In Way Too Deep Quotes & Sayings

I'm too caught up in this ... pretend life I'm so completely submersed in. And you know what? I like it. I love it. Even though I know deep down inside, it's fake. That the way you talk to me, look at me, touch me. Kiss me ... is all for show. I'm some sort of protection for you but I don't care. I want it.
I want you. — Monica Murphy

Safe! All I wanted to do was keep them safe. How do you protect your brothers at eight-fucking-teen? How do you make enough money, get enough respect to do that? I wasn't smart, Eve. I'm a big, dumb fucking bastard. I couldn't even get a job as a bagger at the A&P. I wanted to make their lives worth living. That's what they'd done for me - made my life worth living. They're my family. I can't ... I just can't." Beckett pounded his chest.
"They would've been better off without me," he continued. "Blake would still be homeless, but Cole made his own damn way. But I wanted in. I wanted to belong. I was too fucking selfish to walk away. I should have walked away. But I didn't and now - " Beckett choked on a deep, angry sob. "Now, they're paying for it. All my stupid decisions. They'll die tonight. They'll both die, and I can't stop it. I can't plug it with money. I can't bring them back from the dead, even if I act tough or kill more people. — Debra Anastasia

My heart was skipping beats already. I was in way too deep. I didn't exactly stop myself from falling, but he did a whole lot of pulling, whether he knew it or not. — Kiera Cass

Totalitarianism is not only hell, but all the dream of paradise
the age-old dream of a world where everybody would live in harmony, united by a single common will and faith, without secrets from one another. Andre Breton, too, dreamed of this paradise when he talked about the glass house in which he longed to live. If totalitarianism did not exploit these archetypes, which are deep inside us all and rooted deep in all religions, it could never attract so many people, especially during the early phases of its existence. Once the dream of paradise starts to turn into reality, however, here and there people begin to crop up who stand in its way. and so the rulers of paradise must build a little gulag on the side of Eden. In the course of time this gulag grows ever bigger and more perfect, while the adjoining paradise gets even smaller and poorer. — Milan Kundera

She is my mate. And my spy,' I said too quietly. 'And she is the High Lady of the Night Court.'
'What?' Mor whsipered.
I caressed a mental finger down that bond now hidden deep, deep within us, and said, 'If they had removed her other glove, they would have seen a second tatoo on her right arm. The twin to the other. Inked last night, when we crept out, found a priestess, and I swore her in as my High Lady.' ( ... ) 'Not consort, not wife. Feyre is High Lady of the Night Court.' My equal in every way; she would wear my crown, sit on a throne beside mine. Never sidelined, never designated to breeding and parties and child rearing. My queen. — Sarah J. Maas

I found a place that I hoped would be obscure, over on one side, in the back, and went to it without genuflecting, and knelt down. As I knelt, the first thing I noticed was a young girl, very pretty too, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, kneeling straight up and praying quite seriously. I was very much impressed to see that someone who was young and beautiful could with such simplicity make prayer the real and serious and principal reason for going to church. She was clearly kneeling that way because she meant it, not in order to show off, and she was praying with an absorption which, though not the deep recollection of a saint, was serious enough to show that she was not thinking at all about the other people who were there. — Thomas Merton

One specific, profound moment isn't what you are supposed to spend your life looking for Ellie. Your life should include a billion different instances; ones that include all the people who matter most to you and only you."
He took a deep breath before continuing as a tear fell and slid down one of my cheeks.
"Those moments should be the ones you etch into your mind and think about - not the ones where things were bad or didn't go the way you thought they should. The only moments that matter are those that you give importance too. — C.S. Janey

I think my thought and imagination contain the picture and perceive its significance from every point of view. I have to force myself not to dwell upon it to avoid the sort of numbness that comes from deep apprehension and dwelling upon elements too vast to be yet comprehended or in any way controlled by counsel. — Erik Larson

You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it,' said I. 'I will try on my side to be no less honest. I believe these deep duties may lie upon your lordship; I believe you may have laid them on your conscience when you took the oaths of the high office which you hold. But for me, who am just a plain man
or scarce a man yet
the plain duties must suffice. I can think but of two things, of a poor soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a shameful death, and of the cries and tears of his wife that still tingle in my head. I cannot see beyond, my lord. It's the way I am made. If the country has to fall, it has to fall. And I pray God, if this is wilful blindness, that He may enlighten me before too late. — Robert Louis Stevenson

He was surprised at the way she answered. She had taken a long time to say that. She had nodded her head in a deep way too. Had she wished to affect him with some sort of premonition? He wondered unhappily. Or was it only that she would not help him, after all, by talking with him? For he was not strong enough to receive the impact of unfamiliar things without a little talk to break their fall. He had lived a month in which nothing had happened except in his head and his body - an almost inaudible life of heartbeats and dreams that came back, a life of fever and privacy, a delicate life which had left him weak to the point of - what? Of begging. The pulse in his palm leapt like a trout in a brook.

("Death of a Traveling Salesman") — Eudora Welty

Mr. Irvine ... had given him advice: not
advice about how to think as much as advice about how to be, about how to be a curiosity in a world in which curiosities weren't often tolerated. "People are going to think certain things about you because of how you walk," Mr. Irvine had once said to him, and he had looked down. "No," he'd said. "Don't look down, Jude. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You're a brilliant man, and you'll be brilliant, and you'll be rewarded for your brilliance. But if you act like you don't belong, if you act like you're apologetic for your own self, then people will start to treat you that way, too." He'd taken a deep breath. "Believe me." Be as steely as you want to be, Mr. Irvine had said. Don't try to get people to like you. Never try to make yourself more palatable in order to make your colleagues more comfortable. — Hanya Yanagihara

He lay on top of me, buried deep, and fell asleep.
He slept all night like that, and I did not move him, did not want to. I gasped breath in and out and closed my eyes and thought that I would never forget this feeling, of him on me and in me, of him consuming my soul and letting me go.
He was too callous, too far gone to realize that I'd never be free of him, and all he'd really done was set me adrift.
I never left that bed.
That feeling of helpless abandonment and unendurable longing stayed inside of me, for hours, for minutes, for weeks.
For years.
I went through my life, through tragedy and pain, through hardship and life, and my heart, my very sould, stayed in that bed.
I felt broken after that last encounter.
Pieces of me had been shattered on that bed, important, essential pieces, and they would not, could not, ever find their way back together.
But I kept going. Life is cruel like that. — R.K. Lilley

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it! — William Hutchison Murray

As she wrote her pulse quickened to the pleasure of forming the phrases,--her blood warmed to the joy of the working. She was experiencing a return of the familiar sensation of happiness in constructing. Quite suddenly, in fancy she caught in the far distance a glimpse of silver wings. It gave her a warm thrill of gratification too deep for words. Immediately she knew through some inner consciousness, that no matter what the future would hold--joy or sorrow, happiness or grief--that no matter where life's paths would lead her--through sharp and stony ways or beside still waters--buried deep within her was an indestructible capacity to visualize a white bird flying. She might never get close to the way of its winging, but always there would be joy in lifting her eyes to the glory of its distant flight. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

When Jennifer was here in the summer, they were at the house most days. I would say generally that as they got older they became quieter, and though I enjoyed both, I sometimes missed the giggles and shouts. The quiet voices, just low enough for me not to hear from wherever I was, rising and failing in proportion to my distance from them, frightened me. Not that I believed they were planning or recounting anything really wicked, but there was a female seriousness about them, and it was secretive, and of course I thought: love, sex. But it was more than that: it was womanhood they were entering, the deep forest of it, and no matter how many women and men too are saying these days that there is little difference between us, the truth is that men find their way into that forest only on clearly marked trails, while women move about in it like birds. So hearing Jennifer and her friends talking so quietly, yet intensely, I wanted very much to have a wife. — Andre Dubus

JOHN WATERS: In Cry-Baby Traci played a sexpot-which is always the best way to rid yourself of an image, by playing it and making fun of it. That's what Johnny Deep did, too. He was on Jump Street, and he hated playing a teen idol, so I said, "stick with us; we'll kill that." And we did - in the right way, you know? — John Waters

Today, I often meet people who are too busy to take care of their wealth. And there are people too busy to take care of their health. The cause is the same. They're busy, and they stay busy as a way of avoiding something they do not want to face. Nobody has to tell them. Deep down they know. In fact, if you remind them, they often respond with anger or irritation. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

There were no tears in her. The wound went too deep, or she was not so constituted to give way to it. Hers would be the perpetual ache of loss and loneliness, slowly dulled with time until it became a part of her character, a faint sourness tinged with withered pride. — Winston Graham

Here is my question: Why don't we? Why are we so easily satisfied? Why is this sense of lustful, soul-deep angst so uncommon? Romans 8 tells us that it's not just creation, but we ourselves who groan in this way. But I don't see a lot of groaning in myself. I find myself far too easily satisfied with my relationship with the — Matt Chandler

He stared fixedly at the opposite bank where an angler was fishing, his line perfectly still. All of a sudden the man jerked out of the water a little sliver fish which wriggled at the end of his line. Twisting and turning it this way and that he tried to extract his hook, but in vain. Losing patience he started pulling and, as he did so, tore out the entire bloody gullet of the fish with parts of its intestines attached. Paul shuddered, feeling himself equally torn apart. It seemed to him that the hook was like his own love and that if he were to tear it out he too would be gutted by a piece of curved wire hooked deep into his essential self at the end of a line held by Madeleine. — Guy De Maupassant

He made quick work of undoing Syn's belt and dropping his pants and briefs to his ankles. Furi took Syn's length all the way to the back of his throat and held him there. "Augh. Furious!" Syn yelled, grasping at Furi's shoulders. Furi had to take the edge off for his lover and then he had to get to work. And he had to take care of himself too, since his dick was just as hard and aching. Syn fucked Furi's mouth while he unbuttoned his jumpsuit and anxiously dug inside his jeans, pulling himself free. He moaned deep in his throat at the first contact of cool air on his hot dick. No doubt the vibration drove Syn crazy because he grasped Furi's hair and started slamming his cock in and out, the rhythm of his hips already faltering. "Gonna — A.E. Via

There comes a point when you're writing a novel when you're in it so deep that the life of the novel becomes more real to you than life itself. You have to write your way out of it; once you're there, it's too late to abandon. — Hanya Yanagihara

There is a mirror across from me, and I check my reflection in it before heading home. Despite the bone-deep fatigue and the growing fear and frustration, I look ... fine. Da always said he'd teach me to play cards. Said I'd take the bank, the way things never reach my eyes. There should be something - a tell, a crease between my eyes, or a tightness in my jaw.
I'm too good at this.
Behind my reflection I see the painting of the sea, slanting as if the waves crashing on the rocks have hit with enough force to tip the picture. I turn and straighten it. The frame makes a faint rattling sound when I do. Everything in this place seems to be falling apart. — Victoria Schwab

It's specifically this Z = 2^(Aleph0) that he couldn't prove. Ever. Despite years of unimaginable doodling. Whether it's what unhinged him or not is an unanswerable question, but it is true that his inability to prove the C.H. caused Cantor pain for the rest of his life; he considered it his great failure. This too, in hindsight, is sad, because professional mathematicians now know exactly why G. Cantor could neither prove nor disprove the C.H. The reasons are deep and important and go corrosively to the root of axiomatic set theory's formal Consistency, in rather the same way that K. Godel's Incompleteness proofs deracinate all math as a formal system. Once again, the issues here can be only sketched or synopsized (although this time Godel is directly involved, so the whole thing is probably fleshed out in the Great Discoveries Series' Godel booklet). — David Foster Wallace

No one could accuse Building 20 of burying its Services too deep in the Structure. Recabling from office to office, lab to lab, or even wing to wing is largely a matter of do-it-yourself. Rather than a burden, the occupants consider this a benefit. 1990 - The wide wood stairs in Building 20 show wear in a way that adds to its myth. You feel yourself walking in historic footsteps in pursuit of technical solutions that might be elegant precisely because they are quick and dirty. And that describes the building: elegant because it is quick and dirty. — Stewart Brand

I pull my foot back again, but Four's hands clamp around my arms, and he pulls me away from her with irresistible force. I breathe through gritted teeth, staring at Molly's blood-covered face, the color deep and rich and beautiful, in a way. She groans, and I hear a gurgling in her throat, watch blood trickle from her lips. "You won," Four mutters. "Stop." I wipe the sweat from my forehead. He stares at me. His eyes too wide; they look alarmed. "I think you should leave," he says. "Take a walk." I'm fine," I say. "I'm fine now," I say again, this time for myself.
I wish I could say I felt guilty for what I did.
I don't. — Veronica Roth

I had to tell it because it was the only honorable way to fulfill the promise that I had made on the Red Lake Reservation almost twenty years earlier. This, then - The Wolf at Twilight - is the fruit of that promise. It is the part of Dan's life I had left untold. It takes us to places that for too long have been hidden in shadow and reveals truths about what has been taken from Native people and what the rest of us have lost in that taking. But it also reveals what we may all yet become if we heed Sitting Bull's poignant entreaty and put our minds together to see what kind of lives we can create for the children. I hope you find it worthy of your time. If it opens your eyes to another way of understanding, I am grateful. If it simply entertains you, I am pleased. But what matters most is that it touches you. For it is, above all, a story of Native America, and its goal is to lodge deep in your heart. — Kent Nerburn

You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there
the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed. — Frederick Buechner

It comes from a deep-rooted conviction that if there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters and situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things in the world which divide people, such as religion, politics, history, and nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all. And there are so many things which unite people. It doesn't matter who you are or who I am, if your tooth aches or mine, it's still the same pain. Feelings are what link people together, because the word 'love' has the same meaning for everybody. Or 'fear', or 'suffering'. We all fear the same way and the same things. And we all love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division. — Krzysztof Kieslowski

The human mind is an amazing thing. It protects us when we can't protect ourselves. Sometimes when we're holding pain and it gets to be too heavy or goes too deep, we have to give in to it, let it knock us over and pull us all the way down. Once we hit bottom, we rest in a quiet place for a while. Then, when the pain eases and we're ready to face the world again, we come right back up. — Beth Hoffman

There's the most extraordinary, unheard of poetry buried in America, but none of the conventional means known to culture can even begin to extract it...the agony is too deep, the disorder too big for art enterprises undertaken in the old way. — Saul Bellow

It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it - and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief. — Peter Medawar

Aya overflows with acheor power. When the accent is taken off it, achedescribes, in English, bone-deep pain. But otherwise acheis blood..fleeing and returning ... red momentum. Acheis, acheis is is, kin to fear
a frayed pause near the end of a thread where the clothe matters too much to fail. The kind of need that takes you across water on nothing but bare feet. Ache is energy, damage, it is constant, in Aya's mind all the time. She was born that way
powerful, half mad, but quiet about it. — Helen Oyeyemi

Last year a baby orca and its mother wandered too far upriver from the ocean; we saw the story in The Oregonian. They didn't know how to get back home. Pater said all the fuss from people and boaters and news helicopters was probably confusing them more. He didn't say he thought they'd never find their way back, but I know that's what he was thinking. In my mind, I like to think they submerged so no one could see them under all that deep blue, popping up again when they were safely out to sea. — Jennie Shortridge

In lots of books I read, the writer seems to go haywire every time he reaches a high point. He'll start leaving out punctuation and running his words together and babble about stars flashing and sinking into a deep dreamless sea. And you can't figure out whether the hero's laying his girl or a cornerstone. I guess that kind of crap is supposed to be pretty deep stuff - a lot of the book reviewers eat it up, I notice. But the way I see it is, the writer is just too goddam lazy to do his job. And I'm not lazy, whatever else I am. I'll tell you everything. — Jim Thompson

We need to dig deep and give people a reason to be optimistic just as Obama is doing in America. Because in the same way that outcome of the U.S. elections will change the course of events there and around the world, so too do politics here in Britain. — Lucy Powell

The revelation that there was nothing "special" about humanity didn't shock her. Not specifically. She'd always been cynical about that sort of thing. The idea that reality was all too big to even quantify in any meaningful way didn't disturb her much either. Except, deep down, she'd assumed there was some inherent logic at work. Like ricocheting molecules congealing into planets and stars, dogs and cats. At least the made sense, even if it wasn't very comforting. At least it put things in neat little boxes with neat little labels that she didn't always understand but could rely on in terms of familiarity. — A. Lee Martinez

We get too comfortable with this orphanage universe, though. We sit in our pews, or behind our pulpits, knowing that our children watch "Christian" cartoons instead of slash films. We vote for the right candidates and know all the right "worldview" talking points. And we're content with the world we know, just adjusted a little for our identity as Christians. That's precisely why so many of us are so atrophied in our prayers, why our prayers rarely reach the level of "groanings too deep for words" (Rom 8:26). We are too numbed to be as frustrated as the Spirit is with the way things are. — Russell D. Moore

I haven't been in the same room as you, Erin, when my cock wasn't rock hard and ready to fuck. You know it, too. You know I want to plant it deep inside you. Watch you shift around trying to get used to being crammed so motherfucking tight." His pupils were dilated, chest rising and falling unevenly. Breathtaking man. Burn for me. "I'm hard right now just thinking about what you're hiding under those shorts. I want to lick all of it. I want to bite and fuck it. If you think I can survive this way all day, all night, you have overestimated me. — Tessa Bailey

You love because you want to need someone the way you did when you were a child, and have them need you too. You eat well because the intensity of taste reminds you of a need satisfied, a pain relieved. The finest paintings are nothing more than the red head of a flower, nodding in the breeze, when you were two years old; the most exciting film is just the way everything was, back in the days when you stared goggle-eyed at the whirling chaos all around you. All these things do is get the adult to shut up for a while, to open for just a moment a tiny sliding window in the cell deep inside, letting the pallid child peep hungrily out and drink the world in before darkness falls again. — Michael Marshall Smith

Your mind can't always tell the difference between pretend and reality if you pretend too long; or if you go too deep and really believe in what you're doing. If you're going to be that kind of actor and go way out there, it's really important to take care of yourself and have a safe place, whatever that is. — Annabella Sciorra

There is a possibility in human minds of something mysterious as the night-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong as Death, a mystic contemplation, the "intellectual love of God." Those who have known it cannot believe in wars any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give to others what has come to me in this way, I could make them too feel the futility of fighting. But I do not know how to communicate it: when I speak, they stare, applaud, or smile, but do not understand. — Bertrand Russell

Do you ever think of me in a way that is more than a friendship?" When she looked into my eyes, she had to see the answer. I felt her soul staring deep into mine. Her eyes were full of wondering interest and her beauty was softened by an air of mystery.
I blinked once. "Every second. Every minute. Every hour. Every day."
She nodded, closing her eyes. "Me too. Every second. Every minute. Every hour. Every day. — Brittainy C. Cherry

His mother's death, nearly thirty years ago, had been tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer possible. Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable. Such things, he saw, could not happen today. Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows. All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his mother and his sister, looking up at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms down and still sinking. — George Orwell

But we cannot go back to the life we shared with you yesterday, a life which you will spread before us so temptingly when you return. We have suffered too much to believe any more that the way to what we see as the Absolute can go in any other direction than through the deep valley of sorrow. Hell has not opened before our eyes to no purpose, and he who has once seen it cannot find his way back to earthly symposiums. — Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen

If you can kill it in the bedroom, chances are you can kill it in the kitchen, too - and studies have shown that men who help out more with the chores have more sex with their wives (really!). We know, gender roles run deep, which is why women in hetero relationships still end up doing the vast majority of the domestic work despite being the breadwinners in two-thirds of American homes, leaving them burned out, resentful, and, nope, not really in the mood. But it doesn't have to be this way - and, in fact, we might want to borrow a page from our LGBTQ sisters and brothers (or those who identify as neither): research shows they split chores, decisions, and finances more evenly — Jessica Bennett

ready for whatever scooted out from under. The water was so deep I had my shortsleeve shirt rolled all the way up to my shoulders. I was aware of how long and skinny my arms must look to her. I know they looked that way to me. I felt pretty strange beside her, actually. Uncomfortable but excited. She was different from the other girls I knew, from Denise or Cheryl on the block or even the girls at school. For one thing she was maybe a hundred times prettier. As far as I was concerned she was prettier than Natalie Wood. Probably she was smarter than the girls I knew too, more sophisticated. She lived in New York City after all and had eaten lobsters. And she moved just like a boy. She had this strong hard body and easy grace about her. All that made me nervous and I missed the first one. Not an enormous crayfish but bigger than what we had. It scudded backward beneath the Rock. She asked if she could try. I gave her the — Jack Ketchum

The Castle. He'd seen this expression far too many times during their marriage. The Castle was Bryony drawing up the gates and retreating deep into the inner keep. And he'd always hated it. Marriage meant that you shared your goddamn castle. You didn't leave your poor knight of a husband circling the walls trying to find a way in. — Sherry Thomas

My friends back in Chicago think I'm crazy when I talk about you. They keep telling me that I'm too young to feel this way. I'm not too young, Charley. I know with more certainty than I've ever had about anything in my life that you're my future. I know that when we're ready, after college or whatever, we're going to get married and that you're going to be the mother of my kids. I know that deep in my gut.
Jake — Samantha Young

There is something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell which way is up. When he surfaces, he's liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can't adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. All of this happens to me when I surface from a great book. — Nora Ephron

The music was more than music- at least what we are used to hearing. The music was feeling itself. The sound connected instantly with something deep and joyous. Those powerful moments of true knowledge that we have to paper over with daily life. The music tapped the back of our terrors, too. Things we'd lived through and didn't want to ever repeat. Shredded imaginings, unadmitted longings, fear and also surprisingly pleasures. No, we can't live at that pitch. But every so often something shatters like ice and we are in the river of our existence. We are aware. And this realization was in the music, somehow, or in the way Shamengwa played it. — Louise Erdrich

Too much - too tempting - to have my hands on it and not look at it. Quickly I slid it out, and almost immediately its glow enveloped me, something almost musical, an internal sweetness that was inexplicable beyond a deep, blood-rocking harmony of rightness, the way your heart beat slow and sure when you were with a person you felt safe with and loved. A power, a shine, came off it, a freshness like the morning light in my old bedroom in New York which was serene yet exhilarating, a light that rendered everything sharp-edged and yet more tender and lovely than it actually was, and lovelier still because it was part of the past, and irretrievable: wallpaper glowing, the old Rand McNally globe in half-shadow. — Donna Tartt

I have missed you so much I could kiss you," he whispered.
September's face fell. "Oh, but Saturday! I've had my First Kiss and I didn't mean to, I didn't want to, but your shadow is very rude and impulsive, and he took it before I could say two words! And I've had my second and third and maybe fifth, too. Come to think of it, this has all involved rather a lot of kissing."
Saturday furrowed his brow. "Why should I care about your First Kiss?" he said. "You can kiss anyone you like. But if you sometimes wanted to kiss me, that would be all right, too." His blush was so deep September could feel the heat of it.
She leaned in, and kissed her Marid gently, sweetly. She tried to kiss him the way she'd always thought kisses would be. His lips tasted like the sea. — Catherynne M Valente

It's an old church and smells like a museum - in a good way, a survived-lots-of-shit-and-still-standing kind of way. Something about the stained-glass windows works for me too. If I were to get all deep on you, I could say the idea of all those broken pieces being made into something so damn pretty appeals to me. Good thing I'm not that profound. (54) — Chevy Stevens

And here's the other problem with consequences. Consequences work on the assumption that a child's core belief about herself is positive and therefore she will choose good things for herself. Many adopted children deep down see themselves as flawed humans who were given away because they were bad. A child who believes he's bad will expect more bad things to happen to him, and will often behave in a way that guarantees more bad things will happen. A child who has been hurt by loved ones will expect hurt from everyone else too. — Mary Ostyn

Deep Throat stamped his foot. 'A conspiracy like this ... a conspiracy investigation ... the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone's neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and the Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished - they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level. If you shoot too high and miss, the everyone feels more secure. Lawyers work this way. I'm sure smart reporters must, too. You've put the investigation back months. It puts everyone on the defensive - editors, FBI agents, everybody has to go into a crouch after this.'
Woodward swallowed hard. He deserved the lecture.
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

The little girl just could not sleep
Because her thoughts were way too deep
Her mind had gone out for a stroll
And fallen down a rabbit hole. — Anonymous

In some odd way that you don't understand and can't begin to articulate you feel and acquaintance with it--a familiarity on an unfamiliar level. Somewhere in the deep sediment of your being some long-dormant fragment of primordial memory, some little severed tail of DNA, has twitched or stirred. It is a motion much too faint to be understood or interpreted, but somehow you feel certain that this large, brooding, hypnotic presence has an importance to you at a species level--perhaps even at a sort of tadpole level--and that in some way your visit here is more than happenstance. — Bill Bryson

The only way to gain power in a world that is moving too fast is to learn to slow down. And the only way to spread one's influence wide to learn how to go deep. The world we want for ourselves and our children will not emerge from electronic speed but rather from a spiritual stillness that takes root in our souls. Then, and only then, will we create a world that reflects the heart instead of shattering it. — Marianne Williamson

She'd always assumed that falling in love would be like getting slammed into a brick wall. That you'd just be going along as usual and you'd get knocked on your ass and think, Gee, I guess I'm in love. But it hadn't happened that way. It had just kind of snuck up on her before she'd realized it. It had happened one smile and one touch at a time. One look. One kiss. One pink cat collar. One pinch to the heart and one breathless anticipation after another until she was in so deep there was no denying it. No turning back before it was too late. No more lying about what she felt. — Rachel Gibson

The baby was warm against my chest. I knew I was broken too. I wasn't like other people. I was scared and weird and anxious and sad lots of the time, and I didn't know why. My parents thought I was abnormal, I was pretty sure. They said I wasn't, but you don't get sent to a therapist if you're normal.
Sometimes we really aren't supposed to be the way we are. It's not good for us. And people don't like it. You've got to change. You've got to try harder and do deep breathing and maybe one day take pills and learn tricks so you can pretend to be more like other people. Normal people. But maybe Vanessa was right, and all those other people were broken too in their own ways. Maybe we all spent too much time pretending we weren't. — Kenneth Oppel

Suspicious: that's what they were, the sounds, the smells, the tastes. When they ran quickly under your nose like startled hares and you didn't pay too much attention, you might believe them to be simple and reassuring, you might believe that there was real blue in the world, real red, a real perfume of almonds or violets. But as soon as you held on to them for an instant, this feeling of comfort and security gave way to a deep uneasiness: colours, tastes, and smells were never real, never themselves and nothing but
themselves. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Afterwards
Mostly you look back and say, "Well, OK. Things might have been different, sure, and it's not too bad, but look - things happen like that, and you did what you could."
You go back and pick up the pieces. There's tomorrow. There's that long bend in the river on the way home. Fluffy bursts of milkweed are floating through shafts of sunlight or disappearing where trees reach out from their deep dark roots.
Maybe people have to go in and out of shadows till they learn that floating, that immensity waiting to receive whatever arrives with trust. Maybe somebody has to explore what happens when one of us wanders over near the edge and falls for awhile. Maybe it was your turn. — William Stafford

Marsh touched the rim of his hat and smiled at them. The ladies tittered at each other and cast long glances at him from behind their lace gloves as they made their way to the row of ornate passenger dirigibles that sat urging against their moorings in the fading light.

"Do try not to attract too much attention to yourself, Mr. Marsh," Elle said.
"Easier said than done," he responded without taking his eyes off the ladies.
Elle took a deep breath to dispel her annoyance. — Liesel Schwarz

I don't want to make a big deal about this or anything, but I think it's kind of cool how you do everything you do."
I squinted at him.
"I mean, you use sign language, and it's hard to communicate. But you're into art and you can seriously cook and, for goodness' sakes, you can even jitterbug. By the way, I told my mom, and she wants a video. Totally doesn't believe me. But, yeah, I think it's nice that you don't let a little hitch in life slow you down. I admire that."
I smiled. For a minute, I admired myself, too. He didn't know how deep my problems ran, but he was right all the same. It was no small thing to try, to find out what you cared about in life. Even this moment, with this wonderful, temporary boy beside me, was a tiny miracle. I ought to give myself some credit. — Kiera Cass

A giant octopus living way down deep at the bottom of the ocean. It has this tremendously powerful life force, a bunch of long, undulating legs, and it's heading somewhere, moving through the darkness of the ocean ... It takes on all kinds of different shapes - sometimes it's 'the nation,' and sometimes it's 'the law,' and sometimes it takes on shapes that are more difficult and dangerous than that. You can try cutting off its legs, but they just keep growing back. Nobody can kill it. It's too strong, and it lives too far down in the ocean. Nobody knows where its heart is. What I felt then was a deep terror. And a kind of hopelessness, a feeling that I could never run away from this thing, no matter how far I went. And this creature, this thing doesn't give a damn that I'm me or you're you. In its presence, all human beings lose their names and their faces. We all turn into signs, into numbers. — Haruki Murakami

She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were startling gray,like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.
She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hand, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a Minotaur! or Wow you're so awesome! or something like that.
Instead she said, "you drool when you sleep."
Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her. — Rick Riordan

THE MAGIC OF MAKING A START Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now. — Steven Pressfield

Yes, we all know that there's a good chance the missiles won't work properly when the government people finally come to get them, but over the years we've stopped worrying about that. Deep down, most of us feel it's probably better this way. After all, if there are families in faraway countries with their own backyard missiles, armed and pointed back at us, we would hope that they too have found a much better use for them. — Shaun Tan

You really need better spatial awareness." A familiar, deep voice from behind her made her jump out of her skin.
Feeling almost numb, she turned to find Graysen West standing there - and looking way too sexy for his own good. Or for her own good. She'd thought she was completely alone in the elevator.
She blinked once. Yep, he was still there. Well over six feet of raw masculinity, bright blue eyes she could drown in, and a disapproving frown that somehow made him look sexy.
Isa felt almost possessed as she lashed out. A year of built-up anger and hurt came bursting to the surface. Her arm was moving before she'd processed what she was doing but when her fist connected with his nose, she cursed at the pain that jolted through her hand. Punching someone hurt. — Katie Reus

He was shy, timid, gentle, and kind, but he wrote gruesome and painful books. He saw the world as full of invisible demons, who tear apart and destroy defenseless people. He was too clear-sighted and too wise to be able to live; he was too weak to fight, he had that weakness of noble, beautiful people who are not able to do battle against the fear of misunderstandings, unkindness, or intellectual lies. Such persons know beforehand that they are powerless and go down in defeat in such a way that they shame the victor. He knew people as only people of great sensitivity are able to know them, as somebody who is alone and sees people almost prophetically, from one flash of a face. He knew the world in a deep and extraordinary manner. He was himself a deep and extraordinary world. — Milena Jesenska

Josh, you saw him," Tally says, "What did he look like? Did he look nice?"
"He looked like a person," Josh grunts.
"Don't be a spoilsport," Tally says, and Caid hears her smack Josh on the arm.
"Shortish, blondish, thinish," Josh says.
"Thank you, Josh," Caid says, "Your way with words astounds me yet again."
"Well, whatever," Tally says. "What did you guys talk about? You said he's nice?"
"We talked about a lot of things. And yeah, he's - I mean, we traded numbers, so hopefully he'll call."
"I hope so, too," Tally says. "I'm glad you have somebody to hang out with now."
"Because I was such horrible company?" Josh says, voice thick and deep like he's got a mouthful of ice cream.
"I wouldn't say horrible," Caid says. "Unbearable, maybe. Like one of those YouTube videos that never loads." And with that, he shoots a shit-eating grin in Josh's direction, and shovels a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. — Seventhswan

I think my sense of right and wrong, my feeling of noblesse oblige, and any thought I may have against the oppressor and for the oppressed came from [Le Morte d'Arthur] ... It did not seem strange to me that Uther Pendragon wanted the wife of his vassal and took her by trickery. I was not frightened to find that there were evil knights, as well as noble ones. In my own town there were men who wore the clothes of virtue whom I knew to be bad ... If I could not choose my way at the crossroads of love and loyalty, neither could Lancelot. I could understand the darkness of Mordred because he was in me too; and there was some Galahad in me, but perhaps not enough. The Grail feeling was there, however, deep-planted, and perhaps always will be. — John Steinbeck

I'd always used humour as a weapon, as a protection. But being able to make people laugh is a way of not getting in too deep; it's a quick, transient fix. — Michelle Gomez

I was in way too deep. I was cut in so many places that I felt like I was bleeding out from every part of my body. Being outside and watching people live their normal lives took me out of my head, but the minute I stepped back into the apartment, I was muted inside. No words, no actions, no me. - Unsettled — Alisa Mullen

Why do you think there aren't rules to how sex will work? You didn't want to talk to me about what you wanted. You pushed me into the room so I wouldn't turn on the light because you knew damn well I would push back on that, didn't you?"
She stayed where she was. "Yes. I don't want you to see me. I don't look like one of those girls in a magazine."
He groaned, the sound coming from deep in his chest. "Those girls in the magazines are airbrushed and way too thin. The camera adds pounds so those girls are so skinny I wouldn't be able to fuck them for fear I would break them. I want a woman, Avery, not some tiny freaking thing whose waistline only proves she doesn't eat. I want a woman who can take me. I want a woman I can hold on to. So bend over because I want to see your ass. I want to look at it because I've been dreaming about it for days. It's hot and round and so fucking juicy I can't stand it. Get me hot, Avery. Show me your ass. — Lexi Blake

Forgive me. I thought you were protesting the blood because you didn't want me to bond you to me." "What?" This was something entirely new to consider. "You bonded me to you? As in for life? For all eternity?" "For as long as I live, anyway," Corbin said. "It was the only way to save your life. I had taken too much of your blood - you were dying, Addison." His tone took on a pleading tone. "Please tell me you would not rather be dead than bound to me." "I could ask you to say the same thing," I pointed out. "You were checking out on me without even telling me first." "I didn't think you cared." His deep voice was soft, almost wistful. "Well, I do. I love you, damn it," I said, poking him in the chest again. — Evangeline Anderson

Then there were her rules, rules that stated quite clearly that he was a 'no-go' area. She drew a deep breath and tried to make a decision in keeping with her rules. But the words would not come. She could not decide to give him up. Her inner self would not even contemplate it. Somehow, he had touched her soul in a way that she could not explain adequately. She felt a link there that was too real to consider severing. Kate felt the anguish of this conflict between her morality and her acceptance of the bond that did exist between them, despite her incredulity and despite her objections. — Khul Waters

Milla put her hands on his ribs, holding on as he braced his weight on one arm while with his other hand he guided his penis to her and in the same rough motion pushed deep inside.
He froze in place, his breath panting between his parted lips as they stared at each other. She couldn't move; the feel of him inside her was too sharp, almost painful in its intensity. Their gazes met in the mellow lamplight, and she was mesmerized by the tension in his face, the way his steely muscles were locked as if he didn't dare move. It built and built, that clawing need, and yet she remained poised on the razor's edge of something she knew she couldn't control. His chest suddenly heaved on a convulsive breath, and he moved in a long, deep stroke that took him all the way to the hilt. — Linda Howard

Shit," he rasped. "Too much. This is too much."
Too much what? It wasn't enough, as far as she was concerned. "I like touching you."
"No one ever touches me." He took a deep, shuddering breath that somehow sounded ... pained, and not in a good way. "Nothing but the wind and rain ever does. — Larissa Ione

It was a time for reflection. Jebel had regained some of his vitality and was mildly excited to be closing in on Tubaygat. But he was troubled too and often fell to studying Tel Hesani, trying to imagine himself driving a knife into the Um Kheshabah's chest or slitting his throat.
It had been easy in the beginning. Tel Hesani was a slave, fit only for execution. Now Jebel considered him a friend. Could he brutally end the older man's life and send him to the hold of Rakhebt Wadak's boat?
Jebel knew that he must, or the quest would have been for nothing, but he wasn't sure that he could. He prayed to the gods to steady his hand when the time came, but he didn't think they were listening. In a strange sort of way, he almost wished they weren't. — Darren Shan

Finding unscented candles was another challenge he never thought he'd have to face. Colors were fine, colors could be useful as elements in various spells. But since meeting Amelia, he'd spent way too much time standing in front of walls of candles labeled with names like "Cranberry Spice" and "Warm Honey." Christian bookstores and other religious supply shops became their go-to spots to find simple, unadorned, non-scented votive candles. Another deep irony, he observed. If only those kind, wide-eyed women at the cash registers knew what those candles were being used for. — Carrie Vaughn

There are times now, and my life has changed so completely, that I think back on the early years and I find myself thinking: It was not that bad. Perhaps it was not. But there are times, too - unexpected - when walking down a sunny sidewalk, or watching the top of a tree bend in the wind, or seeing a November sky close down over the East River, I am suddenly filled with the knowledge of darkness so deep that a sound might escape from my mouth, and I will step into the nearest clothing store and talk with a stranger about the shape of sweaters newly arrived. This must be the way most of us maneuver through the world, half knowing, half not, visited by memories that can't possibly be true. But when I see others walking with confidence down the sidewalk, as though they are free completely from terror, I realize I don't know how others are. So much of life seems speculation. — Elizabeth Strout

ghost. No way am I gonna get bullied by anyone or anything - especially ghosts. "Mattie, you okay?" Mrs. Olson is eyeballing me with concern. I haven't moved to get out of the car. "All good, Mrs. O," I smile weakly at her. "Just tired." Taking a deep breath, I open the door and force myself out. I am not afraid, I chant over and over. The other kids are still at school, so the house is pretty empty. Mrs. O had told me earlier we had a new foster kid in the house, but I'm betting he's at school too. She sends me upstairs with the promise to bring me a sandwich and a glass of milk. The doctors said no caffeine for a while, so my favorite drink in the world, Coke, is off limits. At least until I can escape and get to a gas station. I need it like an addict needs crack. My room is exactly as I left it, the bed turned down and my clothes thrown into a corner. A simple white dresser and mirror, desk, and a twin bed covered in my worn out quilt decorate the room. — Apryl Baker

The two of them fitting, interlocking, like mothers and daughters are supposed to. Fitting in a way that I never have. My edges have always been too sharp, my grooves too deep. — Jasmine Warga

He liked how it felt too, pulling himself up a wall stone by stone, fingers and toes digging hard into the small crevices between. He always took off his boots and went barefoot when he climbed; it made him feel as if he had four hands instead of two. He liked the deep, sweet ache it left in the muscles afterward. He liked the way the air tasted way up high, sweet and cold as a winter peach. He liked the birds: the crows in the broken tower, the tiny little sparrows that nested in cracks between the stones, the ancient owl that slept in the dusty loft above the old armory. Bran knew them all. Most of all, he liked going places that no one else could go, and seeing the grey sprawl of Winterfell in a way that no one else ever saw it. — George R R Martin

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way. — Li Bai