Runaway Love Quotes

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

She was a thief, a runaway, a pirate, a magician. She was fierce, and powerful, and terrifying. She was still a mystery. And he loved her.
V.E. Schwab (A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic, #3))
No matter how far you have run, no matter how long you have been lost, it is never too late to be found.
Rene Denfeld (The Child Finder (Naomi Cottle, #1))
You know how much I love you , Jacob? As High as the Sky , Mama! That's right, sweet boy
Katie Ashley (Music of the Heart (Runaway Train, #1))
Why does anyone commit murder?' he asked in a low voice. 'I-'I blinked.'How should I know?' 'Three reasons,' Christopher said. He held up one finger. 'Love.' Another finger. 'Revenge.' And finally, a third finger. 'Profit...
Meg Cabot (Runaway (Airhead, #3))
There were days when I still put on make up in case you’d come back, but I wear the same clothes and shower in the rain and eat when I can and sleep when I can, which is rare and not often, so if you’d see me now on these streets where I once imagined walking with you you’d have a hard time recognising me. I takes a lot to run away.
Charlotte Eriksson (Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving)
She could not explain or quite understand that it wasn't altogether jealousy she felt, it was rage. And not because she couldn't shop like that or dress like that. It was because that was what girls were supposed to be like. That was what men - people, everybody - thought they should be like. Beautiful, treasured, spoiled, selfish, pea-brained. That was what a girl should be, to be fallen in love with. Then she would become a mother and she'd be all mushily devoted to her babies. Not selfish anymore, but just as pea-brained. Forever.
Alice Munro (Runaway: Stories)
Grab your coat, leave a note, and run away with me.
William Chapman
The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to your nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place, search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Walt Whitman
Mama had quit high school and “lived on love.” That was how she always put it, the fairy tale. Now Leni was old enough to know that like all fairy tales, theirs was filled with thickets and dark places and broken dreams, and runaway girls.
Kristin Hannah (The Great Alone)
You;re colling me, So i fugure you must not hate me anymore. dOES THIS MEAN YOU WANNA GO OUT? iI'm free tonight. I mean , I have plans, but i can break them. For you. Brandon, you kidnapped me. And then you made the only person I'll ever love in my life hate me. I completely despise you. So..., I take that as a no, you do not want to go out with me tonight.
Meg Cabot (Runaway (Airhead, #3))
Don't you ever get tired of reading?" she asked. "You could hardly be called good company! Don't you know that, with women, you're supposed to make conversation?" she added; her half smile was perhaps meant to be ironic, though to Amedeo, who at that moment would have paid anything rather than give up his novel, it seemed downright threatening.
Italo Calvino (Difficult Loves)
People run away from the love game because they know they won't win the race.
Michael Bassey Johnson
…I wanted to show that the mother was the heroine as soon as possible. I'm tired of love-sick girls and runaway wives. We'll prove that there's romance in old women also.
Louisa May Alcott (Jo's Boys)
Teachers dread nothing so much as unusual characteristics in precocious boys during the initial stages of their adolescence. A certain streak of genius makes an ominous impression on them, for there exists a deep gulf between genius and the teaching profession. Anyone with a touch of genius seems to his teachers a freak from the very first. As far as teachers are concerned, they define young geniuses as those who are bad, disrespectful, smoke at fourteen, fall in love at fifteen, can be found at sixteen hanging out in bars, read forbidden books, write scandalous essays, occasionally stare down a teacher in class, are marked in the attendance book as rebels, and are budding candidates for room-arrest. A schoolmaster will prefer to have a couple of dumbheads in his class than a single genius, and if you regard it objectively, he is of course right. His task is not to produce extravagant intellects but good Latinists, arithmeticians and sober decent folk. The question of who suffers more acutely at the other's hands - the teacher at the boy's, or vice versa - who is more of a tyrant, more of a tormentor, and who profanes parts of the other's soul, student or teacher, is something you cannot examine without remembering your own youth in anger and shame. yet that's not what concerns us here. We have the consolation that among true geniuses the wounds almost always heal. As their personalities develop, they create their art in spite of school. Once dead, and enveloped by the comfortable nimbus of remoteness, they are paraded by the schoolmasters before other generations of students as showpieces and noble examples. Thus the struggle between rule and spirit repeats itself year after year from school to school. The authorities go to infinite pains to nip the few profound or more valuable intellects in the bud. And time and again the ones who are detested by their teachers are frequently punished, the runaways and those expelled, are the ones who afterwards add to society's treasure. But some - and who knows how many? - waste away quiet obstinacy and finally go under.
Hermann Hesse (Beneath the Wheel)
Practice is the interest, the love, the drive, the tendency, the movement, to be as authentic as possible, to be as real as possible.
A.H. Almaas (Runaway Realization: Living a Life of Ceaseless Discovery)
scraps of love torn and tattered faded, scattered trashed threads of hope frayed and tangled broken, mangled dashed backing, buttons yarn and batting quilted tenderly wrapped up in this warm repair my patchwork family
Wendelin Van Draanen (Runaway)
I love you," she murmured. The words ... it was as though an entire sun had exploded in his chest. He'd been ridiculous. His thrashing thoughts, his grand confusion and torment and helplessness -- it was only love, had always been love, he supposed. It was no precipice he stood at, or rather precipices have little meaning when one finally acknowledges that one has wings. Connor stepped off. "I love you, too." Such grave, inadequate words for what it was he felt.
Julie Anne Long (The Runaway Duke)
Tell him the smitten high school runaway snuck out to jump off a cliff with the hot college guy?... I'm sure he'll love that." - Blake
H.R. Willaston (Nine Days)
. Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to become a blossom and had to shine. , the wound was not blossoming yet, his heart was still fighting his fate, cheerfulness and victory were not yet shining from his suffering. Nevertheless, he felt hope
Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)
I have a theory about how she might have managed to pull off such a feat. It comes in the form of an equation: Love + Fear = Herculean Strength. It’s how mothers come to fling runaway motorcars from their children.
Franny Billingsley (Chime)
Her fingers dug into the doorframe she leaned on, hoping and praying that he would just step out of the shadows and kiss her the way he had done so often in her dreams.
Elaine White (Runaway Girl (The Secrets of Avelina Chronicles, #1))
That's the thing with betrayal- it's always the people you love.
Fatima Bhutto (The Runaways)
He had placed the life of every one of his men before his own, and if that wasn’t the sign of a truly great leader, then he didn’t know what was.
Elaine White (Runaway Girl (The Secrets of Avelina Chronicles, #1))
When you fell into my life, I was shattered beyond repair. But as the shining angel of redemption, you didn’t seem to care. While the tempest swirled around me, you led me to solid ground. You’re the purest, deepest love a man like me has ever found. There is a fire that burns within me that only you can ignite. You’re the light that fills my soul in the darkest, bleakest night. You’re the balm that cures the wound; the lifeline in the storm. You are the song of my heart, the music of my soul.
Katie Ashley (Music of the Soul (Runaway Train, #2.5))
It used to bother me, that I didn't know who I was or where I came from, just that my mother was a runaway with a fake name. But when I met you none of that mattered because I figured out who I was- the man who was born to love you.
Erin McCarthyCarthy (You Make Me (Blurred Lines, #1))
Sister, why do you do that?" "Do what?" "Cage the animals at night?" "Well..." She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me."We don't want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take care of. If we didn't cage them up in one place, we might lose them, they might get hurt or damaged. It's not the best thing, but it's the only way we have to take care of them." "But if somebody loved one them," I asked, "wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have one? To keep, I mean?" "Yes, it would be. But not everyone would love them and take care of them as you would. I wish I could give them all away tomorrow." She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. "But I can't. My heart would break if I saw just one of those animals lying by the wayside uncared for, unloved. No, Jennings. It's better if we keep them together.
Jennings Michael Burch (They Cage the Animals at Night: The True Story of an Abandoned Child's Struggle for Emotional Survival)
What helped me go through it was reminding myself of famous people who went through bad shit and were still alive. It was kind of creepy, but it helped. Like, Joaquin Phoenix had watched his brother die, and had to call 911. Keanu Reeves had lost his stillborn baby and the love of his life eighteen months apart. Oprah Winfrey had been a fourteen-year-old runaway after being sexually abused. Charlize Theron watched her mother shoot her father to death in self-defense. These people still lived. Laughed. Breathed. Got married. Had babies. Moved on.
L.J. Shen (Broken Knight (All Saints High, #2))
There's warm skin. A strong body that embraces you. Breaths that escape his gasping mouth. But... we're calling out another's name in our hearts. With our eyes closed, that person's image surfaces in our minds. It was a sweet, gentle, yet cruel night.
Yuuri Eda (恋とは呼べない 3)
In the context of couples, research in this area suggests how we as partners can manage one another’s highs and lows. We don’t have to remain at the mercy of each other’s runaway moods and feelings. Rather, as competent managers of our partners, we can become expert at moving, shifting, motivating, influencing, soothing, and inspiring one another.
Stan Tatkin (Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship)
Let's run away." "To where?" "Alaska." "What's in Alaska?" "No clue," I whispered. "Find out with me.
Cecily White (Conspiracy Boy (Angel Academy, #2))
When twilight sleeps holding the night In your arms you embrace me tight Runaway hours clenched by kisses More of your love my heart misses
Munia Khan
You ask me to write you a poem, I pen you an empty ocean, You run away. You ask me who I am, I paint you a breaking sky, You weep in the rain.
Jenim Dibie (The Calligraphy of God: A Collection of Love Poems)
It all seemed so impossible, so difficult after searching for her, not knowing for so long. How many times had his daughter suffered some human sickness, death or heartache over the course of her many lifetimes? How many times had she loved, cried and been without her father when she most needed him most?
Elaine White (Runaway Girl (The Secrets of Avelina Chronicles, #1))
I was only trying to survive,” she mumbled, as if it made any difference. It was no excuse to use against someone who had truly been trying to survive, and Damian had done so quite successfully since 1450. What right had she to say that it was hard?
Elaine White (Runaway Girl (The Secrets of Avelina Chronicles, #1))
They don’t know I only speak in runaway train stations and everybody is always a few minutes too late to the platform. No one has ever gotten the chance to get too close because it is never romantic to fuck the girl who makes love to her own sadness every single night.
Katelin Wagner
Humans are often more stupid than they realize. Because of our weaknesses are so easily exploited. Just like a child's clumsy fingers messing up the buttons on a shirt. It's easy to mock someone who buttoned his shirt wrongly. It's easy to mock someone who had buttoned wrongly yet remains oblivious to it. But there are also people who completely fail to realize that they buttoned them all wrongly. Just a moment's error, a wrong choice, traps us on the road of no return. But who can reprimand them for that? Why can't humans be lonely? Why can't we yearn for those right by our side? On such a cold lonely night, who can stand to bear it alone? Imagine the fright when we realize the severity of our mistakes. Whoever said love was a happy affair?
Yuuri Eda (恋とは呼べない 3)
Your NOT FALLING APART, i tell my self. IF ONLY YOU KNEW, its HARDER TO BREATH with out you. THE AIR I BREATH is not the same with out you. I dont want to LOVE SOMEBODY else. MAKES ME WONDER if i could ever tell you, but I'm OUT OF GOODBYES. I don't want to lose you. This is MISERY, I CANT LIE, i am LOSING MY MIND over you. NOTHING LAST FOREVER, but THIS LOVE dose. Its a TANGLED mystery. ONE MORE NIGHT goes bye with no reply. The FORTUNE TELLER said you would never be mine. I end up BACK AT YOUR DOOR, when THE SUN comes back to life. This is are LAST CHANCE, RUNAWAY with me tonight. And lets never say goodbye.
Rhyan Roads
I depart as air .... I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
What about you and me, Adina?” Duff said, sidling up to her by the railing. “I know I screwed up. But do you think we could start over?” Adina thought about everything that had happened. Part of her wanted to kiss Duff McAvoy, the tortured British trust-fund-runaway-turned-pirate-of-necessity who loved rock ‘n’ roll and mouthy-but-vulnerable bass-playing girls from New Hampshire. But he didn’t exist. Not really. He was a creature of TV and her imagination, a guy she’d invented as much as he’d invented himself. And this was what she suddenly understood about her mother: how with each man, each husband, she was really trying to fill in the sketchy parts of herself and become somebody she could finally love. It was hard to live in the messiness and easier to believe in the dream. And in that moment, Adina knew she was not her mother after all. She would make mistakes, but they wouldn’t be the same mistakes. Starting now. “Sorry,” she said, heading for the bow, where a spot of sun looked inviting. ”Oh, also, about that blog? Just so you know, my dads know a lot of gay lawyers. Bitches will take your ass down if you try to publish that. Peace out.
Libba Bray (Beauty Queens)
I shall love you from this life into the next. Whither you go, I go, my very own heart and soul
Claudy Conn (Runaway Heart)
I shall love you from this life into the next. Whither you go, I go, my very own heart and soul
Claudy Conn (Runaway Heart)
So in the future when there are times you want to strangle Jacob or he’s tested your love, just remember that forgiveness is so much easier than regret.
Katie Ashley (Music of the Heart (Runaway Train, #1))
Your audience are whores, oxygen farmers, two dozen pirate bands, and fifty runaway mathematicians. They would all love to see dancing and fighting.
Bruce Sterling (Schismatrix Plus)
Nothing can come of nothingness, the granthi had said. So to know joy, compassion, sympathy - to feel love - means also to have in the world their opposites.
Sunjeev Sahota (The Year of the Runaways)
Love isn’t perfect. Love is a challenge,
Meghan Quinn (Runaway Groomsman)
I hope you have a hot date tonight.” “I do—with my Kindle.
Melanie Harlow (Runaway Love (Cherry Tree Harbor, #1))
See, the good Lord loves everybody. He don't care what color your hair is or where you put your jewelry.
Randolph Randy Camp (Wet Matches)
Nothing saves the day so much as a good word. And nothing has been misused as often. There is power in a word, whether we read it, speak it or hear it. And we command and are commanded by the word. We scatter, we call forth, and we comfort. Words are tools, weapons, both good and bad medicine-but very beautiful when used lovingly. The word, or ka ne tsv in Cherokee, is power to help heal, or make sick people sicker by negative talk around them. The word gives confidence when it builds rather than destroys. Relationships have been shattered beyond repair by a run-away mouth. Prosperity has been dissolved by talking lack. Until we listen to our own voices and how we talk, we would never guess how we use our words.
Joyce Sequichie Hifler (Cherokee Feast of Days: Daily Meditations (Cherokee Feast of Days (Paperback) Book 1))
I clenched my jaw with determination. “It won’t work, Angel. I have to sing about love, relationships, and sex. You know, bullshit like that. A song about my fucking heart being ripped to shreds because my mother is dying isn’t going to make an album, least of all a single.
Katie Ashley (Music of the Heart (Runaway Train, #1))
Secularism should not be equated with Stalinist dogmatism or with the bitter fruits of Western imperialism and runaway industrialisation. Yet it cannot shirk all responsibility for them, either. Secular movements and scientific institutions have mesmerised billions with promises to perfect humanity and to utilise the bounty of planet Earth for the benefit of our species. Such promises resulted not just in overcoming plagues and famines, but also in gulags and melting ice caps. You might well argue that this is all the fault of people misunderstanding and distorting the core secular ideals and the true facts of science. And you are absolutely right. But that is a common problem for all influential movements. For example, Christianity has been responsible for great crimes such as the Inquisition, the Crusades, the oppression of native cultures across the world, and the disempowerment of women. A Christian might take offence at this and retort that all these crimes resulted from a complete misunderstanding of Christianity. Jesus preached only love, and the Inquisition was based on a horrific distortion of his teachings. We can sympathise with this claim, but it would be a mistake to let Christianity off the hook so easily. Christians appalled by the Inquisition and by the Crusades cannot just wash their hands of these atrocities – they should rather ask themselves some very tough questions. How exactly did their ‘religion of love’ allow itself to be distorted in such a way, and not once, but numerous times? Protestants who try to blame it all on Catholic fanaticism are advised to read a book about the behaviour of Protestant colonists in Ireland or in North America. Similarly, Marxists should ask themselves what it was about the teachings of Marx that paved the way to the Gulag, scientists should consider how the scientific project lent itself so easily to destabilising the global ecosystem, and geneticists in particular should take warning from the way the Nazis hijacked Darwinian theories.
Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century)
Maybe it was this place, this strange, ramshackle, warm-hearted place, that had given his wife that air of laughing, welcoming life. Because here she bloomed. With him she had faded and he had faded with her. Yet here she was, his Jane again. His hope. And he had never, ever wanted to hope again.
Amanda McCabe (The Runaway Countess (Bancrofts of Barton Park, 1))
A certain song can mean the difference between life and death for someone who is depressed and suicidal. Music can inspire and give hope. It can show adulation and worship and praise love and people.
Katie Ashley (Music of the Heart (Runaway Train, #1))
Here's an analogy I like: guilt is a runaway wagon down the mountainside. It may carry you a long way, but it usually ends in disaster. Love, on the other hand, is much slower--just your own two feet, really," she said, casting a meaningful look at Tess. 'But it's more likely to take you somewhere worth going.
Rachel Hartman (Tess of the Road (Tess of the Road, #1))
As much as he cared for Kaitlin, he knew that the clan’s survival was much more important that his own heart. Without her, he would be heartbroken all over again. He would lose her just as he had lost Angela with no hope of ever seeing her again, but he could run the clan with a broken heart. He would be a stronger, more feared leader without her, but he was sure that if Kaitlin had known his reasoning, she would have understood. She was the only one to understand him.
Elaine White (Runaway Girl (The Secrets of Avelina Chronicles, #1))
I am a runaway, lost at sea. I am a broken bird, yearning to fly free. I am a sinner, unworthy and unholy. I am a rose, wilting slowly. I am a raindrop, touching your cheek. I am a child who plays hide and seek. I am nothing, and yet I am everything. I am contradictions and complexities. I am a face with a hundred entities. I am love and I am hate. I am the voice that cannot communicate. I am a melody, haunting and sad. I am a soul that has slowly gone mad. I am death in a living body. I am a dangerous opium poppy. I am rage, running through my veins. I am pain, bound in chains. I am isolation, imprisoned in my mind. I am abandoned and left behind. I am tenderness, soft and kind. I am trust, naïve and blind. I am remorse, shattered and frozen. I am the path I have not chosen. I am sadness, drowning in an ocean. I am faith, yearning for devotion. I am madness, rebellious and wild. I am sanity, safely filed. I am wisdom, cursed and blessed. I am a name that will burn in your chest. I am a journey, destination unknown. I am a heart turned to stone. I am forever alone.
Mina Alexia
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner As Phaethon would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen. Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Think true love acted simple modesty. Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven's back. Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold, Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day As is the night before some festival To an impatient child that hath new robes And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse, And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
Luther argued that freedom from sin through Christ’s grace encouraged and inspired Christians to perform good works out of immense gratitude and love for Christ: “The works themselves do not justify him [man] before God, but he does the works out of spontaneous love in obedience to God.
Michelle DeRusha (Katharina and Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of a Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk)
We’re soldiers, Emily. If we’re not elders or council members then that’s all we are. We’re here to serve those above us. We’re novel worthy, day walking, blood sucking, tortured souls trapped in a body that can’t die for all eternity with no feelings, no emotions and no heart. We don’t get to feel love, passion or desire. We do as we’re told, for the good of the clan and because we’re told to do it. And we protect people. So whatever grand delusions you have about being some kind of wonderful child and the master’s favorite are just misguided attempts to feel human again. Get over it.
Elaine White (Runaway Girl (The Secrets of Avelina Chronicles, #1))
After having been standing by the gate of the garden for a long time, Siddhartha realised that his desire was foolish, which had made him go up to this place, that he could not help his son, that he was not allowed to cling him. Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to become a blossom and had to shine.
Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)
I’m going to put my hands all over your body. I’m going to lick every last inch of your skin. I’m going to fuck you with my fingers and my tongue, and after you come just like that, I’m going to fuck you with my cock, deep and hard. And I’m not going to stop until I feel you come again. How does that sound?
Melanie Harlow (Runaway Love (Cherry Tree Harbor, #1))
Everything was Amelia’s fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong and neither had Kaitlin, but they were the ones paying the price and for what? To bring back a girl that he hated and wished he could kill but couldn’t? To bring back a girl who had broken her mother’s heart to such an extent that it killed her? As far as Damian was concerned, it wasn’t worth it. She didn’t deserve to come back; she didn’t deserve to live. No, Amelia deserved nothing, and especially not his love.
Elaine White (Runaway Girl (The Secrets of Avelina Chronicles, #1))
Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Don’t worry about runaway emotions. Don’t worry about the things that scare you in the deepest parts of your soul—like rejection, like condemnation. Don’t be afraid of God. There is nothing in Him to condemn us. He knows, and He loves, and He fights for us more than we could imagine.
John Paul Jackson (7 Days Behind the Veil: Throne Room Meditations)
One night, a couple of weeks before school started--they must have though I was asleep--Nilda started telling Rafa about her plans for the future. I think even she knew what was about to happen. Listening to her imagining herself was about the saddest thing you ever heard. How she wanted to get away from her moms and open up a group home for runaway kids. But this one would be real cool, she said. It would be for normal kids who just got problems. She must have loved him because she went on and on. Plenty of people talk about having a flow, but that night I really heard one, something that was unbroken, that fought itself and worked together all at once. Rafa didn't say nothing. Maybe he had his hands in her hair or maybe he was just like, fuck you. When she finished, he didn't even say wow. I wanted to kill myself with embarrassment. About a half hour later she got up and dressed. She couldn't see me or she would have known that I thought she was beautiful. She stepped into her pants and pulled them up in one motion, sucked in her stomach while she buttoned them. I'll see you later, she said. Yeah, he said.
Junot Díaz (This Is How You Lose Her)
Do I have a code name? II'm pretty sure I get a code name. I'd like to choose it." His fingers fall from my elbow. A pity. "Yes," he says. "As a matter of fact, you do have a code name." "I knew it!" My twirl is the glee-filled kind. "What is it? Sidewinder or Lightning or maybe Pegasus?" "We were calling you Butterfly." Huh. "That's nice, I guess." A little soft, but okay. "Then, the tabloids gave you the moniker. The Lost Butterfly, so we had to change it." I perk up. "I suggested it," he baits. "What did you suggest?" I look up at Akio with stars in my eyes. The possibilities are endless---Sunshine, Moonflower, Cherry Blossom. My thoughts are a runaway train. Maybe he likes me. Maybe he's not as mean as he seems. Maybe I've terribly misjudged him and this is just a rocky start to a friendship that turns to love that will last the ages. Our affair will inspire folksy campfire ballads. It's the first time I see Akio smile. It's part evil, part satisfied, as if he's just won a bet with himself. "Radish.
Emiko Jean (Tokyo Ever After (Tokyo Ever After, #1))
While I was busy wondering if we were expecting anybody, it took me by surprise when an arm—which I was starting to get very well acquainted with at this rate—snaked around my waist and pulled me backward. My ass landed on something hard and hot, immediately molding into the space. Aaron’s lap. His breath caressed the shell of my ear. “You didn’t say good morning.” My back straightened as I remembered my lame runaway moment. “You almost made me drop my cookie, Mr. Robot.” It was so weird, so strange, calling him that, like I had done so many times in the past. As if that belonged to a whole different life. To two different people. Aaron chuckled, and it tickled my neck. “I wouldn’t dare. I know better than that.” His arm tightened around me, and I had to restrain myself from wrapping my hands around it. “What are you doing?” I whispered loudly. Charo would come back in at any second. “I was feeling lonely,” he admitted, lowering his voice and making my mind fly with everything he wasn’t saying. Stupid. I need to stop being stupid. “And if I’m going to sit through this one-sided interrogation, the least you can do is keep me company. Plus, you owe me a conversation.” “I was right there.” My voice came out strangled. “And Charo is not here now.” He hummed, and that noise traveled straight to my lower belly. “She will be back though. You know I like to be extra prepared.
Elena Armas (The Spanish Love Deception (Spanish Love Deception, #1))
I could only see you. I only wanted to be with you. But marriage is never just two people, is it? It's so much more.
Amanda McCabe (The Runaway Countess (Bancrofts of Barton Park, 1))
Never. I wouldn’t trade one day I’ve spent married to Clarisse for even an hour of being single again. I need Clarisse like I need air.
Nicole Clark (Runaway King (Runaway, #1))
Oh Jake, my love for you doesn’t stop just because there’s a rough patch in the road, or I don’t get what I want.
Katie Ashley (Music of the Soul (Runaway Train, #2.5))
Because I’m not a bad guy, Nico. Gert couldn’t have loved me if I was. I realize that now.
Brian K. Vaughan (Runaways Deluxe, Vol. 3)
I could never settle for anything less than a renegade and a runaway, a descendant of greatness capable of voluntary disinheritance.
Hilary Thayer Hamann (Anthropology of an American Girl)
Why was letting him go so hard? Why couldn’t he love me back?
Devney Perry (Quarter Miles (Runaway, #3))
The key, Luther finally realized, was that God’s love and grace were not merited, but freely given and freely received through faith alone.
Michelle DeRusha (Katharina and Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of a Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk)
Duka baru menguar di dada, berbeda dari yang kurasakan sebelumnya. Jika pada suatu saat ada seorang yang dapat kuberikan hatiku. Aku Baru saja mengusirnya dari hidupku selamanya.
Jennifer A. Nielsen (The Runaway King (Ascendance, #2))
Is it really you?” “It’s me.” “It’s really you.” A slow smile spread across his face, wider and wider. It hadn’t changed. There, on the face of a man, was the smile from the boy I’d loved.
Devney Perry (Dotted Lines (Runaway, #5))
from "Semele Recycled" But then your great voice rang out under the skies my name!-- and all those private names for the parts and places that had loved you best. And they stirred in their nest of hay and dung. The distraught old ladies chasing their lost altar, and the seers pursuing my skull, their lost employment, and the tumbling boys, who wanted the magic marbles, and the runaway groom, and the fisherman's thirteen children, set up such a clamor, with their cries of "Miracle!" that our two bodies met like a thunderclap in midday-- right at the corner of that wretched field with its broken fenceposts and startled, skinny cattle. We fell in a heap on the compost heap and all our loving parts made love at once, while the bystanders cheered and prayed and hid their eyes and then went decently about their business. And here is is, moonlight again; we've bathed in the river and are sweet and wholesome once more. We kneel side by side in the sand; we worship each other in whispers. But the inner parts remember fermenting hay, the comfortable odor of dung, the animal incense, and passion, its bloody labor, its birth and rebirth and decay.
Carolyn Kizer
From when she was young, Molly had learned that the fence was an important landmark for the Mardudjara people of the Western Desert who migrated south from the remote regions. They knew that once they reached Billanooka Station, it was simply a matter of following the rabbit-proof fence to their final destination, the Jigalong government depot; the desert outpost of the white man. The fence cut through the country from south to north. It was a typical response by the white people to a problem of their own making. Building a fence to keep the rabbits out proved to be a futile attempt by the government of the day. For the three runaways, the fence was a symbol of love, home and security.
Doris Pilkington (Rabbit-Proof Fence)
Darkness always causes fear and chaos inside us. We are always scared of losing ourselves somewhere inside there. But some of us get so much used to it that we start feeling peaceful in there and we start spending more time in it. One weird thing about darkness is, we meet ourselves there. Who are very different from what we are. And once we start speaking with them we become addicted to that kind of conversations. We fall in love with the same thing that we tried to run away from out whole life.
Akshay Vasu
Love, she told herself, would one day release her from this spell of unreality. She was persuaded that the sublime passion was the key to the enigma; but it was difficult to relate her conception of love to the forms it wore in her experience. Two or three of the girls she had envied for their superior acquaintance with the arts of life had contracted, in the course of time, what were variously described as "romantic" or "foolish" marriages; one even made a runaway match, and languished for a while under a cloud of social reprobation. Here, then, was passion in action, romance converted to reality; yet the heroines of these exploits returned from them untransfigured, and their husbands were as dull as ever when one had to sit next to them at dinner. Her own case, of course, would be different.
Edith Wharton (The Reef)
Imagine what it's like to be (untouchable) Better not take a chance on me (untouchable) I'm the bad boy your mama told you about I'm dangerous, without a doubt Even coming off a ten-year drought Untouchable I'm the rose with hidden thorns (untouchable) Don't tell me that you haven't been warned (untouchable) I'm pretty poison under the skin, The bite of the apple that's a mortal sin In a game of love you'll never win Untouchable My reputation's fairly earned (untouchable) If you play with fire, you will get burned (untouchable) Stay out of the kitchen if you can't take the heat, My kisses are deadly as they are sweet, I'm a runaway bus on a dead-end street Untouchable Fools rush in, that's what they say(untouchable) But angels fall, too, most every day (untouchable) I'm the snake in the garden, the siren on the reef I have the face of a saint and the heart of a thief I'll promise you love! And bring you nothing but grief Untouchable Hearing Jonah sing like this was like watching him slice himself open and show off his insides. Why would he do that? Why would be write such a song? And then Emma answered her own question. Because good music always tells the truth, no matter how much it hurts. Emma couldn't be the only one who felt the bite of the blade, but everyone else seemed to take it in stride. Did they know? Did they all know about Jonah? Of course they did. They were there when it happened. They'd allow Jonah to keep the secrets that were most important to him. She knew she shouldn't resent that, but she still did. They must have known she was falling for him. They must have.
Cinda Williams Chima (The Sorcerer Heir (The Heir Chronicles, #5))
There was this movie that I would watch with her all the time, some stupid chick flick, and it had this opening line that would always make her catch her breath. 'I remember it hurt. Looking at her hurt', and I now realize that it was true. Every day I looked at her, it hurt. Hurt so much, because she was dying, and I couldn't help her.
Runaway Bunny
Love is love and shouldn’t upset anyone. So what else are they thinking about when they get upset at your partner preferences?” she asked reasonably, and then answered the question herself. “Their minds are in your pants and on what you do. And while they’re welcome to bury their brain in their own pants, they have no business in yours.
Lynsay Sands (Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23))
Mama and dad had run off together; theirs was a beautiful, romantic story of love against all odds. Mama had quit high school and “lived on love.” That was how she always put it, the fairy tale. Now Leni was old enough to know that like all fairy tales, theirs was filled with thickets and dark places and broken dreams, and runaway girls.
Kristin Hannah (The Great Alone)
Somewhere in his heart he had recognized who she was. His dominant wish, however, was to go a little longer without recognizing her. The woman’s face floating in its dark seclusion, no name yet attached to it, had the character of a mysterious, lovely apparition. It was like the scent of the fragrant olive which, as one walks along a path at night, tells of the blossoms before one sees them. Isao wanted to keep things just as they were, if only for an instant more. At this moment a woman was a woman, not someone with a name attached to her. And that was not all. Because of her hidden name, because of the agreement not to speak that name, she was transmuted into a marvelous essence, like a moonflower, its supporting vine invisible, floating high up in the darkness. This essence which preceded existence, this phantasm which preceded reality, this portent which preceded the event conveyed with unmistakable force the presence of a substance yet more powerful. This presence which showed itself as gliding through air—this was woman. Isao had yet to embrace a woman. Still, never so strongly at this moment, when he keenly sensed this “womanliness that preceded woman,” had he felt that he too knew what ecstasy meant. For this was a presence that he could even now embrace. In time, that is, it had drawn near with an exquisite subtlety, and in space it was only a little distant. The affectionate emotion that filled his breast was like a vapor that could envelop her. And yet once she was gone, Isao, like a child, could forget her entirely.
Yukio Mishima (Runaway Horses (The Sea of Fertility, #2))
She was a river, not a stone, and every day was another curve in tomorrow’s plain. She was pulled from a family she loved, and that loved her, she thought, until they took the word of a man, a friend and neighbour, who raped her. Years later, when she killed the rapist and went on the run, she severed every connection to her own life. She was runaway tough, a dancing cat, a green witch, and safe from everything but herself, like me.
Gregory David Roberts (The Mountain Shadow)
I sung to her at night. Every night. The same song. And she would do this thing, when she would close her eyes. And it felt like she was connecting with the music. That she was depicting every note, every sound, every word. I would watch her, watch her like she was my saving grace, like my angel. And at the chorus, the corners of her thin lips would pull up, and a small grin would form on her face. Her eyes would crinkle, and my heart would drop.
Runaway Bunny
when Shin needed special-effects scale models to achieve a shot of an exploding train for the climax of Runaway, he asked, tongue-in-cheek, whether Kim wouldn’t just give him instead a real train to blow up. To his surprise, an actual, functioning train was delivered to the set, loaded to the brim with explosives. Shin had only one take to get it right, but that was a lovely problem to have. Runaway’s final train explosion became one of North Korean cinema’s iconic images.
Paul Fischer (A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power)
I’ve wanted to do this every minute since I left here.” The kiss he gave her was so full of heat and emotion, it seared her very soul. He threaded his fingers through her hair, holding her head in place while he fed from her mouth as if he’d hadn’t tasted her in forever. Only when he had completely stolen her breath did she break the kiss. If she had any doubts about his feelings for her, when she looked in his eyes, she saw her answer. There was so much love there, her heart swelled. “You don’t know how I regret the way everything
Desiree Holt (Runaway Billionaire (Melody Anne's Billionaire Universe))
Very few eighteenth-century slaves have shared their stories about the institution and experience of slavery. The violence required to feed the system of human bondage often made enslaved men and women want to forget their pasts, not recollect them. For fugitives, like Ona Judge, secrecy was a necessity. Enslaved men and women on the run often kept their pasts hidden, even from the people they loved the most: their spouses and children. Sometimes, the nightmare of human bondage, the murder, rape, dismemberment, and constant degradation, was simply too terrible to speak of. But it was the threat of capture and re-enslavement that kept closed the mouths of those who managed to beat the odds and successfully escape. Afraid of being returned to her owners, Judge lived a shadowy life that was isolated and clandestine. For almost fifty years, the fugitive slave woman kept to herself, building a family and a new life upon the quicksand of her legal enslavement. She lived most of her time as a fugitive in Greenland, New Hampshire, a tiny community just outside the city of Portsmouth. At
Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge)
The last time I’d been unwell, suicidally depressed, whatever you want to call it, the reactions of my friends and family had fallen into several different camps: The Let’s Laugh It Off merchants: Claire was the leading light. They hoped that joking about my state of mind would reduce it to a manageable size. Most likely to say, ‘Feeling any mad urges to fling yourself into the sea?’ The Depression Deniers: they were the ones who took the position that since there was no such thing as depression, nothing could be wrong with me. Once upon a time I’d have belonged in that category myself. A subset of the Deniers was The Tough Love people. Most likely to say, ‘What have you got to be depressed about?’ The It’s All About Me bunch: they were the ones who wailed that I couldn’t kill myself because they’d miss me so much. More often than not, I’d end up comforting them. My sister Anna and her boyfriend, Angelo, flew three thousand miles from New York just so I could dry their tears. Most likely to say, ‘Have you any idea how many people love you?’ The Runaways: lots and lots of people just stopped ringing me. Most of them I didn’t care about, but one or two were important to me. Their absence was down to fear; they were terrified that whatever I had, it was catching. Most likely to say, ‘I feel so helpless … God, is that the time?’ Bronagh – though it hurt me too much at the time to really acknowledge it – was the number one offender. The Woo-Woo crew: i.e. those purveying alternative cures. And actually there were hundreds of them – urging me to do reiki, yoga, homeopathy, bible study, sufi dance, cold showers, meditation, EFT, hypnotherapy, hydrotherapy, silent retreats, sweat lodges, felting, fasting, angel channelling or eating only blue food. Everyone had a story about something that had cured their auntie/boss/boyfriend/next-door neighbour. But my sister Rachel was the worst – she had me plagued. Not a day passed that she didn’t send me a link to some swizzer. Followed by a phone call ten minutes later to make sure I’d made an appointment. (And I was so desperate that I even gave plenty of them a go.) Most likely to say, ‘This man’s a miracle worker.’ Followed by: ‘That’s why he’s so expensive. Miracles don’t come cheap.’ There was often cross-pollination between the different groupings. Sometimes the Let’s Laugh It Off merchants teamed up with the Tough Love people to tell me that recovering from depression is ‘simply mind over matter’. You just decide you’re better. (The way you would if you had emphysema.) Or an All About Me would ring a member of the Woo-Woo crew and sob and sob about how selfish I was being and the Woo-Woo crew person would agree because I had refused to cough up two grand for a sweat lodge in Wicklow. Or one of the Runaways would tiptoe back for a sneaky look at me, then commandeer a Denier into launching a two-pronged attack, telling me how well I seemed. And actually that was the worst thing anyone could have done to me, because you can only sound like a self-pitying malingerer if you protest, ‘But I don’t feel well. I feel wretched beyond description.’ Not one person who loved me understood how I’d felt. They hadn’t a clue and I didn’t blame them, because, until it had happened to me, I hadn’t a clue either.
Marian Keyes
Bearing witness takes the courage to realize the potential of the human spirit. Witnessing requires us to call forth the highest qualities of our species, qualities such as conviction, integrity, empathy, and compassion. It is easier by far to retain the attributes of carnistic culture: apathy, complacency, self-interest, and "blissful" ignorance. I wrote this book––itself an act of witnessing––because I believe that, as humans, we have a fundamental desire to strive to become our best selves. I believe that each and every one of us has the capacity to act as powerful witnesses in a world very much in need. I have had the opportunity to interact with thousands of individuals through my work as a teacher, author, and speaker, and through my personal life. I have witnessed, again and again, the courage and compassion of the so-called average American: previously apathetic students who become impassioned activists; lifelong carnists who weep openly when exposed to images of animal cruelty, never again to eat meat; butchers who suddenly connect meat to its living source and become unable to continue killing animals; and a community of carnists who aid a runaway cow in her flight from slaughter. Ultimately, bearing witness requires the courage to take sides. In the face of mass violence, we will inevitably fall into a role: victim or perpetrator. Judith Herman argues that all bystanders are forced to take a side, by their action or inaction, and that their is no such thing as moral neutrality. Indeed, as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel points out, "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." Witnessing enables us to choose our role rather than having one assigned to us. And although those of us who choose to stand with the victim may suffer, as Herman says, "There can be no greater honor.
Melanie Joy (Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism)
I will have you for husband tonight,” she said in fierce, low tones, “or I will not go until I do!” “If there was any way, I would,” he protested. “Daise Congar would crack my head if I wanted to go against custom. For the love of the Light, Faile, just carry the message, and I’ll wed you the very first day I can.” He would. If that day ever came. Suddenly she was very intent on his beard, smoothing it and not meeting his eyes. She started speaking slowly but picked up speed like a runaway horse. “I … just happened to mention … in passing … I just mentioned to Mistress al’Vere how we had been traveling together—I don’t know how it came up—and she said—and Mistress Congar agreed with her—not that I talked to everybody!—she said that we probably—certainly—could be considered betrothed already under your customs, and the year is just to make sure you really do get on well together—which we do, as anyone can see—and here I am being as forward as some Domani hussy or one of those Tairen galls—if you ever even think of Berelain—oh, Light, I’m babbling, and you won’t even—” He cut her off by kissing her as thoroughly as he knew how. “Will you marry me?” he said breathlessly when he was done. “Tonight?” He must have done ever better with the kiss than he thought; he had to repeat himself six times, with her giggling against his throat and demanding he say it again, before she seemed to understand. Which was how he found himself not half an hour later kneeling opposite her in the common room, in front of Daise Congar and Marin al’Vere, Alsbet Luhhan and Neysa Ayellin and all the Women’s Circle. Loial had been roused to stand for him with Aram, and Bain and Chiad stood for Faile. There were no flowers to put in her hair or his, but Bain, guided by Marin, tucked a long red wedding ribbon around his neck, and Loial threaded another through Faile’s dark hair, his thick fingers surprisingly deft and gentle. Perrin’s hands trembled as he cupped hers. “I, Perrin Aybara, do pledge you my love, Faile Bashere, for as long as I live.” For as long as I live and after. “What I possess in this world I give to you.” A horse, an axe, a bow. A hammer. Not much to gift a bride. I give you life, my love. It’s all I have. “I will keep and hold you, succor and tend you, protect and shelter you, for all the days of my life.” I can’t keep you; the only way I can protect you is to send you away. “I am yours, always and forever.” By the time he finished, his hands were shaking visibly. Faile moved her hands to hold his. “I, Zarine Bashere …” That was a surprise; she hated that name. “ … do pledge you my love, Perrin Aybara … .” Her hands never trembled at all.
Robert Jordan (The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, #4))
One day when I called child protective services I asked the woman who answered the phone to explain to me exactly why no one was protecting the children and she told me that there was no funding for teenagers who were not in imminent danger because the state was broke and so the thing the child protective services did was make priorities. They intervened quickly with kids under the age of twelve, but for those over twelve they wrote reports when people called and put the reports in a file and put the child’s name on a long list of children who someone would someday perhaps check up on when there was time and money, if there ever was time and money. The good thing about teens, she told me confidentially, was that if it got bad enough at home they usually ran away and there was more funding for runaways.
Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar)
At times, we want to "feel" God. The truth is, we won't always have happy emotions. We won't always feel like loving. We won't always feel like pressing forward but, we can move into our daily journey by remembering that "Be sure of this : I am with you always, even to the end of the age" - (Matthew 28:20 NLT) In those moments where you feel empty or like you've driven miles away from God, we have to remember this powerful promise, " When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown" (Isaiah 43:2 NLT). So, you may feel frustrated with God because things aren't going your way and you may have fallen into depression. It's time for you to get back in the car and go back home to our King Jesus. All of your flesh is going to fight you to find something more comfortable but, you must learn to train your flesh to do what the Bible says to do in the midst of tests. Here are a few things that I did when I was fell into this trap.
Heather Lindsey (The Runaway Bride: Are you living for Jesus or are you running away from Him?)
That was the last time I ever saw Kristen! She did absolutely the same thing I did when I was a girl, yet I came home. So, maybe I got paid back for what I did to Hope. Yet her story turned out somewhat different than mine. Just like, I have said not everything ends with a happy ending, only a new beginning. I do not look at her with eyes of judgment; I only look at her with eyes of mercy, which is unconditional love. Only eyes with love do I see her. I have to give her room to grow into what God planned for her to be, and judge her for what I do not understand; it is not going to help me, or her. Where she is- is not where she is going to stay, or end up, I have to feel that way. ‘What you choose to do affects everyone, plus anyone that you love… thinking for yourself is everything; believe me!’ The little runaway girl has become his fool; she has gone away, and she had to drop out of school. The runaway girl is far away and out of control. I do not know what to do, and it is taking its toll, you are just going to have to find your way out of this hole.
Marcel Ray Duriez (Nevaeh Struggle with Affections)
The tornadic bundle of legs and arms and feet and hands push farther into the kitchen until only the occasional flailing limb is visible from the living room, where I can’t believe I’m still standing. A spectator in my own life, I watch the supernova of my two worlds colliding: Mom and Galen. Human and Syrena. Poseidon and Triton. But what can I do? Who should I help? Mom, who lied to me for eighteen years, then tried to shank my boyfriend? Galen, who forgot this little thing called “tact” when he accused my mom of being a runaway fish-princess? Toraf, who…what the heck is Toraf doing, anyway? And did he really just sack my mom like an opposing quarterback? The urgency level for a quick decision elevates to right-freaking-now. I decide that screaming is still best for everyone-it’s nonviolent, distracting, and one of the things I’m very, very good at. I open my mouth, but Rayna beats me to it-only, her scream is much more valuable than mine would have been, because she includes words with it. “Stop it right now, or I’ll kill you all!” She pushed past me with a decrepit, rusty harpoon from God-knows-what century, probably pillaged from one of her shipwreck excursions. She waves it at the three of them like a crazed fisherman in a Jaws movie. I hope they don’t notice she’s got it pointed backward and that if she fires it, she’ll skewer our couch and Grandma’s first attempt at quilting. It works. The bare feet and tennis shoes stop scuffling-out of fear or shock, I’m not sure-and Toraf’s head appears at the top of the counter. “Princess,” he says, breathless. “I told you to stay outside.” “Emma, run!” Mom yells. Toraf disappears again, followed by a symphony of scraping and knocking and thumping and cussing. Rayna rolls her eyes at me, grumbling to herself as she stomps into the kitchen. She adjusts the harpoon to a more deadly position, scraping the popcorn ceiling and sending rust and Sheetrock and tetanus flaking onto the floor like dirty snow. Aiming it at the mound of struggling limbs, she says, “One of you is about to die, and right now I don’t really care who it is.” Thank God for Rayna. People like Rayna get things done. People like me watch people like Rayna get things done. Then people like me round the corner of the counter as if they helped, as if they didn’t stand there and let everyone they love beat the shizzle out of one another. I peer down at the three of them all tangled up. Crossing my arms, I try to mimic Rayna’s impressive rage, but I’m pretty sure my face is only capable of what-the-crap-was-that. Mom looks up at me, nostrils flaring like moth wings. “Emma, I told you to run,” she grinds out before elbowing Toraf in the mouth so hard I think he might swallow a tooth. Then she kicks Galen in the ribs. He groans, but catches her foot before she can re-up. Toraf spits blood on the linoleum beside him and grabs Mom’s arms. She writhes and wriggles, bristling like a trapped badger and cussing like sailor on crack. Mom has never been girlie. Finally she stops, her arms and legs slumping to the floor in defeat. Tears puddle in her eyes. “Let her go,” she sobs. “She’s got nothing to do with this. She doesn’t even know about us. Take me and leave her out of this. I’ll do anything.” Which reinforces, right here and now, that my mom is Nalia. Nalia is my mom. Also, holy crap.
Anna Banks (Of Triton (The Syrena Legacy, #2))
The principal energy sources of our present industrial civilization are the so-called fossil fuels. We burn wood and oil, coal and natural gas, and, in the process, release waste gases, principally CO2, into the air. Consequently, the carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s atmosphere is increasing dramatically. The possibility of a runaway greenhouse effect suggests that we have to be careful: Even a one- or two-degree rise in the global temperature can have catastrophic consequences. In the burning of coal and oil and gasoline, we are also putting sulfuric acid into the atmosphere. Like Venus, our stratosphere even now has a substantial mist of tiny sulfuric acid droplets. Our major cities are polluted with noxious molecules. We do not understand the long-term effects of our course of action. But we have also been perturbing the climate in the opposite sense. For hundreds of thousands of years human beings have been burning and cutting down forests and encouraging domestic animals to graze on and destroy grasslands. Slash-and-burn agriculture, industrial tropical deforestation and overgrazing are rampant today. But forests are darker than grasslands, and grasslands are darker than deserts. As a consequence, the amount of sunlight that is absorbed by the ground has been declining, and by changes in the land use we are lowering the surface temperature of our planet. Might this cooling increase the size of the polar ice cap, which, because it is bright, will reflect still more sunlight from the Earth, further cooling the planet, driving a runaway albedo* effect? Our lovely blue planet, the Earth, is the only home we know. Venus is too hot. Mars is too cold. But the Earth is just right, a heaven for humans. After all, we evolved here. But our congenial climate may be unstable. We are perturbing our poor planet in serious and contradictory ways. Is there any danger of driving the environment of the Earth toward the planetary Hell of Venus or the global ice age of Mars? The simple answer is that nobody knows. The study of the global climate, the comparison of the Earth with other worlds, are subjects in their earliest stages of development. They are fields that are poorly and grudgingly funded. In our ignorance, we continue to push and pull, to pollute the atmosphere and brighten the land, oblivious of the fact that the long-term consequences are largely unknown.
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
Ree is his. Is his, is devoted to him, is aggravatingly tender and possessively passionate and wrapped up in him in a thousand ways, loves him in a way that is very useful. It seems a law of nature, at this point. Even if the events of this startling evening have served to give him pause, a little. But Ree is still his. He's fairly sure. Such complex knots can't be untied so quickly, can they? Still, it's not the only thing disturbing him, about the Dam's account of early events. She laughs when she sees his face, his sidewise look at her description, and there's definitely a mean note to it. “Oh, it was darling,” she says, and he gets the feeling of a caged animal stuck behind bars, while a cruel child pokes at it. “You were enchanted by his wolf, would follow it anywhere, welcome or not, though mostly he tolerated it. But you couldn't manage his name – and a nickname hadn't stuck at that point – so instead you imitated the sound he made. Rather insultingly, too, if not intentionally – Ruff. Or Woof, or whatever it was that you intended to say, except that it actually came out as Wuff. Or Wuffy, depending, and at varying pitches and volume as you ran after him, falling down and rolling about half the time.” Penn is transfixed. It's outrageous, it's an outrage. It can't possibly be true. It was nothing like that.
Alex Ankarr (Wolf Runaway (Wolf Wars #2))
In the chapter entitled “You Can’t Pray a Lie” in Twain’s beloved novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn has helped hide Miss Watson’s runaway slave, Jim. But Huck thought he was committing a sin in helping a runaway slave. Huck had learned in Sunday school “that people that acts as I’d been acting … goes to everlasting fire.” So in an act of repentance in order to save his soul, Huck wrote a note to Miss Watson and told her where she could find her runaway slave. Now Huck was ready to pray his “sinner’s prayer” and “get saved.” I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world and the only he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see the paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming.1 Huck Finn had been shaped by the Christianity he’d found in his Missouri Sunday school—a Christianity focused on heaven in the afterlife while preserving the status quo of the here and now. Huck thought that helping Jim escape from slavery was a sin, because that’s what he had been taught. He knew he couldn’t ask God to forgive him until he was ready to “repent” and betray Jim. Huck didn’t want to go to hell; he wanted to be saved. But Huck loved his friend more, so he was willing to go to hell in order to save his friend from slavery.
Brian Zahnd (A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace)
Take a step back to recall the story that this book tells, and consider how it might come to a very unhappy ending. Imagine the history our disappointed descendants might write. For centuries, the moral teachings of a civilization held self—interest and self-trust to be the sins of frail and deluded humanity. These traditional teachings denied that societies could discern distinct and viable principles of order and design their own institutions accordingly. The denounced such efforts as doomed hubris. Then, in an unprecedented experiment, some people rejected the old wisdom. They took the heart’s desire and the body’s appetite as compass points and rededicated human ingenuity to serving them. They created new forms of order to house these inverted values. For a time, the experiment succeeded, changing life so dramatically that the utopian visions of one century became the pedestrian common sense of the next. Then, suddenly and drastically, the experiment failed. Self-interest and self-trust proved to be formulas for devastating the world. Democratic polities, the other moral center of the great experiment, could not stop runaway self-destruction and turned out to abet it instead. Faced with overwhelming evidence that they were on an unsustainable course, the freedom-loving peoples of the twenty-first century wrung their hands, congratulated themselves on their hybrid cars and locally grown food, and changed little, because it never made sense for anyone or any country to do so.
Jedediah Purdy (A Tolerable Anarchy: Rebels, Reactionaries, and the Making of American Freedom)
Days like that I feel that my mind is going 1,000,000 miles an hour, visions of the past, present, and future race through my mind. It races, like a train as if I was looking out the window of the car while it is speeding down the line. I am on a track that will never end.' 'I feel that I am going to derail from this runaway train that I am becoming. I cannot sleep at night, because of the fear inside me.' 'I feel restless, depressed, and loveless as well as not content with myself. I would have to say that my passion for life is gone; my imagination is the only thing that keeps me going.' 'I write the day's events that have gone by in my book of life of all the pastimes, while dreaming of what could have been in it, and besides what has not been in it.' 'If this does not stop, I am going to crack. I look into my mirror, and I do not see me, I see an impression of what I used to be.' 'I see my long brown hair that covers part of my face and covers my blue eyes of emotion. I see the cross around my neck that brings me confidence.' 'I hide behind a smile; I see the body in which nobody thinks is without drought flawless.' 'The bare body that is touched in all ways, yet I tried to hide behind my makeup. I gasp at my pale skin and the look of my body.' 'I am 95 pounds, really tiny; surely there is someone that would find me attractive?' 'I wonder if I can find someone who can think for themselves. I want someone who will love me, for who I am- and not what they want me to be.' 'Most importantly, I need someone that will not use me. Is that too much to ask for?' 'Fear!' 'Anxiety is something that I have inside, it is the source of the things which lead to distress. Not finding someone that loves me, for who I am, is some of my fears.' 'I fear the fact that I am most likely going to be alone forever. Another being that everyone that has meaning in my life is fading away from me it seems.' 'I fear not having a family by my side at all times. I have tears about the overwhelming struggle to rebuild my reputation, which has been destroyed.' 'I ask this question if I was to die tomorrow would anybody come to my wake, to see me lying there?' 'I fear what society has done to me. I fear that I have no trust in anyone or anything. I fear that my life has no meaning.' 'I fear that I will never get out of this hell.' 'I just want to start my life and get a degree in nursing someday from- 'The Conemaugh School of Nursing,' if I can make it through all of this. I do not think that is too much to ask for or is it?' 'I think that if I could be left alone, with the one that I want. I could have a life; you know what I am sure of it. I fear that the towering entity will never collapse, and the demons will keep playing in my head. I fear that I will never have a social ability, to be part of the nobility of compatibility.' 'I fear that the terror will never stop in these innocent lives like mine, and they will not be saved. I fear that nobody will ever see my creativity or recognize me for the good in which I do for others. I feel like I am the only one left in this world, that I call my life.' 'All the beauty in life has been dejected, and it is all ablaze around me. Yes, I fear to be in the outside realm of things.' 'I want to scream yet no one is going to hear it. I ask- am I becoming institutionalized?
Marcel Ray Duriez (Walking the Halls (Nevaeh))