“
I wondered how long it could last. Maybe someday, years from now.If the pain would decrease to the point where I could bear it.I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
I'm just here to be your friend. Your best friend, one last time.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4))
“
As long as you like me the best. And you think I’m good-looking—sort of. I’m prepared to be annoyingly persistent.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
He was my best friend. I would always love him, and it would never, ever be enough.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
You’ve never been a teenager, sweetie. You know what’s best for you.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4))
“
A man recovers best from his exceptional nature - his intellectuality - by giving his animal instincts a chance.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols)
“
At least he's alive and well. I love him enough that I want that. I want him to have what's best for him." She sighed. "I just don't want to stick around to watch.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4))
“
It’s going to be fine, Edward. This is going to work out for the best. You deserve happiness, my son. Fate owes you that.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Midnight Sun (Twilight, #5))
“
love isn't about living in fear. It's not about controlling the hearts of those around you. It is patient and kind. It endures and believes the very best. It never gives up.
”
”
Tracie Peterson (Twilight's Serenade (Song of Alaska, #3))
“
Fairy tales are best read as entertainment,” Harry said. “Not as a guide to life.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
My taste, which may be the opposite of a tolerant taste, is in this case very far from saying Yes indiscriminately: it does not like to say Yes; better to say No, but best of all to say nothing.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols)
“
This was the best time of the day, when I could lie in the vague twilight, drifting off to sleep, making up dreams inside my head the way they should go.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose and Diary Excerpts)
“
Sometimes when you're making the best of a situation, it turns out far better than you could have hoped for.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
Option three: Edward loved me. The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time. And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brillant or perfect than me he might me, he was as irreversibly altered as I was. As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.
Was that what I'd been trying to tell myself?
"Oh!"
"Bella?"
"Oh. Okay. I see."
"Your epithany?" he asked, his voice uneven and strained.
"You love me," I marveled. The sense of conviction and rightness washed through me again.
Though his eyes were still anxious, the crooked smile I loved best flashed across his face. "Truly, I do.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
So how was it possible that the sun was rising now in the middle of my midnight. —Edward Cullen.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga, #5))
“
You, out of everyone on this planet, are perhaps best equipped to deal with such a difficult quandary. You are the best and the brightest of us all.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Midnight Sun (Twilight, #5))
“
First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys. Not that all months aren’t rare. But there be bad and good, as the pirates say. Take September, a bad month: school begins. Consider August, a good month: school hasn’t begun yet. July, well, July’s really fine: there’s no chance in the world for school. June, no doubting it, June’s best of all, for the school doors spring wide and September’s a billion years away.
But you take October, now. School’s been on a month and you’re riding easier in the reins, jogging along. You got time to think of the garbage you’ll dump on old man Prickett’s porch, or the hairy-ape costume you’ll wear to the YMCA the last night of the month. And if it’s around October twentieth and everything smoky-smelling and the sky orange and ash gray at twilight, it seems Halloween will never come in a fall of broomsticks and a soft flap of bedsheets around corners.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes)
“
Despite my best efforts I’ve seen you naked before – doesn’t do much for me so no worries.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4))
“
Stop blubbering, Bella. You'll ruin your dress. It's just me."
"Just? Oh Jake! Everything is perfect now."
He snorted. "Yeah- the party can start. The best man finally made it."
"Now everyone I love is here.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4))
“
October Fullness”
Little by little, and also in great leaps,
life happened to me,
and how insignificant this business is.
These veins carried
my blood, which I scarcely ever saw,
I breathed the air of so many places
without keeping a sample of any.
In the end, everyone is aware of this:
nobody keeps any of what he has,
and life is only a borrowing of bones.
The best thing was learning not to have too much
either of sorrow or of joy,
to hope for the chance of a last drop,
to ask more from honey and from twilight.
Perhaps it was my punishment.
Perhaps I was condemned to be happy.
Let it be known that nobody
crossed my path without sharing my being.
I plunged up to the neck
into adversities that were not mine,
into all the sufferings of others.
It wasn’t a question of applause or profit.
Much less. It was not being able
to live or breathe in this shadow,
the shadow of others like towers,
like bitter trees that bury you,
like cobblestones on the knees.
Our own wounds heal with weeping,
our own wounds heal with singing,
but in our own doorway lie bleeding
widows, Indians, poor men, fishermen.
The miner’s child doesn’t know his father
amidst all that suffering.
So be it, but my business
was
the fullness of the spirit:
a cry of pleasure choking you,
a sigh from an uprooted plant,
the sum of all action.
It pleased me to grow with the morning,
to bathe in the sun, in the great joy
of sun, salt, sea-light and wave,
and in that unwinding of the foam
my heart began to move,
growing in that essential spasm,
and dying away as it seeped into the sand.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems)
“
To put up with people, to keep open house with one's heart — that is liberal, but that is merely liberal. One recognizes those hearts which are capable of noble hospitality by the many draped windows and closed
shutters, they keep their best rooms empty. Why? Because they expect guests with whom one does not "put up.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols)
“
What bella wanted and what was best for bella were two very different things
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1))
“
The Pomegranate
The only legend I have ever loved is
the story of a daughter lost in hell.
And found and rescued there.
Love and blackmail are the gist of it.
Ceres and Persephone the names.
And the best thing about the legend is
I can enter it anywhere. And have.
As a child in exile in
a city of fogs and strange consonants,
I read it first and at first I was
an exiled child in the crackling dusk of
the underworld, the stars blighted. Later
I walked out in a summer twilight
searching for my daughter at bed-time.
When she came running I was ready
to make any bargain to keep her.
I carried her back past whitebeams
and wasps and honey-scented buddleias.
But I was Ceres then and I knew
winter was in store for every leaf
on every tree on that road.
Was inescapable for each one we passed.
And for me.
It is winter
and the stars are hidden.
I climb the stairs and stand where I can see
my child asleep beside her teen magazines,
her can of Coke, her plate of uncut fruit.
The pomegranate! How did I forget it?
She could have come home and been safe
and ended the story and all
our heart-broken searching but she reached
out a hand and plucked a pomegranate.
She put out her hand and pulled down
the French sound for apple and
the noise of stone and the proof
that even in the place of death,
at the heart of legend, in the midst
of rocks full of unshed tears
ready to be diamonds by the time
the story was told, a child can be
hungry. I could warn her. There is still a chance.
The rain is cold. The road is flint-coloured.
The suburb has cars and cable television.
The veiled stars are above ground.
It is another world. But what else
can a mother give her daughter but such
beautiful rifts in time?
If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift.
The legend will be hers as well as mine.
She will enter it. As I have.
She will wake up. She will hold
the papery flushed skin in her hand.
And to her lips. I will say nothing.
”
”
Eavan Boland
“
If romeo was really gone, never coming back, would it have mattered whether or not juliet had taken Paris up on his offer? Maybe she should have tried to settle into the left-over scraps of life that were left behind. Maybe that would have been as close to happiness as she could get.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it. It is a story of love and loss, brotherhood and betrayal, courage and sacrifice and the death of dreams. It is a story of the blurred line between our best and our worst. It is the story of the end of an age. A strange thing about stories— Though this all happened so long ago and so far away that words cannot describe the time or the distance, it is also happening right now. Right here. It is happening as you read these words. This is how twenty-five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery have crushed a thousand years of peace. This is not just the end of a republic; night is falling on civilization itself. This is the twilight of the Jedi. The end starts now.
”
”
Matthew Woodring Stover (Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (Star Wars: Novelizations #3))
“
Homecomer, hitcher, phantom rider,
White lady wants what’s been denied her,
Gather-grim knows what you fear the most,
But best keep away from the crossroads ghost.
Talk to the poltergeist, talk to the haunt,
Talk to the routewitch if it’s what you want.
Reaper’s in the parlor, seizer’s in a host,
But you’d best keep away from the crossroads ghost.
- common clapping rhyme among the ever-lasters of the twilight
”
”
Seanan McGuire (The Girl in the Green Silk Gown (Ghost Roads, #2))
“
Stop blubbering, Bella. You'll ruin your dress. It's just me."
"Just? Oh, Jake! Everything I perfect now."
He snorted. "Yeah- the party can start. The best man finally made it.
"Now everyone I love is here.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4))
“
We best teach what we ourselves have learned.
”
”
Christie Golden (Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects (World of WarCraft, #9))
“
Trying to be the best at anything carries its own special risks, in or out of the Twilight Zone.
”
”
Rod Serling
“
I guess that wasn’t the best idea,” I muttered, feeling like an ass.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Midnight Sun (Twilight, #5))
“
I would have to commit to this- commit as much of me as there was left, every one of the broken pieces. It was the only way to be fair to him. Would I? Could I?
Would it be wrong to try to make Jacob happy? Even if the love I felt for him was no more than a weak echo of what I was capable of, even if my heart was far away, wandering and grieving after my fickle Romeo, would it be so very wrong?
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
As a human, I'd never been best at anything... Obviously I could be counted out of anything athletic. Not artistic or musical, no particular talents to brag of. Nobody ever gave away a trophy for reading books. After eighteen years of mediocrity, I was pretty used to being average. I realized now that I'd long ago given up any aspirations of shining at anything.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4))
“
In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew tall in lands that are now lost. They dwelt most often by the edges of the woods, from which they could escape at times to hunt, or to ride and run over the open lands by moonlight or starlight; and after the coming of Men they took ever more and more to the gloaming and the dusk. Still elves they were and remain, and that is Good People.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit)
“
First, Edwin was a vampire.
Second, he loved me--or at least thought my blood smelled delicious, which, for a vampire, was probably the next best thing.
And third, I would get him to turn me into a vampire too, no matter how much scheming, manipulation, or treachery it required.
”
”
Harrison Geillor (The Twilight of Lake Woebegotten)
“
the worst kind of one-party state “invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.
”
”
Anne Applebaum (Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism)
“
Contemporary warfare, then, is best practiced by the professional serial killer.
”
”
Frederic Morton (Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914)
“
You could only to your best, and hope for a strong tail wind to waft you faster to your destination. Until then, you played the game, kept your tongue civil, and spoke favorably of your enemies when either they or their spies might overhear.
”
”
Michael Reaves (Jedi Twilight (Star Wars: Coruscant Nights, #1))
“
Oh come on, smile. Lisa, Jack... being bisexual is hardly a crime. Best of both worlds, isn't it?'
And Ianto pushed her away. 'No,Gwen. No, really it's bloody not. It's the worst of any world because you don't really belong anywhere, because you are never sure of yourself ot those around you. You can't trust in anyone, their motives or their intentions. And because of that, you have, in a world that likes its shiny labels, no true identity.
”
”
Gary Russell (The Twilight Streets (Torchwood, #6))
“
I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, the breadth of Bernard Shaw and the wit of Oscar Wilde, I want to do the wide sultry heavens of Conrad, the rolled-gold sundowns and crazy-quilt skies of Hitchens and Kipling as well as the pastel dawns and twilights of Chesterton. All that is by way of example. As a matter of fact I am a professed literary thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (A Short Autobiography)
“
Find a calm lake and wait for the twilight in silence! There, existence will visit you with all its magnificence! The existence of the Existence can best be felt in the presence of dimness and in the absence of crowds and noises!
”
”
Mehmet Murat ildan
“
I had some serious problems.
My best friend counted me with his enemies.
Victoria was still on the loose, putting everyone I loved in danger.
If I didn't become a vampire soon, the Volturi would kill me.
And now it seemed if I did, the Quileute werewolves would try to do the job themselves―along with trying to kill my future familiy. I didn't think they had any chance really, but would my best friend get himself killed in the attempt?
Very serious problems. So why did they all suddenly seem insignificant when we broke through the last of the trees and I caught sight of the expression on Charlie's purple face?
Edward squeezed me gently. "I'm here."
I drew in a deep breath.
That was true. Edward was here, with his arms around me.
I could face anything as long as that was true.
I squared my shoulders and walked forward to meet my fate, with my destiny solidly at my side.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
You're the very best part of my life.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
My taste, which may be the opposite of a tolerant taste, is in this case too far from saying Yes indiscriminately: it does not like to say Yes; rather even No; but best of all, nothing.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols)
“
At its most basic, the logic of 'meritocracy' is ironclad: putting the most qualified, best equipped people into the positions of greates responsibility and import...But my central contention is that our near-religious fidelity to the meritocratic model comes with huge costs. We overestimate the advantages of meritocracy and underappreciate its costs, because we don't think hard enough about the consequences of the inequality it produces. As Americans, we take it as a given that unequal levels of achievement are natural, even desirable. Sociologist Jermole Karabel, whose work looks at elite formation, once said he 'didnt think any advanced democracy is as obsessed with equality of opportunity or as relatively unconcerned with equality of condition' as the United States. This is our central problem. And my proposed solution for correcting the excesses of our extreme version of meritocracy is quite simple: make America more equal
”
”
Christopher L. Hayes (Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy)
“
I had to grasp every second of happiness I was allowed, all the more because those seconds were numbered. I knew I had a great capacity for ruining even the best moments with my wretched doubts and endless overthinking. What a waste, if I were only to have a few years, to spend any of them wallowing.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga, #5))
“
Though he has watched a decent age pass by,
A man will sometimes still desire the world.
I swear I see no wisdom in that man.
The endless hours pile up a drift of pain
More unrelieved each day: and as for pleasure,
When he is sunken in excessive age,
You will not see his pleasure anywhere.
The last attendant is the same for all,
Old men and young alike, as in its season
Man's heritage of underworld appears:
There being no epithalamion,
No music and no dance. Death is the finish.
Not to be born beats all philosophy.
The second best is to have seen the light
And then to go back quickly whence we came.
The feathery follies of his youth once over,
What trouble is beyond the range of man?
What heavy burden will he not endure?
Jealousy, faction, quarreling, and battle--
The bloodiness of war, the grief of war.
And in the end he comes to strengthless age,
Abhorred by all men, without company,
Unfriended in that uttermost twilight
Where he must live with every bitter thing.
”
”
Sophocles (Oedipus at Colonus (The Theban Plays, #2))
“
This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it.
It is a story of love and loss, brotherhood and betrayal, courage and sacrifice and the death of dreams. It is a story of the blurred line between our best and our worst.
It is the story of the end of an age.
A strange thing about stories—
Though this all happened so long ago and so far away that words cannot describe the time or the distance, it is also happening right now. Right here.
It is happening as you read these words.
This is how twenty-five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery have crushed a thousand years of peace. This is not just the end of a republic; night is falling on civilization itself.
This is the twilight of the Jedi.
The end starts now.
”
”
Matthew Woodring Stover (Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith)
“
I wondered how long it could last. Maybe someday, years from now.If the pain would decrease to the point where I could bear it.I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life. And, if it were possible that the pain would ever soften enough to allow me to do that, I was sure that I would feel grateful for as much time as he'd given me. More than I'd asked for, more than I'd deserved. Maybe someday I'd be able to see it that way.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
Of the Three Rings that the Elves had preserved unsullied no open word was ever spoken among the Wise, and few even of the Eldar knew where they were bestowed. Yet after the fall of Sauron their power was ever at work, and where they abode there mirth also dwelt and all things were unstained by the griefs of time. Therefore ere the Third Age was ended the Elves perceived that the Ring of Sapphire was with Elrond, in the fair valley of Rivendell, upon whose house the stars of heaven most brightly shone; whereas the Ring of Adamant was in the Land of Lórien where dwelt the Lady Galadriel. A queen she was of the woodland Elves, the wife of Celeborn of Doriath, yet she herself was of the Noldor and remembered the Day before days in Valinor, and she was the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth. But the Red Ring remained hidden until the end, and none save Elrond and Galadriel and Cirdan knew to whom it had been committed.
Thus it was that in two domains the bliss and beauty of the Elves remained still undiminished while that Age endured: in Imladris; and in Lothlórien, the hidden land between Celebrant and Anduin, where the trees bore flowers of gold and no Orc or evil thing dared ever come. Yet many voices were heard among the Elves foreboding that, if Sauron should come again, then either he would find the Ruling Ring that was lost, or at the best his enemies would discover it and destroy it; but in either chance the powers of the Three must then fail and all things maintained by them must fade, and so the Elves should pass into the twilight and the Dominion of Men begin. And so indeed it has since befallen: the One and the Seven and the Nine are destroyed; and the Three have passed away, and with them the Third Age is ended, and the Tales of the Eldar in Middle-earth draw to then-close.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Silmarillion)
“
It's sad to wander about the graveyard of my tired memory, where all hurts have been forgiven, where every sin has been more that atoned for, every riddle unriddled and twilight quietly cloaks the crosses, now no longer upright, of graves I once wept over.
”
”
Teffi (Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi)
“
But you have to know, if it were only about me, if there were no price for you to pay, then tonight would be the best night of my life. I've been staring forever in the face for a century, and tonight is the first time it's looked beautiful to me. Because of you.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined)
“
Almost every girl goes through this weird living nightmare, where you show up at school and realize people have grown to hate you overnight. It’s a Twilight Zone moment when you can’t figure out what is real. It is a group mind-fuck of the highest kind, and it makes or breaks you. I got through it by keeping my head down, and a few weeks passed and all the girls liked me again. We all pretended it never happened. There should be manuals passed out to teach girls how to handle that inevitable one-week stretch when up is down and the best friend who just slept over at your house suddenly pulls your hair in front of everyone and laughs.
”
”
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
“
Poetic style, when address'd to the Soul, is less definite form, outline, sculpture, and becomes vista, music, half-tints, and even less than half- tints. True, it may be architecture; but again it may be the forest wild-wood, or the best effects thereof, at twilight, the waving oaks and cedars in the wind, and the impalpable odor.
”
”
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
“
Getting along with people, keeping an open house in one’s heart—that’s liberal, but nothing more than liberal. You can recognize hearts that are capable of noble hospitality by their many curtained windows and closed shutters: they keep their best rooms empty. But why?—Because they are waiting for guests that one does not “get along with”…
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols: Or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer (Hackett Classics))
“
You can’t think well while people are around you! Best thoughts visit us in the twilight of solitude!
”
”
Mehmet Murat ildan
“
one of the best ways to predict a student’s SAT score is to look at his parents’ income: the more money they make, the higher the score is likely to be.13
”
”
Christopher L. Hayes (Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy)
“
After I'd accepted that she was more or less safe with you - as safe as Bella ever is - it seemed best to stop driving her to extremes.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3))
“
On June 8, 2018, with the news of Tony having taken his own life, I was reminded that the labels we put onto others have no bearing on someone else’s pain. The best we can do is to expose our own pain to daylight and pay attention to the twilight messages we might otherwise miss from our loved ones. [Karen Rinaldi, (It’s Great to) Suck at Something (New York: Atria, 2019)]
”
”
Laurie Woolever (Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography)
“
I wanted to go on an immense journey, to travel night and day into the unknown until, forgetting my old self, I came into possession of a new self, one that I might have missed on my previous travels. But the first step was beyond me. I lay in bed, unable to move, pondering, as one does at my age, the ways of melancholy—how it seeps into the spirit, how it disincarnates the will, how it banishes the senses to the chill of twilight, how even the best and worst intentions wither in its keep. I kept staring at the ceiling, then suddenly felt a blast of cold air, and I was gone.
— Mark Strand, “When I turned A Hundred,” Collected Poems. ( Knopf, 2014)
”
”
Mark Strand (Collected Poems)
“
I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn't a very good poem. I have decided my best poetry is so bad that I mustn't write any more of it.
Drips from the roof are plopping into the water-butt by the back door. The view through the windows above the sink is excessively drear. Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind's eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem.
It is comforting to look away from the windows and towards the kitchen fire, near which my sister Rose is ironing - though she obviously can't see properly, and it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown. (I have two, but one is minus its behind.) Rose looks particularly fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery. Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger, feel older. I am no beauty but I have a neatish face.
I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic - two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by. But I won't attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now.
I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel - I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious. The only time father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.
”
”
Dodie Smith (I Capture the Castle)
“
A certain shoemaker one of the chief towns of Silesia, in the year 1591, September 20, on a Friday betimes in the morning, in the further part of his house, where there was adjoining a little garden, cut his own throat with his shoemaker's knife.
”
”
Raymond T. McNally (A Clutch of Vampires: These Being Among the Best from History & Literature)
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Leah might be an interesting companion, maybe even a true friend—someone who would stand up for me. But she wasn’t my best friend the way that Bella was. Aside from the impossible love I felt for Bella, there was also that other bond, and it ran bone deep.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (Twilight, #4))
“
The feasting people were Wood-elves, of
course. These are not wicked folk. If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West. There the Light-elves and the Deep-elves and the Sea-elves went and lived for ages, and grew fairer and wiser and more learned, and invented their magic and their cunning craft in the making of beautiful and marvellous things, before some came back into the Wide World. In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew tall in lands that are now lost. They dwelt most often by the edges of the woods, from which they could escape at times to hunt, or to ride and run over the open lands by moonlight or starlight;
and after the coming of Men they took ever
more and more to the gloaming and the dusk.
Still elves they were and remain, and that is
Good People.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (The Lord of the Rings, #0))
“
The idea of solvitur ambulando (in walking it will be solved) has been around since St. Augustine, but well before that Aristotle thought and taught while walking the open-air parapets of the Lyceum. It has long been believed that walking in restorative settings could lead not only to physical vigor but to mental clarity and even bursts of genius, inspiration (with its etymology in breathing) and overall sanity. As French academic Frederic Gros writes in A Philosophy of Walking, it’s simply “the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found.” Jefferson walked to clear his mind, while Thoreau and Nietzsche, like Aristotle, walked to think. “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,” wrote Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols. And Rousseau wrote in Confessions, “I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.” Scotland
”
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Florence Williams (The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative)
“
Hush-a-bye baby in the tree top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock, when the bough breaks the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.
Momma will catch you, give you a squeeze, send you back up to play in the trees, when twilight falls and birds seek their nests, come home to the one who loves you the best.
”
”
Eloisa James (A Duke of Her Own (Desperate Duchesses, #6))
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Like so many other organs, the brain possesses a miraculous ability to heal itself, to forge new synaptic connections around old ones, to learn and relearn. That is, however, if you don’t keep damaging it three times a day. A wholesome diet and exercise may offer your best hope for remaining sharp and healthy into your twilight years.
”
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Michael Greger (How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease)
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One thing I truly knew—knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest—was how love gave someone the power to break you. I’d been broken beyond repair. But I needed Jacob now, needed him like a drug. I’d used him as a crutch for too long, and I was in deeper than I’d planned to go with anyone again. Now I couldn’t bear for him to be hurt, and I couldn’t keep from hurting him, either. He thought time and patience would change me, and, though I knew he was dead wrong, I also knew that I would let him try. He was my best friend. I would always love him, and it would never, ever be enough.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (Twilight, #2))
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Arendt observed the attraction of authoritarianism to people who feel resentful or unsuccessful back in the 1940s, when she wrote that the worst kind of one-party state “invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.
”
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Anne Applebaum (Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism)
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Moral for psychologists. -- Not to go in for backstairs psychology. Never to observe in order to observe! That gives a false perspective, leads to squinting and something forced and exaggerated. Experience as the wish to experience does not succeed. One must not eye oneself while having an experience; else the eye becomes "an evil eye." A born psychologist guards instinctively against seeing in order to see; the same is true of the born painter. He never works "from nature"; he leaves it to his instinct, to his camera obscura, to sift through and express the "case," "nature," that which is "experienced." He is conscious only of what is general, of the conclusion, the result: he does not know arbitrary abstractions from an individual case.
What happens when one proceeds differently? For example, if, in the manner of the Parisian novelists, one goes in for backstairs psychology and deals in gossip, wholesale and retail? Then one lies in wait for reality, as it were, and every evening one brings home a handful of curiosities. But note what finally comes of all this: a heap of splotches, a mosaic at best, but in any case something added together, something restless, a mess of screaming colors. The worst in this respect is accomplished by the Goncourts; they do not put three sentences together without really hurting the eye, the psychologist's eye. Nature, estimated artistically, is no model. It exaggerates, it distorts, it leaves gaps. Nature is chance. To study "from nature" seems to me to be a bad sign: it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism; this lying in the dust before petit faits [little facts] is unworthy of a whole artist. To see what is--that is the mark of another kind of spirit, the anti-artistic, the factual. One must know who one is.
Toward a psychology of the artist. -- If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and seeing, one physiological condition is indispensable: frenzy. Frenzy must first have enhanced the excitability of the whole machine; else there is no art. All kinds of frenzy, however diversely conditioned, have the strength to accomplish this: above all, the frenzy of sexual excitement, this most ancient and original form of frenzy. Also the frenzy that follows all great cravings, all strong affects; the frenzy of feasts, contests, feats of daring, victory, all extreme movement; the frenzy of cruelty; the frenzy in destruction, the frenzy under certain meteorological influences, as for example the frenzy of spring; or under the influence of narcotics; and finally the frenzy of will, the frenzy of an overcharged and swollen will. What is essential in such frenzy is the feeling of increased strength and fullness. Out of this feeling one lends to things, one forces them to accept from us, one violates them--this process is called idealizing. Let us get rid of a prejudice here: idealizing does not consist, as is commonly held, in subtracting or discounting the petty and inconsequential. What is decisive is rather a tremendous drive to bring out the main features so that the others disappear in the process.
In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever one wills, is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power--until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is--art. Even everything that he is not yet, becomes for him an occasion of joy in himself; in art man enjoys himself as perfection.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols / The Anti-Christ)
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I would sink into the relief I felt from having friends like these girls. Smart. Patient. Good daughters and sisters. That’s who I ran with. That being said, I still went through the young-girl rites of passage, including being kicked out of the group. Almost every girl goes through this weird living nightmare, where you show up at school and realize people have grown to hate you overnight. It’s a Twilight Zone moment when you can’t figure out what is real. It is a group mind-fuck of the highest kind, and it makes or breaks you. I got through it by keeping my head down, and a few weeks passed and all the girls liked me again. We all pretended it never happened. There should be manuals passed out to teach girls how to handle that inevitable one-week stretch when up is down and the best friend who just slept over at your house suddenly pulls your hair in front of everyone and laughs.
”
”
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
“
As French academic Frederic Gros writes in A Philosophy of Walking, it’s simply “the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found.” Jefferson walked to clear his mind, while Thoreau and Nietzsche, like Aristotle, walked to think. “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,” wrote Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols. And Rousseau wrote in Confessions, “I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.
”
”
Florence Williams (The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative)
“
You’re the only one we could ever trust her with,” I murmured to him. “If you didn’t love her so much, I could never bear this. I know you can protect her, Jacob.” He whined again, and dipped his head to butt it against my shoulder. “I know,” I whispered. “I love you, too, Jake. You’ll always be my best man.” A tear the size of a baseball rolled into the russet fur beneath his eye. Edward leaned his head against the same shoulder where he’d placed Renesmee. “Goodbye, Jacob, my brother… my son.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (Twilight, #4))
“
Poppy was dressed in her best gown, a violet silk that shimmered with tones of blue and pink as the light moved over it. The unique color had been achieved with a new synthetic dye, and it was so striking that little ornamentation was needed. The bodice was intricately wrapped, leaving the tops of her shoulders bare, and the full, layered skirts rustled softly as she moved.
Just as she set down the powder brush, Harry came to the doorway and surveyed her leisurely. "No woman will compare to you tonight," he murmured.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
Picture a summer stolen whole from some coming-of-age film set in the small-town 1950s. This is none of Ireland's subtle seasons mixed for a connoisseur's palate, watercolor nuances within a pinch-sized range of cloud and soft rain; this is summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silkscreen blue. This summer explodes on your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat, Marie biscuits with butter squirting through the holes and shaken bottles of red lemonade picnicked in tree houses. It tingles on your skin with BMX wind in your face, ladybug feet up your arm; it packs every breath full of mown grass and billowing wash lines; it chimes and fountains with birdcalls, bees, leaves and football-bounces and skipping-chants, One! two! three! This summer will never end. It starts every day with a shower of Mr. Whippy notes and your best friend's knock at the door, finishes it with long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways calling you to come in, through the bats shrilling among the black lace trees. This is Everysummer decked in all its best glory.
”
”
Tana French (In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1))
“
Soon thereafter, a maid brought Poppy a tray of neat boxes tied with ribbons. Opening them, Poppy discovered that one was filled with toffee, another with boiled sweets, and another with Turkish delight. Best of all, one box was filled with a new confection called "eating-chocolates" that had been all the rage at the London Exhibition.
"Where did these come from?" Poppy asked Harry when he returned to her room after a brief visit to the front offices.
"From the sweet shop."
"No, these," Poppy showed him the eating-chocolates. "No one can get them. The makers, Fellows and Son, have closed their shop while they moved to a new location. The ladies at the philanthropic luncheon were talking about it."
"I sent Valentine to the Fellows residence to ask them to make a special batch for you." Harry smiled as he saw the paper twists scattered across the counterpane. "I see you've sampled them."
"Have one," Poppy said generously.
Harry shook his head. "I don't like sweets." But he bent down obligingly as she gestured for him to come closer. She reached out to him, her fingers catching the knot of his necktie.
Harry's smile faded as Poppy exerted gentle tension, drawing him down. He was suspended over her, an impending weight of muscle and masculine drive. As her sugared breath blew against his lips, she sensed the deep tremor within him. And she was aware of a new equilibrium between them, a balance of will and curiosity. Harry held still, letting her do as she wished.
She tugged him closer until her mouth brushed his. The contact was brief but vital, striking a glow of heat.
Poppy released him carefully, and Harry drew back.
"You won't kiss me for diamonds," he said, his voice slightly raspy, "but you will for chocolates?"
Poppy nodded.
As Harry turned his face away, she saw his cheek tauten with a smile. "I'll put in a daily order, then.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
focus and attitude, he’d declared. Which one had been right? Was there more I could do? A name and a category for what I was? “Can you project?” Kate asked interestedly. “Project?” I asked. “Push it out from yourself,” Kate explained. “Shield someone besides yourself.” “I don’t know. I’ve never tried. I didn’t know I should do that.” “Oh, you might not be able to,” Kate said quickly. “Heavens knows I’ve been working on it for centuries and the best I can do is run a current over my skin.” I stared at her, mystified. “Kate’s got an offensive skill,” Edward said. “Sort of like Jane.” I flinched away from Kate automatically, and she laughed. “I’m not sadistic about it,” she assured me. “It’s just something that comes in handy during a fight.” Kate’s words were sinking in, beginning to make connections in my mind. Shield someone besides yourself, she’d said. As if there were some way for me to include another person in my strange, quirky silent head. I remembered Edward cringing on the ancient stones of the Volturi castle turret. Though this was a human memory, it was sharper, more painful than most of the others—like it had been branded into the tissues of my brain. What if I could stop that from happening ever again? What if I could protect him? Protect
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (Twilight, #4))
“
You don’t believe it either?” Harry asked him.
“Nah, that story’s just one of those things you tell kids to teach them lessons, isn’t it? ‘Don’t go looking for trouble, don’t pick fights, don’t go messing around with stuff that’s best left alone! Just keep your head down, mind your own business, and you’ll be okay.’ Come to think of it,” Ron added, “maybe that story’s why elder wands are supposed to be unlucky.”
“What are you talking about?”
“One of those superstitions, isn’t it? ‘May-born witches will marry Muggles.’ ‘Jinx by twilight, undone by midnight.’ ‘Wand of elder, never prosper.’ You must’ve heard them. My mum’s full of them.”
“Harry and I were raised by Muggles,” Hermione reminded him. “We were taught different superstitions.” She sighed deeply as a rather pungent smell drifted up from the kitchen. The one good thing about her exasperation with Xenophilius was that it seemed to have made her forget that she was annoyed at Ron. “I think you’re right,” she told him. “It’s just a morality tale, it’s obvious which gift is best, which one you’d choose—”
The three of them spoke at the same time; Hermione said, “the Cloak,” Ron said, “the wand,” and Harry said, “the stone.”
They looked at each other, half surprised, half amused.
“You’re supposed to say the Cloak,” Ron told Hermione, “but you wouldn’t need to be invisible if you had the wand. An unbeatable wand, Hermione, come on!”
“We’ve already got an Invisibility Cloak,” said Harry.
“And it’s helped us rather a lot, in case you hadn’t noticed!” said Hermione. “Whereas the wand would be bound to attract trouble—”
“Only if you shouted about it,” argued Ron. “Only if you were prat enough to go dancing around, waving it over your head, and singing, ‘I’ve got an unbeatable wand, come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.’ As long as you kept your trap shut—”
“Yes, but could you keep your trap shut?” said Hermione, looking skeptical.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
“
There is a section of the museum (of memory and human rights) that I like the best...Guides describe it as the heart of the museum. From an observation platform surrounded by candles, which aren't actually candles but little bulbs, more than a thousand photographs of many of the regime's victims are visible, hung high op on one wall. The photographs were donated by the victims' families, so we see them at home, at celebrations, at the beach, smiling at teh camera the way we all do when we want to leave a record of ourselves at our best. There are beautiful women who look like movie stars, who must have fixed themselves up flirtatiously, thinking they'll give the photo to a boyfriend, a lover.
”
”
Nona Fernández (The Twilight Zone)
“
I am sorry about it hurting you. I didn’t know it was like that. Bella, things are different with us now, but you’ll always be my best friend, and I’ll always love you. But I’ll love you the right way now. There’s finally a balance. We both have people we can’t live without.” He smiled his very most Jacob-y smile. “Still friends?” Try as hard as I could to resist, I had to smile back. Just a tiny smile. He held out his hand: an offer. I took a deep breath and shifted Renesmee’s weight to one arm. I put my left hand in his—he didn’t even flinch at the feel of my cool skin. “If I don’t kill Charlie tonight, I’ll consider forgiving you for this.” “When you don’t kill Charlie tonight, you’ll owe me huge.” I rolled my eyes.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn (Twilight, #4))
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A few hours later, lying on a mat during rest time, Vladimir embraced the tiny curled-up creature beside him, his first best buddy, just as Mother had promised. Maybe tomorrow they could go to the Piskaryovka mass grave together with their grandmothers and lay flowers for their dead. Maybe they would even be inducted into the Red Pioneers side by side. What good fortune that he and Lionya were so alike and that neither of them had siblings...Now they would have each other! It was as if Mother had created someone just for him, as if she had guessed how lonely he had been in his sick bed with his stuffed giraffe, the months spinning away in twilight gloom until it was June again, time to go down to sunny Yalta to watch the Black Sea dolphins jump for joy.
”
”
Gary Shteyngart (The Russian Debutante's Handbook)
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I have, however, been at no pains to separate my own beliefs from those of the peasantry, but have rather let my men and women, dhouls and faeries, go their way unoffended or defended by any argument of mine. The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best. I too have woven my garment like another, but I shall try to keep warm in it, and shall be well content if it do not unbecome me. Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art, and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. O beloved daughter of Hope and Memory, be with me for a little. 1893.
”
”
W.B. Yeats (The Celtic Twilight)
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It was often like this with her: never stepping out of her quiet comfort zone except for someone else’s perceived need; changing the subject whenever her circle of human friends grew too cruel to one another; thanking a teacher for their lesson if that teacher seemed down; giving up her locker for a more inconvenient location so two best friends could be neighbors; smiling a certain smile that never surfaced for her contented friends, only revealing itself to someone who was hurting. Little things that none of her acquaintances or admirers ever seemed to see. Through all these little things, I was able to add the most important quality to my list, the most revealing of them all, as simple as it was rare. Bella was good. All the other things added up to that whole: Kind and self-effacing and unselfish and brave—she was good through and through.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Midnight Sun (Twilight, #5))
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A further triumph is our spiritualisation of enmity. This consists in our profound understanding of the value of having enemies: in short, our doing and deciding the opposite of what people previously thought and decided … Throughout the ages the church has wanted to destroy its enemies: we, the immoralists and anti-Christians, see it as to our advantage that the church exists … Even in the field of politics, enmity has become spiritualised. Almost every party sees that self-preservation is best served if the opposite number does not lose its powers. The same is true of Realpolitik. A new creation, such as the new Reich, needs enemies more than it does friends: only by being opposed does it feel necessary; only by being opposed does it become necessary. Our behaviour towards our ‘inner enemy’ is no different: here, too, we have spiritualised enmity; here, too, we have grasped its value. (Twilight of the Idols, V, 3)
”
”
Luc Ferry (A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living (Learning to Live))
“
Nico looked very tall and thin wearing a opaque black sweatshirt hoodie and dark inked skinny jeans. His outer physical structure was handsome and gaunt, straight jet black hair razored and clipped in angles, a few purple highlights, and his white skin toned the color of alabaster. She had always liked the slender salamander type. He totally looked punk rock tonight, and that made him look absolutely awesome! A curtain of fog parted in front of him, giving him even more of the illusion as if he was part of a rock band at a rock band concert. Katty now saw Nico with exaggerated clarity. Nico Rocket looked so freakin' hot! He looked so good-looking at times, especially within the dark scenes of rolling fog and a pitchy darkness. She randomly wondered what he looked like before he was bit and turned into a Vampire. Had he been a Renaissance geek just like her? Before she could really examine him and fantasize of what he must have looked like before turning into a Vampire, the fog closed in all around him again, surrounding him with a ring of solitary imprisonment. He now lurked as a shadow among the shadows, disappearing into the illusion of gray’s. She didn't like him for not showing up on time, but all had been forgiven as soon as she had seen him all dressed up in his Gothic best. So what if he didn't believe in punctuality? His hotness sure made up for the rest! Through the fog, she saw his bright red eyes pierce through the heaviness of the darkness. He then broke free from the fog, leaving a trail of the thickened smoke lingering far behind, and wide.
”
”
Keira D. Skye (Bite!)
“
Why did you go through with it?" she heard him ask quietly.
"I thought it best for Michael." She felt a twinge of satisfaction as she saw how that had annoyed him.
Harry half sat on the bed, his posture informal. His gaze didn't stray from her. "Had there been a choice, I would have done all this the ordinary way. I would have courted you openly, won you fairly. But you'd already decided on Bayning. This was the only alternative."
"No, it wasn't. You could have let me be with Michael."
"It's doubtful he ever would have offered for you. He deceived you, and himself, by assuming he could persuade his father to accept the match. You should have seen the old man when I showed him the letter- he was mortally offended by the notion of his son taking a wife so far beneath him."
That hurt, as perhaps Harry had intended, and Poppy stiffened.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
She spent what was left of the afternoon in the kitchen with the chef, Monsieur Broussard, the pastry chef, Mr. Rupert, and Mrs. Pennywhistle. Broussard was involved in the creation of a new dessert... or more aptly, trying to re-create a dessert he had remembered from childhood.
"My great-aunt Albertine always made this with no recipe," Broussard explained ruefully as he pulled a bain-marie, or water bath, from the oven. Nestled inside were a half dozen perfect little steaming apple puddings. "I watched her every time. But it has all slipped from my mind. Fifteen times I have tried it, and still it's not perfect... but quand on veut, on peut."
"When one wants, one can," Poppy translated.
"Exactement." Broussard carefully removed the dishes from the hot water.
Chef Rupert drizzled cream sauce over each pudding, and topped them with delicate pastry leaves. "Shall we?" he asked, handing out spoons.
Solemnly, Poppy, Mrs. Pennywhistle, and the two chefs took a pudding and sampled it. Poppy's mouth was filled with cream, soft tart apple, and crisply imploding pastry. She closed her eyes to better enjoy the textures and flavors, and she heard satisfied sighs from Mrs. Pennywhistle and Chef Rupert.
"Still not right," Monsieur Broussard fretted, scowling at the dish of pudding as if it were deliberately being obstinate.
"I don't care if it's not right," the housekeeper said. "That is the best thing I've ever tasted in my life." She turned to Poppy. "Don't you agree, Mrs. Rutledge?"
"I think it's what angels must eat in heaven," Poppy said, digging into the pudding.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
Does that sound naïve?” “Yes,” he said flatly. Poppy’s lips quirked, although she felt nothing close to actual amusement. “I’m sure I’ve read too many fairy tales. The prince is supposed to slay the dragon, defeat the villain, and marry the servant girl, and carry her off to his castle.” “Fairy tales are best read as entertainment,” Harry said. “Not as a guide to life.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
Twilight Zone revisited would best describe Gray’s first day back at school in a new body, only this time Gray was treated like a returning celebrity rather than a mental case. Students formed circles around her. The braver ones hugged her. If Gray happened to forget certain details of her life before, it was waved off as post-traumatic stress, selective amnesia—totally understandable.
”
”
Nikki Jefford (Entangled (Spellbound, #1))
“
I think,” he said slowly, “that you should marry a man who would appreciate you.” She made a face. “Those are in short supply.” He smiled. “You don’t need a supply. You just need one.” He grasped Poppy’s shoulder, his hand curving over the illusion-trimmed sleeve of her gown until she felt its warmth through the fragile gauze. His thumb toyed with the filmy edge of fabric, brushing her skin in a way that made her stomach tighten. “Poppy,” he said gently, “what if I asked for permission to court you?” She went blank as astonishment swept through her. Finally, someone had asked to court her. And it wasn’t Michael, or any of the diffident, superior aristocrats she had met during three failed seasons. It was Harry Rutledge, an elusive and enigmatic man she had known only a matter of days. “Why me?” was all she could manage. “Because you’re interesting and beautiful. Because saying your name makes me smile. Most of all because this may be my only hope of ever having hotchpotch.” “I’m sorry, but . . . no. It wouldn’t be a good idea at all.” “I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had. Why can’t we?” Poppy’s mind was spinning. She could hardly stammer out a reply. “I-I don’t like courtship. It’s very stressful. And disappointing.” His thumb found the soft ridge of her collarbone and traced it slowly. “It’s arguable that you’ve ever had a real courtship. But if it pleases you, we’ll dispense with it altogether. That would save time.” “I don’t want to dispense with it,” Poppy said, increasingly flustered. She trembled as she felt his fingertips glide along the side of her neck. “What I mean is . . . Mr. Rutledge, I’ve just been through a very difficult experience. This is too soon.” “You were courted by a boy, who had to do as he was told.” His hot breath feathered against her lips as he whispered, “You should try it with a man, who needs no one’s permission.” A man. Well, he certainly was that. “I don’t have the luxury of waiting,” Harry continued. “Not when you’re so hell-bent on going back to Hampshire. You’re the reason I’m here tonight, Poppy. Believe me, I wouldn’t have come otherwise.” “You don’t like balls?” “I do. But the ones I attend are given by a far different crowd.” Poppy couldn’t imagine what crowd he was referring to, or what kind of people he usually associated with. Harry Rutledge was too much of a mystery. Too experienced, too overwhelming in every way. He could never offer the quiet, ordinary, sane life she longed for. “Mr. Rutledge, please don’t take this as an affront, but you don’t have the qualities I seek in a husband.” “How do you know? I have some excellent qualities you haven’t even seen yet.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
His attention was snared by the sight of Catherine Marks, standing in the corner and watching as Beatrix and her partner danced. Marks looked tense as usual, her slender dark-clad figure as straight as a ramrod. She never missed an opportunity to disdain Leo and treat him as if he had all the intellectual prowess of an oyster. And she was resistant to any attempts at charm or humor. Like any sensible man, Leo did his best to avoid her. But to his chagrin, Leo couldn’t stop himself from wondering what Catherine Marks would look like after a good, thorough tupping. Her spectacles cast aside, her silky hair loose and tumbled, her pale body released from the contraption of stays and laces . . . Suddenly nothing at the ball seemed quite so interesting as his sisters’ companion. Leo decided to go bother her.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
Harry was fascinated by the Hathaways, the mysterious connections between them, as if they shared some collective secret. One could almost see the wordless understanding that passed between them. Although Harry knew a great deal about people, he knew nothing about being part of a family. After Harry’s mother had run off with one of her lovers, his father had tried to get rid of every remaining trace of her existence. And he had done his best to forget that he even had a son, leaving Harry to the hotel staff and a succession of tutors. Harry had few memories of his mother, only that she had been beautiful and had had golden hair. It seemed she had always been going out, away from him, forever elusive. He remembered crying for her once, clutching his hands in her velvet skirts, and she had tried to make him let go, laughing softly at his persistence. In the wake of his parents’ abandonment, Harry had taken his meals in the kitchen with the hotel employees. When he was sick, one or another of the maids had taken care of him. He saw families come and go, and he had learned to view them with the same detachment that the hotel staff did. Deep down Harry harbored a suspicion that the reason his mother had left, the reason his father never had anything to do with him, was because he was unlovable. And therefore he had no desire to be part of a family. Even if or when Poppy bore him children, Harry would never allow anyone close enough to form an attachment. He would never let himself be shackled that way. And yet he sometimes knew a fleeting envy for those who were capable of it, like the Hathaways.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
Entertaining Possibilities
"Why sometimes I've believed as many as
six impossible things before breakfast."
- The Queen of Hearts,
Alice in Wonderland
riding bareback
on a triceratops
through green galaxies
while you ride beside me
on your favorite mastodon
running a finger
over those I love
and like a highlighter pen
turning them neon
noting them forever
so I can return to them
easily
when I need them
thinking something good
can come
of "ethnic cleansing"
swimming in an ocean
deep and wet enough
to fill the eternity
of love
between these two
sheets
walking into the vowels
of a word like open
and becoming it
locking away
Pandora's box
putting evil back
in its place for good
and swallowing the key
lighting myself
with a single match
then watching me melt
warm and liquid
over your body
cooling gently
in the shape of you
sitting flat
in round anticipation
I will be page 233 in the book
that you have just opened
and I will chew on each delicious moment
of every turn
as you move
page by page
closer
to me
stowing away
in your pillowcase
and sailing your dreams
so that when you are sent to walk the plank
I can catch you
together we can be
the mutiny
on any bounty
letting my best ideas ripen
beside yours
on the vine
then stomping it all juicy
between toes
yours and mine
aging
then bottling it all
till the sun falls
and we uncork
our store
one by one
and drink
forever in the twilight
planting a memory
watering the spot
watching it grow
tall, tender, familiar,
then putting my ear
to its blossom
and hearing
my grandmother's voice
tell me
again
that I can be both the gift
and the giver
”
”
Nancy Boutilier (On the Eighth Day Adam Slept Alone: New Poems)
“
It's sad to wander about the graveyard of my tired memory, where all hurts have been forgiven, where every sin has been more than atoned for, every riddle unriddled and twilight quietly cloaks the crosses, now no longer upright, of graves I once wept over.
”
”
Teffi (Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi)
“
Against Whatever It Is That's Encroaching"
Best of all is to be idle,
And especially on a Thursday,
And to sip wine while studying the light:
The way it ages, yellows, turns ashen
And then hesitates forever
On the threshold of the night
That could be bringing the first frost.
It's good to have a woman around just then,
And two is even better.
Let them whisper to each other
And eye you with a smirk.
Let them roll up their sleeves and unbutton their
shirts a bit.
As this fine old twilight deserves,
And the small schoolboy
Who has come home to a room almost dark
And now watches wide-eyed
The grownups raise their glasses to him,
The giddy-headed, red-haired woman
With eyes tightly shut,
As if she were about to cry or sing.
”
”
Charles Simic (Unending Blues)
“
The best of these early albums is 2011’s Twin Fantasy,
”
”
Steven Hyden (Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock)
“
Joey was a good kid, the best. He never whined, never threw tantrums or complained.
”
”
Dean Koontz (THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT)
“
Vengeance is a meal best served screaming.
”
”
Ryen Santana (A Veil of Twilight)
“
Ghosts are just one of the possible causes of these phenomena. Other such causes include, but are not limited to, the following: poltergeists, psychic children, magic, aliens, hallucinatory drugs, an alternate dimension analog of my apartment, a Hollywood special effects team, intergalactic space wizards, LASERS, ninjas, demons, vengeful deities, mischievous deities, uncaring impersonal but very clumsy and unapologetic deities, Silent Hill, that little kid from the Twilight Zone, Old Scratch himself, a curse, trapped spirits and/or demons, a building with hemophilia that cuts itself, one really really pissed ex girlfriend, a dimensional portal to Hell, an erection lasting more than four hours, a manifestation of a horror movie into the real world caused by a djinn or other bad wishing, fever dreams, a sentient building, Bizarro Elvis, the Antichrist, the Best Little Demonic Whorehouse in Texas, mental illness, brain damage, living downstairs from a cut-rate blood bank, a vision from God, or even a cursed sword.
”
”
Dennis Liggio (Damned Lies Strike Back (Damned Lies #2))
“
Twilight Poetry [10w]
Non-rational poetry's best composed
in a twilight state of consciousness.
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
He quite literally occupied it. At the end of a long oaken table near the window of the Writing Room was “the Hitler Chair.” It had the best light for painting postcards. Nobody but Adolf dared sit there. Everybody honored his obsession with the chair, partly out of gratitude: If a Männerheim tenant fell short of his week’s rent, Hitler was amazingly fast in organizing a collection.
”
”
Frederic Morton (Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914)