Dark Forest Quotes & Sayings

I have never been much of a patriot. My father would not have allowed such a thing while he lived, and his death insured that his wish was carried out. Piter commanded far more affection and loyalty from me than the nation as a whole. But that night, running across the unplowed fields of winter wheat, with the Fascist invaders behind us and the dark Russian woods before us, I felt a surge of pure love for my country.
We ran for the forest, crashing through the stalks of wheat, beneath the rising moon and the stars spinning farther and farther away, alone beneath the godless sky. — David Benioff

You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one — Mikhail Tal

Childhood is a long, long road, from which that dark whispering forest of death seems an impossible destination. — Lauren DeStefano

I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses. — Friedrich Nietzsche

It's coming, a battle between Starclan and The Dark Forest and every warrior will be called upon to fight. — Erin Hunter

Everything had become song. The curve of the road beneath the clouds here, and there the strokes of dark earth, the green and the gray, the torn pink of clay and gravel under fingertips. The consonance was above all that of the muffled shadow and grass to the depths of sky, where a flutter of cheerful feathers quivered.

In these dreams there are also black walnut trees, and then a forest that opens in a breeze. Nothing. Nothing more than the obstinate sound of wind. — Deborah Heissler

Trees surrounded them from all sides, casting long inky shadows that would, at another time, have been scary. But there was no point in being scared of what might be lurking in the shadows when the biggest bad, of all big bads, was gazing at her intently. — Caroline Hanson

I love your eyes, did you know that? I have never seen eyes as green as yours. They put the leaves of the Amazon Forest to shame. And your unbelievably long and dark lashes make them even more startling. — Cristiane Serruya

Something about the howling of a wolf took a man right out of his here and now and left him in a dark forest of the mind, running naked before the pack. — George R R Martin

Like all these long low squat houses, it had been built not for but against. They were built against the forest, against the sea, against the elements, against the world. They had roof-beams and doors and hatred--as though in this part of the world an architect always included hatred among his tools, and said to his apprentice: 'Mind you've brought along enough hatred today. — Jane Gaskell

The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life - another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod - there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It's the explanation for the Fermi Paradox. — Liu Cixin

Through silent alleys where dark shadows fleeted past them like forest beasts on the prowl; through bustling market-places where bloaters predominated, into crammed gin-palaces where the gas flashed over faces whereon was stamped the indelible impression of a protest against creation; brushing tatters which were in gruesome harmony with the haggard or bloated features.
(The Phantom Model — Hume Nisbet

From here she could see miles of dark emerald forest with just a few birds erupting from its depths like flying fish skimming an ocean ...
'Annabel!' Ewan called.
She looked down. He was standing in water, after all. So without a moment's trepidation, she launched herself from the downed carriage, coming home to his arms with all the security and the pleasure of child leaping from the second stair. — Eloisa James

Without another word, we began to eat. I was hungry, but no appetite would excuse the way we set upon those dishes. We shoveled food into our mouths in a manner ill befitting our fine attire. Bears would have blushed to see us bent over our plates. The pheasant, still steaming from the oven, its dark flesh redolent with the mushroom musk of the forest floor, was gnawed quickly to the bone. It was a touch gamy - no milk-fed goose, this - but it was tender, and the piquant hominy balanced that wild taste as I had hoped it would. The eggs, laced pink at the edges and floating delicately in a carnal sauce, were gulped down in two bites. The yolks were cooked to that rare liminal degree, no longer liquid but not yet solid, like the formative moment of a sun-colored gem. — Eli Brown

Voices in the forest tell of dark and twisted enchantments - as dark and twisted as the roots and grasping branches of the trees themselves. Even the most gnarled tree is eloquent in the telling of its own tale. — Brian Froud

He has his good side and his bad side. Very dark indeed is his majesty when he wants to be. When he was young, he made a choice, like a tree does when it decides to grow one way or the other. He grew large and green until he shadowed over the whole forest, but most of his branches are twisted. — Nancy Farmer

Maybe all I wanted was for Toby to hear the wolves that lived in the dark forest of my heart. — Carol Rifka Brunt

What in your life is calling you, When all the noise is silenced, The meetings adjourned ... The lists laid aside, And the Wild Iris blooms By itself In the dark forest ... What still pulls on your soul? — Rumi

Often, beyond the next turning, footfalls of a herd galloping across stone were heard, or further in the distance, with reassuring grunts, a wild boar could be seen, trotting with steady stride along the edge of the road with her sow and a whole procession of young in tow. And then one's heart beat faster upon advancing a little into the subtle light: one might have said that the path had suddenly become wild, thick with grass, its dark paving-slabs engulfed by nettles, blackthorn and sloe, so that it mingled up time past rather than crossing country-side, and perhaps it was going to issue forth, in the chiaroscuro of thicket smelling of moistened down and fresh grass, into one of those glades where animals spoke to men. — Julien Gracq

Now fairy stories are at risk too, like the forests. Padraic Column has suggested that artificial lighting dealt them a mortal wound: when people could read and be productive after dark, something fundamental changed, and there was no longer need or space for the ancient oral tradition. The stories were often confined to books, which makes the text static, and they were handed over to children. — Sara Maitland

Do you want to tell me what you're doing up here in the middle of the woods?" He gazed at her milky white skin, dark hair, and wide eyes. "If you're looking for the seven dwarfs, they live in the next forest over. — Deborah Blake

The claustrophobia of the forest. The first few trees visible before her, monochrome contrasts of black shadow and white moonlight, and beyond that an entire continent, wilderness uninterrupted from ocean to ocean with so few people left between the shores. — Emily St. John Mandel

But a smell shivered him awake.
It was a scent as old as the world. It was a hundred aromas of a thousand places. It was the tang of pine needles. It was the musk of sex. It was the muscular rot of mushrooms. It was the spice of oak. Meaty and redolent of soil and bark and herb. It was bats and husks and burrows and moss. It was solid and alive - so alive! And it was close.
The vapors invaded Nicholas' nostrils and his hair rose to their roots. His eyes were as heavy as manhole covers, but he opened them. Through the dying calm inside him snaked a tremble of fear.
The trees themselves seemed tense, waiting. The moonlight was a hard shell, sharp and ready to ready be struck and to ring like steel.
A shadow moved.
It poured like oil from between the tall trees and flowed across dark sandy dirt, lengthening into the middle of the ring. Trees seem to bend toward it, spellbound. A long, long shadow ... — Stephen M. Irwin

He did not appear to be a very tall man; what I could see of legs seemed stumpy, though heavily muscled. His chest was broad and deep. Later I learned that he swam in the sea almost every morning. His thick strong arms were circled with leather wristbands and a bronze armlet above his left elbow that gleamed with polished onyx and lapis lazuli ... Puckered white scars from old wounds stood out against the dark skin of his arms, parting the black hairs like roads through a forest ... Odysseos wore a sleeveless tunic, his legs and feet bare, but he had thrown a lamb's fleece across his wide shoulders. His face was thickly bearded with dark curly hair that showed a trace of grey. His heavy mop of ringlets came down to his shoulders and across his forehead almost down to his black eyebrows. Those eyes were as grey as the sea outside on this rainy afternoon, probing, searching, judging. — Ben Bova

Sunrise over the mountain-forest was gorgeous - Aurora brushing out her golden tresses with a comb of dark-needled pine and bare-limbed oak. — J. Aleksandr Wootton

So rests the sky against the earth. The dark still tarn in the lap of the forest. As a husband embraces his wife's body in faithful tenderness, so the bare ground and trees are embraced by the still, high, light of the morning. I feel an ache of longing to share in this embrace, to be united and absorbed. A longing like carnal desire, but directed towards earth, water, sky, and returned by the whispers of the trees, the fragrance of the soil, the caresses of the wind, the embrace of water and light. Content? No, no, no - but refreshed, rested - while waiting. — Dag Hammarskjold

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

And, with the dark, the Forest came up boldly and pressed against the very walls and windows, peering in upon them, joining hands above the slates and chimneys. — Algernon Blackwood

Somewhere forest fires rage and somewhere else something moves beneath dark waters and somewhere blood appears in the hallway of the home of some old couple who aren't bleeding and somewhere someone else spontaneously self-combusts and somehow all the mysteries of this world as I know it offer me comfort and I don't know beans about heaven and hell and somehow all that stuff is no longer an issue and at the moment I'm a sixteen-foot-tall five-hundred-and-forty-eight-pound man inside this six-foot body and all i can feel is the pressure all I can feel is the pressure and the need for release. — David Wojnarowicz

It is said of a lonely man that he does not appreciate the life of society. This is like saying he hates hiking because he dislikes walking in thick forest on a dark night. — Nicolas Chamfort

When alone in a dark forest waiting for an audience with an evil god, the most prudent course of action is to be quiet and wait. 'Prudent' wasn't one of my favourite words.
"Hello? I've come to borrow a cup of sugar. Anybody? Perhaps there is an old woman with a house made of candy who could help me?"
"Marrying for love isn't wise."
The voice came from somewhere to the left. Melodious, but not soft, definitely female and charged with a promise of hidden power. Something told me that hearing her scream would end very badly for me.
I stopped and pivoted toward the voice.
"Marry for safety. Marry for power. But only fools marry for love."
When a strange voice talks to you in the black woods, only idiots answer.
I was that idiot. "Thank you, counsellor. How much do I owe you for this session? — Ilona Andrews

He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight. — Ernest Hemingway,

He told me once that the devil dwells in you." "No doubt he does believe it. And what do you think, Mariana Farr?" He did look faintly devilish, smiling down at me with his dark clothes and his dark hair and those glinting eyes the color of the forest that surrounded us, shutting us off together from the wider world. I studied him closely, and shrugged in my turn. "I am no simple chit in hanging sleeves, my lord. I have eyes of my own to judge with, and I see no horns. — Susanna Kearsley

The most interesting heroes have a bit of villainy to them, and the most interesting villains have a certain bit of heroism in them, ... I think (Alan Shore) intends to do the right thing, but his view of the world is very different so, to get to the right place, he sometimes takes a path that goes through a very dark forest. — James Spader

A Boat O beautiful was the werewolf in his evil forest. We took him to the carnival and he started crying when he saw the Ferris wheel. Electric green and red tears flowed down his furry cheeks. He looked like a boat out on the dark water. — Richard Brautigan

In 'Snow White and the Hunstman,' when we see them in the Dark Forest, you're allowed a lot of freedom to be able to cutaway to, for instance, the prince. That B and C story stuff helps the writing process, even though it makes it a more complicated movie. — Evan Daugherty

In the meantime the strike is over, with a remarkably low loss of life. All is quiet, they report, all is quiet.
In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest there is a leaf that falls. Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools. — Alan Paton

When we settled our country, the dark forest was considered in some ways evil and something that you needed to plow or, later, bulldoze. We now have a new understanding of the interconnectedness of ecosystems and the need for bird flyways and why all species matter. — Douglas Brinkley

Scientists and shamans alike know that all of life is woven into a web of infinite connections, contributing to the larger whole in a system that is complex beyond our imagining. When we sit quietly at the edge of a lake, or hike through a wildflower-strewn meadow, or walk through a cool, dark forest, we quickly become aware of our unity with the natural world. We fall back into natural rhythms--rhythms we are no longer in synch with as a result of living by the clock and spending much of our time in man-made spaces lit by electricity. Nature has a way of recalibrating us and helping us gain a new perspective on our stressors so that they seem less overwhelming. — Carl Greer

From the dark forest that bordered the soft ploughed fields, came a low cry that did not belong to any animal. It was accompanied by the sound of branches bending and snapping, and the splintering of wood as trees were crushed or toppled onto their sides. — Peter James West

A cold wind raced across the surrounding fields of wild grass, turning the land into a heaving dark-green ocean. It sighed up through the branches of cherry trees and rattled the thick leaves. Sometimes a cherry would break loose, tumble in the gale, fall and split, filling the night with its fragrance. The air was iron and loam and growth.
He walked and tried to pull these things into his lungs, the silence and coolness of them.
But someone was screaming, deep inside him. Someone was talking. ("Hunger") — Charles Beaumont

It's more eerie to be alone in a city that's lit up and functioning than one that's a tomb. If everything were silent, one could almost pretend to be in nature. A forest. A meadow. Crickets and birdsong. But the corpse of civilization is as restless as the creatures that now roam the graveyards. — Isaac Marion

Though woman needs the protection of one man against his whole sex, in pioneer life, in threading her way through a lonely forest, on the highway, or in the streets of the metropolis on a dark night, she sometimes needs, too, the protection of all men against this one. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

In the fairy tales there's only one Big Bad Wolf and the little girl takes only one trip through the Dark Forest and fights only one fight for her life before the story ends in happily and ever after. But life on the Calle is real, not make-believe, and every Calle girl knows that once the My-What-Big-Paws-You-Have fall on her skin, Little Red will carry that scent no matter how hard she scrubs. From that point on, every wolf in the every forest of her very real life will recognize her and they'll do their Biggest and Baddest to get into her basket anytime she drops her guard. So be prepared. We're not out of the woods yet. — Tupelo Hassman

The clan of heroes, the clan of compassion,the clan of destiny." (Firestar on Thunderclan, secrets of the clans)
No matter what trials we must endure, Windclan will last forever."(Tallstar on Windclan, secrets of the clans)
We are grace. We are power. We are Riverclan."(Leopardstar on Riverclan, secrets of the clans)
Shadowclan will always be the dark heart of the forest." Blackstar on Shadowclan, secrets of the clans) — Erin Hunter

It can be a way of knowledge, a path, an inspiration, a Tao, an ordering, a memory, a fantasy, a seduction, a prayer, a summoning, an incantation murmured under the breath as the torchlights sink lower and the forest looms taller and the wolves howl louder and the fire prepares for its submission to the encroaching dark. — John Lanchester

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.
Something from far off: it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.
Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood - -
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent. — Pablo Neruda

You have shoes to match."
"I do?"
"You do, yes, and go with diamonds. Leave the color to the dress."
"Which diamonds? Do you know how many you give me? Why do you do that?"
The aggrieved sound of her voice amused him nearly as much as giving her diamonds. "It's a sickness. I'll get them for you once you're dressed."
She said nothing, and stood where she was as he selected a dark suit from his forest of suits, a slate-colored shirt, and a stone-colored tie.
"How come you don't wear color?"
"The better to serve as the backdrop for my beautiful wife."
She narrowed her eyes. "You had that one ready."
"The truth is always ready."
She jabbed a finger at him. "That one, too."
"Such a cynic. — J.D. Robb

All I heard were the bumps and crunches of my tires on the dirt road, blending with the dark noises of the forest. But it wasnt the forest that scared me. It was the people who lived and prowled within them. — Lauren Myracle

He must have been handsome when he was alive and was handsome still, although made monstrous by his pallor and her awareness of what he was. His mouth looked soft, his cheekbones as sharp as blades, and his jaw curved, giving him an off-kilter beauty. His black hair a mad forest of dirty curls. — Holly Black

Such a dark green, his eyes. They reminded her of the forest, of all the dangers lying dormant behind that verdant cloak of leaves. — Nenia Campbell

Long I have known and feared this day would come. Like the circle of Earth, the circle of life is changing. Here in the north, there are those who can still feel, see, and smell the changes wrought in and around Earth by Money Chiefs. The air is no longer clean, winter grows warmer, rivers flood without a sign, and the soil, once dark and rich, lies pale and weak. Bears, wolves, and other forest Spirits will soon go the way of the buffalo, for their food dwindles like birds that once ruled the skies. — Frederic M. Perrin

This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed. — D.H. Lawrence

The road passed through a curtain of pine forest and came out on a flat, rolling snow field. In this field the sprawled or bunched bodies of Germans lay thick, like some dark shapeless vegetable. — Martha Gellhorn

Can a person who has been brought up in the heart of a thick dark forest, where one has to beat a path through multiple layers of trees just to take a letter to the post office, have any conception of what it's like to spend one's entire childhood waiting for a single tree to grow? — Audur Ava Olafsdottir

When you live on the edge of a cursed forest, you do a lot of staring into the dark. — Sarah Dalton

I'm here, Sorcha.
I would not believe it at first; it had been so long since he had touched my mind in this way.
I'm here. Try to let go, dear one. I know how it hurts. Lean on me; let me take your burden for a while.
I could scarcely see him; he was on the far side of the fire, behind the others and half turned away, with his head still in his hands. It seemed as if he had scarcely moved at all.
How can you? How can you know?
I know. Let me help you.
I felt the strength of his mind flow into mine, and somehow he managed to close off the terrible, the dark and secret things that he had dreaded sharing with me, and fill my head with pictures of all that was good and brave. — Juliet Marillier

I am staring into eyes so dark and compelling that I feel as if I could easily lose myself within them. He moves me slightly away from his body but doesn't let go. Energy, just like in the forest a few nights ago, ebbs and flows betwen us. — Jennifer Sucevic

They've moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you've got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can't. You don't have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience - that is the hero's deed. — Joseph Campbell

Never go into the deep parts of the forest, for there are many dangers there, both dark and bright, and they will ensnare your soul. — Robert Beatty

Your soul is a dark forest. But the trees are of a particular species, they are genealogical trees. — Marcel Proust

Every morning she pulled a delicate cup from its brass hook and filled it, hoping that it would be dark and deep and secret as a forest, and each morning it cooled too fast, had too much milk, stained the cup, made her nervous. — Catherynne M Valente

The dark forest looked on fire. The trees were lit up like funeral pyres. She thought she saw bodies strapped to the trees, burning, burning, burning. — Jeanette Winterson

The forest smelled fresh here and the ground was soft, carpeted by leaves and fallen pine needles. It was tranquil and enchanting in its way. Ursula was lovely; she just wasn't a naiad. Her hair was dark and sleek, and so long it fell below her waist, swaying this way and that as she walked. Her eyes were a piercing blue, always aware, and she had a keen eye for the smallest details. She may have been a merchant, but she'd also trained as an archer for the city militia, and she could easily spot movement at a distance. That was her intention now; it was just a different kind of movement. — Cailee Francis

A hush came over the world, and it grew dark. There was no sunlight at the bottom of the redwood forest, only a dim, gray-green glow, like the light at the bottom of the sea. The air grew sweet, and carried a tang of lemons. They became aware of a vast forest canopy spreading over their heads. — Richard Preston

The voice came from the other side of the divider, an older man, bald, who wore a leather vest over a dark blue button-down shirt, like a Radio Shack manager who moonlighted as a forest brigand. — Austin Grossman

It was dusk - winter dusk. Snow lay white and shining over the pleated hills, and icicles hung from the forest trees. Snow lay piled on the dark road across Willoughby Wold, but from dawn men had been clearing it with brooms and shovels. There were hundreds of them at work, wrapped in sacking because of the bitter cold, and keeping together in groups for fear of the wolves, grown savage and reckless from hunger. — Joan Aiken

Love is like encountering a forest and having to chop down every tree but one. Oh, and you have to chop down each tree by hugging it until it falls. — Dark Jar Tin Zoo

A good writer must be like the birds of a dark forest; you can't see them, but you can hear their mysterious and wise voices! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

In the darkest forest, Where trees bled into the rivers and no light reached the ground. I saw the demon crawling behind me whispering everything I don't want to hear. I screamed and ran to escape it until I lost all my breath and fell on my knees. Until it laughed maniacally and whispered in my ear again "you cannot run from yourself". — Akshay Vasu

The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in a frosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the river slowly changed to black substances; and the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes behind dark masts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on fire. — Charles Dickens

What shall we do my darling, when trial grows more, and more, when the dim, lone light expires, and it's dark, so very dark, and we wander, and know not where, and cannot get out of the forest - whose is the hand to help us, and to lead, and forever guide us? ... Where do you think I've strayed and from what new errand returned. I have come from to and fro, and walking up and down the same place that Satan hailed from when God asked where he'd been. — Emily Dickinson

She should be more frightened herself, she knew. She was only ten, a skinny girl on a stolen horse with a dark forest ahead of her and men behind who would gladly cut off her feet. Yet somehow she felt calmer than ever had in Harrenhal. The rain had washed the guard's blood off her fingers, she wore a sword across her back, wolves were prowling through the dark like lean grey shadows, and Arya Stark was unafraid. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she whispered under her breath, the words that Syrio Forel had taught her, and Jaqen's words too, valar morghulis. — George R R Martin

If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and musicians who had prayed long and hard. Lost girls wouldn't need compasses or maps. They would find gingerbread paths to lead them out of the forest and home again. They would never sleep in silver boxes with white velvet sheets, not until they were wrinkled-paper grandmas and ready for the trip. — Laurie Halse Anderson

You are a warrior in a dark forest, with no compass and are unable to tell who the actual enemy is, So you never feel safe .. — Anonymous

I am like a bird buried deep in a dark forest of possibility and finding their way by echolocation. — Ned Hayes

later i sat in the mosque balcony as the sun rose, watching while it unpicked the dark and misty folds of the forest and coloured the Bashgul river. We were all overcome by the fabulous richness of the landscape, the opulence of the wooden architecture, the yellow green coombes of ripening corn, the glistening trees. — Peter Levi

I love the season well When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell The coming of storms. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The boughs of trees stretched high overhead, leaves of dappled green and black mottling the sky. It was called the black forest for more reasons than the inky-black foliage. The wise and cautious seldom travelled by night along its poorly-tended roads, and banditry wasn't the main reason. In the minds of many, shadows of a threat lurked in wait, seeking an opportunity to strike during a moment of weakness. It was known among the old folk that not all who dwelled within the black forest were of human or animal-kind. Some beings were much older and believed far more dangerous. — Mara Amberly

The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own. — Willa Cather

Whatever exists, he said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.
He looked about at the dark forest in which they were bivouacked. He nodded toward the specimens he'd collected. These anonymous creatures, he said, may seem little or nothing in the world. Yet the smallest crumb can devour us. Any smallest thing beneath yon rock out of men's knowing. Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him will he be properly suzerain of the earth. — Cormac McCarthy

Sleeping Wrestler

You are a murderer
No you are not, but really a wrestler
Either way it's just the same
For from the ring of your entangled body
Clean as leather, lustful as a lily
Will nail me down
On your stout neck like a column, like a pillar of tendons
The thoughtful forehead
(In fact, it's thinking nothing)
When the forehead slowly moves and closes the heavy eyelids
Inside, a dark forest awakens
A forest of red parrots
Seven almonds and grape leaves
At the end of the forest a vine
Covers the house where two boys
Lie in each others arms: I'm one of them, you the other
In the house, melancholy and terrible anxiety
Outside the keyhole, a sunset
Dyed with the blood of the beautiful bullfighter Escamillo
Scorched by the sunset, headlong, headfirst
Falling, falling, a gymnast
If you're going to open your eyes, nows the time, wrestler — Mutsuo Takahashi

And so Galahad decided that it would be a disgrace to set off on a quest with the other knights. Alone he would enter the dark forest where there was no path. This is the myth of The Hero's Journey. — Joseph Campbell

But maybe I am. Maybe that's exactly what I am. Maybe all I wanted was for Toby to hear the wolves that lived in the dark forest of my heart. And maybe that's what it meant. Tell the Wolves I'm Home. Maybe Finn understood everything, as usual. You may as well tell them where you live, because they'll find you anyway. They always do. — Carol Rifka Brunt

If Sara chooses me, accepts me, he thought, I'm going to propose to her right away. And give her everything I'm capable of giving - every single thing. Before I get lost in a dark forest. Before the bad elves grab me. — Haruki Murakami

What do you suppose 'Jack and the Beanstalk' is about?" she asked. Conner contemplated a moment and slyly grinned. "Bad beans can cause more than indigestion," he answered, laughing hysterically to himself. Alex pursed her lips to hide a smile. "What do you think the lesson of 'Little Red Riding Hood' is?" she asked him. "Do you think she should have just mailed her grandmother the gift basket?" "Now you're thinking!" he said. "Although, I've always felt sorry for Little Red Riding Hood. It's obvious her parents didn't like her very much." "Why do you say that?" Alex asked, wondering how he could have possibly construed that from the story. "Who sends their young daughter into a dark and wolf-occupied forest carrying freshly baked food and wearing a bright jacket?" Conner asked. "They were practically asking for a wolf to eat her! She must have annoyed the heck out of them!" Alex held back laughter with all her might but, to Conner's delight, she let a quiet chuckle slip. "I — Chris Colfer

Wink kissed deep. Deep as a dark, misty, forest path. One that lead to blood and love and death and monsters. — April Genevieve Tucholke

Somewhere in the city, an orange cat finished chewing on a marjoram plant next to his studio apartment's door and leapt purring onto the shoulder of his owner, home early from work. Somewhere in the city, a young Chinese pianist sat down at a rehearsal hall and let his fingers play the first opening notes of the Emperor Concerto, notes that would envelop the small girl in row D of the Philharmonic that night in a shimmering cloud. A boy in Staten Island touched his finger to the lower back of the girl who had been just a friend until then. A woman in Hell's Kitchen stood in her dark attic garret, her paintbrush in hand, and stepped back from the painting of chartreuse highway and forest-green sky that had taken her two years to complete. A clerk in a Brooklyn bodega tapped her crimson fingernail on a box of gripe water, reassuring the new mother holding a wailing baby, and the mother's grateful smile almost made both of them cry themselves. — Stephanie Clifford

Dark human shapes could be made out in the distance, flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border of the forest, — Joseph Conrad

As a general rule - to which I have seen no exceptions - tigers are responsible for all kills that take place in daylight, and leopards are responsible for all kills that take place in the dark. Both animals are seminocturnal forest-dwellers, have much the same habits, employ similar methods of killing, and both are capable of carrying their human victims for long distances. It would be natural, therefore, to expect them to hunt at the same hours; and that they do not do so is due to the difference in courage of the two animals. When — Jim Corbett

This place was as dark and carried the same scent of pine trees that was common to the forest. She could hear the wind lightly swaying the branches, but there were no sounds out of the ordinary. Everything seemed the same.
"What am I missing?" Ursula asked curiously, though she wondered whether Aleana had stopped just to see what she'd say or do.
Aleana giggled. "So the charm really does hide it from human sight." She gave the air a knock, and strangely there was a sound, just like she was knocking on wood. — Cailee Francis

grave monsters of fable in deeps of the ferny forest danced minuets that witches had made of their whims and their laughter, long ago long ago in their youth before cities had come to the world. And the trees of the forest heavily lifted slow roots out of the ground and swayed upon them uncouthly and then danced as on monstrous claws, and the insects danced on the huge waving leaves. And in the dark of long caverns weird things in enchanted seclusion rose out of their age-long sleep and danced in the damp — Lord Dunsany

But we should not cling! A plague upon fundamentalists and literalists! I am reminded of a story of Lord Krishna when he was a cowherd. Every night he invites the milkmaids to dance with him in the forest. They come and they dance. The night is dark, the fire in their midst roars and crackles, the beat of the music gets ever faster - the girls dance and dance and dance with their sweet lord, who has made himself so abundant as to be in the arms of each and every girl. But the moment the girls become possessive, the moment each one imagines that Krishna is her partner alone, he vanishes. So it is that we should not be jealous with God. — Yann Martel

From the very second that two people sat together around a fire in the forest, there was another human out there who felt better in the dark. — Andrew Vachss

Dovewing felt bone-weary from her ears to the tip of her tail. Just because she had better hearing, sharper senses than any cat didn't seem to give her more strength. She needed to rest, eat, talk with Jayfeather and Lionblaze about the challenge that sol had left them with, of hostile Clans that would be crushed by the dark forest if they tried to fight alone. Starclan, light my path, please.
"Come on," she meowed to Hollyleaf. "It's time we went home. Our Clnmates are waitning for us"
P. 315 — Erin Hunter

Tom's words laid bare the hearts of the trees and their thoughts, which were often dark and strange, filled with a hatred of things that go free upon the earth, gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning: destroyers and usurpers. It was not called the Old Forest without reason, for it was indeed ancient, a survivor of vast forgotten woods; and in it there lived yet, ageing no quicker than the hills, the fathers of the fathers of trees, remembering times when they were lords. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Spending so much time alone had turned Chloe's imagination into a deep dark forest. It was a magical place to escape to, and so much more thrilling than real life. — David Walliams

But there was not a moment when she did not see Carol in her mind, and all she saw, she seemed to see through Carol. That evening, the dark flat streets of New York, the tomorrow of work, the milk bottle dropped and broken in her sink, became unimportant. She flung herself on her bed and drew a line with a pencil on a piece of paper. And another line, carefully, and another. A world was born around her, like a bright forest with a million shimmering leaves. — Patricia Highsmith

But at some point in her passage, the trees began to change. They stretched taller, and the soft, pale bark darkened, roughened. She put her hand to a tree and touched the lichen growing dark green upon brown, and it felt like old cork, dry and crumbling. Here the sun mellowed, took on the cast of late afternoon, and the shadows seemed to fall a bit longer; the forest had sunk into a deeper silence, magnifying what sounds did arise. The sudden, quick crash of a fox bounding through the brush was as loud as the slam of a great wooden door. — Malinda Lo

Giant hogweed is considered extremely dangerous because its sap, in combination with ultraviolet light, can burn human skin. Every year, millions are spent digging up plants and destroying them, without any great success. However, hogweed can spread only because the original forested meadows along the banks of rivers and streams no longer exist. If these forests were to return, it would be so dark under the forest canopy that hogweed would disappear. The same goes for Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed, which also grow on the riverbanks in the absence of the forests. Trees could solve the problem if people trying to improve things would only allow them to take over. — Peter Wohlleben