Darting Quotes & Sayings

Go out in the early days of winter, after the first cold snap of the season. Find a pool of water with a sheet of ice across the top, still fresh and new and clear as glass. Near the shore the ice will hold you. Slide out farther. Farther. Eventually you'll find the place where the surface just barely bears your weight. There you will feel what I felt. The ice splinters under your feet. Look down and you can see the white cracks darting through the ice like mad, elaborate spiderwebs. It is perfectly silent, but you can feel the sudden sharp vibrations through the bottoms of your feet.
That is what happened when Denna smiled at me. — Patrick Rothfuss

The truth is Fort Endeavor needs you." Confused, she shifted in her seat, darting a look at him. "I need you," he amended quietly. "Not just your services as scrivener. I need your goodness and gentleness and strength. Sometimes I think you're the only one I can trust, even above my own officers. — Laura Frantz

What do you mean? Is she in a coma?"
"Not anymore." She braced herself for his reaction.
"But she's a cyborg."
His eyes widened, but then his attention was darting around the room as though he couldn't look at Cinder while he adjusted to that information. "I see," he said slowly, before meeting her gaze again.
"But ... is she all right?"
The question caught her by surprise and she couldn't help a startled laugh. "Oh, yeah, she's great. I mean, half the people in the world want to kill her and the other half want to chain her to a throne on the moon, which is just what she's always wanted. So she's fantastic. — Marissa Meyer

Well, everyone except me. My eyes were darting around the room to try to figure out who I would be partners with. The one problem with team projects was the idea of working in a team. The worst feeling in the world was looking around a classroom and realizing that you knew everyone, yet at the same time you knew no one at all. "Don't act like I don't see you all panicking and searching for who you will be paired with. Your partners aren't here." Mr. Harper held up a finger, silencing our — Brittainy C. Cherry

Hummingbird
Flitting, darting
A restless quest
To fuel a fire
That burns your breast
Seeking sweetness
For selfish glee
Bringing gifts
So heedlessly
Your touch a trigger
You fire life
Igniting beauty
In vibrant strife
To equal you
In colors bright
They dazzle, dumbfound
And delight
But in tableau
Their beauty ends
Enlivened only
By the wind
Whilst you with
Generous energy
Prove a lovely
Vibrant Persephone
Their season ends
Those blooms of spring
And hummingbird
On fragile wing
Too soon I fear
You will expire
Sweetness smolders
Consumed in fire. — Michael Sullivan

He could be boastful in a way pleasantly at odds with his native fatalism, and his youthful stubbornness had a way of ameliorating into a sort of wounded dignity, which was centered in the darting passes of his deep-set, dark eyes. — Dan Lopez

Everything is composed of small particles of itself and they are flying around in concentric circles and arcs and segments and innumerable other geometrical figures too numerous to mention collectively, never standing still or resting but spinning away and darting hither and thither and back again, all the time on the go. These diminutive gentlemen are called atoms. Do you follow me intelligently? — Flann O'Brien

Because of her, he had learned to look for the birds - the darting flight of wild canaries (yellow sun on yellow wings), the chesty preening of redbirds and bluebirds, the blackbird with the red-tipped wings like startling epaulets. — Terry Kay

I'm twenty-four, a first grade teacher, have a Yorkie named Pedro, a goldfish named Fish, have never had sex, or a serious boyfriend, and I'm the town lesbian who pukes when she sees a pussy. Nothing really to be jealous of at all. — H.J. Bellus

As if hypnotized, he felt his gaze rise again to the old highway which swept by with winds that smelled a billion years ago. Great bursts of headlight arrived, then cut away in departures of red taillight, like schools of small bright fish darting in the wake of sharks and blind-traveling whales. The lights sank away and were lost in the black hills. Charlie — Ray Bradbury

I'm very sensitive. Because my mum was my primary emotional caregiver growing up, I found myself being pinned into dresses, darting her dresses, choosing her high heels for the evening or what to wear. I'm very much a mommy's boy. — Tom Hardy

They don't understand that it's hard to be her, to be shopping with them.
Like when Dana had pointed out a pair of jeans that Jennifer HAD to try, before darting into another section. Skinny girls can walk by a table full of pants, piled in high stacks, and peel a pair off the top. Easy. Effortless. But not girls like Jennifer. — Siobhan Vivian

I was hoping Betsy Nash would disappear. Literally. She was so insubstantial, I could imagine her slowly evaporating, leaving only a sticky spot on the edge of the sofa. But she lingered, eyes darting between me and her husband before we even began speaking. Like she was winding up for the conversation. The children, too, hovered about, little blonde ghosts trapped in a limbo between indolence and stupidity. The pretty girl might do all right. But the piggy middle child, who now waddled dazedly into the room, was destined for needy sex and snack-cake bingeing. The boy was the type who'd end up drinking in gas-station parking lots. The kind of angry, bored kid I saw on my way into town. — Gillian Flynn

Bowie talks in great, voluble torrents, darting from one topic to the next, parenthesizing and then parenthesizing the parentheses, as if he has too many ideas for one conversation. — Sean Egan

The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by. As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky. — William C. Bryant

A ball of fire rolled through my stomach, catching on the wings of the butterflies darting around in there and setting them up in a blaze. I bristled as Carter's grin brushed mine, lips just barely touching.

Any closer and we'd be kissing for real, plunging straight off this knife edge we balanced on. — Apollo Blake

So stay."
It seems to take forever for him to answer, and his hands are still playing with my hair, his lips still darting against mine every few seconds. "I can't" He steps back and takes my hand to move me out of the way of the door. "I'd give anything to stay, but I can't. You're stunning, Blythe." He gives me an almost-sad smile. "But I just can't stay. It's too much. — Jessica Park

If you visit London, you'll occasionally cross paths with young men (and less often women) on motor scooters, blithely darting in and out of traffic while studying maps affixed to their handlebars. These studious cyclists are training to become London cabdrivers. Before they can receive accreditation from London's Public Carriage Office, cabbies-in-training must spend two to four years memorizing the locations and traffic patterns of all 25,000 streets in the vast and vastly confusing city, as well as the locations of 1,400 landmarks. Their training culminates in an infamously daunting exam called "the Knowledge," in which they not only have to plot the shortest route between any two points in the metropolitan area, but also name important places of interest along the way. Only about three out of ten people who train for the Knowledge obtain certification. — Joshua Foer

I need a book that says 'Here's how to defeat Spring and restore power to your king, and while you're at it, here's how to prove you matter when no one else thinks you do - "

I stop. I'm staring at the bookshelves and not at Theron, and I don't think I'll ever be able to look at him again without shriveling up from embarrassment. ... I can still hear what I said hanging around me, my weak, weak admission, and I can't bring myself to breathe, let alone face him.

Theron doesn't give me a choice. He crawls up onto his knees and moves into my line of sight, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes darting over mine like he's trying to figure me out the same way he figured out that passage. After a moment of silence, he grimaces.

"You matter," is all he says. — Sara Raasch

A man's soft laughter echoed in the hall by the kitchen and she heard the rush of someone darting past the office. Somehow she felt comforted and didn't bother to turn around. The next afternoon, Emily moved into History House. — Judith Baller-Fabian

Before I could even raise a hand, he spun around like the wind, letting go of the dagger. It smacked into the chest of the white-garbed Guard sneaking up on him. Darting forward, he pulled the blade free before the Guard collapsed, and then threw it again, taking out the other Guard who'd cornered Solos.
Damn. Aiden was a badass ninja. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

You got shot? Where? How? By who?" He zipped up in the air, darting left to right, right to left. "Did you cry? I would've cried. A lot. Like a river of motherfucking tears. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

He had never seen a woman look like that, he thought, fascinated despite his worry for Henry. She had tied back her outrageous hair and wrapped her head carefully in a cloth like a Negro slave woman. With her face so exposed, the delicate bones made stark, the intentness of her expression
with those yellow eyes darting like a hawk's from one thing to another
was the most unwomanly thing he had ever seen. It was the look of a general marshaling his troops for battle, and seeing it, he felt the ball of snakes in his belly relax a little.
She knows what she's doing, he thought.
She looked at him then, and he straightened his shoulders, instinctively awaiting orders
to his utter amazement. — Diana Gabaldon

Ah if only this voice could stop, this meaningless voice which prevents you from being nothing, just barely prevents you from being nothing and nowhere, just enough to keep alight this little yellow flame feebly darting from side to side, panting, as if straining to tear itself from its wick, it should never have been lit, or it should never have been fed, or it should have been put out, put out, it should have been let go out. — Samuel Beckett

I waited here while you talked to Sorcha, who, by the way, is crazy. Now you are off to the mortal world where the crazier one is? ... I was there, Devlin. Bananach could've killed you, and really? We've been bound together for like five minutes and you're suddenly darting off into danger without me. I don't think so. — Melissa Marr

Life itself turned our planet blue and green, as tiny photosynthetic bacteria cleansed the oceans of air and sea, and filled them with oxygen. Powered by this new and potent source of energy, life erupted. Flowers bloom and beckon, intricate corals hide darting gold fish, vast monsters lurk in black depths, trees reach for the sky, animals buzz and lumber and see. And in the midst of it all, we are moved by the untold mysteries of this creation, we cosmic assemblies of molecules that feel and think and marvel and wonder at how we came to be here. — Nick Lane

My eyes are darting to all the places my magazines are hidden. I feel like an idiot sometimes for having printed evidence. My friends look at stuff on their phones like it's their job. Don't get me wrong, I've looked, and there's some alright stuff online, but I prefer the magazines. I guess I'm a retro sort of man. Call me classy. — Hannah Moskowitz

One thing is certain, and I have always known it - the joys of my life have nothing to do with age. They do not change. Flowers, the morning and evening light, music, poetry, silence, the goldfinches darting about — May Sarton

I'm an excellent pastry chef. My pie crust is better than my Zia Rosa's. Come on back to the kitchen. I'll make a chocolate cream pie before your very eyes. I'll feed a piece of it to you by hand. And by the time I'm done, you're not going to be asking me if I'm gay anymore."
She cleared her throat, gaze darting down. "Is that so."
"It is," he said. "On your feet. Come on back to the kitchen. I mean it. I'm dead serious. It's pie time. And I am so ready for you. — Shannon McKenna

I texted Kaidan, who was listed in my contacts under "James," for James Bond. He'd chosen it. He had me listed as "Hot Chick From Gig."
Video chat in 30.
His immediate response made me shake my head.
Clothing optional?
It was nice to know he could keep a sense of humor in the face of calamity. Or maybe he wasn't joking ...
"Are you two flirting?" Patti asked, her eyes darting to me from the road.
I blushed and deleted his message. — Wendy Higgins

It is for homely features to keep home,- They had their name thence; coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler and to tease the huswife's wool. What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that, Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn? — John Milton

The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself cleansed by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine. The air is precious to the red man, for all things are the same breath - the animals, the trees, the man. — Chief Seattle

Anyway, I'd be more worried about them hearing us than seeing us. You make a lot of noise, Lizzy."
She gasped and hit his shoulder, trying to push him away.
"I do not!" she said, even though she was well aware she'd practically been howling at the moon not five minutes ago.
He didn't let her go. He kept pressing kisses against the soft skin beneath her ear, his tongue darting out occasionally to taste her.
"I like it. I like it a lot," he whispered against her skin. — Sarah Mayberry

When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing, cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth; all day my body accepts what it is. In the dark creeks that run by there is this thick paw of my life darting among the black bells, the leaves; there is this happy tongue. — Mary Oliver

Will had been taken aback in his confrontation with Arisaka to discover that his name- Chocho- meant "Butterfly" ... He was puzzled to know why they had selected it. His friends, of course, delighted in helping him guess the reason.
'I assume it's because you're such a snazzy dresser,' Evanlyn said. 'You Rangers are a riot of color, after all.' ...
'I think it might be more to do with the way he raced around the training ground, darting here and there to correct the way a man might be holding his shield, then dashing off to show someone how to put their body weight into their javelin cast,' said Horace, a little more sympathetically. Then he ruined the effect by adding thoughtlessly, 'I must say, your cloak did flutter around like a butterfly's wings. — John Flanagan

Work takes different forms. I can spend two or three days without completing anything, and it's choppy: it's filled with all kinds of irrationalities and stupid actions. I have some notion, and then I drop it because something else comes along. I'm forever darting from one side of the room to the other. — Edward Ruscha

There walked warlocks in all their bat-winged, cat-eyed glory, and here, as they swung out over the river, she saw the darting flash of multicolored tails under the silvery skin of the water, the shimmer of long, pearl-strewn hair, and heard the high, rippling laughter of the mermaids. — Cassandra Clare

But Annabeth just smiled and put us in jail. As she was heading back to the front line, she turned and winked.
"See you at the fireworks?"
She didn't even wait for my answer before darting off into the woods.
I looked at Beckendorf. "Did she just ... ask me out?"
He shrugged, completely disgusted. "Who knows with girls? Give me a haywire dragon, any day."
So we sat together and waited while the girls won the game. — Rick Riordan

Even more than the cold, I'm frozen by the sadness in his beautiful eyes, deep and true. He squeezes them closed a moment and breathes deeply through his nose. Then, with one swift movement, he cups the back of my neck with a strong hand, pulls my head forward, and presses his lips to mine. He wastes precious moments kissing me, his tongue gliding across my lips, darting at my teeth. I open my mouth and kiss back just as eagerly. — Rae Carson

A twisted, pale figure writhing in agony, chest bare and hideous. Tight, rigid cords of sickly green veins webbed across the boy's body and limbs, like ropes under his skin. Purplish bruises covered the kid, red hives, bloody scratches. His bloodshot eyes bulged, darting back and forth. — James Dashner

But moods pass; they are fickle things darting in and out of the underbrush of the conscious mind. This - whatever this is - is deeply entrenched: a permanent squatter looming dark and dangerous in the forefront of my brain. — Nenia Campbell

But I'm collecting the story of his life. The real story.' Chronicler made a helpless gesture. 'Without the dark parts it's just some silly f - ' Chronicler froze halfway through the word, eyes darting nervously to the side.
Bast grinned like a child catching a priest midcurse. 'Go on,' he urged, his eyes were delighted, and hard, and terrible. 'Say it.'
Like some silly faerie story,' Chronicler finished, his voice thin and pale as paper.
Bast smiled a wide smile. 'You know nothing of the Fae, if you think our stories lack their darker sides. But all that aside, this is a faerie story, because you are gathering it for me. — Patrick Rothfuss

She died on a windy gray day in March when the sky was full of darting crows and the world lay prostrate and defeated after winter. Peter Lake was at her side and it ruined him forever. It broke him as he had not ever imagined he could have been broken. He would never again be young, or able to remember what it was like to be young. What he had once taken to be pleasures would appear to him in his defeat as hideous and deserved punishments for reckless vanity. — Mark Helprin

I try very hard to keep my eyes from darting to Sean because I'm quite certain that no one will be able to miss how I look at him and how I find him looking back. — Maggie Stiefvater

Her thoughts had flown outward darting and dipping with the hummingbird moths that flocked by the thousands over head,as she wondered, with a wild ,timpani heart where her angel had gone. — Laini Taylor

Stop peering around to see if Sophie's here. I assure you she's about somewhere." Sindal passed his gloves and hat to the footman and waited until the servant had bustled away. "And you would not object to my socializing with Lady Sophia?" "Such a bold fellow you have become." Emboldened by love, apparently, which made the situation both simpler and more delicate. "You would not give a tinker's damn if I objected, would you?" Sindal's lips quirked. "I would not, Your Grace, but Sophie would." "Thank God for small favors, then. Are we to stand around here in this draft and exchange innuendos, or will you let me get you a glass of punch?" And still, Sindal's gaze was darting surreptitiously into every corner of the vast entrance hall. "No punch for me, thank you, Your Grace." Oh, for God's sake. His Grace leveled a look at his guest that wasn't the least congenial. Love made young men daft - old men too, though that didn't signify at the moment. "Perhaps — Grace Burrowes

And she turned for the stairs as the sound of rain came, finally, scattered across the roof, a fall that now gave substance to the stilled beams of headlamps in the drive where those of flashlights rose and fell to the cadenced steps come back and round the range of yew and up the terrace and through the door to fall on broken glass and flee across the inkstained carpet, darting, climbing, caught fixed in niches, they scaled the walls and leaped the beams to skirt the hayloft. — William Gaddis

And yet my lexicon develops without logic, in a darting, fleeting manner. The words appear, accompany me for a while, then, often without warning, abandon me. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Work is my recreation,
The play of faculty; a delight like that
Which a bird feels in flying, or a fish
In darting through the water,
Nothing more. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I was so distracted when walking out of the restroom that I hadn't noticed Rose standing nearby with Dimitri Belikov. They stood arm in arm, smiling at my surprise. I hadn't seen Dimitri tonight, and his black and white guardian attire told me why. He was on duty here and had undoubtedly been one of the shadows darting among the trees of the greenhouse, keeping a watch on everyone. He must be on break now because there was no way he'd be standing so casually here, even with Rose, otherwise. And really, "casual" for Dimitri meant he could still leap into battle at any moment.
They were a striking couple. His dark-haired, dark-eyed looks matched hers, and they were both dazzlingly attractive. It was no wonder Adrian had fallen for her, and I felt surprised at how uncomfortable that memory made me. Like Sonya and Mikhail, there was a bond of love between Rose and Dimitri and Rose that was almost palpable. — Richelle Mead

What else could I be? If I were a mono-thinker, I probably wouldn't be an insomniac. How is a poly-thinker supposed to fall asleep, and more importantly, stay asleep, when thoughts just won't stop darting! darting! darting! through my head? — Rachel Cohn

I closed my eyes and saw the future, a red, fleshy blob pupating in dark fluid like something in a mad scientist's incubator. I saw strange organs throbbing beneath its translucent shell. Saw the future bust from its chrysalis in scattering blazes of diamond light, winged and glistening, already flitting out the window, darting off toward the horizon before I could get a good look at it. — Julia Elliott

I think you should shut the fuck up," Eli said, throwing his bag down with a thud that made everyone on the lab look up. "I think it's time you do that."
Stim looked at him carefully. Eyes darting between the two of them, A.J. seemed to be waiting for something, grinning a little.
Stim shrugged. "Lise isn't your sister, Nash," he said. "They're not all your sisters. — Megan Abbott

And Lotto beamed with pleasure, preening, eyes darting around to see which kind soul in the room could have sent along the champagne, the force of his delight such that wherever his eyes landed, the recipients of the gaze would look up out of their food and conversation. and a startled expression would come over their face, a flush, and nearly everyone began grinning back, so that on this spangled early evening with the sun shining through the windows in gold streams, and the treetops rustling in the wind, and the streets full of congregating, relieved people, Lotto sparked upwellings of inexplicable glee in dozens of chests, lightening the already buoyant mood in one swift wave. Animal magnetism is real. It spreads through bodily convection. Even Ariel smiled back. The stunned grin stayed on the faces of some people, an expressions of speculation growing, hoping he would look at them again, or wondering who he was because on this day, and in this world, he was someone. — Lauren Groff

For before this I was born once a boy, and a maiden, and a plant, and a bird, and a darting fish in the sea. — Empedocles

What do we look for as reward? Some little sounds, and scents, and scenes A small hand darting strawberry-ward A woman's aprons full of greens. The sense that we have brought to birth Out of the cold and heavy soil, The blessed fruits and flowers of earth Is large reward for our toil. — Ruth Pitter

A map of Esmeralda should include, marked in different colored inks, all these routes, solid and liquid, evident and hidden. It is more difficult to fix on the map the routes of the swallows, who cut the air over the roofs, dropping long invisible parabolas with their still wings, darting to gulp a mosquito, spiraling upward, grazing a pinnacle, dominating from every point of their airy paths all the points of the city. — Italo Calvino

Sibyl, she's not of the earth but of the air. She's like a kite, all her life, darting about in the wind with no one holding onto her string ... You're of the earth ... You have your feet firmly planted on the ground. She's lucky to find someone like that, like you, willing to let her dart about happily in the wind but still keeping her tethered to the ground. — Kristen Ashley

Snakes, he learned, dreamed in smells and vibrations, their tongues darting out to sample the air, their long bodies pressed close to the dirt. — Helene Wecker

I made so many promises when I arrived here.
Now I'm not so sure. Now I'm worried. Now my mind is a traitor because my thoughts crawl out of bed every morning with darting eyes and sweating palms and nervous giggles that sit in my chest, build in my chest, threaten to burst through my chest, and the pressure is tightening and tightening and tightening
Life around here isn't what I expected it to be. — Tahereh Mafi

There is so much,I thought,just under the surface. So many memories, darting like silvery minnows in a shallow stream. — S.J. Watson

Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now comes the picture of mass defeat, the most awesome spectacle of the war. It is in the bent bodies of old women who poke among ruins seeking some miserable object that will link their lives with the old days. It is in the shamed darting eyes of the defeated. It is in the faces of the little boys who regard our triumphant columns with fear and fascination. And above all it is in the thousands of beaten, dusty soldiers who stream along the roads towards the stockades. Their feet clump wearily, mechanically, hopelessly on the still endless road of war. They move as haggard, gray masses, in which the individual had neither life nor meaning. It is impossible to see in these men the quality that made them stand up and fight like demons out of hell a few shorts months ago. — Audie Murphy

Said, her eyes suddenly darting from David's to Wally's. "That's the deal. Who is it?" "There's a man two blocks over, used to play poker with Percy, croaked last year in the shower two months after my Percy passed. I know for a fact he was on Krayoxx." Wally's eyes were wild. "What's his name?" "You said cash, right? Five hundred cash. — John Grisham

soon after we arrived in the U.S., Baba started grumbling about American flies. He'd sit at the kitchen table with his flyswatter, watch the flies darting from wall to wall, buzzing here, buzzing there, harried and rushed. "In this country, even flies are pressed for time," he'd groan. — Khaled Hosseini

Because after a couple days of this fabulous invisible room-cleaning, I start to wonder how exactly Petra knows when I'm in 1009 and when I'm not. It's now that it occurs to me how rarely I ever see her. For a while I try experiments like all of a sudden darting out into the 10-Port hallway to see if I can see Petra hunched somewhere keeping track of who is decabining, and I scour the whole hallway-and-ceiling area for evidence of some kind of camera or monitor tracking movements outside the cabin doors - zilch on both fronts. But then I realize that the mystery's even more complex and unsettling than I'd first thought, because my cabin gets cleaned always and only during intervals where I'm gone more than half an hour. When I go out, how can Petra or her supervisors possibly know how long I'm going to be gone? — David Foster Wallace

The group had an atomic structure: a nucleus of nuts surrounded by darting, nervous nurse-electrons charged with our protection. — Susanna Kaysen

Excellent, I think I see a few veela cousins," said George, craning his neck for a better look. "They'll need help understanding our English customs, I'll look after them ... "
"Not so fast, Your Holeyness," said Fred, and darting past the gaggle of middle-aged witches heading the procession, he said, "Here - permettez-moi to assister vous," to a pair of pretty French girls, who giggled and allowed him to escort them inside. George was left to deal with the middle-aged witches. — J.K. Rowling

Memories are like fireflies darting across the surface of my mind, showing me here and there images so sharp and vivid that I catch my breath in wonder before the vignette disappears, sinking like a pebble into the quicksand of regret and recrimination. — Susan Kay

I wish I could run away," Rudger told Jersey as they both rushed in and out of various patients' rooms, darting around like little ants. "I can't leave and be on my own though, not right now, anyway."
"Why?" asked Jersey, waving her flashlight in mid-air.
Rudger froze for a second, a regretful haze emanating from his eyes. "It'd break her heart if I left."
"Ain't that normal? For parents to have mixed feelings about their kids growin' up?"
"Not for me, it isn't."
Jersey made a pitying face in his direction. "So, you wanna keep bein' towed around with your mom, livin' in a gross town like Danvers?"
"Is there a choice?"
"Yeah, there sure is. You can run away and try to be a whole person before it's too late, or you can live with mommy dearest forever and turn into Norman Bates. — Rebecca McNutt

Above the decorous walking around me, sounds of footsteps leaving the verandas of far-flung buildings and moving toward the walks and over the walks to the asphalt drives lined with whitewashed stones, those cryptic messages for men and women, boys and girls heading quietly toward where the visitors waited, and we moving not in the mood of worship but of judgement; as though even here in the filtering dusk, here beneath the deep indigo sky, here, alive with looping swifts and darting moths, here in the hereness of the night not yet lighted by the moon that looms blood-red behind the chapel like a fallen sun, its radiance shedding not upon the here-dusk of twittering bats, nor on the there-night of cricket and whippoorwill, but focused short-rayed upon our place of convergence; and we drifting forward with rigid motions, limbs stiff and voices now silent, as though on exhibit even in the dark, and the moon a white man's bloodshot eye. — Ralph Ellison

How well she does everything! She reads not as if reading were the highest human activity, but as if it were the simplest possible thing, a thing even animals could do. As if she were carrying water from a well, or peeling potatoes.
These reflections calmed him. A rare peace descended upon his soul. His mind stopped darting from subject to subject. He could not help smiling ... — Boris Pasternak

Settle steadily down as a staid, sensible piece of paper ought to do, but it insists on contravening every recognized rule of decorum, turning over and darting hither and thither in the most erratic manner, much after the style of an untrained horse. This was the kind of horse, he said, that men had to learn to manage in order to fly, and there were two ways: One is to get on him and learn by actual practice how each motion and trick may be best met; the other is to sit on a fence and watch the beast a while, and then retire to the house and at leisure figure out the best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks. The latter system is the safest, but the former, on the whole, turns out the larger proportion of good riders. — David McCullough

In the spirit of Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot and Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life, Mr. Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage keeps circling its subject in widening loops and then darting at it when you least expect it ... a wild book. — Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

The truth of the matter was something much more subtle and tremendous than any plain physical miracle could ever be. But never mind that. The important thing was that, when I did see the stars (riotously darting in all directions according to the caprice of their own wild natures, yet in every movement confirming the law), the whole tangled horror that had tormented me finally presented itself to me in its truth and beautiful shape. And I knew that the first, blind stage of my childhood had ended. — Olaf Stapledon

I darted like a minnow through passers-by, in a most ungraceful fashion, constantly giving way to generals. officers of the Horse Guards and the Hussars, and fine ladies; at those moments I felt a spasmodic pain in my heart and hot flushes down my spine at the thought of the wretched inadequacy of my costume and the mean vulgarity of my small figure darting about. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Isn't this a sight," Friedrich said, darting in front of them. "My Lady Love and my underlings," he said, glowering at his men. — K.M. Shea

Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but ay,
And that bare vowel ay shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
I am not I,if there be such an ay,
Or those eyes shut,that make thee answer ay:
If he be slain say ay,or if not,no:
Brief sounds,determine of my weal or woe. — William Shakespeare

Robert held back in the press, letting others go after the rebels fleeing before the charge. Their orders were to slaughter anyone found in the streets to provoke a quick surrender, after which mercy would be granted to those left alive. He had seen death throughout his life, but the duel he'd had with Guy was the closest he'd come to ending someone's life and even then there had been rules imposed. There were no such boundaries here. The freedom to kill was a dizzying, precipitous feeling. But the veteran knights were pushing in behind him, forcing the issue. With a snarl of frustration at his own hesitation, Robert fixed on one man darting away down an alley and spurred his horse out of the crush in pursuit. — Robyn Young

And we sang! Her voice like burning silver, my voice an echoing answer. Savien sang solid, powerful lines, like branches of a rock-old oak, all the while Aloine was like a nightingale, moving in darting circles around the proud limbs of it. — Patrick Rothfuss

It was funny - I'd sort of expected this place to be all dark and furtive, full of blokes darting nervous glances over their shoulders in case anyone they knew wandered in by mistake and saw them. Instead, it was all bright, gleaming white, the merchandise proudly displayed like a prozzie in an Amsterdam window. Only a lot less likely to give you the clap. — J.L. Merrow

Alec?" Mark asked. "You okay there, big guy?" The man stumbled forward, almost fell down. But he righted himself and stood up straight and tall again. Mark hadn't wanted to shine the light in his friend's face, but he felt like he had no choice. He raised the flashlight and pointed it directly at Alec. He was flushed and sweating, his eyes wide and darting back and forth as if he expected a monster to leap from the shadows at any moment. "Hey, what's wrong?" Mark asked. Alec took another laboring step forward. "I'm sick, Mark. I'm really, really sick. I need to die. I need to die and I don't wanna die for nothing. — James Dashner

He saw his enemies stealthily darting from rock to tree, and tree to bush, creeping through the brush, and slipping closer and closer every moment. On three sides were his hated foes and on the remaining side - the abyss. Without a moment's hesitation the intrepid Major spurred his horse at the precipice. Never shall I forget that thrilling moment. The three hundred savages were silent as they realized the Major's intention. Those in the fort watched with staring eyes. A few bounds and the noble steed reared high on his hind legs. Outlined by the clear blue sky the magnificent animal stood for one brief instant, his black mane flying in the wind, his head thrown up and his front hoofs pawing the air like Marcus Curtius' mailed steed of old, and then down with a crash, a cloud of dust, and the crackling of pine limbs. — Zane Grey

Ash moved faster, spinning through the steps of his deadly dance as he pushed Samael to keep moving, moving, moving. She flowed in and around Ash like a fish darting through racing waters, her blade seeking where Samael would appear. Together, they drove Samael around the dome. They moved together, synchronized and flawless, all his experience and all her instincts melding into deadly perfection. Samael — Annette Marie

It is an old custom of the servants of God to have some little prayer ready and to be frequently darting them up to heaven during the day, lifting their minds to God out of the mire of this world. — Philip Neri

They were all looking at Mary, and she felt more than ever like the new pupil at a school where they had high expectations of her. She also felt a strange flattery: the idea of herself as swift and darting and birdlike was new and pleasant, because she had always thought of herself as dogged and plodding. But along with that came the feeling that they'd got it terribly wrong, if they saw her like that; they didn't understand at all; she couldn't possibly fulfill this desperate hope of theirs. — Philip Pullman

It's moments like these that define the true nature of a person. The world seemingly spinning out of control, your mind darting from one issue to another. Instinctual priority takes over. Situations such as these will reveal a man's soul. — Dylan Lee Peters

And noticed his eyes, they stayed on me whenever I spoke - almost intimidating in their focus. He was actually listening to me, not just waiting for a chance to speak, his focus one hundred percent on me. It felt odd, a man paying such rapt attention to me, and I tried to remember the last time I had such complete attention, without eyes darting to a phone, or a sentence interrupted, details lost. — Alessandra Torre

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominences, moulded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops, I fade, she was beginning. I disappear, but London would have none of it, and rushed her bayonets into the sky, pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry. — Virginia Woolf

And we know, until they stop their terrible motion, until they cease swooping and darting and banging into the walls, until they alight, come to rest, exhausted, spent, there is nothing at all we can do. — Nathan Englander

In excited conversation we have glimpses of the universe, hints of power native to the soul, far-darting lights and shadows of an Andes landscape, such as we can hardly attain in lone meditation. Here are oracles sometimes profusely given, to which the memory goes back in barren hours. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Did I ever tell you what came between your mother's heart and mine?"
"I don't think this is the time
"
"Your friend would disagree," she said, almost playfully, her attention darting to Tybalt. Focusing in me again, she said, "He all but burns with what he doesn't say to you, and my time is mine to spend. — Seanan McGuire

Love has no charm
when Love is swept to earth:
you'd make a lop-winged god,
frozen and contrite,
of god up-darting,
winged for passionate flight. — Hilda Doolittle

darting and sparkling under the sun of the desert at full speed, only to go back even faster — Jack Goodwind

Khaemwaset's eyes remained on the riverbank as the green confusion of spring glided by. Beyond the fecund, brilliant life of the bank with its choked river growth, its darting, piping birds, its busy insects and occasionally its sleepy grinning crocodiles, was a wealth of rich black soil in which the fellahin were struggling, knee-deep, to strew the fresh seed. — Pauline Gedge

With these words of prayer he threw the barley-grains. The two heroes responsible for the oxen, might Ankaios and Herakles, girded themselves in preparation. The latter crashed his club down on the middle of the forehead of one ox; in one movement its heavy body fell to the ground. Ankaios cut the other's broad neck with his bronze axe, slicing through the tough tendons; it fell sprawling over its two horns. Their comrades quickly slaughtered and flayed the oxen, chopping and cutting them up and removing the thigh pieces for sacrifice These they covered all over with a thick layer of fat and burnt them on spits, while the son of Aison poured libations of unmixed wine. Idmon rejoiced as he gazed at the flame, which burnt brightly all around the sacrifices, and the favourable omen of the murky smoke, darting up in dark spirals. — Apollonius Of Rhodes

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)

lovers go and lovers come
awandering awondering
but any two are perfectly
alone there's nobody else alive

(such a sky and such a sun
i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)

not a tree can count his leaves
each herself by opening
but shining who by thousands mean
only one amazing thing

(secretly adoring shyly
tiny winging darting floating
merry in the blossoming
always joyful selves are singing)

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love — E. E. Cummings

The blonde kept darting glances at Tommy. Cute and perky. I hated her. — Michele P.W.