius demanded.
Caleb growled in response to the command but he leaned in to brush his mouth against my neck. I didn’t bother to try and fight him off but I released my hold on his shirt so I was no longer pulling him towards me.
“We can pick this up later, sweetheart,” Caleb murmured. “But I need my strength if I’ve gotta face the Councillors.” His teeth slid into my neck, and his hand pushed into my hair as he held me in place.
The strange sucking sensation pulled at my gut as he tapped into the well of power that lay within me, drawing it into himself.
Darius’s gaze stayed fixed on us the entire time and I couldn’t help but look back at him. His eyes were like two burning pits of rage and I wondered briefly if Caleb was breaking some rule of theirs by being less than awful to me.
Caleb withdrew his fangs from my skin and brushed his fingers over the wound, healing it for me. I looked up at him in surprise and he smiled ruefully.
“See you downstairs, sweetheart,” he murmured, leaning forward like he was going to kiss me again.
I ducked aside with a taunting grin. “Not if I see you first,” I warned playfully.
He chuckled darkly. “I look forward to catching you again then.”
Caleb moved to join Darius and the two of them turned and walked away down the corridor without another glance at me.
“What the hell was that about?” Darius asked him in an undertone.
“Lighten up, Darius. We were just playing a game. And you have to admit I got a damn hot prize for winning it.”
Darius grunted in response and the two of them turned a corner, leaving me alone.
(tory)
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Ruthless Fae (Zodiac Academy, #2))
“
I ride with the dawn, on the back of my trust,
Through the open plains, in the dust.
My hat's brim low, against the sun's high glow,
A cowboy's life is all I know.
I'm a cowboy, wild and free,
The endless sky, the only roof over me.
With my horse and my guitar, I roam,
The prairie's vast, and it's my home.
The cattle call, the campfire's light,
The coyote's howl, in the still of night.
The leather creaks, the lasso spins,
Out here, a man's tale begins.
I'm a cowboy, with a heart untamed,
The rugged trails, my spirit unchained.
With boots in the stirrups, I ride alone,
The world's my stage, the saddle's my throne.
There's a code of the West, deep in my soul,
A life of grit, a quest, a goal.
To live by the land, to stand with pride,
A cowboy's truth, I won't hide.
I'm a cowboy, and I stand tall,
The mountains wide, they hear my call.
With the stars as my guide, I find my way,
A cowboy's journey, day by day.
So tip your hat, to the cowboy's song,
A life of adventure, where I belong.
I'll keep riding, 'til the day is done,
A cowboy's heart can't be outrun.
”
”
James Hilton-Cowboy
“
I ride with the dawn, on the back of my trust,
Through the open plains, in the dust.
My hat's brim low, against the sun's high glow,
A cowboy's life is all I know.
I'm a cowboy, wild and free,
The endless sky, the only roof over me.
With my horse and my guitar, I roam,
The prairie's vast, and it's my home.
The cattle call, the campfire's light,
The coyote's howl, in the still of night.
The leather creaks, the lasso spins,
Out here, a man's tale begins.
I'm a cowboy, with a heart untamed,
The rugged trails, my spirit unchained.
With boots in the stirrups, I ride alone,
The world's my stage, the saddle's my throne.
There's a code of the West, deep in my soul,
A life of grit, a quest, a goal.
To live by the land, to stand with pride,
A cowboy's truth, I won't hide.
I'm a cowboy, and I stand tall,
The mountains wide, they hear my call.
With the stars as my guide, I find my way,
A cowboy's journey, day by day.
So tip your hat, to the cowboy's song,
A life of adventure, where I belong.
I'll keep riding, 'til the day is done,
A cowboy's heart can't be outrun.
”
”
James Hilton-Cowboy
“
Between the Oscuras, my visions, her Elysian Mate desperately hunting for her, and the most fearsome Basilisk to roam the land willing to kill anyone for her location, surely we could find her. The four of us alone would rip apart the whole world to get her back, I knew that.
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Warrior Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac, #5))
“
Hand in hand, my love, come away
with me into the blackness—
by the trunk of an old strong oak:
I long to hold you
all through the night
and, knowing not of dawn,
to not talk once—
a pair of hands
nightswept-earth….
Dawning starlight above
splinters the sky to nerves—
now's time for leaving:
poised on the verge
of shorelines burgeoning
everything inside is
raw and tingling….
Over the mountain in utter aloneness
winds are blowing in a cold void….
Just a few promises I’d packed
when I made my way east
like a cloud torn from moorings
always there've been those of us
who sought their origins
on the road
— under an empty moon—
and the origins of origins….
In electrical well-spring vision
nuzzled in the bosom of hills
on the roaming magnetic earth—
far away though they are
the cloud-river
of stars configures
over and over
these visions of you….
Shaking off its dust—
that glittering icy swirl abides….
On the roaming magnetic earth
lying flat, my eyes shocked awake
by the electric liquid light:
chilling winds do not chill me
I know no harm can hold me
even a killing wound will only
seep me back into the stars...
be seeping out from me:
in the float of her womb
and cradled from the cold—
that cradle-of-stars hanging
the milky way….
Over the bay just-beginning—a cusp and
crescent sliver—by the constellations paling fading….
Transient as I am
from before and into after—
like blue vapor, breath travels
in a light from long ago…
here though I knew she'd be
to be here with her
in scorn of all happenstance
is more than a choice:
a joy that's almost loss—
lightning and paralysis….
The blue fire of delight flickers
through sockets of her skull—
so all the world knows not
or pretends not to know:
a person takes a lifetime
to get to know
but the thrill of remembrance
when our eyes met
was just one instant:
it happens all the time….
”
”
Mark Kaplon
“
Hand in hand, my love, come away
with me into the blackness—
by the trunk of an old strong oak:
I long to hold you
all through the night
and, knowing not of dawn,
to not talk once—
a pair of hands
nightswept-earth….
Dawning starlight above
splinters the sky to nerves—
now's time for leaving:
poised on the verge
of shorelines burgeoning
everything inside is
raw and tingling….
Over the mountain in utter aloneness
winds are blowing in a cold void….
Just a few promises I’d packed
when I made my way east
like a cloud torn from moorings
always there've been those of us
who sought their origins
on the road
— under an empty moon—
and the origins of origins….
In electrical well-spring vision
nuzzled in the bosom of hills
on the roaming magnetic earth—
far away though they are
the cloud-river
of stars configures
over and over
these visions of you….
Shaking off its dust—
that glittering icy swirl abides….
On the roaming magnetic earth
lying flat, my eyes shocked awake
by the electric liquid light:
chilling winds do not chill me
I know no harm can hold me
even a killing wound will only
seep me back into the stars...
be seeping out from me:
in the float of her womb
and cradled from the cold—
that cradle-of-stars hanging
the milky way….
Over the bay just-beginning—a cusp and
crescent sliver—by the constellations paling fading….
Transient as I am
from before and into after—
like blue vapor, breath travels
in a light from long ago…
here though I knew she'd be
to be here with her
in scorn of all happenstance
is more than a choice:
a joy that's almost loss—
lightning and paralysis….
The blue fire of delight flickers
through sockets of her skull—
so all the world knows not
or pretends not to know:
a person takes a lifetime
to get to know
but the thrill of remembrance
when our eyes met
was just one instant:
it happens all the time….
”
”
Mark Kaplon (Song of Rainswept Sand)
“
To be alone is to step into the sacred space of your own company, where your thoughts roam free and your dreams rise like whispers from the soul. It is here that you discover a strength beyond words, a resilience woven from the fabric of your truest self, unguarded and whole.
”
”
An Marke
“
Gasping Stars Look Down Upon My Tired Soul
When I need to again find my own way
late midnight walks are my mainstay
There is this place I walk and roam
comfort away from worries of my home
The sidewalk ends and fields begin
I imagine they stretch and never end
Cool night air soothes my tired brain
far away, whistle of an old night train
My pace slows to soak so much more in
I am not alone, night is my friend
Gasping stars look down upon my soul
Seeking calm, I then reach my goal
Dog barks sadly as I slowly trod by
moans so blue, almost seems to cry
Past the farmhouse my favorite tree
massive black oak, does so comfort me
Gazing at its massive majestic form
I see damage from a terrible storm
Ahh yes, none are immune from harm
not even this great titan on the farm
Very slowly I turn to find my way back
retracing this walk along this track
A calm has now found my lonely spirit
happiness approaches I can even hear it
My pace increases as I seek to return
to the place where my love does burn
Family , the gift of my very long life
my children, my love , my sweet wife
When I need to again find my own way
late midnight walks are my mainstay
”
”
Robert Lindley
“
At some point I must have fallen asleep on the couch I’d been sharing with Chase because an explosion on the TV jerked me awake. “It’s just the movie,” he whispered in my direction and ran his fingers over my cheek, “don’t move yet Princess.” “Don’t move? Why?” “I’m almost done, give me another minute or two.” I heard his hand moving back and forth across the paper slowly and waited until he kneeled down in front of the couch so his face was directly in front of mine. My breath caught and his electric blue eyes glanced down to my barely parted lips. His tongue absently wetted his lips and his teeth lightly bit down on his bottom one as his gaze roamed my face. “Why couldn’t I move?” I managed to ask when he started closing the distance between us. He abruptly stopped and blinked a few times, “Oh, um. Well … here. Just don’t freak out, okay? I wasn’t trying to be creepy.” “You’re not supposed to tell someone not to freak out, those words alone cause them to freak out.” Chase smirked, “Okay, well then don’t hit me or use your pressure point training on me again.” Before I could roll my eyes at him, he brought his sketch pad up in front of me and my jaw dropped. I felt my cheeks burn and he took that the wrong way. Snatching the pad of paper back up, he cursed softly. “I knew it was creepy.” “Chase,” I breathed and shook my head in an attempt to clear my thoughts, “that wasn’t creepy. Can I see it again?” When he didn’t make an attempt to move I reached my arm toward the book, “Please.” He handed it over with a sigh and looked at me with a sad smile, “I’m sorry, but you looked too perfect. I couldn’t let that opportunity pass.” My stupid blush came back with force when he said that and I focused at his drawing. It was amazing, somewhat embarrassing, but remarkable none the less. With the shading and the detail he’d captured of my upper body and face, it almost looked like a black and white photo. It was perfect. From my chest, throat and slightly open mouth to the way my hair fell around my face and my eyelashes rested against my cheeks, it was one hundred percent me. He even had my hand clutching the pillow under my head that was resting on his leg, as well as the blanket that had been pulled up to the swell of my breasts. Goose bumps covered my body as I realized he’d spent however long staring at, and replicating, every part of me while I’d been completely unaware. He was wrong, it wasn’t creepy, it was beautiful and strangely intimate. “Chase, it–” I cleared my throat and tried again, “It’s incredible.” Incredible didn’t cover it. “Yeah?” I looked up into his eyes and smiled, “Yeah.” We stayed there staring at each other, my mind and heart completely torn in two. One half desperately wanted to act on the feelings his drawing had stirred up in me, and the other was screaming at me to sit up and scoot away from him. Before I could try to make a decision, another series of explosions came from the TV and we both jolted away from each other. My
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Molly McAdams (Taking Chances (Taking Chances, #1))
“
Many new things came to his mind; traits of his own nature that he had never thought of and that seemed unrelated one to the other, fitted themselves together wonderfully and were fused into a rational whole. It was a fascinating time of discovery. Little by little, in fear and uncertain exultation, in incredulous joy, he found himself. He began to realize that he was not like others, and a new spiritual modesty made him shy, awkward, and taciturn. He grew suspicious of questions, and imagined he found hints of his own most hidden thoughts in everything that was said. Having learned to read in his own heart, he supposed everybody else could read what was written there, and he shunned his elders, preferring to roam about alone.
”
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Jens Peter Jacobsen (Niels Lyhne)
“
Sir, they're here to take Mr. Vice President. I'm clearing out the room to give you a moment alone. They won't wait long," a younger sounding guard said. Kane never saw him. The man spoke from behind Kane's back, and then immediately turned and left the room again, drawing the doors closed behind him with a soft click. Kane stared at the casket. This was it, his last time with Avery. He stood; his tired gritty eyes roamed the top of the closed mahogany box. He wished he had one last look at Avery before they took him away. Kane placed both hands on top of the coffin, his eyes filled with tears. Tears that just wouldn't stop flowing. He leaned in, placing his forehead close to where he thought Avery's would be, and he softly whispered, hoping Avery could hear his words, "I have to leave you now. I know you would fight this, but you have to do this part alone. They have so much planned to honor you today. It's exactly the way you would have wanted it. It's what you deserve…" Kane closed his eyes tighter, saying goodbye to Avery was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. He took a deep breath, trying to get through everything he wanted to say. "I love you, Avery. Always. You completed my life. You made me whole, gave me hope, made me a better man. For me, you were everything right in my life. And I know you're in heaven smiling down on us. You're too good a man to be kept out because of me. I know you have to be one of God's special angels. I know you're there, and I'm happy for you. I just miss you so much already. I'm trying to pull myself together here, but I'm failing, and I'm sorry. I'm just lost without you.
”
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Kindle Alexander (Always (Always & Forever #1))
“
Argument in Isolation"
Premise: one exists alone,
Within a system of increasingly mild ideals
—The good of love, the greater good of dreams—
Abstracted from the musings of the grown-up child
That somewhere, in a scene above the sky,
Lies smiling. Anxious to begin
Before the will can answer and its passions fly away
Like sparrows, he lays aside his cares and
Lets the world come, lets its shapes return,
Its mirrors answer and its angels roam across the narrow
Confines of the page. Like friends
Estranged by distance and the inwardness of age,
The spaces between letters become spaces between lives,
The fact of pain begins to seem unreal, the trees
Begin to seem too distant; the imaginary self,
Concealed from the world, begins its cry
Yet remains empty—as though it could contain
No tenderness beyond its own, and no other love
Than that concealed in its own reflection, hovering
On the threshold of age, between two lives.
Premise: the world and the mind are one,
With a single splendor. And to By the way a
Street looked, or the way the light fell in a canyon,
Is to realize the way time feels in passing, as
The will to change becomes the effort to remember,
And then a passive sigh. An eidolon
Constructed out of air, grown out of nothing,
Planted at the center of a space shaped like the heart
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John Koethe (Falling Water)
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No spiritual exercise is such a blending of complexity and simplicity. It is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try, yet the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high. It is as appropriate to the aged philosopher as to the little child. It is the ejaculation of a moment and the attitude of a lifetime. It is the expression of the rest of faith and of the fight of faith. It is an agony and an ecstasy. It is submissive and yet importunate. In the one moment it lays hold of God and binds the devil. It can be focused on a single objective and it can roam the world. It can be abject confession and rapt adoration. It invests puny man with a sort of omnipotence.2
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John F. MacArthur Jr. (Alone With God: Rediscovering the Power and Passion of Prayer)
“
Baby come hooooooome with me
It's the place you were always, always meant to be
Don't you see it kills me to see you alone, looking for a place for you to belong?
I see you searching high, I see you searching low.
I see you breaking up, I see you losing hope.
Stop stop stop stop stop stop
Being strong.
Stop stop stop stop stop stop
Drifting along.
You're looking for something you've already found.
I'm right here behind you, just turn around.
There's no need to roam.
I'll be your home.
”
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Kristan Billups (Broken Trouble (Broken Storm #1))
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Oh, God, Jane, why did I let you go?” he asked in an aching voice that resonated to her very soul. “I’ve been lost ever since.”
The words melted the last corner of ice in her heart, and when he lowered his head to hers, she rose to him like a shoot stretching for the sun.
Moaning low in his throat, he devoured her mouth, his kiss pure hot passion, so all-consuming that within moments she had to pull free just to breathe. Then he shifted his kisses to her cheek and ear and jaw, branding everything as his.
“I need you,” he said against her throat. “God help me for it, but I do. All these years without you have been hell.” Kissing her neck, he fisted his hands in her sleeves. “I want to strip this gown from you. I want to lay you down in that straw over there and have my way with you.”
The words made her exult. “Then do it,” she murmured against his hair. “Now. Tonight. Have your way with me, and I’ll have mine with you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said darkly, but he seized her mouth again with such ferocity that it took her aback…then fed some feral part of her that had never felt like this with anyone but him. She couldn’t get her fill of his mouth…or his hands, which roamed her most familiarly.
Wanting to touch him, too, she reached for the buttons of his waistcoat.
He broke their kiss to stare at her, a sudden sobering awareness in his eyes. “We shouldn’t do this here.”
There was no question what “this” meant. There was also no question that he was having second thoughts, pulling away from her. She refused to let him. “Why not? The grooms and the coachman have all gone to bed. And you did say you meant to marry me.”
“Yes, but you’re a lady,” he said fiercely. “You deserve better than to be tumbled in a stable.”
That was the trouble with Dom. Some part of him still saw her as the poor maiden needing his protection, not as a full-grown woman who had the same needs as he had. Who wanted and yearned just the same as he did.
He’d sent her away last night to protect her innocence, and then had avoided her for the next day. She wasn’t giving him the chance to do that again, not now that he’d allowed her a glimpse into his soul.
Dragging her hands free of his grip, she went to shut the door to the harness room. “Twelve years ago you decided what I deserved, and I ended up alone. So this time I will decide what I deserve.” Ignoring a twinge of self-consciousness, she faced him and began to undo the front fastenings of her pelisse-robe. “And I deserve this. I deserve you.
”
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Sabrina Jeffries (If the Viscount Falls (The Duke's Men, #4))
“
No spiritual exercise is such a blending of complexity and simplicity. It is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try, yet the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high. It is as appropriate to the aged philosopher as to the little child. It is the ejaculation of a moment and the attitude of a lifetime. It is the expression of the rest of faith and of the fight of faith. It is an agony and an ecstasy. It is submissive and yet importunate. In the one moment it lays hold of God and binds the devil. It can be focused on a single objective and it can roam the world. It can be abject confession and rapt adoration.
”
”
John F. MacArthur Jr. (Alone With God (MacArthur Study Series))
“
He skimmed his knuckles over her jaw before roaming lower to the satiny column of her neck, then back up again. "Surely you could stay for dinner? You said yourself your aunt is away. I can't believe you would prefer eating alone."
Her frown increased. "No, but-"
"Then stay. My cook sets an excellent table. Delicious fare designed to tempt any palate. Tell me your favorites and I'll send word to her to make them especially for you."
Sliding his arm around her back, he bent and pressed his mouth to the base of her throat. "Do you like roast beef?"
"Ahh, I..."
"Too heavy, you're right," he stated, dropping kisses against her skin in a leisurely pattern. "What about venison? Unless you are worried it might be gamey. Hmm, I agree."
Her eyelids fluttered, one hand coming up to catch in the fabric of his coat.
Working his way up, he paused and breathed a gentle gust of warm, brandy-scented air into her ear. She shuddered, a tiny moan escaping her lips.
"Partridge, perhaps? In a sweet vermouth with plump raisins and orange peel. How does that sound?"
"Delightful."
He smiled, wondering if she was referring to the food or his kisses. He definitely hoped the latter.
"Or I know," he whispered, brushing his mouth ever so lightly against hers. "Lobster and oysters. Light and delicate, with a taste as fresh as the sea. Shall we try that? I could feed them to you bite by delectable bite.
”
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Tracy Anne Warren (Seduced by His Touch (The Byrons of Braebourne, #2))
“
I do not want to wander about any more. I am pining for a corner in which to nestle down snugly, away from the crowd.
India has two aspects ⎯ in one she is a householder, in the other a wandering ascetic. The former refuses to budge from the home corner, the latter has no home at all. I find both these within me. I want to roam about and see all the wide world, yet I also yearn for a little sheltered nook; like a bird with its tiny nest for a dwelling, and the vast sky for flight.
I hanker after a corner because it serves to bring calmness to my mind. My mind really wants to be busy, but in making the attempt it knocks so repeatedly against the crowd as to become utterly frenzied and to keep buffeting me, its cage, from within. If only it is allowed a little leisurely solitude, and can look about and think to its heart's content, it will express its feelings to its own satisfaction.
This freedom of solitude is what my mind is fretting for; it would be alone with its imaginings, as the Creator broods over His own creation.
”
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Rabindranath Tagore (Glimpses of Bengal)
“
It is against the law for tourists to roam the streets alone. They must be accompanied by their Korean guides at all times.
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Manik Joshi (Weird Laws from Around the World)
“
To my Storm. I’m sorry that you’ve returned home, only to find me no longer here. I’m so sorry that not only am I gone, but I also didn’t get a chance to even tell you good-bye. Please know that I did not leave because I wanted to. I hope you know that I’d never leave you if it was my choice. Today was a very bad day, and I only wish I could be in your arms right now. Only then would I know I was safe. All my time on this earth, you have been my only family and the only person who has ever loved me. We have had each other’s backs since the day we met, and with you around, I always know I am protected. Protected from my fear of being alone, protected from the nightmares of the past, and protected from the monsters that roam this earth.
”
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Hannah Gray (Love, Ally (Brooks University, #1))