Back Glass Quotes & Sayings

Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It's like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it's hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you've gained all the experiences it had. — Andy Weir

God, and not woman, is the heart of all. But she, as priestess of the visible earth, Holding the key, herself most beautiful, Had come to him, and flung the portals wide. He entered in: each beauty was a glass That gleamed the woman back upon his view. — George MacDonald

Whiskey, glass, pour, toss back, glare. Repeat. "Cop out," I slurred in retaliation, pointing the empty glass at Peter.
"Don't get drunk. Fuck. I need you sober," he yelled, snatching the glass out of my hand.
"There's the problem right there. You need me sober. You need my help. You need something from me." I laughed, tossing the bottle on the sofa, ignoring the glug glug glug as it emptied over my cushions. "And I just need you."
"Need me to what?" He asked with a huff, tipping the bottle right-side up.
"Nothing. I just need you," I whispered and flopped into a nearby recliner. — Dani Alexander

What can I do for you, Arbitrator?" I asked.
"George, please. There is no hot water in my bathroom."
"Oh really?" You don't say.
"Yes. In fact, it's ice-cold." He raised a half-filled glass. Thin slivers of ice floated on its surface. "I drew this from the tap in my sink."
"How unfortunate. When did this happen?"
"About two minutes ago."
"While you were in the shower?"
"Yes."
"My apologies. I'll get right on that."
George squinted at me, his face thoughtful, and waved the call off.
Sophie leaned back and laughed. "You really love those trees. — Ilona Andrews

It's a difficult thing having a heart made of glass; people don't seem to realize how easily it shatters. How often I've swept up the pieces and carefully glued them back together. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Claire stretched out against the wall and kissed it. "Glad to see you, too," she whispered, and pressed her cheek against the smooth surface. It almost felt like it hugged her back.
"Dude, it's a house," Shane said from behind her. "Hug somebody who cares. — Rachel Caine

As Indian women, we are always balancing work, life, home, etc. It's important to know that while juggling rubber balls and glass balls, the former may bounce back when you miss, but the glass balls will crack if you let them fall. So prioritise, prioritise, prioritise. — Nita Ambani

Outside the window of the balcony room, three
metal guys were building a new patio for the
defunct pool. The pool was slowly filling with
red dust carried across the highway by intermittent
breezes. At some point I stood up from the table
and pulled back the curtain a bit and watched the
half naked bodies of the guys climbing in and out
of their trucks for tools or to turn up the volume
of the music. I felt like a detective with only the window
glass and the curtains camouflaging my desire. For a
moment I was afraid the intensity of my sexual fantasies
would become strangely audible; the energy of
the thought images would become so loud that
all three guys would turn simultaneously like
witnesses to a nearby car crash. — David Wojnarowicz

And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand.
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tattered clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.
None does offend - none, I say, none. I'll able 'em.
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal th' accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes,
And like a scurvy politician seem
To see the things thou dost not. — William Shakespeare

I am almost ashamed to answer,' she said. 'As I have said before, Emily
Fox-Seton has become the lodestar of my existence. I cannot live without
her. She has walked over to Maundell to make sure that we do not have a
dinner-party without fish to-night.'
'She has _walked_ over to Maundell,' said Lord Walderhurst
'after
yesterday?'
'There was not a pair of wheels left in the stable,' answered Lady
Maria. 'It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and
she said she was not too tired to do it. It is the kind of thing she
ought to be given the Victoria Cross for
saving one from a dinner-party
without fish.'
The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the
glass rigidly in his eye.
'It is not only four miles to Maundell,' he remarked, staring at the
table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, 'but it is four miles back. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Had passed from its surface and this earth's together. Haunted in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have been, if the glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace for which it had been reserved, may have struck the prisoner's mind. Be that as it may, a change in his position — Charles Dickens

For reasons that were never made clear, I blew out my back windows with five blasts of a 12-gauge shotgun, followed moments later by six rounds from a .44 Magnum. It was a prolonged outburst of heavy firing, drunken laughter and crashing glass. Yet the neighbors reacted with total silence. — Hunter S. Thompson

I sat down and looked at the menu and thought how ironic it was that back then starving artists came to cafes like these because they lived on wine and street pigeons to survive, and now the same cafes are famous because of them and no starving artist can afford to eat there. It's hard to have an existential crisis when a glass of wine costs more than nine dollars. — Josefina Lopez

There is so much in this store I can picture Magnus wanting," Simon said, picking up a glass bottle of body glitter suspended in some kind of oil.
"Is it against some kind of rule to buy presents for someone who broke up with your friend?"
"I guess it depends.
Is Magnus your closer friend, or Alec?"
"Alec remembers my name," said Simon, and he set the bottle back down. — Cassandra Clare

The choke?" I exclaim, perplexed.
Next to me, Cal tries his best to be civil. His best isn't very good.
"Idiocy," he snaps. "The Choke has more Silvers than you know, each one instructed to arrest or kill you on sight. If you're lucky, they'll take you back to prison. — Victoria Aveyard

When I got him out he was near froze solid and shivering. He was shaking so hard that I wasted half a glass of whiskey trying to aim it for his mouth. Must have got enough of it into him, though, since it did seem to bring him back to life. — Abraham Lincoln

Solange leaned back against the wall, bored. "Are you done yet?"
"Hell no," Lucy said. She'd left nose prints on the glass. Nicholas smirked up at her. She blushed. "Ooops. Busted."
"I told you they could hear your heartbeat," Solange said.
"Even from up here."
"I can't help it. Even if they all know they're pretty and are insufferably arrogant," she added louder. "Can they hear that?"
"Yes."
"Good." She glanced at me. "Yummy, right?"
"I'm sure Isabeau would rather recover, not ogle my brothers,"
Solange said. "You remember how stressed you were after the Hypnos?"
"Please," Lucy scoffed. "This is totally soothing. — Alyxandra Harvey

And she looked upon the mirror that was given as a gift. She hated everything about it, from the circular size of it, to the color, and the wooden frame that held it in place. But mostly, she hated looking at herself. Especially into this one that had a scratch on its glass surface, which would reflect back to her face. And as she looked, it would cut her as the words her father would often say, in telling her she was ugly. — Anthony Liccione

Visitors say, 'Real shrunken heads! Wow! How were they made? By slitting the skin, taking out the skull and brains and steaming them with hot sand? Gross!' But what no one asks is: how did they get here? What are they doing hanging up in a university museum in the south of England? Once you start to answer that question, you realize that shrunken heads like these are a product as much of European curiosity, European taste and European purchasing power as they are of an archaic tribal custom. It is time to turn the spotlight round and point it back at people like you and me, and at our ancestors, who were responsible for bringing hundreds of these heads into museums and people's homes and who delighted in them as much as -- if not more than -- the people who created them in the first place. After all, it is not the Shuar who are pressing their noses to the glass of an exhibition case in an Oxford University museum. — Frances Larson

Who's that man you were talking to?"

"Oh, that's Norwood. He was checking you in for your first shift. I'll introduce you tomorrow."

She made a face. "No rush."

"I mean, you were scheduled to have a brief orientation with him today, but you know, you needed your beauty sleep, so we don't have time. Are you aware, Lex, that sloth is a deadly sin?"

She made a face at him, then glanced back at the hallway. She thought she could make out a bustle of activity behind the array of frosted glass tiles that lined its right-hand wall, but Uncle Mort ushered her out the front door too quickly for her to get a closer look.

"Wait, we're done here?"

"Well, I was going to show you around upstairs as well, but - "

"No time. Sloth. I get it."

"Deadly sin. — Gina Damico

I put my head against the cold glass of the mirror, fighting the sudden terror that threatened to knock us back to the floor. The trick was to keep breathing, to keep moving. Nothing else mattered. Run long and hard enough, and perhaps while you're running you might actually come up with a plan. But nothing mattered if you were already dead. — Kate Griffin

I would start with four fingers of Jack in a thick mug, with a sweating Budweiser back, and by midnight I would be alone at the end of the bar, armed, drunk, and hunched over my glass, morally and psychologically insane. — James Lee Burke

Intense sunlight rained down on a half-submerged city. Waves crashed between buildings that stood like waterlogged tombstones. Skyscrapers of smashed glass and twisted rusting metal jutted from the churning swell as islands of broken dreams. A familiar tower with a familiar clock face ... Big Ben. London stared back at Blue. What was left of it. A sea-drowned cemetery for a time and a place long dead. — Kev Heritage

The big rippled sheets of glass were taken out of their sacking and lowered from the back of the wagon, and for a few giddy moments a troupe of rubbery dwarves and etiolated giants shimmied and shivered in those depthless caskets. of light. — John Banville

Each individual cat got up and did his thing. It wasn't like today where they come down and put down some nice linoleum so you don't get burnt up. I mean, we used to b-boy right in the middle of the park with broken glass everywhere! And you'd get up and you'd be all scratched and burised and bleeding and you would be ready to go right back in the circle. You'd just wipe the glass off your elbows and go right back in. — Jazzy Jay

Lor blows in like he was plastered to the other side of the door.
"Escort the kid to clean the fuck up and get that stench off her."
"Sure thing, boss."
He scowls at me.
I scowl right back.
Lor points through the glass floor. "See that blonde down there with the big tits? I was about to get laid."
"One, I'm too young to hear that kind of stuff, and two, I don't see you carrying a club to knock her over the head with, so how were you going to accomplish that?"
Behind me, Ryodan laughs.
"You're ruining my night, kid."
"Ditto. Ain't life at Chester's grand. — Karen Marie Moning

What I envisioned back in the 1970s was this thing you would wear as 'glass' over your right eye, and you could see the world though that glass. The glass then reconfigures the things you see. — Steve Mann

You earned him fair and square. He's not mine to take back." He rose to get himself a drink. The peaty odour of scotch flickered up and stung my nose. "I'd like one of those." He looked at me, surprised. "You'll have to go for water." I shook my head. "All right," he said. "I guess you've earned that, too." He handed me the rounded heavy glass, and we sat in silence as the sun retreated. I'd had wine and champagne, but this was different. It made me feel older. — Paula McLain

I'm in the countryside outside of Paris, in a beautiful old manor house. The studio is in the basement, but we decided to set everything up in the old parlor and dining-room area so we can look at each other and (at) the sunshine coming through the stained-glass windows. It's pretty idyllic, and I think it's spoiling me. I'll have to go back to regular life after this. — Feist

I grabbed them and walked up to the glass door. He turned around, realizing his mistake, and I held them up. He shook his fist at the sky and started walking back, but I pulled open the door and ran out. — Heather Demetrios

Cinderella was such a dork. She left behind her glass slipper at the ball and then went right back to her step-monster's house. It seems to me she should have worn the glass slipper always, to make herself easier to find. I always hoped that after the prince found Cinderella and they rode away in their magnificent carriage, after a few miles she turned to him and said, Could you drop me off down the road please? Now that I've finally escaped my life of horrific abuse, I'd like to see something of the world, you know? ... I'll catch back up with you later, Prince, once I've found my own way. — Rachel Cohn

Nora sobered and turned back to the windows, her breath fogging the glass. "We may as well lay some ground rules if we're going to be stuck here for a few days."
"Okay."
"You can keep the bed, I prefer the sofa. I don't cook. I'm not a maid, so pick up after yourself. You can eat whatever you can find in the kitchen, but I'll warn you, I don't keep much. I prefer my privacy, so you'll have to occupy yourself. Any questions?
"Only one."
She turned to face him.
"What are you hiding from? — Jennifer Lowery

I don't get it," Clarence whispered to me. "We're the only ones in the place. When are your friends supposed to get here?"
"Why, bab?" asked the cream pitcher, its top opening and closing like a tiny silver mouth. "Are you thinking about asking one of the waitresses out instead?" The chuckle that followed was a little coarser than the silvery-bell variety one usually expects from invisible spirits. Clarence let out a yelp like a dog whose tail has just found its way under a foot and was halfway to the front door before I could convince him to come back. At the other end of the long room the waitresses looked up without interest, then went back to discussing particle physics or whatever else was keeping them from bringing me a glass of water — Tad Williams

Would you have your hand back, Eugenides? And lose Attolia? And see Attolia lost to the Mede?'
Eugenides's eyes were open. In front of his face the floor was littered with tiny bits of glass that glittered in the candlelight.
'You have your answer, Little Thief. — Megan Whalen Turner

It could be yesterday
when I was less in love
I think
For I didn't see you in the mirror
behind me
while getting dressed.
The way your hands couldn't stay away
and our bodies always found their ways back to each other
as if they were meant to be together
Close.

But then it was today and I saw you
again
in the mirror
behind me while getting dressed

So I go to sleep tonight
alone
without actually falling asleep because I'm scared of the moment I will wake up
and realise it was just a dream
You're actually gone.

Now all I can do is get through to another tomorrow
hoping that I will be less in love
again
Like yesterday

But not today.
I was never really well with things at all. — Charlotte Eriksson

His wedding ring clinks against the glass as he takes another sip of wine. Now that is a sexy sound. This time he pulls my head right back, cradling me. He kisses me once more, and greedily I swallow the wine he gives me. He smiles as he kisses me again. — E.L. James

Thus we can get the correct answer for the probability of partial reflection by imagining (falsely) that all reflection comes from only the front and back surfaces. In this intuitively easy analysis, the 'front surface' and 'back surface' arrows are mathematical constructions that give us the right answer, whereas ... a more accurate representation of what is really going on: partial reflection is the scattering of light by electrons inside the glass. — Richard P. Feynman

Galen sprints to the back sliding-glass door and bangs on it. There's no time for etiquette. He motions for Rayna and Toraf to stay back. He can tell Rayna would rather eat her own than obey, but Toraf restrains her.
Emma comes to the door, a brilliant smile on her face. "You in a hurry for some reason?" she says, excitement lighting up those huge violet eyes.
"He must have missed me," Emma's mom calls from the kitchen. She winks at Galen, completely oblivious to how her world is about to shift.
"Mom. Ew," Emma says, handing Galen a towel and shutting the door. — Anna Banks

She will replace us all soon. And you, you'll be back to yourself, as scarred and lined as Lucifer's scrotum." What can you say to that? I hold up my glass. "To the devil's balls." Allegra — Richard Kadrey

I don't cook anything fancy. Sheba's appetite isn't up to much and I've never been one for sauces. We eat nursery food mainly. Beans on toast, Welsh rarebit, fish fingers. Sheba leans against the oven and watches me while I work. At a certain point, she usually asks for wine. I have tried to get her to wait until she's eaten something, but she gets very scratchy when I do that, so these days I tend to give in straightaway and pour her a small glass from the carton in the fridge. You choose your battles. Sheba is a bit of a snob about drink and she keeps whining at me to get a grander sort. 'Something in a bottle, at least', she says. But I continue to buy the cartons. we are on a tight budget these days. And for all her carping, Sheba doesn't seem to have too much trouble knocking back the cheap stuff. — Zoe Heller

I stand to leave, but my father says, "Wait!" over the red telephone. "Let me just look at you a minute." He smiles at me proudly. "I know you been in some trouble, son, but you turned out good. That's all I ever wanted," he tells me. Then he puts his hand against the glass and I put my hand against the glass. "I love you," he says.
"I love you, too," I say back. — Carolee Dean

Mrs. Faulkner had sidled up to me and said Good day, Mrs. Elliot?
I just looked at her, and I saw in her eyes that she was wanting some kind of approval for her boy because of his career ahead, and she suddenly just looked like an old lady, not fancy and rich and frightening. An old lady whose son admired my husband, and who herself would be as helpless in the Territories as a newborn calf and not nearly as useful. Good day, I said back. It is a funny thing how much more proud people can be of themselves if they never step back and take a good look in a glass. — Nancy E. Turner

No matter how far they traveled, they always had this house to welcome them home." "True. Did you ever wonder why they altered it so often?" "Miss Everleigh says they were innovators. Visionaries." He glanced at her, the firelight shadowing his face. "They kept knocking down the walls. Expanding them, making new routes for egress. Not much innovation in that. As visions go, it's the dream of claustrophobics." The notion unsettled her. "What do you mean to say?" "I mean, they traveled to escape this place." He reached for the bottle, splashed more liquor into his glass. Set down the bottle and stared at it. "Came back very reluctantly, already itching to leave again." She did not like that idea. "It was their home. They were a famously loving family - " "It's a house," he said. "That doesn't make it a home. And family - yes, family is important. But it can trap you more neatly than four walls and a locked door." Her — Meredith Duran

Iris arched her back, pushing her breast farther into Wyatt's hungry mouth. Water from the giant marble-tiled hotel shower rushed down over them, the sound of it hitting the glass door seeming loud in the enclosure. He lightly pressed down with his teeth and tugged her nipple, sending a pulsing sweep of need through her. The man was too talented with his tongue. — Katie Reus

It made her chest hurt, how much she felt in this moment. She knew she should not say anything impetuously. But under the light of the stained glass window, the flickering candlelight of their shared memories, it felt like simple unexamined honesty. No matter what the darkness brought back to her tomorrow.
I'm in love with you. — Joey W. Hill

Samuel," Amelie said, and her voice was low and quiet and warm. She bent closer to him. "Samuel. Come back to me."
His eyes opened, and they were all pupil. Scary owl eyes. Claire bit her lip and thought again about running, but Hans and Gretchen were at her back and she knew she didn't have a chance, anyway.
Sam blinked, and his pupils began to shrink slowly to a more normal size. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
"Breathe in," Amelie said, in that same quiet, warm tone. "I'm here, Samuel. I won't leave you." She stroked fingers gently over his forehead, and he blinked again and slowly focused on her.
It was like there was nobody else in all the world, just the two of them. Amelie was wrong, Claire thought. It isn't just that Sam loves her. She loves him just as much. — Rachel Caine

When Francie brought a ticket and a dime back and pushed them across the counter, he gave her the wrapped shirt and two lichee nuts in exchange. Francie loved these lichee nuts. There was a crisp easily broken shell and the soft sweet meat inside. Inside the meat was a hard stone that no child had ever been able to break open. It was said that this stone contained a smaller stone and that the smaller stone contained a smaller stone which contained a yet smaller stone and so on. It was said that soon the stones got so small you could only see them with a magnifying glass and those smaller ones got still smaller until you couldn't see them with anything but they were always there and would never stop coming. It was Francie's first experience with infinity. — Betty Smith

I like your coat," she announced, as if her approval of my dress were the supreme prize in a good-taste contest.
"Does that mean I get to see Jill?"
She considered this. "Perhaps it does," she said.
"Just what are your intentions concerning my roommate?"
"I'm going to kidnap her and hold her for ransom."
"Really?" she said, appearing delighted. "How splendid."
"Or else I'll put her in a cage and show her for money, but I think you'd be more suitable for that role."
She nodded. "Yes. The kidnapping is a much better idea." She stood straight and walked with exaggerated grace into the living room. There was a very nice wooden stairway, curving back on itself with a stained-glass window at the landing. She called, "Jill! Your kidnapper is here," and gave me a big smile.
"Aren't you going to come in?" she said.
"Only if you want me to. We kidnappers are very polite."
"Oh do, by all means. — Steven Brust

In A Glass of Cider
It seemed I was a mite of sediment
That waited for the bottom to ferment
So I could catch a bubble in ascent.
I rode up on one till the bubble burst,
And when that left me to sink back reversed
I was no worse off than I was at first.
I'd catch another bubble if I waited.
The thing was to get now and then elated. — Robert Frost

It's been said that as we move through life, we have to juggle a number of different balls. Some balls, like the one that represents career, are made of rubber. If we drop them, they have the ability to bounce back. But some balls are made of glass - family is like that. If you drop that ball, it doesn't come back. — Robin Sharma

The silence, she thought, was remarkable: a perfect, shimmering thing, and fragile. Like glass, if it shattered, it would never come back together again. — Laini Taylor

Go outside. Don't tell anyone and don't bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice. Don't try to get anything out of it, because you won't. Don't try to make use of it, because you can't. And that's the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realise that that is enough to be happy.
There's a whole world out there, right outside your window. You'd be a fool to miss it. — Charlotte Eriksson

I thought this vintage would suit you. What it lacks in subtlety ... " He turned back, offering her a glass. "It makes up for in sensuality." He tapped his glass against hers so the crystal sang, then watched as she sipped.
God, what a face, he thought. All those angles and expressions, all that emotion and control. Just now she was fighting off showing both surprise and pleasure as the taste of the wine settled on her tongue. He was looking forward to the moment when the taste of her settled on his. — J.D. Robb

It's my earliest memory: arranging my brother's marbles into words. It is summer, and I am beneath the oak that stands in the back corner of the work yard. Thomas, ten, whom I love above all the others, has taught me nine words: SARAH, GIRL, BOY, GO, STOP, JUMP, RUN, UP, DOWN. He has written them on a parchment and given me a pouch of forty-eight glass marbles with which to spell them out, enough to shape two words at a time. — Sue Monk Kidd

The water, that circle of shattered glass,
healed itself with a slow whisper
and lay back — Mary Oliver

The seen and seeing softly mutually strike Their glass barrier that arrests the sight. But the world's being hides in the volcanoes And the foul history pressed into its core; And to myself my being is my childhood And passion and entrails and the roots of senses; I'm pressed into the inside of a mask At the back of love, the back of air, the back of light. — Stephen Spender

We know the road of lack of recognition, of people telling us that we can't headline a movie because black women don't translate overseas, that every time we try to break the glass ceiling, people say no, people push back. And it's everything that people don't see out there. — Viola Davis

Over your body the clouds go
High, high and icily
And a little flat, as if they
Floated on a glass that was invisible.
Unlike swans,
Having no reflections;
Unlike you,
With no strings attached.
All cool, all blue. Unlike you
You, there on your back,
Eyes to the sky. — Sylvia Plath

The universe always moves from an ordered state to a disordered one; that a glass may fall to the ground and shatter yet you never see a broken glass reassemble itself and then jump back on the table. — Jasper Fforde

There is no looking-glass here and I don't know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us - hard, cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I? — Jean Rhys

Silence is a mirror. So faithful, and yet so unexpected, is the relection it can throw back at men that they will go to almost any length to avoid seeing themselves in it, and if ever its duplicating surface is temporarily wiped clean of modern life's ubiquitous hubbub, they will hasten to fog it over with such desperate personal noise devices as polite conversation, hummin, whistling, imaginary dialogue, schizophrenic babble, or, should it come to that, the clandestine cannonry of their own farting. Only in sleep is silence tolerated, and even there, most dreams have soundtracks. Since meditation is a deliberate descent into deep internal hush, a mute stare into the ultimate looking glass, it is regarded with suspicion by the nattering masses; with hostility by buisness interests (people sitting in silent serenity are seldom consuming goods); and with spite by a clergy whose windy authority it is seen to undermine and whose bombastic livelihood it is perceived to threaten. — Tom Robbins

A rap at the back door made her jump, and she peered through the window for a long time before she eased open the door a crack. She left the security chain on. 'What do you want, Richard?'
Richard Morrell's police cruiser was parked in the drive. He hadn't flashed any lights or howled any sirens, so she supposed it wasn't an emergency, exactly. But she knew him well enough to know he didn't pay social visits, at least not to the Glass House.
'Good question,' Richard said. 'I guess I want a nice girl who can cook, likes action movies, and looks good in short skirts. But I'll settle for you taking the chain off the door and letting me in. — Rachel Caine

Now one day - and we know the day, August 1, 1774 - Priestley put calx of mercury underneath a glass. He focused the sun's hot rays on the calx with his new 12" diameter magnifying glass. It began to give off a gas. The calx of mercury changed back into mercury, and Priestley trapped the gas with his pneumatic trough. And then he sat and looked, and thought, and looked some more. He happened to have a lighted candle nearby. Without really thinking about it Priestley exposed the candle to the gas. The flame suddenly flared into brilliance! What was this wondrous gas? If — Benjamin Wiker

As we approached the shop, a dog began to bark. Seconds later, a furry drool-bedecked face pressed against the lower portion of the glass door, his whole butt shaking from how hard he wagged his tail.
"What's gotten into you, Dexter?" Tyler muttered. Then he came closer and saw Bones and me on the other side of the glass.
Oh HELL no, bolted across his mind.
"Is that any way to greet old friends?" Bones asked dryly.
Tyler drew his shoulders back, further stretching ther strained fabric of his shirt.
"That's not a greeting, sugar. It's my answer to whatever you've come here to ask me to do. — Jeaniene Frost

This is not exactly what I had in mind when I agreed to miss lunch," Alex said grumpily forty minutes later. He shifted uncomfortably and tried to see what I was doing.
I stared him back into submission. "Wait."
The art room is usually empty Thursday afternoons except for me. Ms. Evers leaves early to teach her UArts class and looks up.Of course, I am one of the few entrusted with the Secret Location of the Key.
A few feet away from where I sat perched on a stool,Alex was posed on the anchient chaise we use for figure drawing. It's a relic, probably from the Palladinetti years: chipped mahogany and dusty velvet, what little remaining stuffing pokes out from a century of holes. I was probably luxurious once. Now it's like sitting on a slightly smelly board. But I'd wanted to sketch Alex as I so often saw him, reclining with his head propped on one hand,listening or talking or coaxing me to put down the glass, already,Ella,and come here. — Melissa Jensen

How she wanted to put away adult things and go back to seeing through a looking-glass, darkly. — Gregory Maguire

Walking into the library, I took in my breath sharply and stopped: glass fronted bookcases and Gothic panels, stretching fifteen feet to a frescoed and plaster-medallioned ceiling. In the back of the room was a marble fireplace, big as a sepulchre, and a globed gasolier
dripping with prisms and strings of crystal beading
sparkled in the dim.
There was a piano, too, and Charles was playing, a glass of whiskey on the seat beside him. He was a little drunk; the Chopin was slurred and fluid, the notes melting sleepily into one another. A breeze stirred the heavy, moth-eaten velvet curtains, ruffling his hair. — Donna Tartt

It had been Bosch's experience that when you looked back at a life, you used a magnifying glass. Everything was bigger, amplified. — Michael Connelly

In all things there is beauty. In the glint of dew clinging to the strands of a spider's web; in the way the setting sun winks off shards of broken glass; in the rainbow forming in the soap suds in a sink full of dirty dishes; in a blade of grass which manages to force its way, with patience and time, through the all too willing grasp of sidewalk cement. It is in the faded brown of leaves, turning, twisting against their fate, as they fall to the ground, light and dry as brittle bones, and in the bare, thin-tipped branches, denuded by a change in season. It is in the way a stranger's laughter cradles you if you let it. It is in the intricate scars of a lover's back and in our upturned eyes when we ask for forgiveness. — Marta Curti

Horacio paused to pour himself another glass of brandy. "Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you, Prudencia? You can't build yourself a world made to measure, but you can build a village. In a way, all of us here belong to a club of refugees. Your employer is one of the few inhabitants with family roots in San Ireneo. He came back a few years ago and set it all up. You may not know it, but his father's family has lived here for centuries." Miss — Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

shards of glass spray everywhere. I take another swing, this time catching him on the side of the head, nearly knocking him back out onto — Steven Jenkins

Truth, like honor and courage and love, does not come in shades of gray. You either have it or you don't - there is no in between. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to uncover it, and sometimes it is clear and simple as a sunrise. Also like honor and courage and love, sometimes the truth can be lost, and you have to find your way back to it, crawling over fields of broken glass and dead bodies, your knees and hands bloody and raw, until you get to it and it's even sweeter than before because of what you suffered on the way. — J.T. Geissinger

For the risk of it, for the sheer surprise of pressing one's nose to the glass and finding someone staring back on the other side. — Jodi Picoult

Nobody wants to hear that any aspect of my awesome life is bad. I get that. But there are days, maybe two or three times a year, when I get completely overwhelmed by my job and go to my office, lie on the floor, and cry for ten minutes. Then I think: Mindy, you have literally the best life in the world besides that hot lawyer who married George Clooney. This is what you dreamed about when you were a weird, determined little ten-year-old. There are more than a thousand people in one square mile of this studio who would kill to have this job. Get your ass up off the floor and go back into that writers' room, you weakling. Then I get up, pour myself a generous glass of whiskey and club soda, think about the sustained grit of my parents, and go back to work. — Mindy Kaling

But seriously Poirot, what a hobby! Compare that to
" his voice sank to an appreciative purr
"an easy chair in front of a wood fire in a long low room lined with books
must be a long room
not a square one. Books all round one. A glass of port
and a book open in your hand. Time rolls back as you read. — Agatha Christie

...you have to just go on. It's sort of like a bird flying into a plate glass window. And then you just sort of pick yourself up, shake yourself off, and check for anything broken, and go back to work. — Sally Mann

I want you to think back to when you were a kid. Remember the day you learned you could burn ants with a magnifying glass? Oh, what a great day that was! You got to be God. You decided who lived, who died. I must've burned ants for an hour, just laughing. Then I saw one on my arm. Let me tell you something, when you burn yourself with a magnifying glass, you're on your own. You can't even tell your mom, because she gives that face, Oh, he is that stupid. — Bill Engvall

Suddenly, despite all the fun she'd had, Azzah felt down. Watching the champagne bubbles sparkle and fizz in her glass, she realized by tomorrow all the bubbles would be gone, and she'd have to go back to her flat, dull, fizz-less life. — Christian F. Burton

Not nearly enough. Not recently, anyway." And she was sad about that.
"I know," he said, and kissed the back of her hand. "We'll fix it. Get some sleep."
"Night," she said, and watched him walk toward the door. "Hey. How'd you get in?"
He wiggled his fingers at her in a spooky oogie-boogie pantomime. "I'm a vampire. I have secret powers ," he said with a full-on fake Transylvanian accent, which he dropped to say, "Actually, your mom let me in."
"Seriously? My mom? Let you in my room? In the middle of the night?"
He shrugged. "Moms like me."
He gave her a full-on Hollywood grin, and slipped out the door. — Rachel Caine

The residence sat toward the back of the property, which sloped up across a masterfully landscaped yard shaded with maple and spruce trees, dotted with stone sculptures - fountains, birdbaths, angels - and not a leaf to be seen on the pockets of lush green grass. An engine turned over near the house. Letty stepped off the drive and crawled into a thicket of mountain laurel as a boxy Mercedes G-Class rolled past. Through the branches and tinted glass, she glimpsed Chase at the wheel, a young boy in a booster in the backseat. The car ride over had only intensified her nausea, and as the diesel engine faded away, she put her finger down her throat and retched in the leaves. She felt instantly better. Weaker. Less drunk. But better. — Blake Crouch

If you ask me if I'm imagining it again, I'm going to punch you out, Dead Man Walking."
Michael raised his eyebrows and glanced at Eve. "He doesn't sound crazy."
"Er," she clarified, "crazier. He sounds like he's back to normal, which is baseline crazy. — Rachel Caine

Still," he added firmly, "I think you'd best drink no more of it, or ye won't get back up the stairs." He tilted the glass and deliberately drained it himself, then handed the empty goblet to Laoghaire without looking at her. "Take that back, will ye, lass," he said casually. "It's grown late; I believe I'll see Mistress Beauchamp to her chamber." And putting a hand under my elbow, he steered me toward the archway, leaving the girl staring after us with an expression that made me relieved that looks in fact cannot kill. — Diana Gabaldon

He dropped back into the couch cushions, stroking the condensation dripping off his glass. "You're in a pickle."
"You want one?" Her eyebrows perked up, though her eyes weren't tracking well. "I think I have a jar in the fridge. — Kristin Miller

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

September Day sloshed another half cup of coffee into the giant #1-Bitch mug, and glared out the frosty breakfast nook windows. North Texas didn't get snow. That's why she'd moved back home - well, one of several reasons. She shivered, relishing the warmth of the beverage, and toasted the storm with a curse. "Damn false advertising." Her cat Macy meowed agreement. The blizzard drove icy wind through cracks in the antique windows and made the just-in-case candles on the dark countertop sputter. She pulled the fuzzy bathrobe closer around her neck. Normally the kitchen's stained glass spilled peacock-bright color into the kitchen. — Amy Shojai

I brought my hand to the back of his neck and leaned into him, sliding my fingers into the curls at his nape. His arms clasped tighter around me. I sighed just a little against his mouth, feeling that it was almost too much, all this newness, this feeling that there was space and light inside me I'd never noticed before. Every part of me down to my fingertips felt like reworked glass, melting into some new shape, my edges beginning to glow. I wanted to do nothing but change this way, pressed against his body, his warmth and goodness, forever. — Betsy Cornwell

Blood oozed from deep puncture wounds at his neck and shoulder. His right arm flopped unnaturally. From the middle of his back to his waist, the bear's raking claws left deep, parallel cuts. It reminded Harris of tree trunks he had seen where bears mark their territory, only these marks were etched in flesh instead of wood. On the back of Glass's thigh, blood seeped through his buckskin breeches. Harris — Michael Punke

The sun,
the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man
burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray. — Charles Dickens

Here's some advice. Stay alive, says Haymitch, and then bursts out laughing. I exchange a look with Peeta before I remember that I'm having nothing more to do with him. I'm surprised to see the hardness in his eyes. He generally seems so mild.
'That's very funny,' says Peeta. Suddenly, he lashes out at the glass in Haymitch's hand. It shatters on the floor, sending the bloodred liquid running toward the back of the train. 'Only not to us.'
Haymitch considers this a moment, then punches Peeta in the jaw, knocking him from his chair. When he turns back to reach for the spirits, I drive my knife into the table between his hand and the bottle, barely missing his fingers. I brace myself to deflect his hit, but it doesn't come. Instead, he sits back and squints at us.
'Well, what's this?' says Haymitch. 'Did I actually get a pair of fighters this year? — Suzanne Collins

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be. And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
The emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in full resonance with your world. Use it for once.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost. — Rainer Maria Rilke

The sad irony here is that the FDA, which does not regulate fluoride in drinking water, does regulate toothpaste and on the back of a tube of fluoridated toothpaste ... it must state that "if your child swallows more than the recommended amount, contact a poison control center."
The amount that they're talking about, the recommended amount, which is a pea-sized amount, is equivalent to one glass of water.
The FDA is not putting a label on the tap saying don't drink more than one glass of water. If you do, contact a poison center ...
There is no question that fluoride - not an excessive amount - can cause serious harm. — Paul Connett

That autumn, I kept coming back to Hopper's images, drawn to them as if they were blueprints and I was a prisoner; as if they contained some vital clue about my state. Though I went with my eyes over dozens of rooms, I always returned to the same place: to the New York diner of Nighthawks, a painting that Joyce Carol Oates once described as "our most poignant, ceaselessly replicated romantic image of American loneliness" ...
Green shadows were falling in spikes and diamonds on the sidewalk. There is no colour in existence that so powerfully communicates urban alienation, the atomisation of human beings inside the edifices they create, as this noxious pallid green, which only came into being with the advent of electricity, and which is inextricably associated with the nocturnal city, the city of glass towers, of empty illuminated offices and neon signs. — Olivia Laing

Around the plate before finding its way into the keyhole and socking itself home. She turned it and heard the lock snap back. She fumbled for the cut-glass knob. It tried to slide through her hand again - not because the door was locked this time but because her palm was wet with sweat. She firmed her grip and — Stephen King

The Fire

When a human is asked about a particular fire,
she comes close:
then it is too hot,
so she turns her face -

and that's when the forest of her bearable life appears,
always on the other side of the fire. The fire
she's been asked to tell the story of,
she has to turn from it, so the story you hear
is that of pines and twitching leaves
and how her body is like neither -

all the while there is a fire
at her back
which she feels in fine detail,
as if the flame were a dremel
and her back its etching glass.

You will not know all about the fire
simply because you asked.
When she speaks of the forest
this is what she is teaching you,

you who thought you were her master. — Katie Ford

She sat at the window of the train, her head thrown back, one leg stretched across to the empty seat before her. The window frame trembled with the speed of the motion, the pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while. — Ayn Rand

She looked fragile. Alone. Prisoner in the room through the mirror; an Alice who never made it back through the looking-glass. — Joss Stirling

She tipped back her glass and finished it.
"Ah, lass. You drink like you're Irish already."
She smirked. "I am Irish already. Always have been. — Ashlyn Chase

Now, let's look again at the partial reflection of light by a layer of glass. How does it work? I talked about light reflected from the front surface and the back surface. This idea of surfaces was a simplification I made in order to keep things easy at the beginning. Light is really not affected by surfaces. An incoming photon is scattered by the electrons in the atoms inside the glass, and a new photon comes back up to the detector. It's interesting that instead of adding up all the billions of tiny arrows that represent the amplitude for all the electrons inside the glass to scatter an incoming photon, we can add just two arrows-for the "front surface" and "back surface" reflections-and come out with the same answer. Let's see why. — Richard Feynman

He sauntered to the counter. "What can I do for you?"
The red bandana he wore held back the hair that typically covered his eyes. I loved his eyes. Chocolate-brown, full of mischief and a spark ready to light the world on fire. "Can I have a glass of water, please?" And please let it be free.
"Is that it?"
My stomach growled, loud enough for Noah to hear. "Yep, that's it."
He fixed me a glass and handed it to me. "Are you sure you wouldn't like a burger? A nice thick burger on a toasted bun with salty fries on the side?"
I sucked on my straw, gulping the ice water down. Funny, water didn't give me that warm, fuzzy, full feeling like a burger and fries would. "I'm fine, thank you."
"Suit yourself. You see that nice-looking piece of meat right there?" He motioned to the patty frying. The aroma made my mouth water. — Katie McGarry

When you were strung out

and I kissed you
I imagined your mouth

a mound of cocaine,
inhaling your breath

like powder as I pushed
into you and you pulled

me with your bruised thighs.
Some nights we fucked so

slowly I dissolved
like a Quaalude in a glass

of vodka, and you drank
me down. We kept the room dark,

so we could not see
each other with our eyes

rolled back - or was it
because we did not want

to see ourselves.
It's taken me too long to think

of that, the way we never
thought the other would go,

and then one night
I woke up

sober
and yes,

still there. — Sean Thomas Dougherty