Inside And Back Again Quotes & Sayings

The plane landed, and I had a moment to sit with Steve on my own. It was a bit of an effort to clamber up into the back of the plane. A simple wooden casket rested inside, still secured. I knew that who Steve was, his spirit and his soul, were no longer there, but it was strange how I couldn't cry.
I sat down and leaned my head against the wooden box that held his body and felt such strange peace.
In some way, we were together again. — Terri Irwin

One of the first problems to be faced at Niagara was how to get a wire over the gorge and its violent river. Ellet solved that nicely by offering five dollars to the first American boy to fly a kite over to the Canadian side. The prize was won by young Homer Walsh, who would tell the story for the rest of his days. Once the kite string was across, a succession of heavier cords and ropes was pulled over, and in a short time the first length of wire went on its way. After that, when the initial cable had been completed, Ellet decided to demonstrate his faith in it in a fashion people would not forget. He had an iron basket made up big enough to hold him and attached it to the cable with pulleys. Then stepping inside, on a morning in March 1848, he pulled himself over the gorge and back again, all in no more than fifteen minutes' time, and to the great excitement of crowds gathered along both rims. — David McCullough

My only boss was the clock on the wall and my only friend, never really was a friend at all. I've traded love for pennies, sold my soul for less. Lost my ideas in that long tunnel of time. And I've turned inside out and around about and back and then found myself right back where I started again — Jim Croce

We're both drunk,"
"This isn't right," he said.
"I want you."
"I need you to say it," he said.
"I'll say whatever you want."
"Then say that you belong to me. Say that you'll take me back. I won't do this unless we're together."
"We've never really been apart, have we?"
"I need to hear you say it. I need to know you're mine."
"I've been yours since the second we met."
"Say it again,"he said.
"I'm yours," I breathed. Every nerve, inside and out ached for more. "I don't ever want to be apart from you again."
"Promise me,"
"I love you. I'll love you forever. — Jamie McGuire

His gaze swept over her, hot and approving, as he lifted her up. "Wrap your legs around me - There. God, yeah, like that - " His voice was a low command, caressing her as much as his hands. "Hold on to me." Then his mouth crushed her own as he pushed her back against the door.
She threaded her hands into his hair as he thrust deep inside of her. He made a rough sound of sheer male pleasure, his fingers digging into her soft flesh as she rocked into him. Again he thrust, slowly at first, teasing until she was begging. It was glorious torment, hot and demanding, just like the man kissing her. — Jill Shalvis

I remember hearing you scream, Cat, and seeing your face. But I don't remember dying. And how can I go on if I'm dead?"
Tat answered fiercely, "Dead is stuffed inside that box, not what you are now. You're my friend. Always will be. No matter what the fuck you eat. I didn't believe that pale prick when he said he could wake you up, but you're here. And don't you dare think about covering yourself back up with dirt. I need you, buddy. It's been hell without you."
"I missed you, amigo," Juan said in almost incoherently accented English. "You can't leave me again! Tat's boring, and Copper only wants to train. You stay!"
Dave stared at us. — Jeaniene Frost

He bent, lips coming to mine and
'Derek? Chloe?' It was Kit, opening the back door. Derek let out a low growl.
'Never fails.' I turned to Kit. 'How is she?'
'We're going to take her back to the house now. She's unconscious again.'
'Then we'll walk back,' Derek said. 'Give you room in the van to lay her down.'
His dad agreed and went back inside. As we walked toward the steps, I looked down at Derek's hand, holding mine.
'No one's around,' he said. 'And we can take the back way.'
'Good,' I said, and entwined my fingers with his. — Kelley Armstrong

The lightning bugs are back. They fly low to the ground as the lawn dissolves from green to black in the dusk. Seeing them, I can reconstruct a childhood: a hot night under tall trees; the Good Humor man, in his square white truck, the freezer smoky when he reaches inside for an ice cream.
The lightning bugs trapped in empty jars with holes on top. "Let them out," our mother said, "or they will die in there." We were careless. We always
forgot to open the jars. The bugs would be there in the morning, their yellow tails dim in the white light of the summer sun, pathetic as they lay on
their backs. We were always horrified by what we had done. As night fell we shook them out and caught more.
I relive the magic of the yellow light without the bright white of hindsight. The little flares in the darkness, a distillation of the kind of life we think we had, we wish we had, we want again. — Anna Quindlen

It's not till sex has died out between a man and a woman that they can really love. And now I mean affection. Now I mean to be fond of (as one is fond of oneself) -to hope, to be disappointed, to live inside the other heart. When I look back on the pain of sex, the love like a wild fox so ready to bite, the antagonism that sits like a twin beside love, and contrast it with affection, so deeply unrepeatable, of two people who have lived a life together (and of whom one must die) it's the affection I find richer. It's that I would have again. Not all those doubtful rainbow colors. — Enid Bagnold

I waited. Nothing. Here again was the colossal silence where God's, someone's, anyone's voice should have been. Learn this lesson now, my brother said, I shan't teach it twice. There is nothing. It means nothing. Then the night exhaled and flowed again. I knew with clairvoyant weariness I'd go back countless times to the question of why, how, but knew too I carried the answer inside. It had gone in like an inhaled spec of toxic dust. Life is nothing but a statement of what happens to be. — Glen Duncan

I was going back and reading Marconi's last book again, and there's this part that
always gets me. He points out that the amount of the universe a human can experience is
statistically, like, zero percent. You've got this huge universe, trillions of trillions of miles of empty
space between galaxies, and all a human can perceive is a little tunnel a few feet wide and a few feet
long in front of our eyes. So he says we don't really live in the universe at all, we live inside our
brains. All we can see is like a blurry little pinhole in a blindfold, and the rest is filled in by our
imagination. So whatever we think of the world, whether you think the world is cruel or good or
cold or hot or wet or dry or big or small, that comes entirely from inside your head and nowhere
else. — David Wong

We often told ourselves off for wasting time in chairs, fully dressed, talking, when we could be doing the same, lying down in bed, face to face and naked. That precious time before love-making is ill-served by the pseudo-clinical term, 'foreplay'. The world would narrow and deepen, our voices would sink into the warmth of our bodies, the conversation became associative and unpredictable. Everything was touch and breath. Certain simple phrases came to me which I didn't say out loud because they sounded so banal - Here we are, or, This again or Yes, this. Like a moment in a recurring dream, these spacious, innocent minutes were forgotten until we were back inside them. When we were, our lives returned to the essentials and began again. When we fell silent, we would lie so close we were mouth to mouth, delaying the union which bound us all the more because of this prelude. — Ian McEwan

It is like a beautiful sunset you see once in your life, one you swear you will never forget as long as you live. And you never do forget, but you never have a reason to restore the memory - so it remains hidden inside. Until one day, for no apparent reason, you remember that sunset. You recall the way your skin felt as the sun brushed across it, the way the colors painted the sky. You wonder why it took you so long to go back to that place again, swearing you won't take so long next time. Only you do forget the memory and you may or may not ever relive it again. — J.A. Saare

I don't know why so many of my fans assume I'm a better person than them. They're not alone in their challenges. I think the more I know, the harder it gets to handle human beings. With every challenge I overcome, comes a new one that throws me back to the ground again. Every time I start thinking I'm invincible, I'm defeated. And I don't trust anyone that isn't living inside the same cycle, because that's what evolution is. Whatever my books truthfully promote, they also hide in the depths of your emotional response to whatever happens to you. — Robin Sacredfire

Beatrix tilted her head back to look at him. Perspiration had given his skin the sheen of polished metal, strong masculine features worked in bronze. His expression was engrossed, as if her body fascinated him, as if she were made of some precious substance he had never encountered before. She felt the soft, hot shock of his breath as he bent to kiss the inside of her wrist. He let the tip of his tongue rest against a tiny pulse. So new, this intimacy with him, and yet it was as necessary as the beat of her own heart.
She never wanted to be out of his arms again. She wanted to be with him always. — Lisa Kleypas

She struggled against him and then kicked him with her knee, right between his legs. He won't be treating her like this. Bastard. There was a fury inside her, that made her disliking of guys even bigger.
He stumbled back, his hand loosening his trip. His face is twisted in pain, and he was completely out of the breath. Angel felt satisfaction. He deserved that.
"How about this, you ignorant asshole! Keep your hands off of me and leave me alone!" she spat at his face. She barely held back, to not kick him again. — Amber M. Kestner

My lover is dead.
And they think I killed him.
I'm running rogue.
Hell bent on both revenge and redemption. Whatever it takes, I'm going to finish a job that began nine months ago. An unauthorized assignment that turned horribly, devastatingly wrong. My miscalculation.
My fault.
My heart left shattered into incomplete pieces which will never wholly fit back together again.
But first I have to outsmart my former organization and the hired killer they've sent after me; a ghost from my past who knows my every move, who's been inside my head, my heart, my dreams and memories: Jaxson.
I'm the traitor, Kylie. The rogue mercenary, Jaxon's newest assignment. And this is our love story. — Michele Mannon

The wave came again and carried them out onto the sea of pain, where he wondered again why life ever came into the world...The tide that drew them out into the troubled waters once again spent itself, and they floated slowly back, resting for a minute or so, only to be dragged out again. He held her up while she contracted and pushed inside herself, trying to open the petals of her flowering body...He lifted her, trying to free the load she was struggling with, but she was straining against the traces, getting nowhere, her eyes like those of a draft horse...Who would choose this, thought Laski, this work, this woe? Life enslaves us, makes us want children, gives us a thousand illusions about love, and all so that it can go forward. — William Kotzwinkle

She told us about the goddess called Persephone, who was forced to spend half a year in the darkness deep underground. Winter happened when she was trapped inside the earth. The days shrank, they became cold and short and dark. Living things hid themselves away. Spring came when she was released and made her slow way up to the world again. The world became brighter and bolder in order to welcome her back. It began to be filled with warmth and light. The animals dared to wake, they dared to have their young. Plants dared to send out buds and shoots. Life dared to come back. — David Almond

To feel everything in every way; to be able to think with the emotions and feel with the mind; not to desire much except with the imagination; to suffer with haughtiness; to see clearly so as to write accurately; to know oneself through diplomacy and dissimulation; to become naturalized as a different person, with all the necessary documents; in short, to use all sensations but only on the inside, peeling them all down to God and then wrapping everything up again and putting it back in the shop window like the sales assistant I can see from here with the small tins of a new brand of shoe polish. — Fernando Pessoa

I love you."
The words come out almost in a panic, as if there's no time. As if he's about to walk into Eden again, and I've got to say it before he disappears behind the door.
"I love you too."
Jimmy' response startles me back to the room, the tobacco tin forgotten in my hand. I close it and set it on the counter, afraid of whatever drug it is inside that has me hallucinating.
"I must be losing my mind," I say, shaking my head. "I thought I just heard you say that you loved me."
"I did," Jimmy replies.
"You did?"
"Of course. You said it to me first. It woulda been rude to leave ya hangin' there, wouldn't it? — Ryan Winfield

A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it's the most painful thing you'll ever have to do and that you've ever done. But what's yours is yours. Whether it's up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it'll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won't have to put it back in the sky again. — C. JoyBell C.

His kissing was slower this time - gentler. The fingertips of his other hand slipped beneath the waist of my undergarment, and I sucked in a breath. He hesitated at the sound, pulling back slightly. But I bit his lip in a silent command that had him growling into my mouth. With one long claw, he shredded through silk and lace, and my undergarment fell away in pieces. The claw retracted, and his kiss deepened as his fingers slid between my legs, coaxing and teasing. I ground against his hand, yielding completely to the writhing wildness that had roared alive inside me, and breathed his name onto his skin. He paused again - his fingers retracting - but I grabbed him, pulling him farther on top of me. I wanted him now - I wanted the barriers of our clothing to vanish, I wanted to taste his sweat, wanted to become full of him. "Don't stop," I gasped out. "I - " he said thickly, resting his brow between my breasts as he shuddered. "If we keep going, I won't be able to stop at all." I — Sarah J. Maas

The day you left, it felt like I lost a diary in which I had been writing for so long. Now all that memories flashes in bits and pieces inside my head always and makes me wish that I could sit back and read it all over again. — Akshay Vasu

She hadn't been Rachel that night. She was evidence, a body of things to be picked and probed at, pictured and asked about, recorded and quoted. I want my life back. The voice was faint inside her own mind. She could hear the plaintive, almost despairing note to that voice. Like the wail of a scared child, this wasn't just about facing her fears. This was about everything. Her injuries, the loss of the life and world she'd once taken for granted, her long recovery. — Anais Torres

Oh, I suppose they're not exactly gone, those green boys. It's rather like a sapling turning into a tree. Can't scrape off the bark, and whittle it down until you find that sapling again, now can you? No, of course not. The sapling becomes an oak. Forever changed. The realities of that war will remain inside us through heaven or hell. Best try and face it, Ty. Running from it won't help. You'll never turn back into the innocent sapling you once were." Robert lifted his glass and grinned. "My friend, we've become a pair of gnarled old trees. — Kathleen Baldwin

Because when i feel the human world is doomed, has doomed itself by its own mingy beastliness, then i feel the colonies aren't far enough. the moon wouldn't be far enough, because even there you could look back and see the earth, dirty, beastly, unsavory among all the stars: made foul by men. Then i feel i've swallowed gall, and its eating my inside out, and nowhere's far enough to get away. but when i get a turn, i forget it all again. though it's a shame, what's been done to people these last hundred years: men turned into nothing but labor-insects, and all their manhood taken away, and all their real life. i'd wipe the machines off the face of the earth again, and end the industrial epoch absolutely, like a black mistake. but since i can't, an' nobody can, i'd better hold my peace, an' try an' life my own life: if i've got one to live, which i rather doubt. — D.H. Lawrence

Don't come here again. Ever," he said, but instead of a threat, this sounded like a declaration of affection.
"Beckett, you can kiss my ass," Livia countered. "I'll be here if you need me - or if I need you."
Beckett winked before growling angrily, surveying the parking lot, and turning to go back inside. — Debra Anastasia

He calls me his Queen of the Night. He shows me the wonders in this incredible city. He encourages me to find my own way, and to choose what I think is right or wrong.
And the sex, God, the sex! I never knew what sex was until him! It's not soft music and candlelight, a choice, a deliberate action.
It's as involuntary as breathing, and as impossible not to do. It's slammed up against a wall in a dark alley, or flat on my back on cold concrete because I can't stand one more second without him. It's on my hands and knees, dry-mouthed, heart-in-my-throat, waiting for the moment he touches me, and I'm alive again. It's punishing and purifying, velvet and violent, and it makes everything else melt away, until nothing matters but getting him inside me and I wouldn't just die for him - I'd kill for him, too.
Like I did tonight. — Karen Marie Moning

Coming back for Comic-Con. Now that the seal has been broken and we all know each other as in know each other, expect you and Chace to meet me there," Benji told me and my mind filled with thoughts of Chace at a Comic-Con.
Because it did, I burst out laughing.
Chace's eyes came right to me and seeing the look on his face, openly happy, I sighed again but this time on the inside.
I grinned at him but murmured, "I'm not sure that'll ever happen."
"I am," Ally replied and I tore my eyes away from my husband ...
My husband.
I looked to her. "No way."
Ally looked to me. "That man would do anything for you. Even commune with a bunch of geeks."
Well, I figured she would know. Since she had one like mine.
I grinned at her. — Kristen Ashley

If you're working, it's the best therapy for posttraumatic stress, Juan says. Studies have shown that the gravity of posttraumatic stress is directly proportional to the length of time one lives with the threat of death, and Juan slowly unwinds the trauma of the sixty-nine days he lived inside a thundering mountain by going to work, fixing machines, then going back home, and then returning to work again. — Hector Tobar

Don't ever leave me again," I said in a tiny voice.
I won't," he promised into my hair, sounding most un-Fang-like. "I won't. Not ever."
And just like that, a cold shard of ice that had been inside my chest ever since we'd split up-well, it just disappeared. I felt myself relax for the first time in I don't known how long. The wind was chilly, but the sun was bright, and my whole flock was together. Fang and I were together.
Excuse me? I'm alive too." Iggy's plaintive voice made me pull back. — James Patterson

Keep trying. You only fail if you quit."
"That's right," Bas said. "When you fall off the horse, you need to just saddle it back up."
I looked at him. "What if the saddle didn't fall off? What if only you fell?"
"Speaking of horses," Jode said.
"No horses. Go again."
Another hour went by. Bas and I started to get punchy.
"Go to the light, Jode," Bas said. "Your most precious inside light."
"Just feeeeeeel it. Feel it like you mean it."
Jode smirked. "I'm English. I don't do anything by feeeel. — Veronica Rossi

My words and my stories are merely just memories that already lie, dormant, in your mind. It is my sole purpose to awaken them; to bring them back to life, for you to feel and to taste them once again. But they are already inside you... And always have been. — Jose N. Harris

When his mouth was on hers, when he could feel her about to shatter yet again, he plunged into her, knocking her over the edge with that first rough stroke.
And still he thought: More.
Even as she shuddered, he shoved her knees up and went deeper inside her. His vision blurred, but through the red haze of lust he could see her eyes. Deep, dark, glazed like glass to throw his own reflection back at him.
"I'm inside you." He panted it out as he pushed them both to madness. "Everything I am. Body, heart, mind."
She struggled through layers of pleasure to say the one thing he needed. Her hands wrapped around his wrists to hold the beat of his blood. "Let go. I'll stay with you."
He pressed his face to her hair, let both heart and mind go, and let body rule them both. — J.D. Robb

SWEAR

If this time the eggs don't break,
freckling the sidewalk with yolk splatter,
coating the coffee and the paper towels,
dripping all over my white shoes,
I will never again swing the groceries
back and forth all the way home from the store,
singing and jumping the puddles,
until the bag hits my thigh and I hear
something inside of it crack. — Karen Finneyfrock

Sergei knew as many ways to tease a man as he did to kill him. Tonight, he didn't care about impressing him with any hip-centric sex voodoo. The only thing that mattered was getting as deep inside him as he could, fast and hard. Sex wasn't an art form tonight - Dom had tapped into some primal, animalistic side of Sergei, and there was no reining it back in. Not until he came. And Dom came. And they both came again. — L.A. Witt

For me, there isn't some miracle cure, this is my life, or my disease will progress and my life will change focus again, and I'll have another new life.
I need C to stay right where he is now because for now, I don't know enough to move from where I am.
My hypothesis is that the light will come back, both outside and inside me.
I'm afraid and angry, but the light is a theory I want to prove.
Until then, I just have to keep the experiment going with as many controls as possible.
One bus, back and forth.
One store.
One man, his words under glass. — Mary Ann Rivers

My panic is rising again. My sense of isolation and worthlessness. And no other senses worth mentioning apparently. It's not nice being inside my head. It's a nice place to visit but I don't want to live here. It's too crowded; too many traps and pitfalls. I'm tired of it. That same old person, day in and day out. I'd like to try something else. I tried to neaten my mind, file everything away into tidy little thoughts, but it only got more and more cluttered. My mind has a mind of its own. I try to define my limits by seeing just how far I can go, and I find that I passed them weeks ago. And I've got to find my way back. — Carrie Fisher

And each year now
we know more, but we know no better
what we see in the sky is simply
the softened gloss of the past sifting
back to us, and likewise, every atom
down the body's shining length
was inside a star, and will be again. — Christopher Buckley

Drop something?" he asked, trying to suppress a smile but failing miserably at the act.
I nodded and smiled back at him sheepishly, unable to find my voice to respond in any other way.
"Interested in locks, I see," he commented.
I nodded again.
"Well, here you go," he said, and he handed the book to me.
I nodded.
Oh crap, why did I just nod? Take the book! I screamed inside my head. Take it!
I took it slowly. He kept looking at me, smiling. — Markelle Grabo

You're really going to do it, aren't you? You're really going to go back to war?" Gregor said. He could feel something boiling up inside of him. "So, we'll just forget about what happened. The jungle, the Firelands, the Bane." His voice was rising and he could feel the rager side of him taking over. "Forget about everybody who's dead! Tick and Twitchtip and Hamnet and Thalia and Ares! And your parents, Luxa! And your pups, Ripred! Let's just forget about everybody who gave their lives so that you could have this moment where you could - could make things right again! So you could stop the killing! We were fighting for the same thing, remember? You two owe each other your lives! You owe me your lives! And now you stand there and ask me to choose between you? To help you kill each other?" Gregor yanked Sandwich's sword from his belt and swung it so violently that even Luxa and Ripred stepped back. "Well, guess what? The warrior's not fighting for either of you! — Suzanne Collins

Sensing an ally, Priss took two steps toward her, but Trace pulled her up short by grabbing her arm.
"No, you don't," he told her, and no matter how Priss yanked and pulled, she couldn't free herself.
"Settle down, will you?" Trace said near her ear. "You're not helping things."
The woman's expression pinched even more.
Dare started toward her in a ground-eating stride. "Back inside, Molly," he said, sounding more cajoling than commanding. "I'll explain in private."
Like hell! Priss didn't want to lose whatever opportunities this might be, so she shouted, "Molly, help me. Trace drugged me to bring me here, and Dare manhandled me when I tried to escape." And before Trace could muzzle her, if indeed that was his intent, she added, "Some other guy stole my cat!"
The woman's mouth dropped open, then firmed shut again. With one raised hand, she halted Dare's progress. Dare dropped his head and groaned. — Lori Foster

It started slow and hit her with the force of a sledgehammer, a cataclysm of such power she could only hold on to him and let it happen. He went rigid against her, rock hard in her arms, and he probably muttered "oh, shit" again, but she was beyond hearing, lost in some mind-scattered cloud of inexpressible pleasure. She fell back, limp, awash in shimmering sensation, and she knew an odd, faint trace of regret that he'd used a condom. She'd wanted all of him inside her, a total giving, and he'd withheld something. — Anne Stuart

I only have have one question, scraping the inside of me. Answer it, and I will stumble back into her shadow, shut my mouth, never ask again. I've tried to ignore it, but it won't go away. It haunts my dreams, chases me through every single day, and I don't have the strength to turn around, face it down. So please tell me and I swear I'll never ask again. It's in your power to make it go away, and all you have to do is tell me why you love her more. — Ellen Hopkins

Then I let the stories live
inside my head, again and again
until the real world fades back
into cricket lullabies
and my own dreams. — Jacqueline Woodson

Secret codes and lore and lingo stretching back into that fluid time before air conditioning dried up the rich, heavy humidity that used to hang over the porches of Louisiana, drenching cotton blouses, beads of sweat tickling the skin, slowing people down so the world entered them in an unhurried way. A thick stew of life that seeped into the very blood of people, so eccentric, languid thoughts simmered inside. Thoughts that would not come again after porches were enclosed, after the climate was controlled, after all windows were shut tight, and the sounds of the neighborhood were drowned out by the noise of the television set. — Rebecca Wells

And some small gnarled place inside me hated her for her weakness, for her neglect, for the months she had put us through. I had taken a step back from my mother, put up a wall to protect myself from needing her, and nothing was ever the same between us again. — Suzanne Collins

Now we are going to have a new noise, Eleanor thought, listening to the inside of her head; it is changing. The pounding had stopped, as though it had proved ineffectual, and there was now a swift movement up and down the hall, as of an animal pacing back and forth with unbelievable impatience, watching first one door and then another, alert for a movement inside, and there was again the little babbling murmur which Eleanor remembered; Am I doing it? She wondered quickly, is that me? And heard the tiny laughter beyond the door, mocking her. — Shirley Jackson

He finally pulled it all back into his heart, sucking in the painful tide of his misery. In the Glade, Chuck had become a symbol for him - a beacon that somehow they could make everything right again in the world. Sleep in beds. Get kissed goodnight. Have bacon and eggs for breakfast, go to a real school. Be happy.
But now Chuck was gone. And his limp body, to which Thomas still clung, seemed a cold talisman - that not only would those dreams of a hopeful future never come to pass, but that life had never been that way in the first place. That even in escape, dreary days lay ahead. A life of sorrow.
His returning memories were sketchy at best. But not much good floated in the muck.
Thomas reeled in the pain, locked it somewhere deep inside him. He did it for Teresa. For Newt and Minho. Whatever darkness awaited them, they'd be together, and that was all that mattered right then. — James Dashner

It is a bone calm, a soul calm, as if the unnamable but constant rattle inside me has been silenced for a moment, given a source to express and extinguish itself, I think back to that saving voice in my head and I wonder how I can find her again - the me who is wise and unafraid, who believes I will be okay. — Kerry Kletter

When I really like something, I tend to never listen to it again. I want to remember the feeling even more than I want to remember the music. If you get that record back out, you risk learning that it's not as good in reality as it is inside of you. Better to have the memory than to go back and have to adjust your truth. And even if it is every bit as good, you're just going to deconstruct it. You're going to use your brain instead of your feelings. As you get older, feelings are hard to come by. - Richard Nichols — Ahmir Questlove Thompson

You have to be willing to enter a situation where you know that you probably will not make it - while you absolutely believe that you will. You've got to know somewhere deep inside that you can take it, that you are in it to the end, whenever that may be. You have to know that what you are pursuing is worth it and that it means that much to you. So when you get knocked down, you can pick yourself back up and go at it again. Even though you might lose rounds five and six, a championship bout is 12 rounds. You've got to be willing to lose some of those rounds and still believe that you will win the match. Through all of that, you've got to be willing to bleed. — Patrick Sweeney

My eyelids are heavy as stone. But when I sleep, I'll have that dream again. I haven't wanted to tell you about it, until now.
I'll be in the Separates, and I'll be digging with my bare hands. When I've made a hole deep enough to plant a tree, I'll place my fingers inside. I'll slip off the ring you gave me. It will catch the light and glint a rainbow of colors over my skin, but I will take my hands away, leaving it there. I'll sprinkle the earth back over it, and I will bury it. Back where it belongs.
I'll rest against a tree's rough trunk. The sun will be setting, it's dazzling color threading through the sky, making my cheeks warm.
Then I will wake up.
Good-bye, Ty,
Gemma — Lucy Christopher

In the passing of an instant everything stopped and there he stood at the bottom of the ocean in perfect stillness. He gazed into a strange and eerie light that seemed to draw closer as the fear in his heart faded. An amazing tunnel was extending towards him, smooth shiny walls in the night. Reaching his hand out to touch it he wondered; if he were to die in that moment, where would the life inside him go? His heart, bursting with unspent love and the breathtaking happiness in his soul, just disappearing into the ocean. Two more handfuls of salt dissolving in a world barely able to justify its own existence.

He heard a rushing sound as the sea inhaled again just before it struck him in the chest. A wall of sand and stones that blew him off his feet and sent him back out, his last thought escaping him in a long trail of bubbles.

'Stop fighting now Thomas - it's over. — Kevin Keely

The days I'd passed with my mom before she died were still there, it seemed, seared into the corners of my heart.
The atmosphere of the station brought it all back. I could see myself running to the hospital, glad to be seeing my mother again. You never know you're happy until later. Because physical sensations like smells and exhaustion don't figure into our memories, I guess. Only the good bits bob up into view.
I was always startled by the snatches of memory that I saw as happy, how they came.
This time, it was the feeling I got when I stepped out onto the platform. The sense of what it had been like to be on my way to see my mom, for her still to be alive, if only for the time being, if only for that day. The happiness of that knowledge had come back to life inside me.
And the loneliness of that moment. The helplessness. — Banana Yoshimoto

The higher that the monkey can climb, the more he shows his tail.
Call no man happy till he dies, there's
no milk at the bottom of the pail.
God builds a church and the devil builds a chapel, like the thistles that are growing 'round the trunk of a tree.
All the good in the world you could put inside a thimble, and still have room for you and me.
If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man.
You can drive out nature with a pitchfork, but it always coming roaring back again.
Misery's the river of the world, misery's the river of the world.
Everybody row, everybody row;
misery's the river of the world. — Tom Waits

Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were. — Haruki Murakami

Now, let's look again at the partial reflection of light by a layer of glass. How does it work? I talked about light reflected from the front surface and the back surface. This idea of surfaces was a simplification I made in order to keep things easy at the beginning. Light is really not affected by surfaces. An incoming photon is scattered by the electrons in the atoms inside the glass, and a new photon comes back up to the detector. It's interesting that instead of adding up all the billions of tiny arrows that represent the amplitude for all the electrons inside the glass to scatter an incoming photon, we can add just two arrows-for the "front surface" and "back surface" reflections-and come out with the same answer. Let's see why. — Richard Feynman

When you wait all your life for something and then you find it, it's like a miracle. All the parts inside you that've been on hold, they open up and start beating. You were okay before, you were good. You had purpose and direction and everything was just fine. But now it's more. You can't explain what the more is, but you know, if you lose it, you'll never be able to fill those empty spaces in just the same way again. Not ever. That's terrifying. I'm afraid that what's inside me is just a trick. That I'll wake up tomorrow and what's beating in here will have stopped. It'll be quiet again. I won't feel this way. I won't feel the way I've waited all my life to feel.
I can stand you not loving me back. There's always hope that you will. But I don't know if I can stand not loving you. It would be like ... like having something stolen from inside of me. I don't know if I can handle going back to the way I was. — Nora Roberts

Even after you leave someone, or they leave you and you start your life all over again, pretending that you have moved on. There is always a piece of you that you have left behind with them. You can never get that back, even years together after you said you moved on. The moment you see them you are going to remember the first time you spoke, the first time you walked together. The way each other's fingers touched accidentally for the first time and the way you felt inside their arms. Each and every moment that made you weak. That is what the piece you had left behind of them is capable of doing to you. — Akshay Vasu

If I'd had a mirror I'd have looked at the whole of myself, though, as a matter of fact, I knew what I looked like already. A fat man of forty-five, in a grey herring-bone suit a bit the worse for wear and a bowler hat. Wife, two kids, and a house in the suburbs written all over me. Red face and boiled blue eyes. I know, you don't have to tell me. But the thing that struck me, as I gave my dental plate the once-over before slipping it back into my mouth, was that it doesn't matter. Even false teeth don't matter. I'm fat - yes. I look like a bookie's unsuccessful brother - yes. No woman will ever go to bed with me again unless she's paid to. I know all that. But I tell you I don't care. I don't want the women, I don't even want to be young again. I only want to be alive. And I was alive that moment when I stood looking at the primroses and the red embers under the hedge. It's a feeling inside you, a kind of peaceful feeling, and yet it's like a flame. — George Orwell

Pulling back, he gave her a little space and grinned as she found her balance again.
"Do you think that will ever get old?" Harper asked with an embarrassed blush.
"Christ, I hope not. Just remember how you feel right now because you might be really mad at me in about one minute."
"Uh-oh. I don't think I like the sound of that." Harper raised an eyebrow at him.
He took her hand and led her toward the studio before pulling her in front of him, her back to his chest. It was the safest position to avoid a kick in the nuts and the best position to block a fast escape.
He felt Harper's quick intake of breath as she turned to face him with a hand over her mouth.
"What did you do?" she said through her fingers.
"Happy birthday, sweetheart." He pushed her through the door as everyone inside shouted, "Surprise! — Scarlett Cole

I had been playing with matches and burned a small rug. I was in the process of covering up my crime when suddenly God saw me. I felt His gaze inside my head and on my hands ... I flew into a rage against so crude an indiscretion, I blasphemed ... He never looked at me again ... I had the more difficulty getting rid of Him the Holy Ghost in that He had installed Himself at the back of my head ... I collared the Holy Ghost in the cellar and threw Him out. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Jane," he rasped as his strokes grew frenzied. "It's always ... been you. Only you."
"Only you," she echoed.
She'd been fooling herself about Edwin. There had only ever been one man in her heart. And as he drove himself deep inside her, he sent her vaulting into the sun.
When he followed her into the bliss, she clutched him close to her chest and prayed that he would let her inside his heart as deeply as she'd let him into hers. That she wasn't making a mistake by taking up with him again.
Because it was too late to go back now. This time, he had her for better or worse. — Sabrina Jeffries

For one moment I had a cold feeling he was watching. Over the arm of the couch, I caught a glimpse of his face staring back at me through the dark beyond the window - where just a few minutes earlier I had been crouching. A switch of perception, and I was out on the fire escape again, watching a man and a woman inside, making love on the couch. ... I thought to myself, go ahead, you poor bastard - watch. I don't give a damn anymore. — Daniel Keyes

Repotting a plant gives it space to grow. Repotting ourselves means taking leave of our everyday environments and walking into unfamiliar territory - of the heart, of the mind and of the spirit. It isn't easy. The older we get, the more likely we are to have remained in the same place for some time. We stay because it's secure. We know the boundaries and, inside of them, we feel safe. Our roots cling to the walls we have long known. But remaining inside can keep us from thriving. Indeed, without new experiences or ideas, we slowly grow more and more tightly bound, eventually turning into less vibrant versions of who we might have been.
Repotting means accepting that the way is forward, not back. It means realizing that we won't again fit into our old shells. But that's not failure. That's living. — Heather Cochran

I wasn't never gonna run off again, no matter how bad things got. But I wasn't gonna be too scared to love the folks that took the time to love me back, and I sure wasn't gonna chase them that don't. And I was gonna spend the rest of my life asking questions and looking behind everything that happened, so I could find the gifts I got tucked inside me. — Susan Crandall

It was hard to stay angry when I felt so sad. I would rather have felt angry, but instead, all I could do was sob. Even though people had been coming over all day, the house seemed so lonely that I couldn't stand it.
The room grew somewhat dimmer. I didn't move as it grew dimmer still. Then, with a start, I hurried outside and ran to the alley in back of our house. Through a break between the buildings, I saw that the sun hung low over the horizon. I watched it until it started to hide between two trees in the distance. Then I climbed on a car and watched until only half of the sun was visible, and then a quarter, and then I felt a huge sickening panic inside of me and ran as hard as I could to a ladder I saw down the alley. I rushed up the ladder and climbed on the roof of somebody's garage. I saw the sun again, a quarter of it, and then a slice, and then it disappeared, the last time ever that the sun would set on a day my sister had lived. — Cynthia Kadohata

You. Are. So. Amazing." His soft lips brush over mine, back and forth, over and over again as he begins to move inside me. "Rock with me, baby. — Kristen Proby

AUGUST 25 A Special Angel By Maria Gillard Thank you for my childhood, for my laughing heart and soul for all your magic, and for being bold Thank you for being my mom's best friend and loving me no matter what state I was in Thanks for chives and roses, popcorn and TV Thanks for always letting me be me Thanks for rides to swim meets and yummy chocolate cake Thanks for being strong and true when my heart was aching Thank you for the blankets and pillow for my head Thank you for the back hill and the Westside River bed Thank you for the smell of melting butter on the stove Thank you for the nickels you gave me for the store You were a special angel sent to all of us with your disguise of freckles, kisses, hugs and guts We know you're out there somewhere and you'll stay inside our dreams We know wherever you are there's a brilliant golden beam Watch over us, dear angel, as you go on your way and we will laugh and sing and dance again someday Amen — Cathleen O'Connor

[My advice] will one day be found
With other relics of 'a former world,'
When this world shall be former, underground,
Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisped, and curled,
Baked, fried or burnt, turned inside-out, or drowned,
Like all the worlds before, which have been hurled
First out of, and then back again to Chaos,
The Superstratum which will overlay us. — Lord Byron

Everything hurts. He can barely lie still. He feels caught. He wants to run, but where? He feels certain he will always remain like this - trapped within his own body, his own mind. The emotional pain is so strong, it becomes physical. He feels it knotting and twisting inside him, ready to crush him, suffocate him. He is losing his grip, he is losing his mind. He thought he had it all back under control, but suddenly nothing makes sense any more. Does anyone else know what it's like to be stuck somewhere between dead and alive? I't s a half-world of incoherent pain where emotions you put on ice start slowly thawing again. A place where everything hurts, where your mind is no longer strong enough to force your feelings back into hibernation. — Tabitha Suzuma

All your life you've been hurt, and it's the things you loved the most that hurt the most when you lost them. Everywhere you turn, even when the eyes that look back at you are just like yours, you know you're the stranger. You can't tell others how you really feel, because you know they'll laugh. And when you sleep, you can feel the hole inside you, because you know that no matter what you do, you'll always be different, and this world hates different. So you close your eyes, and you wonder if it would really be all that bad if you never woke up. Maybe in the next world, you'll find a way to fill the hole. But eventually, you open your eyes, and it's a new day, and you brush yourself off and try to make the best of things before you lie down to sleep and think it all over again. — Aaron Burdett

He nuzzled in close to him, wanting more heat, more contact. Although he was inside, he wanted to get even closer. "Syn," Furi moaned and pushed his hips up to take in another inch. Syn groaned and clasped Furi's hips, pushing forward. "Oh. My. God. It's so tight, so hot, baby. Fuck." "Don't stop," Furi ordered. Syn kept going until his pelvis was flush against Furi's round ass. He could see Furi twisting and pulling on the sheets, his back rising and falling rapidly. Syn knew any minute the discomfort and burn Furi was feeling would morph into indescribable bliss. Syn pulled out slightly and eased back in just as slowly. Furi moaned and Syn did it again. "Fuuuuuck, — A.E. Via

Dena seemed about to respond, but instead, she belched again, a smaller belch that seemed unequal as a harbinger to the monstrous chunky gush that erupted from inside her. I held her hair back and looked away as she finished retching. Working with children had made me less squeamish
they were constantly presenting their grubby hands to your, having accidents
but at some point, disgusting was still disgusting, Especially with an adult woman. — Curtis Sittenfeld

I have hair that drifts like seaweed when I swim. I have eyes that shine like rock pools. My ears are like scallop shells. The ripples on my skin are like the ripples on the sand when the tide has turned back again. At night I gleam and glow like sea beneath the stars and moon. Thoughts dart and dance inside like little minnows in the shallows. They race and flash like mackerel farther out. My wonderings roll in the deep like sails. Dreams dive each night into the dark like dolphins do and break out happy and free into the morning light. These are the things I know about myself and that I see when I look in the rock pools at myself. — David Almond

Once I had her clean, I wrapped her in a towel and carried her back to the bed. A small red bloodstain was on the sheets, and again the possessive monster inside me threw back his head and roared his pleasure. I stood there holding her and letting the proof I was the only man to be inside her wash over me.
Blythe turned her head, and I felt her stiffen in my arms. "Oh, I can clean that up," she said, starting to wiggle.
I pulled her tighter to my chest. "No. I'm going to dry you off and hold you some more. I like seeing that blood. I did that," The pleasure in my voice made Blythe smile. — Abbi Glines

about to knock again when the inside door is pulled open to reveal a sinewy woman dressed in what appears to be layers of old sweaters and an ankle-length denim skirt. Her long hair held back in an elastic that leaves the ends bunched and brittle as the head of a broom. Brown eyes wide and alive, — Andrew Pyper

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

She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and my salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything. — Holly Black

If you're putting that energy into performance," he said, "you're also getting it back out again, right? You're giving so you can receive." He spread his arms wide. "If you were writing songs with it, you'd be holed up in your room in the middle of the night, scribbling them in a notebook and feeling self-important. You'd think you were getting it out, but really you'd be keeping it inside and quiet. You'd take what upset you and turn it into art, and now it would fester, because you think other people ought to share your outrage at what happened to you. — Jennifer Echols

A man leaves his great house because he's bored
With life at home, and suddenly returns,
Finding himself no happier abroad.
He rushes off to his villa driving like mad,
You'ld think he's going to a house on fire,
And yawns before he's put his foot inside,
Or falls asleep and seeks oblivion,
Or even rushes back to town again.
So each man flies from himself (vain hope, because
It clings to him the more closely against his will)
And hates himself because he is sick in mind
And does not know the cause of his disease. — Titus Lucretius Carus

When I get out, I thought, I am going to wait a while and then I am going to come back to this place, I am going to look at it from the outside and know exactly what's going on in there, and I'm going to stare at those walls and I'm going to make up my mind never to get on the inside of them again. — Charles Bukowski

Everything smelled of sheep. The dandelions were suddenly more sheep than flower, each petal reflecting wool and the sound of a bell ringing off the yellow. But the thing that smelled the most like sheep, was the very sun itself. When the sun went behind a cloud, the smell of the sheep decreased, like standing on some old guy's hearing aid, and when the sun came back again, the smell of the sheep was loud, like a clap of thunder inside a coffee cup.

(from "On Paradise", page 50) — Richard Brautigan

Inside, they pretended they would dream, but they did not. They sprawled on the living room sofa and Adam studied the tattoo that covered Ronan's back: all the sharp edges that hooked wondrously and fearfully into each other.
'Unguibus et rostro,' Adam said.
Ronan put Adam's fingers to his mouth.
He was never sleeping again. — Maggie Stiefvater

Oh, I was lucky, you know, to get anyone. I was what they called an old bride of twenty-six. Of course I married him. Everyone needs to keep something private from their family.
Like a shutter in a rainstorm, banging against the window, I venture forth, retreat back, try afresh, retreat again. Nothing changes in my life and yet nothing is the same.
That did not help, Ed knew as the words hung between them and he had that all-too-familiar sensation of wanting to claw them from the air and stuff them back in his mouth.
We were all in small pieces that didn't fit together, too many countries, too many scars, too many secrets inside us.
How do you make a stranger so intimate when they could easily destroy you? — Tracy Chevalier

Burial practices illustrated the two men's different outlooks. Custer believed a body should be buried in a long-lasting metal casket, thus removing the body from the ecological system by preventing bacteria from breaking it down and feeding it back into the soil. Crazy Horse believed in wrapping a body inside a buffalo robe and placing it on a scaffold on an open hillside, where the elements could break it down in a year or two. It would then come up again as buffalo grass, to be eaten by the buffalo, which would then be eaten by the Sioux, completing the circle. — Stephen E. Ambrose

Newt reached out and grabbed Alby by the shoulders. "Alby, lay off a bit. You're hurtin' more than helpin', ya know?"
Alby let go of Thomas's shirt and stepped back, his chest heaving with breaths. "Ain't got time to be nice, Greenbean. Old life's over, new life's begun. Learn the rules quick, listen, don't talk. You get me?"
Thomas looked over at Newt, hoping for help. Everything inside him churned and hurt; the tears that had yet to come burned his eyes.
Newt nodded. "Greenie, you get him, right?" He nodded again.
Thomas fumed, wanted to punch somebody. But he simply said, "Yeah. — James Dashner

Tissue gas was an embalmer's worst nightmare - a highly infectious form of bacteria that thrived on dead tissue and released a noxious gas inside the body. Smell was usually the easiest way to detect it, but sometimes, as with this body, the smell was buried under other chemicals, and the only way to identify it was the 'skin-slip' Mom had found on the back, where interior gas bubbles separated the skin from the muscle. The gas itself was bad enough, because the stink would soon become so foul it would be all but impossible to cover up; that didn't reflect well on us when people showed up for the viewing. Even worse than the gas though, were the bacteria that made it. Once they got into your workspace, you might never get them out again. If we didn't put a stop to this right now, every body we embalmed would catch the same bacteria from our tools and table. It could destroy the entire business. — Dan Wells

When they got back inside the safety of his home, Herobrine headed straight to Wolfie's favourite room, the kitchen. "You hungry boy?" Herobrine asked, scratching Wolfie behind the ear. "OK, let's see what we have tonight." Searching through his food stock Herobrine turned back to his dog with disappointment. "Sorry, boy its pork again. I was sure we had some fish or meat back there. Maybe tomorrow we can go out hunting and find something different to eat. What — Barry J. McDonald

Raining. Oh, brother, a scratch on the fender. Damn rabbi on his unicycle.
Wait a minute, where are my car keys? Could have sworn I left them in this pocket. No, just some loose change and ticket stubs from the all-black version of Elaine Stritch' s one-woman show.
Did I check my desk? Better go back inside. What's in the top drawer here? Hmm. Envelopes, my paper clips, a loaded revolver in case the tenant in 2A begins yodelling again. — Woody Allen

Tosh throws up her hands. 'Tell me what you want!'
What I want...
To smell the desert after rain? To awake each morning beneath a soft Cheyenne blanket, skin still heavy with his scent? To rip out the flawed cog inside of me that brought it all to a screeching halt, then wind back through the years and do everything all over again. Perhaps that is what I want. A different ending. — Allyson Stack

When we decided to have Julie, I couldn't carry her. We sat down and the hard numbers stared back at us. I made twice as much as Fern. We wouldn't have been able to feed ourselves, let alone another mouth, if I'd been the one to hold her. And so we both went for the operation, and they took eggs from the two of us and made them one. And then I squeezed Fern's hand when she went into the theatre, and when she came out again they'd put it inside her. And sheltered by her body, the one cell that was us divided and became two, and then three, and then four hundred million, and then they divided into parts. Lungs, heart, brain, mouth. And finally, when she was ready, Julie divided from Fern and there were three of us. — Lee S. Hawke

As you release, align and commit to your life's purpose, you begin to access more of your lightbody. And as we birth this new world together, you may go through preparation stages, as your physical body restructures and reassembles into its new form. As you embark on this journey, you may go through periods of feeling loss, sadness and grief as you may be faced with the reality that you will never return back to this old world that held you safe for so many lifetimes. We are moving into a new energy, and a new world, and in this new world will be different ways to live, create and be. Nothing will ever be the same again. We are changing from the inside out and sometimes from the outside in! — Lee-Anne Peters

He wanted to dig a hole and put the past inside it and cover it back up again. He didn't know if flowers would grow there or not. He hoped they would. — Elizabeth Brundage

Mad Girl's Love Song
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) — Sylvia Plath

Back in Beijing, it was 9:56 A.M. - four minutes before the race's start - and Phelps stood behind his starting block, bouncing slightly on his toes. When the announcer said his name, Phelps stepped onto the block, as he always did before a race, and then stepped down, as he always did. He swung his arms three times, as he had before every race since he was twelve years old. He stepped up on the blocks again, got into his stance, and, when the gun sounded, leapt. Phelps knew that something was wrong as soon as he hit the water. There was moisture inside his goggles. He couldn — Charles Duhigg

He grabbed my calves and yanked them apart, then pushed them up so my knees were bent. He put a knee to the bed and moved forward, releasing one of my calves, his hand wrapped around his cock and I felt his weight begin to hit me.
"You come with me inside you, Ace," he gritted and then he was inside me, filling me, beautiful.
At the feel of him, so hard, making me so full, my back left the bed again. "Tate."
He moved, driving deep, fast, hard. Our mouths attached, our tongues clashed. His hand went between us and he touched me and that was it. It hit me like a rocket and I combusted, my world exploding, taking me with it and I loved every nanosecond. — Kristen Ashley

When she came back inside, she was gripping a yogurt cup someone had thrown near our side strip of garden. "Plastic doesn't cycle." She shrugged off her coat. "Right? We recycle it, but it can't do anything on its own, and all it can ever do is be itself again. It is the worst kind of reincarnation. Lame! That is so lame! And it's everywhere!" she cried, going to the bathroom to splash water on her face. — Aimee Bender