Dark Into Light Quotes & Sayings

I'm going to try to tell stories and let each tale skate its own way into dark or light territory as the needs of the story steer me. — Ed Greenwood

A writer can't just be well-educated or good at research; to build a living, breathing world with interesting characters, you have to write from the gut. I'm not saying you have to live your life like a fantasy adventure. The trick is the ability to synthesize your own everyday experiences into your fiction. Infuse your characters with believable emotions and motivations. Infuse your world with rich sensory detail. For that you have to be in touch with your own existence and your own soul, the dark and the light of it. — Lynn Flewelling

People know that Mr. Ellison had a tough beginning, they are aware of a little boy who strived for acceptance, who wished to be like all the other little boys on the block, but found himself always falling short. Unlike majority of children who are carried in the arms and guidance of a father; that separate the dark skies to let you see the light of encouragement and a future glimpse of what they believe you can be. He rather grew up drawing in the sands his own image of what he thought he should be. People are determined to make him into a motivational speech, but remove the essence that still remains of the tragedy that brought everything into play. — Avra Amar Filion

The harsh dimness that follows loss isn't static, but charged with the energy of immanent change. Hurt, I was left with a choice: wallow and stay in the dark, or seek light and fight to reach it. These two paths emerged. I had this choice to make. Loss is the shocking catalyst of transformation. I saw that this mountain valley, haunted by senseless murders, darker, had absorbed unthinkable violence and turned it into mesmerizing light. — Aspen Matis

Apollo, the god of light, of reason, of proportion, harmony, number - Apollo blinds those who press too close in worship. Don't look straight at the sun. Go into a dark bar for a bit and have a beer with Dionysis, every now and then. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The seed of the tree falls into the dark earth. Painfully it breaks open and grows towards the light, the higher principle. Growing is a heaping up of small things, through many moments of struggling, fighting the Holy Wind, the formative powers, to find meaning in life, building awareness one step at a time, until one learns how to go with the Wind, how to transcend the pain of daily existence and shed new seed for a new day. — Wilna Van Der Walt

Things can be seen better in the darkness," he said, as if he had just seen into her mind. "But the longer you spend in the dark, the harder it becomes to return to the world aboveground where the light is — Haruki Murakami

Nick was waiting for him.
Gabriel hesitated. He wished those text messages had come with some kind of sign, whether Nick was pissed or exasperated or just completely done with him. Hell, a freaking emoticon would have been helpful.
His own room sat pitch-dark at the opposite end of the hallway. A black hole. Gabriel eased around the creaky spot in the floor and slid past his twin's room. Once in his own, he flung his duffel bag onto the ground and shut the door, closing the dark around himself. He sighed and kicked his shoes into the well of blackness under the bed. Maybe Nick hadn't heard him. Maybe he thought he was still out in the car.
"You are so predictable."
Gabriel swore and fumbled for the light switch.
Nick was straddling his desk chair backward, his arms folded on the backrest.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Gabriel snapped. "Why are you sitting here in the dark?"
His twin shrugged. Because I knew you'd walk right past my room. — Brigid Kemmerer

This was pointed out to me by somebody who referred to the paintings of Rembrandt and his use of light: some elements are highlighted while others are obscured or even pushed back into the dark. And it's something that we do - we bring out elements that we want to emphasise. — Abbas Kiarostami

Thy dark eyes beckon me into the darkest nether world of dark galaxies and darker supernovas. Forever in darkness, I know no light! Thy darkness my dark-light! — Avijeet Das

O ye whose years unfolding fair Are fresh with youth, and free from care, Should vice and indolence desire The garden of your souls to hire, No parleys hold-reject the suit, Nor let one seed the soil pollute. My child their first approach beware, With firmness break the insidious snare, Lest as the acorns grew and throve Into a sun-encircled grove, Thy sins, a dark o'ershadowing tree Shut out the light of Heaven from thee. — Lydia Sigourney

Where are we?" Ni asked.
"This is my work place and the center of
Universe as well." Simone said.
"Do you mean the tower is in the center of Universe?" Ni asked
"I mean that we are both in space and inside the tower at the same time."
"Why is it so dark here?" Ni asked.
"At the beginning, it is always dark." Simone replied, "Then everything comes into existence little by little.
Even Light is born out of Darkness. — Leora Cika Waldman

Feeling at peace, however fragilely, made it easy to slip into the visionary end of the dark-sight. The rose shadows said that they loved the sun, but that they also loved the dark, where their roots grew through the lightless mystery of the earth. The roses said: You do not have to choose. — Robin McKinley

Suddenly exhausted, she closes her eyes and slips into nightmares again. Graveyards rising out of the ocean. Her friends' corpses in the light of their burning school. Skeletons ripping open men's chests and crawling inside. She endures it patiently, waiting for the horror film to end and the theater to go dark, those precious few hours of blackout that are her only respite. — Isaac Marion

I knew life
Began where I stood in the dark,
Looking out into the light. — Yusef Komunyakaa

With his nose in my hair, he inhaled deeply before putting a light kiss on my cheek. "Have you come to play?" he asked then kissed me again.
"No." I cringed when he drew my earlobe into his mouth. "I came to help you. That's all. I swear."
"I'd rather play. — H.D. Smith

It all seems so worthless. Such a waste of lives. We've spent hundreds of years since the Return buffering the Dark City and trying to maintain it - scraping out a life that will soon be wiped out.
And what of the rest of the world that's already fallen? Stars blinking away, their light slowly fading? Somewhere out there a star's just dying and we'll never know about it. Somewhere another's being born whose light we'll never see.
The Earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothing ness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything-all of us-will simply cease to be. — Carrie Ryan

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. — Mary Shelley

You want to know why I love you. You brought light into my formerly gray existence." He touched her cheek. "Until you, I never knew a woman could be both friend and lover. You saved me from the dark. I love you for what you are; strong and brave and kind. When I walk into a room and you are there, my heart lifts. When I'm away, just thinking of you makes me smile. Being with you makes me happy. No one else has ever done that. When I am with you, I am whole. Better than whole, for on my own, I'm a worthless fool. — Carolyn Jewel

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. — James Joyce

The union of men in large masses is indispensable to the development and rapid growth of the higher faculties of men. Cities have always been the fireplaces of civilization whence light and heat radiated out into the dark cold world. — Theodore Parker

I think that the way that I write stories is by instinct. You have some basic ideas - a character, or an image, or a situation that sounds compelling - and then you just feel your way around until you find the edges of your story. It's like going into a dark room ... you stumble around until you find the walls and then inch your way to the light switch. — Dan Chaon

When I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a dark place into which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two faces lifted out of the shadow. — William Faulkner

It was cold in the street and I crossed to the lighted blaze of shops in Rue Fuad. In a grocer's window I saw a small tin of olives with the name Orvieto on it, and overcome by a sudden longing to be on the right side of the Mediterranean, entered the shop: bought it: had it opened there and then: and sitting down at a marble table in that gruesome light I began to eat Italy, its dark scorched flesh, hand-modelled spring soil, dedicated vines. I felt that Melissa would never understand this. I should have to pretend I had lost the money. I did not see at first the great car which she had abandoned in the street with its engine running. She came into the shop with swift and resolute suddenness and said, with the air of authority that Lesbians, or women with money, assume with the obviously indigent: 'What did you mean by your remark about the antinomian nature of irony?' - or some such sally which I have forgotten. — Lawrence Durrell

Back and forth from Brooklyn to Manhattan. New York at night, from its bridges, is a miracle. When I first came to the city, it took all my fantasies and set them on fire, turned them into flickering constellations of light. Then it did the same with my history. As a dark speck of energy hurtling over the water toward that galaxy, I felt myself disappear. Relative to the image of infinity I was nothing, a clump of quantum matter skidding through the ether. It was as good as any drug. — Melissa Febos

Her fingers clenched against his shoulder blades. "You don't know what you're asking."
"Do I not?" He threaded his hands gently around her neck. "I'm asking you to make love with me."
That word again. She opened her eyes. "Gareth," she whispered. "Please. Don't. This is hard enough - "
She stopped speaking as his gaze pierced her.
Incredible. Last night had seemed so intimate. And yet it
had been so dark that she had not been able to see anything other than flashes of light, reflecting off the surface
of his skin. Now she could look into his eyes. They were golden-brown. They were not cutting or dismissive. And
even though she could see the desire smolder inside them, there was something else in them that turned her belly to liquid. — Courtney Milan

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

Now see the nasturtiums. The leaves are like tiny green parasols blown inside-out and the flowers are terrifically garish. In every village we pass through, see how they are everywhere, how they fill every gap in every wall, every crack in every path.
The nasturtiums have it figured out, how survival's just a matter of filling in the gaps between sun up and sun down. Boiling kettles, peeling potatoes, laundering towels, buying milk, changing light-bulbs, rooting wet mats of pubic hair out of the shower's plughole. This is the way people survive, by filling one hole at a time for the flightiest of temporary gratifications, over and over and over, until the season's out and they die off anyway, wither back into the wall or path, into their dark crevasse. This is the way life's eaten away, expended by the onerous effort of living itself. — Sara Baume

Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. A second that is you, without memory or experience, the animal warm and waking into a brand new world. There is the sun dissolving the dark, and light as clear as music, filling the room where you sleep and the other rooms behind your eyes. — Jeanette Winterson

And sometimes when her light brown eyes locked on to my dark brown ones, it was like she was reaching a hand all the way into my chest, like she was digging around in there for the most honest thing she could find. — Matt De La Pena

Events are the ephemera of history; they pass across its stage like fireflies, hardly glimpsed before they settle back into darkness and as often as not into oblivion. Every event, however brief, has to be sure a contribution to make, lights up some dark corner or even some wide vista of history. Nor is it only political history which benefits most, for every historical landscape - political, economic, social, even geographical - is illumined by the intermittent flare of the event. — Fernand Braudel

Her life has seen little light. She is twelve years old but has a woman's weathered poise. Her abyss-blue eyes have a piercing focus that some adults find unsettling. [ ... ] She has fired a gun into a human head. She has watched a pile of bodies set alight. She has starved and thirsted, stolen food and given it away, and glimpsed the meaning of life by watching it end over and over. — Isaac Marion

The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness. It is afraid of being found out. Its survival depends on your unconscious identification with it, as well as on your unconscious fear of facing the pain that lives in you. But if you don't face it, if you don't bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, you will be forced to relive it again and again. — Eckhart Tolle

There's a dark feeling - less than hatred, but more than loathing - that ugly men feel for handsome men. It's unreasonable and unjustified, of course, but it's always there, hiding in the long shadow thrown by envy. It creeps out, into the light of your eyes, when you're falling in love with a beautiful woman. — Gregory David Roberts

There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing
light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light. — Jodi Picoult

Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else knew about it was beside the purpose. He took his staff in one hand and the phial in his other. When he saw that the clear light was already welling through his fingers, he thrust it into his bosom and held it against his heart. Then turning from the city of Morgul, now no more than a grey glimmer across a dark gulf, he prepared to take the upward road. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The steep tiled roof had grown dark and mossy with age and rain. The triangular wooden frames fitted into the gables were intricately carved, the light that slanted through them and fell in patterns on the floor was full of secrets. Wolves. Flowers. Iguanas. Changing shape as the sun moved through the sky. Dying punctually at Dusk. — Arundhati Roy

The Old Man at the Wheel
Measured against the immeasurable
universe, no word you have spoken
brought light. Brought
light to what, as a child, you thought
too dark to be survived. By exorcism
you survived. By submission, then making.
You let all the parts of that thing you would
cut out of you enter your poem because
enacting there all its parts allowed you
the illusion you could cut it from your soul.
Dilemmas of choice given what cannot
change alone roused you to words.
As you grip the things that were young when
you were young, they crumble in your hand.
Now you must drive west, which in November
means driving directly into the sun. — Frank Bidart

She would tuck Sam into her heart, a bright light for her to take out whenever things were darkest. — Sarah J. Maas

...Leaning on her maid, she stole through the winding galleries, and lightly descending the stairs, entered the long hall, which terminated in a dark arched passage that opened into the chapel. This was a wild and gloomy structure: beneath it were the vaults which contained the ancestors of the earl of Dunreath, whose deeds and titles were enumerated on gothic monuments: their dust-covered banners waving around in sullen dignity to the rude gale, which found admittance through the broken windows. The light which the maid held produced deep shadows, that heightened the solemnity of the place. — Regina Maria Roche

You are a creature meant to be free. Almost always, the person hardest to tell the truth to ... is you. Once you can be honest with yourself, you'll find the strength and desire to be honest with others. It's the most freeing feeling imaginable. Go find a mirror and face yourself and your darkest truths. You have the light within you to chase away the dark demons that hold you down and push you back into the black corners of your past. You deserve better. You are a child of light and light hidden behind dark clouds, does nothing to brighten the world. — Toni Sorenson

Clary saw him take Mark's hand; he pressed his witchlight into the boy's palm, where it flickered, and then resumed its steady glow. 'Take this with you,' said Jace, 'for it can be dark in the land under the hill, and the years very long. — Cassandra Clare

Into the darkness with the light of the moon beaming upon me. Bathing in the luminosity of it awakening the demon that is me! — Eve Masters

The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained faces up to hers, and smiles; and though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone.
Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night's heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching; she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but angels of God. — Jerome K. Jerome

It says," I began slowly, "that a Light has come into this world, so that we need no longer walk in the dark. Is there darkness in your life, Lieutenant? — Corrie Ten Boom

I taste like dark, sinful chocolate and the bite of whiskey sliding down a parched throat. I taste like the wild rush of freedom as you change into wolfskin and race beneath the moon's silvery light. I taste like a man's tongue between your legs, slowly stroking and licking your succulent flesh. I am the caress of a hand against your bare bottom, a slow slap of your soft, pink core just before I mount you and push deep inside your most intimate place ... stroking you deep and slow. — Jennifer Ashley

I have hair that drifts like seaweed when I swim. I have eyes that shine like rock pools. My ears are like scallop shells. The ripples on my skin are like the ripples on the sand when the tide has turned back again. At night I gleam and glow like sea beneath the stars and moon. Thoughts dart and dance inside like little minnows in the shallows. They race and flash like mackerel farther out. My wonderings roll in the deep like sails. Dreams dive each night into the dark like dolphins do and break out happy and free into the morning light. These are the things I know about myself and that I see when I look in the rock pools at myself. — David Almond

It felt oily inside her head. There were strings of Xavier Stancliff caught inside of her, holding on and spiderwebbing out as he plotted and waited and thought: this is all the bitch deserves. Swallowing, Sandra pushed herself off the bed. It was late and the room was dark. She could see the bundled lump of Jack beneath his own covers. He'd left the television on and the light flickered down the tiny hall. Shadows danced and Sandra shivered as she left the room.

In another life, she would have told Danny and Jack about the man. Danny would have whispered, "It's alright," and smoothed back her hair from her face and kissed her, lips dry and coarse on her forehead. Then he and Jack would've left while she was sleeping. They would've trampled the flowers and climbed into Xavier Stanliff's window and when Sandra woke up there would have been one less man in the world. — Angele Gougeon

I brought the newspaper close up to my eyes to get a better view of George Pollucci's face, spotlighted like a three-quarter moon against a vague background of brick and black sky. I felt he had something important to tell me, and that whatever it was might just be written on his face.
But the smudgy crags of George Pollucci's features melted away as I peered at them, and resolved themselves into a regular pattern of dark and light and medium gray dots.
The inky black newspaper paragraph didn't tell why Mr Pollucci was on the ledge, or what Sgt Kilmartin did to him when he finally got him in through the window. — Sylvia Plath

When was it I realized that, on this truly dark and solitary path we all walk, the only way we can light is our own? Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.
Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time. — Banana Yoshimoto

The story of humans is the story of ideas that shine light into dark corners. — Jill Tarter

I call the high and light aspects of my being SPIRIT and the dark and heavy aspects SOUL.
Soul is at home in the deep shaded valleys.
Heavy torpid flowes saturated with black grow there.
The rivers flow like arm syrup. They empty into huge oceans of soul.
Spirit is a land of high,white peaks and glittering jewel-like lakes and flowers.
Life is sparse and sound travels great distances.
There is soul music, soul food, and soul love.
People need to climb the mountain not because it is there
But because the soulful divinity need to be mated with the Spirit.
Deep down we must have a rel affection for each other, a clear recognition of our shared human status. At the same time we must openly accept all ideologies and systems as means of solving humanity's problems. No matter how strong the wind of evil may blow, the flame of truth cannot be extinguished. — Dalai Lama XIV

The imagination places the world of the future either far above us, or far below, or in a relation of metempsychosis to ourselves. We dream of traveling through the universe - but is not the universe within ourselves? The depths of our spirit are unknown to us - the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds - the past and future - is in ourselves or nowhere. The external world is the world of shadows - it throws its shadow into the realm of light. At present this realm certainly seems to us so dark inside, lonely, shapeless. But how entirely different it will seem to us - when this gloom is past, and the body of shadows has moved away. We will experience greater enjoyment than ever, for our spirit has been deprived. — Novalis

The Gathering
According to the Kabbalah, in the beginning everything was God. When God contracted to make room for creation, spiritual energy filled the void. The energy poured into vessels which strained to hold the great power. The vessels shattered, sending countless shards, bits of the glowing matter, into the vastness of the universe.
These scattered bits of divine light must be collected. When the task is done the forces of the dark will be vanquished and the world will be healed. — Leonard Nimoy

The empire of Saturnus is gone by; Lord of the secret birth of things is he; Within the lap of earth, and in the depths Of the imagination dominates; And his are all things that eschew the light. The time is o'er of brooding and contrivance, For Jupiter, the lustrous, lordeth now, And the dark work, complete of preparation, He draws by force into the realm of light. Now must we hasten on to action, ere The scheme, and most auspicious positure Parts o'er my head, and takes once more its flight, For the heaven's journey still, and adjourn not. — Friedrich Schiller

The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. — H.P. Lovecraft

At last he said, "Did you come out of the big mountains?"
Gitano shook his head slowly. "No, I walked down the Salinas Valley."
The afternoon thought would not let Joey go. "Did you ever go into the big mountains back there?"
The old dark eyes grew fixed, and their light turned inward on the years that were living in Gitano's head. — John Steinbeck

I will do anything to save
Laurana, he swore beneath his breath, clenching his fist. Anything! If it means sacrificing myself or -
He stopped. Would he really give up Berem? Would he really trade the Everman to the Dark Queen,
perhaps plunge the world into a darkness so vast it would never see light again?
No, Tanis told himself firmly. Laurana would die before she would be part of such a bargain. — Margaret Weis

The night was drawing in, and the house felt more and more like a glass cage, blasting its light blindly out into the dusk, like a lantern in the dark. I imagined a thousand moths circling and shivering, drawn inexorably to its glow, only to perish against the cold inhospitable glass. — Ruth Ware

1. Is anything impossible for the grace of God? Suppose you bring a light into a room that has been dark a thousand years; does it remove the darkness little by little? The room is lighted all at once. Intense renunciation is what is needed. — Ramakrishna

It's been said that the Magi, wise men, gazed up into the night skies, following a star. But they were not looking for a star. They were looking for hope. Hope of a new world. Hope of redemption. Light is not found in dark places, & hope is not found looking down or looking back. May you always look up. — Richard Paul Evans

Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. — Daniel Keyes

Thy sunbeam comes upon this earth of mine with arms outstretched and stands at my door the livelong day to carry back to thy feet clouds made of my tears and sighs and songs.
With fond delight thou wrappest about thy starry breast that mantle of misty cloud, turning it into numberless shapes and folds and colouring it with hues everchanging.
It is so light and so fleeting, tender and tearful and dark, that is why thou lovest it, O thou spotless and serene. And that is why it may cover thy awful white light with its pathetic shadows. — Rabindranath Tagore

Meditation is the way to develop our natural healing abilities. Healing comes originally from our inner being, from the inner source of silence and wholeness. In the silence, we can let go of all our problems, frustrations, fears, anger and sorrow. Healing happens when we bring everything that we find inside ourselves out into the light. Healing is to embrace and accept everything that we find inside ourselves without judgment or evaluation. Healing happens when we discover an unconditional love and acceptance for ourselves as we are with both our light and dark sides. — Swami Dhyan Giten

There is the image of the man who imagines himself to be a prisoner in a cell. He stands at one end of this small, dark, barren room, on his toes, with arms stretched upward, hands grasping for support onto a small, barred window, the room's only apparent source of light. If he holds on tight, straining toward the window, turning his head just so, he can see a bit of bright sunlight barely visible between the uppermost bars. This light is his only hope. He will not risk losing it. And so he continues to staring toward that bit of light, holding tightly to the bars. So committed is his effort not to lose sight of that glimmer of life-giving light, that it never occurs to him to let go and explore the darkness of the rest of the cell. So it is that he never discovers that the door at the other end of the cell is open, that he is free. He has always been free to walk out into the brightness of the day, if only he would let go. (192) — Sheldon B. Kopp

Writing a short story is a little like walking into a dark room, finding a light and turning it on. The light is the end of the story. — Dan Chaon

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life? — Mary Oliver

truth is what happens when humans use words to reflect God's wise ordering of the world and so shine light into its dark corners, bringing judgment and mercy where it is badly needed. — N. T. Wright

I'm sorry, Gemma. But we can't live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the dark with you. — Libba Bray

The social Web is incredibly good at shining bright lights into dark corners ... — Dave Evans

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real. — Sarah Dessen

Light and dark appear as opposites, and we've all learned to think of them as warring enemies. Duality is based on separation, yet the soul exists in harmony with everything, even darkness. Your shadow self knows this. As it holds negative energy for you, it tries to attract your attention, not to make you afraid or enraged or vindictive, but so that you can convert those feelings into understanding. Understanding is the light. — Deepak Chopra

After one has been in a lowly position, one knows how dangerous it is to climb to a high place, Once one has been in the dark, one knows how revealing it is to go into the light. Having maintained quietude, one knows how tiring compulsive activity is. Having nurtured silence, one knows how disturbing much talk is. — Zicheng Hong

Seeing the Way is like going into a dark room with a torch; the darkness instantly departs, while the light alone remains. When the Way is attained and the truth is seen, ignorance vanishes and enlightenment abides forever. — Gautama Buddha

Dressed in new jeans, a light blue dress shirt and a red patterned tie, he stood at Heather's grave with his eyes closed. Although I didn't hear him, his lips were moving like he was praying. In the faint breeze, Mother Nature ran her fingers through his dark hair like I wanted to. He looked tall and strong, the way he used to, but somewhere along the way, without me, he'd stepped into the shoes of a man. And a part of me ached for those missing years. — Jordan Dane

The history of the cosmos
is the history of the struggle of becoming.
When the dim flux of unformed life
struggled, convulsed back and forth upon itself,
and broke at last into light and dark
came into existence as light,
came into existence as cold shadow
then every atom of the cosmos trembled with delight. — D.H. Lawrence

For some time, I've said this issue of comprehensive immigration reform is not just an issue about immigration or human rights or civil rights, it's about our economy. You take 11 million people from out of the dark and into the light. The think tanks have surmised that you are talking about trillions of dollars infused into the economy. — Antonio Villaraigosa

When we pray, instead of trying to produce love in our souls toward God, we should be basking in God's love for us. How foolish to stay indoors in the cold, dark little room off the self, trying to turn on the light and turn up the heat, when we can just go outside into God's glorious Sonlight and receive his rays! How silly to fuss with artificial tanning salons and lotions and lights when the Son is out! — Peter Kreeft

Breathing in, let golden light come into you through your head, because it is there that the Golden Flower is waiting. That golden light will help. It will cleanse your whole body and will make it absolutely full of creativity. This is male energy. Then when you exhale, let darkness, the darkest you can conceive, like a dark night, river-like, come from your toes upwards - this is feminine energy: it will soothe you, it will make you receptive, it will calm you, it will give you rest - and let it go out of the head. Then inhale again, and golden light enters in. — Osho

The souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room full of lights; each takes a taper - often only a spark - to guide it in the dim country of this world. But some souls, by rare fortune, are detained longer - have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they weave into a torch. These are the torch-bearers of humanity - its poets, seers and saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness, toward the light. They are the law-givers and saviors, the light-bringers, way-showers and truth-tellers, and without them, humanity would lose its way in the dark. — Plato

I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times."
Takahashi swings his trombone case from his right shoulder to his left. Then he says, "It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. Recognizing and understanding the shadows is what a healthy intelligence does. And to acquire a healthy intelligence takes a certain amount of time and effort. I don't think you have a particularly dark character. — Haruki Murakami

So I pray for people who are hurting, that they be filled with air and light. Air and light heal; they somehow get into those dark, musty places, like spiritual antibiotics. We don't have to figure out how this all works - "Figure it out" is not a good slogan. It's enough to know it does. — Anne Lamott

When you are discouraged, do not look down. Hold your head up high and you will see the face of God shining a light into your dark place. — Janet Autherine

Short fiction is like low relief. And if your story has no humor in it, then you're trying to look at something in the pitch dark. With the light of humor, it throws what you're writing into relief so that you can actually see it. — Elizabeth McCracken

Every violent storm will eventually give way to sunshine; every dark night will finally fade into dawn. — Steve Goodier

We see, surrounding the narrow raft illuminated by the flickering light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling waves we toss for a brief hour; all the loneliness of humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated on the individual soul, which must struggle alone, with what of courage it can command, against the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and fears. Victory, in this struggle with the powers of darkness, is the true baptism into the glorious company of heroes, the true initiation into the overmastering beauty of human existence. — Bertrand Russell

Seventeen moons, seventeen years,
Eyes where Dark ot Light appears,
Gold for yes and Green for no,
Seventeen the last to know ...
Seventeen moons, seventeen turns,
Eyes so dark and bright it burns,
Time is high but one is higher,
Draws the moon into the fire ...
Seventeen moon, seventeen fears,
Pain of death and shame of tears,
Find the marker, walk the mile,
Seventeen knows just exile ...
Seventeen moons, seventeen spheres,
The moon before her time appears,
Hearts will go and stars will follow,
One is broken, One is hollow ...
Seventeen moons, seventeen years Know the loss, stay the fears Wait for him and he appears Seventeen moons, seventeen tears ... — Kami Garcia

Innocence is a strange thing. For those who held it within them, the experienced people in the world flew to them like moths to a flame. Yet, instead of bursting into cinders, they smothered the flame and showed the candle just how dark the world could be. Once that innocence was lost, there was no turning back. No way back to the light of the normal world. It became an addiction. Pain, domination, submission, and degradation would be constant yearnings for the newly initiated." ~Lexie Syrah — Lexie Syrah

Rolfe unlocked the door, muttering, "This had better be worth my time," and stalked into the awaiting dimness beyond. Then stopped dead.
Even in the watery light, Dorian could perfectly see the woman sitting at Rolfe's desk, her black clothes dirty, weapons gleaming, and her feet propped on the dark wooden surface.
Aelin Galathynius, her hands laced behind her head, grinned at them all and said, "I like this office far better thank your old one Rolfe. — Sarah J. Maas

When I entered the drum, why did it make my heart start pounding? In the small, cramped space, secretly, I was incredibly smitten by her.
While playing, we both decided to try and crawl into the drum. It was dark and smelled faintly of metal. Beyond the mouth of the round drum, we could see the sunlight.
If I turned around, our bodies fit into the drum exactly, and she was right there. Her breathing was echoing. The air around us was very humid.
Somehow the burning feeling in my heart came boiling over, and I put my face close to hers, and gave her a little kiss. Of course it was on the lips.
It was a gentle sensation, and it was the first time I'd ever felt such a strange emotion. She responded with the same feeling. So I kept on kissing her. They were light kisses, but my heart was beating wildly.It was an amazing first time. — Gackt

I can't understand
why dark northern soldiers
and light ones
are seperated into different brigades.
The dead are all buried together
in hasty mass graves,
bones touching. — Margarita Engle

Every time you do a good deed you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, when you're gone that light is going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back. — Charles De Lint

When I entered and shut the door, the Darkling gave me a small bow. "How are you, Alina?"
"I'm fine," I managed.
"She's fine!" hooted Baghra. "She's fine! She cannot light a hallway, but she's fine."
I winced and wished I could disappear into my boots.
To my surprise, the Darkling said, "Leave her be."
Baghra's eyes narrowed. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
The Darkling sighed and ran his hands through his dark hair in exasperation. When he looked at me, there was a rueful smile on his lips, and his hair was going every which way. "Baghra has her own way of doing things," he said.
"Don't patronize me, boy!" Her voice cracked out like a whip. To my amazement, I saw the Darkling stand up straighter and then scowl as if he'd caught himself.
"Don't chide me, old woman," he said in a low, dangerous voice. — Leigh Bardugo

Night never needs a shade
but it requires to fade
into the grin of twinkling stars
where light is just a glint of scars — Munia Khan

The entrances I make now, when we kick in the door of a high-risk warrant, eighty percent of the homes we're kicking into, it's dark in there for some reason. That's just the way the bad guys are doing it now. So now all of my sights are night sights; I've also put special light rails on the bottom of all of them so I can put a special light on them that's combination white light/laser. — Steven Seagal

My mind still buzzed with the cares of a busy day; I sat on without noting how twilight
was deepening into dark.
Suddenly light stirred across the gloom and touched me as with a finger.
I lifted my head and met the gaze of the full moon widened in wonder like a child's. It held my eyes for long, and I felt as though a love-letter had been secretly dropped in at my window.
And ever since my heart is breaking to write for answer something fragrant as Night's unseen flowers - great as her declaration spelt out in nameless stars. — Rabindranath Tagore

Ultimately, I see the Goddess as incorporating the full spectrum of existence, not just what we call 'the feminine.' The latter is actually a construct of a culture that divides existence into compartments, and in particular into the dualities with which we are so familiar: light/dark, female/male, mind/body, earth/spirit and so on.

The true nature of existence, including true human nature, I believe, is not so split. Acting and living from the integration of all these components is what I call spirituality. Thus, the Goddess represents a unity and wholeness which is the birthright and potential of every human being. All of us, all of existence, are the Divine. In order to complete this whole by bringing back that which has been denied, I name the Divine the Goddess. — Hallie Iglehart Auste

When fear actually turns into a friend. When you open your eyes and all you see is the dark because it's been so long since you've seen the light. — Rachel Van Dyken

If he died now, Grainier probably wouldn't know it until they came into the light of the gas lamps either side of the doctor's house. After they'd moved along for nearly an hour without conversation, listening only to the creaking wagon and the sound of the nearby river and the clop of the mares, it grew dark. — Denis Johnson

The miracle of order has run out and I am left in an unmiraculous city where anything may happen. I don't need more intimations of disorder. It has to be more than that! Search the smoke for the fire's base. Read from the coals neither success nor despair. This edge of boredom is as bright. I pass it, into the dark rim. There is the deceiving warmth that asks nothing. There are objects lost in double-light. — Samuel R. Delany