His Words Quotes & Sayings

His blue eyes brightened with a smile. 'I did.' He looked over his shoulder, as if making sure her mom wasn't looking. The he pulled her against him and kissed her. A soft kiss.
'I got you something,' He whispered, his lips breathing words against hers.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a ring. A gold ring with a large diamond. A beautiful, teardrop-shaped diamond that looked like an engagement ring. Kylie's breath caught.
'It was my grandmother's ring. In her letter she wrote you should have it. And before you start panicking, let me say that I know maybe we're too young to call it an engagement, That's why I got you this too.' He pulled out a gold chain 'I want you to wear it around your neck. Call it a promise- A promise that when you do slip a ring on that finger ... ' He ran his hand down to her left hand. 'That it'll be my ring.'
Emotion rose in her chest 'You don't have to give me anything for me to give you that promise. — C.C. Hunter

He mostly told me stories at night-time, in the near darkness of the room, and I gradually burrowed into the world his words created. — Chigozie Obioma

People don't talk like this, theytalklikethis. Syllables, words, sentences run together like a watercolor left in the rain. To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response. If what we say is suitably apt and amusing, the listener will show his delight by emitting a series of uncontrolled high-pitched noises, accompanied by sharp intakes of breath of the sort normally associated with a seizure or heart failure. And by these means we converse. Talking, when you think about it, is a very strange business indeed. — Bill Bryson

I finished polishing the clock and picked up one of the figurines next to it. It was in the shape of an angel and on the angel's gown were printed the words: ALMIGHTY GOD, GIVE US SERENITY TO ACCEPT WHAT CANNOT BE CHANGED, COURAGE TO CHANGE WHAT SHOULD BE CHANGED, AND WISDOM TO KNOW THE ONE FROM THE OTHER. What if you couldn't do that? Couldn't change things and couldn't accept them, either? I took hold of the angel's head and snapped it off. And then I snapped one wing off, and then the other. I broke his arms off, too, and then I asked him how serene he was feeling now — Jennifer Donnelly

As he clutched her in his shaking hands and wept against her, he whispered into her ear, the words that made him believe. "Love bears all things. Endures all things," he said. "Ours has, hasn't it?" She nodded and held him tighter. "But can it endure this, Anais? This demon who holds me so mercilessly in its claws?"
She touched his face and kissed him. "My love can and will, Lindsay. I will be here when you open your eyes. I will give you whatever you need to make it more bearable. — Charlotte Featherstone

In one extreme case, WMATA planner William Herman complained that the system's main transfer station was badly named. He argued that '12th and G' was both confusing (several entrances would be on other streets) and too undistinguished for so important a station. Ever reasonable, Graham agreed to let Herman choose a better name. 'I'll let you know,' responded a relieved Herman. 'No,' Graham explained, 'I'll give you twenty seconds.' Stunned, Herman blurted out the first words that came into his head: 'Metro Center.' 'Fine, that's it, go on to the next one,' replied the general. And they did. — Zachary M. Schrag

Mr Witherington senior persuaded his son to enter the banking-house, and, as a dutiful son, he entered it every day; but he did nothing more, having made the fortunate discovery that "his father was born before him;" or, in other words, that his father had plenty of money, and would be necessitated to leave it behind him. — Frederick Marryat

My heart- dammit
my heart stopped in my chest as I stared at them. He had me by the throat because he had my whole world in his hands. I said one word I thought I'd never utter to the bastard.
"Please." I swallowed hard, but the words came out easier than I could've ever imagined. "Please don't hurt her."
"You'd beg for a human who wouldn't do the same for you?"
"I'd do anything for her."
"And I would do anything for him." Kat gasped out. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I stand here without rope or chains, Liv, tethered to you by my own will." His blood beat with the ferocity of his words. "I won't be free until you are. — Pam Godwin

When he was born, I looked at my little boy and felt an unconditional love I never knew was inside me. As he grew, and I watched him stagger about, squeak his first words, and turn into a beautiful little boy, that feeling did not change. — Tony Parsons

I think every writer should have tattooed backwards on his forehead, like ambulance on ambulances, the words 'everybody needs an editor. — Michael Crichton

So what are you saying?" he asked.
"That we'd be crazy if we don't try again. That you are good for me, Will Doniger. You've proven it again and again."
He hesitated before he turned to me, words hovering on his lips.
"Tell me," I said. "What are you thinking?"
"That I love you, Rose. I have for a while."
I stopped breathing. "Me too. I love you, too. — Donna Freitas

Westcliff sees an odd sort of logic in why you would finally be the one to win St. Vincent's heart. He says a girl like you would appeal to ... hmm, how did he put it? ... I can't remember the exact words, but it was something like ... you would appeal to St. Vincent's deepest, most secret fantasy."
Evie felt her cheeks flushing while a skirmish of pain and hope took place in the tired confines of her chest. She tried to respond sardonically. "I should think his fantasy is to consort with as many women as possible."
A grin crossed Lillian's lips. "Dear, that is not St. Vincent's fantasy, it's his reality. And you're probably the first sweet, decent girl he's ever had anything to do with."
"He spent quite a lot of time with you and Daisy in Hampshire," Evie countered.
That seemed to amuse Lillian further. "I'm not at all sweet, dear. And neither is my sister. Don't say you have been laboring under that misconception all this time? — Lisa Kleypas

He'd seen that absent look from her dozens of times in London. She thought herself invisible, and was not. Not to him. This was the second time he'd mentioned marriage to her. The second time she heard nothing but his words. — Carolyn Jewel

Dictionopolis is the place where all the words in the world come from. They're grown right here in our orchards."
"I didn't know that words grew on trees," said Milo timidly.
"Where did you think they grew?" shouted the earl irritably. A small crowd began to gather to see the little boy who didn't know that letters grew on trees.
"I didn't know they grew at all," admitted Milo even more timidly. Several people shook their heads sadly.
"Well, money doesn't grow on trees, does it?" demanded the count.
"I've heard not," said Milo.
"Then something must. Why not words?" exclaimed the undersecretary triumphantly. The crowd cheered his display of logic and continued about its business. — Norton Juster

What a relief, Nadya thought; in that light he would not be able to tell that she had been crying.
"You mean if it weren't for the blackout you wouldn't have come?" Dasha took up Shchagov's tone, flirting unconsciously, as she did with every unmarried man she met.
"By no means, never. In bright light women's faces are deprived of all their charm; it reveals their spiteful expressions, their envious glances, their premature wrinkles, their heavy cosmetics."
Nadya shuddered at the words "envious glances" - it was as if he had overheard their argument.
Shchagov went on:" If I were a woman, I would make it a law that lights be kept low. Then everyone would soon have a husband."
Dasha looked disapprovingly at Shchagov. He always talked that way, and she didn't like it. All his phrases seemed memorized, insincere. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If I do anything, I have to start over, but all I have is fragments of ideas. Just pieces. Like a germ of an idea for this, and a germ of an idea for that. Nothing whole or concrete" - Violet

" 'Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.' Pearl S. Buck. Maybe a germ is enough. Maybe it's all you need. We can start small. Open up a new document or pull out a black piece of paper. We'll make it our canvas. Remember what Michelangelo said about the sculpture being in the stone - it was there from the beginning, and his job was to bring it out. Your words are in there too" -Finch — Jennifer Niven

Not Eve, whose fault was only too much love, Which made her give this present to her dear, That what she tasted he likewise might prove, Whereby his knowledge might become more clear; He never sought her weakness to reprove With those sharp words which he of God did hear; Yet men will boast of knowledge, which he took From Eve's fair hand, as from a learned book. — Emilia Lanier

It is a sweet thing to have someone love you, but it is a far sweeter thing when his actions convince your heart, and his words persuade your soul. — Richelle E. Goodrich

So what? You act all mysterious to seem more interesting?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're always wandering off or running away," he said. "But you're a lot more
interesting when you're just being yourself you know. When you're actually here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emma said coldly. "Where else would I be?"

"You know what I mean," he said, a rough edge to his voice. "It's like you're so busy trying not to act like your family that you've never even stopped to consider that it might not be such a bad thing."

"Well what about you?" she shot back, aware of the bitterness in her words.
"You complain about your dad not wanting you around, and then you complain when he wants you to stay home for school. You can't have it both wars."

"Well neither can you," he said. " You can't keep everyone at arms length and then expect them to be there for you when you need them. — Jennifer E. Smith

That's pretty amazing, the countries thing," I said.
"Yeah, everybody's got a talent. I can memorize things. And you can...?"
"Urn, I know a lot of people's last words." It was an indulgence, learning last words. Other people had chocolate;
I had dying declarations.
"Example?"
"I like Henrik Ibsen's. He was a playwright." I knew a lot about Ibsen, but I'd never read any of his plays. I didn't
like reading
plays. I liked reading biographies.
"Yeah, I know who he was," said Chip.
"Right, well, he'd been sick for a while and his nurse said to him,
'You seem to be feeling better this morning/ and Ibsen looked at her and said, 'On the contrary,' and then he
died."
Chip laughed. "That's morbid. But I like it. — John Green

Some parents have difficulty expressing their love physically or vocally. I do not ever recall my own father using the words, "Son, I love you," but he showed it in a thousand ways which were more eloquent than words. He rarely missed a practice, a game, a race, or any activity in which his sons participated. — James E. Faust

Sam," she said.
"I'm trying!"
"Sam," she repeated.
"No," he spat, hearing her tone. "No!"
He began screaming for help then. Celaena pressed her face to one of the holes in the grate. Help wasn't going to come-not fast enough.
"Please," Sam begged as he beat and yanked on the grate, he tried to wedge another dagger under the lid. "Please don't."
She knew he wasn't speaking to her.
The water hit her neck.
"Please," Sam moaned, his fingers now touching hers. She'd have one last breath. Her last words.
"Take my body home to Terrasen, Sam," she whispered. And with a gasping breath, she went under. — Sarah J. Maas

Of course, all of their words for a thousand years could not fill the hole left by his mother, but they could raise a loving fence around it so he didn't keep falling in. — Jerry Spinelli

The deep baritone of his voice, and the words he uttered, held Haley spellbound. Was she beautiful? As she'd looked in the mirror at the glimmering teal gown, she'd felt ... different, more attractive. But would she go so far as to say she was beautiful? No one had ever told her she was - certainly not her grandparents - so how could she think that of herself? — Melody Anne

I missed you."
There was a pause. Then Tariq turned to her with a half-grinning, half-grimacing look of distaste. "What's the matter with you?"
How many times had she, Hasina, and Giti said those same three words to each other, Laila wondered, said it without hesitation, after only two or three days of not seeing each other? I missed you, Hasina. Oh, I missed you too. In Tariq's grimace, Laila learned that boys differed from girls in this regard. They didn't make a show of friendship. They felt no urge, no need, for this sort of talk. Laila imagined it had been this way for her brothers too. Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.
"I was trying to annoy you," she said.
He gave her a sidelong glance. "It worked."
But she thought his grimace softened. And she thought that maybe the sunburn on his cheeks deepened momentarily. — Khaled Hosseini

Open your eyes, Mac." "What do you mean?" "Words can be twisted into any shape. Promises can be made to lull the heart and seduce the soul. In the final analysis words mean nothing. They are labels we give things in an effort to wrap our puny little brains around their underlying natures, when ninety-nine percent of the time the totality of the reality is an entirely different beast. The wisest man is the silent one. Examine his actions. Judge him by them. He thinks you have the heart of a warrior. He believes in you. Believe in him. — Karen Marie Moning

By fall, they can read. It happened by osmosis, the way it ought to: after they have spent several months on Daddy's lap, following his spoken words with their eyes and pretending to read, their comes a day when they no longer have to pretend. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Thoreau's writings feel more alive to me than any thing that I've ever read. When I read anything by Thoreau, I see his subject. I feel it. I taste it. I smell it. I feel as though he's walking beside me, showing me with gestures and soft-spoken words the marvelous natural wonders that he's written about. — Nicholas Trandahl

Such words he utters, and sick with deep distress he feigns hope on his face, and keeps his anguish hidden deep in his breast. — Virgil

It would be good," thought Prince Andrei, glancing at the little image that his sister had hung around his neck with such reverence and emotion, "It would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to Princess Marya . How good it would be to know where to seek help in this life, and what to expect after it, beyond the grave! How happy and at peace I should be if I could now say:" Lord have mercy on me! ... But to whom should I say this? To some power
indefinable and incomprehensible, to which I not only cannot appeal, but which I cannot express in words
The Great All or Nothing," he said to himself, "or to that God who has been sewn into this amulet by Marya? There is nothing certain, nothing except the nothingness of everything that is comprehensible to me, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all important! — Leo Tolstoy

But whence came this curious difference between them? He found that he could point to no single feature wherein the difference resided, yet it was impossible to ignore. One could try - Ransom has tried a hundred times - to put it into words. He has said that Malacandra was like rhythm and Perelandra like melody. He has said that Malacandra affected him like a quantitative, Perelandra like an accentual, metre. He thinks that the first held in his hand something like a spear, but the hands of the other were open, with the palms towards him. But I don't know that any of these attempts has helped me much. At all events what Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender. — C.S. Lewis

In other words, Cantor is able to show that real numbers themselves can serve as the limits of fundamental sequences of reals, meaning his system of definitions is self-enclosed and VIR-proof. — David Foster Wallace

Tell me what to do. Tell me what I need to do to get you back... I stood there, gaping at him for a moment. Once upon a time I'd dreamt of those words coming from his mouth. Once upon a time I craved them. I felt that I needed them, but that time passed. — Claire Contreras

Luther was an extraordinary man of prayer himself. Veit Dietrich, one of Luther's friends, wrote: "There is not a day on which he does not devote at least three hours, the very ones most suitable for [work], to prayer. Once I was fortunate to overhear his prayer. Good God, what faith in his words! He speaks with the great reverence of one who speaks to his God, and with the trust and hope of one who speaks with his father and friend."163 Peter — Timothy Keller

It's okay,' he says, eyes closed. He's not even awake. 'It's okay.'
He says these words even in his sleep, like he has said them so often that it's his mouth's default sentiment. All this pain in his life, all this care he doles out to everyone else. And yet he still cracks his broken heart open even wider - wide enough to fit me, too. I wonder how much this must hurt him, the toll it just take to give more of himself to me when he already has so little left to give.
In slumber, his arm stays wrapped around me, encasing me for safekeeping. He would protect me even in his unconscious state, as we lie beneath my ceiling's half-painted sky.
This thought is enough to swell my heart - to swell, and to break. — Emery Lord

A Japanese woman friend whose infant son died seven days into his life - no detectable reason - just the small breathing becoming nothing until it disappeared, told me that in Japan, there is a two-term word - "mizugo" - which translates loosely to "water children." Children who did not live long enough to enter the world as we live in it. In Japan, there are rituals for mothers and families, practices and prayers for the water children. There are shrines where a person can visit and deliver words and love and offerings to the water children. — Lidia Yuknavitch

His last words heard on earth came after he'd let off a louder noise from his easiest channel of communication: 'Oh my! I think I've shit myself.' For all I know, he did. He certainly shat on everything else. — Seneca.

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth ... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net. — E.B. White

He began to read at haphazard. He entered upon each system with a little thrill of excitement, expecting to find in each some guide by which he could rule his conduct; he felt himself like a traveller in unknown countries and as he pushed forward the enterprise fascinated him; he read emotionally, as other men read pure literature, and his heart leaped as he discovered in noble words what himself had obscurely felt. — W. Somerset Maugham

The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing. — Doris Humphrey

The high ground of Christ & Him crucified must be claimed in our preaching. Any other footing is a slippery slope that inevitably descends downward into vain rhetoric and mere words. To the contrary, every pulpit must present a towering vision of the unique person and saving work of Jesus Christ. All preaching must point to His sin-bearing, substitutionary death for sinners. All exposition must lift up this Sacrificial Lamb who became a sin-bearing Substitute for all who believe. Every message must exalt this Christ, who was raised from the dead, exalted to the right hand of God the Father, and entrusted with all authority in heaven and earth. — Steven J. Lawson

He did not say so, but the words behind the words told me that he would rather have launched me into a good marriage than watch me row against the tide at my own work. It remains that a woman with an incomplete emotional life has herself to blame, while a man with no time for his heart just needs a wife. — Jeanette Winterson

Don't tell me you've been harboring secret fantasies about the farm laborers.'
'Of course not,' she said, 'although ... '
There was no way he was going to let those words trail off into oblivion. 'Although?' he prompted.
She looked a bit sheepish. 'Well, they do look terribly ... *elemental* ... out there in the sun, toiling away.'
He smiled. Slowly, like a man about to feast upon his dream come true. — Julia Quinn

He slouched back in his seat, looking tired, and leaned his face on his shoulder to look at me while he played with my hair. He started to hum a song, and then, after a few bars, he sang it. Quietly, sort of half-sung, half-spoken, incredibly gentle. I didn't catch all the words, but it was about his summer girl. Me. Maybe his forever girl. His yellow eyes were half-lidded as he sang, and in that golden moment, hanging taut in the middle of an icecovered landscape like a single bubble of summer nectar, I could see how my life could be stretched out in front of me. — Maggie Stiefvater

When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, He does so to bring us to repentance and, ultimately, to bring us to reconciliation with God, to forgiveness, to healing, and to cleansing. In other words, when the Spirit of God convicts us of sin, His entire purpose and entire motive is redemptive. When Satan accuses us, perhaps of the same sin, his purpose is to destroy us. That's why Paul says: "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. — R.C. Sproul

Mma Makutsi was unconvinced. "Where there is smoke there's fire, Mma. I have always said that." Mma Ramotswe could not let that pass. "But what does Clovis Andersen say in The Principles of Private Detection, Mma? Does he not say that you must be very careful to decide where the smoke is coming from? Smoke can drift, Mma. Those were his exact words, I think. — Alexander McCall Smith

Later that day, Kestrel sat with Arin in the music room. She played her tiles: a pair of wolves and three mice.
Arin turned his over with a resigned sigh. He didn't have a bad set, but it wasn't good enough, and beneath his usual level of skill. He stiffened in his chair as if physically bracing himself for her question.
Kestrel studied his tiles. She was certain he could have done better than a pair of wasps. She thought of the tiles he had shown earlier in the game, and the careless way in which he had discarded others. If she didn't know how little he liked to lose against her, she would have suspected him of throwing the game.
She said, "You seem distracted."
"Is that your question? Are you asking me why I am distracted?"
"So you admit that you are distracted."
"You are a fiend," he said, echoing Ronan's words during the match at Faris's garden party. Then, apparently annoyed at his own words, he said, "Ask your question. — Marie Rutkoski

How could I have ever loved Peg? I love you." And too late, he realized that the words he had just spoken were the truth.

He closed his eyes, holding her even more tightly, allowing himself to finally realize and identify his feelings. He was stunned by their enormity, their intensity, their power.

~Sean O'Neill — Brenda Joyce

Whose heart doth hold the Christmas glow Hath little need of Mistletoe; Who bears a smiling grace of mien Need waste no time on wreaths of green; Whose lips have words of comfort spread Needs not the holly-berries red - His very presence scatters wide The spirit of the Christmastide. — John Kendrick Bangs

I'm right here," he said. "Dad's right here. I'm going nowhere. Just gonna wait until you're ready to come out into the world, and then your mom and I are going to take care of you. So you hang tight, we
clear? Do your thing, and we'll wait for however long it takes."
With his free hand, he took Layla's palm, and put it over his own.
"Your family is right here. Waiting for you ... and we love you."
It was totally stupid to talk to what was, no doubt, nothing but a bundle of cells. But he couldn't help
it. The words, the actions ... they were at once totally his, and yet coming from a place that was foreign to him.
Felt right, though.
Felt ... like what a father was supposed to do. — J.R. Ward

When they're gone out of his head, these words, they'll be gone, everywhere, forever. As if they had never been. — Margaret Atwood

Why? But I want to know just why it's impossible for an American to be gracefully idle" - his words gathered conviction - "it astonishes me. It - it - I don't understand why people think that every young man ought to go down-town and work ten hours a day for the best twenty years of his life at dull, unimaginative work, certainly not altruistic work. — F Scott Fitzgerald

The precise form of an individual's activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which he came into the world. In other words, it is determined by his heredity. — Henry Louis Gates

A veteran reporter knows there is a disconnect between how an event in a region is experienced and the way it is perceived in distant capitals. He sends dispatches about violent insurrections, riots and clashes, and feels his words loom large in his mind, then become small, minuscule, in the sending,until eventually he discovers that none of his reporting produces more than a twinge or yawn in the wider world. — Kyo Maclear

The person of the therapist is the converting catalyst, not his order or credo, not his spatial location in the room, not his exquisitely chosen words or denominational silences. So long as the rules of a therapeutic system do not hinder limbic transmission - a critical caveat - they remain inconsequential, neocortical distractions. The dispensable trappings of dogma may determine what a therapist thinks he is doing, what he talks about when he talks about therapy, but the agent of change is who he is. (187) — Thomas Lewis

After they had gone another mile, Pinocchio heard the same little low voice saying to him:
'Bear it in mind, simpleton! Boys who refuse to study, and turn their backs upon books, schools, and masters, to pass their time in play and amusements, sooner or later come to a bad end ... I know it by experience ... and I can tell you. A day will come when you will weep as I am weeping now ... but then it will be too late! ... '
On hearing these words whispered very softly, the puppet, more frightened than ever, sprang down from the back of his donkey and went and took hold of his mouth.
Imagine his surprise when he found that the donkey was crying ... and he was crying like a boy! — Carlo Collodi

You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world. My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a ques-tion he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low towards him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insati-able." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admit-tance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and to let his failing senses catch the words roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it. — Franz Kafka

One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one. — Henry David Thoreau

I couldn't catch my breath. I buried my face in his shirt. He was my reason for existing. It was his words that pulled me to the surface. His breath that saved me. And now, his arms that held me within this life, unable to give up. He was my strength, and the love I didn't have for myself. And I couldn't live without him more than he could let me go. — Rebecca Donovan

He had some taste for romance reading before he went to the university, where, we must confess, in justice to his college, he was cured of the love of reading in all its shapes; and the cure would have been radical, if disappointment in love, and total solitude, had not conspired to bring on a relapse. — Thomas Love Peacock

His eyes were still closed and his body rocked gently to the music, but his face was almost ... desolate. His words matched his face, as he sang about how each day was a struggle, and never seeing my face caused him physical pain. He sang that "my face was his light, and he felt drenched in darkness without it." Tears fell freely after I heard that line. — S.C. Stephens

The potential for loss of soul
to one degree or another
is the affliction of a society that as a collective has lost its sense of the holy, of a culture that values everything else above the spiritual. We live in such a spiritually impoverished culture
and in such a time. Loss of soul, to one degree or another, is a constant teasing possibility. We are invited at every corner to hedge on the truth, indulge outselves, act as if our words and actions have no ultimate consequence, make an absolute of the material world, and treat the spiritual world as if it were some kind of frothy, angelic fantasy. In such a world the soul struggles for survival; in such a world a man can lose his own soul and have the whole culture support him, and in such a world, conversely, the light of a single, great soul that lives in integrity can truly illumine the world. — Daphne Rose Kingma

Biggie was a lyrical genius: he was a musical painter with words. As he rapped, you would see the picture come to life as you heard his story. You hear a lot of rappers rap; you hear a lot of singers sing, but you don't see the movie in your head the way you do when you hear Biggie rap. — R. Kelly

He stroked her pale cheek with his thumb, willing her to open those dark gypsy eyes he loved so much. He needed her impish gaze, her light laughter and intoxicating touch. He needed everything about her. She'd made him feel more alive than when he was human. Needing her kiss as much as he needed blood to survive, he pressed his lips to hers. "I beg of you, wake. Please, my precious Angel," he prayed as he held her in his arms. "Wake so I can tell you how sorry I am, and how much I love you. God, I love you." He couldn't say the words enough. "I love you. I love you." He repeated the litany over and over again until exhaustion overcame him and he fell asleep, still clinging to her with a vow never to let her go again. — Brooklyn Ann

I believe the Lord has chosen me to spread His word through my words and who am I to question His plans for me? — Cindy Bauer

At some level it's still hard for me to admit that my father died. I can talk about it and around it, but those two words. 'He died.' What can that possibly mean? That I won't get to hear his voice again? — Jennifer Grant

We can't stop staring at each other. Saying nothing, nothing to say. I trace the curve of his jaw and throat, the sweet spot below his ear, with only my eyes, because he's too faraway to touch. We stare and we stare and I can't stop myself from smiling, because he's smiling, too. We don't have to speak to have this conversation; in fact, the only way to have it is by not using words. — Megan Hart

They went to the tree. Daemon dismounted and leaned against the tree, staring in the direction of the house. The stallion jiggled the bit, reminding him he wasn't alone. "I wanted to say good-bye," Daemon said quietly. For the first time, he truly saw the intelligence - and loneliness - in the horse's eyes. After that, he couldn't keep his voice from breaking as he tried to explain why Jaenelle was never going to come to the tree again, why there would be no more rides, no more caresses, no more talks. For a moment, something rippled in his mind. He had the odd sensation he was the one being talked to, explained to, and his words, echoing back, lacerated his heart. To be alone again. To never again see those arms held out in welcome. To never hear that voice say his name. To ... Daemon gasped as Dark Dancer jerked the reins free and raced down the path toward the field. Tears of grief pricked Daemon's eyes. The horse might have a simpler mind, but the heart was just as big. — Anne Bishop

He rubbed his thumb over the smoothness of her cheek, thinking she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known. "You don't think you're worth killing for?"
Her laugh was brittle. "Hardly."
For a moment, there was only the sound of their breathing and the wind gusting through the trees. And then he said, "I disagree."
She stared up at him, trembling, her eyes filled with the questions she couldn't put into words.
"I mean it," he rasped. "I would kill for you. Easily. Without remorse. Again and again. — Rhyannon Byrd

But it wasn't mine anymore. It was his. I was his. Something in that flirted with the submissive I knew that lurked inside. How long had I waited and searched for the right man? One who could dominate me with more than just words? A sadist that liked the extreme side of life? That's what I needed, and one with a darkness to match my own. — Alaska Angelini

It is over, isn't it?" Trustingly, he seemed to be waiting for her to tell him, as if she would know. As if hearing himself say it meant nothing; he had a dubious attitude toward his own words; they didn't become real, not until she agreed.

"It's over," she said. — Philip K. Dick

If Pelagius had solved the problem of sin and human responsibility by arguing that humans are perfectly capable of doing whatever they want, Augustine solved it by saying that humans deliberately act against the good ideals that they don't know and are selfish, greedy, lustful, stubborn, and proud. In his words, people are non posse non peccare, "not able not to sin," because even the good things that we do are not out of love for God but for some lesser purpose. — Justin S. Holcomb

Because misogynists are the best of men." All the poets reacted to these words with hooting. Boccaccio was forced to raise his voice: "Please understand me. Misogynists don't despise women. Misogynists don't like femininity. Men have always been divided into two categories. Worshipers of women, otherwise known as poets, and misogynists, or, more accurately, gynophobes. Worshipers or poets revere traditional feminine values such as feelings, the home, motherhood, fertility, sacred flashes of hysteria, and the divine voice of nature within us, while in misogynists or gynophobes these values inspire a touch of terror. Worshipers revere women's femininity, while misogynists always prefer women to femininity. Don't forget: a woman can be happy only with a misogynist. No woman has ever been happy with any of you! — Milan Kundera

Thick black smoke disappears into the darkness of night, blotting out patches of stars. Somewhere up there, higher than his world and mine, is the place where all things go when they have stopped breathing. It is a place my brother visited. Up where it's quiet and calm, and prayers are able to drift up higher than words or wishes or wants. — Lauren DeStefano

One of the marks of a great poet is that he creates his own family of words and teaches them to live together in harmony and to help one another. — Gerald Brenan

Gathering her courage, she swallowed past the lump in her throat and held his gaze. It wasn't how she'd envisioned telling him, but she couldn't let him go without saying the words. "I'm falling in love with you."
The smile died, his amused expression dissolving into shock. "What?"
"Yeah. So you have to come back so I can finish the job."
A jumble of emotions swirled in the blue depths of his eyes as he stared at her. Then he broke into a wide smile and brought a hand up to cradle her cheek. "I'm coming back, sweetheart. I wouldn't miss that chance for the world. — Kaylea Cross

He unpacks his bag of tales
with fingers quick
as a weaver's
picking the weft threads
threading the warp.
Watch his fingers.
Watch his lips
speaking the old familiar words:

"Once there was
and there was not,
oh, best beloved,
when the world was filled with wishes
the way the sea is filled with fishes..."

All those threads
pulling us back
to another world, another time,
when goosegirls married well
and frogs could rhyme,
when maids spoke syllables of pearl
and stepmothers came to grief.

.... (from The Storyteller poem) — Jane Yolen

The true musician is attuned to a fairer harmony than that of the lyre ... for he truly has in his own life a harmony of words and deeds arranged in the Dorian mode. Such a one makes me joyous with the sound of his voice, so eager am I in drinking in his words. — Plato

A writer can never escape the labyrinth of words inside his mind. — K.D. Green

He never understood why she chose him. She loved abstract things like music and books and strange words. Ove was a man filled entirely with tangible things. He liked screwdrivers and oil filters. He went through life with his hands firmly shoved in his pockets. She danced. — Fredrik Backman

The right constraints can lead to your very best work. My favorite example? Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat with only 236 different words, so his editor bet him he couldn't write a book with only 50 different words. Dr. Seuss came back and won the bet with Green Eggs and Ham, one of the bestselling children's books of all time. — Austin Kleon

For four years at Yale, he'd sat at the center of his circle with free rein to utter whatever was on his mind. He was well known for calling people out on their "bullshit." But he'd been able to exercise that tendency with the concrete awareness that his words had no consequences, not real ones. Maybe someone's feelings would get hurt; maybe there'd be an argument. Even so, nobody at Yale would ever come at him, no one carried lethal weapons, no one constructed the particular walls around his pride that, if penetrated, might impel him to want to inflict severe physical harm. The situation was different in Newark - more so now than ever, since the gang explosion had begun. — Jeff Hobbs

I love you," she whispered, gazing up into his pale gray eyes.
He smiled crookedly, for a moment looking at her with a dazzled air. He had, she realized sadly, no experience hearing those words. He didn't know how to react. "I figured as much."
This time, she didn't hit him. — Connie Brockway

Tertullian thunders at women in the manner of the God of the Old Testament who once threatened to make their hair fall out. But his tone and his words are altogether more menacing. Not only are women held responsible fot the Fall of Man, but it is they, not the Jews, not the Roman authorities--who are blamed for the suffering and death of Jesus, man's Redeemer. It is through their flesh that the devil comes into the world. — Jack Holland

And language for Tolkien was also the soil from which his literary garden grew, as he explains in a 1966 interview, referring again to "cellar door": "Supposing you say some quite ordinary words to me - 'cellar door,' say. From that, I might think of a name, 'Selador,' and from that a character, a situation begins to grow. — Philip Zaleski

I got through so much ink in the learning that the inkseller took to knocking at least once a week on the garden door. He had a gray solemn face that looked as if it was chiseled out of stone; he was stooped down like the letter C, as if he were Atlas carrying the weight of the world in his wooden barrel of ink. Maybe he did. I have learned that there is great power in words, no matter how long or short they be. — Sally Gardner

Hey, Blue Bird." His voice was lower, his words raspier than before. "Sorry it took me so long to make it back. — Nicole Williams

In the twenties the religious education of
children was classified as a political crime under Article 58-10 of the Code - in other words, counterrevolutionary propaganda! True, one was still permitted to renounce one's religion at one's trial: it didn't often happen but it nonetheless did happen that the father would renounce his religion and remain at home to raise the children while the mother went to the Solovetsky Islands. (Throughout all those years women manifested great firmness in their faith.) All persons convicted of religious activity received tenners, the longest term then given. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

How does that put me in danger?" Nick asks. It's the first question he's asked the entire time. Devyn, however, has been Mr. Nonstop Wondering Question Guy.
"Because . . ." I don't know how to say it, struggle for the words. "Because you and I are a thing and you're a threat."
"You better believe I'm a threat," Nick growls. The entire car seems to shake with his energy. Little hairs on my arm lift and vibrate.
"He's going macho again," Dev says, totally nonchalantly, while he unlocks the door.
"He's always going macho," Is adds. "It must be the wolf thing."
"I am not going macho. I am always macho," Nick says, and for a moment the tension ratchets down, but then his face muscles become rigid again. — Carrie Jones

Sky, wait. The way his voice wraps around my name makes me wish the only word in his entire vocabulary way Sky. — Colleen Hoover

Permit me to bypass the entire nature vs. nurture "is gender really built-in?" debate with one simple observation: Men and women are made in the image of God as men or as women. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27). Now, we know God doesn't have a body, so the uniqueness can't be physical. Gender simply must be at the level of the soul, in the deep and everlasting places within us. God doesn't make generic people; he makes something very distinct - a man or a woman. In other words, there is a masculine heart and a feminine heart, which in their own ways reflect or portray to the world God's heart. — John Eldredge

A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglass has footnotes explaining what words like 'arraigned,' 'curried' and 'exculpate' meant, and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today's expensively under-educated generation. — Thomas Sowell

We'll now hear a few words from Augustus's special friend, Hazel." Special friend? There were some titters in the audience, so I figured it was safe for me to start out by saying to the minister, "I was his girlfriend." That got a laugh. — John Green

Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade man annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be and not be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a foolish commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the words of another man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in the secret heart. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The important thing is not what we write but how we write, and in my opinion the modern writer must be an adventurer above all, willing to take every risk, and be prepared to founder in his effort if need be. In other words we must write dangerously — James Joyce

A local white bootlegger, idling under the store awning, accosted Major Stem. "Why'd you call that damned nigger woman 'Mrs. Shaw'?" he demanded. In those days, white Southerners did not use courtesy titles for their black neighbors. While it was permissible to call a favored black man "Uncle" or "Professor" - a mixture of affection and mockery - he must never hear the words "mister" or "sir." Black women were "girls" until they were old enough to be called "auntie," but they could never hear a white person, regardless of age, address them as "Mrs." or "Miss" or "Ma'am." But Major Stem made his own rules. — Timothy B. Tyson

You want money; I know that much. But what of power, Nell?" The word sent a frisson down her spine. Power: what he was exercising right now, holding her riveted with only his words and the light press of his wicked fingers. What a terrible power, too - what a terrible context in which to discover such a power existed. Better for her sake if he'd exercised the clumsier forms: raw strength, muscle, a shout. Brute force she knew well enough. — Meredith Duran

Instead of Passover pointing backward to the great sacrifice by which God had rescued his people from slavery in Egypt, this meal pointed forward to the great sacrifice by which God was to rescue his people from their ultimate slavery, from death itself and all that contributed to it (evil, corruption, and sin). This would be the real Exodus, the real "return from exile." This would be the establishment of the "new covenant" spoken of by Jeremiah (31:31). This would be the means by which "sins would be forgiven" - in other words, the means by which God would deal with the sin that had caused Israel's exile and shame and, beyond that, the sin because of which the whole world was under the power of death. — N. T. Wright