Book Of Shadows Quotes & Sayings

Often, when I have been feeling lonely, when a book as been thrust aside in boredom [ ... ] I have lain back and stared at the shadows on the ceiling, wondering what life is all about [ ... ] and then, suddenly, there is the echo of the swinging door, and across the carpet, walking with the utmost delicacy and precision, stalks Four or Five or Oscar. He sits down on the floor beside me, regarding my long legs, my old jumper, and my floppy arms, with a purely practical interest. Which part of this large male body will form the most appropriate lap? Usually he settles for the chest. Whereupon he springs up and there is a feeling of cold fur [ ... ] and the tip of an icy nose, thrust against my wrist and a positive tattoo of purrs. And I no longer wonder what life is all about. — Beverley Nichols

It made a romantic tale. The young rouge, cheating death, returning to his grieving lover. But in reality? Ashyn had always known life did not resemble one of her book stories or Moria's bard tales, and yet there was a part of her that hoped it did. The more she saw, the more she realized she was wrong. People made up stories because that is what they wanted from their world. A place where goodness, kindness, and honor were rewarded. They were not rewarded. The people of Edgewood could attest to that. - Sea Of Shadows — Kelly Armstrong

Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm fine. I'm not even all that hungry. I'd much rather explore the book shop."
"Food first, books after," he said sternly, not liking the dark shadows of fatigue beneath her eyes. Who knew when she'd last slept? "And then we should rest early. — Brooklyn Ann

You destroy buildings, fight monsters openly in the streets of the city, work with the police, show up in newspapers, advertise in the phone book, and ride zombie dinosaurs down Michigan Avenue, and think that you work in the shadows? Be reasonable. — Jim Butcher

Magic makes people dangerous. — Sarah J. Maas

We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story. — Ford Madox Ford

Lila backed away toward the curtain. "Do you just... stand here until I need you?"
The woman smiled and dug a volume from a pocket. "I have a book."
"Let me guess, a religious text?"
"Actually," said Ister, perching on the low couch, "it's about pirates."
Lila smiled. — V.E Schwab

My point is there will always be vile men, just as there will always be men of kindness and compassion ... This world is a troubled, savage, place. It would, however, even be more ghastly if only evil men took time to master weapons. - Waylander from the book Hero in the Shadows by David Gemmell — David Gemmell

Without the witty, potent dialogue and the puzzling shape of the story, the movie would have been merely an American version of the kind of brooding, shadow-filled, Ufa-style expressionist stuff that Joe had grown up watching in Prague. Without the brooding shadows and cold adventurings of the camera, without the theatrical lighting and queasy angles, it would have been merely a clever movie about a rich bastard. It was much, much more, than any movie really needed to be. In this one crucial regard--its inextricable braiding of image and narrative--Citizen Kane was like a comic book. — Michael Chabon

What appear to be depravity, injury, or extinction are merely traces of memory and experience obscuring the soul. These are merely shadows of the soul, never its substance. The soul itself is always pure and whole. — Ilchi Lee

Homeward bound I suddenly noticed before me my own shadow as I had seen the shadow of the other war behind the actual one. During all this time it has never budged from me, that irremovable shadow, it hovers over every thought of mine by day and by night; perhaps its dark outline lies on some pages of this book, too. But, after all, shadows themselves are born of light. And only he who has experienced dawn and dusk, war and peace, ascent and decline, only he has truly lived. — Stefan Zweig

When You Are Old
WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. — W.B.Yeats

The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of things reflected from the minds of others. — William Hazlitt

In the candle's flickering light, the library's thousands of books emerged from the shadows, and for a moment Nicholas could not help admiring them again. During free time he had almost never looked up from the pages he was reading, but now he saw the books anew, from without rather than from within, and was reminded of how beautiful they were simply as objects. The geometrical wonder of them all, each book on its own and all the books together, row upon row, the infinite patterns and possibilities they presented. They were truly lovely. — Trenton Lee Stewart

A library is but the soul's burial ground; it is the land of shadows. Yet one is impressed with the thought, the labor, and the struggle, represented in this vast catacomb of books. Who could dream, by the placid waters that issue from the level mouths of brooks into the lake, all the plunges, the whirls, the divisions, and foaming rushes that had brought them down to the tranquil exit? And who can guess through what channels of disturbance, and experiences of sorrow, the heart passed that has emptied into this Dead Sea of books? — Henry Ward Beecher

She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers ... She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on ... — Markus Zusak

If you have had an unfortunate experience, forget it. If you have made a failure in speech, your song, your book, your article, if you have been placed in an embarrassing position, if you have fallen and hurt yourself by a false step, if you have been slandered and abused, do not dwell upon it. There is not a single redeeming feature in these memories, and the presence of their ghosts will rob you of many a happy hour. There is nothing in it. Drop them. Forget them. Wipe them out of your mind forever. If you have been indiscreet, imprudent, if you have been talked about, if your reputation has been injured so that you fear you can never outgrow it or redeem it, do not drag the hideous shadows, the rattling skeletons about with you, Rub them off from the shite of memory. Wipe them out. Forget them. Start with a clean slate and spend all your energies in keeping it clean for the future. — Orison Swett Marden

The most interesting inconsistency in thought is connected with the Bower of Bliss. This passage
the twelfth canto of the second Book
is probably the best known in the whole poem and the most frequently cited as an example of Spenser's sensuous beauty. Professor de Selincourt writes: 'Those who blame Spenser for lavishing the resources of his art upon this canto, and filling it with magic beauty, have never been at the heart of the experience it shadows. It is from the ravishing loveliness of all that surrounds and leads to the Bower of Acrasia that she herself draws her almost irresistible power. When Guyon has bound Acrasia and destroyed the Bower of Bliss he has achieved his last and hardest victory. — Janet Spens

In her mind, the ground rumbled and split open revealing the edge into a dark abyss. The shadows were always calling to her. Laughing at her. The familiar strains of loneliness flared under their torment. Drawing in a deep breath, she screamed to the black, "You're not allowed to hurt me and know it!" Her voice echoed off the earthen walls and whispered back, "Be free. Be fearless. — Jesikah Sundin

It was clear to her now, Happiness was a seductive illusion. No one as fucked up as her deserved one drop of joy. But oh god was it delicious when it fell into her lap for a little while. (Such a pretty face) she muses (with such a bruised and battered soul). When the dawn of a promise fades into the dusk of reality, all that remains is the nightmare. Sweet, sweet loneliness. Shadows come to play and prey on her beaten mind. Her lovely little dreams of poison. — Solange Nicole

When autumn shadows throw their patterns across the land, they are not the images of fragile, dying leaves, not the bared arms of lofty elms, not shadows of a fading summer; but swinging shapes as of books upon a strap, of round and square boxes held under an arm, of hurrying little people heading towards the nearest school. — Djuna Barnes

As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows shifted and the afternoon passed. — Betty Smith

When people live in the full light of an open society, paying their taxes, abiding by the rules, that makes not only our country safer and more secure because people are not relegated to living in the shadows and not creating underground economies, it also is better for wages because the fact that people are working on the books in the open means that there's greater demand for labor and you don't have this submarket. — Martin O'Malley

Lorien who loves twilights and flittering shadows, and sweet scents borne upon evening winds, who is the lord of dreams and imaginings, sat nigh and whispered swift noiseless words, while his sprites played half-heard tunes beside him like music stealing out into the dark from distant dwellings... - Book of Lost Tales Part 1 — J.R.R. Tolkien

I spent the first 18 years of my life in the pastoral town of Vernal, Utah, in the shadows of the Book Cliffs and the Uinta Mountains. — Gordon Gee

The librarian, whom I had never seen before, presided over the library like a watchdog, one of those poor dogs who are deliberately made vicious by being chained up and given little to eat; ot better, like the old, toothless cobra, pale because of centuries of darkness, who guards the king's treasure in the Jungle Book. Paglietta, poor woman, was little less than a lusus naturae: she was small, without breasts or hips, waxen, wilted, and monstrously myopic; she wore glasses so thick and concave that, looking at her head-on, her eyes, light blue, almost white, seemed very far away, stuck at the back of her cranium. She gave the impression of never having been young, although she was certainly not more than thirty, and of having been born there, in the shadows, in that vague odor of mildew and stale air. — Primo Levi

'The Book of Air and Shadows' was born during a conference with an intellectual property lawyer on a particular afternoon in November of 2003. — Michael Gruber

There is a peculiar aesthetic pleasure in constructing the form of a syllabus, or a book of essays, or a course of lectures. Visions and shadows of people and ideas can be arranged and rearranged like stained-glass pieces in a window, or chessmen on a board. — A.S. Byatt

I remember her, not a girl but the girl. The brains behind the all time top ten comic book vixens only wish they could conjure a a siren the likes of Susan Glenn, beneath my feet my own private earthquake registered an eight when Susan Glenn was near. In her presence all was beautiful before she arrived turned grotesque and in her shadows others became goblinesque, if she approached Susan Glenn she didn't walk she floated, accompanied by Pyrotechnics spectacals that left me feeling a foot tall. She embodied every desireable quality I have ever wanted. In my mind I was a peasant before a Queen. And so Susan Glenn and I were never a thing, if I could do it again, I'd do it differently. — Keifer Sutherland

When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep — W.B.Yeats

How much better life seemed to me now that it seemed susceptible of being illuminated, taken out of the shadows, restored from our ceaseless falsification of it to the truth of what it was, in short, realized in a book! How happy the writer of a book like that would be, I thought, what a labour awaited him! — Marcel Proust

[On Jason Mashak's "I Was Trained to See Shadows", in his poetry book SALTY AS A LIP:] A nice bit of smooth, full-bodied, surreal story telling. I like it. — John Bennett

Should you see the light of your future, within the shadows of your present,
The resilience of life dancing over vast deserts of death,
Witness if you so shall, the majesty of Creation.
The connectedness of All was and always will be.
Entanglement? No. We call it Love." ~ Sargon of Akkad 2345 B.C.
Excerpt from Andulairah's upcoming book "The Erunisis Medallion — Andulairah

You are reading while walking, she reads. You can't see your feet. The spread pages glide over the sidewalk, mottled by leaf shadows, by moonlight and streetlight. Over continents of shadow, continents of light. The book is a bird with white wings. You are a bird. Reading, you can fly.
You are flying now. — Joyelle McSweeney

A swirl of dust and dirt picked up from the shadows that fell over everything in this grungy corner of the world. The dancing movement was hypnotizing. The sand and grit had rested long enough to have drifted into obscurity. But fate had different plans, and this gust of wind had lifted them and turned their obscure and unknown existence into a chaotic tempest of action that could not be ignored. — Lexie Syrah

A wiry crewman named Kobis sat at the end of a couch, reading a book in the low light, clearly relishing the closest thing he ever found to peace and quiet — V.E Schwab

Pulvis et umbra sumus. It's a line from Horace. 'We are dust and shadows'. Appropriate, don't you think?" Will said. "It's not a long life, killing demons; one tends to die young, and then they burn your body - dust to dust, in the literal sense. And then we vanish into the shadows of history, nary a mark on the page of a mundane book to remind the world that once we existed at all. — Cassandra Clare

If there is a lack of specificity in Grossman's description of the town and the walkers, and if the story perhaps sometimes becomes lost and confusing, then it is because the landscape and its inhabitants are really shadows, creatures of an interior world, whose journey and whose quest are within. Falling Out of Time is short, and clearly a deeply personal book, but its importance and impact ought not to be underestimated. — Ian Sansom

I am a tale, I am a book, written in different languages and styles

I can't be read, can't be understood,
neither by me nor the greatest of minds

I am too big, I am too small, to be processed or seen by the naked eye

I am too dim, I am too bright, to appear in the shadows or the sunshine. — Sanober Khan

And then, unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere, a thought or image arrives. Some will float into your head like goldfish, lovely, bright, orange, and weightless, and you follow them like a child at an aquarium that was thought to be without fish. Others will step of the shadows like Boo Radley and make you catch your breath or take a step backward. They're often so rich, these unbidden thoughts, and so clear that they feel indelible. But I say write them all down anyway. — Anne Lamott

Predator and prey move in silent gestures, on the seductive dance of death, in the shadows cast by the vultures of the night. — Luis Marques

At the best of times his face was unreadable. Now his face was a book written in a language long forgotten, in an alphabet unimagined. Silas wrapped the shadows around him like a blanket, and stared after the way the boy had gone, and did not move to follow. — Neil Gaiman

Certain living things prefer the dark, thriving in the shadows of tombstones and crypts, flowering admist the dead. Others tend toward the sun, blooming in the light, embracing the warmth. — Fiona Paul

To run with the wolf was to run in the shadows, the dark ray of life, survival and instinct. A fierceness that was both proud and lonely, a tearing, a howling, a hunger and thirst. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst. A strength that would die fighting, kicking, screaming, that wouldn't stop until the last breath had been wrung from its body. The will to take one's place in the world. To say 'I am here.' To say 'I am. — O.R. Melling

It is an accurate statement that the followers of Witchcraft do not usually proselytize, which means you aren't going to find us standing on your local street corner thumping our Books of Shadows. Nor do you have to worry about jumping out of the shower to answer our serene and smiling faces at the door with your clothes stuck to various uncomfortable places on your wet body. But just because we (hopefully) aren't the forcible type doesn't mean we don't exist. — Silver RavenWolf

In other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray symbols dragging their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of muffled sound and faded glory, signifying absolutely nothing. And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that needs to be realized: not known but felt, not thought but breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson but a life. — Ken Wilber