Heart Block Quotes & Sayings

Oh my gosh, he smells good, like some exotic but comforting spice, nutmeg or cardamom. Slowly Damian lowers his head to mine and I think my chest might explode, my heart is tap-dancing so quickly.
He's going to kiss me.
I've imagined this and now it's really happening, I am like a block of wood. I can't move. I can't breathe. I close my eyes as the lightest feather of a breath , then lips, brushing over my lips. His breath is sweet and the taste of coffee barely lingers in his mouth. I feel as though my whole body has turned to liquid, into a river of millions of droplets, rushing apart and then back together.
"You have the softest lips," he whispers as he pulls back to look at me.
"So do you," I murmur. Oh, was that a stupid thing to say? I turn my face into his jacket and breathe in his scent. — Lisa Ann Sandell

The process of transforming the heart can be difficult because as we open it, we inevitably encounter our own pain and become more aware of the pain of others. In fact, much of our personality is designed to keep us from experiencing this suffering. We close down the sensitivity of our hearts so that we can block our pain and get on with things, but we are never entirely successful in avoiding it. Often, we are aware of our suffering just enough to make ourselves and everyone around us miserable. Carl Jung's famous dictum that "neurosis is a substitute for legitimate suffering" points to this truth. But if we are not willing to experience our own hurt and grief, it can never be healed. Shutting out our real pain also renders us unable to feel joy, compassion, love, or any of the other capacities of the heart. — Don Richard Riso

Over the long term, however, too much adrenaline produces scarring on the insides of your blood vessels. These scars become magnets for molecules to accumulate, creating lumps called plaques. These can grow large enough to block the blood vessels. If it happens in the blood vessels of your heart, you get a heart attack; in your brain, you get a stroke. — John Medina

Destroy superabundance. Starve the flesh, shave the hair, clarify the mind, define the will, restrain the senses, leave the family, flee the church, kill the vermin,vomit the heart, forget the dead. Limit time, forgo amusement, deny nature, reject acquaintances, discard objects, forget truths, dissect myth, stop motion, block impulse, choke sobs, swallow chatter. Scorn joy, scorn touch, scorn tragedy, scorn liberty, scorn constancy, scorn hope, scorn exaltation, scorn reproduction, scorn variety, scorn embellishment, scorn release, scorn rest, scorn sweetness, scorn light. It's a question of form as much as function. It is a matter of revulsion. — Jenny Holzer

The mirror had broken into millions of pieces and the wind blew them all over the world. If a person got a speck in their eye, the person would only see the ugly side of things from then on, but if a piece got in their blood and it reached their heart, it would freeze into a solid block of ice and they couldn't feel anything anymore — Isobelle Carmody

Barbie was no longer afraid of anything. It was like the thing Mab had said about belief. The belief is sometimes the biggest part of it all. You can choose to believe in your published book being held in the loving hands of strangers, your name tattooed forever on the heart of the one you adore; you can choose to believe in tiny red-haired pesky piskies--all the things 'they' may tell you not to believe in. But who are they anyway? What do they know? What makes them any more real? — Francesca Lia Block

There are times when you almost tell the harmless old lady next door what you really think of her face - that it ought to be on a night-nurse in a house for the blind; when you'd like to ask the man you've been waiting ten minutes for if he isn't all overheated from racing the postman down the block; when you nearly say to the waiter that if they deducted a cent from the bill for every degree the soup was below tepid the hotel would owe you half a dollar; when - and this is the infallible earmark of true exasperation - a smile affects you as an oil-baron's undershirt affects a cow's husband.
But the moment passes. Scars may remain on your dog or your collar or your telephone receiver, but your soul has slid gently back into its place between the lower edge of your heart and the upper edge of your stomach, and all is at peace. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Ranger picked up and there was a moment of silence as if he was sensing me at the other end, taking my body temperature and heart rate long distance. "Babe," he finally said.
"Do you know the slum apartment building Bobby Sunflower owns on Stark?"
"Yes. It's on the same block as his funeral home."
"That's the one. I'm going in to look for someone. If you don't hear from me in a half hour maybe you could send someone to check."
"Is this a smart thing to do?"
"Probably not."
"As long as you know," Ranger said. And he disconnected. — Janet Evanovich

In the same way that we have to clean wax from our ears and dirt from our eyes, we're all asked to clean out our conclusions and judgments, which block our heart from meeting the world. — Mark Nepo

We're not very good at the niceties and the small talk that are required to be a good neighbor, so block parties and barbecues tend to be awkward. Our politics rarely jibe (we're a couple of mouthy liberals living in the heart of red country), and we don't give a shit about sports, especially college basketball and hypercompetitive soccer for young children, which are the favorites around here. — Jen Mann

While the burning fish is tracing his arc
near the cypress, beneath the highest blue of all,
and the blind boy flies away in the white stone,
and the ivory poem of the green cicada
beats and reverberates in the elm,
let us give honor to the Lord
the black mark of his good hand
who has arranged for silence in all this noise.
Honor to the god of distance and of absence,
ff the anchor in the sea - the open sea ...
He frees us from the world - it's everywhere
he opens roads for us to walk on.
With our cup of darkness filled to the brim,
with our heart that always knows some hunger,
let us give honor to the Lord who created the zero
and carved our thought out of the block of faith. — Antonio Machado

Deep in the heart of the hot, wet African rainforest, there lives a tribe of peacemakers who share a multiplicity of pleasures and make a very special kind of love. South of the sprawling Congo River, in the midst of war-ravaged territory, some 2,000 miles from the arid Ethiopian desert where the oldest human fossils have been found, lies this lush and steamy jungle paradise, the only natural habitat of the bonobo. — Susan Block

Draw a line in the sand. "I will no longer be a stumbling block for my husband." With God's help, you'll find yourself being supportive, encouraging. You become his partner rather than his opponent. This attitude of obedience unfolds blessings without end, reaching your heart, his, your children, and the watching world. — Amy Williams

We got quiet. The garden was combing her hair and putting on earrings. The house was full of dancing creatures, not male and female but both, two lovers in one body. The books downstairs were reciting their poetry to each other, rubbing together, whispering through the leather covers. Wine was flowing through the water pipes. You had caught my leaping heart in your hand like a fish. — Francesca Lia Block

What's coming out of the stereo is like a genre unto itself, a charming, fucked-up fairy tale that immediately breaks my heart in all the best ways.
I stretch out on the floor with my ear parked next to the speaker, in a trance. I place the album cover over my face to block out any interruption as "I'll Be Your Mirror" seduces me. I immediately add the song to my mental list of top ten songs ever.
And as I'm bobbing my head with dreamy abandon, I hear a voice. "Nice choice, DJ," it says.
I slowly slide the album cover down past my eyes and look up. My eyes spy his shoes first
paint-splattered brogues. My heart stops when I look at his face. Pale skin, messy black hair, emerald eyes ... Senor Smolder! He's eighteen, maybe nineteen. And no, my imagination didn't lie, he is just as devastating now as he was the first time I saw him. Only even more, because he just complimented my taste in music. — Shauna Cross

What happens to the rest of something when you smash its heart? — Francesca Lia Block

Does it stand, but not straight enough? Is there a bend in the tool? Leaning left like the Marxist-Leninist Party? To the right, like the Jan Sangh fascists? Or wobbling mindlessly in the middle, like the Congress Party? Fear not, for it can be straightened! Does it refuse to harden even with rubbing and massage? Then try my ointment, and it will become hard as the government's heart! All your troubles will vanish with this amazing ointment made from the organs of these wild animals! Capable of turning all men into engine-drivers! Punctual as the trains in the Emergency! Back and forth you will shunt with piston power every night! The railways will want to harness your energy! Apply this ointment once a day, and your wife will be proud of you! Apply it twice a day, and she will have to share you with the whole block! — Rohinton Mistry

Top-shelf fiction, a Crown Royal ride into the heart of Night and New York. Con Lehane's work is reminiscent of the best of Lawrence Block, which is to say that this is very good stuff, indeed. — George Pelecanos

Unprocessed intense emotion goes underground and creates a subconscious block that can be released as soon as the original event is integrated in the mind, heart, and body. — Deborah Sandella

The books downstairs were reciting their poetry to each other, rubbing together, whispering through the leathery covers. Wine was flowing through the water pipes. You had caught my leaping heart in your hands like a fish. — Francesca Lia Block

Pianos, unlike people, sing when you give them your every growl. They know how to dive into the pit of your stomach and harmonize with your roars when you've split yourself open. And when they see you, guts shining, brain pulsing, heart right there exposed in a rhythm that beats need need, need need, need need, pianos do not run. And so she plays. — Francesca Lia Block

Dont harden your heart; because of the past,
it'll block your sight, of a positive future. — Nikki Rowe

They stared at each other. Every ocean, every river, every minute they had walked together was in their gaze. He said nothing and she said nothing. She kneeled by him, her hands on him, on his chest, on his heart, on his lungs that took air in but could not move air out, on his open wound; her eyes were on him, and in their eyes was every block of uncounted, unaccounted-for time, every moment they had lived since June 22, 1941, the day war started for the Soviet Union. Her eyes were filled with everything she felt for him. Her eyes were true. — Paullina Simons

The only way we'll have real pride is when we demand recognition of a culture that isn't just sexual. It's all there
all throughhistory we've been there; but we have to claim it, and identify who was in it, and articulate what's in our minds and hearts and all our creative contributions to this earth. And until we do that, and until we organise ourselves block by neighborhood by city by state into a united visible community that fights back, we're doomed. — Larry Kramer

But the actual object, that bundle of papers, is a telltale heart. She buried it long ago, and still it thumps its maddening beat. — Stefan Merrill Block

To make every little thing special is to grant a magical quality to your life. Once your life becomes charmed in such a way, whatever blocks you may have experienced in the past melt in the light of that inner energy pouring from your heart. From a businessman's point of view, this is beautiful, for everything you touch turns to gold. Further, it helps you to believe in yourself. In seeing worth all around, you make your every act an affirmation of your strength. — Stuart Wilde

Each time I write, I reaffirm my soul. — Rob Bignell, Editor

It is the reflection of my face. Often in these lost days I study it: I can understand nothing of this face. The faces of others have some sense, some direction. Not mine. I cannot even decide whether it is handsome or ugly. I think it is ugly because I have been told so. But it doesn't strike me. At heart, I am even shocked that anyone can attribute qualities of this kind to it, as if you called a clod of earth or a block of stone beautiful or ugly. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Butchers enjoy the mindless
chewing of lambs. Likewise the appetites work for a shadow king. Do the
soul work instead. Feed daily on wisdom. Expand your heart. Rest the appetites. They
are bandits on the road. They stop your spirit and steal valuables. The most vital
thing about you is your soul intelligence. The rest is a mask for that. Don't
lose touch with it. Sensual wantings sometimes block and blur that intelligence as
surely as wine or hashish can. Arrogance too is drunken, making you
think things true that aren't. — Rumi

The longer I am in this work, the more I realize that intellectual struggles are merely the hazardous waste of life, blocking the heart from truth. The task of apologetics is to carefully remove that hazardous material and keep it from igniting into a destructive fire. Once that is done, the way to the heart is always through the way of the Cross, God's love for each and every one of us. — Ravi Zacharias

Grief is not something you know if you grow up wearing feathers with a Charlie Chaplin boyfriend, a love-child papoose, a witch baby, a Dirk and a Duck, a Slinkster Dog, and a movie to dance in. You can feel sad and worse when your dad moves to another city, when an old lady dies, or when your boyfriend goes away. But grief is different. Weetzie's heart cringed in her like a dying animal. It was as if someone had stuck a needle full of poison into her heart. She moved like a sleepwalker. She was the girl in the fairy tale sleeping in a prison of thorns and roses. — Francesca Lia Block

My heart is a teacup with hairline cracks. I feel like I have to walk real carefully so it won't get shaken and just all shatter and break. — Francesca Lia Block

Anyone who realises what Love is, the dedication of the heart, so profound, so absorbing, so mysterious, so imperative, and always just in the noblest natures so strong, cannot fail to see how difficult, how tragic even, must often be the fate of those whose deepest feelings are destined from the earliest days to be a riddle and a stumbling-block, unexplained to themselves, passed over in silence by others. — Edward Carpenter

We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart. — Jack Kornfield

She had changed him. The ice was in his eyes and in his heart, like he had predicted with that song, but now they were deep embedded there, all the pain of the world. Not pain to make you feel for somebody else but pain to make you stop feeling. — Francesca Lia Block

You are my Marilyn. You are my lake full of fishes. You are my sky set, my 'Hollywood in Miniature,' my pink Cadillac, my highway, my martini, the stage for my heart to rock and roll on, the screen where my movies light up. — Francesca Lia Block

If your heart is pure, you block any harm. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Valentine
my friends stitched it up with golden thread
like a red
satin pillow they gave me other whole ones too
roses and charms and red candles
milagros to repair the real one
they told me i was no longer allowed to give it away
a pretty pin cushion
a piece of mexican folk art
a hundred beating poems left unanswered
like a thing to wear around the neck
they said you must heal we will protect you
but i sat weeping at the computer forging ahead anyway
with the small stitched thing struggling in my chest
it knew that it had needed to be torn
so that it could recognize and receive the hundred kindnesses
traveling across three thousand miles at the speed of light
a storm of petals and beautiful words and tiny hearts to keep it
company — Francesca Lia Block

I think it's the idea that beauty could be power, and that with power comes immortality, and with power comes control, and all of these other things are blocking her heart. — Kristen Stewart

Remember ...
Keystrokes are hammer taps. Get words on paper. Don't worry about connections, character or plot. Work for an hour. Promise yourself an hour. Do nothing else but move your fingers. Make coarse shapes. Follow any emotion that pops up but never impose emotion, never fake it, and don't make up your mind or your heart ahead of time. Understand you don't know what you're doing. That's why you're here. Rough it out. Anything goes. You can decide later what any piece of text looks like, what it might mean. Don't stop. Don't question. Don't quit. Don't stop to read what you wrote. Move your fingers. You mind will have no other option but to keep up. Remember that writer's block is merely the cold marble waiting for the chisel to heat up. — Bob Thurber

Perhaps she moves too slowly now, or the world moves too fast for her. She enters the lift, a giant wheel turns and steel cables lower the mechanized box. The lift drops down a black shaft, which exists at the heart of each HDB block. The country may be described, not as a place covered with blocks of public housing, but a topography where black vertical shafts, some forty storeys tall, rise out of the ground like trees. — Justin Ker

The best cure for cranial constipation is emotional fiber. Feel 'something', anything.
Pain, anger, joy; if your heart goes eerily cold or leaps erratically from your chest, your synaptic bowels will soon find release. — Muse

I wrote poetry from the time I could write. That was the only way I could begin to express who I was but the poems didn't make sense to my teachers. They didn't rhyme. They were about the wind sounds, the planets' motions, never about who I was or how I felt. I didn't think I felt anything. I was this mind more than a body or a heart. My mind photographing the stars, hearing the wind. — Francesca Lia Block

I think that nothing is impossible when you want to fulfill a dream. A lot of people will tell you that you can't do it, that you don't have what it takes, but if it is in your heart and you feel it, there is nothing that will stop you. It is like the sun - you can't block it: it will shine regardless, if that is what you want. — Thalia

If the sore spot is not fatal, if it does not grow and block something, you can use its power for many years, until the heart resorbs it. — Annie Dillard

She looked at the empty page, which remained blank, apart from the small wet dots from her tears, for hours. Her mind was a turmoil of sadness, rage, fear and all those emotions that gave her inspiration. However her heart lacked the will as the empty words enclosed her soul pulling it down towards the frenzied ravenous imps that stalked hells pantry.... — Virginia Alison

Like Beauty. But she only pricked her finger. I had a spindle through my heart. — Francesca Lia Block

We were in the heart of the ghetto in Chicago during the Depression, and every block - it was probably the biggest black ghetto in America - every block also is the spawning ground practically for every gangster, black and white, in America too. — Quincy Jones

And the heart of it is this. Real conversions are marked by the fruit of the Spirit, not the gifts of the Spirit. Regeneration has a tell, and that tell is love. As John Owen noted, the gifts of the Spirit are not the saving grace of the Spirit.11 And the love we are talking about is not a momentary thing. Love is not a walk around the block, but rather a long-haul trucking trip. — Douglas Wilson

During that year Scarlett had been so busy, had experienced such changes in her life, that she'd been able to block out the pain he had caused her. Now it tore her heart, and with the pain was a deep fear of Rhett's unpredictable power. She transformed them into rage. Rage was strengthening. — Alexandra Ripley

Understanding is like water flowing in a stream. Wisdom and knowledge are solid and can block our understanding — Thich Nhat Hanh

You turned your head to look at me. Your eyes looked so big in your face, so mysterious - wide and flickering like a butterfly-wing mask. When you saw me the wails turned to sobs, and then just quieter heaves of your body. I held out my finger through the bars. Then you reached out and curled your fingers around mine, so tight. I knew you recognized me. That was the first time I knew I had a heart inside my body. — Francesca Lia Block

We have to recognize that we're nothing, the Pastor says. In the surface world, when they returned from the mine and showered and entered their homes, they were princes, kings, spoiled sons, well-fed fathers, Romeos. They believed their private worlds of home and family spun thanks to their labor, and that as workingmen and breadwinners they had every right to expect their world to revolve around their needs. Now the heart of the mountain has collapsed on top of them, and they are trapped by a block of stone, an object whose newness and perfection suggest, to some, a divine judgment. — Hector Tobar

By the 1970s, pornography had caught up with The Block, where performers were totally in the nude. I wasn't going to do that, and I certainly wasn't about to let my girls do it. After all, I'm religious, and if my mother knew I was performing in the nude, she would have had a heart attack. — Blaze Starr

In an effort to create safety and self-reliance in your life and relationships, you may have built walls around your heart and accumulated tension in your body. Although sometimes these walls of protection are useful, they can, over time, act like shells of fear that block your true love. These shells can keep in the love you want to offer fully and keep out the love that your heart yearns to receive. — David Deida

Driving down 93, I realized once and for all, that I love the things that chafe. The things that fill me with stress so total I can't remember when a block of it didn't rest on top of my heart. I love what, if broken, can't be repaired. What, if lost can't be replaced.
I love my burdens. — Dennis Lehane

You're meant to have whatever your heart desires. Whatever your heart wants that much is already a part of you. — Francesca Lia Block