If Only I Could Sleep Quotes & Sayings

I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone structure to my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous writer Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep with.
And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him. — Sylvia Plath

He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on the lake, underground. He accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness! ... He confesses his cheat. He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love ... He has carried me off for love! ... He has imprisoned me with him, underground, for love! ... But he respects me: he crawls, he moans, he weeps! ... And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my liberty ... he offered it ... he offered to show me the mysterious road ... Only ... only he rose too ... and I was made to remember that, though he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, he remained the voice ... for he sang. And I listened ... and stayed! ... That night, we did not exchange another word. He sang me to sleep. — Gaston Leroux

Oh dear," said Jace ... "I hope that wasn't anything important."
"It was a sleeping potion," she said angrily, toeing the vial with the tip of a sneaker. "And now it's gone."
"If only Simon were here. He could bore you to sleep. — Cassandra Clare

You make me feel safe, Noah. Maybe if i felt safe i could sleep."
"I'll sneak into your room one night and we 'll give it a shot. Sleep only, i promise. — Katie McGarry

He leaned over and gently kissed her cheek. Jessica smacked her lips, snorted a time or two, then dropped back off to sleep. "I love you," Richard whispered. "Sweet Jessie, I do." Only soft snores answered him. Richard smiled. He wished Jessica had been awake to see it, for he was certain it was a smile that would have pleased even her. More than just the corners of his mouth had joined in. He laid his head down next to hers and stared at her. He would sleep later. Now he would look his fill and see if he couldn't identify that expanding feeling in his chest that brought tears to his eyes. Could it be joy? He'd ask Jessica when she woke. After all, she knew all about it. — Lynn Kurland

Once Upon A Time I began. We made it through three stories before she was in a deep sleep. In the end, she probably didn't have a better grasp on our legal system, racism, or social complexity. However, she now knew that sometimes the most loyal friend you could have was a mouse, that sometimes people weren't always who they seemed, even if their eyes were allegedly only bigger to see you with, and that everyone had the capacity to live happily ever after. It wasn't in her lesson plan, and maybe it wasn't all true, but it was important. — Jessica Fortunato

down with Bart for a few hours and sleep as best I could. Chapter 12 I was as tired as I could ever remember being as I pulled the station wagon up the narrow driveway and came to a stop twenty-five feet from my front door. I liked my simple house with two bedrooms and an attic a hobbit couldn't fit in. My front porch light was on a timer and illuminated the pathway, but the inside was pitch-black. That wasn't good. I always left one light on in my kitchen. Normally, I could see it through the front window, and it cast a little light across the whole house. I didn't want Bart walking into a wall in the dark. Someone had turned it off. The only defense I had was my Navy knife, which I dug out of my front pocket and flipped open. I use it as a tool, but its original purpose was as a weapon. The door was still locked, and I wondered if — James Patterson

What confused and disappointed me, thought, was that I could never discover within her something special that existed just for me. A list of her good qualities far outstripped a list of her faults, and certainly far outshone my own, yet there was something missing, something absolutely vital. If only I'd been able to pin down what that was, I know we would have ended up sleeping together. I wouldn't have held back forever. Even if it had taken a long time, I would have persuaded her that it was absolutely necessary for her to sleep with me. But I lacked the confidence to see this through. — Haruki Murakami

She asked if she could sleep in my bed that night and I said yes and we went upstairs and lay close together in the narrow bed and I wondered if maybe she missed her mother, and then around halfway through the night Edmond came in saying he was lonely and he lay down too only facing in the other direction since it was the only way he could fit, and then around sunrise Isaac wandered in too wondering where everyone had gone and when he saw us he just smiled a little and went down to the kitchen and brought up the big brown teapot and some mugs on a tray and we all piled together on the bed on top of each other like puppies and drank our tea while the sun streamed in thick and yellow through the window. And — Meg Rosoff

I can't function here anymore. I mean in life: I can't function in this life. I'm no better off than when I was in bed last night, with one difference: when I was in my own bed - or my mom's - I could do something about it; now that I'm here I can't do anything. I can't ride my bike to the Brooklyn Bridge; I can't take a whole bunch of pills and go for the good sleep; the only thing I can do is crush my head in the toilet seat, and I still don't even know if that would work. They take away your options and all you can do is live, and it's just like Humble said: I'm not afraid of dying; I'm afraid of living. I was afraid before, but I'm afraid even more now that I'm a public joke. The teachers are going to hear from the students. They'll think I'm trying to make an excuse for bad work. — Ned Vizzini

I sleep in peace, even if only in the company of lice, behind bars. The same could not be said of my incarcerators though they sleep in warm beds, next to their wives, in their homes. — Eskinder Nega

I had seen and known negroes since I could remember. I just looked at them as I did at rain, or furniture, or food or sleep. But after that I seemed to see them for the first time not as people, but as a thing, a shadow in which I lived, we lived, all white people, all other people. I thought of all the children coming forever and ever into the world, white, with the black shadow falling upon them before they drew breath. And I seemed to see the black shadow in the shape of a cross. And it seemed like the white babies were struggling, even before they drew breath, to escape from the shadow that was not only upon them but was beneath them too, flung out like their arms were flung out, as if they were nailed to the cross. — William Faulkner

I saw that for a long time I had not liked people and things, but only followed the rickety old pretense of liking. I saw that even my love for those closest to me had become only an attempt to love, that my casual relations -- with an editor, a tobacco seller, the child of a friend, were only what I remembered I should do, from other days. All in the same month I became bitter about such things as the sound of the radio, the advertisements in the magazines, the screech of tracks, the dead silence of the country -- contemptuous at human softness, immediately (if secretively) quarrelsome toward hardness -- hating the night when I couldn't sleep and hating the day because it went toward night. I slept on the heart side now because I knew that the sooner I could tire that out, even a little, the sooner would come that blessed hour of nightmare which, like a catharsis, would enable me to better meet the new day. — F Scott Fitzgerald

You haven't," he repeated. "You're stewin' on it."
This was true too. If I had a dollar for every time his words in his voice popped into my head and made me flinch the last two days, I could move to the Riviera. They even woke me up in the middle of the night. Then again, I had insomnia and always did, even as a kid. I regularly thought of stuff in my life, stuff that embarrassed me or hurt me or worried me or freaked me out and I couldn't get to sleep. Then, when I did, I'd wake up three, four times a night sometimes tossing and turning for hours before finding sleep again. This beautiful man saying those horrible words when talking about me was not only fresh, it was the worst of all my nightly demons by far and it would be in a way I knew would last the rest of my life. — Kristen Ashley

I can see that I imagine all kinds of rejection that never happens. I can see that I beg and plead for love that is freely offered because I somehow believe that if I don't ask for it, everyone will forget about me: I will be a little kid sent off to sleep-away camp whose parents forget to meet her at the bus when she comes back in August. Or else I think people are nice to me only to be nice to me, that they feel sorry for me because I am such a loser- as if anyone could possibly be that generous. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

I told her [...] that I would bow down before her suffering with compassion, that she could control her life, that I understood that pain is sometimes psychic, not only physical, that she wanted nothing more than to end it and to sleep forever, that for her life was over but that for me it was still ongoing and that an aspect of it was trying to save her, that the notion of saving her was one that we didn't agree on, that I was willing to do whatever she wanted me to do but only if it was absolutely true that there were no other doors to find, to push against or storm because if there were I'd break every bone in my body running up against that fucking door repeatedly, over and over and over and over. — Miriam Toews

I didn't sleep with Brodick," she blurted out. "I have no need for a priest."
"Yes, you did too."
"Alec, it isn't polite to contradict your elders."
"But, Mama ... "
"Hush, sweetheart."
Gillian glared at Brodick. He could easily correct this horrid misunderstanding if he would only offer a quick explanation.
He wasn't inclined. He winked at her. "I didn't know a face could get that red," he remarked.
"Do explain," she demanded.
"Explain what?" he asked, feigning innocence.
She turned to Judith. "We were camping ... and it isn't what it sounds like ... I did sleep, and when I awakened ... they were all there ... "
"They?" Iain asked.
"His soldiers."
"You slept with his soldiers too? — Julie Garwood

But for me it was enough if, in my own bed, my sleep was so heavy as completely to relax my consciousness; for then I lost all sense of the place in which I had gone to sleep, and when I awoke at midnight, not knowing where I was, I could not be sure at first who I was; I had only the most rudimentary sense of existence, such as may lurk and flicker in the depths of an animal's consciousness; I was more destitute of human qualities than the cave-dweller; but then the memory, not yet of the place in which I was, but of various other places where I had lived, and might now very possibly be, would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being, from which I could never have escaped by myself: in a flash I would traverse and surmount centuries of civilisation, and out of a half-visualised succession of oil-lamps, followed by shirts with turned-down collars, would put together by degrees the component parts of my ego. — Anonymous

I could settle down if women were different," he said. "If I didn't understand so much about them, if women didn't spoil you for other women, if they had only a little pride. If I could go to sleep for a while and wake up into a home that was really mine - why, that's what I'm made for, Paula, that's what women have seen in me and liked in me. It's only that I can't get through the preliminaries any more. — F Scott Fitzgerald

From the bottom of my heart I desired to surrender myself to the sleep of oblivion. If only oblivion were attainable, if it could last forever, if my eyes as they closed could gently transcend sleep and dissolve into non-being and I should lose consciousness of my existence for all time to come, if it were possible for my being to dissolve in one drop of ink, in one bar of music, in one ray of colored light, and then these waves and forms were to grow and grow to such infinite size that in the end they faded and disappeared - then I should have attained my desire. — Sadegh Hedayat

Sometimes I feel like there's a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there's a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing... I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don't know. Maybe I had my happiness. I don't want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon. — Alice Hoffman

He'd asked me to marry him. He'd kissed me. Twice. He said he loved me. What a scum, rat, dog bastard. I wouldn't sleep with him now if I was dying and the only thing that could save me was a penis injection from him. — Gena Showalter

I would write:
"The soft melting hunk of butter trickled in gold down the stringy grooves of the split yam."
Or:
"The child's clumsy fingers fumbled in sleep, feeling vainly for the wish of its dream."
"The old man huddled in the dark doorway, his bony face lit by the burning yellow in the windows of distant skycrapers."
My purpose was to capture a physical state or movement that carried a strong subjective impression, an accomplishment which seemed supremely worth struggling for. If I could fasten the mind of the reader upon words so firmly that he would forget words and be conscious only of his response, I felt that I would be in sight of knowing how to write narrative. — Richard Wright

Winter has caused damage everywhere: meadow and forest are all grey, where before you heard many sounds. If I could see the girls play ball on the street, then bird song would come back. If only I could sleep through the winter! When I am awake I feel only hatred that his power is so far and wide. God knows, he even fights with May; I picked flowers where there is now snow. — Walther Von Der Vogelweide

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who'd showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace. — Thom Gunn

I say that I'm not into you like that, Camryn, because..," he pauses, searching my face, looking at my lips for a moment as if deciding whether or not he should kiss them again, " ... because you're not the girl I could only sleep with once. — J.A. Redmerski

I had imagined a kind, ugly, intuitive man looking up and saying "Ah!" in an encouraging way, as if he could see something I couldn't and then I would find words to tell him how I was so scared, as I were being stuffed farther and farther into a black, airless sack with no way out.
Then he would lean back in his chair and match the tips of his fingers together in a little steeple and tell me why I couldn't sleep and why I couldn't read and why I couldn't eat and why everything people did seemed so silly, because they only died in the end.
And then, I thought, he would help me, step by step, to be myself again. — Sylvia Plath

Ah, you may sit under them, yes. They cast a good shadow, cold as well-water; but that's the trouble, they tempt you to sleep. And you must never, for any reason, sleep beneath a cypress.' He paused, stroked his moustache, waited for me to ask why, and then went on: 'Why? Why? Because if you did you would be changed when you woke. Yes, the black cypresses, they are dangerous. While you sleep, their roots grow into your brains and steal them, and when you wake up you are mad, head as empty as a whistle.' I asked whether it was only the cypress that could do that or did it apply to other trees. 'No, only the cypress,' said the old man, peering up fiercely at the trees above me as though to see whether they were listening; 'only the cypress is the thief of intelligence. So be warned, little lord, and don't sleep here. — Gerald Durrell

And it was exactly like having flu that time because I wanted it to stop, like you can just pull the plug of a computer out of the wall if it crashes, because I wanted to go to sleep so that I wouldn't have to think because the only thing I could think was how much it hurt because there was no room for anything else in my head, but I couldn't go to sleep and I just had to sit there and there was nothing to do except to wait and hurt. — Mark Haddon

What could make my life better? Oh, if I could only find that magic bottle that lets you never have to sleep. I have so much stuff I wanna do, but ... That six or seven hours you have to be in bed with your eyes closed. What a waste! — Robert Rodriguez

I didn't sleep that night. I cried. I wasn't frightened for myself; I was indignant; it was the wickedness of it that broke me. The war came to an end and I went home. I'd always been keen on mechanics, and if there was nothing doing in aviation, I'd intended to get into an automobile factory. I'd been wounded and had to take it easy for a while. Then they wanted me to go to work. I couldn't do the sort of work they wanted me to do. It seemed futile. I'd had a lot of time to think. I kept on asking myself what life was for. After all it was only by luck that I was alive; I wanted to make something of my life, but I didn't know what. I'd never thought much about God. I began to think about Him now. I couldn't understand why there was evil in the world. I knew I was very ignorant; I didn't know anyone I could turn to and I wanted to learn, so I began to read at haphazard. — W. Somerset Maugham

Don't make me out to be something worth saving. We both know I'm a waste." His voice was so quiet. "I wish I was better at telling you why you have to stay here. I wish I could put into words the part of my heart that has your name written on it. That part hurts right now. You have to be here. You love life too much. You're so important. I wish I could make you understand this." He tried to smile at her valiant efforts. "I would keep you if I could. You can sleep here, right on this couch. Beckett, I will let you hold this baby when it comes." She touched her stomach. "Does that tell you how much you mean to me? It's the only thing I can come up with." He shrugged. "Mouse would be disappointed. He'd feel like he didn't do his job if you died ... Eve loves you. Wherever she is - in this strip club - is that what you've been wishing for?" Beckett shook his head. "No, right? She loves you. You can't kill someone she loves. You just can't. — Debra Anastasia

I have devoted my whole life to Physical Culture. I shall devote the rest too for the same. I have seen the degradation in which we are at present. I have travelled extensively and all that I have remarked here is from experience; and my suggestions are to meet the situation. I know they would, if adapted remedy the evil; for, I have studied carefully the position. If we in all seriousness wish to call ourselves the descendants of the mighty Yoddhas of past, if we wish not to cast a blot on the fair name of India, if we wish that India should have a future vying with its glorious past, if we wish that we should gain an honorable and equal place among the peoples of the world it should be our sacred resolve from now to wake up from the sleep as a lion; we should muster muscle and steel the body. For all greatness lies in Culture and 1 should only be too gratified if my scheme could put the youth of the country on the right track to achieve our most cherished Ideals. — Kodi Ramamurthy Naidu