As The Night Quotes & Sayings

Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly! There's naught in this life sweet But only melancholy; O sweetest melancholy! — John Fletcher

I want the honest truth about something. Could you really fight with someone who did as much damage to you as my father has done to me? (Urian)
I subjected myself to the goddess who drugged me to the point I couldn't protect my sister and nephew the night they were brutally slaughtered, and they were the only two people in the universe who'd ever given two shits about me. Later that same day, she stood back and let her twin brother butcher me on the floor like an animal, yet within hours after that I sold myself to her to protect mankind. For the sake of the Dark-Hunters, I subjected myself to her cruel whims for eleven thousand years. So, yeah, Urian, I think I could manage to suck it up for an hour to protect the rest of the world. (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

She is my mate. And my spy,' I said too quietly. 'And she is the High Lady of the Night Court.'
'What?' Mor whsipered.
I caressed a mental finger down that bond now hidden deep, deep within us, and said, 'If they had removed her other glove, they would have seen a second tatoo on her right arm. The twin to the other. Inked last night, when we crept out, found a priestess, and I swore her in as my High Lady.' ( ... ) 'Not consort, not wife. Feyre is High Lady of the Night Court.' My equal in every way; she would wear my crown, sit on a throne beside mine. Never sidelined, never designated to breeding and parties and child rearing. My queen. — Sarah J. Maas

From his soft fur, golden and brown, Goes out so sweet a scent, one night I might have been embalmed in it By giving him one little pet. He is my household's guardian soul; He judges, he presides, inspires All matters in his royal realm; Might he be fairy? or a god? When my eyes, to this cat I love Drawn as by a magnet's force, Turn tamely back upon that appeal, And when I look within myself, I notice with astonishment The fire of his opal eyes, Clear beacons glowing, living jewels, Taking my measure, steadily. — Charles Baudelaire

It always starts out that way," Kanin said, and his voice was distant, as if remembering. "Noble intentions, honor among new vampires. Vows to not harm humans, to take only what is needed, to not hunt them like sheep through the night. — Julie Kagawa

It is a good rule never to see or talk to the man whose words have wrung your heart, or helped it, just as it is wise not to look down too closely at the luminous glow which sometimes shines on your path on a summer night, if you would not see the ugly worm below. — Rebecca Harding Davis

Night, the astonishing, the stranger to all that is human, over the mountain-tops mournful and gleaming draws on. It was as though I stood at the topmost point of the earth, where the glittering winter sky is forever unchanging; as though the heath were rigid with frost, and adders, vipers and lizards of transparent ice lay slumbering in their hollows in the — W.G. Sebald

As he lifted his head, he saw himself in the crude metal sheets that were supposed to be mirrors. Even though the reflection was dull, he noted his ugliness and thought of Throe just now. In spite of the fact that the soldier had been out fighting all night, his handsome visage had appeared fresh as a daisy, his well-bred looks overshadowing the reality that he had slayer blood on his clothes and had been scraped and bruised.
Xcor, however, could have taken rest for two weeks straight, eaten a large meal, and fed from a fucking Chosen, and he would still appear as repulsive. — J.R. Ward

they kept moving all night, stopping only occasionally to scoop some water from a stream or listen to see if anyone was following them or near them at all. As dawn came, Jacob was exhausted. But the two men did not stop moving. They were not running now. They were walking, but Avi set a brisk and steady pace. Jacob wanted to stop. He wanted to ask Avi if they could rest, even for a little while. But he had been told not to say a word, and Jacob knew their very lives depended on his obeying. At least the pain in his feet and in his belly from lack of food and the fatigue permeating every fiber of his being kept his mind off the fact that he would never see his parents or his sister again. — Joel C. Rosenberg

It's hard to put it in perspective right now. I'm starting to feel a little emotional about what's going to happen Friday night. Getting your number put in the rafters is always something that as a kid ... you dream of seeing happen to you. — Scottie Pippen

She longs for tonight, she longs to skip the day that's just begun and plunge headlong into the night as if into a pool; a pool with the moon reflected in it. She longs to swim in liquid moonlight. — Margaret Atwood

Gradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent, blood-stained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves there with terrible distinctness. He winced at the memory of all that he had suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for Basil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came back to him, and he grew cold with passion. The dead man was still sitting there, too, and in the sunlight now. How horrible that was! Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day. — Oscar Wilde

One name always stands out when it comes to actors taking on the monsters of our nightmares - Robert Englund. In the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' series, Englund kept us awake as night with a striped shirt and his special glove. — Rob Manuel

And in my night confusion it is as if I can hear the leaves being gnawed, the forest being eaten alive, shred by shred. I cannot bear it. They are not mild, these moths. Their appetites are blindingly voracious, obsessive. An acquaintance has told me that the Navahos refer to someone with an emotional illness as "moth crazy. — Charles Baxter

Holl?" Seth turned over. "Where you going?"
"Home. Sorry. Go back to sleep." I pulled on my sweatpants.
"But we have all night." He pushed to his elbows.
"I know. I can't." My voice sounded hoarse, hollow. "I don't feel good. I'm sorry." I lurched for the door. I needed to get out, get away. As far away from here as possible. She was in me, in my blood, invading every cell in my body. She was the one I wanted. She was the one I saw, felt, desired. This was wrong. He was wrong. It was all so wrong. (Chapter. 12) — Julie Anne Peters

We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, — Anonymous

And Lublamai no longer thought of screaming but only of watching as those dark markings rolled and boiled in perfect symetry across the wings like clouds in a night sky above, in water below. — China Mieville

There is a holy story that tells of a man who was fulfilled by sowing his enemy's field one night. Bjartur's story is the story of a man who sowed his enemy's field all his life, day and night. Such is the story of the most independent man in the country. Moors; more moors. From the ravine there came an eerie echoing rumble as the headstone crashed its way down, and the bitch sprang to the brink, barking wildly. — Halldor Laxness

I knew I was in love with Lorri when I started to wake up in the middle of the night furious and cursing her for making me feel the way she did. It was pain beyond belief. Nothing has ever hurt me that way. I tried to sleep as much as possible just to escape. I was grinding my teeth down to nubs. Now, years later, it's exactly the opposite. Now there is no pain, yet she still makes my heart explode. Now there is only fun and love and silliness. She drives me to frenzy, because I can never get enough. — Damien Echols

But the night doesn't swallow her up.
Everywhere she goes she is still there;
the silence is as big as herself. — Adrienne Su

With the DVR, I was mostly writing about it as a good thing in giving us the choice of when and how to watch things. But there's what we lose in the bargain, which is the collective spectacle. 'Did you see Jay Leno last night?' — Douglas Rushkoff

I could almost believe that a love as passionate as theirs had been would enable them to reach across the abyss between life and death and join hands for some precious moments every night. — V.C. Andrews

There's no such thing as 'not enough time' out here in the woods. I don't even have a watch. Time is my own, categorised as nothing more than 'morning, afternoon, evening and night'. — Fennel Hudson

When we pillow our heads at night, we need to have things that give us peace. Many such things are available, but one of the best is the simple peace of knowing that we've done things that day that were not easy for us to do. If we can see ourselves as people who are learning little by little to master the hard parts of life, we will live with a greater confidence and be able to serve those around us more helpfully. The ancient adage is true which tells us, A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. — Gary Henry

I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now. I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden. These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past. — Ishmael Beah

So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself-so like a brother, really-I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. — Albert Camus

He knew that his wings could ignite at any moment, but the closer he came to touching the fire, the more he sensed that he was fulfilling his destiny. As he put it in his journal that night: If I mean to save my life, then I have to come within an inch of destroying it. — Paul Auster

Advice to explorers everywhere: if you would like to recieve due credit for your discoveries, keep a detailed account of your journeys as Columbus did. On Septemeber 28, 1492, after four weeks at sea, he writes: Dear diary ... I means journal. Yes, dear journal. That's what I meant to say. Whew. Anyway, we have yet to discover America, and the crew has become increasingly rebellious. I have decided to turn back if we have not spotted it by Columbus Day. Will write again later if not killed by crew. P.S. Last night's buffet was fabulous, the ice sculptures magnificent. — Cuthbert Soup

As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are the exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you can't see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but you can't see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I never heard of anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does not mean that they are black, for night has its colours just as day has, but ever so much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ours with a light behind them. The palace is entirely built of many-coloured glasses, and is quite the loveliest of all royal residences, — J.M. Barrie

He bowed in a courtly way as he replied: I am Dracula. and I bid you welcome, Mr Harker, to my house. Come in; the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest. — Bram Stoker

He raised a hand in response and tossed the ear of corn into the wagon. Then he
returned to his fantasy, imagining himself running the livery instead of working there, making the decisions, placing orders, selecting new horses, agreeing to board others, and
hiring a boy to muck out the stalls and pitch hay.
In his daydream, he no longer lived in the back room. He came home at night to a small house he'd bought with his earnings. Inside, a woman waited for him. A wife. In his fantasy her hair was as golden as the ear of corn he tossed into the wagon and her
eyes as blue as the cloudless sky overhead. Catherine smiled at him and he could hear as well as see her say his name. "Jim! Welcome home. — Bonnie Dee

I was never young. This idea of fun: cars, girls, saturday night, bottle of wine ... to me, these things are morbid. I was always attracted to people with the same problems as me. It doesn't help when most of them are dead. — Morrissey

The differences were plain enough, and yet I saw that they were as nothing compared with what we had in common. As I lay in bed at night, the sky outside my window reflecting the city's dim glow, I thought about Abuelita's fierce loyalty to blood. But what really binds people as family? The way they shore themselves up with stories; the way siblings can feud bitterly but still come through for each other; how an untimely death, a child gone before a parent, shakes the very foundations; how the weaker ones, the ones with invisible wounds, are sheltered; how a constant din is medicine against loneliness; and how celebrating the same occasions year after year steels us to the changes they herald. And always food at the center of it all. — Sonia Sotomayor

in a keen frost, I would feel the satisfaction of being shut in from the outer world (like the sea-swallow which builds at the end of a dark tunnel and is kept warm by the surrounding earth), and where, the fire keeping in all night, I would sleep wrapped up, as it were, in a great cloak of snug and savoury air, — Marcel Proust

Memory retains some things and discards others. I remember every detail of some scenes from my childhood and adolescence, by no means the most important ones. I remember some people and have totally forgotten others. Memory is like the headlights of a car at night, which fall now on a tree, now on a hut, now on a man. People (usually writers) who tell the story of their lives as a continuous and detailed whole generally fill in the gaps with conjecture; it is hard to tell where genuine reminiscence ends and the novel begins. — Ilya Ehrenburg

It was down in Jake's old barroom Behind the Patsies' park; Jake was settin' 'em up as usual And the night was agittin' dark. At the bar stood ole Verne Mackenzie, And his eyes was bloodshot red — Robert Coover

The terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever. This is what comes of a Protestant morality, that I, as a (thank God) typical Spaniard, found unnerving. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Three days a week she helped at the Manor Nursing Home, where people proved their keenness by reciting received analyses of current events. All the Manor residents watched television day and night, informed to the eyeballs like everyone else and rushed for time, toward what end no one asked. Their cupidity and self-love were no worse than anyone else's, but their many experiences' having taught them so little irked Lou. One hated tourists, another southerners; another despised immigrants. Even dying, they still held themselves in highest regard. Lou would have to watch herself. For this way of thinking began to look like human nature
as if each person of two or three billion would spend his last vital drop to sustain his self-importance. — Annie Dillard

What is that thing? Vampires. Or, as it was spelled at the time, vampyres. Yes, we know: It is difficult to accept, a strain to wrap your head around. Go and take the time to do so. Watch some television programs, or read some books in which vampyres are heroic and charming and sparkle in the daylight, and then return here and brace yourself for a return to a time that vampyres were things that went bump in the night. — Peter David

He knew that he was very near achieving the General Temporal Theory that the Ioti wanted so badly for their spaceflight and their prestige. He knew also that he had not achieved it and might never do so. He had never admitted either fact clearly to anyone. Before he left Anarres, he had thought the thing was in his grasp.
...
He wasn't quite sure he was ready to publish. There was something not quite right, something that needed a little refining. As he had been working ten years on the theory, it wouldn't hurt to take a little longer, to get it polished perfectly smooth. The little something not quite right kept looking wronger. A little flaw in the reasoning. A big flaw. A crack right through the foundations...The night before he left Anarres he had burned every paper he had on the General Theory. He had come to Urras with nothing. For half a year he had, in their terms, been bluffing them.

Or had he been bluffing himself? — Ursula K. Le Guin

Where were the stars now, whose progress his mother had followed so religiously? Where was the God that she sometimes turned to in her weakest moments? He remembered gazing at the sky in wonder as a child. That was where they told him the dead went. They became stars in the night sky, an insurmountable distance away. — Shitij Sharma

If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us much as the objects we see every day. And if a common workman were sure to dream every night for twelve hours that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was a common workman. — Blaise Pascal

In the struggle to remain a complete person and to love from her fullness instead of her inadequacy a woman may appear hard. She may feel her early conditioning tugging her in the direction of surrender, but she ought to remember that she was originally loved for herself; she ought to hang on to herself and not find herself nagging, helpless, irritable and trapped. Perhaps I am not old enough yet to promise that the self-reliant woman is always loved, but she cannot be lonely as long as there are people in the world who need her joy and her strength, but certainly in my experience it has always been so. Lovers who are free to go when they are restless always come back; lovers who are free to change remain interesting. The bitter animosity and obscenity of divorce is unknown where individuals have not become Siamese twins. A lover who comes to your bed of his own accord is more likely to sleep with his arms around you all night than a lover who has nowhere else to sleep. — Germaine Greer

Psalm 63 A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. 1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. — Beth Moore

The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. The difference between lie and lay. Lay is always passive. — Margaret Atwood

The trouble is, you cannot grow just one zucchini. Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchini will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden, menacing the other vegetables. At night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt. — Dave Barry

A witch there was, who webs could weave
to snare the heart and wits to reave,
who span dark spells with spider-craft,
and as she span she softly laughed;
a drink she brewed of strength and dread
to bind the quick and stir the dead.
In a cave she housed where winging bats
their harbour sought, and owls and cats
from hunting came with mournful cries,
night-stalking near with needle eyes. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both. We are destined to be a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a Colossus shall we be when the Southern continent comes up to our mark! What a stand will it secure as a ralliance for the reason & freedom of the globe! I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. So good night. I will dream on, always fancying that Mrs Adams and yourself are by my side marking the progress and the obliquities of ages and countries. — Thomas Jefferson

In the interests of friendship, I hope you'll forgive me what I'm about to do."
"Forgive you wha - "
My sentence was cut off as he clamped his mouth over mine, kissing me deeply.

...

"Ready to make a scene?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Do I have a choice?"
"Not really. To quote something someone said to me recently, in the interests of friendship, I hope you'll forgive what I'm about to do." I drew back my hand and slapped him across the face. The smack of flesh striking flesh echoed through the hall. Conversations stopped as people whipped around to stare at us. Raising my voice to something just below a shout, I snarled, "You asshole! — Seanan McGuire

It's weird, maybe, that I love your scar as much as I do."
I have to remind myself to breathe.
"You thought it was the first thing I noticed, but it wasn't. I didn't even pay attention to it until the middle of the night, when you finally lay down on the bed and I kissed from your toe to your hip. Maybe you hate it, but I don't. You earned it. I'm in awe of you. — Christina Lauren

It is true that the heart has its seasons, just as a flower opens to the sunlight and closes to the night. We need to be respectful of those rhythms. But we can't close down for long. It is our true nature to have an open heart. — Jack Kornfield

He paused at the bedroom door, shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and walked right out like it was any other morning, and he and Jack would be having breakfast as if they hadn't had sex the night before.
"Morning," he said, casting a quick glance over his shoulder.
"Mmm," D grunted.
"You done in the bathroom?"
D blinked. No, I jus' took a little breather in the middle a my mornin' beauty ritual ta come out here 'n' chat with ya. A course I'm done. — Jane Seville

Under the desert sun, in the dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime. — Edward Abbey

Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

sweetness on the tongue and a promise of scent on the night air. It was sensual in the best meaning of that word, saturating every sense at once, so that the flesh was known, finally, as a thing of such goodness that man blessed his Creator from morning to night for having made him. Here in this medieval town where once an extraordinary little fellow had burst forth with songs to God, as a passionate lover speaks to his bride, here the restoration of man to his own true home was no longer the dream of saints. It was the wedding feast. It was a word made flesh. — Michael D. O'Brien

Honestly, you're as bad as Firestar," Cloudtail went on. "When he slept in here he was always muttering and twitching in his sleep. A cat couldn't get a good night's rest for all the prey in the forest. — Erin Hunter

...he could feel hot tears coming to his eyes as the image of that night, outside the house as the November wind blew black leaves up off the ground and the sky turned colors like bruised flesh. — David Nickle

The house seemed so different at night. Everything was in its correct place, of course, but somehow the furniture seemed more angular and the pictures on the wall more one-dimensional. She remembered somebody saying that at night we are all strangers, even to ourselves, and this struck her as being true. — Alexander McCall Smith

Why did you do this?" He was shaking. "Just tell me why."
I tried to muster up some of the righteous indignation that I'd felt on Friday night as I said, "You knocked over my gravestone!" But even to my ears the words sounded tinny and pathetic.
Dan's face was pale. "It was just a gravestone, Chelsea. And it was a mistake. I told you that already, and I meant it. I've never lied to you. My God, can't you tell the difference between a gravestone and a person you love? Can't you tel which one matters?"
But if I had to point to the real problem in my life, it's that I've never known the difference between a gravestone and a person I love. I have never known which is which until it's too late.
"All's fair in love and war," I reminded him, aiming for Tawny's tone. But my voice came out sounding just like me.
"Oh, yeah? And which is this?" he asked. "Love or war? — Leila Sales

You, who only know love when in love, do not ask what it is, nor do you look for it. But when a woman once asked you if you were in love with love itself, you were evasive and escaped by answering: I love you. She persisted: Do you not love love? You said: I love you, because of you. She left you, because you could not be trusted with her absence. Love is not an idea. It is an emotion that can cool down or heat up. It comes and goes. It is an embodied feeling and has five, or more, senses. Sometimes it appears as an angel with delicate wings that can uproot us from the earth. Sometimes it charges at us like a bull, hurls us to the ground, and walks away. At other times it is a storm we only recognize in its devastating aftermath. Sometimes it falls upon us like the night dew when a magical hand milks a wandering cloud. — Mahmoud Darwish

My grandfather ran off the V-2 rocket film a dozen times and then hoped that someday our cities would open up more and let the green and the land and the wilderness in more, to remind people that we're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, someday it will come in and get us for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be. You see? — Ray Bradbury

I hate to say anything that may hurt UCLA, but I can't be quiet when I see what the NCAA is doing to Jerry Tarkanian only because he has a reputation for giving a second chance to many black athletes other coaches have branded as troublemakers. The NCAA is working night and day trying to get Jerry, but no one from the NCAA ever questioned me during my four years at UCLA! — Bill Walton

Sylvia Day delivers readers to a fantasy world as unique as it is erotic! Ms. Day is an up-and-coming talent in the world of erotic fiction. [on Pleasures of the Night ] — Toni Blake

As loud as they were , they need to go home now and start soaking up a lot of tea, drinking a lot of tea for the next 36 hours, whatever the case may be, 'cause they need to be just as loud Thursday night. We need you guys to get those voices right. But they're gonna be unbelievable Thursday night as well. Those guys, everyone, they're amazing. — LeBron James

Either birds or bats flapped up and into the night as the gates rolled back into position. My money was on bats. Little blingy ones, carrying tiny Louis Vuitton clutches. — Cherie Priest

There is no night porter wandering about in King's. The authorities pay you the compliment, ugly gate-crasher, of treating you as a grown-up. And since we are not grown-up you and I, we will perform our midnight frolics as the inmates burn the midnight oil. — Whipplesnaith

September is a sweep of dusky, purple asters, a sumac branch swinging a fringe of scarlet leaves, and the bittersweet scene of wild grapes when I walk down the lane to the mailbox. September is a golden month of mellow sunlight and still clear days ... Small creatures in the grass, as if realizing their days are numbered, cram the night air with sound. Everywhere goldenrod is full out. — Jean Hersey

I suddenly see the world
as no longer viable:
you are out there burning the crops
with some new sublimate
This morning you left the bed
we still share
and went out to spread impotence
upon the world

I hate you.
I hate the mask you wear, your eyes
assuming a depth
they do not possess, drawing me
into the grotto of your skull
the landscape of bone
I hate your words
they make you think of fake
revolutionary bills
crisp imitation parchment
they sell at battlefields.

Last night, in this room, weeping
I asked you: what are you feeling?
do you feel anything?
Now in the torsion of your body
as you defoliate the fields we lived from
I have your answer. — Adrienne Rich

The sky puts on the darkening blue coat held for it by a row of ancient trees; you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight, one journeying to heaven, one that falls; and leave you, not at home in either one, not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses, not calling to eternity with the passion of what becomes a star each night, and rises; and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel) your life, with its immensity and fear, so that, now bounded, now immeasurable, it is alternately stone in you and star. — Rainer Maria Rilke

In the expectant quiet, there were only the usual sounds of the night. Wind in the big trees out past the school wall, starting to rise as the sky darkened, Crickets beginning to chirp. Then Sabriel heard it
the massed grinding of Dead joints, no longer joined by gristle; the padding of Dead feet, bones like hobnails clicking through necrotic flesh. — Garth Nix

The winters were getting colder, starting earlier, lasting longer, with more snows than he could remember from childhood. As soon as man stopped adding his megatons of filth to the atmosphere each day, he thought, the atmosphere had reverted to what it must have been long ago, moister weather summer and winter, more stars than he had ever seen before, and more, it seemed, each night than the night before: the sky a clear, endless blue by day, velvet blue-black at night with blazing stars that modern man had never seen. — Kate Wilhelm

She had never heard the word 'intellectual' used as a noun before she went to Barnard, and she took it to heart. It was a brave noun, a proud noun, a noun suggesting lifelong dedication to lofty things and a cool disdain for the commonplace. An intellectual might lose her virginity to a soldier in the park, but she could learn to look back on it with wry, amused detachment. An intellectual might have a mother who showed her underpants when drunk, but she wouldn't let it bother her. And Emily Grimes might not be an intellectual yet, but if she took copious notes in even the dullest of her classes, and if she read every night until her eyes ached, it was only a question of time. — Richard Yates

It seemed my whole life was composed of these disjointed fractions of time, hanging around in one public place and then another, as if I were waiting for trains that never came. And, like one of those ghosts who are said to linger around depots late at night, asking passersby for the timetable of the Midnight Express that derailed twenty years before, I wandered from light to light until that dreaded hour when all the doors closed and, stepping from the world of warmth and people and conversation overhead, I felt the old familiar cold twist through my bones again and then it was all forgotten, the warmth, the lights; I had never been warm in the life, ever. — Donna Tartt

Charlie watched with Dondee, as the green ball grew very small, slowly disappearing from view. Then it was gone in the blackness of the space sea--almost invisible now. Turning his gaze out, into the far-flung bastions of eternal night, Charlie looked through the Timeless Sea, unmarred by dimming atmosphere. — Atlantis Hallam

Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. — Herman Melville

In 1960, in Blackburn v. Alabama, the Court said, "Coercion can be mental as well as physical." In reviewing whether a confession was psychologically coerced by the police, the following factors are crucial: (1) the length of the interrogation, (2) whether it was prolonged in nature, (3) when it took place, day or night, with a strong suspicion around nighttime confessions, and (4) the psychological makeup - intelligence, sophistication, education, and so on - of the suspect. — John Grisham

The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the treas and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. — F Scott Fitzgerald

It happened again this afternoon. Just the way it did that other night. We were talking
talking about how to protect her, actually
and then, suddenly, I looked at her and it was as if I'd found an entire universe in her eyes. — Cate Tiernan

As a kid, I would get my parents to drop me off at my local library on their way to work during the summer holidays, and I would walk home at night. For several years, I read the children's library until I finished the children's library. Then I moved into the adult library and slowly worked my way through them. — Neil Gaiman

Now, I came to everyone else's rescue. Screw the knights in shining armor. This beauty of the night came to your rescue with pointed fangs and skintight leather then, as a thank-you, sucked your blood in payment. — Eve Langlais

John Cassavetes was there at night while I was working. After they [with his friends] discussed as much live TV as they felt they needed to, they started improvising scenes just for the fun of it and one of those scenes everybody got very interested in and it turned into Shadows [1959]. That movie was entirely improvised. — Gena Rowlands

In the Jewish religion it says - in the time of deepest darkest night act as if the morning has already come — Marianne Williamson

We can draw no deadlines for God. He hastens or He delays as he sees fit. And his timing is all-loving toward his children. On, that we might learn to be patient in the hour of darkness. I don't mean that we make peace with darkness. We fight for joy. But we fight as those who are saved by grace and held by Christ. We say ... that our night will soon- in God's good timing- turn to day. — John Piper

And night came, as every night will come, until the last one, which will be too vast. — Henri Barbusse

All the way back she talked haltingly about herself, and Amory's love waned slowly with the moon. At her door they started from habit to kiss good night, but she could not run into his arms, nor were they stretched to meet her as in the week before. For a minute they stood there, hating each other with a bitter sadness. But as Amory had loved himself in Eleanor, so now what he hated was only a mirror. Their poses were strewn about the pale dawn like broken glass. The stars were long gone and there were left only the little sighing gusts of wind and the silences between ... but naked souls are poor things ever, and soon he turned homewards and let new lights come in with the sun. — F Scott Fitzgerald

When you're starting out as an actor, you keep raising the stakes. First, you just want to be a character who comes on stage and gets a laugh or two and exits. Just five minutes on a stage, not even Broadway. But every time you say your little prayer at night, you place more demands. — Charles Kimbrough

I hear it still. As I lay down my pen and take to my bed, I am aware of the bow being drawn across the bridge and the music rises into the night sky. It is far away and barely audible - but there it is! A pizzicato. Then a tremelo. The style is unmistakable. It is Sherlock Holmes who is playing. It must be. I hope with all my heart that he is playing for me ... — Anthony Horowitz

It's this time of year when Kit mist rise in the dark, as if we're a farmer or a fisherman, someone whose livelihood depends on beating the dawn, convincing himself that what looks like night is actually morning. — Julia Glass

I was the only "girl writer," probably because the power to make people laugh is also a power, so women have been kept out of comedy. Polls show that what women fear most from men is violence, and what men fear most from women is ridicule. Later, when Tina Fey was head writer and star of Saturday Night Live, she could still say, "Only in comedy does an obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity. — Gloria Steinem

Here it is, the end of the world; and here I am, almost the very last man; and there it is, the highest mountain in sight. I know now what my karass has been up to, Newt. It's been working night and day for maybe half a million years to get me up that mountain." I wagged my head and nearly wept. "But what, for the love of God, is supposed to be in my hands?" I looked out of the car window blindly as — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Always, sailing up from the south, from beyond the bend in the river, were clumps of water hyacinths, dark floating islands on the dark river, bobbing over the rapids. It was as if rain and river were tearing away bush from the heart of the continent and floating it down to the ocean, incalculable miles away. But the water hyacinth was the fruit of the river alone. The tall lilaccoloured flower had appeared only a few years before, and in the local language there was no word for it. The people still called it "the new thing" or "the new thing in the river," and to them it was another enemy. Its rubbery vines and leaves formed thick tangles of vegetation that adhered to the river banks and clogged up waterways. It grew fast, faster than men could destroy it with the tools they had. The channels to the villages had to be constantly cleared. Night and day the water hyacinth floated up from the south, seeding itself as it travelled. I — V.S. Naipaul

While we were being bombed in Dresden sitting in a cellar with our arms over our heads in case the ceiling fell, one soldier said as though he were a duchess in a mansion on a cold and rainy night, 'I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight.' Nobody laughed, but we were still all glad he said it. At least we were still alive! He proved it. — Kurt Vonnegut

She knew how to hit to a hair's breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute mental liberty ... At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part of her own story. Rather they became a part of it; for the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed, they were. The midnight airs and gusts, moaning amongst the tightly wrapped buds and bark of the winter twigs, were formulae of bitter reproach. A wet day was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely as the God of her childhood, and could not comprehend as any other. — Thomas Hardy

Week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night-cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of others. Sometimes blazing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats; sometimes lying in bed because their coats had gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen was in pawn; sometimes drinking Champagne and Tokay with Betty Careless; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-house in Porridge island, to snuff up the scent of what they could not afford to taste; they knew luxury; they knew beggary; but they never knew comfort. These men were irreclaimable. They looked on a regular and frugal life with the same aversion which an old gipsy or a Mohawk hunter feels for a stationary abode, and for the restraints and securities of civilised communities. They were as untameable, as much wedded to their desolate freedom, as the wild ass. — Samuel Johnson

Innumerable as the stars of night, Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower. — John Milton

I don't know if I've come of age, but I'm certainly older now. I feel shrunken, as if there's a tiny ancient Oliver Tate inside me operating the levers of a life-size Oliver-shaped shell. A shell on which a decrepit picture show replays the same handful of images. Every night I come to the same place and wait till the sky catches up with my mood. The pattern is set. This is, no doubt, the end. — Joe Dunthorne

Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her mark upon it. Whatever truth the story once had is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself. — Erin Morgenstern

Back then, I didn't understand that what was happening in my house was not happening in everyone's house at night, when the doors were shut and the blinds were drawn. It took me just as long to sort out my physical self - how to dress in a way that flattered my shape, how to do my hair and makeup (or pay professionals to do it), how to be in a body, in the world. It took time before I could take all that pain and use it; transform all that loneliness and isolation and shame into stories. — Jennifer Weiner

At certain epochs, man has felt conscious of something about himself - body and spirit - which was outside the day-to-day struggle for existence and the night-to-night struggle with fear; and he has felt the need to develop these qualities of thought and feeling so that they might approach as nearly as possible to an ideal of perfection - reason, justice, physical beauty, all of them in equilibrium. He has managed to satisfy this need in various ways - through myths, through dance and song, through systems of philosophy and through the order that he has imposed upon the visible world. — Kenneth Clark

The wind howled in defiance as viscous clouds suffocated the moon, taking the night as their own. — J.D. Barker