Curled Quotes & Sayings

I curled my lip at the sight of sizzling human hair and skin clinging to my demon flesh. Damn, I'd have given anything to be back in Boston, sipping chai tea latte." ~ Muse, Ties That Bind, #5 The Veil Series. — Pippa DaCosta

Tentatively she curled an arm around his neck and relaxed against him as she held the lantern to light their way.
He was silent as he climbed the stairs with her, and though she kept her gaze averted, she could feel his eyes on her. In a few moments they were in the corridor leading from the wing, and with unerring direction, he turned down the hall toward her bedchamber.
Erienne was most observant of that fact and remembered the night he had paused outside her door.
"You seem to know your way quite well through this house. Even the way to my chamber."
"I know where the lord's chambers are and that you're using them," he replied, meeting her gaze.
"I don't think I'll ever feel safe in this house again," she replied with more truth than sarcasm.
A devilish grin gleamed back at her.
-Erienne & Christopher — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

His phone sounded.
He grabbed it off his coffee table and his mouth curled up when he read, Kiss my ass, Merry.
Using his thumb, he returned, You want that, brown eyes, I'll work it in.
She didn't make him wait and shot back, Go fuck yourself.
Now, sweetheart, you know that's not the way it works.
Then came, We're done.
He ignored that and sent, Sleep tight. See you tomorrow. — Kristen Ashley

An ugly blue- steeled Mauser leaped into his hand as his finger curled hungrily around its trigger. — Richard Sale

Mason slid down beside me and Logan curled an arm around my shoulder. He drawled against my cheek, "It'll throw them off. Their visionary senses will tell them we're screwing and they'll get confused." His hand slid down towards my breast. — Tijan

I crept into his bed and curled myself around him, resting my head against his back, wrapping my arms around his chest. I wanted to seal him to me, to fuse him to my skin, to reassure myself that he was actually mine. I pressed my lips against his back and slid my hands up under his T-shirt, pressing my hands against his flat abdomen, stroking upward to his chest. — Amy Harmon

Braith opened her eyes and screamed at what hovered above her, "Gods! Death comes for me!"
The horrifying face of death curled its lip at her and growled, "Well, that's charmin'." Death sat back in its chair, hands resting on its knees. "This face is not me fault, ya know?" Death looked off, thought a moment. Its finger traced one of the deep gouges across its jaw. "This one actually is kind of me fault." She pointed at the other side of her face, where part of her chin was missing. "And this one. A bit of barney at the pub."
...
"That was not death," he whispered. "That was our Great-Aunt Brigida."
"Brigida? Brigida the Foul?" He nodded. "I thought she was dead."
Addolgar shook his head and whispered, "She just won't die. — G.A. Aiken

But still, sometimes, in the heart of winter when the light outside seemed yellow- sleepy, like a cat curled up on a sofa ... — Stephen King

Terrific! Have you done Step Three?" He waggled his brows as he opened up the top left drawer of my dresser.
"No. Hey! Do you mind, Nosy Newton?"
"Are these panties?" he asked, holding up two of my thongs. "Because they look like dental floss to me."
Oh my God. My almost father-in-law was digging around in my lingerie. Embarrassment bloomed in my face. "Ruadan, get out of my underwear!"
"Fine," he said, closing the left drawer and opening the right one. "Oh! Lookie here!"
"If you touch that box," I said menacingly, "I will cut off your head with your own swords. And I'm not talking about the one on your shoulders."
He laughed, shutting the drawer. "You won't need a vibrator anymore. You've got Patrick." His gaze slid toward the dresser. "Unless you have different toys in there. Nipple clamps?"
"I ... what ... oh God." I fell onto the bed, curled into the fetal position, and covered my face. — Michele Bardsley

She was whole and real, not someone he held in his mind and heart but whom he couldn't touch. God, she was so alive.
"Rory," he managed, lifting his hands to frame her flushed cheeks. Her startled gasp became a moan that flowed between his lips when their mouths fused. She opened for him at once, her dark lashes falling down to hide her eyes. It didn't matter. He tasted what she felt when her tongue tentatively curled around his. — Cari Quinn

At night, the boy and the girl lie curled around each other in the belly of the ship. He holds her tight when she wakes from another nightmare, her teeth chattering, her ears ringing with the terrified screams of the men and women she left behind on the broken skiff, her limbs trembling with remembered power. "It's all right," he whispers in the darkness. "It's all right." She wants to believe him, but she's afraid to close her eyes. The — Leigh Bardugo

He curled up, twitching and spasming, the pain stormtrooping through his entire body in agonizing, dizzying, pounding waves. He vomited, but it wasn't the contents of his stomach. It was his stomach, hanging inside-out from a slimy loop of esophagus, spilling out the precious blood he'd been digesting.
Even with everything going on, the smell of blood activated his biting reflex, and he chomped down on his own regurgitated organs, screaming as he chewed. — Blake Crouch

She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through which indeed there curled the blue river of truth. — Henry James

My arms quickly grew too tired, and all the heat I'd gained from the shower left me. Giving up, I tossed the towel to the floor, crawled between the covers, and curled into a ball. I couldn't even rub my feet together to try to generate more heat. Clay walked in and turned off the lights. I listened to the familiar rustle of clothes. Instead of the usual bounce of him jumping up on the end of the bed, he peeled back the covers, and the bed dipped as he slid in next to me. I didn't bother to pretend I wasn't interested in what he offered. Heat radiated from him, chasing the chill from the sheets. "I really hope you're wearing shorts or something," I said with a slight slur. I stuck my cold feet right on his legs and shimmied over to his side to huddle against his warmth. Boy, was he warm. It didn't matter, though. The shaking didn't stop, but I was too exhausted to worry about it. Sighing, — Melissa Haag

Inquisitor Lorsen's thin lip curled. "There is truly nothing in you of what separates man from animal, is there? You are bereft of conscience. An utter absence of morality. You have no principle beyond the selfish."
Cosca's face hardened as he leaned forwards. "Perhaps when you have faced as many disappointments and suffered as many betrayals as I, you will see it - there is no principle beyond the selfish, Inquisitor, and men are animals. Conscience is a burden we choose to bear. Morality is the lie we tell ourselves to make its bearing easier. There have been many times in my life when I have wished it was not so. But it is so. — Joe Abercrombie

Iko was beginning to comprehend why humans curled into the fetal position when they were afraid. — Marissa Meyer

What about stakes in the heart?" I asked now.
He frowned, the center of his mouth pursed while its corners curled downward. "Anyone will die from a stake in the heart," he said. "And anyone will die if they're severely burned, including vampires. — Susan Hubbard

With her back turned, she loosened each plait until her hair hung in waves that curled around her waist. Then she spun to face him and puffed a sigh.
"Fine. You caught me. I guess there's no use pretending anymore."
Doran settled in and waited for the punch line.
"I lured you onto this ship," she said, "because I couldn't get enough of your scintillating personality."
There it was.
"Kiss me, Doran," she cried, flopping onto the mattress with one arm slung over her eyes and the other clutched to her breast. "I burn for you, hotter than a thousand hells."
He cocked his head to the side. "I think there's an ointment for that. — Melissa Landers

The clock struck eleven and cat the vampire huntress was on the loose, except my battle armor was a push-up bra, curled hair, and a short dress. Yeah, it was a dirty job, but I was going to do it. Come one, come all, bloodsuckers! Bar's open! — Jeaniene Frost

Of unquenchable sparkle and dream as ever. Behind her, in the hammock, Rilla Blythe was curled up, a fat, roly-poly little creature of — L.M. Montgomery

You're the one they're looking for," he said, with a curled lip. "You're the Glass Serpent. — Millicent Ashby

Remember that, so that next time you can just agree with whatever I say and we'll be fine. Though he didn't open his eyes, one corner of his mouth curled, ever so slightly. It was what I was hoping for. For a moment, the barriers had crumbled and we were all right again. — Julie Kagawa

Mixed with the resinous scent of the firs there came another smell, strong and fragrant, yet sharp - the perfume of flowers, but of some kind unknown to Hazel. He followed it to its source at the edge of the wood. It came from several thick patches of soapwort growing along the edge of the pasture. Some of the plants were not yet in bloom, their buds curled in pink, pointed spirals held in the pale green calices, but most were already star-flowering and giving off their strong scent. The bats were hunting among the flies and moths attracted to the soapwort. — Richard Adams

I don't want anyone getting hurt over me," I said and looked directly at him.

"Good." His mouth curled up into a smirk. "Then learn to defend yourself. Move the tarp. — Amanda Hocking

annoyed her, she also knew her psychiatrist's sentiment was right. She sighed. It was beyond frustrating when things you didn't like were also your reality. "Where do you want the living room furniture?" one of the movers asked. She directed him inside and showed him the dining area off the kitchen that would serve as living and dining. If it weren't for Corrine's forcing her to a table most evenings, Shaye would have eaten every meal curled up on the couch in front of a television, and now — Jana Deleon

JACKSON'S DARK BROWN HAIR curled up on his shirt collar. Black lashes and heavy brows framed his blue eyes. A few crow's-feet around his eyes were the only sign that he'd just passed his fortieth birthday and they were minimized in the dim restaurant lights. His jeans were creased and stacked up over his highly polished black boots just the right way. Waitresses stopped what they were doing and gazed at him over their shoulders as he passed. Their — Carolyn Brown

There wasn't even a bed in the room, just a narrow settee where Nina curled up every night. When Kaz had asked Nina why, she'd simply said, "I don't want anyone getting ideas." "A man doesn't need a bed to get ideas, Nina. — Leigh Bardugo

Her father would return from China. He'd come back with all his soldiers. He'd pick her up in his strong arms and say that he'd never meant to leave, that he hadn't meant to sail away and leave her and her mother alone in the canals of the Drowned Cities as the Army of God and the UPF and the Freedom Militia came down like a hammer on every single person who'd ever trafficked with the peacekeepers. A stupid little dream for a stupid little war maggot. Mahlia hated herself for dreaming it. But sometimes she curled in on herself and held the stump of her right hand to her chest and pretended that none of it had happened. That her father was still here, and she still had a hand, and everything was going to get better. — Paolo Bacigalupi

His touch sent a combination of tickles and chills through my body. My heart sped up and i struggled to keep my breathing normal.
Every Noah rummor had been right. His kisses curled my toes and now his simple touch rocked my body. — Katie McGarry

There was laughter in his eyes now, competing with a dissolute, and altogether enthusiastic, invitation to pleasure.
In one swift gesture he turned her hand over and pressed a burning kiss on her palm, a touch so fast she didn't see it, though her hand curled instinctively, as if to protect the kiss itself. — Eloisa James

He settled in beside me, and I curled into him. Cocooned in Wes. God, it felt so good. "Thank you," I whispered. "I've never felt so amazing."

"I wanted you in my life from the beginning, Mal. Any way I could have you." He snuggled me closer. "Even if it meant just as friends."

I couldn't help snorting. "Thank God that's not the case."

He chuckled and gave me a squeeze. "Amen, my friend. — Missy Welsh

Stories," she blurted. "The mosaic told stories, didn't it?"
"Yes, old ones."
"I'll tell them to you."
His eyes cracked open. He didn't remember closing them. "You know those tales?"
"Yes."
She didn't. This became clear as she began to tell them. She knew bits and pieces, cobbled together in ways that would have made him smile if smiling didn't hurt. "You," he breathed, "are such a faker."
"Don't interrupt."
Mostly pure invention. She remembered the images--it pleased him, how vividly she knew the temple floor's details. Which god curled around which, or how the snake's tongue forked into three. But the stories she told had little to do with his religion. Sometimes they didn't even make sense.
"Do this again," he said, "when I have strength to laugh."
"As bad as that?"
"Mmm. Maybe not. For a Valorian. — Marie Rutkoski

Take heart now in one true thing: You will gain traction. You will grow upwards even when you think you've been slammed back down into that same dark hole. It will start looking like a different hole, one that might still have you
curled up and crying, but that crying will be more transformative than only desperate screams of despair. Your pain can be turned to good account. You're not alone. You've got
this handbook. Keep us with you. — Deborah Pardes

David tried to give a form to the beast at the heart of the poem but found that he could not. It was more difficult than it appeared, for nothing quite seemed to fit. Instead, he could only conjure up a half-formed being that crouched in the cobwebbed corners of his imagination where all the things that he feared curled and slithered upon one another in the darkness. — John Connolly

Dried out and curled up in a ball, me, I am like tea. Waiting to be immersed. Willing to unfold. Wanting to unfurl. Wailing silently to be exposed. Whimpering till that day. It seems I'm wilting and withering away. — Dharlene Marie Fahl

This is a book, and a book is a world, and words are the seeds in which meanings are curled. Pages of oceans and margins of land are civilizations you hold in the palm of your hand. But look at your world and your life seems to shrink to cities of paper and seas made of ink. Do you know who you are, or have you been misled? Are you the reader, or are you the read? — Traci Chee

And while thou
livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and
uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee
right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other
places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that
can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours, they do
always reason themselves out again. What! a
speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A
good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a
black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow
bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax
hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the
moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it
shines bright and never changes, but keeps his
course truly. If thou would have such a one, take
me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier,
take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love?
speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee — William Shakespeare

EDGAR
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled
my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of
my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with
her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that
slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it:
wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman
out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth,
wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of
silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot
out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen
from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny.
Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.
Storm still. — William Shakespeare

I settled on the floor and whispered to Sam, "I want you to listen to me, if you can." I leaned the side of my face against his ruff and remembered the golden wood he had shown me so long ago. I remembered the way the yellow leaves, the color of Sam's eyes, fluttered and twisted, crashing butterflies, on their way to the ground. The slender white trunks of the birches, creamy and smooth as human skin. I remembered Sam standing in the middle of the wood, his arms stretched out, a dark, solid form in the dream of the trees. His coming to me, me punching his chest, the soft kiss. I remembered every kiss we'd ever had, and I remembered every time I'd curled in his human arms. I remembered the soft warmth of his breath on the back of my neck while we slept.
I remembered Sam. — Maggie Stiefvater

I lay curled in a fetal position one night, listening to my wife's voice. In the evenings, she just talked, speaking light into my darkness by reading verses to me. I needed a touchstone and she knew it, so she kept gently pointing toward Christ. She set aside her fears to speak into my own. — Ben Palpant

The idea made Mahlia's chest tighten. It was her own fantasy, the secret one she sometimes curled up to when she went to bed, knowing that it was stupid, but still wanting it, wanting it to somehow all make sense. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Artemis grabbed her shoulders, for once abandoning his shell of icy composure. "Holly, Holly, speak to me. Your finger is it okay?"
Holly wiggled her fingers, then curled them into a fist.
"I think so," she said, and whacked Artemis right between the eyes. The surprised boy landed in a snowdrift for the third time that day.
Holly winked at an amazed butler.
"Now we're even," she said.
Commander Root didn't have many treasured memories. But in future days, when things were at their grimmest, he would conjure up this moment and have a quiet chuckle. — Eoin Colfer

I think on a stage in front of thousands of people is a wildly invigorating and amazing experience, and it requires a certain skill set; then being in the studio, and being curled up in the fetal position under the piano, that requires another skill set. — Mary Chapin Carpenter

Room peering out, a gun in one hand, his other hand curled around the window drape. "Dad?" said Tyler in a shaky voice. Wingo held up a hand to quiet his son. He lingered at the window for a few more minutes, his gaze running up and down the streets, to the tops of the buildings and — David Baldacci

[My advice] will one day be found
With other relics of 'a former world,'
When this world shall be former, underground,
Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisped, and curled,
Baked, fried or burnt, turned inside-out, or drowned,
Like all the worlds before, which have been hurled
First out of, and then back again to Chaos,
The Superstratum which will overlay us. — Lord Byron

And they spoke of their Antigonie, who they called Go, as if she were a friend.
Leo hadn't yet written any music, but he had made drawings on butcher paper stolen from the kitchen. They curled around his walls, intricate doodles, extensions of the boy's own lean, slight body. The shape of Leo's jaw in profile, devestating. The way he gnawed his fingernails to the crescents, the fine shining hairs down the center of his nape, the smell of him, up close, pure and clean, bleaching.
The ones made for music are the most beloved of all. Their bodies a container for the spirit within; the best of them is music, the rest only instrument of flesh and bone.
The weather conspired. Snow fell softly in the windows. It was too cold to be out for long. The world colorless, a dreamscape, a blank page, the linger of woodsmoke on the back of the tongue. — Lauren Groff

Her magic sent him sprawling, and it then hurled into Rhysand again - so hard that his head cracked against the stones and the knife dropped from his splayed fingers. No one made a move to help him, and she struck him once more with her power. The red marble splintered where he hit it, spiderwebbing toward me. With wave after wave she hit him. Rhys groaned.
"Stop," I breathed, blood filling my mouth as I strained a hand to reach her feet. "Please."
Rhys's arms buckled as he fought to rise, and blood dripped from his nose, splattering on the marble. His eyes met mine.
The bond between us went taut. I flashed between my body and his, seeing myself through his eyes, bleeding and broken and sobbing.
I snapped back into my own mind as Amarantha turned to me again. "Stop? Stop? Don't pretend you care, human," she crooned, and curled her finger. I arched my back, my spine straining to the point of cracking, and Rhysand bellowed my name as I lost my grip on the room. — Sarah J. Maas

For God's sake, let us be men
not monkeys minding machines
or sitting with our tails curled
while the machine amuses us, the radio or film or gramophone.
Monkeys with a bland grin on our faces. — D.H. Lawrence

According to string theory, which Professor Tamashi and other scientists have been using to try to solve the Big Bang, in addition to the four dimensions of spacetime we know, there are six of these very small, curled-up dimensions, making ten all told. And the strings, which are little strands of energy, wiggle around vibrating in these ten dimensions.'

'Like Dennis's mother,' Mario, seeking vengeance for the ant slur, interjects, 'wiggling around vibrating with her vibrator, because she is a famous slut, and also, she has ten dimensions because she is a fat bitch. — Paul Murray

In other circumstances, if Jamie hadn't been so miserable, Ryan would have laughed. Jamie rarely got so pissed that he lost the thread of the conversation. "Yes, you are." Cradling Jamie's face, he brushed his lips against Jamie's forehead. "Everything will be fine, you'll see." He kissed Jamie's temple.

Jamie shuddered. "Don't. Not now. I can't - not now."

Frowning, Ryan pulled back to look at his friend.

Jamie was staring at him oddly, his lips parted and curled in half a grimace, his eyes gleaming with desperation. "I - " he said before suddenly lunging forward and closing the distance between their mouths.

For a moment, Ryan's alcohol-fogged brain couldn't understand what was going on.

Jamie was kissing him.

Jamie was kissing him. Or at least trying to, his lips clumsy and awkward but desperate and needy - so needy it was weirding Ryan out. — Alessandra Hazard

With his finger curled under his lip, his elbow on the arm of the couch, he merely studied me as I recounted the memories, and now he was eager for the tale to go on. — Anne Rice

Every crack is also an opening. When in the midst of great change, it is helpful to remember how a chick is born. From the view of the chick, it is a terrifying struggle. Confined and curled in a dark shell, half-formed, the chick eats all its food and stretches to the contours of its shell. It begins to feel hungry and cramped. Eventually, the chick begins to starve and feels suffocated by the ever-shrinking space of its world. Finally, its own growth begins to crack the shell, and the world as the chick knows it is coming to an end. Its sky is falling. As the chick wriggles through the cracks, it begins to eat its shell. In that moment - growing but fragile, starving and cramped, its world breaking - the chick must feel like it is dying. Yet once everything it has relied on falls away, the chick is born. It doesn't die, but falls into the world. — Mark Nepo

Once, a great handful of a girl out west told him - I never did love you. [ ... ]How mean of her to salve her spit curled conscience by trying to take away their past! In the kitchen he had started to use those very words on Lou - they sprang readily to mind, as wounding words do - but he stopped himself. — Annie Dillard

I decided ... I was going to be a labor and delivery consultant. I was going to stand next to every single woman in labor and every time.. the woman's husband said something stupid like, "Just breathe through the pain," it would be my job to squeeze the living fuck out of their reproductive organs until they were curled up in the fetal position ... and I'd say "Just breathe through the pain, asshole! — Tara Sivec

I don't think I ever said, "I want to be an actress." But for Halloween, I dressed up as a movie star from when I was seven to when I was twelve. The costume was always a long dress, with makeup, and my hair curled, and jewelry on. And the movie star was always Jenny McCarthy. So right there you could see a little pattern. — Jenny McCarthy

The spell ... curled around ... like smoke before settling in.
Sophie: "Okay, do you guys feel protected?"
Archer: "Yes. Also a little violated, but that's neither here nor there. — Rachel Hawkins

What did people do when the ones they needed died? She lay curled on her bed, feeling as though part of her chest had been roughly scooped out, left raw and exposed. — Helene Wecker

There was sex, of course. Nakedness. Wall to wall, in and out of my thoughts. But when it was over it was her whispering voice I craved, and a human curled up in my arms. — Markus Zusak

We lay on our sides, like spoons nesting in a drawer. My arm ended up under her head, like a pillow. She curled snugly along the inside of my body, so easy and natural, as if she had been designed to fit there. - Kvothe - The Name Of The Wind - pg 629 — Patrick Rothfuss

This here is Juan Sweeting, my second," Michael said. "Goes by Ceps." They shook, the man greeting him with a grunt. "How'd you get the name Ceps?" Peter asked. "I haven't heard that before." The man curled his arms, popping a pair of biceps like two large grapefruits. — Justin Cronin

On its rocky tip, dominating the scenery for miles around, stood he Villa dell'Ossevatore. Breathtakingly beautiful, it comprised three individual buildings and a single watchtower, roofed in terracotta tile and connected by stone bridges and loggias. Its lush gardens and lawns encircled the peninsula in steadily descending terraces, and a wide stone-built staircase hugged the rock all the way down to the waterline, terminating at a landing stage edged with balustrades. Higher up the hillside she saw the pergolas straining under the branches of ancient wisteria, and huge displays of azaleas and camellias. Ivy clung to the west-facing sides of the buildings and curled among its statues. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

I seem to wish to have some importance
In the play of time. If not,
Then sad was my mother's pain, my breath, my bones,
My web of nerves, my wondering brain,
to be shaped and quickened with such anticipation
Only to feed the swamp of space.
What is deep, as love is deep, I'll have
Deeply. What is good, as love is good,
I'll have well. Then if time and space
Have any purpose, I shall belong to it.
If not, if all is a pretty fiction
To distract the cherubim and seraphim
Who so continually do cry, the least
I can do is to fill the curled shell of the world
With human deep-sea sound, and hold it to
The ear of God, until he has appetite
To taste our salt sorrow on his lips.
And so you see it might be better to die.
Though, on the other hand, I admit it might
Be immensely foolish. — Christopher Fry

Don't go for the ones that know your worth even when you don't.
Even when you call them to pick you up because some fuck boy left you with only a few hickeys and no ride home.
Please don't pay attention to the boys who take your self hate and say 'you really don't see yourself the way others see you, do you?'
Oh god.
just don't fall in love with them.
Please, just don't.
Because it's the ones that kiss your eyelids and stretch marks that fuck you over.
It;s the ones that tell you the truth that bring you to your knees.
It's the good ones that leave you curled up in a ball for months begging for the bleeding in your gut to stop.
And it's all because they're the unforgettable ones.
The boys who leave so many marks of love on you that no one can compare.
God knows they're it.

Fuck.
You were it. — Unknown

Is he bothering you?"
"Nah just some old pervert waiting for the sex show."
The ghost lips curled "If I was alive I'd teach you some manners First I'd-"
"I'm sure there are losts of thing you'd do to me if you were alive, but seeing as though your're not, I guess you're stuck watching ... " (makes a jerk-off gesture) — Kelley Armstrong

Just as I was thinking I would never find my animus, I caught sight of my shadow and laughed out loud. I'd thrown myself onto the floor in frustration - my head resting on one arm and waving the other to cool myself down. There on the wall was the perfectly formed shadow of a cat, curled up - with a swishing tail! ... I even heard myself purr! — Jane Prowse

You are worthy, important, and necessary. And smart. You may ask how I know and I'll tell you how. It's because right now? YOU'RE READING. That's what the sexy people do. Other, less awesome people might currently be in their front yards chasing down and punching squirrels, but not you. You're quietly curled up with a book designed to make you a better, happier, more introspective person. — Jenny Lawson

Rest," Logan said. "Both of you." His caressing gaze moved over his wife and infant daughter.
"I'll watch over you."
"Love me?" Madeline asked with a faint smile, and yawned again.
"It used to be love." He brushed his lips over her closed eyelids. "Now there's no word for it."
"You once told me that you thought love was a weakness."
"I was wrong," he whispered, kissing the corners of her mouth. "I've discovered it's my only
strength."
Madeline fell asleep with a smile still on her lips, her hand curled around his. — Lisa Kleypas

I read a study once about sleep deprivation. The researchers made cat-sized islands of sand in the middle of a pool of water, then placed very tired cats on top of them. At first, the cats curled up perfectly on the sand and slept, but eventually they'd sprawl out and wake up in water. I can't remember what they were trying to prove exactly. All I took away was that the cats went crazy. — Jenny Offill

We push and shove and wet whales all day, then walk home through town past homeless men curled up on benches - washed up like whales on the curbsides. Pulled outside by the moon and struggling for air among the sewers. They're suffocating too, but there's no town assembly line of food. No palpable urgency, no airlifting plane. — Marina Keegan

It happened as it always did, swallowing her swiftly and completely. Intense. Painful. Quick, vivid colors spun beneath her eyelids. Sounds were sharp inside her skull. Fire shot up through her bones. She may have been screaming and she wouldn't have known. There was smoke in her nose, thick and black, and she couldn't breathe. It stung her eyes and licked at her skin. Wood and metal crashed down as skin blistered and popped and she knew this wasn't her, knew it was someone else, someone with a bigger body, bigger boots and darker jeans, and big ol' hands with scars on the fingers. Men's hands. Nails blunt and dirty with oil and grease and burning and- The cars were on fire. Paper burned and curled and rags ignited, the cement floor pockmarked by flash fires. Meat withered in her nose and she realized it was her. Him. Dancing embers blackened and burned bone. He screamed and she hoped she was not. He writhed and she really hoped she was not. He was dying, dead, and- — Angele Gougeon

After some years of muddled thinking on the subject, he suddenly saw quite clearly what it was he had been running away from; why he had refused Sandy's first invitation, and what the trouble had been with Charles. It was also the trouble, he perceived, with nine-tenths or the people here tonight. They were specialists. They had not merely accepted their limitations, as Laurie was ready to accept his, loyal to his humanity if not to his sex, and bringing an extra humility to the hard study of human experience. They had identified themselves with their limitations; they were making a career of them. They had turned from all other reality, and curled up in them snugly, as in a womb. — Mary Renault

Do you have any idea how much I love you?" Jordan curled her hands around the lapel of his jacket and tugged him closer. In her heels, she was almost his height, and when she pressed her body against his, her mouth was a scant inch away. Jordan flicked her tongue over his lower lip and whispered. "It might even border on obsession. — Sara Humphreys

Kasen lifted one of the bottles and read the label. "This stuff can kill you." "Yeah, but obviously not quick enough." He went to take another swig. Nykyrian jerked it out of his hand. "Hey!" He pulled it away from his grasping hand. "Don't even make that noise at me." Syn curled his lip. "You and Vik. You're both traitors. You might as well move in with Shahara, too." Vik had gone to live with her and refused to come back until Syn "got over himself". Little wormy betraying mecha bastard. Kasen shook her head. "I think this is the first time I've ever seen you drink from a bottle." Nykyrian snorted. "Lucky you. I've seen him tap a keg and funnel it."
- Kasen, Syn, & Nykyrian — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If I release you, you won't scream? I'd rather not continue the conversation like this."
She shook her head, and he freed her. She scrambled away from him, feeling the grooves of the headboard bite into her back when she slammed into it.
He sat back on her bed, his hands on his jean-clad thighs. The hair at his neck curled from dampness. "You don't have to be afraid of me."
She almost laughed. "A stranger breaks in, and I'm supposed to be cool with that?"
"Amy, we're not strangers. — Jaime Rush

She grew more and more silent about what really mattered. She curled inside herself like one of those black chimney brushes, the little shellfish you see on the beach, and you touch them, and then go inside and don't come out. — Janet Frame

noticed, had powdered hair that curled all — Lewis Carroll

Narcissa curled her lip. "Oh shut up, you sanctimonious whore. I'm sick of all your - " Hauk stunned her with his blaster. Narcissa cried out before she slumped to the floor. Hauk made no moves to break her fall. Instead, he holstered his weapon and met Desideria's gaze unabashedly. "My mother always said that if you can't improve the silence, you shouldn't be speaking." Fain let out a low whistle. "You stunned a girl, bro. Then let her hit the floor. Damn, and I thought I was callous." Ignoring — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You've had many ordeals in the past. During these ordeals, life seemed unbearable. You may have collapsed from the exhaustion of hopelessness and curled into a fetal position. Regardless of how difficult this new ordeal may be, as with the others, this too will be overcome. It will make you stronger. — John-Talmage Mathis

Her eyes stung from crying for so long and having some tears dry on them. Her body was weak from the exercise but she did not feel better. While she was crying she had wanted someone, anyone to come and hold her. She had crawled into her closet, hoisted herself up onto the shelf that had duvets and bedsheets and curled herself among those. Now she knew that no hug could erase her pain, no sort of embrace could bind up her heart. She needed a new heart it seemed, her old heart was beyond repair. — Roxanna Aliba Kazibwe

But lilies, stolen from grassy mold, No more curled state unfold, Translated to a vase of gold; In burning throne though they keep still Serenities unthawed and chill. — Francis Thompson

I-" said Nick, his voice halting. "I don't mind it as much when - when people touch me. Some people."
Mae looked down, and Nick, who looked more relaxed when he'd been stabbed, slowly lifted his hand from his chest and laid it on the tumbled sheets between them, fingers half-curled into his palm. He was still regarding the ceiling with a fixed glare.
"Because you trust them not to hurt you?" Mae asked tentatively.
"No," Nick said, his voice harsh. "Because I'd let them hurt me. — Sarah Rees Brennan

It will be as if I'd never existed. The words ran through my head, lacking the perfect clarity of my hallucination last night. They were just words, soundless, like print on a page. Just words, but they ripped the hole wide open, and I stomped on the brake, knowing I should not drive while this incapacitated.
I curled over, pressing my face against the steering wheel and trying to breathe without lungs. — Stephenie Meyer

The horizon was indistinguishable from the inky black, which fell upon the desert like a sorcerer's mantle shot through with diamonds. The stars were so tiny, so far away, and yet, at the moment, with her fingers curled around his, he almost felt as though he could reach up and snag one by the tail. — V.S. Carnes

As we walked toward the dean's office, he reached over, trailing his fingers along my arm. "Do they still react when I touch you?"
Heat crawled through my veins, and I nodded. The marks had followed the path of his touch. "Yeah, they still like you."
One side of his lips curled up, and a look of male pride crossed his face. I shook my head. Boys. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, or curled up in my favorite chair in the family room next to the big stone fireplace. The walls are papered deep red, hung with Madison's paintings and lined with our favorite books. The furniture is comfortable and inviting. Our house is made to be lived in; we use every inch of it and don't mind the signs of wear and tear. There's a deep dent in the floor next to the hearth ... It's part of the story of this house, where a family has left its mark, and where it continues to grow and evolve. — Sissy Spacek

Lindsey and I would lie down on the floor underneath it. I would pretend to be the knight that was pictured, and Holiday was the faithful dog curled up at his feet. Lindsey would be the wife he'd left behind. It always dissolved into giggles no matter how solemn the start. Lindsey would tell the dead knight that a wife had to move on, that she couldn't be trapped for the rest of her life by a man who was frozen in time ...
"You're dead, knight," she would say. "Time to move on. — Alice Sebold

It continued to amaze me how the touch of skin on skin had altered things: curled in the crook of his arm, my head upon his breast, I'd sensed his heart beating and for a moment hadn't been sure whether it was mine. — Claire Messud

I'm sorry and I believe in you and I'll always be near you, protecting you, and I will never leave you, I'll be curled around your heart for the rest of your life. — Jennifer Egan

You slow. Is Dangerous." His tentacles curled down, gripping the ends of the wood. As they watched he slid off the crate and nudged it away. Underneath was a grate, filthy with slude. He plunged his tentacles into the gaps and pulled it aside. "There is drop. — Marianne De Pierres

Think of being curled up and floating in a darkness. Even if you could think, even if you had an imagination, would you ever imagine its opposite, this miraculous world the Asian Taoists call the "Ten Thousand Things"? And if the darkness just got darker? And then you were dead? What would you care? How would you eve know the difference? — Denis Johnson

The sightless Milton, with his hair Around his placid temples curled; And Shakespeare at his side,-a freight, If clay could think and mind were weight, For him who bore the world! — William Wordsworth

Closing my eyes, I lowered the wall around my Mori.
'Are you okay? Did I hurt you?'
'Solmi hurt', it replied, still a little upset.
I almost rolled my eyes. One-track mind. 'Solmi is okay', I assured it. 'Did the glow burn you?'
'No burn'. The demon moved forward a little. 'Again?' It asked eagerly.
'Not yet. Soon.'
I opened my eyes and stared at the pretty little lake as I tried to make sense of it all. For the first time, I left the wall down, and my Mori and I sat quietly together, not joined, but as companions. I sighed in contentment. 'This is nice, demon. I could get used to this.'
It curled up like a happy cat. 'Me too. — Karen Lynch

I love all of you Ember - the ferocious, beautiful girl I first laid eyes on, the fiery girl who punched me in the face when I threw off her sheets, the penitent girl I found curled up in the shower, the curious girl who questioned a wanted man's guilt, the brave girl who pushed me down when she saw a gun, and the secretive girl who thinks she needs to carry the world on her shoulders. — Laura Thalassa

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT.
In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraithlike shadows that raced along the ground.
The house shook.
Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook.
...
The window rattled madly in the wind, and she pulled the quilt close about her. Curled up on one of her pillows, a gray f luff of kitten yawned, showing its pink tongue, tucked its head under again, and went back to sleep. — Madeleine L'Engle

There was a single
golden hair on the pillow, curled in on itself as if asleep. Simon
picked it up carefully, then lay down still holding it, his head in its
place. The bed was cold, but it still smelled warm, like Matt. — J.L. Merrow

Peter curled his hands into fists at his sides. 'Kiss me,' he said.
She leaned towards him slowly, until her face was too close to be in focus. Her hair fell over Peter's shoulder like a curtain and her eyes closed. She smelled like autumn-like apple cider and slanting sun and the snap of the coming cold. He felt his heart scrambling, caught inside the confines of his own body.
Josie's lips landed just on the edge of his, almost his cheek and not quite his mouth. 'I'm glad I wasn't stuck in here alone,' she said shyly, and he tasted the words, sweet as mint on her breath. — Jodi Picoult

Men! She could not understand why so many women feared them. Hadn't the gods made them with the most vulnerable part of their guts hanging right out of their bodies, like a misplaced bit of bowel? Kick them there and they curled up like snails. Caress them there and their brains melted. — Stephen King

The mullein had finished blooming, and stood up out of the pastures like dusty candelabra. The flowers of Queen Anne's lace had curled up into birds' nests, and the bee balm was covered with little crown-shaped pods. In another month
no, two, maybe
would come the season of the skeletons, when all that was left of the weeds was their brittle architecture. But the time was not yet. The air was warm and bright, the grass was green, and the leaves, and the lazy monarch butterflies were everywhere. — Elizabeth Enright

That is a list of the Territories that yielded to Ebon Askavi. They now stand within the shadow of the Keep. They are mine. Anyone who tries to settle in my Territory without my consent will be dealt with. Anyone who harms any of my people will be executed. There will be no excuses and no exceptions. I will say it simply so that the members of this Council and the intruders who thought to take land they had no right to claim can never say they misunderstood." Jaenelle's lips curled into a snarl. "STAY OUT OF MY TERRITORY! — Anne Bishop

Prepare to evacuate soul in ten, in nine, eight.
Chloe's splashing through the ankle-deep back-up of renal fluid from her failed kidneys.
Death will commence in five.
Five, four.
Around her, a parasitic life spray paints her heart.
Four, three.
Three, two.
Chloe climbs hand-over-hand up the curled lining of her own throat.
Death to commence in three, two.
Moonlight shines in through the open mout ...
h.
Prepare for the last breath, now.
Evacuate.
Now.
Soul clear of body.
Death commences.
Now. — Chuck Palahniuk