Leaving Him Behind Quotes & Sayings

He looked at the mud. "If I pull you free, will you promise to bed me for my pains?"

"Here's what I'll promise, Logan MacKenzie. If you don't get me free, I will come back from the grave and haunt you. Relentlessly."

"For a timid English bluestocking, you can be quite fierce when you choose to be. I rather like it."

She hugged herself to keep her hands out of the creeping mud. "Logan, please. I be you, stop teasing and get me out of this. I'm cold. And I'm frightened."

"Look at me."
She looked at him.
His gaze held hers, blue and unwavering.

All teasing went out his voice. "I'm not leaving. Ten years in the British Army, and I've never left a man behind. I'm not leaving you. I'll have you out of this. Understand? — Tessa Dare

Finn told me once, as we sat on the porch watching the sun go down, that one thing he remembered our mom telling him was that life sometimes gives you a tiny moment of peace when you need it most. And that you had to be careful and look out for it or you'd miss it. He'd said it just as the last sliver of the sun dipped below the horizon, leaving a flaming pick summer sky behind. We sat quiet in the still heat, and I'd thought I understood what he meant then, because it felt so good and safe to be sitting there with him next to me. Now though, I understood it with a depth that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time, and I wished more than anything I could tell him. — Jessi Kirby

And with every step he took away from her, he felt like he was leaving the best pieces of him further and further behind. — Maisey Yates

I was only able to move forward once I let go of my fear of leaving him behind. — A.J. Compton

The problem is that stepping away from Brian, leaving him standing under that pergola on Wednesday, is no longer enough to leave behind how he made me feel in that hour. I could leave him there, we could part as strangers, but God, I know that I would look for him. He would live in my peripheral vision, a ghost nudging me to turn and look behind me, only to find a spot that is emptier than empty — Mary Ann Rivers

She said nothing, refusing to meet his gaze. After a long moment, he released her.
"So that's the way it is, then." His words were not a question. The door closed quietly behind him, leaving her cold to the bone, hollowed out and empty. Leaving her alone. Just like always. — Jessica Scott

Vic kept looking at Wilson's wagging jaw and thinking of the multitude of people like him on earth, perhaps half the people on earth were of his type, or potentially his type, and thinking that it was not bad at all to be leaving them. The ugly birds without wings. The mediocre who perpetuated mediocrity, who really fought and died for it. He smiled at Wilson's grim, resentful, the-world-owes-me-a-living face, which was the reflection of the small mind behind it, and Vic cursed it and all it stood for. Silently, and with a smile, and with all that was left of him, he cursed it. — Patricia Highsmith

I'm gone, lost, floating away into nothingness like I am in my dream, but this time it's a good feeling - like soaring, like being totally free, and I can feel the impression of his fingers everywhere that they touch, and I think of stars streaking through the sky and leaving burning trails behind them, and in that moment - however long it lasts, seconds, minutes, days - while he's saying my name into my mouth and I'm breathing into him, I realize this, right here, is the first and only time I've ever been kissed in my life. — Lauren Oliver

Believe me, I've thought long and hard about leaving things alone. But then there will always be this wall between us." "It's all ugly things behind the wall," I said, not looking at him. "I'm not afraid of what's behind the wall, only the wall itself." But the wall was my exoskeleton. It was what held me up. Sometimes it was the only thing that held me up. — Sherry Thomas

A desperate longing stopped her breath, as if he'd jumped already, leaving her behind. "Please," he said. She took his hand and stepped beside him. She should have run away with him as soon as she could. Maybe every act of faith, as they got older, was meant to make up for an earlier lack of faith. — Matthew Salesses

And then we're kissing. His lips are soft and leave mine tingling. I close my eyes, and in the darkness behind them I see beautiful blooming things, flowers spinning like snowflakes, and hummingbirds beating the same rhythm as my heart. I'm gone, lost, floating away into nothingness like I am in my dream, but this time it's a good feeling - like soaring, like being totally free. His other hand pushes my hair from my face, and I can feel the impression of his fingers everywhere that they touch, and I think of stars streaking through the sky and leaving burning trails behind them, and in that moment - however long it lasts, seconds, minutes, days - while he's saying my name into my mouth and Im breathing into him, I realize this, right here, is the first and only time I've ever been kissed. — Lauren Oliver

Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staffroom fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. — J.K. Rowling

He lies there listening to it, absorbing this sense of his own quiet drone transmuted into something of certain substance, something large, magnificent and grand - no longer him, no, but something bursting from him, leaving his split carcass behind as a monument to its source, its host, its feeding ground. — Patrick Bryant

I was just saying goodnight." Logan quipped and pecked Sienna on the cheek before slipping something in to her hand. She looked down to see it was a sleek new cellphone. He turned to leave but Mrs. Rivers interrupted him.
"Your fly is undone." She told him grimly giving him her the full extent of her medusa glare. If looks could kill, Mrs. Rivers had homicide down to a science. When had that happened? Sienna thought. Probably sometime when they were too busy pressing themselves against each other. Sienna was mortified. Logan however looked mildly amused. He zipped up his trousers and quietly thanked her.

"Oh and Logan, you left your souvenir behind." She added now giving Sienna the full extent of the medusa glare. Logan and Sienna both frowned momentarily before realizing what she meant. He snatched the condom and put it back in his pocket and quickly left the house leaving Sienna to battle with the Gorgon. — Ali Harper

A year ago it would have torn me up, leaving a body behind as we sped away along the interstate. Now I was just glad it was him and not me who was lying in the woods. I was a terrible Christian and a decent survivalist. — Charlaine Harris

Then starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat. — Truman Capote

Still, it's an interesting technique-leaving one person behind in order to find her or him somewhere else. And in someone else. — Caleb Carr

i listen to his heartbeat. hear him breath.
as thought becomes motion and motion becomes all that lies between him and his end. as the black is burned blue with the light of tiny funeral pyres. as his missiles and bullets take away his enemies, all they were and will ever be. i can taste it in his sweat. hear it in his whispers. see it in the tiny photograph he has taped to his console.
all he thinks of amid this loveless dance,
all he cares about here on the edge of forever,
is her.
he does not want to die. not because he is afraid. simply because he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind.
and there, in that tiny moment, i envy him. — Jay Kristoff

Okay,' he said. He took a breath. 'What would you do, if you could do anything?'
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. 'This,' I said. And then I kissed him.
Kissed him. There, in the middle of the street, as the world went on around us. Behind me, I knew Jason was still waiting for an explanation, my sister was still lecturing, and that angel still had her eyes skyward, waiting to fly. As for me, I was just trying to get it right, whatever that meant. But now I finally felt I was on my way. Everyone had a forever, but given a choice, this would be mine. The one that began in this moment, with Wes, in a kiss that took my breath away, then gave it back- leaving me astounded, amazed, and most of all, alive. — Sarah Dessen

Where is Wilkins, anyway?" Cameron asked.
"In the living room, being accosted by eighteen women who think he's a stripper. I thought it was best to duck in here."
"So much for never leaving a man behind."
"If he starts screaming, I'll lay down a cover fire and go pull him out. — Julie James

The idea that at each successive moment he was deeper into the Sahara than he had been the moment before, that he was leaving behind all familiar things, this constant consideration kept him in a state of pleasurable agitation. — Paul Bowles

My father sometimes asks me if I feel untethered and irresponsible not owning anything. I tell him I feel the opposite: I feel a deep connection to the primeval. I feel like an ancient hunter-gatherer who owns nothing as he wends his way through the complexities of nature, conjuring up a tool just in time for its use and then leaving it behind as he moves on. It is the farmer who needs a barn for his accumulation. The digital native is free to race ahead and explore the unknown. Accessing rather than owning keeps me agile and fresh, ready for whatever is next. — Kevin Kelly

They put on fresh gloves and got back to business. Jazz wiped up the blood splatters in the freezer and tossed the tissues in with Howie's waste. It bothered him that he was leaving evidence behind without some sort of oxygenated bleach, those blood splatters would still show up under Luminol. Of course, the odds of anyone deciding to spray down the morgue freezer and switch on an ultraviolet light were pretty minimal, so it's not like it was evidence that anyone would ever find or use. Still: Billy Dent's First Commandment was Thou shalt not leave evidence. — Barry Lyga

Death, of course, like chastity, admits of no degree; a man is dead or not dead, and a man is just as dead by one means as by another; but it is infinitely more horrible and revolting to see a man shattered and eviscerated, than to see him shot. And one sees such things; and one suffers vicariously, with the inalienable sympathy of man for man. One forgets quickly. The mind is averted as well as the eyes. It reassures itself after that first despairing cry: "It is I!"
"No, it is not I. I shall not be like that."
And one moves on, leaving the mauled and bloody thing behind: gambling, in fact, on that implicit assurance each one of us has of his own immortality. One forgets, but he will remember again later, if only in his sleep. — Frederic Manning

I put both hands on his chest and backed him up a pace. The black sky behind him was filled with color. I said, "Go. Hurry. You can still help. You're missing it."
He pulled me close again and gazed down at me, tracing one finger so tenderly along my cheekbone. His finger was black, and he might be leaving an attractive black
streak across my skin. I didn't mind. The way he was looking at me with those light blue eyes, I had never felt more beautiful.
He bent his head close to my ear again so I could hear him whisper, "I'm not missing anything — Jennifer Echols

His will to live was waning, and it made him almost transparent, as though rather than dying, he might just disappear one day, leaving behind only a vague scent of regret. — Ian Morgan Cron

he's walking away and at the same time
i feel like i'm the one leaving him behind. — David Levithan

Michael had watched his father crawl inside a bottle and die there just so he didn't have to get up and go to work. It wasn't long before his mom retreated behind a vacant gaze, leaving him and his sister to pay the bills, to change her stinking bags, to roll her from one sunny patch by the window to another. His mother had become a potted plant they fretted over. No, that wasn't right. Couldn't plants at least turn their heads and follow the sun? Weren't they better than her in that way? — Hugh Howey

It is always about themselves that the living ask, not about those who are to come. One man is concerned with leaving behind him an illustrious reputation, another wants his shame to be forgotten; all would like to follow the thread of their own actions' consequences; but — Italo Calvino

I was just trying to stay alive, looking for ways to find you, hoping you hadn't left me behind."
"Never," I say. "Not never."
He looks back up at me. "I'd never leave you neither."
"You promise?"
"Cross my heart, hope to die," he says, grinning shyly.
"I promise, too," I say and I smile at him. "I ain't never leaving you, Todd Hewitt, not never again. — Patrick Ness

But my attention's elsewhere, drawn to that warm wonderful pull, the familiar loving essence that only belongs to one person - only belongs to him
Watching as Damen cuts through the water, board tucked under his arm, body so sculpted, so bronzed, Rembrandt would weep. Water sluicing behind him like a hot knife through butter, cleanly, fluidly, as though parting the sea.
My lips part, desperate to speak, to call out his name and bring him back to me. But just as I'm about to, my eyes meet his and I see what he sees: me - hair tangled and wet - clothes twisted and clinging - frolicking in the ocean on a hot sunny day with Jude's tanned strong arms still wrapped around me.
I release myself from Jude's grip, but it's too late. Damen's already seen me.
Already moved on.
Leaving me hollow, breathless, as I watch him retreat.
No tulips, no telepathic message, just a sad, empty void left behind in his place. — Alyson Noel

An hour ago, I never would have thought that someone like him could be my savior, but he is. What type of person would I be if I left my savior behind. I'm not leaving you behind. — Katie McGarry

We talk and tease and bargain with the main dish. Maniacal laughter echoes in the marble halls, sweet to my ears.
There's movement at the banquet hall's entrance. A child with my eyes tumbles in - all wings and blue hair and giggling innocence. Holding his hand is Morpheus, wearing a ruby crown.
The Red King. My king.
The bubble bursts and takes the vision with it, leaving nothing but the sound of my gasp and wisps of gray smoke behind.
"You see," Ivory says, "once Morpheus knew that one day you would belong to him and he to you, that you would share a child, he was no longer willing to die to save Wonderland. But he's insecure about your feelings for him. He feared you would refuse to help. So he made a new plan, however flawed it was." — A.G. Howard

Mira moved into the light like a sleepwalker, leaving Blue behind in the dust, the unused room, the past.
She thought of the fabled hundred years that cursed girls like her had slept, and how, after that much time, everything would be covered by a thick blanket of dust, including the princess. The intrepid prince would have to trust that something beautiful was hidden underneath. He'd kiss her and the first color to be revealed would be the chapped pink of her lips.
Her eyes went to Freddie, playing his guitar and lit by the sun. She couldn't picture him kissing a girl coated by dust - he was too alive for that.
He was golden. And she ... she was covered with death, with her grief over her parents. She'd tried to replace them with dreams, and she'd drifted through life in a haze, her eyes seeking ghosts instead of the world around her.
She was already asleep.
She had been for a long time. — Sarah Cross

The pony having thoroughly satisfied himself as to the nature and properties of the fireplug, looked into the air after his old enemies the flies, and as there happened to be one of them tickling his ear at that moment he shook his head and whisked his tail, after which he appeared full of thought but quite comfortable and collected. The old gentleman having exhausted his powers of persuasion, alighted to lead him; whereupon the pony, perhaps because he held this to be a sufficient concession, perhaps because he happened to catch sight of the other brass plate, or perhaps because he was in a spiteful humour, darted off with the old lady and stopped at the right house, leaving the old gentleman to come panting on behind — Charles Dickens

Day appears again. This time he leans in close enough for his hair to brush, light as silk, against my cheeks. He pulls me towards for a long kiss. The scene vanishes, replaced abruptly by a stormy night and Day struggling through the rain, blood dripping from his leg and leaving a trail behind him. He collapses onto his knees in front of Razor before the whole scene disappears again. — Marie Lu

I hate Jesse for leaving me behind. If he asked, I would have walked into the air with him. — Shaun David Hutchinson

It was probably stupid of him to have thought the trip would change anything. After all, leaving home behind didn't necessarily mean leaving behind the sort of person you were. And now here he was
the guy with all the maps, the one with the directions to anywhere and anything
still feeling completely and utterly lost. — Jennifer E. Smith

She must have already forgiven him for leaving her behind. Girls were good at coloring in those disappointing blank spots. I thought of the night before, her exaggerated moans. Poor Sasha. She — Emma Cline

The Logos came down out of love for us. Let us not keep Him down permanently, but let us go up with Him to the Father, leaving the earth and earthly things behind, lest He say to us what He said to the Jews because of their stubbornness: 'I go where you cannot come (Jn. 8:21). — Maximus The Confessor

Red seeped into Nick's face. "Elizabeth and I were married two weeks ago, " he explained to Samantha.
Laughter crinkled the skin around Wyatt's eyes. "Nick built her a house before the wedding. I never saw one go up so fast in my life."
Nick's flush deepened. "It's not completely finished yet. Elizabeth just refused to wait any longer."
There was a touch of wonder in his tone.
Emotion welled into Samantha's throat and she swallowed. She remembered how Juan Carlos had acted those first weeks they were married. Proud, happy as not quite believing his good fortune. What a special time that had been. How she missed him.
"I wish you happiness in your marriage, Mr. Sanders," she said.
"Call me, Nick, Ma'am." The red receded from his cheeks, leaving behind a glow. "Thank you, I'll pass your good wishes to Elizabeth. — Debra Holland

He takes a sip of his drink, leaving behind a milk mustache he quickly wipes away. It's then I realize where I recognize him from: the milk advertisements. Sweet Lord, I've been jilling off to him. — Helena Hunting

In the end it was Shadowhunting they had bonded over - a shared
love of sharp-edged weapons, gleaming seraph blades, the painful
pleasure of burning Marks, the thought-numbing swiftness of battle.
When Alec had wanted to go out hunting alone with Jace, leaving Izzy
behind, Jace had spoken up for her: "We need her with us; she's the
best there is. Aside from me, of course."
She had loved him just for that. — Cassandra Clare

The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth. — William Golding

Human science cannot discover God. Human science is but the backward undoing of the tapestry web of God's science. It works with its back to him, and is always leaving his intent and perfected work behind it. Science is always going farther and farther away from the point where his work culminates in revelation. — George MacDonald

As he plods behind Cameron and Summer, he can't help but stare at Summer's exposed, glistening skin. His thoughts aren't depraved or even mildly in the splasher. In fact, he focuses on the marks of cruelty crisscrossing her back, stomach, and shoulders. He trudges along, drenched, feet swollen, constantly searching for even a hint of a breeze, all while being forced to stare at the alarming network of burns traversing Summer's delicate skin. This latticework of hate reveals a brutal truth - one he can scarcely comprehend. Yes, he's glimpsed and felt her scars before, but this is the first time he's really, truly seen the severity and extent of her life as a slave. With each step, he must digest the monstrosities of her past, leaving him utterly devastated. — Laura Kreitzer

The books we read in childhood don't exist anymore; they sailed off with the wind, leaving bare skeletons behind. Whoever still has in him the memory and marrow of childhood should rewrite these books as he experienced them. — Bruno Schulz

The bullet smashed through the right lens of Winston's glasses and slammed him back against the lounge wall. Ozzy was expressionless as his old friend slid down the wall leaving a smear of red behind him. Above his creased body, a gob of pale tissue clung onto the light switch. "Aw, Winston," he said, "you did have a brain after all! — Andrew Barrett

It was dusk when I drove back into downtown Detroit. I was annoyed by how much traffic there was at that hour of the day. Being a guy with two good legs who doesn't mind ankling, I hadn't realized the car situation had gotten so bad in the city. I almost had two smack-ups with people who refused to yield to me. Then I bumped someone from behind, intentionally, at the new flashing traffic light on Jefferson. The guy in the car had refused to move - he just sat there waiting because the light was red. After I bumped him (not that hard), the squirt hopped out of his car red in the face, and I must admit the sight of him gave me my first laugh in two days. He said, "Can't you see it's a red light?" I told him a red light is just a suggestion. Then I pressed the gas lightly and started pushing his car further out into the intersection whilst he stood there in disbelief. "Better get back in, your car is leaving without you," I said. — W.K. Berger

Daemon's gaze dipped again, and I shivered under his intense
scrutiny. Why, oh why, did Blake need to bail early, leaving me behind
with Daemon? "Where did you get this dress?" he asked.
"Your sister," I told him blandly.
He frowned, looking half disgusted. "I don't even know what to say
about that. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Carly grabbed at Howard, who was in the driver's seat, while she was buckled in behind him. She flopped back in the seat of the car over and over, screaming and crying, throwing herself hard against the constraints of the safety belt. "What's wrong? What's going on?" they asked over and over. When they finally arrived at Barb's several minutes later and turned off the car, Carly calmed sufficiently to respond. "You need a seat belt," Carly observed. Sheepishly, Howard acknowledged he hadn't fastened his when leaving our house. — Arthur Fleischmann

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

Pundits, opponents, and disillusioned supporters would blame Obama for squandering the promise of his administration. Certainly he and his administration made their share of mistakes. But it is hard to think of another president who had to face the kind of guerrilla warfare waged against him almost as soon as he took office. A small number of people with massive resources orchestrated, manipulated, and exploited the economic unrest for their own purposes. They used tax-deductible donations to fund a movement to slash taxes on the rich and cut regulations on their own businesses. While they paid focus groups and seasoned operatives to frame these self-serving policies as matters of dire public interest, they hid their roles behind laws meant to protect the anonymity of philanthropists, leaving more folksy figures like Santelli to carry the message. — Jane Mayer

And then last autumn his heart had stopped working properly. The veterinarian said that they just had to care for him and love him, and Batty had loved him, and loved him, and loved him, but it hadn't been enough. No one in her family had ever said that Hound's dying was her fault, but she knew the truth. She hadn't been able to keep him with her, to stop him from leaving her behind. — Jeanne Birdsall

No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it. — George Washington Carver

He knows I have a soft spot for RLS and not just because he was sick or because we have the same initials but because there's something impossibly romantic about him and because before he started writing Treasure Island he first drew a map of an unknown island and because he believed in invisible places and was one of the last writers to know what the word adventure means. I could give you a hundred reasons why RLS is The Man. Look in his The Art of Writing (Book 683, Chatto & Windus, London) where he says that no living people have had the influence on him as strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. Or when he says his greatest friend is D'Artagnan from The Three Musketeers (Book 5, Regent Classics, London). RLS said: 'When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge, I take them like opium.' And when you read Treasure Island you feel you are casting off. That's the thing. You are casting off and leaving behind the ordinary dullness of the world. — Niall Williams

The man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during his life, will pass away unwept, unhonoured and insung no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. — Andrew Carnegie

Drunk were left alone in the graveyard. The priest looked down at the drunk disdainfully, and backed through the open door, which closed behind him, leaving the drunk on his own. The clockwork story was deeply unsettling. Much more unsettling, thought Shadow, than clockwork has any right to be. You know why I show that to you? — Neil Gaiman

Isaiah falls into the shadows with his back against the warehouse wall. His eyes travel back and forth down the alleyway. An hour ago, I never would have thought that someone like him would be my savior, but he is. What type of person would I be if I left my savior behind? "I'm not leaving without you." — Katie McGarry

Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime. — Martin Luther King Jr.

One other thing, Lestrade," he added, turning round at the door: "'Rache,' is the German for 'revenge;' so don't lose your time looking for Miss Rachel." With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him. — Arthur Conan Doyle

It was not the way Curve smelled that Colin liked - not exactly. It was the way the air smelled just as Lindsey began to jog away from him. The smell of perfume left behind. There's not a word for that in English, but Colin knew the French word: sillage. What Colin liked about Curve was not its smell on the skin but its sillage, the fruity sweet smell of its leaving. — John Green

So let's go," I say, eyes on hers. She nods and stands; I want to hold out my hand to help her, walk her to the car with my hand on her back, but I'm conscious of where we are, surrounded by co-workers. So I turn and walk, leaving her to trail behind me until we reach the elevators. We pass Sawyer and Everly on the way out, Everly beaming smugly while Sawyer shakes his head and mouths, No. Dick. I'm tempted to flip him off but again, mindful of my surroundings, I ignore them both and keep walking — Jana Aston

[I]t is the folly of a young man to believe that he can pick and choose between what Love and Power offer him, keeping only the Light and leaving behind the Shadows. — Peter Coyote

At the last moment, Kellan swerved around him, quickly leaving the zombie behind.
"Why didn't you just hit him?" Jayden asked, turning to look behind us as we sped away. I did, too. The zombie spun around as he immediately started to follow us.
"I didn't want to mess up my paint job," Kellan sarcastically replied as he turned on the street that would lead us to the store. "Plus, I just washed it. — Rose Wynters

And she could clearly remember how the first time she met him, he was like a sketch paper filled with grey and blue and black, all mixed up together forming a confusing storm, the second time she met him was like red and orange and everything that burned, the third time it was raining and it felt like the storm would never end.
And she felt right now that the storm is ending. When he took his glasses off and she saw the sadness in his eyes, and she could clearly see how the storm is going to leave soon, but yet leaving behind it broken pieces and shattered glasses. — Basma Salem

When my son Lowell was eight years old, one day he and I had just finished playing. Tired and exhausted, we were lying on the bed talking. He sat up in the bed and started to trace his finger over the scar behind my neck. He asked me with concern in his voice,
'Daddy, how you got this cut behind your neck?'

I hesitated for a while, wondering how much I should tell him, or if I should even tell him at all. I decided to tell him some of it, leaving out the part about the shooting. So I told him,
'I got that from fighting with one of my friends.'

Lowell didn't respond right away. After a moment of silence and tracing his finger over the scar, my son said something to me that I had never even considered up to that point. He said,
'Daddy, your friend tried to kill you! — Drexel Deal

No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way. — Robert Baden-Powell

Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within ... By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere. — Paul Auster

She knew she'd wounded him when he'd least expected it, and her satisfaction lasted until the door had closed behind him. Once he was gone, it ebbed away along with her anger, leaving her with naught but the ashes and embers of a dying hearth fire. — Sharon Kay Penman

Not watching the path where his legs took him, he walked on because he knew he had to walk ahead, leaving his past behind. — Faraaz Kazi

Mouth to continue, Haymitch plummets off the stage and knocks himself unconscious. He's disgusting, but I'm grateful. With every camera gleefully trained on him, I have just enough time to release the small, choked sound in my throat and compose myself. I put my hands behind my back and stare into the distance. I can see the hills I climbed this morning with Gale. For a moment, I yearn for something ... the idea of us leaving the district ... making our way in the woods ... but I know I was right about not running off. Because who else would have volunteered for Prim? Haymitch is whisked away on a stretcher, and Effie Trinket is trying to get the ball rolling again. What an — Suzanne Collins

In his better moments, Mr Baxter is a decent, ordinary guy - a guy you wouldn't mistake for anyone special. But he is special. In my book, he is. For one thing he has a full night's sleep behind him, and he's just embraced his wife before leaving for work. But even before he goes, he's already expected home a set number of hours later. True, in the grander scheme of things, his return will be an event of small moment - but an event nonetheless. — Raymond Carver

But he was not her Gabriel. Her Gabriel was dead. Gone. Leaving behind only vestiges of him in the body of a harsh and tortured clone. Gabriel had almost broken Julia's heart once. She was determined she would not let him break her heart for the second time. — Sylvain Reynard