Dark Woman Quotes & Sayings

Among the people, it is the custom for a new wife to make moccasins for the husband's mother. When the mother accepts the gift, she welcomes the new wife into the family."
Jesse blushed at the message her innocent gift had sent to the old woman. Rides the Wind watched Jesse carefully as he concluded, "My mother accepts the gift you have given. She says that she welcomes you as my wife."
His dark eyes met hers briefly, but then he picked up Two Mothers and said, "My son and I will say good night to Sun, now. — Stephanie Grace Whitson

By the Lady's never-sucked teats!"
"Elas Sil!"
"Oh shut up! I'm a woman, I can curse about things like that. Wait, it's not as dark up ahead. Come on, and hasn't that baby of yours been asleep a long time? You sure it's not dead?"
"Wel, it peed on me halfway down that last corridor, and last I looked it was smiling."
"Huh. It ever amazes me women get talked into motherhood. — Steven Erikson

She wishes her grandmother had not been so protective, and that she understood better what passes between a man and woman. As it is, she simply enjoys the feelings and wonders if they are what lightning is made of, for everything comes back to the weather. Tears like rain. Smiles like the sun. Hair as dry as sand and fear like the dark ocean. — Sara Sheridan

And in the dark of that room, notorious for the woven patterns of desire it had seen, Ammar ibn Khairan held the woman beloved of the man he'd killed, and offered what small comfort he could. He granted her the courtesy and space of his silence, as she finally permitted herself to weep, mourning the depth of her loss, the appalling disappearance, in an instant, of love in a bitter world. — Guy Gavriel Kay

There are corners in the world that are too dark to see, and there are edges that are sharper than they appear, ready to snag the unwary. There are those who do not fear the things they should, and there are those who would bargain with the devil herself for the sake of their greed.The world is made safe by a woman, yes, but it is a very big world. — E.K. Johnston

And it's so pretty and secluded," went on Mrs. Digby, "with these glorious rhododendrons. Look how pretty they are, all sprayed with the water
like fairy jewels
and the rustic seat against those dark cypresses at the back. Really Italian. And the scent of the lilac is so marvellous!"
Mr. Spiller knew that the cypresses were, in fact, yews, but he did not correct her. A little ignorance was becoming in a woman. — Dorothy L. Sayers

But a child, so recently come into the world from the void of creation, can be more resilient than the strongest man, more strong willed than the hardiest woman. A child is like an early spring bulb that carries all the resources needed within its skin for the first push through the soil towards the sun. And just as a little bit of water can start the bulb to grow, even through fissured rock, so can a little kindness give a child the ability to push through the dark. — Kathleen Kent

The woman, one of those usually known as a good-time girl, was famous for the premature portliness which had earned her the nickname Boule de Suif. Small, round as a barrel, fat as butter and with fingers tightly jointed like strings of small sausages, her glowing skin and the enormous bosom which strained under the constraints of her dress - as well as her freshness, which was a delight to the eye - made her hugely desirable and much sought after. She had a rosy apple of a face, a peony bud about to burst into bloom. Out of it looked two magnificent dark eyes shaded by thick black lashes. Further down was a charming little mouth complete with invitingly moist lips and tiny, gleaming pearly-white teeth. She was said to possess a variety of other inestimable qualities. — Guy De Maupassant

Neither day nor night is our master. And do you know what happens when a woman walks without fear?"
Teia shook her head, but there was a sudden longing deep in her that swelled so strong it paralyzed her tongue. Tell me. Tell me.
"She becomes."
Becomes what? Teia didn't say the words aloud, but he knew what she was thinking, for he answered:
"She becomes whatever she wills. Minus only one thing." In the dark, he held up a finger, almost like he was scolding her.
Teia was silent now. The question was obvious, and now she didn't want to ask it.
Sharp said, "She has one thing she can never be, never again. You know what it is, don't you?"
The words came unbidden to her lips, from a place so dark no light had ever touched it: "A slave. — Brent Weeks

Yes, I'm blonde. When I started as an actor, because of the accent and my body and my personality, it was not what the stereotype of the Latina woman in Hollywood is, so they didn't know where to put me. The blond hair wasn't matching. The moment I put my hair dark, it was better for my work. — Sofia Vergara

For with my intuition I knew that this man was repeating a pattern over and over again: courting a woman with his intelligence and sympathy, claiming her emotionally; then, when she began to claim in return, running away. And the better a woman was, the sooner he would begin to run. I knew this with my intuition, and yet I sat there in my dark room, looking at the hazed wet brilliance of the purple London night sky, longing with my whole being. — Doris Lessing

The soldiers in their full dress uniforms were already miserable, some from the heat, others from envy. "We've got the bloody ugliest uniforms in the Empire," one of the Rifles muttered, casting a glance at the infinitely more splendid dress of the nearby Hussars. "I hate this gloomy dark green."
"Pretty target you'd make, crawling forward of the front lines in bright red and gold," another Rifle replied in a scornful undertone. "You'd have your arse shot off."
"I don't care. Women like red coats."
"You'd choose a woman over not having your arse shot off?"
"Wouldn't you?"
The other man's silence conceded the point. — Lisa Kleypas

Chinese whisper games will start, where one woman will nod at a young dancing girl, asking a question that is passed down the row from one woman to another, before a response comes back up the line in the same manner. These women are in the business of finding wives for their sons and they offer up occasional commentary on the performance before them.
"Not so pretty. Her sister is better."
"That poor one will have a hard time, yes. The dark skin - she is already an old woman. She will have to wait, yes."
Information about the girl's family's honor, purity, and place in society is also exchanged — Jenny Nordberg

By day Lisbon has a naive theatrical quality that enchants and captivates, but by night it is a fairy-tale city, descending over lighted terraces to the sea, like a woman in festive garments going down to meet her dark lover. — Erich Maria Remarque

But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark
that sort of make everything else seem
unimportant. — Tennessee Williams

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

When J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy was published in the 1950s, a woman named Rhona Beare wrote Tolkien and asked him about the chapter in which the Ring of Power is destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. When the ring is melted, the Dark Lord's entire power collapses and melts away with it. She found it inexplicable that this unassailable, overwhelming power would be wiped out by the erasure of such a little object. Tolkien replied that at the heart of the plot was the Dark Lord's effort to magnify and maximize his power by placing so much of it in the ring. He wrote: "The Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one's life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself. — Timothy J. Keller

Josey?" She heard her mother's voice in the hall, then the thud of her cane as she came closer. "Please don't tell her I'm here," the woman in the closet said, with a strange sort of desperation. Despite the cold outside, she was wearing a cropped white shirt and tight dark blue jeans that sat low, revealing a tattoo of a broken heart on her hip. Her hair was bleached white-blond with about an inch of silver-sprinkled dark roots showing. Her mascara had run and there were black streaks on her cheeks. She looked drip-dried, like she'd been walking in the rain, though there hadn't ... — Sarah Addison Allen

dark-haired woman in — Robert Bryndza

I wasn't afraid of your average dark alley. I had standard Agency-issue spells in my coat and a nine millimeter in my purse for dealing with the less dangerous pests, but even I knew you have to be careful with an upset woman. — J.C. Nelson

He asked if she sold luminous flowers that he had heard about, flowers which shone in the dark. He wanted them, he said, for a woman who shone in the dark. He could swear that when he took her to the theater and she sat back in the dark in her evening dress, her skin was as luminous as the finest sea shell, with a pale pink glow to it. And he wanted these flowers for her to wear in her hair. Mathilde did not have them. But as soon as the man left she went to look at herself in the mirror. This was the kind of feeling she wanted to inspire. Could she? — Anais Nin

The test of civilization is the estimate of woman. Among savages she is a slave. In the dark ages of Christianity she is a toy and a sentimental goddess. With increasing moral light, and greater liberty, and more universal justice, she begins to develop as an equal human being. — George William Curtis

Stop trying to rationalize this, man. There is no scenario here that ends with you between this woman's thighs. — Kate Meader

All gambling is the telling of a fortune, but of a monstrously depleted fortune, empty of everything save one numerical circumstance, shorn of all such richness as a voyage across the water, a fair man that loves you, a dark woman that means you harm. — Rebecca West

As she felt his fangs against her neck, she was in another world.
There was screaming. A woman was somewhere in agony. Everything was black, and the tormented scream was overwhelming, echoing through the emptiness. After the screaming subsided, there was panting, loud and steady, and it wasn't as dark anymore. There was a room visible now, in a reddish light. A pale man with black hair hovered over a woman dressed in white. She lay on a bed, looking disheveled and sweaty. Her brown-black hair clung to her wet forehead and shoulders. She was covered in blood. The man sat next to her, and held her close to him. He stroked her hair as her chest heaved desperately.
"I love you, my dearest Katerina," he said, cradling her in his strong arms. "Soon, we'll be together forever." Everything faded to black once more, and the woman stopped breathing. All was silent and still. — Dawn Bonney

No matter how sexy or appealing or flashy or tall, dark, and handsome the object of your desire may be ... no matter how AMAZING the job opportunity may seem ... no matter the size of your impossible dream..if it is NOT meant for you, it is time to let it go and move on to what IS. Just as Rose let go of Jack, so she could bloom instead of meet her doom.
"But MY Leonardo diCaprio WANTS to be held," you might argue.
No, he doesn't. (If he did, you wouldn't be reading this book.)
THE SINGLE WOMAN SAYS: You don't have to cling to what is truly meant for you. You can let go. It'll stick around — Mandy Hale

I had meant my promise to George. I had said that I was, before anything else, a Boleyn and a Howard through and through; but now, sitting in th shadowy room, looking out over the gray slates of the city, and up at the dark clouds leaning on the roof of Westminster Palace, I suddenly realized that George was wrong, and that my family was wrong, and that I had been wrong
for all my life. I was not a Howard before anything else. Before anything else I was a woman who was capable of passion and who had a great need and a great desire for love, I didn't want the rewards for which Anne had surrendered her youth. I didn' want the arid glamour of George's life, I wanted the heat and the sweat and the passion of a man that I could love and trust. And I wanted to give myself to him: not for advantage, but for desire. — Philippa Gregory

And the City, in its own way, gets down for you, cooperates, smoothing its sidewalks, correcting its curbstones, offering you melons and green apples on the corner. Racks of yellow head scarves; strings of Egyptian beads. Kansas fried chicken and something with raisins call attention to an open window where the aroma seems to lurk. And if that's not enough, doors to speakeasies stand ajar and in that cool dark place a clarinet coughs and clears its throat waiting for the woman to decide on the key. She makes up her mind and as you pass by informs your back that she is daddy's little angel child. The City is smart at this: smelling and good and looking raunchy; sending secret messages disguised as public signs: this way, open here, danger to let colored only single men on sale woman wanted private room stop dog on premises absolutely no money down fresh chicken free delivery fast. And good at opening locks, dimming stairways. Covering your moans with its own. — Toni Morrison

Time seemed to drag with dreamlike slowness, like a knife through cold honey, and the room took on a surreal golden sheen as if I was looking through that same jar of honey. Maybe at that moment, the sun shone just right though the grimy windows, but the woman, the shelves, the jars, everything in the room appeared in tones of gold and sepia, except for the painting behind the counter. From behind the shopkeeper's head, a fluorescent Mary and Jesus glared at me, their cartoon-like faces reproaching me for being there. — Sara Stark

Feeling Robyn grow still, Shay's heart stopped for a microsecond. Dread cut through her like ice. She looked at the female and noticed her staring at Shay's upper thigh. She swallowed hard, afraid of what the woman might be thinking of her now, of the symbol tattooed into her skin.
Just under the denim, but poking out enough, was the brand she'd worn her whole life. The dark moon rising out of the clouds. The mark of the Onyx Pack — Lia Davis

Now," she said when all was ready and lit the silver sconces on either side of the mirror. What woman would not have kindled to see what Orlando saw then burning in the snow
for all about the looking glass were snowy lawns, and she was like a fire, a burning bush, and the candle flames about her head were silver leaves; or again, the glass was green water, and she a mermaid, slung with pearls, a siren in a cave, singing so that oarsmen leant from their boats and fell down, down to embrace her; so dark, so bright, so hard, so soft, was she, so astonishingly seductive that it was a thousand pities that there was no one there to pt it in plain English, and say outright "Damn it Madam, you are loveliness incarnate," which was the truth. — Virginia Woolf

Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul,
that soft summer morning
round a turning in the path,
the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones,
its legs in the air like a woman in need
burning its wedding poisons
like a fountain with its rhythmic sobs,
I could hear it clearly flowing with a long murmuring sound,
but I touch my body in vain to find the wound.
I am the vampire of my own heart,
one of the great outcasts condemned to eternal laughter
who can no longer smile.
Am I dead?
I must be dead. — Charles Baudelaire

Should I be worried?" He set down the bread. I smiled. "No. But go easy on him. He hasn't had to see me with anyone for a while. It's ... strange for him. Hearing the stories and now, seeing you here." "What are the stories?" "Oh, you know. Dark, handsome stranger whisking off innocent, sweet, loved-by-all Riley Johnson. Corrupting her weekends before sending her back a ruined woman." "Oh, is that what they're saying?" His mouth curved. I nodded, widening my eyes. "Oh yes. It's quite the scandal. — Alessandra Torre

Maybe it's not a lesson so much as it's a magic trick. You can make a little girl into anything if you say the right words. Take her apart until all that's left is her red, red heart thumping against the world. Stitch her up again real good. Now, maybe you get a woman. If you're lucky. If that's what you were after. Just as easy to end up with a blackbird or a circus bear or a coyote. Or a parrot, just saying what's said to you, doing what's done to you, copying until it comes so natural that even when you're all alone you keep on cawing hello pretty bird at the dark. — Catherynne M Valente

Concert pianists get to be quite chummy with dead composers. They can't help it. Classical music isn't just music. It's a personal diary. An uncensored confession in the dead of night. A baring of the soul. Take a modern example. Florence and the Machine? In the song 'Cosmic Love,' she catalogs the way in which the world has gone dark, distorting her, when she, a rather intense young woman, was left bereft by a love affair. 'The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out. — Marisha Pessl

Just hear me out. While you were napping, I was busy chatting up our allies. Didn't you know
your woman's a golden-tongued ambassador! My sisters always said I graduated from the shock-and-awe school of diplomacy, but joke 'em if they can't take a fuck, right? — Kresley Cole

The woman's perspective is like the dark side of the moon: it always exists, but it is never exposed, at least not in my culture. — Ang Lee

A democracy without faith is just a machine without power. Nothing can make it function except faith in itself, in the ordinary man and woman. — Eleanor Dark

When I was young, some women told me they loved me for my long eyelashes. I accepted. Later it was for my wit. Then for my power and money. Then for my talent. Then for my mind-deep. OK, I can handle all of it.
The only woman who scares me is the one who loves me for myself alone. I have plans for her. I have poisons and daggers and dark graves in caves to hide her head. She can't be allowed to live. Especially if she's sexually faithful and never lies and always puts me ahead of everything and everyone. — Mario Puzo

At that stage of my youth, death remained as abstract a concept as non-Euclidean geometry or marriage. I didn't yet appreciate its terrible finality or the havoc it could wreak on those who'd entrusted the deceased with their hearts. I was stirred by the dark mystery of mortality. I couldn't resist stealing up to the edge of doom and peering over the brink. The hint of what was concealed in those shadows terrified me, but I caught sight of something in the glimpse, some forbidden and elemental riddle that was no less compelling than the sweet, hidden petals of a woman's sex.
In my case - and, I believe, in the case of Chris McCandless - that was a very different thing from wanting to die. — Jon Krakauer

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

Again the water rose, they both took a breath; again they were submerged and his leg hooked over something, an old pipe, unmoving. The next time, they both reached their heads high as the water rushed back, another breath taken. He heard Mrs. Kitteridge yelling from above. He couldn't hear the words, but he understood that help was coming. He had only to keep Patty from falling away, and as they went again beneath the swirling, sucking water, he strengthened his grip on her arm to let her known: He would not let her go. Even though, staring into her open eyes in the swirling salt-filled water, with sun flashing through each wave, he thought he would like this moment to be forever: the dark-haired woman on shore calling for their safety, the girl who had once jumped rope like a queen, now holding him with a fierceness that matched the power of the ocean - oh, insane, ludicrous, unknowable world! Look how she wanted to live, look she wanted to hold on. — Elizabeth Strout

For one moment I had a cold feeling he was watching. Over the arm of the couch, I caught a glimpse of his face staring back at me through the dark beyond the window - where just a few minutes earlier I had been crouching. A switch of perception, and I was out on the fire escape again, watching a man and a woman inside, making love on the couch. ... I thought to myself, go ahead, you poor bastard - watch. I don't give a damn anymore. — Daniel Keyes

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

By god, DH Lawrence was right when he said there must be a dumb, dark, dull, bitter belly-tension between a man and a woman, and how else could this be achieved save in the long monotony of marriage? — Stella Gibbons

She was not a white woman. She was not a Greek ... Until the emergence of the doctrine of white superiority, Cleopatra was generally pictured as a distinctly African woman, dark in color. — John Henrik Clarke

Everything makes sense when I'm with you, Tess. My life makes sense, after so many years of running scared in the dark. You are the light, the reason I live. I'm bonded to you deep, woman. For me, there will never be another. — Lara Adrian

Rising, the woman who had carried the jar began to dance to the music of the rebab, fevered music that was like to the flashing of the recurved blade she flourished aloft. Ever the chimings of the red-gold finger cymbals slipped through, around, and over the exigent strains, and in a minute or three (though it had grown dark) the fluting notes of a syrinx joined them, an eerie piping, more distant far in time than space, that railed against death and the desert, and like a child forlorn sobbed of wildflowers. "Flitting — Gene Wolfe

I am the woman who glows in the dark, I'll stay awake forever if I have to. — Elena Avila

She asked if I loved another woman, so I answered honestly and said, Dinner was great, but I could go for dessert. — Dark Jar Tin Zoo

Sharing secrets is the way in which women tie themselves together, for it reveals complicity and trust. Holding secrets shows trustworthiness and a sort of quite defiance. It is a natural thing for a female to hold secrets within her breast until the time is ripe to release them. Does it not follow the way in which her body is formed? A woman is made with that dark and mysterious recess that can grow a child safely until the child is ready to come out onto the birthing bed. And like birthing, secrets present themselves in many ways. some slip easily into the world, others must be torn out, if the body is unwilling. — Kathleen Kent

As the cat lapses into savagery by night, and barbarously explores the dark, so primal and titanic is a woman with the love madness. — Gelett Burgess

You're a Dark-Hunter."
He kissed her lightly on the lips. "What I am is a man in love with a woman. I want you, Amanda. For the rest of my blessedly short mortal life. I want to wake at dawn with you in my arms and watch our children play and fight. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

He / thought of women. / What is it like to be a woman / listening in the dark? Black mantle of silence / stretches between them like geothermal pressure. / Ascent of the rapist up the stairs seems as slow as / lava. She listens / to the blank space where / his consciousness is, moving towards her. Lava can / move as slow as / nine hours per inch. [ ... ] She wonders if / he is listening too. The cruel thing is, she falls asleep / listening. — Anne Carson

This was the purest instant he had ever experienced; the way he felt inside right then. If he had to be trapped in a forever he would choose this very moment. The black night, the few yellow leaves still clinging to the bare trees, the beautiful dark-eyed woman drinking whiskey, the way she gazed at him, the way she made him feel. — Alice Hoffman

She was lucky if he stood behind her. Not so lucky if he came to crush her. And a woman might only learn the truth of it - when he walked out of her life.
Highlighted by 9 Kindle users — Lenore Wolfe

She'll ruin me for all women, I can just tell.
Charlie isn't the kind of woman you move on from. She draws you in with the brightness of her sun and then leaves you blind. There's something deep and dark inside of her. She's trying to keep it locked down, but I can see it in her eyes. — Corinne Michaels

Sleep pressed upon him with an urgency that became resistless. And April Bell was calling to him. Her voice came clearly to him, above all the subdued murmur of traffic noises. It was a ringing golden chime, more penetrating than the occasional beep of a driver's horn or the far clamor of a streetcar. It shimmered out of the dark, in waves of pure light as green as her malachite eyes. Then he thought he could see her, somehow, far across the slumberous town. Only she wasn't a woman. — Jack Williamson

The woman, who belonged to the courtesan class, was celebrated for an embonpoint unusual for her age, which had earned for her the sobriquet of "Boule de Suif" (Tallow Ball). Short and round, fat as a pig, with puffy fingers constricted at the joints, looking like rows of short sausages; with a shiny, tightly-stretched skin and an enormous bust filling out the bodice of her dress, she was yet attractive and much sought after, owing to her fresh and pleasing appearance. Her face was like a crimson apple, a peony-bud just bursting into bloom; she had two magnificent dark eyes, fringed with thick, heavy lashes, which cast a shadow into their depths; her mouth was small, ripe, kissable, and was furnished with the tiniest of white teeth. — Guy De Maupassant

I remember my wife in white. I remember her walking toward me on our wedding day, a bouquet of red flowers in her hand, and I remember her turning away from me in anger, her body stiff as a stone. I remember the sound of her breath as she slept. I remember the way her body felt in my arms. I remember, always I remember, that she brought solace to my life as well as grief. That for every dark moment we shared between us, there was a moment of such brightness I almost could not bear to look at it head-on. I try to remember the woman she was and not the woman I have built out of spare parts to comfort me in my mourning. And I find, more and more, as the days go by and the balm of my forgiveness washes over the cracked and parched surface of my heart, I find that remembering her as she was is a gift I can give us both. — Carolyn Parkhurst

Don't say anything up front," I murmured. "We can just let them sort of come to terms with it . . ." The door swung open. An older African-American woman stood in the doorway. She wore an apron, and she had big dark eyes, just like Jim. "Dali, this is my mother," Jim said. "Mom, this is Dali. She's my mate. — Nalini Singh

For the middle majority of us all, knowledge of Negroes firsthand is probably limited - limited to the colored cleaning woman, who comes twice a week, limited to the colored baseball player who saves or loses a home game, limited to the garage mechanic, or dime-store clerk, or blues singer seen and heard on a Saturday night. To this white majority, the black man is as unknown as once was the heart of the Dark Continent of Africa. — Irving Wallace

He snagged two more pieces of wood from her load for good measure. "Martise, bearing children is woman's work. Gurn and I would be sitting in the dark every night if we waited for some wandering female to pick up sticks for us. — Grace Draven

The young woman's perfect breast didn't yield beneath the gentle pressure of two latexed fingers.
"What're you doing?" Professor Robert 'Lithium Bob' Beck frowned at me.
"I don't know. It's what I did when I first saw her ... "
"Why?" asked Doc Donald, about to assist with the post mortem.
"She seemed so ... pink. Maybe to see if she was alive ... " I saw the Prof and the Doc exchange a look. It was an unconventional - no, plain weird - place to touch her. — Morana Blue

There is a great deal we never think of calling religion that is still fruit unto God, and garnered by Him in the harvest. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, patience, goodness. I affirm that if these fruits are found in any form, whether you show your patience as a woman nursing a fretful child, or as a man attending to the vexing detail of a business, or as a physician following the dark mazes of sickness, or as a mechanic fitting the joints and valves of a locomotive; being honest true besides, you bring forth truth unto God. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

There goes the dismantled - Love has fallen off her wall. A religious woman," he thought to himself, "without the joy and safety of the Catholic faith, which at a pinch covers up the spots on the wall when the family portraits take a slide; take that safety from a woman," he said to himself, quickening his step to follow her, "and love gets loose and into the rafters. She sees her everywhere," he added, glancing at Nora as she passed into the dark. "Out looking for what she's afraid to find - Robin. There goes mother of mischief, running about, trying to get the world home. — Djuna Barnes

You are so beautiful," he sighed into her hair.
She tried to check her girlish giggle, unsuccessfully. "Gray, it's dark as
pitch. You can't even see me."
"Even in the dark," he murmured against her skin. "You are the most
beautiful woman I've ever known, even in the dark. — Tessa Dare

Another Weeping Woman
Pour the unhappiness out
From your too bitter heart,
Which grieving will not sweeten.
Poison grows in this dark.
It is in the water of tears
Its black blooms rise.
The magnificent cause of being,
The imagination, the one reality
In this imagined world
Leaves you
With him for whom no phantasy moves,
And you are pierced by a death. — Wallace Stevens

His touch was simple, but specific, meant to show me he could be like a lover, gentle, intimate, but also that he was a man unaccustomed to hearing the word no. Yes. I understood. He was a man, and I? I was nothing but a girl, not even a woman. I was meant to fall at his feet and worship at the altar of his masculinity, grateful that he'd deigned to acknowledge me. All this, from a simple touch. — C.J. Roberts

One new indulgence was to go out evenings alone. This I worked out carefully in my mind, as not only a right but a duty. Why should a woman be deprived of her only free time, the time allotted to recreation? Why must she be dependent on some man, and thus forced to please him if she wished to go anywhere at night?
A stalwart man once sharply contested my claim to this freedom to go alone. "Any true man," he said with fervor, "is always ready to go with a woman at night. He is her natural protector." "Against what?" I inquired. As a matter of fact, the thing a woman is most afraid to meet on a dark street is her natural protector. Singular — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The sky is changed,-and such a change! O night And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder. — Lord Byron

I had turned to leave and he had called after me. "Miss Maria, I kin no other woman who could be wearing men's trousers and be dripping such as ye are and look quite so lovely. It's a right shame your mother is marrying you off to that great sot!"
I had turned to call back to him, "I doubt very much we will have to worry about that after today! — Gwenn Wright

Jesus Christ. He was wearing a suit for once, a dark gray ensemble that looked tailored to fit his wide shoulders, full arms, slim hips, and muscular thighs. How the hell did he go through the day without getting slipped a Rohypnol by every woman he came in contact with? — Mariana Zapata

Bring your lips closer until they're touching mine." When I did, the heat was electric. "Can you feel that?" he asked, moving his lips from one corner of my mouth to the other. "That's the chemistry between man and woman. It doesn't need to be forced. You shouldn't overthink what to do with your mouth or tongue - give in to your instincts. — Dannika Dark

A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark. — H.L. Mencken

Some people wouldn't see a traitor when they looked at me. Some people would see a survivor. Call me anything you like - I sleep fine at night. But you will look at me when you say it. Or I'll get so far in your face you'll be seeing me with your eyes closed. You'll be seeing me in your nightmares. I'll scorch myself on the backs of your eyelids. Get off my back and stay off it. I'm not the woman I used to be. If you want a war with me, you'll get one. Just try me. Give me an excuse to go play in that dark place inside my head. — Karen Marie Moning

Adam Brown's zest for life led him down a few dark alleys and more than one dead end. Kind-hearted and wild, Adam led a life that lacked direction. God, a woman, and the U.S. Navy gave it to him. FEARLESS is a love story ... several love stories: a man for his woman, a warrior for his team, parents for kids, and soldiers for their country. There is no greater love than that a man lay down his life for his friends. Be warned - reading FEARLESS will change the way you see the world. — Stu Weber

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

...to be able to impose on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. — Jane Austen

You're asking for trouble, woman." At the gruff tone of his voice, I raised my head and met his dark, chocolate-brown eyes, rimmed by long lashes that didn't take an ounce away from his masculinity. I wanted to drown in those eyes.
"I like trouble, remember? — Suzanne Johnson

Evelyn was followed in by a sour-faced woman with long, glamorous dark hair and a stern-looking gentleman in a tuxedo who looked just like Julian, but with less hair. They both looked as though they might buy the auditorium just to burn it to the ground. Even in this crowd they seemed assuredly a cut above the rest. — Kristopher Jansma

The woman laughed again. She was the loudest person in the cave. Eena wondered if perhaps she was talking to a female Ghengat. Curiosity got the best of her and she turned around to look, surprised to find neither a Ghengat nor a Harrowbethian woman, but a Mishmorat. A striking, cheetah-spotted Mishmorat with straight lengths of charcoal hair and the most alluring dark eyes in existence. This bronzed female was the same size as Eena but observably more muscular. She appeared to be a mix of cheetah, Arabian princess, and gladiator in tight-fitting pants. Eena paused, dropping the stone in her hands.
"Kira?" she breathed.
"Hmmm," the woman grumbled. Her painted eyes scrunched with displeasure. The look was still stunning. "I see my reputation precedes me."
Eena gawked as if a legendary ghost had been resurrected. "You're alive? — Richelle E. Goodrich

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

The Nigger was a handsome, austere woman with snow-white hair and a dark and awful dignity. Her brown eyes, brooding deep in her skull, looked out on an ugly world with philosophic sorrow. She conducted her house like a cathedral dedicated to a sad but erect Priapus. If you wanted a good laugh
and a poke in the ribs, you went to Jenny's and got your money's worth; but if the sweet worldsadness close to tears crept out of your immutable loneliness, the Long Green was your place. When you came out of there you felt that something pretty stern and important had happened. It was no jump in the hay. The dark beautiful eyes of the Nigger stayed with you for days. — John Steinbeck

Pip was trembling with fatigue. "I gotta sit down."
He made it to a chair before he collapsed and Cassie was immediately there with a medikit, pulling up his shirt, examining gel patches. He'd felt them stop working some time ago and they were now dried and covered in dirt.
"Stop trying to get my clothes off, woman!" He made a weak attempt to fend her off, but she smacked his hands away. — Lara Morgan

She loved nothing in the world except this woman's son, wanted him alive more than anybody, but hadn't the least bit of control over the predator that lived inside her. Totally taken over by her anaconda love, she had no self left, no fears, no wants, no intelligence that was her own [ ... ] Ruth heard the supplication in her words and it seemed to her that she was not looking at a person but at an impulse, a cell, a red corpuscle that neither knows nor understands why it is driven to spend its whole life in one pursuit: swimming up a dark tunnel toward the muscle of a heart or an eye's nerve end that it both nourished and fed from. — Toni Morrison

Sometimes we smile at a child thats afraid of the dark. I think more ridiculous is a man or woman afraid of the light. — Adrian Rogers

Not every woman has a Boaz in her life. Sometimes the male voices we hear are cautioning us to hold back instead of urging us to serve God wholeheartedly with them. Sometimes the cautioning voices we hear belong to other women. Sometimes those who have the power to facilitate our callings and clear a path for us set up roadblocks instead. Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz remind us powerfully that even in a dark era like the days of the judges, God always has his people and the Blessed Alliance is still alive and well. He is working in our hearts, summoning us to be strong and courageous like Ruth - to embrace and embody his gospel on our 'bit of earth. — Carolyn Custis James

Clyde's mother was an ample, olive-dark woman with the worn and disappointed look of someone who had spent her life doing things for others: occasionally the mulling plaintiveness of her voice suggested that she regretted this. — Truman Capote

In other spheres of Victorian Society the appeal of a young woman dressed in black from head to toe was acknowledged. In Victorian popular culture, widows had two manifestations: the battleaxe and the man-eater, preying upon husbands and bachelors alike. Even today, an attractive, dark-haired person dressed in all black has vampiric connotations, as the novelist Alison Lurie has noted, 'so archetypally terrifying and thrilling, that any black-haired, pale-complexioned man or woman who appears clad in all black formal clothes projects a destructive eroticism, sometimes without concious intention. — Catharine Arnold

I love him, and I love us together more than I love myself. I will do what you ask, but if," Kara swallowed hard, " ... if I lose him, I'll join him in death." Vena resisted the urge to stroke the fine mass of dark curls away from the heart-shaped face that gazed at her so fiercely. The woman who faced her, proudly announcing her ability to choose, was no longer the winsome, pliable girl of the garden. — Anna LaForge

The best I can say, it's like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell ... It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is.
A woman's a different thing entirely. Who knows where a woman begins and ends? Listen mistress, I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. Deeper than the sea, older than the raising of the lands. I go back into the dark ... I go back into the dark! Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman's power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who'll ask the dark its name? — Ursula K. Le Guin

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 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

As the number and the size of cities keep growing across the world, changing conditions bring shifts in language and vocabulary. Despite the social and linguistic complexity, however, there are only two types of cities: those where a woman can walk after dark relatively freely and those where she possibly cannot. - Elif Shafak, Taksim Square, Istanbul: Byzantine, Then and Now, — Catie Marron

By the by ... " He glances at Jeb's back and leans closer, murmuring low. "Tumtum juice alters a person's inhibitions, magnifies their hunger. But it's not hunger for food. It's experiences they crave. Had it been me instead of your toy soldier, I would've found a means to slake your ravenous hunger without resorting to berries." His arrogance simmers my blood. "You don't have the equipment to satisfy anything. Moth. Remember?" He laughs, dark and soft, under his breath. "I am a man in every way that counts. Just like you are a woman, even if some people believe you're nothing more than a scared little girl in constant need of saving. — A.G. Howard

No woman had ever made his wolf pace restlessly. No woman had ever made him feel an inexplicable desire to behave irrationally, all for the sake of making her smile. No woman had ever made him want to be a better man, one who would spill blood to protect what he loved. No woman had ever incited the hunter in him. No woman had ever denied him. Except one. — Dannika Dark

My father was a dark-skinned brother, but my mother was a very fair-skinned lady. From what I understand, she was Creole; we think her people originally came from New Orleans. She looked almost like a white woman, which meant she could pass - as folks used to say back then. Her hair was jet-black. She was slim and very attractive. — Ice-T

DEPARTURE
The horizon slopes away
The days are longer
Trip
A heart hops in a cage
A bird sings
It is going to die
Another door is going to open
At the end of the corridor
Where a star
Begins to shine
A dark-haired woman
The lantern of the departing train
("Departure") — Pierre Reverdy

He was nature's cruel trick on the fairer sex, the perfect picture of dark, charming, masculine wickedness. Shining black hair, high cheekbones, lips as full as a woman's . . . That was surely a flaw. But then, he had that brutal jaw and chin to make up for it . . . and the slight bump to his high-bridged nose, suggestive of some violent fracture in his past. "Mr. — Meredith Duran