Back In Touch Quotes & Sayings

Do not lose yourself in the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. Do not get caught in your anger, worries, or fears. Come back to the present moment, and touch life deeply. This is mindfulness. — Thich Nhat Hanh

He and Harmony had been wed a week now, and still the briefest glance at his wife awakened the savage in him. The smallest movement or casual touch made him want to rip off her clothes and press her back on the table and rut on her wildly. His mother would not have approved. — Annabel Joseph

Getting the pretty back is about getting back in touch with your essential self: the part of you that knows what you really want. — Molly Ringwald

Her voice was so melancholy that Gansey was struck all at once by what he and Blue really lost by keeping their relationship a secret. Blue radiated psychic energy for others, but touch was where she gained hers back. She was always hugging her mother or holding Noah's hand or linking her elbow in Adam's or resting her boots on Ronan's legs as they sat on the sofa. Touching Gansey's neck just between his hair and his collar. This worry in her tone demanded fingers braided together, arms on shoulders, cheeks rested against chests.
But because Gansey was too cowardly to tell Adam about falling in love with her, she had to stand there with her sadness by herself.
Aurora took Blue's hand. — Maggie Stiefvater

What are you terrible at?" I asked, running my hand across his starched shirt. Encouraged by the touch, Maxon drew circles on my shoulder with the hand he had wrapped behind my back.
"Why would you want to know that?" He asked in mock irritation.
"Becaue I still know so little about you. And you seem perfect all the time.It's nice to have proof you aren't.
He propped himself up on an elbow, focusing on my face.
"You know I'm not."
"Pretty close,' I countered. Little flickers of touch ran betwen us. Knees, arms, fingers.
He shook his head, a small smile on his face. "Okay then. I can't plan wars. I'm rotten at it. And I'm guessing I'd be a terrible cook. I've never tried, so-"
"Never?"
"You might have noticed the teams of people keeping you up to your neck in pastries? They happen to feed me as well. — Kierra Cass

Okay, someone's been smoking the wacky tobacky. And keep your hands to yourself!" She smacked at his roving fingers, fighting the shivers following his touch. "I agreed to let you accompany me because, well...maybe you're right. We should try and put the animosity between our families-stop that!" She gripped his fingers and tried to twist them, but he easily pulled out of her grip.
Alessandro laughed. "Darling, I haven't laughed in ages like I do when I'm with you. I propose a clean slate, eh?" He sighed and sat back against the seat. "Brianna. I'm not going to give up until you are mine. You could make this so much easier if you just accept the inevitable." He lifted his hand to cup the side of her face. "We belong to each other, and you know it. — E. Jamie

Open a magazine from the 1930s and '40s and look at the illustrations in it. There's nobody alive that could touch the way they could draw back then. — John Kricfalusi

He raises his hand to my face again and I allow the touch. His fingers slide along my jawline and the warmth of his caresses radiates past my skin and into my bloodstream. Pleasing goose bumps rise on my neck.
"Do you think you'll come back sometime?" he asks. "And let me help you with your car?"
My ears ring with the staccato thrum, thrum, thrum of my heart. Holy crap, I can't believe this is happening to me.
"I'll make it work. I swear." The words tumble out of my mouth without thought. That's not true. Actually, they tumble out with a lot of thought of how my parents won't approve, of how my brothers will kill Isaiah, then possibly kill me. But in this moment, I don't care what any of them think. — Katie McGarry

So once upon a time Ed met a girl who was the most optimistic person he had even know. A girl who wore flip-flops in the hope of spring. She seemed to bounce through life like Tigger; the things that would have felled most people didn't seem to touch her. Or if she did fall, she bounced right back. She fell again, plastered on a smile, dusted herself off, and kept going. He never could work out whether it was the single most heroic thing or the most idiotic thing he'd ever seen. — Jojo Moyes

Wideacre faces due south and the sun shines all day on the yellow stone until it is warm and powdery to the touch. The sun travels from gable end to gable end so the front of the house is never in shadow. When I was a small child collecting petals in the rose garden, or loitering at the back of the house in the stable yard, it seemed that Wideacre was the very centre of the world with the sun defining our boundaries in the east at dawn, until it sank over our hills in the west, in the red and pink evening. — Philippa Gregory

I tilted my head back, breathing deeply. It was a clear, moonless night, and after those long months underground, the sight of all that sky was dizzying. And so many stars - a glittering, tangled mass that seemed close enough to touch. I let their light fall over me like a balm, grateful for the air in my lungs, the night all around me. — Leigh Bardugo

Kiss me," he growled.
"I shouldn't - "
"I. Don't. Give. A. Damn."
Well hell. My lips touched his - barely. I pulled back and looked at him - unfamiliar, dangerous, and so exciting. I devoured his mouth without thinking. Don't think, just touch. I ran my fingers across his strong shoulders and down his arms. His skin felt hot under my hands, his body hard. He sucked in his abs so I could get into his pants, if I wanted to. I slid one hand over his stomach and under his jeans, touching his hard cock, smiling when he groaned. — Amelia James

Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and sound - the tumultuous motion of the heart, and, in my ears, the sound of its beating. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then again sound, and motion, and touch - a tingling sensation pervading my frame. Then the mere consciousness of existence, without thought - a condition which lasted long. Then, very suddenly, thought, and shuddering terror, and earnest endeavor to comprehend my true state. Then a strong desire to lapse into insensibility. — Edgar Allan Poe

I would like to see it go back to the wood racquets. To see the touch put back in tennis. — Jana Novotna

She is the woman that contradicts Simone de Beauvoir's saying "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." She is the woman that makes your tooth pain seem like a trivial matter in comparison to the heartaches she causes as she deliberately passes by your side. She is the woman that makes your throat feel swollen and your tie to suddenly seem too tight. She is the woman that is able to take you to the seven heavens with a whisper; straight to cloud number nine.. She is the woman that erases all other women unintentionally and becomes without demanding the despot of your heart. She is the woman that sends you back and forth to purgatory and resurrects you with each unintended touch. She is the woman that will ask of you to burn Rome just to collect for her a handful of dust. — Malak El Halabi

Ambition or contentment? This simple question led me back to a more balanced view of life and put me in touch with the Me I used to know ... — John Geddes

Late in the evening they drove through the Hollywood hills along Mulholland Drive and stopped to look out first over the dazzling sea of floating light that is Los Angeles, and later stopped to look across the dazzling sea of floating light that is the San Fernando Valley. They agreed that the sense of dazzle stopped immediately at the back of their eyes and didn't touch any other part of them and came away strangely unsatisfied by the spectacle. As dramatic seas of light went, it was fine, but light is meant to illuminate something, and having driven through what this particularly dramatic sea of light was illuminating they didn't think much of it. — Douglas Adams

Only problem with the whole scheme, really, is that Lauren's about to blow up the planet. See, that's the part you aren't in on. The thing in the Box? It's an angel. And it's really old and really pissed off." "You're bluffing," Nicky said. "Are we?" Caitlin shrugged. "We're keeping things under wraps to avoid a panic, but a full report's been delivered to the prince and his inner council. A council which, last time I checked, includes your father. Why don't you get in touch with him? Ask him who Belephaia is." He looked from her to me and back again, resting his hand on his desk phone. His brow furrowed as he worked out the implications. — Craig Schaefer

You are constantly told in depression that your judgment is compromised, but a part of depression is that it touches cognition. That you are having a breakdown does not mean that your life isn't a mess. If there are issues you have successfully skirted or avoided for years, they come cropping back up and stare you full in the face, and one aspect of depression is a deep knowledge that the comforting doctors who assure you that your judgment is bad are wrong. You are in touch with the real terribleness of your life. You can accept rationally that later, after the medication sets in, you will be better able to deal with the terribleness, but you will not be free of it. When you are depressed, the past and future are absorbed entirely by the present moment, as in the world of a three-year-old. You cannot remember a time when you felt better, at least not clearly; and you certainly cannot imagine a future time when you will feel better. — Andrew Solomon

Love is soft. It blossoms like the sweetest and most beautiful flower, giving its nectar away for all that pass by in need.

Love is a hand, a hug, a touch or a nudge. It's what you need, when you need it. The warm embrace that makes you feel safe and comfortable. But it is also that swift kick to your rear-end just when you need one.

Love embraces, appreciates, and holds space for others to feel safe, whole and never alone. Love walks beside you everyday, to support and play. Love stands behind you, so you cannot fall. Love walks in front of you, to encourage you.

Love is eternal. It has no end, evolving from one form to another, and back, again. — Camille Lucy

You may say, "Oh, no. You can't touch a traditional recipe." But we ask: why can't you? Back in 1350, a vinaigrette was a stew, so we ask, why not? This can be applied to any kind of cooking, and that's the shocking part of it. It kind of bends all the traditions. It's a good thing. — Ferran Adria

Reading all my old love letters was disorienting. You remember thinking the thoughts and writing the words but, man, you can't TOUCH those feelings. Its like they belonged to someone else. Someone you don't even know. I'm aware, in an intellectual way. That I felt all those things about him, but this emotions are far away now.
What's so strange to me is that I can't even force my heart back to that place where I felt that all consuming passion. That makes me feel distant from myself. Who WAS I then? Will I ever be able to get back to that place? Reading the letters again made me wonder: Which is the real me? The one who saw the world in that emotionally saturated way, or the me who sees it the way I do now? — Bill Shapiro

You wind back the clock several decades when you visit a Lonely Place; and when you touch down, you half expect a cabin attendant to announce, We have now landed in Lonely Place's Down-at-Heels Airport, where the local time is 1943 and the temperature is ... frozen. — Pico Iyer

How could people, I wondered for the ten thousandth useless time, how could people who had loved so dearly come to such a wilderness; and yet the change in us was irreversible, and neither of us would even search for a way back. It was impossible. The fire was out. Only a few live coals lurked in the ashes, searing unexpectedly at the incautious touch. — Dick Francis

I am the woman at the water's edge,
offering you oranges for the peeling,
knife glistening in the sun.
This is the scent and taste
of my skin: citon and sweet.
Touch me and your life will unfold
before you, easily as this skirt
billows then sinks,
lapping against my legs, my toes
filtering through the rivers silt.
Following the current out to sea,
I am the kind of woman
who will come back to haunt
your dreams, move through your
humid nights the way honey
swirls through a cup of hot tea — Shara McCallum

He turned his head to look at her, trying to think of ways to plead his case. Some way to dazzle and beguile her and make her glad that it was him she was here with. Something witty and persuasive, but she turned at precisely the same moment he did, with invitation in her eyes, and all he could come up with was, "Damn, I really want to kiss you."

Her hesitation was a mere fraction of a second. "Me too," she whispered.

It was all he needed to hear, and in an instant she was in his arms. He kissed her, hard, with no prelude, no artful negotiations or seductive machinations. Just hungry kisses that sent his mind spinning and his body following. She kissed him back with equal enthusiasm, with one hand on his chest and the other wrapped tightly around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Her mouth was sweet, as sweet as he'd imagined, with lips so soft he could have fallen over the edge of that lighthouse and thought the sensation was just from her touch. — Tracy Brogan

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ZAZEN First of all, you have to sit down, which you're probably already doing. The traditional way is to sit on a zafu cushion on the floor with your legs crossed, but you can sit on a chair if you want to. The important thing is just to have good posture and not to slouch or lean on anything. Now you can put your hands in your lap and kind of stack them up, so that the back of your left hand is on the palm of your right hand, and your thumb tips come around and meet on top, making a little round circle. The place where your thumbs touch should line up with your bellybutton. Jiko says this way of holding your hands is called hokkai jo-in,113 and it symbolizes the whole cosmic universe, which you are holding on your lap like a great big beautiful egg. — Ruth Ozeki

No, screw that. I've had nice guys. I've dated and taken my time before ending up in bed with them."
Silver's skin prickled with gooseflesh.
Zeb's hands moved onto Silver's shoulders, intensifying the charge racing through his body. "None of them made me crazy. None of them made me feel like I couldn't breathe right until we kissed. None of them made my whole body hum with the need to touch. You do." Zeb's grip shifted to Silver's forearms and pulled him to his feet. "You turned my life upside down, and I couldn't put it back together in any way that made sense without you. — K.A. Mitchell

Good night, Lisa. Sleep with the angels."
Her eyes stung from quick tears. It had been her mother's nightly benediction: Sleep with the angels. But then he added words her mother never had: "Then come back to earth and sleep with your devil, who would burn in hell for one night in your arms. — Karen Marie Moning

Please do not go to Kmart and buy twenty pairs of jeans because each costs five dollars. The jeans are not running away. They will be there tomorrow at an even more reduced price. You are now in America: do not expect to have hot food for lunch. That African taste must be abolished. When you visit the home of an American with some money, they will offer to show you their house. Forget that in your house back home, your father would throw a fit if anyone came close to his bedroom. We all know that the living room was where it stopped and, if absolutely necessary, then the toilet. But please smile and follow the American and see the house and make sure you say you like everything. And do not be shocked by the indiscriminate touching of American couples. Standing in line at the cafeteria, the girl will touch the boy's arm and the boy will put his arm around her shoulder and they will rub shoulders and back and rub rub rub, but please do not imitate this behavior. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I said, 'Then whered the other story come from? ... '
He said, 'It come in to my mynd.'
I said, 'You mean you made it up.'
He said, 'Wel no I dint make it up you cant make up nothing in your head no moren you can make up what you see. You know what I mean may be what you see aint all ways there so you cud reach out and touch it but its there some kynd of way and it come from some where. That place Hagmans Il I use to wunner about it every time we come by it til finely that story come in to my head. That story cudnt come out of no where cud it so it musve come out of some where. Parbly it ben in that place from time back way back or may be in a nother place only the idear of it come to me there. That don't make no odds. That storys jus what ever it is and thats what storys are. — Russell Hoban

Men sometimes confess they love war because it puts them in touch with the experience of being alive. In going to the office every day, you don't get that experience, but suddenly in war, you are ripped back into being alive. Life is pain; life is suffering; and life is horror - but, by God, you are alive. — Joseph Campbell

Myrnin, who hadn't said much, suddenly reached out and wrapped his arms around her.
She stiffened, shocked, and for a panicked second wondered whether he'd suddenly decided to snack on her neck ... but it was just a hug.
His body felt cold against hers, and way too close, but then he let go and stepped back. "You've done very well. I'm extremely proud of you," he said. There was a touch of color high in his pale cheeks. "Do go home now. And shower. You reek like the dead."
Which, coming from a vampire, was pretty rich. — Rachel Caine

I felt that thread that had come between us, tugging, tugging at my heart - so hard, it hurt me. A hundred times I almost rose, almost went in to her; a hundred times I thought, Go to her! Why are you waiting? Go back to her side! But every time, I thought of what would happen if I did. I knew that I couldn't lie beside her, without wanting to touch her. I couldn't have felt her breath upon my mouth, without wanting to kiss her. And I couldn't have kissed her, without wanting to save her. — Sarah Waters

His noise is getting quieter, but I can still see it there still-
See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it against his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and-
"Oh, God," he says, looking away suddenly. "Viola, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
But I just put my hand to the back of his neck-
And he says, "Viola-?"
And I pull myself towards him-
And I kiss him.
And it feels like, finally. — Patrick Ness

My fingers draw up her back and tangle into her hair. "They'll never separate us."
"Never," she repeats.
Our lips crush together, our bodies pressed tight. An inferno of lips and hands and movements that continues to grow in heat. The blanket falls away as Rachel slides her legs so that she straddles me. On the verge of burning up completely, I groan and cling to her small frame. Her hands drift under my shirt, leaving a singeing trail.
We've become a wildfire. Almost unstoppable. I kiss her neck and the beautiful sounds escaping her mouth encourage me further. My hands skim under her shirt, up her back, linger for seconds near her bra, and I gently nip her ear when I feel lace.
Images pour into my mind of what she'd look like with her shirt off, then her jeans. My fist traps strands of her hair. "I want you, Rachel."
And because I do, I kiss her fully on the mouth - nothing left to the imagination. Every fantasy becomes a reality with that one embrace. — Katie McGarry

After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
In the intensity of its own fires,
There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days
Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
So after Love has led us, till he tires
Of his own throes, and torments, and desires,
Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze,
He beckons us to follow, and across
Cool verdant vales we wander free from care.
Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?
We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;
And yet, and yet, these days are incomplete. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is no tomorrow. Time cannot be saved and spent. There is only today and how we choose to live it. The future is unknowable and unpredictable; it offers no clear path to happiness. Science will not save us. Each of us, then, needs to cobble together a daily routine filled with basic human pleasures, wedded, to be sure, to the best that modernity has to offer. It is a life of compromise rather than extremes. It is a touch of the old and a taste of the new. And cooking, it seems to me, offers the most direct way back into the very heart of the good life. It is useful, it is necessary, it is social, and it offers immediate pleasure and satisfaction. It connects with the past and ensures the future. Standing in front of a hot oven, we remind ourselves of who we are, of what we are capable of and how we might stumble back to the center of happiness. Effort and pleasure go hand in hand. — Christopher Kimball

Some Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.
One by one, we go in the dark and come out
saying how we experience the animal.
One of us happens to touch the trunk.
A water-pipe kind of creature.
Another, the ear. A strong, always moving
back and forth, fan-animal. Another, the leg.
I find it still, like a column on a temple.
Another touches the curve back.
A leathery throne. Another, the cleverest,
feels the tusk. A rounded sword made of porcelain.
He is proud of his description.
Each of us touches one place
and understands the whole in that way.
The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark
are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.
If each of us held a candle there,
and if we went in together, we could see it. — Rumi

I wanted to tell you that I was so sad I felt as if I might be happy, or in love, simply because such powerful feelings can appear the same to the naive. I was mighty with grief, and I thought I should be empowered by it. I thought my hands should shine with a yellow light, and that should I reach out to touch our mother on the head, I would call her back from the place she'd gone. — Chris Adrian

Julia doesn't like James Gillen, but that's not the point, not out here. In the Court, back in the Court any eye you catch could be Love peal-of-bells-firework-burst Love, all among the sweet spray of the music and the rainbowing prisms of the lights, this could be the one huge mystery every book and film and song is sizzling with; could be your one-and-only shoulder to lean your head on, fingers woven with yours and lips gentle on your hair and Our Song pouring out of every speaker. This could be the one heart that will open to your touch and offer up its never-spoken secrets, that has spaces perfectly shaped to hold all of yours. — Tana French

Now consider this: the first person to hold the newborn Christ was Mary of Nazareth, and the first person to touch the newly risen Christ, however briefly, was Mary of Magdala. God placed himself in a woman's care when he came to earth, then entrusted a woman to announce his resurrection when he came back to life. — Liz Curtis Higgs

His touch both consoles and devastates me; I feel my heart pulse, then wither, naked as a stone on the roaring mattress while the lovely, moony night slides through the window to dapple the flanks of this innocent who makes cages to keep the sweet birds in. Eat me, drink me; thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden, I go back and back to him to have his fingers strip the tattered skin away and clothe me in his dress of water, this garment that drenches me, its slithering odour, its capacity for drowning. — Angela Carter

They were very generous with me. Everybody was willing to talk about their particular accident, what they had to deal with and how they got back in touch with their competitors' spirit. — Gregory Hines

. . . what I told Malory happened next is that when he looked over at her then it was like he'd been waiting a hundred years to see her, and this crazy ass Ledfeather girl all the way from Standing Rock, she looked off after the elk and then back at Doby through her hair, like she'd maybe been waiting for him too, but was scared a little, wanted to be sure, so Doby opened his mouth and said her name across the backseat of Junior's cab, Claire, like a flower opening in his mouth, and she held her lips together and nodded thank you to him, yes, thank you, and then swallowed what was in her throat and just let the sides of their hands touch together again some like it didn't really matter.
But it did. — Stephen Graham Jones

God, Abby, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, he said as he stared out the bay window onto the lake. The serene morning calm of the water was laughing at his riptide of emotions. In all his life, he'd never been as tortured as he was now. Rip his limbs apart, whip his back raw, waterboard him, anything but this. Because this ... this was far worse. It was her pain. Her torture that was destroying his sanity. He had no control over it. He couldn't stop it.
He hated that he wasn't strong enough to withstand this. Most of all, he hated that he cared so much about her.
Cause he knew.
He knew one certainty in all this.
She had managed to touch a piece of his ice-cold heart. And it wasn't letting him go. — Cindy Paterson

We're going to be married and hardly touch each other and have to work and work and never have any fun and we're just going to be okay with it because that's how life is and that's how relationships go, but I don't want that. I want our marriage to be ... fun. I love joking around while we fool around. I want to hold hands everywhere we go. I want to make out in the back of a movie theater, steal kisses in coffee shops, have sex over every inch of our apartment or house or wherever we live. And I'm scared marriage will change the fun part of our relationship. The part that keeps us young, keeps us in love, and I'm terrified you'll wake up when you're fifty and realize you're stuck with the decision you made when you were twenty-seven, and we haven't touched in months, we don't go out. I just want to know when that happens ... that you'll still ... you'll still love me. — Cassie Mae

...Get lost in it. Life is intoxicating if it's lived right. You should never hold anything back. There's entirely too much to explore and experience and taste and touch; and we're never given enough time to do it all. — Nicole Banks

I'll be here when you get back," Kane promised. He wasn't going anywhere. "Call me if you feel like talking. Text me if you don't." He smiled. "Either way, stay in touch. Please. — Avril Ashton

He looks up. Again, it is there in the sky. The planet of awesome size, lit by no sun. An invisible titan, all thick black forests and jagged mountains and deep, turbulent oceans. It is very close now. So close that he wonders if he could touch it. As he reaches up, he thinks he sees movement on its surface. Through the canopy of the forests and upon the slopes of the mountains and on the shores of the churning ocean. People maybe. Crowds of people all wrapped in white cloth. They are leaning into each other like dropped puppets. They sway lifelessly. He feels horror in the back of his throat, but still he reaches up. He can't help himself. It's just what he does next. — Joseph Fink

The Kissing Game goes like this, Shortcake. Press, retreat, tilt, breathe, repeat. Use your hands to angle just right. Loosen up until it's a slow, wet slide. Hear the drum of blood in your own ears? Survive on tiny puffs of air. Do not stop. Don't even think about it. Shudder a sigh, pull back, let your opponent catch you with lips or teeth and ease you back into something even deeper. Wetter. Feel your nerve endings crackle to life with each touch of tongue. Feel a new heaviness between your legs. The aim of the game is to do this for the rest of your life. Screw human civilization and all it entails. This elevator is home now. This is what we do now. Do not fucking stop. He — Sally Thorne

My eyes went straight to a soft woman who sat facing the wrong way at the bar top. Soft, because I knew if I were to touch her skin, it would feel like a peach, the kind of woman you could almost smell from inside the building. Instead of facing Andy, she had her back to him, keeping an eye on the door. That must be her. Her hair was exquisite. She was really the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. A golden crown of braids and curls complimented her sun-kissed skin. Her dress draped perfectly over her body, and in that moment, I needed her more than I needed air. — Chelsie Shakespeare

When I give a speech at a corporate event, I often ask those in attendance, 'Do you know how to tell if you're doing the job?' As heads start whispering back and forth, I provide these clue: 'If you're up at 3 A.M. every night talking into a tape recorder and writing notes on scraps of paper, have a knot in your stomach and a rash on your skin, are losing sleep and losing touch with your wife and kids, have no appetite or sense of humor, and feel that everything might turn out wrong, then you're probably doing the job.' — Bill Walsh

Lie with me," she said.
"I don't know if I can sleep beside ye tonight and not touch ye like I want to," he said in a strained voice. "I need ye too much."
"I know that," she said, and flipped back the blanket for him to lie down. — Margaret Mallory

That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn't mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we're not always so glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn't touch. — Donna Tartt

On the mountains mistakes are fatal. In politics, mistakes are wounding emotionally, but you recover. Personally, wilderness helps me get back in touch with natural rhythms, helps me reflect and, in the process, restore my creativity. — Mark Udall

She was rumpled, undone, her hair coming out of its elastic to curl in tendrils around her face. There was something I had to say to her, I thought, something necessary, something right at the tip of my tongue.
I guess she knew it before I did.
Leaning over, she smoothed my hair back from my forehead. I closed my eyes at her touch. And so it was a surprise when she kissed me on the lips. — Brittany Cavallaro

Keep in touch.
I suddenly realized how annoying that expression was. Like, Now it's your job to stay in contact with me. It said, I'm really just too lazy.
I started to write back, to keep in touch, but decided I'd be lazy as well. — Jennifer Castle

She knew the minute HE arrived. Felt the warm blanket of comfort reach out to her frozen soul ... He made his way down the isle and sat next to her ... he didn't reach out, didn't touch her ... a single tear slid out from her closed lids and she blindly reached for his hand. He took her hand in more, gathering her close, arms coming around her warm and strong as her head sank down unto his shoulder and the tears finally came soaking the lapel of his wool suit. He offered her a perfectly white handkerchief ... she stared at it and wondered who carries that type of thing anymore? He looked back at her and explained, I'm old fashioned. — D.B. Reynolds

He tells my parents how I took every class he taught. He tells them, "You have a special boy here." Embarrassed, I look at my feet. Before we leave, I hand my professor a present, a tan briefcase with his initials on the front. I bought this the day before at a shopping mall. I didn't want to forget him. Maybe I didn't want him to forget me.
"Mitch, you are one of the good ones," he says, admiring the briefcase. Then he hugs me. I feel his thin arms around my back. I am taller than he is, and when he holds me, I feel awkward, older, as if I were the parent and he were the child.
He asks if I will stay in touch, and without hesitation I say, "Of course." When he steps back, I see that he is crying. — Mitch Albom

You're gonna come apart in my hands the minute I touch you. I give you a week before you're back in my bed. — Collette West

She told Tiffany that it wasn't going to be immediately, but she would have her boys back. I left her my cell phone number and my house number, so she would be able to get in touch with one — Myiesha

Emma knew what was going to happen if she didn't break away, and she used every shred of her willpower to turn from Steven and run through the daisies, her arms outspread. She'd gone only a few yards when she stumbled over something and went sprawling. She was laughing when she rolled over and started to sit up, and her plump breasts strained against her bodice. Before she could begin the arduous process of untangling herself from her skirts and struggling back to her feet, Steven was kneeling beside her on the ground. He reached out slowly to touch her braid. "God in heaven, but you're beautiful," he rasped, and it was as though he begrudged the words. "Who are you, Emma? Where did you come from?" She — Linda Lael Miller

In the passing of an instant everything stopped and there he stood at the bottom of the ocean in perfect stillness. He gazed into a strange and eerie light that seemed to draw closer as the fear in his heart faded. An amazing tunnel was extending towards him, smooth shiny walls in the night. Reaching his hand out to touch it he wondered; if he were to die in that moment, where would the life inside him go? His heart, bursting with unspent love and the breathtaking happiness in his soul, just disappearing into the ocean. Two more handfuls of salt dissolving in a world barely able to justify its own existence.

He heard a rushing sound as the sea inhaled again just before it struck him in the chest. A wall of sand and stones that blew him off his feet and sent him back out, his last thought escaping him in a long trail of bubbles.

'Stop fighting now Thomas - it's over. — Kevin Keely

This is a perfectly good picture. And if I didn't know you, I would be impressed and charmed. But I do know you."
He thought some more, wondering whether he dared say precisely what he felt, for he knew he could never explain exactly why the idea came to him. "It's the painting of a dutiful daughter," he said eventually, looking at her cautiously to see her reaction. "You want to please. You are always aware of what the person looking at this picture will think of it. Because of that you've missed something important. Does that make sense?"
She thought, then nodded. "All right," she said grudgingly and with just a touch of despair in her voice. "You win."
Julien grunted. "Have another go, then. I shall come back and come back until you figure it out."
"And you'll know?"
"You'll know. I will merely get the benefit of it. — Iain Pears

Oh, glorious Art!" thus mused the enthusiastic painter, as he trod the street. "Thou art the image of the Creator's own. The innumerable forms that wander in nothingness start into being at thy beck. The dead live again. Thou recallest them to their old scenes, and givest their gray shadows the lustre of a better life, at once earthly and immortal. Thou snatchest back the fleeing moments of History. With thee, there is no Past; for at thy touch, all that is great becomes forever present; and illustrious men live through long ages in the visible performance of the very deeds which made them what they are. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Security is, I would say, our top priority because for all the exciting things you will be able to do with computers - organizing your lives, staying in touch with people, being creative - if we don't solve these security problems, then people will hold back. — Bill Gates

And eventually there is no one left in the world except people who don't look at other people's faces and who don't know what these pictures mean and these people are all special people like me. And they like being on their own and I hardly ever see them because they are like okapi in the jungle in the Congo, which are a kind of antelope and very shy and rare. And I can go anywhere in the world and I know that no one is going to talk to me or touch me or ask me a question. But if I don't want to go anywhere I don't have to, and I can stay at home and eat broccoli and oranges and licorice laces all the time, or I can play computer games for a whole week, or I can just sit in the corner of the room and rub £1 coin back and forward over the ripple shapes on the surface of the radiator. And I wouldn't have to go to France. — Mark Haddon

Sometimes life has its way with you. It peels back the layers of your existence like the skin of an onion until the real you glows underneath, raw and painful to the touch. It's in those moments, in that hour, you look to those that give you strength - for me, — Addison Moore

The magic in these Masonic rituals is very, very old. And way back in those days, it worked. As time went on, and it started being used for spectacle, to consolidate what were only secular appearances of power, it began to lose its zip. But the words, moves, and machinery have been more or less faithfully carried down over the millennia, through the grim rationalizing of the World, and so the magic is still there, though latent, needing only to touch the right sensitive head to reassert itself. — Thomas Pynchon

In that drunken place you would like to hand your heart to her and say touch it but then give it back. — Charles Bukowski

I fall down on my back and instantly feel the pain of my tail splitting in two. The two parts glow a bright green that fades to a dull white glow. I cannot believe my eyes. My black scales turn to skin the same color as my torso. I reach down and touch the space between them that never existed before. It is a moist opening, like a perpetual wound. I insert a finger. It doesn't hurt. It feels just like the inside of a clam. — Leza Cantoral

Strong men need strong love, and a soft touch. Once you fall in love with a man like that, there's no going back to ordinary. — Lauren Gilley

Ildiko clutched his arm, unwilling to have him leave her side. "I enjoy your touch, Brishen."

The stiffness eased from his shoulders. He gave her a wry look and pressed his palm to the pale expanse of skin just below her collarbones. His hand rose and fell in quick time to her breathing. "I believe you, but this tells me you fear it as well."

She winced. "Your teeth are so...sharp."

"They are, but I'm not careless, wife. And if, for some unfathomable reason, I accidently bite you, you're welcome to bite me back."

His attempt at humor worked, and Ildiko chuckled. "Brishen - " She offered him a toothy grin. "These wouldn't do much damage."

He traced the line of her collarbones with the rough pads of his fingers, their dark claws a whisper of movement across her flesh. "You have obviously never been badly bitten by a horse. — Grace Draven

How dare you touch my cookies, you bastard!" Jason said in utter disgust before popping the cookie into his mouth and heading back to his house.
"Damn those looked good, too," Brad grumbled.
Haley sighed. "Don't worry I have a second plate on my counter." The words were barely out of her mouth when Jason abruptly changed course and headed towards her house.
"Well, there was," she said, watching Jason walk into her house like he owned it. A minute later he walked out of her house, carrying both plates and the gallon of milk she had in her fridge. He headed back to his house, but not before he glared at Brad. "You cookie thieving bastard," they heard him mutter.
Brad rolled his eyes, chuckling. "And people wonder how I lost weight rooming with him in college. — R.L. Mathewson

A large house left deserted by those who have filled its rooms with emotions and life, expresses a silence, a quality all its own. A house unfurnished and empty seems less impressively silent. The fact of its devoidness of sound is upon the whole more natural. But carpets accustomed to the pressure of constantly passing feet, chairs and sofas which have held human warmth, draperies used to the touch of hands drawing them aside to let in daylight, pictures which have smiled back at thinking eyes, mirrors which have reflected faces passing hourly in changing moods, elate or dark or longing, walls which have echoed back voices - all these things when left alone seem to be held in strange arrest, as if by some spell intensifying the effect of the pause in their existence. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Cooking is a great way to get back in touch with things that brought us comfort. — Lizabeth Scott

Kiss me, Joe. I won't shatter ... Seriously, Joe, you can touch me without breaking me. In fact, you might even put me a little bit back together. — Jennifer Castle

Blitz to V-E Day. After the war was over, the novelist John Hersey invented a new kind of journalism, modelled on the techniques of fiction, in his report about the atomic-bomb attack on Hiroshima, which filled an entire issue of the magazine in the summer of 1946. That June, Ross wrote to Flanner, with a touch of rue, "Probably the magazine will never get back to where it was." The war took The New Yorker out of the city and into the world. — Anonymous

An incident occurred while Cato was speaking which caused much amusement at his expense. A letter was brought in for Caesar, and Cato immediately accused him of being in touch with the conspirators. He challenged him to read the note out loud. Caesar simply passed it across: it was a love letter from Servilia, Caesar's mistress at the time and Cato's half-sister. Cato threw it back angrily with the words: Take it, you drunken idiot. — Anthony Everitt

When I read poetry, I want to feel myself suddenly larger ... in touch with - or at least close to - what I deem magical, astonishing. I want to experience a kind of wonderment. And when you report back to your own daily world after experiencing the strangeness of a world sort of recombined and reordered in the depths of a poet's soul, the world looks fresher somehow. Your daily world has been taken out of context. It has the voice of the poet written all over it, for one thing, but it also seems suddenly more alive ... — Mark Strand

He got up, wishing to go around, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox right over Helene, behind her back. Helene moved forward so as to make room and, smiling, glanced around. As always at soirees, she was wearing a gown in the fashion of the time, quite open in front and back. Her bust, which had always looked like marble to Pierre, was now such a short distance from him that he could involuntarily make out with his nearsighted eyes the living loveliness of her shoulders and neck, and so close to his lips that he had only to lean forward a little to touch her. He sensed the warmth of her body, the smell of her perfume, and the creaking of her corset as she breathed. He saw not her marble beauty, which made one with her gown, he saw and sensed all the loveliness of her body, which was merely covered by clothes. And once he had seen it, he could not see otherwise, as we cannot return to a once-exposed deception. — Leo Tolstoy

At the magic touch of the beautiful the secret chords of our being are awakened, we vibrate and thrill in response to its call. Mind speaks to mind. We listen to the unspoken, we gaze upon the unseen. The master calls forth notes we know not of. Memories long forgotten all come back to us with a new significance. Hopes stifled by fear, yearnings that we dare not recognise, stand forth in new glory. — Okakura Kakuzo

Flying Is that what it's like when you die? Do you slip out of your skin, go soaring up into a butterscotch sky? Do you surf waves of light? How far? How high? I hope that's what it's like, but I'm afraid it's a lot more like falling with no net to catch you, and no way of knowing how hard you will hit or where you'll stop. Will you touch down back on Earth, or will you land in the nightmare you always feared you'd never wake up from? — Ellen Hopkins

So when you're talking about lyrics in the context of music, it's not just about what the words mean, and what you were thinking about when you wrote it. It's not cognitive in that same way. It's almost like music turns words into touch, which is hard to describe, like the feeling of your shirt on your back. It's a pretty delicate thing to try to put into words. You just feel it. — Mirah

I had killed people before, in war and as a member of the New Orleans police department, and I know what it does to you. Like the hunter, you feel an adrenaline surge of pleasure at having usurped the province of God. The person who says otherwise is lying. But the emotional attitude you form later varies greatly among individuals. Some will keep their remorse alive and feed it as they would a living gargoyle, to assure themselves of their own humanity; others will justify it in the name of a hundred causes, and they'll reach back in moments of their own inadequacy and failure and touch again those flaming shapes that somehow made their impoverished lives historically significant. — James Lee Burke

Look at me and tell me you don't want me to kiss you. Tell me you don't like it when I do this," he said, running his hand down my arm. "Tell me you don't like it when I touch your face." HE brushed his hands on both of my cheeks, moving up to my forehead and then back down. HE rubbed both thumbs over my lips. "Tell me you don't like it when I do this." He leaned hisjead closer, stopping just short of my lips. "Tell me to stop and I will. You're in charge, Missy. — Chelsea M. Cameron

Dads. Do you not realize that your child needs to feel your skin on his? Do you not realize the incredible and powerful bond that skin on skin contact with your daughter will give you? Do you not understand the permanent mental connections that are made when you stroke your son's bare back or rub your daughter's bare tummy while you tell bedtime stories? And if any idiot says anything about that being inappropriate, you're gonna get kicked in the face, first by me, and then by every other good dad out there. Touching your child is your duty as a father. — Dan Pearce

I smile bitterly. "Let's not forget who killed her. You destroy all that you touch."
"Well," he whispers back, returning my smile. "Then we have much in common. — Marie Lu

Why did you come back? 'Tis not safe." "I came back to finish what we last started." Did he mean their near embrace in the barn? Before Pa came in? His mouth was warm against her ear, his fingers stroking her hair, which frayed at the touch of his callused hand. "I came back to ask you to be my wife." The words, so long wished for, were every bit as sweet as she'd hoped they'd be. But here in this shadowed corner, with Pa so ill ... "Do you love me? Or do you feel pity for me, alone, almost fatherless?" "Not pity, Morrow. Love. The love between a man and a woman." Her lips parted in a sort of wonder. "Have you ever been in love?" "Not till now ... not till you." "Then how can you be ... sure?" "I know my mind, my heart. — Laura Frantz

Wordlessly they settled on a third-story ledge near Patriarch's Pond, of the roof across from Luce's window, where they used to watch her sleep. The memory would be fresher in Daniil's mind, but the faint recollection of Luce lying dreaming under the covers still sent a warm rush across Daniel's wings.
Both were somber.In the bombed-out city, it was sad and ironic that her building had been spared when she hadn't. They stood in silence in the cold night,both carefully tucking back their wings so that they wouldn't accidentially touch. — Lauren Kate

There were once two sisters who were not afriad of the dark because the dark was full of the other's voice across the room, because even when the night was thick and starless they walked home together from the river seeing who could last the longest without turning on her flashlight, not afraid because sometimes in the pitch of night they'd lie on their backs in the middle of the path and look up until the stars came back and when they did, they'd reach their arms up to touch them and did. — Jandy Nelson

Are you telling me my entire life has been a dream?"
"Not your life, Greg, your past."
"Is there a distincition?"
"Of course there is. In a very real sense, everyone's past is a dream; the past isn't a real thing you can reach back and touch; it's just something in your head. Your life, which is what's going on here and now at this table, is as real as anyone's ... — Daniel Quinn

Suddenly we were standing toe to toe. His body took up so much space around me it was hard to breathe. I could feel his heat and we weren't even touching. What had just happened? Kyle saw the overwhelmed look in my eyes and smirked. He brought his mouth down to mine and brushed my lips with a touch so feather-light that I gasped. My body reacted before my head could. I drifted into him as if he was somehow my new center of gravity. My eyes fluttered shut, and I waited for a kiss that never came. His lips were there, brushing back and forth over mine, teasing me cruelly until I ached with a desire so intense I started to shake. Kyle chuckled darkly. You're in over your head with me, Virgin Val. — Kelly Oram

Ask me, then, if I believe in the spirit of the things as they were used, and I'll say yes. They're all here. All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. And we'll never be able to use them without feeling uncomfortable. And somehow the mountains will never sound right to us; we'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time, and the mountains were shaped and seen under those names. The names we'll give to the canals and mountains and cities will fall like so much water on the back of a mallard. No matter how we touch Mars, we'll never touch it. And then we'll get mad at it, and you know what we'll do? We'll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves. — Ray Bradbury

I'm lying in my bed, blanket is warm, this body will never keep me safe from harm. I still feel your hair, black ribbons of coal. Touch my skin to keep me whole. If only you'd come back to me. To feel you at my side, wouldn't need no Mojo Pin to keep me satisfied. — Jeff Buckley

At first I thought I saw the sun setting in the east ... Then I realized that what I saw was a full moon rising just as the sun was going down. Each of them was standing on its edge, with the most wonderful light between them. It seemed as if you could touch it, as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth, or if there were great taut skeins of light suspended between them ... We just stood there until the sun was down and the moon was up. They seemed to float on the horizon for quite a long time, I suppose because they were both so bright you couldn't get a clear look at them. And that grave, and my father and I, were exactly between them ... My father said, I would never have thought this place could be beautiful. I'm glad to know that. — Marilynne Robinson

Do they still hurt?" she whispered in anguished surprise.
"No," Jason said tautly. Shame washed over him in sickening waves as he waited helplessly for her inevitable reaction to the stark evidence of his humiliation.
To his utter disbelief he felt her arms encircle him from behind and the touch of her lips on his back. "How brave you must have been to endure this," she whispered achingly, "how strong to survive it and go on living ... " When she began kissing each scar, Jason rolled to his side and jerked her into his arms. "I love you," he whispered agonizedly, plunging his hands into her luxuriant hair and turning her face up to his. "I love you so much ... — Judith McNaught

Are you from Hapsburg?"
He seemed to think about it for a second or two, then gave a small nod.
"I thought I recognized the accent."
The scowl was back full force. "You are an expert on accents?" He managed to sound sarcastic.
"No. My Uncle Otto was from Hapsburg."
He blinked again, and the scowl wilted around the edges. "You are not German." He sounded very sure.
"My father's family is; from Baden-Baden on the edge of the Black Forest but Uncle Otto was from Hamburg.
"You said only your uncle had the accent."
"By the time I came along, most of the family, except for my grandmother, had been in this country so long there was no accent, but Uncle Otto never lost his."
"He's dead now." Olaf made it half question, half statement.
I nodded.
"How did he die?"
"Grandma Blake says Aunt Gertrude nagged him to death."
His lips twitched. "Women are tyrants if a man allows it." His voice was a touch softer now. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Every artist was haunted by lies. Every artist fought to find truths. Every artist failed. Some turned back, embracing those comforting lies. Others took their own lives in despair. Still others drank themselves into the barrow, or poisoned everyone who drew near enough to touch, to wound. Some simply gave up, and wasted away in obscurity. A few discovered their own mediocrity, and this was the cruellest discovery of all. None found their way to the truths. — Steven Erikson