Blinking Eyes Quotes & Sayings

Elephants, it turns out, are surprisingly stealthy. As the sunlight fades, other species declare their presence. Throngs of zebras and wildebeests thunder by in the distance, trailing dust clouds. Cape buffalo snort and raise their horns and position themselves in front of their young. Giraffes stare over treetops, their huge brown eyes blinking, then lope away in seeming slow motion. But no elephants. — Thomas French

Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them? Very true. But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them? Certainly. And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence? Just so. — Plato

Little jointed stringy things the shape of tadpoles drifted across his vision. He had to keep blinking his eyes to get rid of them, but soon they drifted back. — Elizabeth Taylor

He doesn't like me, does he?" I asked.
Maggie made a face like my words were insulting her. "He doesn't like you?"
My eyes connected with hers for a brief moment. "Not in the way you know I'm talking about."
She shook her head, blinking a few times like she was waking up. "Hi, welcome to planet Earth," she said in a mock cheery voice, waving in my direction. "The place where brains and sound-thinking make the planet go round. — Nicole Williams

His eyes fixed on hers, the gold flecks darkening to amber. An assassin who looks after his own skin? That's exactly what I am, Brenna. I would rather die than harm you, but anyone else? I could kill them without blinking. It's what I was born to do. — Nalini Singh

From Kari Gregg's "What Rough Beast"

{Elliot} blinked when a blade speared neatly through the master's chest from the rear. "Got him," Garrick shouted over the master's shoulder. "Set, Elliot."
Set what?
He didn't care.
He channeled his rage and pierced the dark master through, impaling him on his blade.
Garrick slid his free.
Malachi yanked him down a split second before Garrick's sword severed his head as well as the dark master's. Chest heaving, he sprawled in the dust, blinking at the fuzzy image of the head bouncing across the floor. It came to rest at the bottom spoke of a crumbling ladder, the vampyr's teeth still gnashing.
His new partner dragged him upright and, looking in his eyes, squeezed his shoulder. "Set means your blade will set the enemy for your partner's killing blow" Malachi grinned at him, chuckled. "It also means duck. — Kari Gregg

And then Fito sort of hung his head and he was blinking his eyes, like he was trying to blink away all the tears that he'd held inside all his life. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

He was guillotined in the French Revolution, and he said he'd keep blinking his eyes after his head was off, for as long as he had consciousness. He blinked seventeen times. That's a scientist, Gill said. — Jo Walton

The giant Bolg settled back again. "By the sea. "Twas jammed in the sand between them shipwrecks we told you about. Thought o' you and that you might like it, 'specially when the dreams are too strong." Tears glinted in her eyes again. "You are the most wonderful Bolg that ever lived, did you know that?" You are the most wonderful girl in the world. "Damn right," said Grunthor smugly. Rhapsody laughed, blinking away the tears. "Now, put your 'ead back down and cover your up-ear with it. Maybe it'll sing you to sleep. — Elizabeth Haydon

I felt his eyes devour me as I moved around the room. He assessed me head to toe without blinking, and a hot ache shivered through me. A kiss would've been less intimate. — Becca Fitzpatrick

Stop it!' I gasp.
'What?'
'That thing you're doing! With your eyes!'
'Um, opening them? Or blinking? Should I not blink?'
'Just- make them less blue or something. — Kiersten White

Grover?" he murmured. "I'm here, Leneus." Grover was blinking back tears, despite all the horrible things Leneus had said about him. " Did ... did we win?" "Um ... yes," he lied. "Thanks to you, Leneus. We drove the enemy away." "Told you," the old satyr mumbled. "True leader. True ... " He closed his eyes for the last time. — Rick Riordan

Take you my ring," he repeated, "and keep it with you." His tone was stubborn, and so I obeyed, sliding the great ring from his outstretched finger. The ring was cold, as his hands were cold, and I held it tenderly in my palm, blinking back the rising wetness of my eyes. "Remember that hawk, Mariana Farr," he told me gently, "and seek me not with your eyes, but with your soul. The soul sees what truly matters. — Susanna Kearsley

That pistol I gave you is a piece of crap. You can't hit anything with it, not at that distance."
Staring at her with tears in his blinking eyes, he says, "I did."
Conversation between Alis K and Willy
The Informer — Steen Langstrup

I had always liked darkness. When I was small I was afraid of it if I was alone, but when I was with other I loved it and the change to the world it brought. Running around in the forest or between houses was different in the darkness, the world was enchanted, and we, we were breathless adventurers with blinking eyes and pounding hearts.
When I was older there was little I liked better than to stay up at night, the silence and the darkness had an allure, they carreid the promise of something immense. And autumn was my favorite season, wandering along the road by the river in the dark and the rain, not much could beat that.
But this darkness was different. This darkness rendered everything lifeless. It was static, it was the same whether you were awake or asleep, and it became harder and harder to motivate yourself to get up in the morning. — Karl Ove Knausgard

There is so much to see and learn here that I often find I'm not blinking in case I miss anything. I have to use artificial tears to moisten my eyes. — Jay Woodman

If you have lived in cities and have walked in the park on a summer afternoon, you have perhaps seen, blinking in a corner of his iron cage, a huge, grotesque kind of monkey, a creature with ugly, sagging, hairless skin below his eyes and a bright purple underbody. This monkey is a true monster. In the completeness of his ugliness he achieved a kind of perverted beauty. Children stopping before the cage are fascinated, men turn away with an air of disgust, and women linger for a moment, trying perhaps to remember which one of their male acquaintances the thing in some faint way resembles. — Sherwood Anderson

Escort service," Puck replied, shifting to the side so that Twiggs could get a clear view
of me. Those beady eyes fixed on me, blinking in confusion. Then, suddenly, they got
huge and round, as Twiggs looked back at Puck.
"Is ... is that ... ?"
"It is."
"Does she ... ?"
"No."
"Oh, my." Twiggs opened the door wide, beckoning with a sticklike arm. — Julie Kagawa

Her mascara ran in streaks
down her face
lipstick smeared across her
alabaster cheeks like a porcelain
doll that had been flung around
before the paint had dried.

...

barely blinking
eyes like content little suns
poking through dark mascara
clouds
she is broken
yet whole at the same time
and she belongs to him

(excerpt from "Content" in Make Me Take It From You by HL37) — HL37

Staring at Joey's eyes blinking up from his pale face was a bit like inhaling a pound of rock candy while watching puppies play. — K.A. Mitchell

This consciousness is never still, not even for a moment. It will not be photographed or even named. In its wanting to become aware, it rearranges itself in one pattern after another. Feel it now in the blinking of your eyes. The moisture on your tongue. The gentle filling and emptying of your lungs. It rises unnamed through us, the incessant motion of the four creatures bearing the chariot in Ezekiel s vision: human, lion, ox, and eagle, running and returning. Creation is in us. The plan the Creator used reappears everywhere: — Lawrence Kushner

Sasha? What is it?" My face slipped off my palm and jerked my shoulders toward the table. Blinking away the daydream, I tore my eyes away from the balmy day peeking out of the window. My boyfriend, Jared, stared at me out of a cute, boyish face, his eyebrows quirked quizzically. — K.F. Breene

I dream that someday the step between my mind and my finger will no longer be needed. And that simply by blinking my eyes, I shall make pictures. Then, I think, I shall really have become a photographer. — Alfred Eisenstaedt

Something takes over when you're facing death. The front part of your brain lets go, gives up control to the oldest part of you, the part that takes care of your heartbeat and breathing and the blinking of your eyes. The part nature built first to keep your ass alive. The part that stretches time like a gigantic piece of toffee, making a second seem like an hour and a minute longer than a summer afternoon. — Rick Yancey

Rolled my eyes. "Dr. Green ... " "Sean." I stopped, blinking after him. "Hm?" "My name is Sean. You can call me Sean, if you want. — C.L.Stone

So she steeled herself. "I have never told anyone this story. No one in the world knows it. But it's mine," she said, blinking past the burning in her eyes, "and it's time for me to tell it."
Rowan leaned back on the rock, bracing his palms behind him.
"Once upon a time," she said to him, to the world, to herself, "in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom . . . very much."
And then she told him of the princess whose heart had burned with wildfire, of the mighty kingdom in the north, of its downfall and of the sacrifice of Lady Marion. — Sarah J. Maas

Writing songs and looking for ideas is like blinking my eyes. It's an involuntary muscle. I do it without thought. — Toby Keith

He was looking up at the stars, but not, I think, because they were so close they seemed suspended between earth and space. He was still, not blinking, because his eyes were filling up like that dammed pool and he was trying to hold back his tears. But the water always finds a way through, even when you pile those stones high and deep - eventually it finds a way. — Vikki Wakefield

Her eyes weren't blinking. There was still something almost dead in them, something very far away. She seemed to be seeing all the way through to the back of him and beyond, out into the cold space of the future in which they would both soon be dead, out into the nothingness that Lalitha and his mother and his father had already passed into, and yet she was looking straight into his eyes, and he could feel her getting warmer by the minute. And so he stopped looking at her eyes and started looking into them, returning their look before it was too late, before this connection between life and what came after life was lost, and let her see all the vileness inside him, all the hatreds of two thousand solitary nights, while the two of them were still with the void in which the sum of everything they'd ever said or done, every pain they'd inflicted, every joy they'd shared, would weigh less than the smallest feather on the wind. — Jonathan Franzen

There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few inches, enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes. — Kenneth Grahame

Five minutes later, the girls stood at the open kitchen door, blinking in the brilliant overcast light. The smell of lilacs, roses, sweet peas, and honeysuckle mixed with the scent of crisp late summer leaves. None of them had been in the gradens for nine months, and the bright saturated greens, reds, and violets overwhelmed them. It reminded Azalea of Mother, beautiful and bright, thick with scents and excitement. And the King-he was like the palace behind them, all straights and grays, stiff and symmetrical and orderly.
"It's really allowed?" said Flora, her eyes alight at the colors.
"Allowed allowed?" said Goldenrod.
"For the last time," said the King, pushing them gently out the kitchen door and onto the path. "It is Royal Business! Go On. Get some color in your cheeks. — Heather Dixon

Damn, Lark, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you."
She looked at him, blinking her owlish eyes. "You think I'm crying because of you?"
"I was a bastard."
"Well, yeah, but you're my brother. I'm used to it. — Maisey Yates

Most days I feel like the sole survivor of a shipwreck, rowing my paddleboat across a sea of people on waves made of an infinite array of hands and crests that reveal anonymous faces. On a good day, the clouds part to alight on-lo and behold-an island! I step ashore, only find that it too is made of people, mangled bodies somehow still alive. They grab at my feet, pulling me under like quicksand. The last thing I see before suffocating is the sky, a billion eyes staring down, blinking in undulating electric ripples. The cold rain I feel on my cheeks is the tears of the people. — Richard M. Nixon

Espresso The black coffee they serve out of doors among tables and chairs gaudy as insects. Precious distillations filled with the same strength as Yes and No. It's carried out from the gloomy kitchen and looks into the sun without blinking. In the daylight a dot of beneficent black that quickly flows into a pale customer. It's like the drops of black profoundness sometimes gathered up by the soul, giving a salutary push: Go! Inspiration to open your eyes. — Tomas Transtromer

Blinking is some way of tabulating - a kind of carriage return, click, or save to disk - that helps the process of 'Okay, now change the subject.' Every time you move your eyes, there's an interruption in the visual field - you go momentarily blind when your eyeballs are moving. — Walter Murch

I went outside. Tried taking in the billions of stars above, lingering long enough to allow each point of light the chance to scratch a deep hole in the back of my retina, so that when I finally did turn to face the dark surrounding forest I thought I saw the billion eyes of a billion cats blinking out, in the math of the living, the sum of the universe, the stories of history , a life older than anyone could have ever imagined. And even after they were gone
fading away together, as if they really were one
something still lingered in those sweet folds of black pine , sitting quietly, almost as if it too were waiting for something to wake. — Mark Z. Danielewski

Her eyes travel down to where he's gripping the handle of her suitcase. "What're you doing?" she asks, blinking at him.
"You looked like you needed some help."
Hadley just stares at him.
"And this way it's perfectly legal," he adds with a grin. — Jennifer E. Smith

It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither. — Charles Dickens

Cricket could tell Enkai was holding back tears, and wishing to comfort him, she took his hand. They sat in silence for a long time, just holding hands, and when Cricket heard Enkai sniff, she knew he was crying.
"You should go. You shouldn't see me . . ."
"What?" said Cricket at once. "Be a person? Have feelings? Here . . ." She took a washcloth from the nightstand and dabbed his tears away. "I cried when I lost my friends. One of them died to get me here too."
"I'm sorry," Enkai said, blinking sympathetically as Cricket wiped his face.
Cricket smiled. "No, it's alright. I still see her sometimes." She dropped her eyes to the washcloth as she contently folded it and set it aside.
Enkai frowned. "You're weird, Cricket," he said with a laugh, and Cricket laughed as well. "But . . ." he added, "I guess that's why I like you. — Ash Gray

I ran over a squirrel once."
Blinking open my eyes, I drew back as far as she'd let me.
"What?"
"I ran over a squirrel the second time I ever drove a car," she repeated. "I also hit a deer. And when I was seventeen, I clipped a cat. Before I left for college, I backed into a dog."
"Gods," I muttered. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

He woke up blinking with a slight pain in his head and opened his eyes upon a world boiling in chaos in which everything was in proper order. — Joseph Heller

The frown on his face dissolved, and he shook his head. "No, it's not you, it's me. I can't stop thinking about your breasts and it's pissing me off." His eyes did a rapid blinking thing. "Hell. Tell me I didn't just say that. — Sandra Owens

There was quiet, and then Ronan said, "I better go feed the bird."
But he looked down at the gearshift instead, eyes unfocused. He said, "I keep thinking about what would've happened if Whelk had shot Gansey today."
Adam hadn't let himself dwell on that possibility. Every time his thoughts came close to touching on the near miss, it opened up something dark and sharp edged inside him. It was hard to remember what life at Aglionby had been like before Gansey. The distant memories seemed difficult, lonely, more populated with late nights where Adam sat on the steps of the doublewide, blinking tears tears out of his eyes and wondering why he bothered. He'd been younger then, only a little more than a year ago. "But he didn't. — Maggie Stiefvater

He changed his final wad up at the train station. Which was a sad place now. There were homeless people and disturbed people hanging around. There were furtive men with swivel eyes, their hands thrust deep in capacious pockets. There was spray-can graffiti on the walls. Nothing compared to the South Bronx or inner-city Detroit or South-Central LA. But unusual for Germany. Reunification had been a strain. Economically, and socially. And mentally. He had watched it. Like living a comfortable life in a nice little house with your family. And then a whole bunch of relatives moves in. From someplace where they don't really know how to use a knife and fork. Ignorant and stunted people. But German like you. As if a brother had been taken away at birth and locked in a closet. Then in his mid-forties he comes stumbling out again, pale and hunched and blinking. A tough situation to manage. He — Lee Child

I'm sorry," Sylvan murmured, kneeling in front of her. And then she felt the needle slide home and liquid fire was traveling up her arm. Sophie gasped as tears sprang to her eyes. "It burns! Is it supposed to burn like that?" "Only for a moment," Sylvan assured her. His voice sounded strange and Sophie looked up at him. What she saw took her mind off the burning in her vein. Unshed tears glimmered in his ice blue eyes and the pain on his face was unmistakable. "Sylvan?" she whispered. Freeing her hand from Kat's supportive grip, she reached out to touch his cheek. "I'm sorry. I hate being the cause of your pain." His deep voice was rough with emotion and he looked away, blinking rapidly. "It's all right," she said softly as he withdrew the needle and sealed her wound with flesh glue. "You couldn't help it." "But I didn't want to hurt you," he said fiercely and looked at her again. "I never want to do that, Sophia." "I know," she whispered. For — Evangeline Anderson

The blinking of eyes is an involuntary reflex action, provided they eyes are not watching your beauty. — Amit Kalantri

I'm a powerful being ... a wizard," Corny said. "So don't try anything."
"Yes," said the little faery, blinking black eyes rapidly. "No. Try nothing. — Holly Black

Please." He swallowed hard and begged with those big blue eyes. "Please don't leave me here." All the air trickled out of her lungs. "Take me to the beaches," he said, blinking down at her. "I won't cause any trouble." How did he do that? A minute ago she wanted to break his jaw, and now she had to fight the urge to pat him on the head and give him a cookie. That had to be some kind of superpower. She finally understood how he got everything he wanted in life. — Melissa Landers

At that moment we caught sight of a drunken man, reeling along at the far end of the street. With head thrust forward, arms dangling, and nerveless legs, he advanced towards us by short rushes of three, six, or ten rapid steps, followed by a pause. After a brief spasm of energy, he found himself in the middle of the street, where he stopped dead, swaying on his feet, hesitating between a fall and a fresh burst of activity. Suddenly he made off in a new direction. He ran up against a house, and clung to the wall as if to force his way through it. Then, with a start, he turned round, and gazed in front of him, open-mouthed, his eyes blinking in the sun. With a movement of the hips, he jerked his back away from the wall and continued on his way. A small yellow dog, a half-starved mongrel, followed him barking, halting when he halted, and moving when he moved.

'Look,' said Marambot, 'there's one of Madame Husson's Rose-kings'. — Guy De Maupassant

For a second, he was still, blinking. Then he shook off all the blankets and coats so that his arms were free and he wrapped them around me as tightly as he could. I felt him shuddering, shuddering against me as he buried his face in my hair.
I said, uselessly, "Sam, don't go."
Sam cupped my face in his hands and looked me in the eyes. His eyes were yellow, sad, wolf, mine. "These stay the same. Remember that when you look at me. Remember it's me. Please.""
- Grace and Sam (Shiver) — Maggie Stiefvater

Did you kick me?" Matt asked, blinking slowly while his eyes adjusted.

"I tapped you with my boot, if I'd have kicked you, you'd be on your ass right now. — Jaime Reese

Got a job for you, Seven."
"Yeah?"
"I need you to find someone."
"Who?"
"A woman," I say. "About five and a half feet tall. Brown hair. Brown eyes."
"That describes half the women in New York."
"Yeah, well, the one I'm looking for is twenty-one or so," I say. "She's good-looking, kind of curvy for being so petite... got a red 'S' tattooed on her wrist..."
He stares at me, like he expects more information. "What else?"
I shrug, glancing at the high heels, flipping them over to look at the red soles. "She wears a size thirty-nine shoe."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Shouldn't be too hard," he says, blinking a few times as he looks at the ground. "Only a couple million people in the city."
"That's the spirit," I say, slapping him on the back. — J.M. Darhower

I'm sorry, really, to be taking it all from you. Don't be silly. His eyes, large, liquid, remote, were - were whatever is the opposite of silly. She felt no anger at him, and not envy; she did want him to have her house; only - for a wild moment - wanted desperately not to lose it either. She wanted to share it, share it all; she wanted ... He went on looking at her, fixedly and unashamedly as a cat; and there came a flaw in time, a doubling of this moment, a shadow scene behind this scene, in which he asked her to come now, come to stay, stay now, stay always, yield it all to him and yet have it all ... . As instantly as she perceived it, the flaw healed, and No, no, she said, blinking, turning back to the kitchen door, shaken, as though, unaware, she had found herself walking out on ice. — John Crowley

Look," Six snaps, "we can't just stand around gabbing. They could be co - "
Six is cut off by the sudden roar of a noise overhead. It's a sound made by no earthly machinery. We all look up just as the silver Mogadorian ship throws on its floodlights, momentarily blinding us. Five, shielding his eyes, turns to look at me.
"Is that your ship?" he asks.
"Mogadorians!" I shout at him. Already, dark shapes are descending from the ship, the first wave of Mogadorian warriors on their way to attack.
"Oh," says Five, blinking confusedly at the ship. "So that's what they look like. — Pittacus Lore

My eyes widened at the ball of orange fluff squeezing out from under the counter, blinking and stretching.
I looked again, not believing.
"It's a cat," I said, winning the Pulitzer prize for incredible intellect. — Kim Harrison

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I saw all this around me constantly, there were girls everywhere, the supply was infinite, a well, no, I was drifting in an ocean of women, I saw several hundred of them every day, all with their own individual ways of moving, standing, turning, walking, holding and twisting their heads, blinking, looking - take for example a feature such as their eyes, which expressed their utter uniqueness, everything that lived and breathed was here in this one person, was revealed, regardless of whether the gaze was meant for me or not. Oh, those sparkling eyes! Oh, those dark eyes! Oh, that glint of happiness! The alluring darkness! Or, for that matter, the unintelligent, the stupid eyes! For in them too there was an appeal, and no small appeal either: the stupid vacant eyes, the open mouth in that perfect beautiful body.
All this was never far from my mind, and all of them were thirty seconds away from the only thing I wanted - but on the other side of a chasm. — Karl Ove Knausgard

I wish you could see the two cats drowsing side by side in a Victorian nursing chair, their paws, their ears, their tails complementarily adjusted, their blue eyes blinking open on a single thought of when I shall remember it's their supper time. They might have been composed by Bach for two flutes. — Sylvia Townsend Warner

She pushed back to arm's length, returning them to the acceptable distance of strangers - or of a mechanic dancing with her emperor. For the first time, Kai missed a dance step, eyes blinking in surprise. She ignored the guilt scratching at her throat. — Marissa Meyer

Ian closed his eyes. Beth watched emotions flicker across his face, the uncertainty, the stubbornness, the raw pain he'd lived with for so long. He didn't always know how to express his emotions, but that didn't mean he didn't feel them deeply.
When Ian slowly opened his eyes, he guided his gaze directly to Beth's. His golden eyes shimmered and sparkled, pupils ringed with green. He held her gaze steadily, not blinking, or shifting away.
"I love you," he said.
Beth caught her breath, and sudden tears blurred her vision.
"Love you," Ian repeated. His gaze bore into hers harder than Hart's ever could hope to. "Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you ... — Jennifer Ashley

*For eleven years, I've been worked over and abused in ways you can't imagine by things you don't want to know about. I've killed every kind of vile, black-souled, dead-eyed nightmare that ever made you piss your pjs and cry for mommy in the middle of the night. I kill monsters and, if I wanted, I could say a word and burn you to powder from the inside out. I can tear any human you ever met to rages with my bare hands. Give me one good reason why I could possibly need you?
*She looks straight at me, not blinking. No fear in her eyes.
*Because you might be the Tasmanian Devil and the Angel of Death all rolled into one, but you don't even know how to get a phone.
*I hate to admit it, but she has a point. — Richard Kadrey

When the little mouse, which was loved as none other was in the mouse-world, got into a trap one night and with a shrill scream forfeited its life for the sight of the bacon, all the mice in the district, in their holes were overcome by trembling and shaking; with eyes blinking uncontrollably they gazed at each other one by one, while their tails scraped the ground busily and senselessly. Then they came out, hesitantly, pushing one another, all drawn towards the scene of death. There it lay, the dear little mouse, its neck caught in the deadly iron, the little pink legs drawn up, and now stiff the feeble body that would so well have deserved a scrap of bacon.
The parents stood beside it and eyed their child's remains. — Franz Kafka

Claire slumped down into the overstuffed chair in her office as she watched her sister go through Paul's collection of files. Lydia seemed energized by the prospect of uncovering more lurid details, but Claire felt as though she was suffocating under the weight of every new revelation. She couldn't believe that only two days ago, she had watched Paul's coffin as it was lowered into the ground. Her body might as well have been buried along with him. Her skin felt desiccated. She had a deep chill in her bones. Even blinking was a challenge, because the temptation to keep her eyes closed was almost too much to resist. — Karin Slaughter

What softened your heart?" I asked softly.
"Good music and a friend."
I felt my eyes burn a little and turned from him, blinking quickly to lap up the sting of tears. "Music has incredible power"
"So does friendship," he supplied frankly. — Amy Harmon

Nicely done, brother, said Gabriel from the bed, blinking sleepy green eyes at Gideon.
Gideon threw a scone at him. — Cassandra Clare

I had a good time that night, too," Michael said, "but I kept thinking, This is forever. This is forever. You will have this good time again and again, a million times over, until it will be like a play in which you and Laura and a few fugitive lives sit around an imaginary fire and talk and sing songs and love each other and sometimes throw imaginary brands at the eyes blinking beyond the circle of imaginary firelight. And then I thought - and this is where I sounded just like a real philosopher - And even when you admit that you know every line in the play and every song that will be sung, even when you know that this evening spent with friends is pleasant and joyful because you remember it as pleasant and joyful and wouldn't change it for the world, even when you know that anything you feel for these good friends has no more reality than a dream faithfully remembered every night for a thousand years - even then it goes on. Even then it has just begun. — Peter S. Beagle

worked in New York my whole life - actually lived only about twenty blocks away - and had never even heard of this place, or the Freedom Tunnel, for that matter. This city never failed to surprise. Hamster got out of the car, his big eyes blinking through the tangled gray mop of his hair as he looked around. We listened to the cooing of pigeons nesting in the crevices of the raised roadbed above as we waited. — James Patterson

Strolling down a white-graveled walk to the cliff above the ocean, he let his eyes rove aimlessly over the expanse of sea and sand: The icy-looking whitecaps, the blinking, faraway sails of boats, the sweeping, constantly searching gulls. Desolation. Eternal, infinite. Like Dostoevski's conception of eternity, a fly circling about a privy, the few signs of life only emphasized the loneliness. — Jim Thompson

I open the orangutan's door and set a pan of fruits, vegetables, and nuts on the floor. As I close it, her long arm reaches through the bars. She points at an orange in another pan.
'That? You want that?'
She continues to point, blinking at me with close-set eyes. Her features are concave, her face a wide platter fringed with red hair. She's the most outrageous and beautiful thing I've ever seen.
'Here,' I say, handing her the orange. 'You can have it.'
She takes it and sets it on the floor. Then she reaches out again. After several seconds of serious misgivings, I hold out my hand. She wraps her long fingers around it, then lets go. She sits on her haunches and peels her orange.
I stare in amazement. She was thanking me. — Sara Gruen

Fred, in the light from the window above, looked for a moment like a newly hatched chick, with his twitchy little head and blinking dark eyes and face open to the world. Birdie felt something like fear then, something ragged and dark lurking just out of sight. Fred could die just like Eleanor did, just like the Wallace boy who'd gone to bed with a headache and died in the night when a blood vessel exploded in his brain. The slimmest margin separated life from not-life. Pastor Hardy boomed on and on. "We must be overcomers — Rae Meadows

[Olive's] left foot was bleeding through a wide swath of bandages onto the tarp it was resting on. The bowl next to her was full of blood.
Olive looked a little pale. "I don't think I should move," she said.
"What are you doing?" Roger shut the door behind him and stood with his back to it.
"I decided I might try to eat my toes," Olive said, closing her eyes. "But now that I've started, I don't think I should move."
Roger pushed himself off the wall and knelt down next to her. He unbuckled her silver belt and reached with it under her dress. He looped the belt around the top of her leg and tightened it. His hands were not shaking.
"Sit on the loose end," he said, pushing it under her. "I hope that works."
"You brought flowers," she said, blinking.
"Olive," he said. "You cut off your toes."
She looked down at the bowl. "Are they still toes?" she asked. — Amelia Gray

When Crystal May woke up the next morning, she felt like she'd died and gone to heaven. She rolled over on her back, her sleepy eyes blinking in the sunlight. The window curtains were frilly and feminine, softening the light and making her feel protected from the world outside. It was mighty late, but she didn't care. Just lying there in the warm, golden light made her feel so good. She was safe here. She could feel it right down to her bones. — Carol Storm

Don't you know? Don't you know how crazy I am about you?" My hands fist in his shirt and I stare into his eyes, blinking slowly. I guess I did know, but I never imagined he might say it. He cradles my neck in his hand, thumb stroking my nape. "I - I love you so much." He says it quietly, but it's like a bomb going off. — Roan Parrish

Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes. — Blaise Cendrars

The girl looked up, blinking, a far-off expression in here eyes. I recognized it, understood the shock of realizing the world inside your book wasn't real. Even worse, you were in another world entirely and no one understood - or even cared - that you preferred the one living on the page. — Michelle Zink

...I'm momentarily transfixed, torn between curiosity and fear. I can pull it up the gently sloping mud bank, but then what? Already thought is lagging behind events, as the blotchy brown mass slides up wet mud toward me, its amorphous margins flowing into the craters left by retreating feet. In the center of the yard-wide disc is a raised turret where two eyes open and close, flashing black. And it's bellowing. A loud rhythmic sound that is at first inexplicable until I realize that those blinking eyes are its spiracles, now sucking in air instead of water, which it is pumping out via gill slits on its underside. And all the while it brandishes that blade, stabbing the air like a scorpion... — Jeremy Wade

He looks into my eyes then. Smiles for just a moment too long before he turns around and walks out the door. Without a word to anyone.
Ian is gaping at me. Again.
"I'm--right, I'm so confused," Brendon says, blinking. "Right then--what just happened? Was he smiling at you? Genuinely smiling at you?"
"Looked to me like he was in love with you," Winston says, frowning. "But that's probably just because my head is messed up, right? — Tahereh Mafi

One Time, One Day
between Davie and Roberta ,
I asked my mom why she persisted,
kept on having baby after baby,
She looked
at me, at a spot between my eyes,
blinking like I had suddenly fallen
crazy. She paused before answering
as if
to confide would legitimize my fears.
She drew a deep breath, leaned against
the chair. I touched her hand and I thought
she might
cry. Instead she put baby Davie in my arms
Pattyn, she said, it's a woman's role.
I decided if it was my role, I'd rather
disappear. — Ellen Hopkins

The difference between closing or opening your eyes is the choice between the imagined vs real. Blinking is only human. — John Maeda

Can you be a little baby? The baby howls all day, yet its throat never gets hoarse - harmony at its height! The baby makes fists all day, yet its fingers never get cramped - virtue is all it holds to. The baby stares all day without blinking its eyes - it has no preferences in the world of externals. — Zhuangzi

Staring isn't difficult. I can do it all day long. Without blinking, if I want to, which is sometimes painful, but always useful. The trick is to not really look at them, but to focus ten yards beyond, on nothing, which produces a glassy effect, which makes them worry, mostly about what's going on behind your empty eyes. — Lee Child

And for five long hours the little man sat motionless, blinking his eyelids like a cat, his green eyes flickering and becoming steadily greener and greener. — Agatha Christie

Derek turned to face Stiles, his expression falling into a very familiar stare of utter disgruntled bitchiness. "Would you like more water?"

Stiles squinted, resisting the urge to mutter, ' not sure if angry, or just emotionally constipated,' under his breath. Instead, he pursed his lips and attempted to lay on the old Stilinski charm by blurting out, "I could do with something a little... harder."

It was almost disturbing how Derek was able to stare back at Stiles without blinking once. "I have beer," he said slowly, cautiously.

Stiles narrowed his eyes, echoing the tone of Derek's voice, "...harder."

".... pudding?" Derek ventured, as if pudding was actually a viable option when Stiles was demanding something harder than beer. — Tylerfucklin

The first time I met Crenshaw was about three years ago, right after first grade ended. It was early evening, and my family and I had parked at a rest stop off a highway. I was lying on the grass near a picnic table, gazing up at the stars blinking to life. I heard a noise, a wheels-on-gravel skateboard sound. I sat up on my elbows. Sure enough, a skater on a board was threading his way through the parking lot. I could see right away that he was an unusual guy. He was a black and white kitten. A big one, taller than me. His eyes were the sparkly color of morning grass. He was wearing a black and orange San Francisco Giants baseball cap. He hopped off his board and headed my way. He was standing on two legs just like a human. "Meow," he said. "Meow," I said back, because it seemed polite. — Katherine Applegate

Darkis pointed toward the dwarf sitting btween them on the ground. "Uh, don't you think that's a bit much?"
Turi and Ethis each held separate ropes around the bound hands and feet of the dwarf. A gag was tied tightly over hi mouth.
Ethis considered the prisoner for a moment before replying. "No, it seems a resonable precaution." "Why? What did he do?" Darkis said. The chimera looked at each other, thier blank faces considering for a moment. "He kept promising not to escape," Thuri answerd at last. "He promised not to escape," Darkis asked, his brow furrowed with the puzzle, "and so you tied him up?"
"He wouldn't shut up about it," Ethis replied, his large eyes blinking indignantly. "He kept going on and on about how we could trust him and how he had nowhere to run and how he was glad it was us who took him as a slave captive of war."
"It was unnerving," Thuri finished. — Tracy Hickman

Theres a lot of muscles in your eyes even that you dont ever work, but little human traits like showing signs of exertion while running, you couldnt do that. Blinking when youre shooting a gun, you know. Things that you take for granted every day that had to be eliminated, so it was always interesting. — Kristanna Loken

Hades took off his helm. His complexion was even paler than usual. He had a bad case of helmet hair. He was sweating and nervous and blinking like he had something in his eyes. "I am Hades," he said in a squeaky voice. "I love you. — Rick Riordan

As long as I'm between home and the clinic I do all right. But out in the real world, I feel like prey. I slink around and can feel people looking at me. I feel their eyes boring into me. I feel what they're thinking: Watch her, she could go off anytime. But within the walls of my farmhouse, I climb out of the protective shell, my arms slowly rise like a phoenix, and I dance, wail, fly around the room and then collapse, crying, in front of my mirrors. I start to see in the mirror what it is I really look like, instead of what I was trained from the womb to see. I do not write about it. I do not talk about it. I do not know what I am doing. But just like a baby bird, I am blinking once-sealed eyes and unfolding damp wings. I cannot articulate the past. A part of me knows it's there, lurking, just behind what I can acknowledge, but it is not within sight. And I am keeping it that way. — Julie Gregory

And yours? What is your opinion? Truly?" She turned to face me, her green eyes brilliant in the lamplight. "Would it matter?"
"No. I love him and, damn the world, I will have him."
She grinned. "Good girl. And since my opinion doesn't matter, I give it freely: Brisbane is worth twenty Marches and dearer to me than most of my own brothers. If you do not marry him, I will do so myself, simply to keep him in the family."
I turned away quickly. "Are you weeping?" she asked.
"Don't be absurd." My voice was muffled and I swallowed, blinking furiously. "I have a cinder in my eye." Portia dropped a swift kiss to my cheek. "Happiness is within your grasp now, pet. Hang onto it, and do not let it go, whatever you do. — Deanna Raybourn

One of the laudable by-products of the Freudian quackery is the discovery that lying, in most cases, is involuntary and inevitable
that the liar can no more avoid it than he can avoid blinking his eyes when a light flashes or jumping when a bomb goes off behind him. — H.L. Mencken

The guy stood a yard inside the dark room and waited, blinking, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom after the hot whiteness of the Key West sun. It was June, dead-on four o'clock in the afternoon, the southernmost part of the United States. Way farther south than most of the Bahamas. A hot white sun and a fierce temperature. Reacher sat at his table in back and sipped water from a plastic bottle and waited. — Lee Child