Hallway Quotes & Sayings

When she opened her door, Levi was sitting in the hallway, his legs bent in front of him, hunched forward on his knees. He looked up when she stepped out.
"I'm such an idiot," he said.
Cath fell between his knees and hugged him.
"I can't believe I said that," he said. "I can't even go nine hours without seeing you. — Rainbow Rowell

The hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness. — Raquel Cepeda

THE BLUE DRESS

Her blue dress is a silk train is a river
is water seeps into the cobblestone steps of my sleep, is still raining
is monsoon brocade, is winter stars stitched into puddles
is goodbye in a flooded, antique room, is goodbye in a room of crystal bowls
and crystal cups, is the ring-ting-ring of water dripping from the mouths
of crystal bowls and crystal cups, is the Mississippi river is a hallway, is leaks
like tears from windowsills of a drowned house, is windows open to waterfalls
is a bed is a small boat is a ship, is a currant come to carry me in its arms
through the streets, is me floating in her dress through the streets
is the moon sees me floating through the streets, is me in a blue dress
out to sea, is my mother is a moon out to sea. — Saeed Jones

A poetic form is essentially a codified pattern of silence. We have a little silence at the end of a line, a bigger one at the end of a stanza, and a huge one at the end of the poem. The semantic weight of the poem tends to naturally distribute itself according to that pattern of silence, paying especial care to the sounds and meanings of the words and phrases that resonate into the little empty acoustic of the line-ending, or the connecting hallway of stanza-break, or the big church of the poem's end. — Don Paterson

I darted across the hallway and took a left at the next intersection, hoping that the doctor would assume that I'd taken the quicker, easier turn to the right. — Rysa Walker

I faced the hallway. My feet and my brain discussed the situation very, very briefly, a la:
Feet: He's right there.
Brain: Go get him.
Feet: Rodger that, we're on our way.
Then my feet moved me toward the open door of the office. — Penny Reid

Reacher prowled the hallway, his gun stiff-armed way out in front of him, his torso jerking violently left and right from the hips, like a crazy disco dance. The house-storming shuffle. — Lee Child

My boss is dictating my preventive hangover care, and I just used the word swords in reference to his obvious cockfight with the man I just made out with in a public hallway. I am truly in an alternate universe. — Lisa Renee Jones

It's okay, Fia," said Nathan from the end of the hallway. He carried a large bundle of white comforter in his skinny arms and dumped it on the couch. "Aaron sucks at compliments."

"I am quite adept with compliments," he said dryly. "But I do not praise bad behavior. — Deidre Huesmann

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

A brittle smile worked across my face, and I drew back from her. "See you later, Mom."
She picked up her handbag, and sauntered out into the hallway. Jack looked around the doorjamb, his gaze sliding over me. "I'll be back in a minute."
By the time Jack had returned, I had downed a shot of tequila from the pantry, hoping the liquor would burn through my head-to-toe numbness. It hadn't. I felt like a freezer that needed to be defrosted. Luke fretted in my arms, making impatient noises, wriggling.
Jack came to me and touched my chin, forcing me to meet his searching gaze.
"Now aren't you sorry you didn't take my advice and leave?" I asked morosely.
"No. I wanted to see what you grew up with."
"I guess you can tell why Tara and I both needed therapy."
"Hell, I need therapy, and I only spent an hour with her. — Lisa Kleypas

Black Jesus hangs from the cross in a painting on the hallway wall, and Malcolm X holds a shotgun in a photograph next to him. — Angie Thomas

I can smell the smoke now. I can see tendrils of it comin' up between the cracks in the shrikin' floorboards. There she is, calmly taking down the framed examples of fine embroideries, samplers, and needlework from teh hallway wall and tucking them under her arm.
"Mistress! Come on! You've got to leave!"
She calmly turns and faces me. "Why?" she asks. "The British are coming?"
"Only one, Mistress," I say — L.A. Meyer

As winter set in, she was no longer a victim of Sister Maria's frustrations, preferring to watch as others were marched out to the corridor and given their just rewards. The sound of another student struggling in the hallway was not particularly enjoyable, but the fact that it was someone else was, if not a true comfort, a relief. When — Markus Zusak

Things are going to catch up to you one day, asshole!" She yells as I step into the hallway. "Karma is one hell of a bitch!" "I know." I toss back. "I fucked her two weeks ago ... — Whitney Gracia Williams

Anti-narrative sequences of a man (Watt) sitting in a dark bedroom drinking bourbon while his wife (Heath) and an Amway representative (Johnson) have acrobatic coitus in the background's lit hallway. — David Foster Wallace

Family. Dorian had never really considered himself to be in an actual family. And certainly not now. If anyone found out about what had happened in that hallway yesterday, about the magic he might have, his father would kill him. He had a second son, after all. Families weren't exactly supposed to think like that, were they? — Sarah J. Maas

When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I'd write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I'd sit there writing songs with my guitar. — Paul Weller

I had never seen her smile before. At least, not beyond the cursory upturn at the edges of her lips as we passed each other in the hallway. But now, her smile transformed her, as if she'd grown taller, or changed her hair color, or something. Her cheeks popped with dimples, her lips seemed redder and softer against the backdrop of her white teeth. Damn. She was cute. — Allen Eskens

South Africa, it's like the little asshole of the whole world - it's, like, the bottom. It's, like, in the dark depths of the hallway. — Watkin Tudor Jones

A man was standing at the end of the hallway, just outside an open door, from where a great light shone, illuminating him almost as a god. — John Boyne

Sleeping in a hallway around Bedford Park later that week, I took out my blank transcripts and filled in the grades I wanted, making neat little columns of A's. If I could picture it - if I could take out these transcripts and look at them - then it was almost as if the A's had already happened. Day by day, I was just catching up with what was already real. My future A's, in my heart, had already occurred. Now I just had to get to them. — Liz Murray

The hallway grew darker still as the big door closed over several guards' bodies behind them with a crunchy squish. — Jeremy Robinson

On the simplest level, telecommuting makes it harder for people to have the kinds of informal interactions that are crucial to the way knowledge moves through an organization. The role that hallway chat plays in driving new ideas has become a cliche of business writing, but that doesn't make it less true. — James Surowiecki

It was universally held among the drones that Lord Maccon had a particularly fine physique, and there had been quite the scuffle over who would be allowed to dress him in the evenings. After Floote assumed that role, it became a trickster's challenge to ascertain who among the boys could arrange such little incidences as would cause the London Alpha to bluster out into the hallway in the altogether of an afternoon. — Gail Carriger

Ever since I saw you in that hallway, I've been completely fixated on getting you naked. Inappropriate as hell, but I can't fucking help it. — Stephanie Rowe

It's not love-but she's important to me. I find myself listening for her
footsteps down the hallway whenever she's been out. — Daniel Keyes

Can we go somewhere less ... transitory to discuss this? he asked, gesturing around the hallway. I felt like I might burst into tears all over again. Transitory. God, I'd missed him so much. — Rachel Hawkins

I wasn't even in a theater because I guess nobody believed in me, so I was in the hallway of a theater on a platform that they would move so the main stage show could go on at eight o'clock and I'd be gone. — John Leguizamo

I should have realized, when Cathal kissed me in the hallway, that my response was the first raindrop heralding a storm. — Juliet Marillier

Whenever we could steal a few minutes alone, that's when we became the "other", the charged-up thing that kept me up at night, afraid of falling so fast, afraid of losing, afraid it wouldn't last once everyone found out. We stole too-short kisses in the front hallway, shared knowing and devious looks across the table when we weren't being watched. We snuck out every night behind the house to watch for shooting stars and whisper about life, our favorite books, about the meaning of songs. It wasn't the topics themselves that changed, we had talked about all of those things befores. But now, there was a new intensity, an urgency to know as much as we could, to fit as much as possible into our final nights, before somebody found out. — Sarah Ockler

Why do you care?" His eyes looked casually over my shoulder, down the hallway then flicked back to me.
"Are you jealous?" his left eyebrow rose slightly.
"Of Lizzie, umm, no," I mouthed.
"Ah, huh" he didn't sound convinced. "So what are you doing with Kosic?" His face twitched for a second like he smelled something bad.
"Jealous?" I smiled. — Leah Spiegel

Who's that man you were talking to?"

"Oh, that's Norwood. He was checking you in for your first shift. I'll introduce you tomorrow."

She made a face. "No rush."

"I mean, you were scheduled to have a brief orientation with him today, but you know, you needed your beauty sleep, so we don't have time. Are you aware, Lex, that sloth is a deadly sin?"

She made a face at him, then glanced back at the hallway. She thought she could make out a bustle of activity behind the array of frosted glass tiles that lined its right-hand wall, but Uncle Mort ushered her out the front door too quickly for her to get a closer look.

"Wait, we're done here?"

"Well, I was going to show you around upstairs as well, but - "

"No time. Sloth. I get it."

"Deadly sin. — Gina Damico

There are so many ways of saying Hi. Hiss it, trill it, bark it, sing it, bellow it, laugh it, cough it. A simple stroll in the hallway calls for paragraphs, sentences in your head, decisions galore. — Frank McCourt

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

How on earth could he not see it? It stood on the wooden floor behind him, in the corner just inside the door, where the light from the hallway poorly fell: an old-fashioned alarm clock with three blunt stumps for legs and a bell like a Prussian helmet. Its face, a faithful little moon, was turned up to her, its hands were spread to plead innocence, and its inner mechanism emitted without ceasing the rapid ribbon of blows called the passing of time. — Helen Garner

the hallway and into her room. We ran after her, "Rach, what happened?" I asked coming to a halt as she was about to slam her bedroom door shut. She decided against slamming it in our faces — Laura Keysor

We need a bigger gun."
"We need a shower," Raphael said.
"Gun first. Shower later."
Ten minutes later I walked into the Order's office. A group of knights standing in the hallway turned at my approach: Mauro, the huge Samoan knight; Tobias, as usual dapper; and Gene, the seasoned former Georgia Bureau of Investigations detective. They looked at me. The conversation died.
My clothes were torn and bloody. Soot stained my skin. My hair stuck out in clumps caked with dirt and blood. The reek of a dead cat emanated from me in a foul cloud.
I walked past them into the armory, opened the glass case, took Boom Baby out, grabbed a box of Silver Hawk cartridges, and walked out.
Nobody said a thing. — Ilona Andrews

So I heard on the news that the Tard died and your house burnt down. I bet secretly you're relieved you don't have to live with him anymore in that dump."
The whole commotion in the hallway immediately stopped, as if her words had been spoken over the intercom. It became so quiet that you could hear Mina's and Nan's sharp intakes of breath. Mina wasn't prone to violence and was about to think of something mean to say back to Savannah, but she didn't have the chance to, because Nan Taylor, perky, happy-go-lucky Nan Taylor, pulled back her fist and punched Savannah in the face.
Savannah wasn't prepared, and fell to the floor. Nan stood over her shocked face and yelled, "No way was he handicapped, or different. He was the most special, coolest and smartest kid ever. And the world is a much sadder place because he's not here. And don't you ever, EVER, insult him again!" Nan shook with anger.
The hall was full of students and teachers, and one by one they started to clap. — Chanda Hahn

The hallway felt like time itself, and Patricia Buckingham and I were standing at opposite ends-her looking back on all she'd seen, me wondering what lay ahead. — Ally Carter

He laughed, the sound rolling over me more than once with the echoes in the enclosed hallway. his laughter was so unique - part amused grow, part purr, and all self-assured male. Its effect on me was tangible, turning up my own lips and making me step closer to him before I realized what I was doing. — Jeaniene Frost

Then again, maybe you couldn't have killed me," he said, crawling out of the stairway. He moved very slowly, like a lizard who had gotten too cold.
I heard a whimper from behind one of the closed doors next to the bathroom, and sympathized. I wanted to whimper, too.
"I'm not hunting you," I told him firmly, though I stepped backward until I stood in a circle of light at the end of the hallway.
He stopped halfway out of the stairway, his eyes were filmed over like a dead man's.
"Good," he said. "If you kill Andre, I won't tell-and no one will ask."
And he was gone, withdrawing from the hallway and down the stairs so fast that I barely caught the motion, though I was staring right at him.
I walked out of his home because if I'd moved any faster, I'd have run screaming. — Patricia Briggs

I have never understood, for example, how come a child can climb up on the roof, scale the TV antenna, and rescue the cat ... yet cannot walk down the hallway without grabbing both walls with his grubby hands for balance. — Erma Bombeck

Having no other recourse, Roran resorted to the unexpected: he stuck his head and neck out and shouted, "BAH!" just as he would if he were trying to scare someone in a dark hallway ... — Christopher Paolini

We could sit around and talk if you'd like."
"Okay." She crossed her arms and tried to look casual. "So what's up?"
"Considering what you're wearing beneath that sheet, and what we just heard in the hallway, you might want to rephrase that particular statement. — Jill Shalvis

Let's get married,' he would say to her, through the hush of the hallway, his voice sounding like a dusting cloth on the first spring cleaning. — Solomon Deep

Or maybe I'm supposed to confront her right now, because as soon as I round the corner, my eyes land on her. I come to a quiet stop and watch her. She's the only one in the hallway — Colleen Hoover

He did not want an affair with his boss. He did not even want a one-night stand. Because what always happened was that people found out, gossip at the water cooler, meaningful looks in the hallway. And sooner or later the spouses found out. It always happened. Slammed doors, divorce lawyers, child custody. — Michael Crichton

It was ... it was like all the girls I was with. They were fun, and I liked their company, but their touch didn't ... didn't make anything get warm. Didn't make it pop or zing or ache." The hand moved up to Talker's neck, so that his pulse throbbed against Brian's palm. "Didn't make me feel any of the things I feel when you touch me or smile or ... you know, sing in the shower or leave your shoes in the hallway or have conversations with the rat when you think I can't hear you. — Amy Lane

The hallway was lined with numbered doors, odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other, and large ornamental vases, too large to hold flowers and too small to hold spies. — Lemony Snicket

Parents have a right to expect that their efforts at home won't be undone each day in the school cafeteria or in the vending machine in the hallway ... Parents have a right to expect that their kids will be served fresh, healthy food that meets high nutritional standards. — Michelle Obama

There were two doors that opened off the hallway. The doors were labeled PUSSY and MOTHERFUCKERS.
"I'm taking the Motherfuckers door," I said to Ranger.
"No way. That's my door."
"Well, I'm sure as hell not taking the Pussy door. — Janet Evanovich

Kiriwar: "I thought I smelled shit stinking up the hallway."
Shiki: "I butchered a hyena ... maybe that's why. That's what you do to a dog that betrays its master's wishes, right? — Suguro Chayamachi

The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn't have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn't seem to be really trying. — Raymond Chandler

I see IT in the hallway. IT goes to Merryweather. IT is walking with Aubrey cheerleader. IT is my nightmare and I can't wake up.IT sees me. IT smiles and winks. Good thing my lips are stitched together or I'd throw up. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Because there is something in the touch of flesh with flesh which abrogates, cuts sharp and straight across the devious intricate channels of decorous ordering, which enemies as well as lovers know because it makes them both:
touch and touch of that which is the citadel of the central I-Am's private own: not spirit, soul; the liquorish and ungirdled mind is anyone's to take in any any darkened hallway of this earthly tenement. But let flesh touch with flesh, and watch the fall of all the eggshell shibboleth of caste and color too. — William Faulkner

There just wasn't enough time in 2008. It had become a limited resource. Back in 1998, the days were so much more spacious. When she woke up in the morning, the day rolled out in front of her like a long hallway for her to meander down, free to linger over the best parts. Days were so stingy now. Mean slivers of time. They flew by like speeding cars. Whoosh! When she was pulling back the blankets to hop into bed each night, it felt as if only seconds ago — Liane Moriarty

Lucy gripped her chilled glass of orange and raspberry juice. When Rebecca talked about Austen, she'd mostly mentioned Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley. She hadn't really thought of the doe-eyed, pale-skinned heroines.
On the screen, Anne Elliot walked down a long hallway, glancing just once at covered paintings, her mouth a grim line. Lucy thought Jane Austen would start the story with the romance, or the loss of it, but instead the tale seemed to begin with Anne's home, and having to make difficult decisions. Maybe this writer from over two hundred years ago knew how everything important met at the intersection of family, home, love, and loss. This was something Lucy understood with every fiber of her being. — Mary Jane Hathaway

There is a black-and-white picture in my hallway, of me, Nancy, and Lizzie in the bath, when Nancy was eight months old and Lizzie two-and-a-half. I am gently biting Lizzie. Nancy, in turn, is gumming my face. All eyes are on the person taking the picture - Pete, who was, as the slight camera-wobble shows, laughing. There we are-a tangle of half-shared DNA, all interlocking with each other; all being watched over by the one who loves us best. If I had to explain to someone what happiness is, I would show them this picture. — Caitlin Moran

When I was 16, I had a job on the cleaning crew at a local hospital. I wore a pink uniform and cleaned bathrooms and buffed the hallway linoleum. Oddly, I don't recall hating the job. I recall getting choked up at the end of the summer when I went to turn in my uniform and say goodbye to the ladies. — Mary Roach

Noah's experienced reputation walked down the hallway before he did. — Katie McGarry

An hour later, Amina stood at a pay phone in a mall hallway, where poop and perfume and the grease from the food court formed the kind of atmosphere you might find in Jupiter's red spot — Mira Jacob

Also, in my bedroom, nobody minded if I kept the hall door half-open, allowing in enough light that I was not scared of the dark, and, just as important, allowing me to read secretly, after my bedtime, using the dim hallway light to read by, if I needed to. I always needed to. — Neil Gaiman

After he tipped his hat and left, Jillian watched him stride down the hallway. Yeah, Big-brotherly overprotection aside, fortysomething looked good on the police captain from this view, too. — Julie Miller

Lily stopped dead in the doorway to her room and then took a step back. Apollo cocked his head. It'd been a very long day full of trepidation mixed with tediousness and he'd used up all his patience. "If you leave, I'll follow you out and we'll have this discussion in the hallway where everyone can hear." She scowled ferociously at him, but came all the way in the room and shut the door. "What do you want to talk about?" "Us." "There's nothing to discuss." "Yes," he said patiently, "there is. — Elizabeth Hoyt

It's about misunderstandings between people and places, being disconnected and looking for moments of connection. There are so many moments in life when people don't say what they mean, when they are just missing each other, waiting to run into each other in a hallway. — Sofia Coppola

Cool." Yep. Twenty seconds, and we were done. "Sorry," I said. "Ditto," said Beck. "Is anybody going to apologize to me?" Storm trudged into the hallway from the cabin she shares with Beck. "I was trying to sleep." "I thought you were making a list of our food supplies," said Beck. "It took about two seconds because we have about nada. I decided to take a nap instead. And now thanks to you two, I'm awake. What're you two doing?" "We need to get into The Room," I said. "Why?" "To find Dad's treasure map for the Caymans dive." Storm made a fish-lips face and thought about that for a couple of seconds. "Good idea." Then, yawning and scratching her butt, she turned around and shuffled back into her cabin. "Okay," I said to Beck, "if you were — James Patterson

Hey, come on!" Kail pushed into the hallway and saw an ascetic-looking man whose lapitect robes had some little stars on the collar. "We're trying to work, here! Do I go down to where your mother works and push the sailors out of her bed? — Patrick Weekes

It must be cool, having a twin, though."
"Ah, not sure if cool is the right word." He flashed a grin. "But we're not twins."
Out in the crowded hallway, Bethany frowned. "You're not? Could've fooled me and the world."
His laugh was husky, deep, and really nice to hear. "We're triplets."
Her eyes popped wide. "Holy crap, there're three of you?"
"We have a sister." He walked close to her, so their shoulders bumped every few steps. She found that deliciously distracting. "She's fraternal and a lot prettier than us. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I remember when I was 5 living on Pulaski Street in Brooklyn, the hallway of our building had a brass banister and a great sound, a great echo system. I used to sing in the hallway. — Barbra Streisand

When Courtney appeared from the hallway, a whisper of a smile emerged on her eerily familiar face; Spencer's legs dissolved into Jell-O. Aria let out a small squeak. — Sara Shepard

That's Collin."She panicked."He can't see you!" Don't tell me you're afraid of your own brother?"Staton seemed to think that was funny.She hated the smirk that crept over his face. She shoved him."You want Collin to kill you?Hide." That made him laugh louder."Kill me?" Stop it,"she warned him,or he'll hear you." You think I should be afraid of your brother?I'm immortal." Collin's heavy steps filled the downstairs hallway.Her heart raced.Why was life so complicated? — Lynne Ewing

Can I persuade you that if you let a driver into your lane, or thank a sales clerk, or smile at someone in a hallway, you can change his or her life? Of course not - but if you don't go through the day with the assumption that small moments and small gestures can touch people's lives, what is the alternative belief? — Robert Maurer

Hey, Bex?" Jack said as he grated. "Just so we're clear, if we were alone, I'd probably kiss you right now."
I gave him a swift glance as the hallway laughter made its way back to the kitchen. "Just so we're clear, I'd probably let you. — Jenn Bennett

Holy tit fungus! Did you give Sasquatch an autopsy in here? God almighty, girl." He waddled back into the hallway, this time holding his privates with both hands. "You balded the dick mitten. Nice. Let me see it."
He looked at her like she might drop trou simply because he suggested it.
"I would rather lick a monkey's armpit than show you my vagina." Dove gave him the finger.
"You know what I love best about a naked muff hole? It looks just like a camel's dangly lips." Duke extended his own lips to make them appear gummy and slack. — Debra Anastasia

This "betwixt and between" period is like living in a hallway of "divine discomfort." We know at some level that we need to let go, but we're not quite ready to do so yet. As bad as it might feel, this discomfort is often necessary to eventually move us into doing what we need to do. To this end, our unease is a gift. — Betty Hill Crowson

On the other side of the handrail, the hallway's gray marble floor looks as if we've climbed a stairway through the clouds. — Chuck Palahniuk

The dream world of sleep and the dream world of music are not far apart. I often catch glimpses of one as I pass through a door to the other, like encountering a neighbor in the hallway going into the apartment next to one's own. In the recording studio, I would often lie down to nap and wake up with harmony parts fully formed in my mind, ready to be recorded. I think of music as dreaming in sound. — Linda Ronstadt

Monday ushers in a particularly impressive clientele of red-eyed people properly pressed into dry-cleaned suits in neutral tones. They leave their equally well-buttoned children idling in SUVs while dashing to grab double-Americanos and foamy sweet lattes, before click-clacking hasty escapes in ass-sculpting heels and polished loafers with bowl-shaped haircuts that age every face to 40. My imagination speed evolves their unfortunate offspring from car seat-strapped oxygen-starved fast-blooming locusts, to the knuckle-drag harried downtown troglodytes they'll inevitably become. One by one I capture their flat-formed heads between index finger and thumb for a little crush-crush-crushing, ever aware that if I'm lucky one day their charitable contributions will fund my frown-faced found art project to baffle someone's hallway. — Amanda Sledz

When the present feels as endless as an impossibly long hallway between airport terminals, white and sterile and numb, we're particularly receptive to signs. — Kate Bolick

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

The first thing I did when I got inside was turn on the kitchen light. Then I moved to the table, putting my dad's iPod on the speaker dock, and a Bob Dylan song came on, the notes familiar. I went into the living room, hitting the switch there, then down the hallway to my room, where I did the same. It was amazing what a little noise and brightness could do to a house and a life, how much the smallest bit of each could change everything. After all these years of just passing through, I was beginning to finally feel at home. — Sarah Dessen

In my parents' house, nothing was ever thrown away. Clothes piled up, formed drifts that grew into mountains Philip, Baron, and I would climb and leap from. The heaps of garments filled the hallway and chased my parents out of their own bedroom, so that they eventually slept in the room that was once Dad's office. Empty bags and boxes filled gaps in the clutter, boxes that once held rings and sneakers and clothes. A trumpet that my mother wanted to make into a lamp rested atop a stack of tattered magazines filled with articles Dad planned to read, near the heads and feet and arms of dolls Mom promised she would stitch together for a kid from Carney, all beside an endless heap of replacement buttons, some still in their individual glassine bags. A coffeemaker rested on a tower of plates, propped up on one end to keep coffee from flooding the counters. — Holly Black

And than suddenly he was there, charging down the hallway like death in a cowboy duster. — Richelle Mead

She stalked down the short hallway, reached the door, pushed aside the bolt that secured it, twisted the lock, and then wrenched it open, her temper steadily rising when she looked at Oliver and found him smiling back at her, although his eyes held a distinct trace of temper.
"What?"
"Is that anyway to greet your fiance? — Jen Turano

The figure stood in the flames, dark, hard to make out. "I've given you the blessing of pewter, Spook," the voice said. "Use it to escape this place. You can break through the boards on the far side of that hallway, escape out onto the roof of the building nearby. The soldiers won't be watching for you - they're too busy controlling the fire so it doesn't spread."
Spook nodded. The heat didn't bother him anymore. "Thank you."
The figure stepped forward, becoming more than just a silhouette. Flames played against the man's firm face, and Spook's suspicions were confirmed. There was a reason he'd trusted that voice, a reason why he'd done what it had said.
He'd do whatever this man commanded.
"I didn't give you pewter just so you could live, Spook," Kelsier said, pointing. "I gave it to you so you could get revenge. Now, go! — Brandon Sanderson

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling conventions. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.
But this strategy alone couldn't provide the distance I wanted, from Joyce or my past. After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerant. No, it remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names. — Barack Obama

She eyed the shirt cautiously, and he knew what was coming next before it even happened. "This isn't my brother's blood, is it?" "No, Bellissima, it's not." He was pretty sure it wasn't, anyway. "Thank God," she whispered, disappearing into the hallway. 'Thank God' was right. He sincerely hoped a day never came where he had to answer yes to that. — J.M. Darhower

By the time I was in fourth grade, the teacher had already called my parents more than once to say they did not think I could tell fantasy from reality. I could tell. I could. I just didn't want to. I don't want to, I don't want to, I wailed, marched out to the hallway bench. Again. — Leigh Alexander

The closed door to the left of the hallway hid whatever room lay beyond it, but instead of walking farther into the house to see what the second right revealed, she shouted, "Magician Thane! Your guests are here and would greatly appreciate a real person at the door!"
"Miss Twill!" Mg. Aviosky said in a suppressed sort of hiss as the paper skeleton shut the front door. "Manners! — Charlie N. Holmberg

The guards had asked the Doctor to please wait in the hallway until Mr McCavity had time to see him. So it seemed only polite, the Doctor thought, to wait until they had gone before he wandered off to explore the house. — Justin Richards

As they lurch down the hallway and finally make it to the kitchen, it occurs to Joe that this is the best anyone can hope for in life. Someone you love to stagger through the hard times with. — Lisa Genova

Captain! To your left there's a Lunar guard and on your right is a doctor who's running tests on Lunars and I'm being held by one of Levana's wolf hybrids and please be careful!"
Thorne took a step back into the hallway a gun from his waistband. He spent a moment swiveling the barrel of the gun in each direction, but nobody moved to attack him.
With some surprise, Cress realized that the operative's grip had weakened.
"Er ... " Thorne furrowed his brow, aiming the gun somewhere near the window. "Could you describe all those threats again because I feel like I missed something. — Marissa Meyer

Now, Richard Pryor was unique. Many misunderstood his humor. He lit up the hallway, but they didn't understand his use of profanity. He didn't use it just to be using it; he used it in the context of his satire. — Bill Cosby

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

I take four or five heavy steps beyond the front door and Mom comes rushing down the hallway. "Shane! What in the hell-" Now she sees me, in all my dignified glory. I tell her I'm fine. Swear I stuck up for my sister, not an alien but an angel. By the time I get to, "I think I might need stitches," Mom is my mommy. She may have forgotten my birthday. But today she remembers me. (154) — Ellen Hopkins

Most cops are not looking for understanding. They work in a world filled with a sense - real or imagined - of danger lurking around each corner and every hallway. Most cops are merely looking for respect. — Mike Barnicle

Sazed?" she asked, peeking back out into the hallway.
The steward paused, turning back. "Yes, Mistress Vin?"
"Kelsier," Vin said quietly. "He's a good man, isn't he?"
Sazed smiled. "A very good man, Mistress. One of the best I've known."
Vin nodded slightly. "A good man..." she said softly. "I don't think I've ever known one of those before. — Brandon Sanderson

Rebecca held her head high and swanned across the hallway, but as she neared the footman, she could see quite plainly that his gaze was not where it should be. She stopped dead and slapped her hands over her bosom.
"Its too low, isn't it? I knew I shouldn't have listened to that maid. She might not mind her boobies hanging out for all to see, but i just can't-" Her brain suddenly caught up with her mouth. She removed her hands from her bosom and slapped them over her awful, awful, awful mouth. — Elizabeth Hoyt

Teeth clenched, she swiped the light switch next to the door, but all she got was a 'click.'
'Click, click.'
"Ugh," Lindsey moaned. She'd need to flip a breaker, and for that she'd need a flashlight. But that would only fix things if the power was actually on.
"I'm working on that." The deep voice with a drawl came from the dark hallway, and the man that matched it stepped out of the shadows. — Tracy March