I'm Still Breathing Quotes & Sayings

It's been three days
still haven't heard from you.
My heart lives underwater
breathing for you.
But you break apart
my tiny heart,
giving me no chance
to start something with you.
I dove into the pool
I dove in
hoping to swim
now I'm drowning. — Cecil Castellucci

I think you have to be ready to switch gears and go with the team as a director, as opposed to superimposing your own strict idea of the story. There are very few directors that can micromanage and still come out with something that's living and breathing on a page. Wes Anderson is one of those . — Susan Sarandon

I still need you, I murmured. He rested his forehead against mine and closed his eyes, his breathing irregular. Then his lips found mine again. It made my heart ache, made my soul ache. I loved him far too much. — Karina Halle

Yeah, I must have been really bad in a past life or something." He smiled, his eyes still in pain. Reaching up, he touched a strand of mt hair. " Don't leave, OK?"
"Shhh. I'm not going anywhere." I kept stroking his forehead, trailing my fingers across it. His muscular shoulders gradually relaxed, his eyes closing again. His breathing slowed, became more regular.
I could hear the TV on in the other room, the sound of voices. None of it mattered to me. I stayed there until long after Alex had fallen asleep
gently caressing the vbrow of the boy I loved, trying to keep his pain at bay. — L.A. Weatherly

A person said on a PTSD site they weren't happy with their life but they were still breathing. I replied. Personally I love breathing I try to do it as often as I can between cigarettes ... — Stanley Victor Paskavich

I'll stall them. You go," Logan says.
Quinn frowns and looks at me.
"Ignore him. He doesn't get to play the martyr today."
"Isn't that his choice?" Quinn asks.
"Not while I'm still breathing. — C.J. Redwine

What I want to tell you is what I think he would tell you if he could.
Living means taking chances. Risks. Playing it safe all the time is being dead inside, even if you happen to still be breathing. people expected Connor to play it safe all the time. And when he did, he felt dead inside. I saw him take risks, and then he was the most alive person I've ever known. he would ask you to take chances. Sometimes that means getting hurt. Getting an F. Losing a game. Losing someone you love. But if you always play it safe, you lose anyway. — Ellen Hopkins

She felt as though her nerves were strings being strained tighter and tighter on some sort of screwing peg. She felt her eyes opening wider and wider, her fingers and toes twitching nervously, something within oppressing her breathing, while all shapes and sounds seemed in the uncertain half-light to strike her with unaccustomed vividness. Moments of doubt were continually coming upon her, when she was uncertain whether the train were going forwards or backwards, or were standing still altogether; whether it were Annushka at her side or a stranger. "What's that on the arm of the chair, a fur cloak or some beast? And what am I myself? Myself or some other woman?" She was afraid of giving way to this delirium. But something drew her towards it, and she could yield to it or resist it at will. — Leo Tolstoy

Scarlet found herself pinned beneath his gaze, intense and terrified. He was still breathing hard. She was still shaking, couldn't stop shaking. Her mind emptied of everything but the gusting wind and how fragile Wolf looked in that heartbeat, like one movement could break him open. "I'm all right," she assured him again, wrapping her free arm around his back and pulling him toward her until she could curl up beneath the shelter of his body, burying her head against his neck. She felt his gulp, then his arms were around her, crushing her against his chest. — Marissa Meyer

I think I would have had an easier time of it if I had had training much earlier. Because when I got to the training, it was in my late 30s and I already probably had every bad habit a singer could have. In fact, it still goes on. It's un-training those habits and retraining new ones - the breathing, the relaxation, the tongue, the lungs, the everything. — Joan Baez

Every minute with you, Darling Eve, is a minute to treasure."
She slid a glance toward him as she uncoded the seal. "You really do want sex."
"I'm still breathing, so that would be yes. — J.D. Robb

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor? WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar. ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless? WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law. ***** — Krisanta Bella

Lost in a world of
reaching.
My heart is formidable
I am still breathing. — Abigail George

Isolation, not solitude, breaks men. If I could not find the means to deal with the isolation, then my options were severely limited. I began to call up memories of places, people, events, food-anything I could do to occupy my mind and remind myself that, even if I was being treated like an animal, I was still a living breathing human being. — Shawn Thompson

What now? (Shahara)
I'm thinking. (Syn)
Could you think a little quicker? (Shahara)
You're not helping. (Syn)
You're lucky you're still breathing and not limping. (Shahara) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The boundaries of my world had shrunk, but I was still alive, and as long as I could go on breathing and farting and thinking my thoughts, what difference did it make where I was? — Paul Auster

Michaels heard his name whispered so tenderly from Judge's mouth. It was as if he was in some kind of euphoric trance. That carnal sound threw him over the edge faster than he could ready himself to fall. Buried balls deep, he ground his pelvis against Judge's furry ass and jerked spastically; plastered against him as come shot from him, filling the tip of the condom. He purred and moaned Judge's name while he rode it out. Milking every drop. With his arm still around Judge's chest, Michaels held him close to him; trying to level out his breathing, but lingering shudders hit him as his cock deflated inside Judge's warm channel. Michaels kissed the back of Judge's neck. I'm ruined. He — A.E. Via

Lift up." Green smiled devilishly. "I'm gonna help you relax." Ruxs was already panting heavily as he rose up and let Green push his pants just below his balls. Green pulled the lever to push the seat all the way back and quickly buried his nose in the thick patch of hair at the base of Ruxs' dick. He took a long inhale, breathing in his manly scent before closing his mouth over the thick head, sucking gently at first. Even though they were high enough off the ground that if a car drove onto the lot, they wouldn't be able to see him, he still wanted to get Ruxs off fast. He moaned around the thick girth, taking it all the way to the back of his throat. "Oh — A.E. Via

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
E'en in Australia art thou still more hot
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
(Since that's your winter it don't mean a lot)
Sometimes too bright the eye of heaven shines
And bushfires start through half of New South Wales
Just so, when I do see thy bosom's lines
A fire consumes me and my breathing fails
But thine eternal summer shall not fade
This is in no way due to global warming;
Nay, from thy breasts shall verses fair be made
So damn compulsive they are habit-forming
So long as men can read and eyes can see
So long lives this, thou 34DD
(Based on an idea by William Shakespeare. I'm sure he'd agree that I've improved it) — Manny Rayner

I have a horrid scar right under my left knee from you. Well, the absence of you. Seems appropriate. But I still miss you. My pillowcase smells like you, so I bury my face in it and breathe it in. Things feel empty. My couch, my living room, my heart. I see pictures of things. Silly things, beautiful things, and I want to share them with you. But alas, I cannot, I do not, I press the red button when you call. — Elizabeth Brooks

Why the hell would anyone be eating at the Grease Trap? I've seen flies die from buzzing by that place." Andrea crossed her arms. "Oh, I don't know, probably because your career just ended and you are depressed and don't feel like breathing, let alone going out, but your body still needs food and that's the closest place to your apartment and they don't mind if you bring a giant dog with you." "What, you couldn't find a Dumpster that was closer?" Andrea glared at me. "What are you implying?" "The Dumpster would have better food in it." "Well, excuse me, Miss Fine Dining. — Ilona Andrews

Here I was, telling him a heartwarming story about my first and only pet, a goldfish that died the day after I won it with a well-placed ping-pong ball at the County Fair, and he had a still-breathing corpse in the trunk. — Nicole Castle

Staring out to sea, I finally forced myself to stop thinking of her as someone still somewhere, if only in memory, still obscurely alive, breathing, doing, moving, but as a shovelful of ashes already scattered; as a broken link, a biological dead end, an eternal withdrawal from reality, a once complex object that now dwindled, dwindled, left nothing behind except a l like a fallen speck of soot on a blank sheet of paper. — John Fowles

I'm not sure which came first, the phone call or the sense of being strangled in my sleep. The choking sensation, as if all breathing on my part must cease, is still vivid in my mind. The feeling engulfs me and I am lying in bed all over again. I feel my throat constricting, intense pressure bearing down on me that I cannot escape. I push away at nothing. I flail and scream, but no sound escapes as my throat is squeezed shut, not by some actual physical hands clasped around my neck but from some nameless danger lurking just as real around me. I gasp for air, seeking somehow to gulp in one long breath that might see me through until I can breathe again. But that breath won't come, and I feel certain that I will perish in an instant, without even a cry on my part. — Mary Ellen Bramwell

I love you.
lightning. Once it has forked, hot-white, from sky to earth, there is no going back.
It's time. I feel it, I know it. My eyes on him, his on me, and both of us breathing, watching, tired of of waiting. Ky close his eyes, but mine are still open. what will it feel like, his lips on mine? Like a secret told, a promise kept? Like that line in the poem-a shower of all my days- silvery rain falling all around me, where the lighting meets the earth?
The whistle blows below us and the moment breaks. We are safe.
For now. — Ally Condie

Eve said, in a high, squeaky, airless voice, "The ghost! You're the ghost Miranda was talking about! Oh my God, Michael, you're the ghost! You bastard!"
He nodded, still concentrating on breathing.
Eve got control of her voice and squealed, "That is without a doubt the coolest damn thing I have ever seen in my entire life! — Rachel Caine

His breathing was heavy and he was somber. He shivered still, and when his hand found me it was unsteady.
"Ah," I said smiling still, and kissing his shoulder.
"I hurt you!" he said.
"No, no, not at all, sweet Master," I answered. "But I hurt you! I have you, now!"
"Amadeo, you play with the devil."
"Dont you want me to, Master? Didn't you like it? You took my blood and it made you my slave!"
He laughed. "So that's the twist you put on it, isn't it?"
"Hmmm. Love me. What does it matter?" I asked.
"Never tell the others," he said. There was no fear or weakness or shame in it. — Anne Rice

The clock holds me nowhere. Nowhere. Nowhere. There is nothing else but now and the shifting depth of the night. I sit at a table alone smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and listening and surviving. I should not be here or anywhere. I should not be breathing or taking space. I should not have been given this moment or anything else. I should not have this opportunity again to live. I do not deserve it or deserve anything yet it is here and I am here and I Have it all of it still. I won't have it again. This moment or this chance they are the same and they are mine if I choose them and I do. I want them. Now and as long as I can have them they are both precious and fleeting and gone in the blink of an eye don't waste them. A moment and an opportunity and a life, all in the unseen tick of a clock holding me nowhere. My heart is beating. The walls are pale and quiet. I am surviving. — James Frey

I flicked on the light beside my bed, waiting for my breathing to slow, veins full of adrenaline from the realistic dream.
A new dream, but in essence so much the same as the many others that had plagued me in the past months.
No, not a dream. Surely a memory.
I could still feel the heat of Jared's lips on mine. My hands reached out without my permission, searching across the rumpled sheets, looking for something they didn't find. My heart ached when they gave up, falling to the bed limp and empty. — Stephenie Meyer

I'm tougher than this."

He shook his head. "Somehow it doesn't matter how tough you are. You can be tough as hell and still be leveled flat without warning."
She looked at him. "What do you do when you're leveled flat?"
"You make a plan, you move on that plan, and you keep breathing — Jill Shalvis

The Reed Flute's Work
I say to the reed flute, You do the work,
yet you know sweet secrets too.
You share the Friend's breathing.
What could you need from me?
The reed replies, Knowledge is total
destruction. I say, Burn me completely then
and leave no knowing.
How could I, when it's knowledge that leads us?
But this knowledge has lost compassion
and grown disgusted with itself.
It has forgotten about silence and emptiness.
A reed flute has nine holes
and is a model of human consciousness,
beheaded, though still in love with lips.
This is your disgrace, this moaning.
Weep for the sounds you make. — Rumi

As these images were going through my head, my breathing suddenly went still. I looked at Jamie, then up to the ceiling and around the room, doing my best to keep my composure, then back to Jamie again. She smiled at me and I smiled at her and all I could do was wonder how I'd ever fallen in love with a girl like Jamie Sullivan. — Nicholas Sparks

Do you remember the first time we made love?" He touched his lips to hers as he said it. "We rode up in the elevator like this and couldn't keep our hands off each other, couldn't get to each other quick enough. I was mad for you. I wanted you more than I wanted to keep breathing. I still do." He deepened the kiss as the elevator doors opened. "It's never going to change. — J.D. Robb

Everything. That's what I'm feeling. I just want to remember everything about this exact moment. The way I can still smell you and taste you on my lips. The way it feels to be inside you, so hot and good. How your stomach feels, moving against mine every time you take a breath. I can hear you breathing too. — Delphine Dryden

No, I'm not ok. But I haven't been ok since I was 11, maybe 12. I am still here though.
I'm still breathing. For me, sometimes, that will have to be enough. — Clementine Von Radics

Encroach, v.
The first three nights we spent together, I couldn't sleep. I wasn't used to your breathing, your feet on my legs, your weight in my bed. In truth, I still sleep better when I'm alone. But now I allow that sleep isn't always the most important thing. — David Levithan

Well, I'm still breathing. — Leon Spinks

You still pretend to be." "Cynical I will always be, I fear." I sipped from the mug, letting the steam and scent circle my face, breathing the steam. "Non. You are not cynical. You see the world as it is." "Perhaps. I try, but what we are colors what we see. Truth is in the eye of the beholder." I laughed, more harshly than I meant. "That's why I'm skeptical of those who say they have found the truth. — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

I'm sorry," she murmured, rousing after a minute. Her breathing had begun to return to normal and awareness was starting to creep back in,
particularly of his cock still buried hard and deep inside her. She propped herself up on her elbow. "I shamelessly used your body to get off and was too impatient to wait for you."

"Just so you know, you are welcome to shamelessly use my body to get off any time you want. — Amy Andrews

You came." His gaze held hers. "And I knew that you are not useful to me, Ash. Not anymore. Except as a reason to get up in the morning
"
"You don't sleep anymore," she reminded him, smiling.
"Except as a reason to keep breathing
"
"You don't need air."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm still new at this Guardian thing. So just shut up, and let me tell you that I love you. — Meljean Brook

I still cry on waking. I'm not sure why. I feel nothing. Nothing I can name, anyway. It's like breathing - something that happens over which I have no control. (6) — Mary E. Pearson

... I noticed you don't have any self-defense training ... "
" ... I can handle myself just fine."
She stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. Finally, "In the very short time I've known you, you have been chased, shot, robbed, stabbed, drugged, and attacked by magic."
"I'm still breathing, aren't I? — Devon Monk

When I think about John William now, I think about someone who followed through, and then I'm glad not to have followed through, to still be breathing, to still be here with people, to still be walking in the mountains, and to still be uncertain
even with all this cash on hand
in a way I seem to have no choice about. I'm a hypocrite, of course, and I live with that, but I live. — David Guterson

I've had the words all my life and they meant nothing. I thought love was in the showing." He let out a low laugh and shook his head. "But then you came out of nowhere. I didn't expect you, Becca."
"I know, I
"
He put a finger to her lips. "I'm still getting past the surprise that I was willing to go there with you at all."
"There," she said, needing a translation.
"Here. You've become a part of me," he said. "As important and basic as breathing. I feel things for you that I can't even name." His lips twitched. "And a few that I can. — Jill Shalvis

Got shot 5 times but I'm still breathing ... living proof there's a God if you need a reason. — Tupac Shakur

I cleared my throat, searching for my voice. "There's a good chance you might be smarter than me."

That almost made her smile. "Nah, I just like being around you while you're still breathing. — Lisa Kessler

You happened to me,You scare me to death, you know. When you stormed into my life, you turned everything inside out. You upset all the things I believed about myself and made me think in new ways. I know who I used to be, but I'm finally ready to figure out who I am. Cynicism gets tiring, Isabel, and you've ... rested me.And don't you dare tell me you've stopped loving me back, because you're still a better person than I am, and I'm counting on you to take more care with my heart than I took with yours. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

It is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles — Frank O'Hara

When they're little, and you go for years without a good night's sleep, you wonder if they'll ever make it through to morning without finding some reason to wake you up. But then one day you look at the clock and it's 7:30 a.m ...
For a panicked moment, you wonder if your child is
well, I can't even say it. You leap out of bed and run into his room and if you haven't wakened him up with all your commotion by then, you stand there for a minute trying to make sure that he's still breathing. You see the chest rising and falling and you let out a sigh. There's nothing wrong. He's just growing up. He doesn't need you anymore, is all; he doesn't need to wake you up in the night. — Beth J. Harpaz

I'm still breathing because I have faith. My faith and my kids are the two things that matter. — Kate Gosselin

I like 'Unsung' but I'd rather have a 'Behind the Music' while I'm still breathing. — Lalah Hathaway

It's definitely the hardest tackle I've taken in my life but I'm still breathing and that's a good sign. — Derick Hougaard

You will die."
"I guess. I don't know." She shook her head, trying to pick through her feelings. "I used to think I was alive just because I kept getting away. If someone didn't put a bullet in my head, I was winning. I was still breathing, right?" She looked at the blackened land around her, feeling tired and sad and alone. "But now I'm thinking it ain't like that. Now I'm thinking that once you got enough dead looking over your shoulder, you're dead anyway. Don't matter if you're still walking and talking, they weigh you down. — Paolo Bacigalupi

As long as you and I are still breathing, we have a purpose to serve — Emmitt Smith

I don't know how I'm going to do this, move through the hours like someone who wants to still be breathing when I had so firmly made up my mind to stop. — Courtney Summers

I've spent most of my life trying to make it to a future that still hasn't happened, or avoid a past that won't let me go. I don't remember when I've ever just stopped to live in the present, to hold on to the seconds I'm in. ~ Emma — Rebecca Donovan

I don't know how long I sat there without moving, thinking, or breathing. It probably wasn't as long as it felt, because the building where I sat had not crumbled into dust, and the sun had not turned cold and fallen from the sky. But it was still a very long time before a single jagged thought managed to penetrate the cold and empty vault between my ears, and when it finally did register I still couldn't do any more than take a large and sharp breath and let that thought echo around all alone. Closer — Jeff Lindsay

Sorry," I said.
"Don't be sorry." She sent a sneer in the direction of Colin who'd rejoined his friends on the other side of the theatre. "The fact he's still breathing isn't your fault. — Michelle Rowen

Watching the animals come and go, and feeling the land swell up to meet them and then feeling it grow still at their departure, I came to think of the migrations as breath, as the land breathing. In spring a great inhalation of light and animals. The long-bated breath of summer. And an exhalation that propelled them all south in the fall. — Barry Lopez

Annabel slipped her trembling fingers into his large, warm hand, and he gently pulled her to her feet. "I forgive you," he said, "and I understand." Without thinking, she leaned against him, pressing her forehead against his shoulder. They stood like that, unmoving, while Annabel concentrated on calming her breathing and forcing away the tears that still threatened. She smelled the familiar lavender, which Mistress Eustacia placed inside his clean laundry, but also a warm, masculine smell that was distinctly Ranulf's. She felt soothed, safe, and she never wanted this moment to end. — Melanie Dickerson

Well everybody's got a story to tell
And everybody's got a wound to be healed
I want to believe there's beauty here
So, I guess you're tired of holding on
I can't let go, I can't move on
I want to believe there's meaning here

How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this"?
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you
God, I need you now.

Standing on a road I didn't plan
Wondering how I got to where I am
I'm trying to hear that still small voice
I'm trying to hear above the noise

Though I walk, though I walk through the shadows
And I, I am so afraid
Please stay, please stay right beside me
With every single step I take

How many times have you heard me cry out?
And how many times have you given me strength?

I need you now
I need you now — Plumb

For a moment the feeling crept over me that my work, my vision, is going to destroy me, and for a fleeting moment I let myself take a long, hard look at myself, something I would not otherwise do
out of instinct, on principle, out of self-preservation
look at myself with objective curiosity to see whether my vision has not destroyed me already. I found it comforting to note that I was still breathing. — Werner Herzog

Still, a thrill raced through her when she thought about the one thing she would have. Camille wrapped her arms around Oscar's waist and held him, breathing in his distinctive scent. It was such a small detail about him. She wanted to discover all the small details about him, and now she could.
"Don't ever die again," Camille whispered, pressing her cheek against the hard muscle of his shoulder.
"I'll give staying alive my best shot. On one condition." He lifted her chin up to look him in the eye. "Choose me."
Choice. She'd always had it, but strangely a life without the soft padding of money and reputation made her feel as though she had more freedom than ever. She could do whatever she wanted to do, be whoever she wanted to be. And the only person she wanted to find her way with was Oscar.
"I already have," she whispered, running her hands up his arms and over his broad shoulders. — Angie Frazier

As she felt his fangs against her neck, she was in another world.
There was screaming. A woman was somewhere in agony. Everything was black, and the tormented scream was overwhelming, echoing through the emptiness. After the screaming subsided, there was panting, loud and steady, and it wasn't as dark anymore. There was a room visible now, in a reddish light. A pale man with black hair hovered over a woman dressed in white. She lay on a bed, looking disheveled and sweaty. Her brown-black hair clung to her wet forehead and shoulders. She was covered in blood. The man sat next to her, and held her close to him. He stroked her hair as her chest heaved desperately.
"I love you, my dearest Katerina," he said, cradling her in his strong arms. "Soon, we'll be together forever." Everything faded to black once more, and the woman stopped breathing. All was silent and still. — Dawn Bonney

What do you say when you feel your life is taken right from your chest, even though I miraculously find myself still breathing? — Jason F. Wright

My heart was still beating, I was still breathing, but was living something more? — Molly Looby

Qhuinn stopped breathing, focusing everything he had on the male who had been his best friend and his never-been lover ... and the ever-after that was never going to happen.
Even after all the things that had gone on between them, and all the fuckups on his end, which were legendary, Blay still had his back.
"I love you," Qhuinn blurted into the silence. — J.R. Ward

Later that night, feeling restless, I get out of bed, creep into Linus's room, and watch him sleeping in his crib. He's lying on his back, wearing blue feety pajamas, one arm up over his head. I listen to his deep-sleep exhales. Even years past those fragile newborn months, it still gives my maternal ears relief and peace to hear the sounds of my children breathing when they're asleep. His orange nukie is in his mouth, the silky edge of his favorite blanket is touching his cheek, and Bunny is lying limp across his chest. He's surrounded by every kind of baby security paraphernalia imaginable, and yet none of it protected him from what could have happened today. — Lisa Genova

Money is important yes, but not the most important. I don't need money to smile or breathe. I would still be breathing if all my money disappeared tomorrow. — Aeriel Miranda

Any problems with your flight? (Acheron) I didn't eat my pilot if that's what you mean. And little Nicky here is still breathing and not bleeding. (Zarek) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I still perform it in all my shows. I'll do it as long as I'm breathing. I'm so proud it has stood the test of time. — Ben E. King

For a moment nothing happens. The figure stands still and I stand cold and alive and-
He starts to run. I make my way down the rocks, slipping, sliding, trying to get to the plain. I wish, I think, my feet clumsy, moving too fast, not fast enough, I wish i could run, I wish I'd written a whole poem, I wish I kept the compass-
And then I reach the plain and wish for nothing but what I have. Ky. Running toward me. I have never seen him run like this, fast, free, strong, wild. He looks so beautiful, his body moves so right. He stops just close enough for me to see the blue of his eyes and forget the red on my hands and the green I wish I wore. "You're here," he says, breathing hard and hungry. sweat and dirt cover his face, and he looks at me as though I'm the only thing he ever needed to see. I open my mouth to say yes. But I only have time to breathe in before he closes the last of the distance. All I know is the kiss. — Ally Condie

Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out,
swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing ...
And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.
And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still
red, his eyes not yet extinguished.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where
hanging here from this gallows ... "
That night, the soup tasted of corpses. — Elie Wiesel

When you're all alone out there, on the end of the typewriter, with each new story a new appraisal by the world of whether you can still get it up or not, arrogance and self-esteem and deep breathing are all you have. It often looks like egomania. I assure you it's the bold coverup of the absolutely terrified. — Harlan Ellison

I think I've been rather reasonable about this whole situation."
"How do you figure?"
"They are still breathing, aren't they? — Ilona Andrews

Page 117 Sam says "You learn to live with it, with them. Because they do stay with you, even if they're not living, breathing people anymore. It's not the same crushing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you and makes you want to cry in the wrong places and irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead. It's just something you learn to accommodate. Like adapting around a hole. I don't know. It's like you become ... a doughnut instead of a bun." page 117 — Jojo Moyes

But then this morning I had to tell him goodbye. And he held me and kissed me so much, I thought I might die if he let go.
But I didn't die. Because he let go and here I am. Still living. Still breathing.
Just barely. — Colleen Hoover

Life goes on. It doesn't go on. Yes, yes, I know, all we want in the end, we living, breathing creatures (am I still one of them?) is life. All we want to believe in is the persistence and vitality of life. Faced with the choice between death and the merest hint of life, what scrap, what token wouldn't we cling to in order to keep that belief? A leaf? A single moist, green leaf? That will do, that will be enough. — Graham Swift

He leans forward slightly, lips pulling back against his even, white teeth. It's so aggressive and animalistic I expect to see fangs. "I am your rightful king, Silver-born for centuries," he replies, seething. "The only reason you're still breathing is because I can't burn the oxygen from this room. — Victoria Aveyard

I want what everybody wants,
that's how I know I'm still
breathing ... — Mark Doty

Manage me, I am a mess, swept under the rug of yesterday's home improvement, a whimsical urge tossed aside for the easy reassurance of home and comfort. I am the photograph tucked away as a book-mark, in a book left half unread, once reopened to find memories crawling back into peripheral sight, faded, creased and lonely. I long to be admired, long to be held, torn and laughed at, laughed with, like a distant relative or an old friend breathing in their last breath. I missed the moment when time collapsed and memory was erased, replaced by finicky social experiments, lost in the blur of intoxication, sucked through multi-colored bendy-straws, making way for a spinning world where hub-caps stood still, but our vision didn't. If I could leave you with only one thing, it would be small, foldable, and made from trees, with a few careless words, scribbled in blue; Take a minute to learn me, take a moment to love me, because I need your love to live,and without it, I am nothing. — Alex Gaskarth

I am lying in the same bed where my mother died so long ago; on the same mattress,
beneath the same black wool coverlet she wrapped us in to sleep. I slept beside her, her
little girl, in the special place she made for me in her arms.
I think I can still feel the calm rhythm of her breathing; the palpitations and sighs that
soothed my sleep ... I think I feel the pain of her death ... But that isn't true.
Here I lie, flat on my back, hoping to forget my loneliness by remembering those times.
Because I am not here just for a while. And I am not in my mother's bed but in a black box
like the ones for burying the dead. Because I am dead.
I sense where I am, but I can think ... — Juan Rulfo

For a while I thought I was the dragon.
I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was
the princess,
cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,
young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with
confidence
but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,
while I'm out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,
and getting stabbed to death.
Okay, so I'm the dragon. Big deal.
You still get to be the hero.
You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights! — Richard Siken

Look at me
I am the life in a wasteland
Look at me
I am the slavery through the ages
Look at me
I am the mirror of the world
Look at me
I am the illusion I've fought for
Look at me
I'm still loving you
and I keep being here
for you, for me,
and for what's worth breathing — Rixa White

He was staring straight ahead, still breathing hard.
"I have something I want to give you."
"I gathered that."
At that he jerked his gaze back to hers and almost reluctantly grinned.
"Not that. — Cassandra Clare

Marked." My face was on fire, my limbs shaking. "All of you. I will take all of you out with my own bare hands!"
There was laughter building in Bram's voice as he responded. "As cute as I'm sure that would be, your attempt ... if we thought the people who might try to trace that chip could make you absolutely, one hundred percent safe, I would carry you to them and hand you over myself."
I gingerly rested my fingertips against my forehead, breathing deeply, trying to calm myself down.
"There are some very bad men out to get you, Miss Dearly."
"You have got to be kidding me."
"By the way, you have quite the vocabulary, for a princess." He still sounded amused.
This statement was random enough to get my attention. "Princess?" I asked, confused.
"You know, a princess. A New Victorian girl."
My lips parted to fire off another question before it clicked. "You're a Punk."
"Born and bred."
"Fantastic. — Lia Habel

I'm so dopesick, my tears taste like urine. It's as if the air itself were made of broken glass. I try to stop twitching. To stay still, to stop my very breath, let the pain stay inside. The slightest movement grinds tiny shards into my pores. Breathing is like gulping from a bag of claws. I want to die. Want to pass out. Want to stop ... this ... fucking ... feeling. — Jerry Stahl

Me? Rebuild" I shook my head."First off, I don't know anything about construction or reconstruction. And second, have you been down there? Have you seen it? So many people haven't moved back or rebuilt, and I totally get it. Why invest all that time and money when each hurricane season brings a new threat?"
Aimee regarded me with a steady blue gaze. "Why build skyscrapers in San Francisco that might be knocked down by an earthquake? Or why build farms in Kansas and Oklahoma that might get blown away by a tornado?" She snorted, and it seemed so uncharacteristic for the elegant old woman that I almost laughed. "Where did they want us to go, anyway? I figure if we're still breathing, then we're meant to keep going. So we rebuild. We start over. It's just what we do. — Karen White

I could smell the Viet Cong, really, I could smell Charlie. It wasn't just his body sweat or the urine. There were times when I could hear the breathing, real quiet; you could hear a person breathe, and I'd know he was in there, and I didn't go any farther. I just said to myself: In this dark corner of a tunnel is where the animal belongs, a rodent belongs. I'm becoming like a rodent, but still I don't belong. Yes, I could smell Charlie. And he knew me. The type of cologne I used, the aftershave - that's when we stopped using it altogether. But there was more than that. There was the scent that told you there was somebody in the tunnels. We became so tuned up after a while that when the other person would flick an eyelid up or down, you really knew he was there, in the corner, not even hiding anymore. Just sitting and waiting. They were the ones you never killed. You just backed out and told them up above the tunnel was cold. — Tom Mangold

And if we really want to stay current and relevant, we have to use social media. And by that I mean Facebook. There are one billion people on Facebook. Maybe older people should have our own social media. We can call it What Did That Doctor Do to Your Face Book? In fact, we can have our own text and Facebook abbreviations. We can have our own WTF, LOL, and LMAO. GNIB: Good news, it's benign. OMG: Oh, my gout. DMMLIMNWD: Don't make me laugh, I'm not wearing Depends. WAI: Where am I? ITIHSBCR: I think I had sex but can't remember. ILI: I like Ike. TKDC: The kids didn't call. DTLSTY: Does this look swollen to you? CTDMELOFM: Call the doctor - my erection lasted over four minutes. PAMUHNASIHSB: Put a mirror under his nose and see if he's still breathing. Bottom line: we can't be dial-up in a Wi-Fi world. — Billy Crystal

I will never give up ... I will never give up! As long I'm still breathing in this world ... As long I'm still standing, I will never give up!!! — Hiro Mashima

Juliette-Julietter, love, wake up-wake up"
...
Warner's hands cup my face. The warmth of his skin helps calm me somehow, and I finally feel my heart rate begin to slow. "Look at me." he says.
I force myself to meet his eyes, shaking as I catch my breath.
"It's okay," he whispers, still holding my cheeks. "It was just a bad dream. Try closing your mouth," he says, "and breathing through your nose." He nods. "There you go. Easy. You're okay." His voice is so soft, so melodic, so inexplicably tender.
...
"I won't let you go until you are ready," he tells me. "Don't worry take your time. — Tahereh Mafi

We have good days and bad days. You told me, once, to just remember to breathe. As long as you can do that, you're doing something Good, you said. Getting rid of the old, and letting in the new. And, therefore, moving forward. Making progress. That's all you have to do to move forward, sometimes, you said, just breathe. So don't worry, Etta, if nothing else, I am still breathing. — Emma Hooper

Although the rhythm of the waves beats a kind of time, it is not clock or calendar time. It has no urgency. It happens to be timeless time. I know that I am listening to a rhythm which has been just the same for millions of years, and it takes me out of a world of relentlessly ticking clocks. Clocks for some reason or other always seem to be marching, and, as with armies, marching is never to anything but doom. But in the motion of waves there is no marching rhythm. It harmonizes with our very breathing. It does not count our days. Its pulse is not in the stingy spirit of measuring, of marking out how much still remains. It is the breathing of eternity, like the God Brahma of Indian mythology inhaling and exhaling, manifesting and dissolving the worlds, forever. As a mere conception this might sound appallingly monotonous, until you come to listen to the breaking and washing of waves. — Alan W. Watts

But I'm still standing. I'm still breathing. And somehow, I'm okay. — Gayle Forman

I just like being around you while you're still breathing." She glanced my way. "I'm pretty selfish like that. — Lisa Kessler

I wanted to ask you about your vision of perfection in an imperfect world, or what side of the earth calls out to you when you touch a physical globe, or maybe about your greatest heartache and how you still go on as your world continues turning, or what you do with a memory once lodged inside your bones that;s still breathing, and burning. But you're still a stranger, and I'm overly polite, so I'll ask all about your day when I'd rather know about your life. — Victoria Erickson

When the Deep Purple falls,
Over sleepy garden walls,
And the stars begin to flicker in the sky,
Thru the mist of a memory
You wander back to me,
Breathing my name with a sigh.
In the still of the night,
Once again I hold you tight,
Tho' you're gone, your love lives on
When moonlight beams.
And as long as my heart will beat
Lover, we'll always meet
Here in my Deep Purple dreams. — Rebecca Wells

Without a word he started stalking down the street in the opposite direction my grandparents had taken. I started after him, my steps slower.
And then quite abruptly Caine whipped around and marched back toward me. Features etched with determination, he yanked me roughly to him and crushed his mouth down over mine. I made a noise of surprise in the back of my throat before my instincts took over. I couldn't help sinking into his kiss.
When he finally let me go we were both breathing hard. Caine smoothed his thumb over my cheek, his eyes still dark with passion and anger.
I could give a fuck who saw that. — Samantha Young

I'm not leaving you. We still have a chance."
"How?"
Kayson's voice echoes his hopelessness. He's already given up.
"Hey, as long as we are still breathing, we still have a chance. If you quit, then you're quitting on me too. — Brandy Nacole