A Lantern In Her Hand Quotes & Sayings

But it is the knowledge of how contingent my unease is, how dependent on a baby that wails beneath my window one day and does not wail the next, that brings the worst shame to me, the greatest indifference to annihilation. I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering. I ought never to have taken my lantern to see what was going on in the hut by the granary. On the other hand, there was no way, once I had picked up the lantern, for me to put it down again. The knot loops in upon itself; I cannot find the end. — J.M. Coetzee

With that, Quincy brought the bowie knife down on Moon's cuffed hand and chopped off four fingers which flew up before my eyes like chips from a log. Moon screamed and a rifle ball shattered the lantern in front of me and struck Quincy in the neck, causing hot blood to spurt on my face. My thought was: I am better out of this. — Charles Portis

They paused at a table bearing a collection of magic lanterns, small embossed tin lamps with condensing lenses at the front. There was a slot for a hand-painted glass slide just behind the lens. When the lamp was lit, an image would be projected on a wall. Rohan insisted on buying one for Amelia, along with a packet of slides.
"But it's a child's toy," she protested, holding the lantern by its wire handle. "What am I to do with it?"
"Indulge in pointless entertainment. Play. You should try it sometime."
"Playing is for children, not adults."
"Oh, Miss Hathaway," he murmured, leading her away from the table. "The best kind of playing is for adults. — Lisa Kleypas

People are in the dark, they don't know what to do I had a little lantern, oh but it got blown out too. I'm reaching out my hand. I hope you are too. I just want to be in the dark with you. - GREG BROWN, "IN THE DARK WITH YOU" T — Neil Gaiman

She found Safiye leaning against an oil lantern out in the garden and saw for herself that she wasn't the only foolish woman in the world, or even at that party, for Safiye had Lucy's highly polished bangle in her hand and was turning it this way and that in order to catch fireflies in the billowing, transparent left sleeve of her gown. — Helen Oyeyemi

Sicarius stood behind them, not bothering to hide his face as the breeze rifled through his short blond hair. He hadn't drawn a weapon yet, and Amaranthe hurried to catch up, to keep him from doing so.
First one security man glanced over his shoulder and jumped, then the second emulated the move.
Sespian lifted a hand. "Don't hurt - "One of the men pointed to the side of Sicarius, cried, "Look, enforcers!" and hurled himself past Sespian and into the river. The second man squeaked, scuttled backward until his shoulders rammed against the railing, then grabbed it and also propelled himself into the water. His lantern caught and dropped to the deck instead of falling overboard. It clanked and highlighted a dubious puddle before tipping over and winking out. Amaranthe had forgotten how much Sicarius's reputation affected the average person. — Lindsay Buroker

It was my father who had taught me to love books for themselves, the smell of the vellum and paper, the rare authority of the pages. "Here, do you see this marvelous book, the skins of 182 sheep," he once pronounced as he slapped his hand down on the stamped leather cover boards. "The book is a flock, a jewel, a cemetery, a lantern, a garden, a piss pot; pigments ground of precious minerals, charred bone, lamp soot, rare plants and insects. Pigments formed at the corrosion of copper plates suspended above urine. — Regina O'Melveny

At nine o'clock Mr. Shimerda lighted one of our lanterns and put on his overcoat and fur collar. He stood in the little entry hall, the lantern and his fur cap under his arm, shaking hands with us. When he took grandmother's hand, he bent over it as he always did, and said slowly, 'Good woman!' He made the sign of the cross over me, put on his cap and went off in the dark. As we turned back to the sitting-room, grandfather looked at me searchingly. 'The prayers of all good people are good,' he said quietly. — Willa Cather

Oh Florence, Florence, patroness
of the lovely tyrannicides!
Where the tower of the Old Palace
pierces the sky
like a hypodermic needle,
Perseus, David and Judith,
lords and ladies of the Blood,
Greek demi-gods of the Cross,
rise sword in hand
above the unshaven
formless decapitation
of the monsters, tubs of guts,
mortifying chunks for the pack.
Pity the monsters!
Pity the monsters!
Perhaps, one always took the wrong side -
Ah, to have known, to have loved
too many David and Judiths!
My heart bleeds for the monster.
I have seen the Gorgon.
The erotic terror
of her helpless, big-bosomed body
lay like slop.
Wall-eyed, staring the despot to stone,
her severed head swung
like a lantern in the victor's hand. — Robert Lowell

Abbie Deal went happily about her work, one baby in her arms and the other at her skirts, courage her lode-star and love her guide, - a song upon her lips and a lantern in her hand. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I think that love is more like a light that you carry. At first childish happiness keeps it lighted and after that romance. Then motherhood lights it and then duty ... and maybe after that sorrow. You wouldn't think that sorrow could be a light, would you, dearie? But it can. And then after that, service lights it. Yes ... I think that is what love is to a woman ... a lantern in her hand. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Now you're going to get it," I said, guessing Al was coming when the ones in the back scattered. "You should have been nice."
With a weird cry, the closest surface demon fell back, but it was too late. A flash of red light exploded overhead, smashing the buildings away as if I were at the center of an atomic explosion. The surface demons scattered like brown leaves, the remnants of their clothes and auras fluttering. It was Al, and he burst into existence in a grand mood, an old-fashioned lantern in his hand and a walking cane at his side.
"Rachel Mariana Morgan!" he shouted enthusiastically, raising the lantern high, and I painfully rose from my crouch, breaking my bubble with a small thought. "I've come to save you, love! — Kim Harrison

As Jack's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw the ground covered in white and, in the light of Garrett"s lantern, snowflakes spinning and falling.
He took hold of Mabel's hand, and when she turned to him, he saw in her eyes the joy and sorrow of a lifetime.
"It's snowing," she said. — Eowyn Ivey

Alex gazed at her. Her mouth was slightly open; she ran her fingernail against her lower teeth as she thought. She'd knotted her hair at the nape of her neck again, and a strand had slipped loose onto her shoulder, gleaming in the lantern light. Suddenly all of his objections seemed meaningless. Don't, he thought. You'll regret it.
He didn't care anymore.
Slowly, unable to stop himself, he reached out and cupped his hand around her foot. — L.A. Weatherly

Let's walk to the beach
Let's cast the net in the water
And catch freshness from water

Let's pick up a pebble from the ground
Feel the weight of existence

Let's not abuse moonshine if we suffer from fever
(Occasionally I have observed the moon descending during fever
And reaching the hand of the roof of heaven
I have noticed the goldfinch singing better
Sometimes the wound beneath my foot
Has taught the ups and downs of earth
Sometimes in my sickbed the dimension of the rose has multiplied
And the diameter of orange has increased, the radius of lantern too) — Sohrab Sepehri

Dearest, the dark will take a long span.
Get a lantern or torch ready in hand
To lighten the right path so that we can
Cautiously avoid thorns in the night.

(Navigator) — Siwakarn Patoommasoot

In the flickering lantern light, she looked like an avenging angel standing there. Her hair was a tangled mess and her face was swollen to hell, but her hand was rock steady on that weapon, even with the pain she had to be in. The deadly intent was clear on her face. — Kaylea Cross

A man woke up at midnight and wanted to smoke. Therefore he looked for some fire, for which he went to a neighbor's house and knocked at the door. The neighbor opened the door and asked him what he wanted. The man said, I wish to smoke. Can you give me a little fire? The neighbor replied, O.M.G.! What the heck is wrong with you? You have taken so much trouble to come and wake us up at the middle of the night, while in your own hand you have a lantern! The God that human beings so keenly seek, lives within the human biology, yet they wander hitherto searching for it. — Abhijit Naskar

I dreamed about you sometimes.
In my dreams we were walking down Tenth Avenue together in the dark. You hadn't been shot after all, and we were both all right. I asked you if you were done, and you said yes, it was finished.
In my dreams the streetlights all went off as we walked past them, but I could still see perfectly clearly to the corner. There was heat and light pouring out of you like a lantern, shining down the sidewalk in front of us, filling the intersection with amazing white light. When I reached for your hand you let me keep it there and smiled. You kissed me one more time.
In my dreams I always knew that meant that I was about to wake up. The light spilling out of your face and eyes and skin blazed up higher, and you said you had to go.
You said it had to be this way.
You said you were a goddess of fire.

Life went on. It always did, and that summer was no exception. — Joe Schreiber

In Holman Hunt's painting, "The Light of the World, "Christ is shown in a garden at midnight, holding a lantern in His left hand. With His right hand He is knocking on a heavily paneled door. When the painting was unveiled, a critic remarked to the painter, "Mr. Hunt, the work is unfinished. There is no handle on the door." "That," Hunt answered, "is the door to the human heart. It can be opened only from the inside." — James Keller