“
In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.
”
”
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
“
When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.
”
”
Thich Nhat Hanh
“
Come in. And try not to murder any of my guests."
Jace edged into the doorway, sizing up Magnus with his eyes. "Even if one of them spills a drink on my new shoes?"
"Even then.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
“
How awfully convenient for you, regardless. And for him. He won't have to worry about you spilling his secrets."
"Yeah," Jace said. "He's terrified I'll tell everyone that he's always wanted to be a ballerina.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
“
His feelings for Adam were an oil spill; he'd let them overflow and now there wasn't a damn place in the ocean that wouldn't catch fire if he dropped a match.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
I will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
”
”
Charles Bukowski
“
You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic.
”
”
Ellen DeGeneres (The Funny Thing Is...)
“
I have done it," she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. A C H I L L E S, it reads. And beside it, P A T R O C L U S.
"Go," she says. "He waits for you."
In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.
”
”
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
“
There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.
”
”
Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1))
“
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space)
“
This is why you should never, ever get your hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So when the whole thing spills, you aren’t as devastated.
”
”
Emily Giffin (Something Borrowed (Darcy & Rachel, #1))
“
He was another knife I could feel it. A different sort, but a knife still. I did not care. I thought: give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for.
”
”
Madeline Miller (Circe)
“
Do tears not yet spilled wait in small lakes?
”
”
Pablo Neruda
“
Colpo di fulmine. The thunderbolt, as Italians call it. When love strikes someone like lightning, so powerful and intense it can’t be denied. It’s beautiful and messy,
cracking a chest open and spilling their soul out for the world to see. It turns a person inside out, and there’s no going back from it. Once the thunderbolt hits, your life is
irrevocably changed.
”
”
J.M. Darhower (Sempre (Sempre, #1))
“
Before there is peace, blood will spill blood, and the lake will run red.
”
”
Erin Hunter (Sunset (Warriors: The New Prophecy, #6))
“
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
“
God, he suddenly understood, was love in its purest form, and in these last months with his children, he had felt His touch as surely as he had heard the music spilling from Ronnie's hands.
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
“
Pick up the pace,” Kaz said, eyeing his watch.
“If I spill a single drop of this, it will burn straight through the floor onto my father’s dinner guests.”
“Take your time.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
“
We Are brothers, tied by blood, in our veins, what we spill. But it is a deadly secret that will forever bind us.
”
”
Tina Traverse (Destiny of the Vampire)
“
There once was a girl who found herself dead.
She peered over the ledge of heaven
and saw that back on earth
her sister missed her too much,
was way too sad,
so she crossed some paths
that would not have crossed,
took some moments in her hand
shook them up
and spilled them like dice
over the living world.
It worked.
The boy with the guitar collided
with her sister.
"There you go, Len," she whispered. "The rest is up to you.
”
”
Jandy Nelson (The Sky Is Everywhere)
“
Reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren't prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets.
”
”
Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)
“
Grinning is something you do when you are entertained in some way, such as reading a good book or watching someone you don't care for spill orange soda all over themselves.
”
”
Lemony Snicket
“
Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Interesting Times (Discworld, #17; Rincewind, #5))
“
Say something in Mandarin,” said Tessa, with a smile.
Jem said something that sounded like a lot of breathy vowels and
consonants run together, his voice rising and falling melodically: “Ni
hen piao liang.”
“What did you say?” Tessa was curious.
“I said your hair is coming undone — here,” he said, and reached out
and tucked an escaping curl back behind her ear. Tessa felt the blood
spill hot up into her face, and was glad for the dimness of the
carriage. “You have to be careful with it,” he said, taking his hand
back, slowly, his fingers lingering against her cheek.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
“
It's no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
”
”
W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage)
“
If you can't prove your freedom in the nanosecond before you spilled rage out of your lips, you have proven your bondage.
”
”
Randy Loubier (Slow Brewing Tea (Slow Brewing Tea Series))
“
Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (Written on the Body)
“
I will remember your small room, the feel of you, the light in the window, your records, your books, our morning coffee, our noons, our nights, our bodies spilled together, sleeping, the tiny flowing currents, immediate and forever. Your leg, my leg, your arm, my arm, your smile and the warmth of you who made me laugh again.
”
”
Charles Bukowski
“
I remember the stars that night. They were like salt against the sky, like someone spilled the shaker against very dark cloth. That mattered to me, their accidental beauty.
”
”
Kathleen Glasgow (Girl in Pieces)
“
It's meant to be pretty," whispers Octavia, and I can see the tears threatening to spill over her lashes.
Posy considers this and says matter-of-factly, "I think you'd be pretty in any color."
The tiniest of smiles forms on Octavia's lips. "Thank you.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
“
He floated into the air high above the sleeping forest, his green hat spinning a few feet above his head. In his hand was the open suitcase and out of it spilled a whole sky of stars.
”
”
Jandy Nelson (I'll Give You the Sun)
“
Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
“
Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.
”
”
Lao Tzu (Te-Tao Ching)
“
A red sun rises. Blood has been spilled this night.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2))
“
I spilled more times than a glass of milk on a roller coaster.
”
”
Scott Westerfeld (Uglies (Uglies, #1))
“
I shook so that it was some time before I realized that he was shaking too, and for the same reason. I don't know how long we sat there on the dusty floor, crying in each others arms with the longing of twenty years spilling down our faces.
”
”
Diana Gabaldon (Voyager (Outlander, #3))
“
Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)
“
And the sweetest, spellbound feeling spilling from her heart.
”
”
Lauren Kate (Fallen (Fallen, #1))
“
Self love is an ocean
and your heart is a vessel. Make it full,
and any excess will spill over
into the lives of the people
you hold dear. But you must come first.
”
”
Beau Taplin
“
Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.
”
”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run With the Wolves)
“
Not everything is supposed to become something beautiful and long-lasting. Sometimes people come into your life to show you what is right and what is wrong, to show you who you can be, to teach you to love yourself, to make you feel better for a little while, or to just be someone to walk with at night and spill your life to. Not everyone is going to stay forever, and we still have to keep on going and thank them for what they’ve given us.
”
”
Emery Allen
“
See? Injustice. Here we are, risking our lives to rescue Kai and this whole planet, and Adri and Pearl get to go to the royal wedding. I’m disgusted. I hope they spill soy sauce on their fancy dresses.”
Jacin’s concern turned fast to annoyance. “Your ship has some messed-up priorities, you know that?”
“Iko. My name is Iko. If you don’t stop calling me the ‘ship,’ I am going to make sure you never have hot water during your showers again, do you understand me?”
“Yeah, hold that thought while I go disable the speaker system.”
“What? You can’t mute me. Cinder!
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
“
Ironically, he'd yet to leave a good impression. First he'd spilled soda on her, next she'd seen him almost involved in a riot, and then this morning she'd believed him to be either lazy or an idiot.
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
“
Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It's what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutter ball when you're bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.
”
”
Stephen King (Carrie)
“
Nearing the Riefler's big red brick house he could see the yellow light spill out on the galerie Yvonne had insisted her German husband wrap around the house. There was a tightening in Victor's chest. It happened to him whenever he got close to the Riefler's house, or church on Sunday- anytime he thought he might catch a glimpse of Celena.
”
”
Barbara Sontheimer (Victor's Blessing)
“
Maybe I'll be like the man in the Hanging Tree still waiting for an answer.' Gale who I have never seen cry has tears in his eyes. To keep them from spilling over. I reach forward and press my lips against his. We taste of heat, ashes and misery.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
“
A kiss about apple pie a la mode with the vanilla creaminess melting in the pie heat. A kiss about chocolate, when you haven't eaten chocolate in a year. A kiss about palm trees speeding by, trailing pink clouds when you drive down the Strip sizzling with champagne. A kiss about spotlights fanning the sky and the swollen sea spilling like tears all over your legs.
”
”
Francesca Lia Block
“
The blood you spill is the blood of kings,” seethed Dunyasha. “You are not fit for such a gift.”
[...]
Inej raised a brow and slowly wiped the blood of kings on her trousers
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
“
I am afraid to show you who I really am, because if I show you who I really am, you might not like it--and that's all I got.
”
”
Sabrina Ward Harrison (Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself)
“
I've been ignored by prettier women than you,
but none who carried the heavy pitchers of silence
so far, without spilling a drop.
”
”
Jeffrey McDaniel
“
One dark night I spilled my secrets to him, on a road thick with summer heat. I was the girl who tried to steal his money then. Now, winter looms, and I’m the girl who stole his life.
”
”
Victoria Aveyard (Glass Sword (Red Queen, #2))
“
In all of his worst nightmares, she’s dying. She’s fading away in his arms, helpless and whimpering, while hot, dark blood spills over his fingers.
This, he tells her.
He doesn’t tell her that his hand holds the blade.
”
”
R.F. Kuang (The Drowning Faith (The Poppy War, #2.5))
“
She had sand in her mouth and between her toes, the briny wind raising goose bumps on her skin, and the sweetest, spellbound feeling spilling from her heart.
She could, at that moment, have died for him.
”
”
Lauren Kate (Fallen (Fallen, #1))
“
That is correct," Zeus said. "The blood of Olympus was spilled. She is fully conscious."
"Oh, come on!" Percy complained. "I get a little nosebleed and I wake up the entire earth? That's not fair!
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
“
I'm watching her talk. Watching her jaw move and collecting her words one by one as they spill from her lips. I don't deserve them. Her warm memories. I'd like to paint them over the bare plaster walls of my soul, but everything I paint seems to peel.
”
”
Isaac Marion (Warm Bodies (Warm Bodies, #1))
“
I bet him and all his Guy brothers had burst through the nightclub entrance, poured an insane amount of alcohol into their systems, and snatched at anything with a pulse that wandered past their sloshed eyes. I bet after all the hoopla subsided, the demented Guys spilled out of the nightclub at some ungodly hour, intoxicated blood pumping, gallivanting around the city like foul beasts seeking their next series of exploitations.
”
”
Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
“
The great motherhood friendships are the ones in which two women can admit [how difficult mothering is] quietly to each other, over cups of tea at a table sticky with spilled apple juice and littered with markers without tops.
”
”
Anna Quindlen
“
To men like that, time was a surfeit, a barrel they watched slowly drain. When really, he thinks, it’s a glowing puddle you carry in your hands; you should spend all your energy protecting it. Fighting for it. Working so hard not to spill one single drop.
”
”
Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See)
“
The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.
There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
In certain areas of my life, I actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person's heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running)
“
To borrow Granny’s description, a bookstore is a place densely populated with tens of thousands of authors, dead or living, residing side by side. But books are quiet. They remain dead silent until somebody flips open a page. Only then do they spill out their stories, calmly and thoroughly, just enough at a time for me to handle.
”
”
Sohn Won-Pyung (Almond)
“
Children of the Nephilim," Magnus said. "Well, well. I don't recall inviting you."
Isabelle took out her invitation and waved it like a white flag. "I have an invitation. These"--she indicated the rest of the group with a grand wave of her arm--"are my friends."
Magnus plucked the invitation out of her hand and looked at it with fastidious distaste. "I must have been drunk," he said. He threw the door open. "Come in. And try not to murder any of my guests."
Jace looked at him, "Even if one of them spills something on my new shoes?" "Even then."
- 219
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
“
Red", I write "is the color of life. It's blood, passion, rage. It's menstrual flow and after birth. Beginnings and violent end. Red is the color of love. Beating hearts and hungry lips. Roses, Valentines, cherries. Red is the color of shame. Crimson cheeks and spilled blood. Broken hearts, opened veins. A burning desire to return to white.
”
”
Mary Hogan (Pretty Face)
“
There are two kinds of people,’ she’d said. ‘Those who coast through life like ducks in a row, following one after the other, and those who ride the waves.’” Tears spilled down my cheeks, and my voice cracked. “‘Ride the waves, baby, and live. Live.
”
”
Gena Showalter (Oh My Goth)
“
Mum says when wanting collides with getting, that's the moment of truth. I want to collide. I want to run right into Shadow and let the force spill our thoughts so we can pick each other up and pass each other back like piles of shiny stones.
”
”
Cath Crowley (Graffiti Moon)
“
Imagine 4 years.
Four years, two suicides, one death, one rape, two pregnancies (one abortion), three overdoses, countless drunken antics, pantsings, spilled food, theft, fights, broken limbs, turf wars–every day, a turf war–six months until graduation and no one gets a medal when they get out. But everything you do here counts.
High school.
”
”
Courtney Summers (Cracked Up to Be)
“
I have loved no part of the world like this and I have loved no women as I love you. You're my human Africa. I love your smell as I love these smells. I love your dark bush as I love the bush here, you change with the light as this place does, so that one all the time is loving something different and yet the same. I want to spill myself out into you as I want to die here.
”
”
Graham Greene (The End of the Affair)
“
His words are like the sound of a needle dragging across a record. A sinking, sickening feeling washes over me. This is why you should never, ever get your hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So, when the whole things spills, you aren't as devastated.
”
”
Emily Giffin (Something Borrowed (Darcy & Rachel, #1))
“
Hello, Professor McGonagall,” said Moody calmly, bouncing the ferret still higher.
“What — what are you doing?” said Professor McGonagall, her eyes following the bouncing ferret’s progress through the air.
“Teaching,” said Moody.
“Teach — Moody, is that a student?” shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books spilling out of her arms.
“Yep,” said Moody.
“Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment!” said Professor McGonagall weakly.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4))
“
His feelings for Adam were an oil spill; he’d let them overflow and now there wasn’t a damn place in the ocean that wouldn’t catch fire if he dropped a match.
<...>
“Headlights? That’s hardcore, Parrish.” Ronan held out his hand; Adam took it. Ronan hauled him up, his mind all palm against palm, thumb crossed over thumb, fingers pressed into wrist bone – and then Adam was facing him and he released his hand.
The ocean burned.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
He’s a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy. And though he’s not a Lord, he does have a curse hanging over his head. I have the book to prove it.”
William growled low in his throat. “Anya! Must you share my secrets with everyone?” He flattened his palms on the arms of his chair. “Fine. If you can spill, I can, too. Anya’s the reason the Titanic sank. She was playing chicken with the icebergs.”
Scowling, Anya anchored her hands on her hips. “William had a bronze made of his penis and placed it on his mantel.
”
”
Gena Showalter (The Darkest Whisper (Lords of the Underworld, #4))
“
I watched a girl in a sundress kiss another girl on a park bench, and just as the sunlight spilled perfectly onto both of their hair, I thought to myself: ‘How bravely beautiful it is, that sometimes, the sea wants the city, even when it has been told its entire life it was meant for the shore.
”
”
Christopher Poindexter
“
Scott could feel the contents of his stomach flip over and over on themselves. He turned to the side and retched, frothy yellow bile spilled out onto the newspaper covered floor, filling the room with the putrid stench of previously ingested alcohol.
'Look's like someone can't hold their drink,' McBlane said, and Dominic and Shugg laughed.
Scott was still staring at the steam rising from his evacuated stomach contents as he heard the hammer fall. The dull crack of bone splintering under its weight.
”
”
R.D. Ronald (The Elephant Tree)
“
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
”
”
Carl Sagan
“
And then she said nothing else, for Henry put his arms around her and kissed her. Kissed her in such a way that she no longer felt plain, or conscious of her hair or the ink spot on her dress or anything but Henry, whom she had always loved. Tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks, and when he drew away, he touched her wet face wonderingly.
"Really," he said. "You love me, too, Lottie?
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
“
I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with it’s painful gall-stones, it’s gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul...
”
”
Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer (Tropic, #1))
“
how come you're so ugly?"
"my life has hardly been pretty — the hospitals, the jails, the jobs, the women, the drinking. some of my critics claim that i have deliberately inflicted myself with pain. i wish that some of my critics had been along with me for the journey. it’s true that i haven't always chosen easy situations but that's a hell of a long ways from saying that i leaped into the oven and locked the door. hangover, the electric needle, bad booze, bad women, madness in small rooms, starvation in the land of plenty, god knows how i got so ugly, i guess it just comes from being slugged and slugged again and again, and not going down, still trying to think, to feel, still trying to put the butterfly back together again…it’s written a map on my face that nobody would ever want to hang on their wall.
sometimes i’ll see myself somewhere…suddenly…say in a large mirror in a supermarket…eyes like little mean bugs…face scarred, twisted, yes, i look insane, demented, what a mess…spilled vomit of skin…yet, when i see the “handsome” men i think, my god my god, i’m glad i’m not them
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Charles Bukowski: Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters 1963-1993)
“
Why do you love the woman you're in love with? Because she is. And that, after all, is God's own definition of Himself; I am that I am. The girl is who she is. Some of her isness spills over and impregnates the entire universe. Objects and events cease to be mere representations of classes and become their own uniqueness; cease to be illustrations of verbal abstractions and become fully concrete. Then you stop being in love, and the universe collapses, with an almost audible squeak of derision, into its normal insignificance.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (The Genius and the Goddess)
“
She fit her head under his chin, and he could feel her weight settle into him. He held her tight and words spilled out of him without prior composition. And this time he made no effort to clamp them off. He told her about the first time he had looked on the back of her neck as she sat in the church pew. Of the feeling that had never let go of him since. He talked to her of the great waste of years between then and now. A long time gone. And it was pointless, he said, to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell, Inman said, for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you are. All your grief hasn't changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You're left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on or not. But if you go on, it's knowing you carry your scars with you. Nevertheless, over all those wasted years, he had held in his mind the wish to kiss her on the back of her neck, and now he had done it. There was a redemption of some kind, he believed, in such complete fulfillment of a desire so long deferred.
”
”
Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain)
“
If I had to tell you how humans made their way to Earth, it would go like this: In the beginning, there was nothing at all but the moon and the sun. And the moon wanted to come out during the day, but there was something so much brighter that seemed to fill up all those hours. The moon grew hungry, thinner and thinner, until she was just a slice of herself, and her tips were as sharp as a knife. By accident, because that is the way most things happen, she poked a hole in the night and out spilled a million stars, like a fountain of tears.
Horrified, the moon tried to swallow them up. And sometimes this worked, because she got fatter and rounder.. But mostly it didn't, because there were just so many. The stars kept coming, until they made the sky so bright that the sun got jealous. He invited the stars to his side of the world, where it was always bright. What he didn't tell them, though, was that in the daytime, they'd never be seen. So the stupid ones leaped from the sky to the ground, and they froze under the weight of their own foolishness.
The moon did her best. She carved each of these blocks of sorrow into a man or a woman. She spent the rest of her time watching out so that her other stars wouldn't fall. She spent the rest of her time holding onto whatever scraps she had left.
”
”
Jodi Picoult
“
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Anthem)
“
…. ‘George said he needed a break. And there was something about Jonathan taking over …’ ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ said Maxwell, ‘It seems like there’s all kinds of goings on there now.’ ‘What did the agents say then?’ ‘Your brother … he must still have a key. I told them to check, I told them. I expect they overlooked it. Hugo’s been going in and there are some women there apparently, I mean at the Manor House, Jonathan’s up to his usual tricks taking in every Tom, Dick and Harry and giving all kinds of undesirables a home, and there’s something about them chasing Hugo and taunting him, yesterday the buyers were viewing again and measuring up for curtains and things, I said they could, and they saw something going on outside, some shouting and laughing …’ ‘Women! What women? Jonathan’s not like that …’ ‘Not like that huh! He’s flesh and blood like the rest of us.’ ‘That’s not what I meant. Please don’t be angry Max, it’s not my fault.’ ‘Jonathan this and Jonathan that. Why do people think he’s so bloody marvellous eh! What the hell does he think he’s doing. People spilling over into my garden and wrecking the peace and quiet. George was completely mad to do this …
”
”
Elizabeth Tebby Germaine (A MAN WHO SEEMED REAL: A story of love, lies, fear and kindness)
“
Remember?" he asks. "This is where you kissed me."
So the heavy dose of morphling administered after the whipping wasn't enough to erase that from his consciousness. "I didn't think you'd remember that," I say.
"Have to be dead to forget. Maybe even not then," he tells me. "Maybe I'll be like that man in 'The Hanging Tree'. Still waiting for an answer." Gale, who I have never seen cry, has tears in his eyes. To keep them from spilling over, I reach forward and press my lips against his. We taste of heat, ashes, and misery. It's a surprising flavour for such a gentle kiss. He pulls away first and gives me a wry smile. "I knew you'd kiss me."
"How?" I say. Because I didn't know myself.
"Because I'm in pain," he says. "That's the only way I get your attention." He picks up the box. "Don't worry, Katniss. It'll pass." He leaves me before I can answer.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
“
Maybe in the next life we'll meet each other for the first time- believing in everything but the harm we're capable of. Maybe we'll be the opposite of buffaloes. We'll grow wings and spill over the cliff as a generation of monarchs, heading home. Green Apple.
Like snow covering the particulars of the city, they will say we never happened, that our survival was a myth. But they're wrong. You and I, we were real. We laughed knowing joy would tear the stitches from our lips.
Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places. Underneath the grid is a field- it was always there- where to be lost is never to be wrong, but simply more.
As a rule, be more.
As a rule, I miss you.
As a rule,"little" is always smaller than "small". Don't ask me why.
I'm sorry I don't call enough.
Green Apple.
I'm sorry I keep saying How are you? when I really mean Are you happy?
”
”
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
“
Faster than lightening, his hand shot out and she gagged, jolting as he grabbed her tongue between his fingers...He released her tongue, and she gasped for breath. She swore at him, a filthy, foul name, and spat at his feet. And that's when he bit her. She cried out as those canines pierced the spot between her neck and shoulder, a primal act of aggression--the bite so strong and claiming that she was too stunned to move. He had her pinned against the tree and clamped down harder, his canines digging deep, her blood spilling onto her shirt. Pinned, like some weakling. But that was what she'd become, wasn't it? Useless, pathetic.
She growled, more animal than sentient being. And shoved.
Rowan staggered back a step, teeth ripping her skin and she struck his chest. She didn't feel the pain, didn't care about the blood or flash of light. No, she wanted to rip his throat out--rip it out with the elongated canines she bared at him as she finished shifting and roared.
Rowan grinned. "There you are.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3))
“
I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs, a very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree. And even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.
”
”
Terry Pratchett
“
Look, America is no more a democracy than Russia is a Communist state. The governments of the U.S. and Russia are practically the same. There's only a difference of degree. We both have the same basic form of government: economic totalitarianism. In other words, the settlement to all questions, the solutions to all issues are determined not by what will make the people most healthy and happy in the bodies and their minds but by economics. Dollars or rubles. Economy uber alles. Let nothing interfere with economic growth, even though that growth is castrating truth, poisoning beauty, turning a continent into a shit-heap and riving an entire civilization insane. Don't spill the Coca-Cola, boys, and keep those monthly payments coming.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Another Roadside Attraction)
“
Isabelle took out her invitation and waved it like a white flag. "I have an invitation. These"—she indicated the rest of the group with a grand wave of her arm—"are my friends."
Magnus plucked the invitation out of her hand and looked at it with fastidious distaste. "I must have been drunk," he said. He threw the door open. "Come in. And try not to murder any of my guests."
Jace edged into the doorway, sizing up Magnus with his eyes. "Even if one of them spills a drink on my new shoes?"
"Even then." Magnus's hand shot out, so fast it was barely a blur. He plucked the stele out of Jace's hand—Clary hadn't even realized he was holding it—and held it up. Jace looked faintly abashed. "As for this," Magnus said, sliding it into Jace's jeans pocket, "keep it in your pants, Shadowhunter.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
“
Why, if there is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world. There is only so much water, so much earth, so much air; but the life that is demanding to be born is limitless. Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find time and opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and populate continents. Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it's life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.
”
”
Jack London (The Sea Wolf)
“
Franz Kafka is Dead
He died in a tree from which he wouldn't come down. "Come down!" they cried to him. "Come down! Come down!" Silence filled the night, and the night filled the silence, while they waited for Kafka to speak. "I can't," he finally said, with a note of wistfulness. "Why?" they cried. Stars spilled across the black sky. "Because then you'll stop asking for me." The people whispered and nodded among themselves. They put their arms around each other, and touched their children's hair. They took off their hats and raised them to the small, sickly man with the ears of a strange animal, sitting in his black velvet suit in the dark tree. Then they turned and started for home under the canopy of leaves. Children were carried on their fathers' shoulders, sleepy from having been taken to see who wrote his books on pieces of bark he tore off the tree from which he refused to come down. In his delicate, beautiful, illegible handwriting. And they admired those books, and they admired his will and stamina. After all: who doesn't wish to make a spectacle of his loneliness? One by one families broke off with a good night and a squeeze of the hands, suddenly grateful for the company of neighbors. Doors closed to warm houses. Candles were lit in windows. Far off, in his perch in the trees , Kafka listened to it all: the rustle of the clothes being dropped to the floor, or lips fluttering along naked shoulders, beds creaking along the weight of tenderness. It all caught in the delicate pointed shells of his ears and rolled like pinballs through the great hall of his mind.
That night a freezing wind blew in. When the children woke up, they went to the window and found the world encased in ice. One child, the smallest, shrieked out in delight and her cry tore through the silence and exploded the ice of a giant oak tree. The world shone.
They found him frozen on the ground like a bird. It's said that when they put their ears to the shell of his ears, they could hear themselves.
”
”
Nicole Krauss (The History of Love)
“
The War Has Been Declared.
Your Ally Been Ensnared.
It Is Now Or It Is Never.
Break The Code Or Die Forever.
Time Is Running Out
Running Out
Running Out
To the Warrior Give My Blade
By His Hand Your Fate Is Made
But Do Not Forget the Ticking
Or the Clicking, Clicking, Clicking
While a Rat's Tongue May Be Flicking
With Its Feet It Does the Tricking
For the Paw and Not the Jaw
Makes the Code of Claw
Time Is Standing Still
Standing Still
Standing Still
Since the Princess Is the Key
To Unlock the Treachery
She Cannot Avoid the Matching or the Scratching, Scratching, Scratching
When a Secret Plot is Hatching
In the Naming Is the Catching
What She Saw, It Is the Flaw
Of the Code of Claw
Time is Turning Back
Turning Back
Turning Back
When the Monster's Blood Is Spilled
When the Warrior Has Been Killed
You Must Not Ingore the Rapping
Or the Tapping, Tapping, Tapping
If the Gnawers Find you Napping
You Will Rot While They Are Mapping
Out the Law of Those Who Gnaw
In the Code of Claw
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Gregor and the Code of Claw (Underland Chronicles, #5))
“
I look down at our knees, slightly touching. Jeans against jeans. Does she notice the heat transferring from her body to mine? Does she even realize what she's doing to me? I know, I know. I'm not a virgin and the slightest touch of a girl's knee is driving me insane. I don't even know what I'm feeling for Maggie, I just know that I'm feeling. It's something I've tried to avoid and deny until yesterday, when I held her in my arms while her tears spilled onto my shirt.
God, our knees touching isn't enough. I need more.
She's knotting her fingers together on her lap as if she doesn't know what to do with them. I want to touch her, but what if she pulls away like before? I've never been such a wuss with a girl in my life.
I bite my bottom lip as I slide my hand about millionth of a millimeter closer to her hand.
She doesn't seem fazed so I move closer. And closer.
When the tips of my fingers touch her wrist, she freezes. But she doesn't jerk her hand away. God, her skin is so soft, I think as my fingers trail a path from her wrist to her knuckles to her smooth, manicured nails.
I swear touching her like this is driving me nuts. It's more erotic, more intense than any other time with Kendra. I feel awkward and inexperienced as a freshman again. I look up. Everyone else is oblivious to the intensity of emotions running rampant in the back of the public bus.
When I look back down at my hand covering hers, I'm grateful she hasn't come to her senses and pulled away. As if she knows my thoughts, we both turn our hands at the same time so our hands are palm against palm...finger against finger. Her hand is dwarfed against mine. It makes her seem more delicate and petite than I'd realize. I feel a need to protect her and be her champion should she ever need one.
With a slight shift of my hand, I lace my fingers through hers.
I'm holding hands. With Maggie Armstrong.
I'm not even going to think about how wrong it is because it feels so right. She's avoided looking right at me, but now she turns her head and our eyes lock. God, how come I never noticed before how long her lashes were and how her brown eyes have specks of gold that sparkle when the sun shine on them?
The bus stops suddenly and I look out the window. It's our stop. She must have realized this because she pulls her hand away from mine and stands. I follow behind, still reeling.
”
”
Simone Elkeles (Leaving Paradise (Leaving Paradise, #1))
“
So, " Nathan said, attention focused on Adrian, "now that Vasilisa's graduated, what are you going to do with yourself? You aren't going to keep slumming with high school students, are you? There's no point in you being there anymore. "
"I don't know, " said Adrian lazily. "I kind of like hanging out with them. They think I'm funnier than I really am. "
"Unsurprising, " his father replied. "You aren't funny at all. It's time you do something productive. If you aren't going to go back to college, you should at least start sitting in on some of the family business meetings. Tatiana spoils you, but you could learn a lot from Rufus. "
"True, " said Adrian deadpan."I'd really like to know how he keeps his two mistresses a secret from his wife. "
"Adrian!" snapped Daniella, a flush spilling over her pale cheeks
”
”
Richelle Mead (Spirit Bound (Vampire Academy, #5))
“
If you wear black, then kindly, irritating strangers will touch your arm consolingly and inform you that the world keeps on turning.
They're right. It does.
However much you beg it to stop.
It turns and lets grenadine spill over the horizon, sends hard bars of gold through my window and I wake up and feel happy for three seconds and then I remember.
It turns and tips people out of their beds and into their cars, their offices, an avalanche of tiny men and women tumbling through life...
All trying not to think about what's waiting at the bottom.
Sometimes it turns and sends us reeling into each other's arms. We cling tight, excited and laughing, strangers thrown together on a moving funhouse floor.
Intoxicated by the motion we forget all the risks.
And then the world turns...
And somebody falls off...
And oh God it's such a long way down.
Numb with shock, we can only stand and watch as they fall away from us, gradually getting smaller...
Receding in our memories until they're no longer visible.
We gather in cemeteries, tense and silent as if for listening for the impact; the splash of a pebble dropped into a dark well, trying to measure its depth.
Trying to measure how far we have to fall.
No impact comes; no splash. The moment passes. The world turns and we turn away, getting on with our lives...
Wrapping ourselves in comforting banalities to keep us warm against the cold.
"Time's a great healer."
"At least it was quick."
"The world keeps turning."
Oh Alec—
Alec's dead.
”
”
Alan Moore (Swamp Thing, Vol. 5: Earth to Earth)
“
believe that this way of living, this focus on the present, the daily, the tangible, this intense concentration not on the news headlines but on the flowers growing in your own garden, the children growing in your own home, this way of living has the potential to open up the heavens, to yield a glittering handful of diamonds where a second ago there was coal. This way of living and noticing and building and crafting can crack through the movie sets and soundtracks that keep us waiting for our own life stories to begin, and set us free to observe the lives we have been creating all along without ever realizing it.
I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold. The big moments are the daily, tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we grab on to and extend to one another. That’s the drama of life, swirling all around us, and generally I don’t even see it, because I’m too busy waiting to become whatever it is I think I am about to become. The big moments are in every hour, every conversation, every meal, every meeting.
The Heisman Trophy winner knows this. He knows that his big moment was not when they gave him the trophy. It was the thousand times he went to practice instead of going back to bed. It was the miles run on rainy days, the healthy meals when a burger sounded like heaven. That big moment represented and rested on a foundation of moments that had come before it.
I believe that if we cultivate a true attention, a deep ability to see what has been there all along, we will find worlds within us and between us, dreams and stories and memories spilling over. The nuances and shades and secrets and intimations of love and friendship and marriage an parenting are action-packed and multicolored, if you know where to look.
Today is your big moment. Moments, really. The life you’ve been waiting for is happening all around you. The scene unfolding right outside your window is worth more than the most beautiful painting, and the crackers and peanut butter that you’re having for lunch on the coffee table are as profound, in their own way, as the Last Supper. This is it. This is life in all its glory, swirling and unfolding around us, disguised as pedantic, pedestrian non-events. But pull of the mask and you will find your life, waiting to be made, chosen, woven, crafted.
Your life, right now, today, is exploding with energy and power and detail and dimension, better than the best movie you have ever seen. You and your family and your friends and your house and your dinner table and your garage have all the makings of a life of epic proportions, a story for the ages. Because they all are. Every life is.
You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super and natural.
You are more than dust and bones.
You are spirit and power and image of God.
And you have been given Today.
”
”
Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life)
“
She heard footsteps thumping from the crew quarters and Jacin appeared in the cargo bay, eyes wide. “What happened? Why is the ship screaming?”
“Nothing. Everything’s fine,” Cinder stammered.
“No, everything is not fine,” said Iko. “How can they be invited? I’ve never seen a bigger injustice in all my programmed life, and believe me, I have seen some big injustices.”
Jacin raised an eyebrow at Cinder.
“We just learned that my former guardian received an invitation to the wedding.” She opened the tab beside her stepmother’s name, thinking maybe it was a mistake.
But of course not.
Linh Adri had been awarded 80,000 univs and an official invitation to the royal wedding as an act of gratitude for her assistance in the ongoing manhunt for her adopted and estranged daughter, Linh Cinder.
“Because she sold me out,” she said, sneering. “Figures.”
“See? Injustice. Here we are, risking our lives to rescue Kai and this whole planet, and Adri and Pearl get to go to the royal wedding. I’m disgusted. I hope they spill soy sauce on their fancy dresses.”
Jacin’s concern turned fast to annoyance. “Your ship has some messed-up priorities, you know that?”
“Iko. My name is Iko. If you don’t stop calling me the ‘ship,’ I am going to make sure you never have hot water during your showers again, do you understand me?”
“Yeah, hold that thought while I go disable the speaker system.”
“What? You can’t mute me. Cinder!
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
“
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space)
“
For me, the last few years of the postmodern era have seemed a bit like the way you feel when you're in high school and your parents go on a trip, and you throw a party. You get all your friends over and throw this wild disgusting fabulous party. For a while it's great, free and freeing, parental authority gone and overthrown, a cat's-away-let's-play Dionysian revel. But then time passes and the party gets louder and louder, and you run out of drugs, and nobody's got any money for more drugs, and things get broken and spilled, and there's cigarette burn on the couch, and you're the host and it's your house too, and you gradually start wishing your parents would come back and restore some fucking order in your house. It's not a perfect analogy, but the sense I get of my generation of writers and intellectuals or whatever is that it's 3:00 A.M. and the couch has several burn-holes and somebody's thrown up in the umbrella stand and we're wishing the revel would end. The postmodern founders' patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans, and no amount of revelry can make up for the fact that writers my age have been literary orphans throughout our formative years. We're kind of wishing some parents would come back. And of course we're uneasy about the fact that we wish they'd come back--I mean, what's wrong with us? Are we total pussies? Is there something about authority and limits we actually need? And then the uneasiest feeling of all, as we start gradually to realize that parents in fact aren't ever coming back--which means we're going to have to be the parents.
”
”
David Foster Wallace
“
Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.
The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.
Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble. The strange, attendant creatures, with their fiery eyes and trailing vapours busied themselves round his head. The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in the water.
Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling; and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved further along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out towards the open sea.
”
”
William Golding (Lord of the Flies)
“
The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep.
They could see how love might control you, from your head to your toes, not to mention every single part of you in between.
A woman could want a man so much she might vomit in the kitchen sink or cry so fiercly blood would form in the corners of her eyes.
She put her hand to her throat as though someone were strangling her, but really she was choking on all that love she thought she’d needed so badly.
What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn’t let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for it’s sake.
She refused to believe in superstition, she wouldn’t; yet it was claiming her.
Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene.
After all I’ve done for you is lodged somewhere in her brain, and far worse, it’s in her heart as well.
She was bad luck, ill-fated and unfortunate as the plague.
She is not worth his devotion. She wishes he would evaporate into thin air. Maybe then she wouldn’t have this feeling deep inside, a feeling she can deny all she wants, but that won’t stop it from being desire.
Love is worth the sum of itself and nothing more.
But that’s what happens when you’re a liar, especially when you’re telling the worst of these lies to yourself.
He has stumbled into love, and now he’s stuck there. He’s fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he’s dealt with it, yet he can’t help but wonder if that’s only because he didn’t want anything so badly.
It’s music, it’s a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won’t pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts’ house that most things men say are lies. Don’t listen, she tells herself. None if it’s true and none of it matters, because he’s whispering that he’s been looking for her forever. She can’t believe it. She can’t listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can’t think, because if she did she might just think she’d better stop.
What good would it do her to get involved with someone like him? She’d have to feel so much, and she’s not that kind.
The greatest portion of grief is the one you dish out for yourself.
She preferred cats to human beings and turned down every offer from the men who fell in love with her.
They told her how sticks and stones could break bones, but taunting and name-calling were only for fools.
— & now here she is, all used up.
Although she’d never believe it, those lines in *’s face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she’s gone through and what she’s survived and who exactly she is, deep inside.
She’s gotten back some of what she’s lost. Attraction, she now understands, is a state of mind.
If there’s one thing * is now certain of, it’s house you can amaze yourself by the things you’re willing to do.
You really don’t know? That heart-attack thing you’ve been having? It’s love, that’s what it feels like.
She knows now that when you don’t lose yourself in the bargain, you find you have double the love you started with, and that’s one recipe that can’t be tampered with.
Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.
”
”
Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1))