Knew That Back 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

Supposing we knew that up there is some alien civilization and it's sending radio signals our way we should not tell the public where that is. We could say that we've picked up a signal, but we should not tell them where for the simple reason that anybody could commandeer a radio telescope, set themselves up as some self appointed spokesperson of mankind and start beaming all sorts of crazy messages back to the aliens. — Paul Davies

As I was sitting in my chair,
I knew the bottom wasn't there,
Nor legs nor back, but I just sat,
Ignoring little things like that. — Hughes Mearns

Silas knew words could have power behind them. Usually it was just a sort of bad luck. He also knew, very early on, that you could never tell when that bad luck would jump up to claim its due, so it was best to be careful. Quiet was safer. He wished his parents had been quieter when they were together. Who knew what might happen when you said something awful to someone else? It was hard to take some words back. Some words stuck and you couldn't shake them off. Silence was better than those kinds of words. Silas had learned that lesson the hard way. — Ari Berk

Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one. — Toni Morrison

As soon as I'd walked out of my normal working life and into the apartment we now shared, I went to war with damn near every instinct I had. I handed over all control to the man I loved, trusting that he'd take care of us both. He always did, but sometimes I couldn't resist the urge to push back just a bit, so he knew I was still there, fighting. — Meredith Wild

I watched Titanic when I got back home from the hospital, and cried. I knew that my IQ had been damaged. — Stephen King

I smell guilt. There is a stench of guilt upon the air.
I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact - such prompt appearances! - and I ask myself ... why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty? And I answer myself, they must have believed me broken, they thought I was gone. They slipped back among my enemies, and they pleaded innocence, and ignorance, and bewitchment ...
And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living? And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort ... perhaps they now pay allegiance to another ... — J.K. Rowling

I felt myself begin to slide down into that recognizable abyss, down and down, where I knew it would be cold and dark, but which had become more familiar to me than my face in the mirror. I knew I should instead be grateful for this time with my two best friends, for having laughed, but I let myself slide anyway. And hoped someone would pull me back up. — Tracy H. Tucker

Making a record is a lot like surgery without an anesthetic. You first have to cut yourself up the middle. Then you have to rip out every single organ, every single part and lay them on a table. You then need to examine the parts, and the reality of the situation hits you. You find yourself saying things like "I didn't know that part was so ugly." Or "I better get a professional opinion about that." You go to bed hollow and then back into the operating room the next day ... facing every fear, every disgusting thing you hate about yourself. Then you pop it all back in, sew yourself shut and perform ... you perform like your life depended on it
and in those perfect moments you find beauty you never knew existed. You find yourself and you friends all over again, you find something to fight for, something to love. Something to show the world. — Gerard Way

And it's so pretty and secluded," went on Mrs. Digby, "with these glorious rhododendrons. Look how pretty they are, all sprayed with the water
like fairy jewels
and the rustic seat against those dark cypresses at the back. Really Italian. And the scent of the lilac is so marvellous!"
Mr. Spiller knew that the cypresses were, in fact, yews, but he did not correct her. A little ignorance was becoming in a woman. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Alec?" Magnus was staring at him. He had dispatched the remaining Iblis demons, and the square was empty but for the two of them. "Did you just- did you just save my life?"
Alec knew he ought to say something like, Of course, because I'm a Shadowhunter and that's what we do, or That's my job. Jace would have said something like that. Jace always knew the right thing to say. But the words that actually came out of Alec's mouth where quite different- and sounded petulant, even to his own ears. "You never called me back," he said. "I called you so many times and you never called me back."
Magnus looked at Alec as if he'd lost his mind. "Your city is under attack," he said. "The wards have broken, and the streets are full of demons. And you want to know why I haven't called you? — Cassandra Clare

I remember a biology lab in which we observed a spear-headed water worm. Like a starfish, it could grow back anything we razored off of it, even to the point of generating multiple versions of itself. I saw myself in that gliding shape. Arrow-shaped, it never arrived where it wanted to go. But it knew, when cut, to grow. — Kenji Yoshino

The memory brought back the timbre of her voice and the tickle of her hair on my chin as I put her to bed that night and the feeling of belonging to someone, mattering to someone, having someone whose first smile in the morning was for you. Someone who slipped their hand into yours when they were scared and trusted you to make them feel better. Someone who knew you, the important things about you, and loved you anyway. — Michele Jaffe

Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they an best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason
if the worlds are in any way blurred
the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing 'weak specification'. — Raymond Carver

Then she fell on her knees, saying: 'I beg thee!'
'Nay, lady,' he said, and taking her by the hand he raised her. The he kissed her hand, and sprang into the saddle, and rode away, and did not look back; and only those who knew him well and were near to him saw the pain that he bore. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I remember one time going out to the mound to talk with Bob Gibson. He told me to get back behind the batter; that the only thing I knew about pitching was that it was hard to hit! — Tim McCarver

Noises and smells, those can bring back powerful memories. I remember when I was going to school one Fourth of July, and there were a lot of fireworks going off. I knew that I was in Richmond. I knew that I was a college student. But I thought people were shooting at me. — Kevin Powers

I knew now what my earlier passion for Harry had hidden from me. That although I had bedded him as a free woman I was as bound as if I were the slave. For it was not a free choice. I had wanted him because he was the Squire, not for himself ... And it was no free choice, because I could not choose to say "No." My safety and security on the land meant I had to keep my special, costly hold on its owner. I paid him rent as surely as the tenants who came to my round rent table with their coins tied up in a scrap of cloth. When I lay on my back, or strode round the room threatening him with every imaginable, ridiculous torment, I was paying my dues. And the knowledge galled me. — Philippa Gregory

He always knew what I would have liked to say, and with startling and increasing accuracy as we spent more time together. One time, for example, I was wondering exactly how he had lost that tooth at the back of his mouth when he saw my eyes on his waning grin and replied, "Ran into a fence when I was twelve." And then I wondered how the heck he could have missed the giant fence standing right in front of him and he said, "Shut up. — Rose Christo

I'd been unable to stop questioning if I knew what I was doing, even just kissing, and I'd sort of sheepishly apologized for my inexperience. Lucius had drawn back, a strange look in his eyes and a half smile on his lips as he'd said, 'I don't think I could allow another man who'd touched you to continue walking this earth. The only reason Zinn survives is the debt that I owe him.' He'd smiled a little more broadly, joking, 'Your inexperience saves lives, Antanasia. — Beth Fantaskey

Gogol remembers having to do the same thing when he was younger, when his grandparents died ... He remembers, back then, being bored by it, annoyed at having to observe a ritual no one else he knew followed, in honor of people he had seen only a few times in his life ... Now, sitting together at the kitchen table at six-thirty every evening, his father's chair empty, this meatless meal is the only thing that seems to make sense. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Even sporting a frown, his upper lip was full with a pronounced 'Cupid's bow' that inspired the image of her nibbling his tender flesh to manifest in her mind. At the thought, her cheeks heated with a blush she knew he saw by the smirk that lifted the corner of his mouth.

"What are ya thinkin' about?" He winked, adding insult to injury where her pride was concerned.

Taking a step back and turning on her heel, Abigail growled, "I was thinking you have the manners of a stable boy but are dressed like knight. — Julia Mills

Some part of me ... had been waiting, since Kelp's death, for certainty that God ... was either dead or malicious. On the cot, now, in the rain-shadowed room with the medicine smells, I knew it was worse than that. They were a challenge, a dare: you must look at the horrors of the world and find a way back to faith in spite of what you saw. I had a glimpse of what the purer version of myself might be capable of: enduring the loss, keeping the rage and disgust down, finding meaning through suffering. But it was only a glimpse. There was so much shame, and the shame made me angry at the thought of getting better. — Glen Duncan

As I sat alone at my desk in the dark, I thought about suicide. Sometimes I did that, thought about suicide, though not in an active way - it was more like pulling a lucky stone out of your back pocket. It was a comforting thing to have with you, so you could rub your fingers over it, reassure yourself that it was there if you needed it. I didn't want to try to kill myself, didn't want the blood and the hysterical parents and the guilt, any of it. But sometimes I liked the idea of simply not having to be here anymore, not having to deal with my life. As if death could be just an extended vacation.
But now what I thought about suicide was this: If I died tonight, everyone would believe this journal was true.
Like Amelia, Chava, and Sally, everyone would forever believe that I had written that diary. Everyone would believe they knew how I "really felt." And how dare they? — Leila Sales

Just before he passed behind the hedge at the end of the drive, he turned to look back at Stoke Morrow and caught me spying on him. His shining eyes were so cruel, and before I could close the curtain, I saw the flash of an awful grin on his face. It was a grin that said he knew I'd come around. Sooner or later, I'd fall in line. — Adam McOmber

Love wasn't perfection. It wasn't always roses and candy. Hell, it wasn't even mostly roses and candy. Sometimes it was battling back fear that loomed like a leviathan, trying to find a way through misery, being grateful to have a companion who knew your strengths and weaknesses, and loved you not just in spite of them, but because of them. Love was acceptance. Love was bravery. Love was sticking it out. — Chloe Neill

Try not to let the excitement overwhelm you, but I have more good news.'
I groaned. I knew that tone of voice. 'Don't say it.'
'Vasily is back from Caryeva.'
'You could do the kind thing and drown me now.'
'And suffer alone? I think not.'
'Maybe for your birthday you can ask that he be fitted with a royal muzzle,' I suggested.
'But then we'd miss all his exciting stories about the summer auctions. You're fascinated by the breeding superiority of the Ravkan racehorse, right?'
I let out a whimper. — Leigh Bardugo

This was not Newt's fault; in his younger days he would go every couple of months to the barber's shop on the corner, clutching a photograph he's carefully torn from a magazine which showed someone with an impressively cool haircut grinning at the camera and he would show the picture to the barber, and ask to be made to look like that, please. And the barber, who knew his job, would take one look and then give Newt the basic, all-purpose, short-back-and-sides. After a year of this, Newt realized that he obviously didn't have the face for haircuts. The best Newton Pulsifer could hope for after a haircut was shorter hair. — Neil Gaiman

I believe everything learned in college is an answer to a question that someone has posed. Questions get posed differently and the answers that come back transport us to places we never knew existed. — Gordon Gee

Yeah. I guess we were both willing to do that, Gavin. I was ready to take that plunge and never look back. Never. I was ready to risk everything for you, to push away the overwhelming fear I had because I knew you and I are worth it. We fell in love in a second. I was barely able to blink, and you had my entire world upside-down. I was scared you weren't ... real. I was scared no one could be as magnetic as you are to me. It still scares me. You still scare me." Pausing, Emily shook her head.
"Then I saw Gina, and all my fears came back. My heart wanted to believe you, but my head wouldn't allow it after I'd already taken that risk on us. I'm so sorry, Gavin. I don't know what else to say other than I love you and need you with everything inside me — Gail McHugh

Everything started to move in slow motion. A vehicle was coming up the hill in the opposite direction, facing us but in its own lane. With vehicles parked on both sides of the road, this meant that there was just a narrow passage area for both vehicles to pass through. However, he had yet to reduce his speed, and now I knew which car he was going to hit. I was frozen stiff with fear in the front passenger seat, as I helplessly watched him slam into the back of a parked car. I was not wearing a seat belt, so upon impact my head crashed into the windshield. I was then slammed back into my seat, but with such force that everything went black. — Drexel Deal

She should be more frightened herself, she knew. She was only ten, a skinny girl on a stolen horse with a dark forest ahead of her and men behind who would gladly cut off her feet. Yet somehow she felt calmer than ever had in Harrenhal. The rain had washed the guard's blood off her fingers, she wore a sword across her back, wolves were prowling through the dark like lean grey shadows, and Arya Stark was unafraid. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she whispered under her breath, the words that Syrio Forel had taught her, and Jaqen's words too, valar morghulis. — George R R Martin

This is a perfectly good picture. And if I didn't know you, I would be impressed and charmed. But I do know you."
He thought some more, wondering whether he dared say precisely what he felt, for he knew he could never explain exactly why the idea came to him. "It's the painting of a dutiful daughter," he said eventually, looking at her cautiously to see her reaction. "You want to please. You are always aware of what the person looking at this picture will think of it. Because of that you've missed something important. Does that make sense?"
She thought, then nodded. "All right," she said grudgingly and with just a touch of despair in her voice. "You win."
Julien grunted. "Have another go, then. I shall come back and come back until you figure it out."
"And you'll know?"
"You'll know. I will merely get the benefit of it. — Iain Pears

It knew that the earth goddess intended on razing all human civilization, and this city, which had stood ffor thousands of years, was saying back to her: You wanna dissolve this city, Dirt Face? Give it a shot. — Rick Riordan

Where did you say you found that bird again?"
"In my head." Ronan's laugh was a sharp jackal cry.
"Dangerous place," commented Noah.
Ronan stumbled, all his edges blunted by alcohol, and the raven in his hands let out a feeble sound more percussive than vocal. He replied, "Not for Chainsaw."
Back out in the hard spring night, Gansey tipped his head back. Now that he knew that Ronan was all right, he could see that Henrietta after dark was a beautiful place, a patchwork town embroidered with black tree branches.
A raven, of all the birds for Ronan to turn up with.
Gansey didn't believe in coincidences. — Maggie Stiefvater

Austin stood. "All right, I will." He walked to the door and stopped, his hand on the latch. He gazed back over his shoulder. "That woman you love ... Do I know her?"
Houston forced himself to meet his brother's gaze. The boy only knew one woman, if he didn't count the whores in Dusty Flats. "Yeah, you do."
"She never left your side, not for one minute."
"She should have."
"Well, I'm not learned in these matters, but I'd like to think if a woman ever loved me as much as that one loves you ... I'd crawl through hell to be by her side. — Lorraine Heath

I did an interview earlier and somebody asked me if I [knew I] was onto something back when I was first writing. I said, "Yeah. I always thought I was good." We're not the Beatles or Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. But Helmet always sounded like Helmet, and we sort of developed our own sound. There's a vocabulary that's kind of universal now that's very simple. My friendDavid Sims, [the bassist] in Jesus Lizard, said, "I wish I'd thought of it." When you first hear it, it's like, "Oh duh." But that's cool. — Page Hamilton

He knew on some level he changed the course of his life. And you could do that, couldn't you, he thought as he put the RAZR back in his pocket. you could choose some paths and not others. Not always, of course. At times destiny just drove you to a destination and dropped your ass off and that was that. But on occasion you were able to pick the address. And if you had half a brain, no matter how hard it was or how wierd it felt, you went into the house.
And found yourself. — J.R. Ward

You can tell it any way you want but that's the way it is. I should of done it and I didn't. And some part of me has never quit wishin I could go back. And I cant. I didn't know you could steal your own life. And I didn't know that it would bring you no more benefit than about anything else you might steal. I think I done the best with it I knew how but it still wasn't mine. It never has been. — Cormac McCarthy

All right, shadow-priest, you've been spying - on what? What state secrets have you learned watching me groom these horses?'
'Only that they hate you, Daru. Every time your back was turned, they got ready to nip you - only you always seemed to step away at precisely the right moment-'
'Yes, I did, since I knew what they were intending. Each time.'
'Is this pride I hear? That you outwitted two horses? — Steven Erikson

The bones said death was comin', and the bones never lied.
Eva Savoie leaned back in the rocking chair and pushed it into motion on the uneven wide-plank floor of the one-room cabin. Her grand pere Julien had built the place more than a century ago, pulling heavy cypress logs from the bayou and sawing them, one by one, into the thick planks she still walked across ever day.
She had never known Julien Savoie, but she knew of him. The curse that had stalked her family for three generations had started with her grandfather and what he'd done all those years ago.
What he'd brought with him to Whiskey Bayou with blood on his hands.
What had driven her daddy to shoot her mama, and then himself, before either turned forty-five.
What had led Eva's brother, Antoine, to drown in the bayou only a half mile from this cabin, leaving a wife and infant son behind.
What stalked Eva now. — Susannah Sandlin

I kept thinking back to all those nights in Connecticut, when I was out the door as soon as dinner was over, yelling my plans behind me as I headed to my car, ready for my real night to begin - my time with my family just something to get through as quickly as possible. And now that I knew that the time we had together was limited, I was holding on to it, trying to stretch it out, all the while wishing I'd appreciated what I'd had earlier. — Morgan Matson

I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life. — George Orwell

She knew the minute HE arrived. Felt the warm blanket of comfort reach out to her frozen soul ... He made his way down the isle and sat next to her ... he didn't reach out, didn't touch her ... a single tear slid out from her closed lids and she blindly reached for his hand. He took her hand in more, gathering her close, arms coming around her warm and strong as her head sank down unto his shoulder and the tears finally came soaking the lapel of his wool suit. He offered her a perfectly white handkerchief ... she stared at it and wondered who carries that type of thing anymore? He looked back at her and explained, I'm old fashioned. — D.B. Reynolds

I knew from the start that I loved her and knew, as well, that I would never fall back from that love, never try, never want to. — Scott Spencer

Be Willing to Pay the Price If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem wonderful at all. MICHELANGELO Renaissance sculptor and painter who spent 4 years lying on his back painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel Behind every great achievement is a story of education, training, practice, discipline, and sacrifice. You have to be willing to pay the price. Maybe that price is pursuing one single activity while putting everything else in your life on hold. Maybe it's investing all of your own personal wealth or savings. Maybe it's the willingness to walk away from the safety of your current situation. But though many things are typically required to reach a successful outcome, the willingness to do what's required adds that extra dimension to the mix that helps you persevere in the face of overwhelming challenges, setbacks, pain, and even personal — Jack Canfield

It's like he has emotional amnesia ... I think you have to accept that the person you knew isn't there at the moment. I was witness to how much he loved you. I have the photos. This isn't the person we knew. I don't recognize this person. He's shed his skin. Her heart is broken too. She has to say the thing that will give me back my life. She draws on every reserve. I see how much it hurts her and it hurts me too. I came from her joy and her pain, I lived in it and I live in it now. — Emma Forrest

Then, lifting me up, his head fell back and he opened his mouth wide. "Once I let Lucy Larson into my heart! I was able to take my sad, shitty song and make it better!" he sung, off key and at full volume. Some of the students around us tipped their beers at him, some broke in during the "Nah, nah, nah," chorus, and a few looked at him like he was a crazy man.
But I just laughed - I already knew he was crazy. And I loved him for it. "I think that's called taking creative liberties with the lyrics. — Nicole Williams

No wonder Mama went away in her head when Clover passed on. And then Papa. I am going to visit my Mama tomorrow and tell her I am sorry for everything I ever did that caused her sorrow or worry, and for ever wishing, during those days, that she would come back. She probably wanted to stay there. It's a wonder she came back at all. If I knew how to make myself go away in my head, I declare I would. — Nancy E. Turner

As I savored the meal, I struggled against the dark force that kept tugging at me, telling me I was never going to leave; adhering to my consciousness like sap, or tar, or glue; enveloping me in a sticky sickness that drained my vitality. I felt myself growing old as I sat there, the joints stiffening, the bones aching, the sense of identity melting away like a forgotten candle left to burn itself out. As I settled back into my cot for the evening hibernation, I understood I had been captured. I realized my spirit was ensnared. I knew what must be done. Whatever the cost, I told myself, I would be back on the road at dawn. — Steven Hubbell

It looked like she held a basketful of woven gold.
Arin leap down the stairs. He strode up to his cousin and seized her arm.
"Arin!"
"What did you do?"
Sarsine jerked away. "What she wanted. Pull yourself together."
But Arin only saw Kestrel as she had been last night before the ball. How her hair had been a spill of low light over his palms. He had threaded desire into those braids, had wanted her to sense it even as he dreaded that she would. He had met her eyes in the mirror, and didn't know, couldn't tell her feelings. He only knew the fire of his own.
"It's just hair," Sarsine said. "It will grow back."
"Yes," said Arin, "but no everything does. — Marie Rutkoski

My friend Emma, who likes things to add up neatly, claims that this is because my parents died when I was too young to take it in: they were there one day and gone the next, crashing through that fence so hard and fast they left it splintered for good. When I was Lexie Madison for eight months she turned into a real person to me, a sister I lost or left behind on the way; a shadow somewhere inside me, like the shadows of vanishing twins that show up on people's X-rays once in a blue moon. Even before she came back to find me I knew I owed her something, for being the one who lived. — Tana French

And yet, even as she spoke, she knew that she did not wish to come back. not to stay, not to live. She loved the little yellow cottage more than she loved any place on earth. but she was through with it except in her memories. — Maud Hart Lovelace

I knew that on that island one was driven back into the past. There was so much space, so much silence, so few meetings that one too easily saw out of the present, and then the past seemed ten times closer than it was. — John Fowles

Even though I knew I had a snowball's chance in Hades with you." She sniffed and wiped a tear with the back of her hand. "I just ... I just wanted to give you something pure. It's all I have. Had. Everything else about me is tainted by demon blood. But I had that. And it's always been yours."
-Gem to Kynan
Excerpt From: Larissa Ione. "Desire Unchained." iBooks. — Larissa Ione

That meant I could come back whenever I could manage it. And she was telling me to go. She knew the decision was too big a load for me to carry by myself. She knew me through and through. She had eyes in the back of her heart. — Richard Peck

She knew bullshit when it was being tossed at her by the shovelful. "You know, Ms Purcell, I'm at absolute capacity in the friend department. You'll have to apply elsewhere. As for Roarke and his business, that's his deal. As for you, let's get this straight: You don't look stupid, so I don't believe you think you're the first of Roarke's discarded skirts to swing back this way. You don't worry me. In fact, you don't much interest me. So if that's all?"
Slowly Magdelana slid off the desk. "The man is just never wrong is he? I don't like you."
"Aw."
She moved to the door, then stopped, leaned on the jamb as she looked over at Eve again. "Just one thing? He didn't discard me. I discarded him. And since you don't look stupid either, you know that makes all the difference. — J.D. Robb

The remnants of my dress hung like tentacles and from my back arched a pari of towering wings, feather-light but suggesting enourmous power. My hair streamed behind me, and I knew that the ring of light around my head would be brighter than ever.
"Holy crap!" Xavier blurted — Alexandra Adornetto

These feelings of rage and distress and despair that you talk about," I said, circling something I knew I would have trouble articulating. "They only exist because of your original love for your father. They are like signposts back to that love. His leaving took that love with him, or appeared to, but you will see, if you stay with your meditation, that all of that love is still there in you. From the infant's perspective, it's directed at only one or two people, but even if they failed you, that capacity for love is still there in you. It's too bad for your father that he didn't get to know it - but there are plenty of people now who will be grateful for it. There's a whole roomful right here. — Mark Epstein

I'm very fond of an old map of London that used to belong to my father. I'm a big London fan, and the evolution of the city is astonishing, when you look back to Pepys and how small it was - everyone knew each other. — Ben Schott

During the next two days James Bond was permanently in this state without regaining consciousness. He watched the procession of his dreams go by without any effort to disturb their sequence, although many of them were terrifying and all were painful. He knew that he was in a bed and that he was lying on his back and could not move and in one of his twilight moments he thought there were people round him, but he made no effort to open his eyes and re-enter the world. He felt safer in the darkness and he hugged it to him. — Ian Fleming

And when the sea swallowed up the shore and the waves heaved under the ship and the blue horizon encircled us, I immediately felt an overwhelming intimacy with the sea. I knew this green, infinite giant, as though it were roving back and forth within my ribs. The whole of the journey I savored that feeling of being nowhere, alone, before and behind me either eternity or nothingness. — Tayeb Salih

I closed my eyes and heard the wind and the sound of water flowing softly, swiftly in the river. It was enough, for one moment. And I knew that it would not endure, that it would fly away from me like something torn out of my arms, and I would fly after it, more desperately lonely than any creature under God, to get it back. — Anne Rice

Then I knew that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom. — Evelyn Waugh

I could send myself right back to the day that I wrote "Angel Of The Morning," how it felt. I had a buzz through me that morning that was so powerful. I knew I had done something that meant something, because of that feeling. It wasn't a question of whether other people liked it ... I loved it. To me, it had to be one of the most important love stories of all time. — Chip Taylor

Kenny rested his hand on my leg, patting it delicately. His thoughts staying just that, thoughts, as we drove in silence, back to my prison of paradise, back to the one place I knew I could be happy, yet miserable, all in the same day. — Holly Hood

Imagine a very long time passing - and I find my way out, following someone who already knows how to leave Hell. And God says to me on Earth for the first time, "Xas!" in a tone of discovery, as if I'm a misplaced pair of spectacles or a stray dog. And he puts it to me that he wants me in Heaven. But Lucifer has doubled back - it was him I followed - to find me, where I am, in a forest, smitten, because the Lord has noticed me, and I'm overcome, as hopeless as your dog Josie whom you got rid of because she loved me.' Xas glared at Sobran. Then he drew a breath - all had been said on only three. He went on: 'Lucifer says to God the He can't have me. And at this I sit up and tell Lucifer that I didn't even think he knew my name, then say to God no thank you - very insolent this - and that Hell is endurable so long as the books keep appearing. — Elizabeth Knox

The Black Panthers was what we would call today a criminal gang that was formed by Huey Newton. Now, interestingly enough, I knew Huey Newton before he formed the Black Panthers. He was a student of mine when I was a teacher, instructor at Oakland City College back in the very early 1960s. — Edwin Meese

She'd fucked him over hardcore. She'd betrayed him and she'd lied to him, and she knew that as far as he was concerned she'd led him on and used him as well, had consorted with people who wanted to see him dead and given them information to help them make him so. Most of all, she'd hurt him. And if the pain in her chest was anything close to what he'd felt, she was more than willing to admit he deserved to get his own back. Was willing to do more than admit it; was willing to take it, in the hopes he'd eventually decide she'd been punished enough and they could maybe move on. — Stacia Kane

Now I see how many wolf characteristics you had. You were wary, didn't really trust anyone or anything. You were elusive and secretive. You paced out behind the trees, watching everything and waiting for the moment when it was safe to come in and rest by the fire. But you weren't happy there -- no, I take that back, you were happy there, but you weren't comfortable. It wasn't what you knew. It wasn't what you trusted. You trusted meanness, not kindness. Kindness spooked you -- you were always looking for the trap in it. You trusted in a scrappy existence where you had to fight for your survival. — Helen Humphreys

Edith's clothes were flung in disarray on the floor beside the bed, the covers of which had been thrown back carelessly; she lay naked and glistening under the light on the white unwrinkled sheet. Her body was lax and wanton in its naked sprawl, and it shone like pale gold. William came nearer the bed. She was fast asleep, but in a trick of the light her slightly opened mouth seemed to shape the soundless words of passion and love. He stood looking at her for a long time. He felt a distant pity and reluctant friendship and familiar respect; and he felt also a weary sadness, for he knew that he would never again be moved as he had once been moved by her presence. The sadness lessened, and he covered her gently, turned out the light, and got in bed beside her. — John Edward Williams

You never explained the change of heart."
"Maybe I got tired of seeing Kevin bend. Or maybe it was the zombies. A few weeks back you and Renee argued contingency plans for a zombie apocalypse. She said she'd focus on survivors. You said you'd go back for some of us. Five of us. You weren't counting Abby or Coach. Since you trust Renee to handle the rest of the team, I'm guessing the last spot is for Dobson. I didn't say anything then because I knew I'd look out for only me when the world went to hell. I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to go back for you. — Nora Sakavic

My heart had stopped as my world spun around me. I felt all the walls that had begun to crack and crumble slam right back into place as I looked into the eyes of the monster I knew was there all along. — Alicia Deters

But the remarkable thing about the beetles was their sensitivity to all the grammar and directives and slogans and even unstated desires of the ant world, which they learned to manipulate. They first memorized the proper antenna-vibration and foreleg-tap which the ants themselves used to request food. The poor workers, busy going here and there and back again all day and never getting a chance to think, automatically assumed that these fearsome strangers had been authorized by the Central Committee since they knew the password, and so they regurgitated a drop or two of fruit juice on cue, much the same as when one is traveling across Europe or Asia on the train and a person in uniform requests one's passport, one's ticket, takes them away, and comes back, or else does not come back, having sold them; a badge and a superior manner can obtain anything in this world. — William T. Vollmann

Then he looked up, despite all best prior intentions. In four minutes, it would be another hour; a half hour after that was the ten-minute break. Lane Dean imagined himself running around on the break, waving his arms and shouting gibberish and holding ten cigarettes at once in his mouth, like a panpipe. Year after year, a face the same color as your desk. Lord Jesus. Coffee wasn't allowed because of spills on the files, but on the break he'd have a big cup of coffee in each hand while he pictured himself running around the outside grounds, shouting. He knew what he'd really do on the break was sit facing the wall clock in the lounge and, despite prayers and effort, count the seconds tick off until he had to come back and do this again. And again and again and again. — David Foster Wallace

I did a show back when I was in high school - so I was about 17 - and it was the first time I was on stage. I never even thought about being an actor before that, but after that experience, I knew it was what I wanted to do. — Guillermo Diaz

We are falling back into allegory," said the Captain, interrupting him. "If you mean by all that that the body is the most solid of realities, then say so."
"No, not exactly," Zeno explained. "This body, our kingdom, sometimes seems to me to be made of a fabric as loosely woven and as evanescent as a shadow. I should hardly be more astonished to see my mother again (who is dead) than to come upon you around a corner as I did, your face grown older and its substance recomposed more than once in twenty years' time, with its color altered by the seasons and its form somewhat changed, but your mouth still knowing my name. Think of the grain that has grown and the creatures that have lived and died in order to sustain that Henry who is and is not the one I knew twenty years ago. — Marguerite Yourcenar

He had been the recipient, he now gratefully acknowledged, of a rare and precious gift. In demanding the hand of a woman he neither understood nor was capable of knowing, he had instead received from her the chance to see himself and the opportunity to become a better man. And he had changed. He knew he had. He knew that he was not that man stalking angrily back to his chambers in Rosings Hall. What had happened to him in those intervening months? He was not sure; he could offer no complete explanation, but the man who had opened Rosings's doors, already prepared to write an angry letter, was a stranger, a man who had been walking through his entire life asleep. But now, he had awoken. — Pamela Aidan

Poltergeists, for the most part, seemed to be pretty unhappy spirits with a vendetta against humanity and an eye for trickery. I knew that if I died I'd definitely come back as one. It actually was quite appealing, throwing shit around and scaring hapless people out of their homes, just to be an ass. I started looking forward to "meeting" these asshole ghosts. — Karina Halle

Get off me, baby, gotta shower." I rolled off but he rolled right on top of me. "I thought you had to shower," I asked when I caught his eyes. He held my gaze for a moment and I couldn't read his face before his head dipped and I felt his nose tweak my ear. "I'm sorry I was a dick," he whispered there. There it was. That was all he had to do and I knew at that moment there would be times when he'd be a jerk and that was all he'd ever have to do. My arms slid around him. "Honey," I whispered back. He gave my shoulder a bristly kiss and then he was gone. — Kristen Ashley

Max can't hear or speak, but he communicates okay. He wasn't programmed for fear - whoever rolled the genetic dice left that out too. If Mama asked Max to deliver a package to the Devil, Max would go straight to Hell. Unlike others of my acquaintance who had made that particular trip, I had complete confidence that Max would come back. Max the Silent is one tough boy. In fact, he's so infamous that one time over in night court when he was being arraigned for attempted murder, nobody even laughed when the judge told him that he had the right to remain silent. They all knew that Max never attempted to murder anyone. — Andrew Vachss

Rose was the one who knew the path, but these were the things Rose knew, and I wondered if maybe it was this knowing the back of things, the shortcuts, the forgotten stories, that gives you the right to call a place home. — Catherine Landis

The one thing that shaped my life was when I was 15 or 16: I knew I wanted to be a journalist. And not just a journalist, but a journalist in the Middle East, and to go back to the Arab world and try to understand what it meant to be Lebanese. — Anthony Shadid

Eventually, after listening to a good deal of grumbling and muttering, Jessica felt the bed dip. A calloused hand reached for hers. "It is late?" she asked. "Late enough." "Hold me?" How gentle were those powerful arms as they gathered her close. Jessica pressed her face against Richard's neck and sighed at the pleasure of the warmth. His hint of a beard was rough against her forehead but she didn't mind that either. She put her hands on the hard wall of his chest and let the heat of his body seep into hers. Richard's hand trembled as he brushed her hair back from her face and she knew it was because he was trying to be gentle. She snuggled closer to him and felt herself drifting off to sleep. — Lynn Kurland

He'd seen the deadness in her eyes that night in the tunnels, along with the wrath and exhaustion and sorrow. He'd see her go over the edge when Nehemia died, and knew what she'd done to Grave in retribution. He didn't doubt for one heartbeat that she could snap again. There was such glittering darkness in her, an endless rift straight through her core. Nehemia's death had shattered her. What he had done, his role in that death, had shattered her, too. He just prayed she could piece herself back together again. — Sarah J. Maas

With a dreamy sigh, I prop my chin on my fists. "Who knew that one day I'd be on a date with the lead singer from a famous boy band?"
He scowls. "Infinite Gray was not a boy band."
"Were there any girls in the band?"
"No."
"That makes you a boy band."
"It made us an all-male rock group."
I bite back my smile. He's so cute when he's irritated. "Right, like 'N Sync."
He winces. "Not like 'N Sync. Jesus, watch where you hurl those things. Words hurt, Maggie. — Lexi Ryan

As soon as he had left the room and walked into the air, he knew that he would never return and for the first time his fears lifted. It was a spring morning, and when he walked into Severndale Park he felt the breeze bringing back memories of a much earlier life, and he was at peace. He sat beneath a tree and looked up at its leaves in amazement - where once he might have gazed at them and sensed there only the confusion of his own thoughts, now each leaf was so clear and distinct that he could see the lightly coloured veins which carried moisture and life. And he looked down at his own hand, which seemed translucent beside the bright grass. His head no longer ached, and as he lay upon the earth he could feel its warmth beneath him. — Peter Ackroyd

When I was young, we thought that Oscar Wilde was a great nobleman who had thrown his life away for love. Nothing could be less true. He slept with East Enders who were procured for him by Lord Alfred Douglas. He knew them only 'in Braille' - the curtains were never drawn back in the rooms in Oxford where he met those boys. It was the most sordid life you can imagine. And he was bleating about love and dragging the fair name of Mr. Plato into the trial - after a life like that? — Quentin Crisp

When we got to the Lock-Horne Building on Park Avenue - again Win's full name is Windsor Horne Lockwood III, so you do the math - Dad said, "You want me to just drop you off?" Sometimes my father leaves me awestruck. Fatherhood is about balance, but how can one man do it so well, so effortlessly? Throughout my life he pushed me to excel without ever crossing the line. He reveled in my accomplishments yet never made them seem to be all that important. He loved without condition, yet he still made me want to please him. He knew, like now, when to be there, and when it was time to back off. "I'll be okay." He — Harlan Coben

This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people ... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave. — Joss Whedon

I'm in a weird-ass mood today, Doc. Wired up, mind all over the place, looking for answers, reasons something solid to cling to, something real, but just when I think I've got it figured out and neatly filed under fixed instead of fucked, turns out I'm still shattered, scattered, and battered. But you probably already knew that, didn't you? ... You might not be able to help me. That makes me sad, but not for me. It makes me sad for you. It must be frustrating for a shrink to have a patient who's beyond fixing. That first shrink I saw when I got back to Clayton Falls told me no one is a lost cause, but I think that's bullshit. I think people can be so crushed, so broken, that they'll never be anything more than a fragment of a whole person. (129) — Chevy Stevens

But he hadn't appeared that night. Not the next morning, either. By the time she finally crossed paths with him the following afternoon, his mumbled "Merry Christmas" was the extent of their exchange.
It seemed they were back to silence.
I don't want you.
She tried to ignore the words echoing in her memory. They weren't true, she told herself. She was an expert at deceit; she knew a lie when she heard one.
Still. What else to believe, when he avoided her thus?
Although he rarely spoke to her over the next two days, Sophia frequently overheard him speaking of her. Even these remarks were the tersest of commands: "Fetch Miss Turner more water," or "See that her canopy doesn't go slack." She felt herself being tended, not unlike a goat. Fed, watered, sheltered. Perhaps she shouldn't complain. Food, water, and shelter were all welcome things.
But Sophia was not livestock, and she had other, more profound needs. Needs he seemed intent on neglecting, the infuriating man. — Tessa Dare

Like all his attempts at fiction it would be as personal as a letter - painful to those who knew him, of no interest to those who didn't; precious or self-pitying in spots, in others too clever for its own good; so packed with Shakespeare that it looked as if he worked with a concordance in his lap; so narcissistic that its final effect would be that of the mirrored room which gives back the same image times without count, or the old Post Toastie box of his boyhood with the fascinating picture of a woman and child holding a Post Toastie box with a picture of a woman and child holding a Post Toastie box with a picture of a woman and child holding - - — Charles Jackson

What I learned was that the more you commit to the process and the more you trust God for increase in every area of your life, the more God allows the scales to tip in your favor until one day the momentum is so tremendous that there is no going back to the life you knew. You — John W. Gray III

Fitzpatrick: Back when I was doing Perl-even for people that knew Perl really well-I would recommend MJD's Higher-Order Per!. The book is really fun in that it starts somewhat simple and you're like, "Yeah, yeah, I know what a closure is." And then it just continues to fuck with your head. By the end of the book, you're just blown away. — Peter Seibel

The kiss was everything she hadn't dared let herself think about. Slow. Hot. Hungry. His lips molded to hers, drinking up her small, breathless exhale before his tongue skimmed across hers. Bree reached out and gripped his shirt, tugging him until he was flush against her. The man knew how to kiss, and she felt her mind emptying of everything but how incredible his mouth felt working deeper into hers. Every nip, every silky stroke of his tongue, every breath dragged between their mouths made her hold on tighter. The second he stopped, the real world would slide back into place, and more than anything, she wanted this. Wanted Finn with an unexpected yearning that burrowed deeper with each second he continued to kiss her. He cupped the nape of her neck, tipping her head back as he deepened the kiss. She whimpered, catching his bottom lip between hers. His thumb trailed along her jawline, and she shuddered in its wake, wanting his mouth there. Wanting — Sydney Somers

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? — William Shakespeare

Who knew that you would be The One," I smile, "which I guess makes me your Trinity."
"My Amidala."
"Your Zira."
"My Sylvia."
"Your ... " I scour my brain, trying to remember some other great sci-fi love interest.
"Ha! I'm your Saphira," I settle back smugly, only for Trevor to start laughing.
"Saphira is a dragon. — Cindy C. Bennett

Back in 1996, 65 percent of subprime loans had been fixed-rate, meaning that typical subprime borrowers might be getting screwed, but at least they knew for sure how much they owed each month until they paid off the loan. By 2005, 75 percent of subprime loans were some form of floating-rate, usually fixed for the first two years. — Michael Lewis