Holding The Light Quotes & Sayings

Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth. — Francesca Lia Block

I'm sorry I started all this by trying to fly and I'd take it back if I could but I can't, so please think of it from my point of view: if you die I will have a dead brother and it will be me instead of you who suffers.
Justin thought of his brother on that warm summer day, standing up on the windowsill holding both their futures, light and changeable as air, in his outstretched arms.
Of course, Justin thought, I'm part of his fate just as he's part of mine. I hadn't considered it from his point of view. Or from the point of view of the universe, either. It's just a playing field crammed full of cause and effect, billions of dominoes, each knocking over billions more, setting off trillions of actions every second. A butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and my brother in Luton thinks he can fly.
The child nodded. A piano might fall on your head, he said, but it also might not. And in the meantime you never know. Something nice might happen. — Meg Rosoff

The world is full of lots of people play acting and hurling stuff about, unconscious of the effects. And there are large group karmic things going on through history that none of us should ever take personally. Rushing about trying to rectify the sins of the past is not productive. The best you can do is to be present as the new you in the now, holding your light as a steady candle to add to the beam of calm and love now spreading to help wake more and more people up. Hopefully we will evolve as a species to eventually cease the unnecessary conflict between different groups of ourselves. — Jay Woodman

Maybe love's more than the daily comforts: more than morning coffees and flowers and notes in my lunch bag and holding hands while watching the stars. It's about never giving up, believing in each other, and supporting each other through the good and the bad. — Shannon Mullen

JAMIE'S SONG 'ZERO GRAVITY':

Sometimes I feel like I'm losing my mind.
I can't fight, I can't hide, and I can't tell the time.
I walk and I talk and I scream and I cry,
I pull at my hair and I crawl up to die.

When you're not around,
It feels like there's nothing holding me to the ground.
Suspended in no air with no light and no sound.
Floating and drifting, up and around.
I can't move, I can't breathe, I can't hear, I can't see.
Stuck on a planet with zero gravity. — Neha Yazmin

The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time?
Matter, that thing the most solid and the well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world? — Jeanette Winterson

Your soul rages. You cannot control your spirits within your body, so you need this to force others to your will." The king stepped boldly toward Meklos, holding the dragonstaff in front of him, the Eye shining even in the dim light of the temple chamber. "You need this
this crutch to compel the great spirits, and they rebel against you, Meklos! They are fighting you and calling the gods' displeasure against you. Your life is diminished by the length of this rod! — Tracy Hickman

The cloud controls the light ... It is the cloud that, holding the sun's rays in a sheaf as a giant holds a handful of spears, strikes the horizon, touches the extreme edge with a delicate revelation of light, or suddenly puts it out and makes the foreground shine. — Alice Meynell

At these times, the adversary appears holding two boards.
Written on one board: "Think more of yourself. Keep your blessings to yourself, otherwise you will lose everything."
The other board reads: "who are you to help others? Can't you even see your own defects?"
A warrior of the light knows he has defects. But he also knows he cannot grow alone, and distance himself from his companions.
So he throws both boards to the ground, even though he believes they contain some truth deep down. They turn to dust, and the warrior continues to help those near him. — Paulo Coelho

What'll it be?"
"I'll have a beer. Bottled. Not light."
"Careful there, Ty," Jenna said as she popped the top off and slid the bottle to him. "Don't want to put on too much weight, or you'll have trouble holding your stick."
He grabbed the bottle and held it to his lips. "Never had any complaints about my abilities with my stick so far."
Jenna arched a brow. "And you're here alone? With that charm? Shocking. — Jaci Burton

The muscles in his arms and back trembled as he pushed in as deep as he could go, until all of him was buried inside her. His head sagged and a deep, primitive snarl ripped free. Sparks of light exploded behind her tightly closed lids. His hands burrowed into her hair, holding her head still while he kissed her hard and deep and wild. Then he began to move. Hard, steady strokes that ignited every nerve ending in her body. — Kaylea Cross

I will not share you." Still holding his gaze, she drove her body down onto his. Tiny threads of lightning danced over his skin in a shocking web of blue-white light. He gave a choked cry. His spine arched. His buttocks clenched tight. The tendons in his neck stood out like cords of steel. His hips surged again, powerfully, rising up to meet her downward slide. She felt the shock of it to her bones.
"I will not share," she cried out fiercely, one final time as both of them shattered. — C.L. Wilson

To pray is to walk in the full light of God, and to say simply, without holding back, 'I am human and you are God. — Philip Yancey

You are my flower and I am your stem holding you to the light. — Poppet

Even the smallest amount of light can push back the shadows. — Shannon L. Alder

A team from Sydney, Australia, has lowered levels of these proteins using light. They implanted human genes associated with Alzheimer's into mouse DNA, so that the animals developed abnormal tau proteins and amyloid plaques. Then they treated them for a month with low-level light therapy, simply by holding the light one to two centimeters above the animals' heads. Using the same spectrum of near-infrared light that has helped in traumatic brain injury, Parkinson's disease, and retinal damage, they lowered both the pathological tau proteins and the amyloid plaques by 70 percent in key brain areas that Alzheimer's affects. Thereafter signs of "rusting" decreased, and the mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cells, improved their function. — Norman Doidge

Who says you cannot hold the moon in your hand?
Tonight when the stars come out and the moon rises in the velvet sky, look outside your window, then raise your hand and position your fingers around the disk of light.
There you go . . . That was easy! — Vera Nazarian

Three heavy blows boxed him low in the back. He saw a splash of red hit the door and had time to think, 'We should have remembered the body armor.' Then he crumpled, still holding onto the knob with one hand as the world rushed away from him. Everything he was and everything he'd ever known diminished to a single burning-bright point of light. Then it went out. His hand slipped off the knob. He died on his knees, leaning against the door. — Stephen King

Emerson, you just shared your deepest secret with me. I value that. Don't make light of it.
If he wasn't already holding my heart in the palm of his hand, I would have taken it out and given it to him. — Myra McEntire

I had this vision of the two of us holding hands or getting into some light petting behind shower curtains or up in the fencing aisle or some shit. — Susan Juby

Trees Trees, proud standing people stretching fingertips to the sky, reaching, praying glorious attention, breathing light. strength shelter timeless confidence bending and firm comforting rooted chorus line dancing with the moon, the wind, the clouds framing bursts of stars tender rugged celebration absorbing and releasing life each holy branch holding the power of the Universe. There. — Wallace Stevens

Who are you? What do you want? Who are you? Her voice was light and fast and intense and her mouth trembled. She seemed to be on the narrow edge of emotional disaster, holding herself in check with the greatest effort. And about her was a rich and heavy scent of brandy, and an unsteadiness, the eyes too swift and not exactly in focus. — John D. MacDonald

Her resolutions against Jim Meserve were just like the lightning-bugs holding a convention. They met at night and made scorning speeches against the sun and swore to do away with it and light up the world themselves. But the sun came up next morning and they all went under the leaves and owned up that the sun was boss-man in the world. — Zora Neale Hurston

If I lived anywhere else for the sheer love of it, it would only be farther and farther north, chasing the boreal up to the Yukon or the Northwest Territories. There's something about living beside a great stretch of forest, both as participant and as witness, that is endlessly absorbing, at once enchanting and distressing. The former because there are vistas and qualities of light in the spaces of the everyday that are otherworldly, requiring an absolute halting of all activity and an undivided attention to just that light at that time. The latter because there is an incredible amount to learn to feel as though you have some small right to be here, holding fast on the patch of ground you stand on. — Jenna Butler

I believe that whenever you do something right it gives you a little bit of weight so that you come to feel rooted to this earth more solid, secure. Now what scares me is, well sometimes out of nowhere a bad wind blows up. It could be cancer, could be drink, could be some woman who don't belong to you. And despite the weight holding you to the ground, when that wind comes, it picks you up light as a leaf and takes you where it wants. Were in control until were not. Then were helpless. — Truman Capote

So what I realized when I was a child was that if I were traveling as fast as light while holding a mirror before me, I would not see my image in the mirror, because as fast as the image of my face in light moved toward the mirror, why, just as fast would the mirror be moving away ... It is a rather frightening idea, in fact, that if I moved at the speed of light, I could get no confirmation of my existence from an objective source of reflected light such as a mirror. I would be like a ghost in the universe, materially unverifiable in the stream of time. — E.L. Doctorow

I have discovered something amazing: some people aren't just people, but a place - a whole world. Sometimes you find someone you could live in for the rest of your life. John Kite is like Narnia to me - I've pushed through his fur coat and into a land where I am Princess Duchess, High Chatter of Cair Paravel. In John Kite, people walk down the street holding pigs, and we walk onstage holding hands into the bright light, and I fly over tiny maps to great theories, and I sleep in the bathtub, still talking. I wish to be a citizen of John Kite forever - I want to move there immediately. I know he is the most amazing person in the world. Things happen with John Kite. — Caitlin Moran

Name the fears that are holding you back. It's the equivalent of flooding the boogeyman with light. — Gina Greenlee

But there are times in life when a door opens and you are offered a glimpse of the light on the water, and you know that if you don't take it, that door slams shut, and maybe forever. Maybe you fool yourself into thinking that you had a choice at all; maybe you were always going to say yes. Maybe refusing was no more a choice than is holding your breath. You were always going to breathe. You were always going to say yes. — Graham Joyce

I need a hero. I'm holding out for a hero, in fact, until the morning light. And she's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon - because I have been kidnapped by evil faeries - and she's gotta be larger than life — Cassandra Clare

I kiss her again just to keep my mouth from admitting that it was. The beginning of the end. The very start of the saddest goodbye in history. Because after tonight, she'll walk away from me and go back to him, holding a piece of me in the palm of her hand. And whenever I look up at the sky at night, wondering where she is, if she's happy, if Evan laughs at her corny jokes or smiles whenever she does, that empty space left behind within me will ache with remembrance. Because her light once filled it. She filled me in a way that nobody on this Earth could. And I'll never feel whole again. — S.L. Jennings

He had his one life. In June 1942 he went to Lazarevo holding it in his hands. By the shores of the Kama, he found her gorgeous and restored, and not just restored to her original shining brilliance but enlarged and clarified. Light reflected off her, no matter which way she turned. They ran down to the almighty river. She never even looked back. She would never know what it meant to him, an unremitting sinner, after all the unsacred things he had seen and done, to have her innocence. He held her to him. He had dreamed of it too long, touching her. Dreamed of seeing her naked too long, beautiful, bare, ready for him. He was afraid to hurt her. He had never been with an untouched girl before; he wasn't sure if he was supposed to do something first. In the end, he did nothing first, but she baptized him with her body. There was no Alexander anymore; the man he knew had died and was reborn inside a perfect heart, given to him straight from God, to him and for him. — Paullina Simons

Technically, on the spectrum of very bad things, they did nothing truly wicked. But of course, that spectrum has no measure for the greatest of all carnal sins, the kind that occurs before skin touches skin, before wondering turns to yearning, yearning to having, having to holding for dear life, when two people cling to each other so desperately that even when they lie, inches apart, neither is fully satisfied until the light between them turns to darkness. — Galt Niederhoffer

The streetlights had already lit up on Bronnaya, and a golden moon hung over the Patriarchs. In the ever deceiving lunar light, it appeared to Ivan Nikolayevich that, instead of a cane, the professor stood holding a sword under his arm. — Mikhail Bulgakov

The bioelectricity of her brain has ceased to function, and as I lay here, the cells are beginning to degenerate and every thought and memory she had is irretrievably fading into nothing. We were like phone towers in concert, reciprocating, each useless without the other, and now I feel like a massive star extending its light, heat, and gravitational pull into a radiant and beautiful universe only to discover that it is singularly without planets, only holding down a vestigial field of cold, dark rocks. — Bryan Way

The light is off, and it is dark. He has one hand pressed against the cold tiles of the wall above the toilet, and with his other hand he is taking aim, such as it is. He's waiting for his prostate to get out of the way so he can take a well-deserved leak and get back to bed where he belongs, so that if by chance his heart stops this very second, he won't be found - holding his pecker, dead on the floor - by a bunch of twenty-year-old medics who will gawk at his circumcision and bad luck. — Derek B. Miller

That was it. Shogo stopped breathing. The dim yellow light falling from the ceiling of the pilothouse shone on his pale face. He seemed at ease.
"Shogo!" Shuya yelled. He still had more to say. "You'll see Keiko! You'll be happy with her! You're
"
It was too late. Shogo couldn't hear anything anymore. But his face just looked so damned peaceful.
"Damn it." Shuya's lips trembled along with his words. "Damn it."
Holding Shogo's hands, Noriko was crying.
Shuya also put his hand on Shogo's thick hand. A thought occured to him. He searched through Shogo's pockets and found the red bird call. He pressed it into Shogo's right hand and closed his hands over it so he could hold it. Shuya then finally burst into tears. — Koushun Takami

Will bit at his lip. This was the last time Jem, as Jem, might ever touch him. The sharp memory went through him like a knife - of years of Jem's light tap on his shoulder, his hand reaching to help Will up when he fell, Jem holding him back when he was furious, Will's own hands on Jem's thin shoulders as Jem coughed blood into his shirt. Listen to me. I am leaving, but I am living. I will not be gone from you entirely, Will. When you fight now, I will be still by you. When you walk in the world, I will be the light at your side, the ground steady under your feet, the force that drives the sword in your hand. We are bound, beyond the oath. The Marks did not change that. The oath did not change that. It merely gave words to something that existed already. — Cassandra Clare

To look into what will be isn't unlike self-abuse. To watch yourself march through possibilities, to follow the truth through all those twists and turns. Just a little might stunt your growth." I thought of Jane, tiny and older than Gorgoth. "Or make you go blind." His cataracts seemed opalescent in the Builder light. "And if you look too far, if you look to see what waits for us all at the end . . ." "Tell me." Father Merrin shook his head. "It burns." And for an instant I glimpsed a skinless hand holding a copper box. — Mark Lawrence

Curiosity broke her earlier resolve. "Have you ever been tested?"
"No." He stood behind Sara, holding the camera in front so she could see. "Zoom here," he said, flicking the toggle.
"You could probably-"
"This is macro."
"Will-"
"Super macro." He kept talking over her until she gave up. "Here's where you adjust for color. This is light. Anti-shake. Red-eye." He clicked through the features like a photography instructor.
Sara Finally relented. "Why don't I point and you shoot?"
"All right." His back was stiff, and she could tell that he was irritated.
"I'm sorry I-"
"Please don't apologize."
Sara held his gaze for a few moments longer, wishing she could fix this. There was nothing to say if he wouldn't even let her apologize. — Karin Slaughter

Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else's snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It's world-creating.

It's raw, exposed dreaming. It's humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next.

It's what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience. — Laurie Perez

Now's my chance. I grab the collar of his shirt and pull him down so I can reach. As soon as our lips touch, his hands gently grasp the sides of my face, holding me close.
Pulling away slowly, Kristian gazes down at me, the dim light around the shadowed room glinting in his dark eyes. This moment is perfect. One I will remember forever. Kristian's fingers run down the side of my face, I smile up at him and he returns it. — Dannielle Wicks

Nope.' He sat back. 'Just been there, done that. Done that getting hauled to the police station thing because of it, too.I appreciate your quest and everything, but I have to draw the line somewhere.'
'Wait,' I said, holding up my hand. 'My quest?'
He turned to look at me. We were at a red light, no other cars were anywhere in sight. 'Yeah,' he said. 'You know, like in Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars. You're searching for something you lost or need. It's a quest.'
I just looked at him.
'Maybe it's a guy thing,' he said. 'Fine, don't call it a quest. Call it chicken salad, I don't care. My point is, I'm in, but within reason. That's all I'm saying. — Sarah Dessen

You might have noticed that I have been sending you used books. I have done this not to save money, but to make a point which is that a used book, unlike a used car, hasn't lost any of its initial value. A good story rolls of the lot into the hands of its new reader as smoothly as the day it was written. And there's another reason for these used paperbacks that never cost much even when new; I like the idea of holding a book that someone else has held, of eyes running over lines that have already seen the light of other eyes. That, in one image, is the community of readers, is the communion of literature. — Yann Martel

Pursuing a family history beyond a simple catalogue of names is always evidence of separation, of severing ties at least to the extent of holding one's relations at arm's length. The family member who want to make a private gift of a family tree to a close circle of relatives soon becomes the historian who estranges her antecedents by locating them "in history". I found that family history, which humanizes those who might otherwise be mere faces in a crowd, also defamiliarized those closest to me, giving their lives a larger pattern than they had when they were lived. They became both more and less themselves. I consoled myself by thinking that this is what history does to us too. As we grow older we see not how unique our lives have been, but how representative we were and are; that we are part of the figure in the carpet woven by events, by chance and accident, and by the play of forces more powerful than us. — Alison Light

The light. The light is so bright that all that remains is you and the darkness. You can feel the audience breathing. It's like holding a gun or standing on a precipice and knowing you must jump. It feels slow and fast. It's like dying and being born and fucking and crying. It's like falling in love and being utterly alone with God; you taste your own mouth and feel your own skin and I knew I was alive and I knew who I was and that that wasn't who I'd been up till then. I'd never been so far away but I knew I was home. "I know everything," I thought. — Anonymous

Morley joined them, and after a long, uncomfortable moment, Mrs. Grant decided to ignore his presence. The
guards didn't. Their knuckles were white on their weapons.
May I assist?" he asked, and put his hands behind his back. "I promise not to eat anyone."
Very funny," Mrs. Grant said. Morley gave her a grave look.
I wasn't joking, dear lady," he said. "I do promise. And I never make a promise I don't intend to keep. You
should feel quite secure."
Well, I'm sorry, I don't," she said. "You're just - "
Too overwhelmingly dashing and attractive?" Morley grinned. "A common problem women face with me.
It'll pass. You seem like the no-nonsense sort. I like that."
Claire smiled at the look on Mrs. Grant's face, reflected in the white LED light of the lantern she was holding.
You are really - odd," the older woman said, as if she couldn't quite believe she was even having the
conversation. — Rachel Caine

However, the young woman claimed to not know exactly what it was she had done that this person had seen. With the cops earlier, she insisted she had done nothing. The police on the scene weren't convinced. Kayla could tell by the side looks they gave each other. Honestly, she wasn't convinced either. Jessie was holding something back. Desperately, she tried to soothe the young woman's frazzled nerves in the hope that she would open up to her. Attempts at light conversation were rewarded with short answers, followed — Phoebe T. Eggli

Whenever you see something going well - whenever light begins to chase back the darkness that threatens to engulf our world - look closely. There stands a leader who is holding that candle. — Bill Hybels

I think about this for a long time, secretly hoping he forgets he ever asked the question. His mind has a way of wandering, but something in the way he looks at me says he's not forgetting anything now, he's holding on tight to that thought, and he's waiting for my answer. I don't know what makes a man great. I've never thought about it before. But at a time like this "I don't know" just won't do. This is an occasion one rises to, and so I make myself as light as possible and wait for a lift. "I — Daniel Wallace

The story was clearly over, as in juggling when the ball you throw up finds the moment to come down, hesitates as if it might not, and then drops at the same speed of that celestial light. And life is no longer good but just what you happen to be holding. — E.L. Doctorow

That's what you like in a girl: cute and sad, with enough disorders that you could count them to fall asleep. The kind you can show off at parties as the latest broken thing you fixed. Where will you hang your awards for loving someone who can't walk in a straight line without being supported? Is there room next to your collection of glasses you shattered by holding them too tightly? The blood on your hands does not make you a martyr. Do not curse when your hammers do nothing but scar her. Do not use your words to remind her that everybody else would have left by now. If she could speak, she would tell you: you think it's beautiful to love somebody as light as me but you don't know how heavy I had to be to become this empty. — Lora Mathis

She heard a crash from the galley as soon as she pulled it open. Peering down the hallway, she saw Wolf hunkered over a counter, holding a tin can.
Stepping into the galley's light, Scarlet saw that the can was labeled with a picture of cartoon-red tomatoes. Judging from the enormous dents in its side, Wolf had been trying to open it with a meat tenderizer.
He glanced up at her, and she was glad that she wasn't the only one red faced. "Why would they put food in here if they were going to make it so hard to open?"
She bit her lip against a weak smile, not sure if it was from pity or amusement. "Did you try a can opener? — Marissa Meyer

But Mrs. Meany, see, the women went on, leaning forward, despite how her heart was broken, pulled herself together, anyway, to put on a good face for the rest of the family at home. And she went back, Sunday after Sunday, right up until the Sunday before she died. Mrs. Meany put her beautiful love - a mother's love - against the terrible scenes that brewed like sewage in that poor girl's troubled mind. She persevered, she baked her cakes, she hauled herself (the goiter swinging) on and off the ferry, and she sat, brokenhearted, holding her daughter's hand, even as Lucy shouted her terrible words, proving to anyone with eyes to see that a mother's love was a beautiful, light, relentless thing that the devil could not diminish. — Alice McDermott

Photography is a holding together of opposites: Light and dark, beautiful and ugly, sublime and banal, concious and unconcious. I am still struck by the power of photography to strip away the bark of the mind and reveal the visceral workings underneath. — Jack Welpott

But Vikram had seen through every facet, holding me against the light as if I truly were translucent, and instead of making me feel as if I had been looked through and found wanting, I felt . . . seen. — Roshani Chokshi

Activism isn't about holding your faults up to the light. That's what comedy is about, it's about saying, 'Look at this person who is so flawed and frail and damaged. And we're all this frail and damaged so let's laugh at it.' — Scott Thompson

Gabe watched, holding his breath as the figure slowly turned. The body moved in an almost unnatural way as it shifted and crawled slowly on all fours across the floor. When the candlelight at last fell on the figure, Gabe could make out the auburn hair of his beloved Sophie. Her hair was matted, greasy, and hung in her face.
Gabe saw her shoulders were hollow looking and her skin was almost glowing white. Gabe caught sight of Sophie's fingers, her knuckles were bloody, and her nails cracked and peeling. Instinctively, Gabe fell to his knees and crawled to Sophie. Without even giving it a thought, he grabbed her hands and pulled them closer to the light. — Wendy Owens

Perhpas if I call out to Rat he might hear," said the Mole to himself, but without much hope.
Rat! Ratty! O Rat, please hear me!" he called out as loudly as he could, holding up his lantern as he did so, waving it about/ But the wind rushed and roared around him even more, and snatched his weak words away the moment they were they were uttered, and scattered them wildly and uselessly as if they were flakes of snow,
Even worse, the light of the lantern began to gutter, and then, quiet suddenly, an extra strong gust of wind blew it out.
Well then," said the daunted but resolute Mole, putting the spent lantern on the ground, "there's nothing else for it! Frozen rivers are dangerous thinngs, no doubt, but I must try to cross, despite the dangers."
The Willows in the Winter — William Horwood

Her boyfriend can't hold a candle to me. Especially not while I'm holding the strobe light. It's hard to do modern dancing when you're living like it's 1882. Still, I make it look pretty easy. — Jarod Kintz

Lily opened the door. "Maude, would you - " She cut herself off. Maude was nowhere in sight, but Caliban was across the room, holding a page of her play to the light of the fire. His eyes were intent, his brow slightly creased - and he was quite obviously reading the page. — Elizabeth Hoyt

In Holman Hunt's painting, "The Light of the World, "Christ is shown in a garden at midnight, holding a lantern in His left hand. With His right hand He is knocking on a heavily paneled door. When the painting was unveiled, a critic remarked to the painter, "Mr. Hunt, the work is unfinished. There is no handle on the door." "That," Hunt answered, "is the door to the human heart. It can be opened only from the inside." — James Keller

You are, however, surprisingly light of touch."
"Pardon?"
"The way you're holding my hand. I always thought you'd be more of a mauler. Like a diseased wolf chewing the knuckles off me fist."
"That's very nice."
"Not really."
"I was being sarcastic."
"Oh. I see. Where are we? — G.A. Aiken

Prose Poems from my book SPAN
OBSERVATION
So, we may not be able to explain the world. Not exactly. But we can accept it, and love it. We can turn our faces to the light and examine the minutest details simply for the sake of it. We can live lives of joy and purpose. We are all part of one whole. Take comfort in this. Almost every one of us is capable of holding a cup to another's lips without our hands shaking. — Jay Woodman

He let a vision of April grow and fill the world. ( ... ) He saw April at the spaceport, holding him in the dark shadows of the blockhouse while the sky flamed above them. We'll go out like that soon, soon, Tod. Squeeze me, squeeze me ... Ah, he'd said, who needs a ship?
Another April, part of her in a dim light as she sat writing; her hair, a crescent of light loving her cheek, a band of it on her brow; then she had seen him and turned, rising, smothered his first word with her mouth. Another April wanting to smile, waiting; and April asleep, and once April sobbing because she could not find a special word to tell him what she felt for him ... — Theodore Sturgeon

Holding my hands, kissing the palms, his smile is ecstatic, jubilant, adoring, and the song playing speaks for him, Have you ever seen the light ... the way it shines in you. — Poppet

He had been my lighthouse, leading me to safe harbor without fail. He'd weathered the storms with me, holding out hope I would find my way to him. His light never flickered, never went out. He was my steadfast beacon - my destination. — Genna Rulon

Pale as a candle flame in the dusk, tallow-pale, he stalked along, holding her hand, and Louie looked up and beyond him at the enfeebled stars. Thus, for many years, she had seen her father's head, a ghostly earth flame against the heavens, from her little height. Sam looked down on the moon of her face; the dayshine was enough still to light the eyeballs swimming up to him. — Christina Stead

It came boring out of the east like some ribald satellite of the coming sun howling and bellowing in the distance and the long light of the headlamp running through the tangled mesquite brakes and creating out of the night the endless fenceline down the dead straight right of way and sucking it back again wire and post mile on mile into the darkness after where the boilersmoke disbanded slowly along the faint new horizon and the sound came lagging and he stood still holding his hat in his hands in the passing ground-shudder watching it till it was gone. Then — Cormac McCarthy

Thus weary of the world, away she hies,
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is convey'd;
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself and not be seen. — William Shakespeare

There is the image of the man who imagines himself to be a prisoner in a cell. He stands at one end of this small, dark, barren room, on his toes, with arms stretched upward, hands grasping for support onto a small, barred window, the room's only apparent source of light. If he holds on tight, straining toward the window, turning his head just so, he can see a bit of bright sunlight barely visible between the uppermost bars. This light is his only hope. He will not risk losing it. And so he continues to staring toward that bit of light, holding tightly to the bars. So committed is his effort not to lose sight of that glimmer of life-giving light, that it never occurs to him to let go and explore the darkness of the rest of the cell. So it is that he never discovers that the door at the other end of the cell is open, that he is free. He has always been free to walk out into the brightness of the day, if only he would let go. (192) — Sheldon B. Kopp

Finally, he smiled, and although his smile was bumpy because some of his teeth were jagged and broken, it was a warming, infectious smile that was reflected in his eyes. It made her smile widely in return. She felt as if the room had been lit up. He held out his arms, and she went across the room to him, almost running. She buried her face in his shirt, her nose wrinkling up as the scent of his cologne mixed with the nutty, sourish smell of camphor that filled the room. He put his arms around her, but gently, so that there was space between his forearms and her back, holding her as if she was to fragile to hug properly. Awkwardly, he patted her light, bushy aureole of dark brown hair, repeating: Good girl. Fine daughter. — Helen Oyeyemi

Once you let people know anything about what you think, that's it, you're dead. Then they'll be jumping about in your mind, taking things out, holding them up to the light and killing them, yes, killing them, because thoughts are supposed to stay and grow in quiet, dark places, like butterflies in cocoons. — Helen Oyeyemi

For a while I didn't want to look at the men and their hawks any more and my eyes slipped to the white panels of cut light in the branches behind them. Then I walked to the hedge where the hawk had made her kill. Peered inside. Deep in the muddled darkness six copper pheasant feathers glowed in a cradle of blackthorn. Reaching through the thorns I picked them free, one by one, tucked the hand that held them into my pocket, and cupped the feathers in my closed fist as if I were holding a moment tight inside itself. It was death I had seen. — Helen Macdonald

Holding on to the past is like groping in the dark room when you have the opportunity to turn on the light. You only stumble, fall and hurt yourself. — Wogu Donald

Los Angeles didn't get like this often. He hated it when it did. And this time it was holding on. It had been brutal at the cemetery three weeks ago. His father's nine widows had looked ready to drop. The savage light had leached the color from the flowers. The savage heat had got at the mound of earth from the grave even under its staring green blanket of fake grass. He'd stayed to watch the workmen fill the grave. The earth was dry. Even the sharp walls of the grave were dry. What the hell was he doing remembering that? — Joseph Hansen

If the sky has turned a darkened grey and the sea threatens to spill the occupants in the boat, know that the Lord God made the storm still, and though you shall face storms in your life the Lord God will still them with his hand. When you are alone, Jesus will have his arms wrapped around you, holding you tightly, the angels shall call out your name when you feel that you have been deaf, and you shall see the light of Heaven when you think you are blind. When you feel your dreams are broken it does not do well to cast yourself into misery but look at the brighter side of life, and see all the Lord has blessed you with! — Ariana Pedigo

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

The history of the past fifty years, and longer, indicates that a diversified holding of representative common stocks will prove more profitable over a stretch of years than a bond portfolio, with one important provisio that the shares must be purchased at reasonable market levels, that is, levels that are reasonable in the light of fairly well-defined standards derived from past experience. — Benjamin Graham

Before that night, I didn't grasp that the shadows that sometimes crossed her face weren't momentary clouds passing in front of the sun. Her deep silences were more than daydreams. And her habit of standing with her arms wrapped around her ribs was a way of holding herself together.

I didn't get there must be balance.
She couldn't hold so much life, light and joy without also containing their opposites. — Chelsey Philpot

Psal had not thought of all that. He would think of it all night. The loveliest woman from the defeated Peacock longhouse would be his. Yet he did not want her. In the middle of the night, as the longhouse keened to Poh's region and one landscape blended into another, Psal lay on his wheeled bed wondering if he should rape in order to show his ability to compromise. All night, the Lesser Light flickered and Psal often found himself holding his breath. — Carole McDonnell

Holding the bread to her chest, she made her way home, thinking of those dreamy winter afternoons, when the light looked as it did now, the crystalline blue of the sky slipping into a faded purple, as faint as a bruise. — Alexis Landau

He pulls out the pipe I stole and sticks it between his teeth.
"What do you think?" he asks around the stem. "Do I look noble?"
I snatch it away, and his teeth close with a clack. "Don't you know that will kill you?"
He stares at me a minute, a mischievous light coming into his eyes. Then suddenly he lunges at me.
"Give it back!"
"It's mine! I stole it!"
"I saved you from getting flogged!"
He makes a grab for the pipe, and I roll aside, holding it out of his reach. With a wicked laugh, he tickles my side, and I drop the pipe as I hasten to shove him away.
Aladdin picks up the pipe and brandishes it triumphantly, while I lie in the grass and laugh. — Jessica Khoury

Jesus didn't die to make us safe. He died to make us dangerous! Faithfulness isn't holding the fort. It's storming the gates of hell with the light and love of Jesus Christ. — Mark Batterson

[Kane to Rose] I'll never forget the way you looked walking toward me. I never thought that I'd have a woman like you in my life. It's all there etched in my brain. And now, the way the light pours over our hair, the way all that silk shines, so black it's nearly blue. The world disappears when I'm holding you. — Christine Feehan

Finnikin waited, thinking of all the things he had to tell her.

That perhaps he was the resurdus of Seranonna's prophecy, the one to break the spell at the main gate. And that she, Evanjalin, was the light of his sometimes very dark heart who would lead him.

Then he heard the crunch of footsteps and she was there and he opened his coat and wrapped her inside, holding her tight until the beat of their hearts slowed to the same pace and her lips were against the base of his throat. — Melina Marchetta

Instead of turning our heads from pain, we merge with it, neither holding on to it nor pushing it away, becoming instead an instrument of transformation. Recently, on my early morning drive to a health club, I saw a deer in the middle lane, trying to get up, but obviously crippled. Her eyes looked confused and frightened. As I drove by, I breathed in her pain and breathed out a blessing. I could feel a dark cloud swirling inside of me, but I also had an image of a deer running freely in the woods. I can never know if it helped her, but something loosened inside of me. Instead of turning away from her pain, I joined her. It was then I realized more deeply the power of Tonglin...

When you feel hurt, confused, lonely, or sad, breathe into your pain, feel it, be with it, then breathe out an image of clarity, light, and a blessing. This alone will start to change your life. — Charlotte Kasl

We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States. — George Washington

I've always thought that Boathouse Row looked best at night, when hundreds of electric lights outline the shape of each building, truning them into fantastic postcard themes. I knew, however, from many visits to Boathouse Row, that at the same time, armies of rats were holding maneuvers in the basements. — Brad Alan Lewis

When I got home, I seemed in a dream. My windows looked upon hers; I remained all the day looking at them, and all the day they were closed and dark. I forgot everything for this woman; I slept not, I eat nothing. That evening I fell into a fever, the next morning I was delirious, and the next evening I was DEAD!'
'Dead!' cried his hearers.
'Dead!' answered the narrator, with a conviction in his voice which words alone cannot give; 'dead as Fabian, the
cast of whose dead face hangs from that wall!'
'Go on,' whispered the others, holding their breath.
The hail still rattled against the windows, and the fire had so nearly died out, that they threw more wood on the feeble flame which penetrated the darkness of the studio and cast a faint light upon the pale face of him who told the story. (The Dead Man's Story — James Hain Friswell

Because this is how it was with them: the boy's father had dark skin, darker even than my own, and the boy's mother was a white woman. They were holding hands and smiling at their boy, whose skin was light brown. It was the color of the man and the woman joined in happiness. It — Chris Cleave

He has never left you.It is justthat your soul is so vastthat just likethe earth in its innocence,it may think,"I do not feel my lover's warmthagainst my face rightnow."But look, dear,is not the sun reaching down its armsand always holding a continentin its light?God cannot leave us.It is just that our soul is so vast,we do not always feel His lipsupon theveil. — St. Catherine Of Siena

In this stillness that is at the same time movement, in this darkness that is at the same time light, change is found not in the realm of ideas but in the energizing desire that is realized through precipitation. Desire tends towards its own realization and change takes place when the desire for it shatters the bounds of the possible, breaking the dialectical equilibrium holding together the framework of what is existent. It is at such moments that the imaginary flows into the real and overwhelms it, inundating it until it has been absorbed. — Michael Richardson

Mostly we think of people with great authority as higher up, far away, hard to reach. But spiritual authority comes from compassion and emerges from deep inner solidarity with those who are 'subject' to authority. The one who is fully like us, who deeply understands our joys and pains or hopes and desires, and who is willing and able to walk with us, that is the one to whom we gladly give authority and whose 'subjects' we are willing to be.
It is the compassionate authority that empowers, encourages, calls forth hidden gifts, and enables great things to happen. True spiritual authorities are located in the point of an upside-down triangle, supporting and holding into the light everyone they offer their leadership to. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

It felt oily inside her head. There were strings of Xavier Stancliff caught inside of her, holding on and spiderwebbing out as he plotted and waited and thought: this is all the bitch deserves. Swallowing, Sandra pushed herself off the bed. It was late and the room was dark. She could see the bundled lump of Jack beneath his own covers. He'd left the television on and the light flickered down the tiny hall. Shadows danced and Sandra shivered as she left the room.

In another life, she would have told Danny and Jack about the man. Danny would have whispered, "It's alright," and smoothed back her hair from her face and kissed her, lips dry and coarse on her forehead. Then he and Jack would've left while she was sleeping. They would've trampled the flowers and climbed into Xavier Stanliff's window and when Sandra woke up there would have been one less man in the world. — Angele Gougeon

Hello,' he said, his voice and smile pleasant.
'You can't touch me!' I sat up and pulled the covers over myself.
'Yes about that. You need to negate the command.'
'Excuse me?'
He looked at me patiently, like he was explaining something to a stubborn child. 'You need to break that command.'
'And why on earth would I ever want to do that?' I glared at him. Lunatic.
'Because I wasn't finished.'
'Oh, no, I really think that you were.' I held up my wrist. It still bore the scarlet mark of his hand and, to my eyes at least, was bright against the light of the lamp. Then, since I was holding up my hand anyway, I flipped him off.
'You're going to need more.'
'Well, that's easy.' I held up my other hand and flipped him off with that one, too. — Kiersten White

Those homes were like holding pens, where residents waited for death with little more status than corpses. Loneliness, confusion, pain, and the smell of urine and boiled food seemed to be their only companions as the light faded on their lives. Those places had made me shudder, and sometimes weep. Carpe — Gilly Macmillan

Uri was turned, looking at him, shouting something, but at that point, Gabe couldn't hear him. A moment later, Gabe felt like the car was spinning uncontrollably. The nausea overcame him and he seriously thought he might be sick. He looked down at Sophie to make sure she was still all right. His hands were holding her head gently, but they no longer seemed like his hands. There was a glowing, blue light coming from his palms. He began to hyperventilate. Everything went black. — Wendy Owens

In a tired time, with the light outside drifting away for another day and the lights inside flickering as they come to life, I cup my hands together and prepare to give thanks ... to the life of a day given to me. A day shared with past and present, living and dying, of body and not, and a realization that in everything that is, there is something that was. — R.J. Heller

As soon as he had her safe again in his arms he broke down and kissed her. Helen was so stunned she stopped crying before she had a chance to start and nearly fell out of the sky. Still the
better flyer, Lucas caught her and supported her as they tumbled on the wind, holding and kissing each other as he tumbled on the wind, holding and kissing each other as he guided them safely back down to the catwalk. As their feet touched down, the light inside the lighthouse switched on
and projected the shadows of their embracing figures out onto the choppy waves of the ocean.
"I can't lose you," Lucas said, pulling his mouth away from hers. "That's why I didn't tell you the whole truth. I thought if you knew how bad it was you'd send me away. I didn't want you to give up hope. I can't do this if you give up on us."
(Starcrossed) — Josephine Angelini