Life Through Her Eyes Quotes & Sayings

You're right," he said, jerking open the portal. "There is one place she's sure to go."
"Yes."
"And you.You should take your own advice and leave this place," Daniel said grimly. "You're rotting in here."
"At least this body's pain distracts me from the pain in my soul," his past self said. "No.I wish you luck, but I won't leave these walls now.Not until she's settled in her next incarnation."
Daniel's wings bristled at his neck. He tried to sort out time and lives and memories in his head, but he kept circling around the same irksome thought. "She-she should be settled now. In conception. Can't you feel it?"
"Oh," his imprisoned past self said softly. He closed his eyes. "I don't know that I can feel anything anymore." The prisoner sighed heavily. "Life's a nightmare."
"No,it's not. Not anymore. I'll find her.I'll redeem us both," Daniel shouted, desperate to get out of there, desperately taking another leap of faith through time. — Lauren Kate

Wake up. Watch the beauty of the dawn and the rising sun. Appreciate the beauty and your ability to appreciate it. Without your appreciation, there is no beauty. The sun created you to see her own beauty through your eyes. Find and appreciate all of the beauty around you. Life is for appreciation, love, and happiness. We express our love through appreciation and through love our souls feel the secret touch of happiness. — Debasish Mridha

The world is a cruel mother, a matron of darkness, selfishness, greed, and misery. For most, their time suckling at her breast is naught but a scramble through stinging, tearing briars before a naked, shameful collapse as the flesh gives out. And yet in the bright eyes of every newborn, there lies a spark, a potential for goodness, the possibility of a life worth living. That spark deserves its chance. And though most of them will turn out to be as worthless as the parents who sired them, while the cruelty of the earth will tell them to release their innocence and join in the drawing of daggers, every now and then one manages to clutch to its beauty and refuses to release it into the dark. — Ed McDonald

You're hurt." He drew her close, cradling her face in bloodstained fingers. "The rifle banged my nose, is all." She could barely breathe through the swollen tissues now. "Forget about me." "Never." The intensity of that word pulled her straight into his soul. She clung to him, every fiber fixed on one hope - to find a way through this turmoil of blood and snow to a life in the sun with Jesse Bird, to bear his children and keep his hearth and make for him a haven from the world's calamity. She poured it into her eyes, giving back the unreserved devotion he'd shown her all along. — Lori Benton

He was conscious - and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyes - that it was through certain words of his, musical words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned to this white girl and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent the lad was his own creation. He had made him premature. That was something. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect. But now and then a complex personality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed, in its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces, just as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting. — Oscar Wilde

In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of my room; I find her not.
My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be regained.
But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, and seeking her I have to come to thy door.
I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.
I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish
no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.
Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the deepest fullness. Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe — Rabindranath Tagore

You will then. Listen here ... I've always got this to look forward to: I'll settle down by that man's side. I'll be as virtuous as any woman. I've made up my mind to it and I'll be it. And I'll be bored stiff for the rest of my life. Except for one thing. I can torment that man. And I'll do it. Do you understand how I'll do it? There are many ways. But if the worst comes to the worst I can always drive him silly ... by corrupting the child!' She was panting a little, and round her brown eyes the whites showed. 'I'll get even with him. I can. I know how, you see. And with you, through him, for tormenting me. I've come all the way from Brittany without stopping. I haven't slept ... But I can ... — Ford Madox Ford

He was quite possibly the most desirable man she had ever had the good fortune to lay her eyes upon and she had to meet him like this. Life was not fair. A groan of frustration left her lips as her body began to heat once more, blood pumping furiously through her. Oh no, she thought, this cannot be happening yet again. Gritting her teeth she tried to quell her reaction. — C.P. Mandara

An ordinary beginning, something that would have been forgotten had it been anyone but her. But as he shook her hand and met those striking emerald eyes, he knew before he'd taken his next breath that she was the one he could spend the rest of his life looking for but never find again. She seemed that good, that perfect, while a summer wind blew through the trees. — Nicholas Sparks

She does not know how to measure her life. When Sam was alive, she measured it through his love. She had always measured herself through the look in his eyes. She is afraid of admitting that to herself. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

Amory wandered slowly up the avenue and thought of the night as inevitably his
the pageantry and carnival of rich dusk and dim streets ... it seemed that he had closed the book of fading harmonies at last and stepped into the sensuous vibrant walks of life. Everywhere these countless lights, this promise of a night of streets and singing
he moved in a half-dream through the crowd as if expecting to meet Rosalind hurrying toward him with eager feet from every corner ... How the unforgettable faces of dusk would blend to her, the myriad footsteps, a thousand overtures, would blend to her footsteps; and there would be more drunkenness than wine in the softness of her eyes on his. Even his dreams now were faint violins drifting like summer sounds upon the summer air. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Bette Davis lived long enough to hear the Kim Carnes song, 'Bette Davis Eyes'. The lyrics to that song were not very interesting. But the fact of the song was the proof of an acknowledgement that in the twentieth century we lived through an age of immense romantic personalities larger than life, yet models for it, too - for good or ill. Like twin moons, promising a struggle and an embrace, the Davis eyes would survive her - and us. Kim Carnes has hardly had a consistent career, but that one song - sluggish yet surging, druggy and dreamy - became an instant classic. It's like the sigh of the islanders when they behold their Kong. And I suspect it made the real eyes smile, whatever else was on their mind. — David Thomson

The English major is, first of all, a reader. She's got a book pup-tented in front of her nose many hours a day; her Kindle glows softly late into the night. But there are readers and there are readers. There are people who read to anesthetize themselves - they read to induce a vivid, continuous, and risk-free daydream. They read for the same reason that people grab a glass of chardonnay - to put a light buzz on. The English major reads because, as rich as the one life he has may be, one life is not enough. He reads not to see the world through the eyes of other people but effectively to become other people. What is it like to be John Milton, Jane Austen, Chinua Achebe? What is it like to be them at their best, at the top of their games? — Mark Edmundson

How can she stand up there so tall as she's telling us how her mother beat her and her father molested her when she was a little girl? How is it possible for her to look so proud? How is she not being consumed by shame? She should be disintegrating before our eyes. She should be struck by lightning, and God's big, angry, booming voice should be shaking the room with "How dare you? I told you never to tell." But that's not her God, she says. Her God is loving and kind and wants what's best for her. Her God loves peace and serenity and forgiveness. Her God doesn't make her keep secrets. I thought I knew God all my life, but maybe it was some other guy the whole time. I want this God. I want Val's God. I want a God who doesn't make me jump through hoops and hate myself to earn his love. — Amy Reed

Her body was his body. His body was hers. He saw himself through her eyes - older, bigger, beautiful to her in that strange way girls found men beautiful, and knowing things she wanted to know. She envied him his freedom, that he was a man and could do anything he wanted to anyone he wanted, while she had to marry him to escape the prison of her life and the prison of the world's expectations. — Tiffany Reisz

When Eleanor's arm touched his he felt his hands grow cold with deadly fear lest he should lose the shadow brush with which his imagination was painting wonders of her. He watched her from the corners of his eyes as ever he did when he walked with her
she was a feast and a folly and he wished it had been his destiny to sit forever on a haystack and see life through her green eyes. — F Scott Fitzgerald

He kissed her soundly, stealing her breath, before saying, "Tell me what you want, my lovely."
"I-" She stopped, too many words coming at once. 'I want you to touch me. I want you to love me. I want you to show me the life that I have been missing.' She shook her head, uncertain.
He smiled, pressing firmly with his hand against her, watching the wave of pleasure course through her. "Incredible," he whispered against the side of her neck. "So responsive. Go on..."
"I want-" She sighed as he set his lips to the hardened peak of one breast again. "I want... I want you," she said, and, in that moment, the words, so utterly simple in the face of the roiling emotions that coursed through her, seemed enough.
He moved his fingers firmly, deftly against her, and she gasped. "Do you want me here, Empress?"
She closed her eyes in embarrassment, biting her lower lip.
"Are you aching for me here?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Poor, sweet love. — Sarah MacLean

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I'm too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She's waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I'm eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I'm so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met? — F.K. Preston

She has a serene, glowing disposition. She looks at you and the rest of the world through the eyes of a lynx and is always mysterious, possibly because she always harbours those hidden laughs just beneath her lips. She's always ready to laugh. — C. JoyBell C.

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

Her brows had drawn together over those big eyes, in an expression that no doubt she thought stern, but that was, in reality, rather adorable. Like a small girl chiding a kitten. A streak of anger surged through him. She shouldn't be out by herself in the ruined garden. If he'd been another type of man - a brutal man, like the ones who'd run Bedlam - her dignity, perhaps even her life, might've been in danger. Didn't she have a husband, a brother, a father to keep her safe? Who was letting this slip of a woman wander into danger by herself? — Elizabeth Hoyt

He had seen that look in so many eyes lately, not the fear of death but the fear of life. Is it like this? Is it true that it's like this? Oh God, if it's like this what do we do? He had instantly pulled himself together to grapple with her fear.
"It's all right, Prunella," he had said a little wildly. "I tell you it's all right. Life's not this little bit of existence you're plodding through now, it's the whole thing, all that is. It's the breath of God, words that he spoke, a song, a stream of white light that goes back to him again. Life is good ... Life is fine and grand, and we should love it to the depths of our souls. — Elizabeth Goudge

I think it's obvious if you're wanted here or not."
"Daemon," hissed Dee, her cheeks red. She turned to me, tears in her eyes. "He's not being serious."
"Are you being serious, Daemon?" Ash turned in his lap, head cocked to the side.
My heart was already pounding in my chest when his eyes met mine. His were sheltered. "Actually I was being serious." He leaned over the table, staring up at me through thick lashes. "You're not wanted here."
Dee spoke again, but I was beyond hearing. My face felt like it was on fire. People around us were starting to stare. One of the Thompson boys was smirking while the other looked as though he wanted to crawl underneath the table for me. The rest of the kids at the table were staring at their plates. One of them snickered.
I'd never been more humiliated in my life. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

He walked to the bathroom and looked into the mirror, trying to see himself through her eyes. It was time to change his style, throw off the shroud of timidity and start living his life. — Rubianne Wood

On that golden summer day, the young woman had just finished her morning run. She had sprinted the last half mile, then stopped abruptly to catch her breath. She was bent at the waist, hands on her knees, eyes on the ground, her mind a world away, perhaps in Barcelona or Tuscany or Rome, exulting in the enchanting sights she would soon see, the splendid life she would have.

It was then that the train hit her.

Unaware, unthinking, oblivious to everything but the beguiling visions in her head, she had ended her run on the railroad tracks that wound through the center of her small Oregon town, one moment in the fullest expectancy of her glorious youth, adrenaline and endorphins coursing through her body, sugarplum visions dancing in her head, the next moment gone, the transition instantaneous, irrevocable, complete.

If I'd had to die young, hers is the death I would have chosen. — Lionel Fisher

I wish I would have been there for you." He finally found his voice. "I wish I would have been there to beat up all the children who bullied you, to shoot your father dead the first time he broke one of your bones. I wish I would have been there to sweep you out of town and save you from the horrors you went through."
Her eyes widened in surprise and then immediately narrowed as she shook her head. "I didn't need to have a hero in my life, Mark. I needed to figure out how to be my own hero. I took the easy way out. I allowed small-town people to label me and then I did my very best to live up to the label they'd provided. It's taken me thirty-seven years to realize I don't need a hero. I'm all I need and I'm strong enough to build the rest of my life alone. — Carla Cassidy

Thousands of desires, each worth dying for...
Many of them I have realized...yet I yearn for more...
Why should my killer (lover) be afraid? No one will hold her responsible,
For the blood which will continuously flow through my eyes all my life. — Avinash Advani

As Molly wrapped one of the freshly made flour tortillas around several slices of perfectly cooked steak and piled on guacamole, she began talking. The more she talked, the faster her words came. It was as if she were afraid that someone else would say something or ask her a question. She said that she was working for a firm in Los Angeles that designed sets for television and movies.
"It's different from what you do," she said looking at Boomer. "Sets have to be bigger than life. They have to create an impact. Not boring stuff like the designs for offices."
Elizabeth saw Boomer's eyes flash, but he answered with perfect control, "What's the name of the firm you work for?"
"It's new; it's going through a name change, and they're not sure what name they're going to settle on."
"What movies have they worked on?"
"Oh, a whole bunch. Stuff with Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp. Big movies. — Joyce Swann

Now she took a close look at me for the first time, puffing on her pipe while the old woman beside her sighed. I didnt feel I could look at Mother directly, but I had the impression of smoke seeping out of her face like steam from a crack in the earth. I was so curious about her that my eyes took on a life of their own and began to dart about. The more I saw of her, the more fascinated I became. Her kimono was yellow, with willowy branches bearing lovely green and orange leaves; it was made of silk gauze as delicate as a spiders web. Her obi was every bit as astonishing to me. It was a lovely gauzy texture too, but heavier-looking, in russet and brown with gold threads woven through. The more I looked at her clothing, the less I was aware of standing there in that dirt corridor, or of wondering what had become of my sister and my mother and father and what would become of me. — Arthur Golden

An overwhelming curiosity makes me ask myself what their lives might be like. I want to know what they do, where they're from, their names, what they're thinking about at that moment, what they regret, what they hope for, their past loves, their current dreams ... and if they happen to be women (especially the young ones) then the urge becomes intense.
How quickly would you want to see her naked, admit it, and naked through to her heart. How you try to learn where she comes from, where she's going, why she's here and not elsewhere!
While letting your eyes wander all over her, you imagine love affairs for her, you ascribe her deep feelings. You think of the bedroom she must have, and a thousand things besides ... right down to the battered slippers into which she must slip her feet when she gets out of bed. — Gustave Flaubert

Lot's Wife

And the just man trailed God's messenger,
his huge, light shape devoured the black hill.
But uneasiness shadowed is wife and spoke to her:
'It's not too late, you can look back still

At the red towers of Sodom, the place that bore you,
the square in which you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows of that upper storey
where children blessed your happy marriage-bed.'

Her eyes that were still turning when a bolt
of pain shot through them, were instantly blind;
her body turned into transparent salt,
and her swift legs were rooted to the ground.

Who mourns one woman in a holocaust?
Surely her death has no significance?
Yet in my heart she never will be lost,
she who gave up her life to steal one glance.

1922-24 — Anna Akhmatova

He covered her mouth with his ---and she felt as if she had suddenly been enveloped in a cascade of sparks. The tingling warmth from his touch did not compare to the sensations that whirled through her as his lips moved over hers. It was as if every part of her body had at once become brilliantly alive.
His beard was a startling, silky roughness against her skin. His other hand came to rest at her waist, drawing her in tight, and her body seemed to meld to his hard, lean lines, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Her thoughts scattered. A sound escaped her, soft and deep, unlike any sound she had ever made in her life.
Then his tongue touched her lower lip and she gave a startled little squeak.
Her suddenly lifted his mouth from hers, his eyes midnight blue, his voice husky. "You have never even been kissed before, leannan. You are as innocent as the day you first set foot in the convent. — Shelly Thacker

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

Coincidentally the couple who had endowed it had lived in her parents' building. They had had an eight-year-old with a pretty singing voice who drowned at a Maine summer camp. "You can't imagine what happened," said Sarah, but of course Rebecca could imagine. Being a boy soprano had a shorter shelf life than being a supermodel. She could almost see it as Sarah went on and on, the boy with the pale blue eyes, insensible to the hormones coursing through his body as he stood on the stage at Alice Tully Hall. Apparently his choir director had chosen "Old Man River," sung not in the bass range made famous by Paul Robeson, or in the dialect in which it had been written, but in a high register with crisp consonants. (To be fair to the choir director, he had never — Anna Quindlen

He could not escape that feeling when he was alone with Anita. It was there, just like when you took a walk in the forest and the trees suddenly opened to a glade. Fighting for a place in a swing band, conversing with Aunt Hilda about the decay of today's youth, and biking through the city with errands from Akesson's grocery: all that was real life and demanded effort. With Anita, he could close his eyes and feel his pulse slow. He sat down on a chair. She sat down at her desk and turned toward him. — Sara Lovestam

The men, her husband and sons, leave for the quarry at seven o'clock sharp and return at five. What do they imagine she does all day? It makes her shiver to think of it, how not one pair of eyes can see through the roof and walls of her house and regard her as she moves through her dreamlike days, bargaining from minute to minute with indolence, that tempter. — Carol Shields

Laura looked up at him with dead blue eyes.
I want to be alive again," she said. "Not in this half-life. I want to be really alive. I want to feel my heart pumping in my chest again. I want to feel blood moving through me - hot, and salty, and real. It's weird, you don't think you can feel it, the blood, but believe me, when it stops flowing, you'll know."
She rubbed her eyes, smudging her face with red from the mess on her hands.
Look, it's hard. You know why dead people only go out at night, puppy? Because it's easier to pass for real, in the dark. And I don't want to have to pass. I want to be alive. — Neil Gaiman

Her eyes weren't blinking. There was still something almost dead in them, something very far away. She seemed to be seeing all the way through to the back of him and beyond, out into the cold space of the future in which they would both soon be dead, out into the nothingness that Lalitha and his mother and his father had already passed into, and yet she was looking straight into his eyes, and he could feel her getting warmer by the minute. And so he stopped looking at her eyes and started looking into them, returning their look before it was too late, before this connection between life and what came after life was lost, and let her see all the vileness inside him, all the hatreds of two thousand solitary nights, while the two of them were still with the void in which the sum of everything they'd ever said or done, every pain they'd inflicted, every joy they'd shared, would weigh less than the smallest feather on the wind. — Jonathan Franzen

Each of us, as we journey through life, has the opportunity to find and to give his or her unique gift.
Whether this gift is quiet or small in the eyes of the world does not matter at all-not at all; it is through the finding and the giving that we may come to know the joy that lies at the center of both the dark times and the light. — Helen M. Luke

Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine were blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh charm and a new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.

On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in gossamer fancies and iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair; life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from her fingers.

We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are the dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them as such may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose people are pilgrims on the golden road of youth. — L.M. Montgomery

Jai pointed at the car. "Get in the car. I'm pissed at you for getting out of it in the first place."
Outrage lit through her. "Hey, I'm a big girl, I can make my own decisions."
"Get in the car, Ari!" Charlie yelled now, his own eyes glittering with anger.
Her mouth fell open, her cheeks blazing with indignation as the two men in her life stared at her, their expressions implacable. She made a 'pfft' sound and whirled around, stomping like a child towards the car.
"Too much testosterone, infuriating cavemen, need someone else to boss around, stupid jerks ... " she kept muttering insults under her breath until Charlie and Jai had cleared the road. — Samantha Young

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

You speak of sacrifice, but it is not my sacrifice I offer. It is yours I ask of you," he went on. "I can offer you my life, but it is a short life; I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many more beats it shall sustain. But I love you enough to hope that you wil not care that I am being selfish in trying to make the rest of my life - whatever length - happy, by spending it with you. I want to be married to you, Tessa. I want it more than I have ever wanted anything else in my life." He looked up at her through the veil of silvery hair that fell over his eyes. "That is," he said shyly, "if you love me, too. — Cassandra Clare

On to the library. And all through his time at the card catalog, combing the shelves, filling out the request cards, he danced a silent, flirtatious minuet of the eyes with a rosy-cheeked redhead in the biology section, pages of notes spread before her. All his life, he had had a yen for women in libraries. In a cerebral setting, the physical becomes irresistible. Also, he figured he was really more likely to meet a better or at least more compatible woman in a library than in a saloon. Ought to have singles libraries, with soups and salads, Bach and Mozart, Montaignes bound in morocco; place to sip, smoke, and seduce in a classical setting, noon to midnight. Chaucer's Salons, call them, franchise chain. — Stephen Minkin

She has this passion to learn everything she can about life, and it is so amazing to see everything through her eyes. She's guarded in a way that even she can't explain, but she is embracing this life and giving it all. It's beautiful. She's beautiful. — Abbie Chandler

At his age, it can be overwhelming and painful to harbor a thought accompanied by too much nostalgia. Not that he wanted to. Mabel, in her final years, had stopped listening to music. The songs of her teenage years brought her back to people and feelings of that time - people she could never see again and sensations that were no longer coming. It was too much for her. There are people who can manage such things. There are those of us who can no longer walk, but can close our eyes and remember a summer hike through a field, or the feeling of cool grass beneath our feet, and smile. Who still have the courage to embrace the past, and give it life and a voice in the present. But Mabel was not one of those people. Maybe she lacked that very form of courage. Or maybe her humanity was so complete, so expansive, that she would be crushed by her capacity to imagine the love that was gone. — Derek B. Miller

Creation and destruction are one, to the eyes who can see beauty.
And the greatest praise to India is this: not only are her people beautiful; not only are her daily life and cult beautiful; but, in the midst of the utilitarian, humanitarian, dogmatic world of the present day, she keeps on proclaiming the outstanding value of Beauty for the sake of Beauty, through her very conception of Godhead, of religion and of life. — Savitri Devi

She had been the source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had become a great grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended him in childhood, served him through life, and at his death wiped from his icy brow the cold death-sweat, and closed his eyes forever. She was nevertheless left a slave - a slave for life - a slave in the hands of strangers; and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word, as to their or her own destiny. — Frederick Douglass

Somewhere, on the long road that wound through those four years, the girl with her sachet & dancing slippers had slipped away & there was left a woman with sharp green eyes, who counted pennies & turned her hands to many menial tasks, a woman to whom nothing was left from the wreckage except the indestructible red earth on which she stood. — Margaret Mitchell

So many stories lived behind my eyes. I carried the people I hurt, the lies I told, my sick relationship with food, wherever I went. My mind was rarely grounded in the moment. My past was heavy and constant; my thoughts wouldn't leave me alone. But when I was with the shelter dogs, I didn't have anything to hide. Sometimes what existed behind my eyes fell away. I wasn't bulimic or unlovable or fat or a liar. I was a part of life again. I was an observer, and to more than just the dark cyclical patterns of the mind - here was the strong, sturdy presence of another - the breath moving in and out of Angel's chest, the beating of her heart, the force of life moving through her and through me. — Shannon Kopp

Britney ends by saying, after scenes of throngs of paparazzi surrounding her car, after tearful interviews and tearless ones, after impersonations of her father and make-up artists, after she says she's not a victim of her success and tries to stay positive and hates being placed in categories, after she dances her fucking ass off to get back what she had, after she explains that she married K-Fed because she liked the idea of it (a revelation that socked me in the chest and made my dating life flash before my eyes), and after she says that "people shave their heads all the time"; after all that, she leaves me with this: "I go through life like a karate kid. — Elissa Washuta

And that's the insult of it, how always it comes back to a woman being a "good" mother in the world's eyes or a "bad" mother, how everything in a woman's life is funneled through her body between her legs. — Joyce Carol Oates

Upon it rested a slender crystal glass filled with a thick blue liquid: shade of the evening, the wine of warlocks. "Take and drink," urged Pyat Pree. "Will it turn my lips blue?" "One draught will serve only to unstop your ears and dissolve the caul from off your eyes, so that you may hear and see the truths that will be laid before you." Dany raised the glass to her lips. The first sip tasted like ink and spoiled meat, foul, but when she swallowed it seemed to come to life within her. She could feel tendrils spreading through her chest, like fingers of fire coiling around her heart, and on her tongue was a taste like honey and anise and cream, like mother's milk and Drogo's seed, — George R R Martin

There was no more need to cling to her last life. Firestar would kindle a new flame and blaze through the forest in her place. ThunderClan was safe. She closed her eyes and gave way to dizzying blackness. — Erin Hunter

---Sleeps through the washes of the morning's colors and the warm brilliance of sunrise. She sleeps in a world where she remembers, perfectly, every detail about her husband, this day, that sentence, another touch. She will remember it all in the deepest sleep, and lose it again the moment her eyes open and she wonders how late it must be for the sun to already be so high and then remembers, in the next instant, what happened the day before. — Ashley Hay

We sit in an awkward silence for a few minutes before she speaks. "You're right. There's more to it." I'm not sure if I should wait and let her speak, or if she's waiting for an acknowledgement. I slowly turn my head toward her and settle my eyes on hers. "I went through a rough time a few years ago. I wasn't sure things would get better for me. One day, Rick and Jo were able to knock some sense into me. When a Phoenix dies, it rises from its ashes to have a new life." Her eyes leave mine as she rolls to her back and stares at the stars. "The tattoo reminds me of that. One chapter of my life may end, but that doesn't mean a new chapter won't come from the ashes. It probably sounds silly to you. — Rein Scott

Our foreheads met, her small nose pressed against mine. Everything intensified. Plums, magentas, limes, and cobalts turned into stars going through their entire life cycles. They birthed, lived, and died right before my eyes, — Nina G. Jones

Annie, who up until this very day had always felt like a child--which is why she could not marry, she could not be a wife--now felt quietly ancient. She thought how for years onstage she had used the image of walking up the dirt road holding her father's hand, the snow-covered fields spread around them, the woods in the distance, joy spilling through her--how she had used this scene to have tears immediately come to her eyes, for the happiness of it, and the loss of it. And now she wondered if it had even happened, if the road had ever been narrow and dirt, if her father had ever held her hand and said that his family was the most important thing to him. — Elizabeth Strout

He recognized her despite the uproar, through his tears of unrepeatable sorrow at dying without her, and he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more grateful than she had ever seen them in half a century of a shared life, and he managed to say to her with his last breath: Only God knows how much I loved you — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I'm going to die with Alexander's hand on my face, Tatiana thought. That is not a bad way to die. I cannot move. I can't get up. Just can't. She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting. Through the haze in front of her she heard Alexander's voice. Tatiana, I love you. Do you hear me? I love you like I've never loved anyone in my whole life. Now, get up. For me, Tatia. For me, please get up and go take care of your sister. Go on. And I'll take care of you. — Paullina Simons

although the mission seemed doomed to fail, the four angels might succeed. He prayed also for Dallas Garner, the baby whose life hung in the balance. And for a generation who might never find redemption otherwise. FOUR EMPTY CHAIRS faced each other at the center of the adjacent room. Jag took the lead as they entered the space and shut the door behind them. Windows lined the walls, flooding the place with light and peace. When they were seated, Jag studied his peers. "Are you surprised?" Beck leaned back. Rays of sunshine streamed through the windows and flashed in his green eyes. He breathed deep, clearly bewildered. "Shocked." "It's true, we know the humans better." Ember ran her hand over her long, golden-red hair. Concern knit itself into her expression. "But if they suspect us, it could alter their choices. We must be so very discreet." Jag nodded. "Discretion will be key." He planted his elbows on his knees, leaning closer to the others. — Karen Kingsbury

He'd barely breathed during that first time, and he'd done his best to be gentle, to make it as painless for her as possible. She'd still winced, and her eyes had gleamed with tears, but when he'd asked if she needed to stop, she'd just kissed him. Again and again. All through that first night he'd held her and allowed himself to imagine that this was how every night for the rest of his life would — Sarah J. Maas

Tarver," she whispers, her eyes on my face. "There'll be cameras all the time. More questions. Everyone will want to hear your story. Your life will be different, no matter how far from Corinth we go." A flashlight flickers through the trees, broken and jagged as it shines past the trunks. The light glances off her face, illuminating her eyes for a brief, brilliant moment. I step closer.
"I don't care."
"My father will try to - " She swallows, then lifts her chin, mouth firming to a straight, determined line. "No. I'll figure out a way to handle him." I can't help but grin down at her, this steely assurance, my Lilac through and through.
"I'd pay to see that showdown. — Amie Kaufman

When Vince was through talking that day, one of the grand jurors said, "Explain to me, to all of us, why in the world didn't you at some time go to Mrs. Reinert and warn her?" And by now Vince knew he'd spend the rest of his life being asked that question. And by now he knew that even when the words were not being uttered, the eyes were asking it. — Joseph Wambaugh

People always say the greatest love story in the world is Romeo and Juliet. I don't know. At fourteen, at seventeen, I remember, it takes over your whole life." Alice was worked up now, her face flushed and alive, her hands cutting through the night-blooming air. "You think about nobody, nothing else, you don't eat or sleep, you just think about this ... it's overwhelming. I know, I remember. But is it love? Like how you have cheap brandy when you're young and you think it's marvelous, just so elegant, and you don't know, you don't know anything ... because, you've never tasted anything better. You're fourteen."
It was no time for lying. "I think it's love"
You do?"
I think maybe it's the only true love."
She was about to say something, and stopped herself. I'd surprised her, I suppose. "How sad if you're right," she said, closing her eyes for a moment. "Because we never end up with them. How sad and stupid if that's how it works. — Andrew Sean Greer

I stare down into her eyes, smoky and glistening in the light stealing through the window.

Eyes you can fall into and keep falling.

She isn't the mother of my son, she isn't my wife, we haven't made a life together, but I love her all the same, and not jsut the version of Daniela that exists in my head, in my history. I love the physical woman underneath me in this bed here and now, wherever this is, because it's the same arrangement of matter--same eyes, same voice, same smell, same taste...

It isn't married-people lovemaking that follows.

We have fumbling, groping, backseat-of-the-car, unprotected-because-who-gives-a-fuck, protons-smashing-together sex. — Blake Crouch

Death didn't happen like I expected it to. There was no Grim Reaper, no chorus of angels, no army of demons. And my life didn't flash before my eyes. Death was the color of softness, a delicate green under a thin film of baby powder. There was nothing but soft random thoughts and picture, drifting through me like a child's breath blowing through a dandelion after making a wish. And as I died, I was held by my love. I wanted to soak up her love and smuggle it with me to wherever my soul was headed.
-character Ron (Broken) — J. Matthew Nespoli

From her vantage point, looking up at [Ian] through the water-spotted and slightly blurry lenses of her glasses, he was quite literally larger than life. Right at that moment, with his hands up on his head, his muscular chest bare, and his boxer shorts clinging to him in a most revealing way, water matting the hair on his chest and his legs and his eyelashes, he was ridiculously attractive. Even with his more conventionally handsome brother standing next to him.
Of course the fact that Aaron was looking down at her with unconcealed dislike in his pretty hazel eyes might've had something to with it, as if she weren't a person but instead a pile of excrement left on his pool deck by a wart-covered troll with an intestinal ailment. — Suzanne Brockmann

She glared at him through tear-filled eyes. "You talk of your pain? You cannot even begin to understand the sacrifice I have made. I gave away a piece of myself, my soul! But I did it out of love, never think otherwise. I made the choice to live my life without her because I knew in my heart she would be better off without me and I could not bear to know that a life created out of such perfect love would be forced to live with the ugly truth of her birth. I thought," she sobbed, breaking down before him. "I thought ... I did the right thing. — Charlotte Featherstone

Una furtiva lacrima had been the only really beautiful thing in her life. Wiping away her own tears she tried to sing what she heard. But her voice was as crude and out of tune as she was. When she heard it she started to cry. It was the first time she'd ever cried, she didn't know she had so much water in her eyes. She cried, blew her nose no longer knowing what she was crying about. She wasn't crying because of the life she led: because, never having led any other, she'd accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I also think she was crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and even a certain luxury of soul. — Clarice Lispector

Her feelings as dark as the night sky, the moon was the only thing making her come alive
So she got some paper and pen to let the ink spill it all out because talking never seemed to work.
Blood drops fell on her little piece of paper, drowning it along with her. By the time the blood dried up it left her with nothing but red dust. Red. The same color her eyes were captivated by.
They never told her that there is no way to get over crazy, messy things in life. There's only crossing that red sea as if you're walking through the wilderniss. The sun will rise when you've gone through the depts of it all. Writing wont matter anymore. Don't you understand? You're life is not messy little girl, you're just crazy sometimes. — N

What if I can't do this, Gregori?" She sounded close to tears. "What if I can never do this?"
"No one is making you do anything, ma petite," he replied gently, kissing her stomach. "We are just exploring possibilites."
"But,Gregori," she tried to protest, attempting to bring his head back up so that he could see her very real fear for him, for their life together.
"If I cannot persaude you otherwise, mon amour, I am not much of a lifemate, now am I?" The words were muffled in the tight silky curls, the intriguing little triangle at the apex of her thighs.
"You don't understand,Gregori." Savannah closed her eyes against the waves of fire racing through her. "It's me who is no real lifemate.I don't know how to please you, and I'm so afraid of this."
"Relax,bebe." He breathed warm air against her, inhaled her scent. "You please me far more than you will ever know. — Christine Feehan

His personal fulfillment did not lead him to evolve a cheerful Madonna; on the contrary this Madonna was sad; she had already, through his sculptures, known the Descent. The tranquility of his early bas-relief, when Mary still had her decision to make, could never be recaptured. This young mother was committed; she knew the end of her boy's life. That was why she was reluctant to let him go, this beautiful, husky,healthy boy, his hand clasped for protection in hers. That
was why she sheltered him with the side of her cloak.
The child, sensitive to his mother's mood, had a touch of melancholy about the eyes. He was strong, he had courage, he would step forth from the safe harbor of his mother's lap, but just now he gripped her hand with the fingers of one hand, and with the
other held securely to her side. Or was it his own mother he was thinking about, sad because she must leave her son alone in the world? Himself, who clung to her? — Irving Stone

He wrapped his arms around her waist and looked at her through those intense brown eyes she loved. "I wanted you when I thought you'd pull a bag over my head and snuff out my life. I wanted you more than I've wanted anything. I love you more than I've loved anyone. You burst into my life like sunshine and made me see how lonely I was. I don't want to live that way anymore." He pressed a kiss to her hairline. "I will love you with my last breath. — Rachel Gibson

I'm planning to go redneck chic with the wedding," Maddy announced, looking through the racks of dresses.
"What the hell is that?"
"Redneck chic is a nice way of saying I have bad taste, but I'm embracing it."
Sizing up Maddy's blonde girl next door beauty, I found her dressed normal. "Bad taste how? Is this about Tucker because, yeah, I see it?"
Maddy rolled her blue eyes then walked to the next rack. "Tucker is gorgeous. He's the classiest part of my life."
Nearby, Raven burst into laughter to the point of nearly pissing herself. I didn't blame her since we'd all seen Tucker fall off chairs and struggle with push/ pull doors. Classy, he was not. — Bijou Hunter

Hard-bitten had a double meaning: bitten hard by life, like her, or clamping meanly down on other people. But, as though belying his thoughts, she said, "I hope your days are good."
"If only. My eyes, you know, are like Swiss cheese, the doctor says. I see through the holes. — Edward Hoagland

We are a traditional family in many ways," she replied enigmatically, avoiding a lie. She wasn't above lying to serve her mission, but not to Sam, not if she could help it.
His eyes warmed. "So we're back to you giving me instructions on how to properly court you. Do I ask your brother's permission?"
He was stealing her heart with his sincerity. She shook her head. "I am not a woman who would be practical in your life, Sam. You need a home and family . . ."
He laughed, interrupting her carefully chosen words. The sound was pure masculine amusement, sending a curling heat through her and making her forget everything she was going to say.
"I'm a soldier, Azami. That's who I am. What I am. My woman will be my home - my family. Beyond that, who knows? I believe you're that woman. — Christine Feehan

She looks up. I've caught her by surprise. Her face opens up and all of a sudden it's like that paper mask is transparent. I'm looking right through it, and I get a flash of some kind of life we could've had - barbecues, dogs, kids flopping over us in bed - it rolls through me fast but strong and clear, like one of those cooking smells that blows in the window so sharp you can pick out the ingredients. And then it's gone. It's gone, and Holly's holding my hand. Finally, after that long long wait, her hand is back on mine. Dry cool fingers, slim. The rings loose. I close my eyes. My hand is so hot, I feel my pulse in every finger. I'm afraid she'll let go but she doesn't let go. She keeps her hand around mine and it's like she's holding all of me in her cool sweetness, calming my fever back down. — Jennifer Egan

What are you looking at, Matthias?" The low thrum of her voice vibrated straight through him.
He kept his eyes on the ceiling, whispering softly. "Nothing."
"Matthias, are you praying?"
"Possibly."
"For restraint?" she said sweetly.
"You really are a witch."
"I'm not proper, Matthias."
"I am aware of this." Miserably, keenly, hungrily aware.
"And I'm sorry to inform you, but you're not proper either."
His gaze dropped to her now. "I - "
"How many rules have you broken since you met me? How many laws? They won't be the last. Nothing about us will ever be proper," she said. She tilted her face up to his. So close now it was as if they were already touching. "Not the way we met. Not the life we lead. And not the way we kiss. — Leigh Bardugo

He lifted his gaze to the framed photograph of Tanya and him taken on their wedding day. God, she had been lovely. Her smile had come through her eyes straight from her heart. He had known unequivocally that she loved him. He believed to this day that she had died knowing that he loved her. How could she not know? He had dedicated his life to never letting her doubt it. — Sandra Brown

He knew he was slipping. Blood was dripping down his arm, through his fingers. He'd faced death before, was no stranger to the sensation of knowing this breath, this one breath, could be the last you drew.
But he'd be damned if it would. Not when his woman was watching him with terrified eyes, calling to him, risking her life to save his. He set his teeth, gave his injured arm his weight. Pain swam sickly in his head, into his gut as he reached up to her.
And her hand gripped his, firm and strong. — J.D. Robb

But where do we go?"(Elinor)
"I used to think there was a plan, a rough plan, but a plan all the same," the doctor admitted. "Now, I believe there are a thousand plans. Every breath, every decision, influences the plan, expands it, shortens it, twists it all around. It's always changing. Those of us lucky enough to make it through the multitude of possible diseases and accidents get old. We get tired. We close our eyes."
"And then? Where are we then?"
Silly to ask him as though he knew, but in fact the doctor didn't hesitate. He took Elinor's hand and placed it on his chest, in the place where he knew his heart to be.
"There."
Elinor smiled and thought at last. At last someone had told her the truth. — Alice Hoffman

So, sweeting, why were you threatening to throw Tate out of the house? What did he say?"
Leather brushed her chin as he tipped it up. Serious dark eyes met hers. "What did he say?"
She glanced around; surely the footmen were too far away to hear. "He wanted to join us in our bed."
"I'll run him through."
"No! Perhaps he only said it to goad you into a duel. Perhaps it was intended as a way to kill you."
"It was an insult to you, love. That can't be ignored."
"And so you rush inexorably toward death. I don't care if he stands on a Drury Lane stage and calls me a courtesan, I won't have you risking your life. — Sharon Page

Karrin."
She looked up at me. She looked very young somehow.
"Remember what I said yesterday," I said. "You're hurt. But you'll get through it. You'll be okay."
She closed her eyes tightly. "I'm scared. So scared I'm sick."
"You'll get through it."
"What if I don't?"
I squeezed her fingers. "Then I will personally make fun of you every day for the rest of your life," I said. "I will call you a sissy girl in front of everyone you know, tie frilly aprons on your car, and lurk in the parking lot at CPD and whistle and tell you to shake it, baby. Every. Single. Day."
Murphy's breath escaped in something like a hiccup. She opened her eyes, a mix of anger and wary amusement easing into them in place of fear. "You do realize I'm holding a gun, right? — Jim Butcher

She gave Cooper a quick nod, indicating she was going out the back, and didn't wait around to see if he understood her meaning. She pushed through the swinging doors to the small kitchen in the back, snagged the keys to her truck from the hook, and replaced them with her apron. She gave a quick glance to the grill, making sure Sandy hadn't left anything to burn on it when he'd been pulled out front, but everything looked in order. Stop stalling.
She sighed, shook her head, but the rueful smile that accompanied the movement was fleeting. For what might be the first time in her life, she had absolutely no idea how she was going to handle what came next.
"Only one way to find out," she murmured. Tightening her grip on her keys, if not her emotions, she let herself out the back door of the pub and found herself staring straight up into the crystalline blue eyes of Cooper Jax. — Donna Kauffman

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days. — Lewis Carroll

Good morning, Sunshine," Alessandro whispered, dragging the satiny soft object across the tip of her nose. Curiosity made her open her eyes. A rose. A blue rose. "I figured a single rose was safer than a dozen considering the massacre of the last blue roses I gave you," he smiled sheepishly. "Happy birthday, darling." Bree blinked and tried to remember what day it was. The fifteenth apparently. She groaned and pulled the blankets back over her head. She was officially thirty today. "Come on now, up we go," Alessandro pulled the blankets off her face and grabbed her arm, bringing her up. "For my birthday, I want sleep," she groaned. Gianni had suffered through a painful night as another tooth was starting to come in and thus his parents had suffered as well. "Nope, we've got a long day ahead of us. Let's go." "Why?" Bree yawned. "Because thirty years ago you were born and my life as I knew it would never be the same," Alessandro explained, nuzzling her neck. — E. Jamie

I thrust Sophie into a corner, blocking her with my body. She panted and snagged her lower lip in her teeth. "This is not my life," she insisted.
I looked at her solemnly. "I'm afraid it is. But it doesn't have to be for long. Let's just get through this. Then things go back to normal for you."
"Like they keep going back to normal for you?" Sophie hissed. "Ghost of your mother, psycho ex-best friend, company agent dating your dad, psychic vampire ex-boyfriend, werewolf current boyfriend - by the way, I can't blame you for that one," she confessed, eyes round as she mouthed the word whoa before continuing with her list, "Trip to the asylum, attempts against your life, vigilante father ... "
"Hey, the last ones are brand new. And the vigilante father thing? He'll revert."
"Anyhow, I'm not so keen on your concept of normal." I caught her staring at me. — Shannon Delany

For years she had had her back against the stone wall of Rhett's love and had taken it as much for granted as she had taken Melanie's love, flattering herself that she drew her strength from herself alone. And even as she had realized earlier in the evening that Melanie had been beside her in her bitter campaigns against life, now she knew that silent in the background, Rhett had stood, loving her, understanding her, ready to help. Rhett at the bazaar, reading her impatience in her eyes and leading her out in the reel, Rhett helping her out of the bondage of mourning, Rhett convoying her through the fire and explosion the night Atlanta fell, Rhett lending her the money that gave her her start, Rhett who comforted her when she woke in the nights crying with fright from her dreams-why, no man did such things without loving a woman to distraction! — Margaret Mitchell

Even after the stormiest weather, a true warrior will still reflect the brilliant rays of the magnificent sun through both his or her eyes. You may get hit by sudden lighting or take severe beatings from the cruel wind, but you will always get back up and stand strong on your feet again, soak in the sunlight, and be prepared to get hit by even the most merciless hail - time and time again. — Suzy Kassem

She turned back to her sandwich. And here, of all things, was desire again. (She could have put the palm of her hand to the front of his white shirt.) Here was her chicken sandwich and her tea and the waitress with a hard life in her eyes and a pretty face disappearing into pale flesh asking if there's anything else for now, dear. Here was the boudoir air of respectable Schrafft's with its marble counters and pretty lamps and lunchtime bustle (ten minutes until she should be back at her desk), perfume and smoke, with the war over and another life begun and mad April whipping through the streets again. And here she was at thirty, just out of church (a candle lit every lunch hour, still, although the war was over), and yearning now with every inch of herself to put her hand to the worn buckle at a stranger's waist, a palm to his smooth belly. A man she'd never see again. Good luck. — Alice McDermott

I find that's one of the great things about acting-you have the opportunity to stand in somebody else's shoes. Each character faces a dilemma in her life, and as an actor you're able to step into that character's skin, look through her eyes. You leave transformed, a different person, because once you live a little bit of someone's life, it changes you. — Sally Field

She has the kind of beauty that takes your breath from your lungs, tears from your eyes and speeds your heart each time you look at her.

She has the kind of beauty reserved for works of art, where men spend years of their life mastering their craft to replicate.

She is beauty, stunning, transcendent, right down through to the bone, the unfathomable depth of her heart.

She is Muse. She is wonder. She is sublime. — Kirk Diedrich

Would it be too explicit, too exaggerated, to say that when I set eyes on Isobel Tolland, I knew at once that I should marry her? Something like that is the truth; certainly nearer the truth than merely to record those vague, inchoate sentiments of interest of which I was so immediately conscious. It was as if I had known her for many years already; enjoyed happiness with her and suffered sadness. I was conscious of that, as of another life, nostalgically remembered. Then, at that moment, to be compelled to go through all the paraphernalia of introduction, of 'getting to know' one another by means of the normal formalities of social life, seemed hardly worth while. We knew one another already; the future was determinate. — Anthony Powell

His mother had always been a headstrong woman, and with her grayish-white mane and unsmiling face, she appeared as regal and intimidating as she had ever been. Still, seeing her through other people's eyes, Hanfeng realized that all that made her who she was - the decades of solitude in her widowhood, her coldness to the prying eyes of people who tried to mask their nosiness with friendliness, and her faith in the notion of living one's own life without having to go out of one's way for other people - could be deemed pointless and laughable. Perhaps the same could be said of any living creature: a caterpillar chewing on a leaf, unaware of the beak of an approaching bird; an egret mesmerized by its reflection in a pond, as if it were the master of the universe; or Hanfeng's own folly of repeating the same pattern of hope and heartbreak, hoping despite heartbreak. — Yiyun Li

THINGS WOULD HAVE TURNED out better if she had lived. As it was, she died when I was a kid; and though everything that's happened to me since then is thoroughly my own fault, still when I lost her I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life. Her death the dividing mark: Before and After. And though it's a bleak thing to admit all these years later, still I've never met anyone who made me feel loved the way she did. Everything came alive in her company; she cast a charmed theatrical light about her so that to see anything through her eyes was to see it in brighter colors than ordinary — Donna Tartt

Laura, illustrious through her own virtues, and long famed through my verses, first appeared to my eyes in my youth, in the year of our Lord 1327, on the sixth day of April, in the church of St. Clare in Avignon, at matins; and in the same city, also on the sixth day of April, at the same first hour, but in the year 1348, the light of her life was withdrawn from the light of day, while I, as it chanced, was in Verona, unaware of my fate ... — Francesco Petrarca

Being found out, that's not the worst part, Harry now realizes. The anger, the pain, all the things that will inevitably follow this moment, they're just the fallout. This is the worst moment, the flash point, the cataclysm. For as Harry holds the eyes of his wife, he sees confusion in them--genuine puzzlement--and this is the deepest blow: the realization that until this moment it could not possibly have occurred to her that he would lie to her. But, of course, she doesn't know about all the little lies that preceded this grand one, the painstaking edifice of deceit that's about to collapse. He has hurled a brick through her trust, and although he may spend the rest of his life collecting every last shard, massaging the creaky, fractured pane back into a whole, it will always be warped, irregular, distorting the view on both sides. — Mark Sarvas

Life is as precious to us as it is for an animal. An animal is as loving, caring, and kind to her children as we are. She might not be able to tell us but she can express it through her eyes and expressions. She feels joy and happiness. She is helpless in our cruel hands and vulnerable to our vicious greed. Let us be kind to animals. Let us learn to feel their pain. Can we kill a helpless baby to feed our greed? Then how can we kill helpless animal friends that can't talk? Often we kill just for fun. How funny would it be if an animal killed a human just for fun? Let us be kind to animals as much as possible. I know we can. It is easier to love an animal than a human being. If you love an animal, it will rarely hurt you. Let us practice kindness and compassion to animals so that we may create a peaceful world. — Debasish Mridha

He tunneled his dirty hands through her hair and kissed her breathless. Her neck, her eyes, the corners of her mouth. He kissed her lips as if his life depended on it. Kissed their future into her. All they could have and all they could be. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips