Heart And Lungs Quotes & Sayings

Today, when we look at a brain, we see an intricate network of billions of neurons in constant, crackling communication, a chemical labyrinth that senses the world outside and within, produces love and sorrow, keeps our hearts beating and lungs breathing, composes our thoughts, and constructs our consciousness. — Carl Zimmer

Kittridge closed his eyes. So, the end. It would happen instantaneously, a painless departure, quicker than thought. he felt the presence of his body one last time: the taste of air in his lungs, the blood surging in his veins, the drumlike beating of his heart. The bomb was dropping toward them.
"I've got you," he said, hugging Tim fiercely; and again, over and over, so that the boy would be hearing these words. "I've got you, I've got you, I've got you, I've got you. — Justin Cronin

He urged his horse forward, his body straining, ready to be on his way. But at the last second he looked back at her and swerved, drawing the beast up beside her. From underneath the brim of his hat, he peered down at her. The intensity in the blue depths dragged her in until she felt as if she were drowning. "You've done good so far, Priscilla." At the unexpected words of praise, she sucked in a breath. His gaze dropped to her lips, lingered there for an instant before returning to her eyes, darker, bluer. Her lungs stopped working, and she clutched a hand to her chest. "I'll see your pretty face in a couple days." She nodded, too breathless to respond. He kicked his heels into his horse and left her standing, watching after him, wondering if he was taking her heart with him. — Jody Hedlund

Never is he going to be his old self again. Never is he going to have his old resilience. Whatever inside him was given the task of mending the organism after it was so terribly assaulted, first on the road, then in the operating theatre, has grown too tired of the job, too overburdened. And the same holds for the rest of the team, the lungs, the heart, the muscles, the brain. They did for him what they could as long as they could; now they want to rest. — J.M. Coetzee

The Day We Will Never Forget 9/11
Dedicated to the men, women and children who lost their lives ...
I still hold her hand
And
Her charming smile was still there on the stairs
I wanted to ask her that day ...
And
Her perfume was still in the corridors of the subway
Until then a mighty thunder of the day
The sky was painted of death
And noise burst from the walls
Where glowing arrows drilled in the glass
As if I could turn back the time
And
My broken heart lies there on the stairs And
Dust from a thousand lungs
I still hold her hand — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Noah was a funeral pyre. He was burning. The flames rose to staggering heights and blazed in white, hot tongues. Jeremie had once told him a story of the burial rites of the Norse. They'd burn their dead, believing the high smoke carried their loved ones' souls to Valhalla.

Noah was beyond Valhalla. Beyond the creamy spaciousness above the clouds, beyond the limits of the very earth. He floated among the stars, joined them in holy communion, knew each one by name. Then they were within him, scores of them, bright and hot, turning his ribs into a furnace as they shifted and created constellations in his soul. And all the while, the summer sang in his lungs.

There was no space between him and Jeremie. Where one ended, the other began, and still Jeremie pulled him closer like the moon pulls the tide, gripping him tightly in the same way he'd gripped Noah's heart, had gripped his entire being. — Lily Velez

You had me at Hello
You had me at hello, but now it's time to say goodbye.
Whilst my lungs draw breath and my heart beats a steady beat,
beside me, for you there will always be a seat.
You my special friend brought laughter and smiles that knew no end.
Although physically you may be gone, my memories of you will live on and on.
I know within my soul once again that we shall meet and when we do,
that seat is still reserved especially for you.
You had me at hello, for now my friend I say goodbye. — Michael Tianias

Air goes in and out
of my nose, throat, lungs, blood, heart
brain - and so I am — Matthew Quick

The symptoms I thought were caused by asthma were really caused by my heart not being able to expel blood with sufficient force and then expand quickly enough to receive the next load of blood returning through the veins. This caused back pressure in the pulmonary veins and fluid would leak through their walls and accumulate in my lungs and abdomen. — Ray Reynolds

There is no way that carrying fifty or sixty extra pounds is easy on your heart, your lungs, or your liver. That's a fact. Every person in the world, no matter what size, shape, or form they are, deserves respect and love. But that doesn't mean we are supposed to pretend that something is healthy when in fact it is not. — Marianne Williamson

I take his hand and he guides me out of his study. A sinking feeling circles my gut as he closes the door. A flutter in my heart accompanies the sinking feeling.
I know this feeling.
I know it all too well.
I've felt it before.
It feels like you're falling from a cliff. The air is sucked from your lungs and your stomach bottoms out. Your heart won't stop racing and your skin puckers at the thought of someone wrapping their arms around you.
Yes, I know this feeling. I know that I'm falling for Elijah Watson.
And I pray that I don't lose someone I've fallen for a second time. — Lauren Hammond

...clutching the Book to his chest, under his crossed arms, as if trying to press it into his ribs, until his lungs filled with letters and his heart became a pulsing paragraph. — Traci Chee

I shoved helplessly through the brittle pine trees, leafless branches clawing at my flesh. Snow flooded my sneakers, soaking higher and higher on my jeans with every step I took. My heart pounded furiously. My lungs grew tight, about to collapse from exhaustion. The air dipped colder. Fog swirled everywhere. They were close, so close I could feel their icy breath down my neck. That's what they do - they drop the — Jessica Sorensen

The woman who later became his wife was sleeping in his bed, her face buried in the pillows and her feet crossed on top of each other like a child's. He watched her sleep and struggled to see her as she was, but what he saw instead were her muscles and bones. He saw right through the skin to where her femur connected to her tibia by way of the ligaments, to the hair web of nerves and the delicate forest of her lungs, to the abstract heart pumping blood through her arteries. It terrified him how easily these systems could fail her. — Nicole Krauss

I'm still in love with you," he repeated walking closer to me. "I've tried to stop it. I tried to ignore it.
I tried to wish it away, but it won't leave. Whenever you're near me, I want you closer. Whenever you
laugh, I want the sound to never fade. Whenever you're sad, I want to kiss your tears away. I know all of
the reasons that I shouldn't want to be with you. I know that I can never be forgiven for what happened all
those years ago, but I also know that I still love you. You're still the fire that keeps me warm when life
becomes cold. You're still the voice that keeps the darkness at bay. You're still the reason my heart beats.
You're still the air in my lungs. You're still my greatest high. And I am still truly, madly, painfully in love
with you. And I don't think I'll ever know how to stop. — Brittainy C. Cherry

If we think of prayer as the breath of our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows and the breathing continues - we are not conscious of it but it is always going on. — Oswald Chambers

If you put junk in, you're going to get junk out; but if you find inspiration, you're going to come up with things that you would never think of otherwise. Your lungs breathe even when you don't think about it. Your heart pumps without your help. Your brain is working on ideas and solutions even when you don't realize it. — Lucas Carlson

He has lungs and a heart and he ... he is just telling himself over and over again that he is all fish because that's what you wanted him to be. — Hannah Moskowitz

She raises her hands and places them on either side of my face. My skin burns beneath her touch. 'I think you're beautiful.'
I smile, thinking she's done. But she releases my face and places her palms on my chest, directly over my heart.
'You're beautiful right here,' she says.
I close my eyes, and the breath rushes from my lungs.
'I see the good in you, Dante,' Charlie continues, her words rolling together off her tongue. 'Even if you don't, I do. You have a good heart. You know how I know?'
I open my eyes. She's looking at me like nothing else in the world exists. Like the entire planet and all of mankind just vanished. She slowly wraps my hands inside her own as best she can and places them on her chest. 'Because I feel it here.' She taps our hands against her chest. 'I know you're good, Dante. Because I feel it inside of me. — Victoria Scott

Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two with his toes to the daisies ? No touching that. Seat of the affections. Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. One fine day it gets bunged up and there you are. Lots of them lying around here : lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps : damn the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus!* And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure. — James Joyce

It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish of juicy fragments of fish- the blood-ends the cook had collected overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down the foc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, an investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores were stacked. It was another perfect day - soft, mild and clear; and Harvey breathed to the very bottom of his lungs. — Rudyard Kipling

But I have long loved the written word, and come to see in it the power of the sleeping lion. This is my name. This is who I am. This is how I got here. In the absence of an audience, I will write down my story so that it waits like a restful beast with lungs breathing and heart beating. — Lawrence Hill

I sat, eyes closed, and traced the path of my blood, from the secret, thick-walled chambers of my heart, blue-purple through the pulmonary artery, reddening swiftly as the sacs of the lungs dumped their burden of oxygen. Then out in a bursting surge through the arch of the aorta, and the tumbling race upward and down and out, through carotids, renals, subclavians. To the smallest capillaries, blooming beneath the surface of the skin, I traced the path of my blood through the systems of my body, remembering the feel of perfection, of health. Of peace. — Diana Gabaldon

By love, she probably meant she would die without being in love. By in
love, she meant the acuteness of the heart at the sudden sight of a
particular person or the way over a couple of years of interested
friendship one is suddenly stunned by the lungs' longing for more and
more breath in the presence of that friend, or nearly drowned to the
knees by the salty spring that seems to beat for years on our vaginal
shores. Not to omit all sorts of imaginings which assure great
spiritual energy for months and, when luck follows truth, years. — Grace Paley

There is some pain in your life that, when you experience it, you're shocked to the core that it doesn't kill you. It feels like it should kill you, like your heart should stop beating and your lungs should stop breathing and your eyes should stop seeing. Everything should just . . . stop. With pain that profound and regret that unfathomable, it should be impossible for your body to stay alive. — Katy Regnery

She has the kind of beauty that takes your breath from your lungs, tears from your eyes and speeds your heart each time you look at her.

She has the kind of beauty reserved for works of art, where men spend years of their life mastering their craft to replicate.

She is beauty, stunning, transcendent, right down through to the bone, the unfathomable depth of her heart.

She is Muse. She is wonder. She is sublime. — Kirk Diedrich

How she still thought of Max every day and it was like someone had emptied her lungs of air, and she would catch at her heart, afraid she was dying. — Cassandra Clare

The brittle bones beneath my chest cracked, piercing my heart. It was you who breathed new life into my lungs and it was you who would later syphon the life you had given so as to feed your selfish desires — Sonya Watson

Sex and humor are the heart and lungs of a good relationship — Rosamund Lupton

I don't believe in true love and I certainly don't believe in love at first sight. Insta-love isn't something that happens in real life. It happens in the books I read, but not in the world I live. Though here stands this beautiful, sexy, funny, sweet and amazing guy who has done everything short of professing love at first sight to me and I'm still standing here like a pair of lungs suffocating, needing him in order to breathe. I'm not running, I'm here, submerged in all of my vulnerability, taking the biggest chance I ever have with my heart and soul. I hope I'm choosing wisely. I stared at the ground and felt his eyes on the top of my head. — Kathryn Perez

Three eternities passed before she ran a hand under her red nose and nodded. "Fine. I'll go." Alex's lungs expanded as he let the air back in. "But the first woman who makes a crack about my hair
"
"I'll punch her lights out." Alex pulled her to her feet.
"You're supposed to love me, so it needs to be more severe than that."
"I'll yank out her heart with ice tongs."
"Aw." Lucy patted his chest. "You would do that for me?"
He captured her hand, felt its warmth all the way through his shirt. "No amount of carnage is too much for my girl. — Jenny B. Jones

Instinctively, and against my better judgement, I pull her closer to me. She rests her head on my shoulder as if it is the most natural thing in all the worlds to do.
But it's a mistake. I become aware of her heart beating, her lungs expanding with every breath, her skin beneath my touch.
She moves, and her head slides to my chest. Shifting into sleep, she wraps her arm around my waist. Now I'm aware of my heart beating too, slowly, in sync with hers. I know I should push her away. But if my life depended on it, right now, that would be impossible. — Marianne Curley

When he ran, he even loved the pain, the hurt of the running, the burning in his lungs and the spasms that sometimes gripped his calves. He loved it because he knew he could endure the pain, and even go beyond it. He had never pushed himself to the limit but he felt all this reserve strength inside of him: more than strength actually - determination. And it sang in him as he ran, his heart pumping blood joyfully through his body. — Robert Cormier

You're my lifeline, he whispers and kisses my knuckles before pressing my palm against his. With his eyes wide and full of fear, he gently tugs my hand and places it on his chest over his heart- in the forbidden zone. His breathing quickens, his heart is beating a frantic pounding tattoo beneath my fingers. He doesn't take his eyes off mine; his jaw tense, his teeth clenched.
I gasp. Oh my Fifty! He's letting me touch him. And it's like all the air in my lungs has vaporized- gone. — E.L. James

The body consists of three parts: the brainium, the borax and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain. The borax contains the heart and lungs and the abominable cavity contains the bowels of which there are five: a, e, i, o, u. — Tom Magliozzi

I often have the fantasy that curly girls are mermaids who have had to adapt to life on dry land. We come from the sea. The ocean is in our blood. It sings through our heart and lungs, our skin and hair. Our curls require the nourishment only a watery environment can provide. Both ocean waves and curly hair are forces of nature that can't be tamed. We can only accept and admire their power and beauty. — Lorraine Massey

Today I saw my inner planet: a cracked rib, air in the lungs, fatty liver and an open heart. — Jaime Garcia

My stepmother is not only powerful because the people fear her, she is powerful because she can make them love her when she needs them to. We think that if we choose to do only good, then we are only good. We can make people happy. We can offer tranquility or contentment or love, and that must be good. We do not see the falsehood becoming its own brand of cruelty."
The ship trembled and their speed increased. Luna blurred beneath them.
"Once," Winter continued, pushing the words out of her lungs. "Once I believed with all my heart that I was doing good. But I was wrong. — Marissa Meyer

I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform. — Stephen Fry

Every single time you looked at me, through the corner of your eye and smiled. My heart pushed the ribs with all the force towards my lungs, until it got crushed and I could not breathe anymore. — Akshay Vasu

Mild depression is a gradual and sometimes permanent thing that undermines people the way rust weakens iron. It is too much grief at too slight a cause, pain that takes over from the other emotions and crowds them out. Such depression takes up bodily occupancy in the eyelids and in the muscles that keep the spine erect. It hurts your heart and lungs, making the contraction of involuntary muscles harder than it needs to be. Like physical pain that becomes chronic, it is miserable not so much because it is intolerable in the moment as because it is intolerable to have known it in the moments gone and to look forward only to knowing it in the moments to come. The present tense of mild depression envisages no alleviation because it feels like knowledge. — Andrew Solomon

His mind and his flesh had separated, his brain had sat high and frightened above the mule of his body, a beast of burden that hopefully would make it alone over the treacherous mountain pass of Prison 33. But now as a woman ran a warm washcloth along the arch of his foot, the sensation was allowed to rise up, up into his brain , and it was okay to perceive again, to recognize forgotten parts of his body as they hailed him. His lungs were more than air bellows. His heart, he believed now, could do more than move blood. — Adam Johnson

Where's your boyfriend, District 12? Still hanging on?" She asks.
Well, as long as we're talking I'm alive. "He's out there now. Hunting Cato," I snarl at her. Then I scream at the top of my lungs. "Peeta!"
Clove jams her fist into my windpipe, very effectively cutting off my voice. But her head's whipping from side to side, and I know for a moment she's at least considering I'm telling the truth. Since no Peeta appears to save me, she turns back to me.
"Liar," she says with a grin. "He's nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him. You've probably got him strapped up in some tree while you try to keep his heart going. What's in the pretty little backpack? That medicine for Lover Boy? Too bad he'll never get it. — Suzanne Collins

Never gonna stop 'til the clock stops tickin'
Never gonna quit 'til my legs stop kickin'
I will follow you and we'll both go missin'
No I'm never givin' up 'til my heart stops beatin'
Never lettin' go 'til my lungs stop breathing
I will follow you and we'll both go missin'
No, I and we don't even know where we're going
But I'm sitting with you and I'm glowing — The Script

With this ring, I promise you a strong shoulder to cry on. I promise to hold and care for you whenever you need me. I promise to bring you comfort when you're sad and to defend you to the last. I give you faith, trust and commitment unfailing. I promise to love you with every breath in my lungs and beat of my heart until the end of time. I promise that the only heart I own will always belong to you and it will never beat for another as long I live. I promise picnics in the summer and cozy nights by the fire in winter. I promise to always cherish and appreciate you and everything you do and to show you every day just how much you mean to me. I will always be yours and you will always be mine. This I promise you — Marie Coulson

Megan noisily sucked in air for a scream that froze in her lungs. The cat stood in front of the open fire escape window, tail twitching, eyes focused intently on her face. Cursing inwardly at the stupidity of leaving the window open even a little bit, she made a mental note to never do it again ... if she lived.
The sheer size of the body under that sleek black coat was breathtaking, not to mention the power evident in those muscles. Megan whimpered as she caught sight of the sharp claws just visible on its feet. "Holy crap, someone up there has a really sick sense of humor. When I said I should get a cat, this is not what I meant!" she whispered. The cat snorted and her heart lodged in her throat. — Cait Miller

If education is about the communication of values, or meaningful information, and of wisdom and of tradition, between persons and across generations, it is important to know that it can only take place in the heart; that is, in the center of the human person. A voice from the lungs is not enough to carry another along with the meaning of our words. The voice has to carry with it the warmth and living fire of the heart around which the lungs are wrapped.2 — Stratford Caldecott

You're leaving, "she said, rising to her feet. "I knew it was coming."
"How?"
"I'm your mother. You're the breath of my lungs and the beat of my heart. I know you very well. — Lisa See

A Hand-Mirror Hold it up sternly - see this it sends back, (who is it? is it you?) Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth, No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy step, Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step, A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh, Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous, Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination, Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams, Words babble, hearing and touch callous, No brain, no heart left, no magnetism of sex; Such from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence, Such a result so soon - and from such a beginning! — Walt Whitman

Whatever difficulty you face, there are time-tried ways you can listen your way through. Because listening is the doorway to everything that matters. It enlivens the heart the way breathing enlivens the lungs. We listen to awaken our heart. We do this to stay vital and alive. — Mark Nepo

Her heart now pounding, a strange feeling of combined fear and happiness invaded her. She took a deep breath. Her lungs filled with fresh air. An invigorating rush of electricity all over her body overcame her.
"So, is this how falling in love feels?" she thought.
She knew the answer. — Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

As if you cut open a rag doll with a sill name, and found inside:Real intestines, real lungs, a beating heart and blood. A lot of hot, sticky blood. — Chuck Palahniuk

I pictured love as a big hairy giant with a dead fish in his mouth. Grizzly bear claws and his heart half out of his chest cause it's too big and the lungs have to fit. He never stops walking. Over mountains. Through the desert. On top of icy lakes. Past huge cities. And he hunts and kills for you and always comes back with plenty to eat. — Adam Rapp

I was living my own future and my brother's lost one as well. I represented him here just as he represented me there, in some unguessable other place. His move from life to death might resemble my stepping into the kitchen - into its soft nowhere quality and foggy hum. I breathed the dark air. If I had at that moment a sense of calm kindly death while my heart beat and my lungs expanded, he might know a similar sense of life in the middle of his ongoing death. — Michael Cunningham

Grant that men possess perpetual being and the preciousness of every earthly treasure is gone instantly. God is to our eternal being what our heart is to our body. The lungs, the liver, the kidneys have value as they relate to the heart. Let the heart stop and the rest of the organs promptly collapse. Apart from God, what is money, fame, education, civilization? Exactly nothing at all, for men must leave all these things behind them and one by one go to eternity. Let God hide His face and nothing thereafter is worth the effort. — A.W. Tozer

A fire had begun to spread in me. It was burning now in my stomach and my lungs were dry as old leaves, my heart had a herded pressure which gave promise to explode. — Norman Mailer

The thunder of horses' hooves grows ever louder, but, still, I do not move. The thunder of those hooves, the thudding of my heart, and the gasping in my lungs make such a cacophony, it's a wonder I hear Edmund at all. — Suzanna J. Linton

To accuse another of having weak kidneys, lungs, or heart, is not a crime; on the contrary, saying he has a weak brain is a crime. To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity hasn't. — Primo Levi

Stop looking at me like that," I say, frowning and rubbing at my chest. He has this habit of making my heart sore, making my lungs feel like there's not enough air.
He tilts his head attractively, which only makes matters worse. "Like what?"
"Like you're molesting me with your eyes," I blurt out.
His answering laugh is long and deep. I can barely handle the affection in his gaze. "Okay, I'll try to stop. But if it all gets to be too much for you, this apartment happens to have a very nice bathroom. You can go rub one out again to take the edge off. I'll come listen, too, if that will help."
There he goes again, pushing me.
I do a slow blink at him before coming out with a rather masterful comeback. And when I say "masterful," I mean shit. "Why don't you go and rub one out?"
He cocks an eyebrow. "I don't rub out, darlin'. I jack off. — L. H. Cosway

I run my fingers along the thick, fabric wallpaper to steady myself. Putting one foot in front of another feels like learning to walk all over again. My body's still working. Heart's still beating. Lungs still moving. But not because I want them to. They do those things on their own, without me even asking. So why didn't they do it for Eamon ? How could his body just give up on him like that ? Fall apart. It made him seen so fragile, and I don't want to remember him that way. He was the strongest guy I knew. How could he break so easily ? It seems like our bodies would be built better. It just doesn't fucking seem real. — Jolene Perry

Though I myself am an atheist, I openly profess religion in the sense just mentioned, that is, a nature religion. I hate the idealism that wrenches man out of nature; I am not ashamed of my dependency on nature; I openly confess that the workings of nature affect not only my surface, my skin, my body, but also my core, my innermost being, that the air I breathe in bright weather has a salutary effect not only on my lungs but also on my mind, that the light of the sun illumines not only my eyes but also my spirit and my heart. And I do not, like a Christian, believe that such dependency is contrary to my true being or hope to be delivered from it. I know further that I am a finite moral being, that I shall one day cease to be. But I find this very natural and am therefore perfectly reconciled to the thought. — Ludwig Feuerbach

God, it would never go away, this anger, this rage that was like the ceaseless movement of the spring winds through the desert, this knot in his guts, this splinter in his heart that shot a pain through him that eventually found its way into his lungs, then out of his mouth and into the open air, the sound making the whole world turn away from him. It would never go away, never, never, and there would never be any peace. [ ... ] Maybe he had it all wrong, maybe he wasn't a victim at all, not at all, because he had decided that this was the only thing that would ever be truly his, and so he clung to it, would cling to it forever. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

I realise now that the pain Kevin felt - that night, and for nearly eighteen months beforehand, since his suicide attempt - was no less real, no less urgent, than a heart attach, a stroke, a seizure. Than the sensation of running too hard or running too fast, keeling over, grasping for air. Wishing for something to fill your lungs - to rush in and then revive you - except nothing ever does, and maybe nothing ever can.

It is unpleasant, of course, to sympathise with suicide. It is unpleasant to believe in a reality in which death is the only option. And it is problematic, certainly, to compare suicide to running, to cardiac arrest, to terminal cancer. But this is precisely the problem: There is no fair parallel that can be drawn between those who felt the dark pull of suicide and those who never have. — Amy E. Butcher

All at once it was just too much, and Harvey felt something about to snap. He drew back into the shadowy side of the doorway, out of site. Then he slid down the wall to the ground and put his palm over his mouth to hold in his breath and his feelings both. He'd forced in more air then he could hold, and his lungs were burning. More importantly, his heart hurt ... He wished he hadn't eavesdropped. — Yukako Kabei

Air pollution is terrible for our children. Every single scientist, every single doctor will tell you the same thing: Air pollution damages our children's brains, their hearts, and their lungs. — Julianne Moore

Cassidy's heart tried to leap out through his taught skin and hop into his wet hands. But outwardly it was all very calm, very serene, just as always, and it seemed to last a tiny forever, just like that, a snapshot of them all on the curved parabola of a starting line, eight giant hearts attached to eight pairs of bellows-like lungs mounted on eight pairs of supercharged stilts. They were poised on the edge of some howling vortex they had run 10,000 miles to get to. Now they had to run one more — John L. Parker Jr.

In the static mode an observer may unify the pieces of a puzzle, but only as a blueprint - kinetics add the third dimention of depth, and the fourth of history. The motion, however, must be on the human scale, which happens also to be that of birds, waves, and clouds. Were a bullet to be made sentient, it still would see or hear or smell or feel nothing in land or water or air except its target. So, too, with a passenger in any machine that goes faster than a Model A. As speed increases, reality thins and becomes at the pace of a jet airplane no more substantial than a computer readout.
Running suits a person who seeks to look inward, through a fugue of pain, to study the dark self. A person afraid of the dark had better walk - strenuous enough for the rhythm of the feet to pace those of heart and lungs, relaxed enough to let him look outward, through joy, to a bright creation. — Harvey Manning

Eyes and ears are two.
Lungs and kidneys, too.
I wonder then
why we're born with one
heart that skips a beat when hay is here,
and beats quickly when you are near.
One heart that cracks when you are far,
lie to me and leave a scar.
I wonder then
why we're born with one
heart that gets broken.
Was I supposed to find you then?
So your heart would make one
plus one is
two
for me and
two for you. — Kamand Kojouri

Bourbon, Kentucky bourbon especially, is like Dante's Inferno in a glass, fire walks down your throat, lungs, and heart and everything in between with an unpleasant after-taste. We got along just fine. — Bruce Crown

He cupped my face gently in his hands, holding it in place. My breath hitched in my lungs as he leaned in to drop a soft kiss on my lips. Where the other kisses we had shared ignited the lust we felt for each other, this kiss was something entirely different. The softness of his lips caressed mine as his tongue slowly slid into my mouth. He explored my mouth leisurely, never increasing the intensity. It was as if he was trying to memorize every detail and was meticulous with his mission. The tenderness of his mouth made my heart ache and I wished it would never end. — Tiffany King

else would I search for you for weeks, turn over every stone in Zurich looking for you, while my heart wouldn't beat and my lungs could barely breathe? — Victoria Parker

Jay stepped into the room, and for a split second both her heart and lungs seemed to stop functioning. Then her heart lurched into rhythm again, and she drew a deep, painful breath. Tears sprang to her eyes as she stared at the inert form on the white hospital bed, and his name trembled soundlessly on her lips. It didn't seem possible that this ... this could be Steve. — Linda Howard

The walk felt long, but I kept telling my lungs to shut up, that they were strong, that they could do this. I could see him as I approached: His hair was parted neatly on the left side in a way that he would have found absolutely horrifying, and his face was plasticized. But he was still Gus. My lanky, beautiful Gus. — John Green

Said!" Olefsky roared, causing the gron to shy and dance nervously along the path. "Said!" The Bear brought the animal to a halt, turned around. "By my heart and bowels, laddie, who wakes every morning and takes a deep breath and says to the air, 'Air, I love you.' And yet, without air in our lungs, we would be dead within moments. And who says to the water, 'I love you!' and yet without water, we die. And who says to the fire in the winter, 'I love you!' and yet without warmth, we freeze. What is this talk of 'said'? — Margaret Weis

She hit the button again, holding her breath this time until she heard it.
Soft, sibilant, as insubstantial as the breaths that came before: Shannon. The voice whispered Shannon.
The blood rushed out of her head. Her heart knocked hard in her chest. Her knees buckled and she grabbed the counter to keep from falling. She was starting to hyperventilate, had to calm it down before she was taken by a full-blown panic attack.
Paper bag. Think. Think! Drawer below the silverware, next to the sink. Over the nose and mouth. Breathe slowly, slowly.
Holding the bag against her face, Shane slid to the floor with her back against the cabinets, legs splayed, lungs heaving.
It couldn't be him. It couldn't be Jordan. Jordan was dead. — Jane Taylor Starwood

Xhex: John, she said softty. He paused and looked over his shoulder toward the bed. I love you. His handsome face tightened in pain, and he rubbed the middle of his chest, as if someone had fisted up his heart and squeezed it dead. And then he turned away. As she hit the confines of her prison ... She was screaming at the top of her lungs. — J.R. Ward

I only know that you are the breath in my lungs, the beat of my heart, the ache in my soul, and without you, I am empty. — Rachel Gibson

Just as Emme neared the main staircase, as she could see the intricate carving of the banisters, a noise from behind her made her thundering heart skip. She froze mid stride and peered over her shoulder at the growing triangle of light emerging from the doorway of the billiard room. Tension coiled in her stomach, and her breath seized in her lungs. Someone was coming, and her wits fled her entirely. — Chasity Bowlin

When the first fine spring days come, and the earth awakes and assumes its garment of verdure, when the perfumed warmth of the air blows on our faces and fills our lungs, and even appears to penetrate to our heart, we feel vague longings for undefined happiness, a wish to run, to walk at random, to inhale the spring. — Guy De Maupassant

A horse gallops with his lungs, perseveres with his heart, and wins with his character. — Federico Tesio

We should not imagine that this means our fate is fixed by our planets, however. Even though each vital organ corresponds to a planet - the liver to Jupiter, the brain to the moon, the heart to the sun, the spleen to Saturn, the lungs to Mercury, the gallbladder to Mars, and the kidneys to Venus - yet the one is not governed by the other: "Saturn has nothing to do with the spleen, nor the spleen anything to do with Saturn." Rather, these correspondences are simply a manifestation of the cosmic mirror that makes man a microcosm of the universal macrocosm. The two are analogs but are not causally related. From a scale model of a building you can read the proportions and relationships of the building itself, but crushing the former does not raze the latter. — Philip Ball

This is how I started: My mom was crazy for antique shops and junk shops, and my sister and I would play this game where, if we were driving with my parents and saw a junk shop or an antique shop, we'd scream at the top of our lungs. My poor father would have heart failure and screech to a halt, and we'd leap out and go and explore. — Hamish Bowles

There are those of us who believe that under certain conditions the cruelest thing you can do to people you love is to force them to live. There are those of us who define living not by whether the heart beats and the lungs lift but whether the spirit is there, whether the music box plays. — Anna Quindlen

Every man's heart one day beats its final beat. His lungs breathe their final breath. And, if what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others, and makes them believe deeper in something larger than life, then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalized. By the storytellers, by the loyalty, by the memory of those who honor him, and make the running the man did live forever. — Warrior

She would be a girl; Lila had seen her on the ultrasound. A baby girl. Tiny hands and tiny feet and a tiny heart and lungs, floating in the warm broth of her body. — Justin Cronin

He sat beside the window in the dark, with his eyes closed. Hearing to the sound of the rain. The whisky in his glass burnt his throat, while the smoke of his cigarette filled his lungs and the fire inside his heart consumed his soul slowly. — Akshay Vasu

When we decided to have Julie, I couldn't carry her. We sat down and the hard numbers stared back at us. I made twice as much as Fern. We wouldn't have been able to feed ourselves, let alone another mouth, if I'd been the one to hold her. And so we both went for the operation, and they took eggs from the two of us and made them one. And then I squeezed Fern's hand when she went into the theatre, and when she came out again they'd put it inside her. And sheltered by her body, the one cell that was us divided and became two, and then three, and then four hundred million, and then they divided into parts. Lungs, heart, brain, mouth. And finally, when she was ready, Julie divided from Fern and there were three of us. — Lee S. Hawke

Humans are built to move. We evolved under conditions that required daily intense physical activity, and even among individuals with lower physical potential, that hard-earned genotype is still ours today. The modern sedentary lifestyle leads to the inactivation of the genes related to physical performance, attributes that were once critical for survival and which are still critical for the correct, healthy expression of the genotype. The genes are still there, they just aren't doing anything because the body is not stressed enough to cause a physiological adaptation requiring their activation. The sedentary person's heart, lungs, muscles, bones, nerves and brain all operate far below the level at which they evolved to function, and at which they still function best. — Mark Rippetoe

I swore i could feel my lies slithering inside me like snakes, wrapping themselves around me and constricting. i felt they were squeezing the air from my lungs, tightening around my heart. — Alexandra Adornetto

When we breathe it in, soot can interfere with our lungs and increase the risk of asthma attacks, lung cancer and even premature death. The smallest particles can pass into the blood stream and cause heart disease, stroke and reproductive complications. — Sheldon Whitehouse

It hurts," Horatia gasped as the weight of everything descended upon her. Like knife shards embedded in her lungs, each breath she sucked in was ragged and icy.
"That's a good thing, my love. It means your heart is still alive. Just let it all out." Lucien brushed his lips along her tear-stained cheek and absorbed her shaking with his body.

-His Wicked Seduction — Lauren Smith

But Promethea cares carnally about what she says. Watch out for words with her! Because Promethea is the person who has not cut the cord binding words to her body. Everything she says is absolutely fresh. Comes straight from the flesh of her lungs, the fibers of her heart. She doesn't know any other way of speaking. That is why her words are few and fiery. And all her sentences are strong and young and incandescent, because they are caused by a convulsion of her whole earthly body. Promethea's thought is of quivering red lava. And all her remarks date from the beginnings of life. Even concerning details she is cosmogonic. She moves easily to the ends of the earth, the places where life takes on form or loses it. — Helene Cixous

And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs. — Mary Oliver

In the Bhagavad Gita. One stanza reads: "Offering the inhaling breath into the exhaling breath and offering the exhaling breath into the inhaling breath, the yogi neutralizes both breaths; thus he releases prana from the heart and brings life force under his control."2 The interpretation is: "The yogi arrests decay in the body by securing an additional supply of prana (life force) through quieting the action of the lungs and heart; he also arrests mutations of growth in the body by control of apana (eliminating current). Thus neutralizing decay and growth, the yogi learns life-force control." Another Gita stanza states: "That meditation-expert (muni) becomes eternally free who, seeking the Supreme Goal, is able to withdraw from external phenomena by fixing his gaze within the mid-spot of the eyebrows and by neutralizing the even currents of prana and apana [that flow] within the nostrils and lungs; and to control his sensory mind and intellect; and to banish desire, fear, and anger."3 — Paramahansa Yogananda

An overweight officer, having delivered a batch of children to the home, started telling one of the guards about his heart problem. "You think you want to be a cop, but you don't, because it kills you," said the officer, mopping his brow. Then he told of another officer with a lung problem, and one who had cancer, and of others who were stress-sick, and of how none of them earned enough to afford decent doctors. Abdul hadn't previously thought of policemen as people with hearts and lungs who worried about money or their health. The world seemed replete with people as bad off as himself, and this made him feel less alone. — Katherine Boo

We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller. Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lungs the brain the heart. Forty weeks later, six trillion cells get crushed in the vise of our mother's birth canal and we howl. Then the world starts in on us. — Anthony Doerr

If anything is horrible, if there is a reality that surpasses our worst dreams, it is this: to live, to see the sun, to be in full possession of manly vigor, to have health and joy, to laugh heartily, to rush toward a glory that lures you on, to feel lungs that breathe, a heart that beats, a mind that thinks, to speak, to hope, to love; to have mother, wife, children, to have sunlight, and suddenly, in less time than it takes to cry out, to plunge into an abyss, to fall, to roll, to crush, to be crushed, to see the heads of grain, the flowers, the leaves, the branches, unable to catch hold of anything, to feel your sword useless, men under you, horses over you, to struggle in vain, your bones broken by some kick in the darkness, to feel a heel gouging your eyes out of their sockets, raging at the horseshoe between your teeth, to stifle, to howl, to twist, to be under all this, and to say, 'Just then I was a living man! — Victor Hugo

True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs, and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely thro' its channels, and makes the wheel of life run long and chearfully round. — Laurence Sterne

I will go directly to her home, ring the bell, and walk in. Here I am, take me-or stab me to death. Stab the heart, stab the brains, stab the lungs, the kidneys, the viscera, the eyes, the ears. If only one organ be left alive you are doomed-doomed to be mine, forever, in this world and the next and all the worlds to come. I'm a desperado of love, a scalper, a slayer. I'm insatiable. I eat hair, dirty wax, dry blood clots, anything and everything you call yours. Show me your father, with his kites, his race horses, his free passes for the opera: I will eat them all, swallow them alive. Where is the chair you sit in, where is your favorite comb, your toothbrush, your nail file? Trot them out that I may devour them at one gulp. You have a sister more beautiful than yourself, you say. Show her to me-I want to lick the flesh from her bones. — Henry Miller

Everything about him causes my lungs to fail and my heart to go into overdrive — Colleen Hoover