Light Island Quotes & Sayings

It was dawn now on Long Island and we went about opening the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house with gray-turning, gold-turning light. The Shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves. There was a slow, pleasant movement in the air, scarcely a wind, promising a cool, lovely day. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Nothing touches your skin of sweat
(meltdown of oceanic kisses)
when the purple light
whispers to the moon
in silent moonlit clarity — Bear Step

Other lands may have their charms, and the sunny skies of other climes may be regretted, but it is with pride and gladness that the wanderer sets foot again on British soil, thanking God for the religion and the liberty which have made this weather-beaten island in a northern sea to be the light and glory of the world. — Isabella Bird

It is only an island of light surrounded by a vastly greater area of greyness and that fades ultimately into the black of ignorance. — George R R Martin

The first thing you see, directly in front of you, is a dim-lit tunnel receding deep under the island. The tunnel is paved with tiny glass beads of light, one for each of the two hundred thousand deportees. On the end wall of the tunnel is a bright light, almost a searchlight, which I've been told is intended to represent hope. But it — Paul Monette

We are all trying to get to the same island, whether you swim, fly, surf or skydiving. What matters is when the red light comes on.
Jerry Seinfeld to Michael Richards in Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. — Jerry Seinfeld

She became for me an island of light, fun, wisdom where I could run with my discoveries and torments and hopes at any time of day and find welcome. — May Sarton

We shall not read it for its sociological insights, which are non-existent, nor as science fiction, because it has a general air of implausibility; but there is one high poetic fancy in the New Atlantis that stays in the mind after all its fancies and inventions have been forgotten. In the New Atlantis, an island kingdom lying in very distant seas, the only commodity of external trade is light: Bacon's own special light, the light of understanding. — Peter Medawar

As I write these lines I lift my eyes and look seaward. I am on the beach of Waikiki on the island of Oahu. Far, in the azure sky, the trade-wind clouds drift low over the blue-green turquoise of the deep sea. Nearer, the sea is emerald and light olive-green. Then comes the reef, where the water is all slaty purple flecked with red. Still nearer are brighter greens and tans, lying in alternate stripes and showing where sandbeds lie between the living coral banks. Through and over and out of these wonderful colours tumbles and thunders a magnificent surf. — Jack London

I was downstairs, reading."
" Now?" I strained to see her face. She was smiling, it appeared.
"Yes, now," she said. "It's nice, sometimes, to read in the middle of the night. The sky is so dark and soft-looking outside the window, all the stars out. You have just on light on, you know, and it seems to pour onto the page. Makes the book seem better. You are this little island, just up alone with a book. And you heard the night sounds of the house ... It's so interesting to me, that sound. Time. The measure of it. — Elizabeth Berg

The old bells of the church of San Frediano toll with bold resounding strokes. In their wake broadening rings of silence seem to echo up over the rooftops. The setting sun rakes incandescent highlights over the water. A group of waterfowl on an island of grass half way across the river appear made of silver light. — Glenn Haybittle

Laugh at the night, at the day, at the moon, laugh at the twisted streets of the island, laugh at this clumsy boy who loves you, but when I open my eyes and close them, when my steps go, when my steps return, deny me bread, air, light, spring, but never your laughter for I would die. — Pablo Neruda

In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world's loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiner's Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sauteed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island Duck, he might have written a masterpiece. — A.J. Liebling

Christ will never more come down to earth nor will there be any law-giver, nor will murder cease nor theft, nor rape, and yet ... and yet one expects something, something terrifyingly marvellous and absurd, perhaps a cold lobster with mayonnaise served gratis, perhaps an invention, like the electric light, like television, only more devastating, more soul rending, an invention unthinkable that will bring a shattering calm and void, not the calm and void of death but of life such as the monks dreamed, such as is dreamed still in the Himalayas, in Tibet, in Lahore, in the Aleutian Islands, in Polynesia, in Easter Island, the dream of men before the flood, before the word was written, the dream of cave men and anthropophagists, of those with double sex and short tails, of those who are said to be crazy and have no way of defending themselves because they are outnumbered by those who are not crazy. — Henry Miller

It is true that nothing here makes any sense, but this is no great misfortune; I learned from the islanders that sense is not of any particular importance, that its presence may even disrupt the clean lines of certain pictures and cast a cloud over their fine light, while laments on the absurdity of being struck me as self-indulgent and objectionable even before my stay on the island. Once you get a little used to a terrain cleansed of sense, you realize that there is amusement enough to be had here, and that only in its emptiness can the magic crystals of beauty originate. And in this space something is revealed: the silent dignity of people, animals, plants and objects, that is able to stir graciousness, compassion and reverence. — Michal Ajvaz

We're all trying to get to the same island, whether you swim, fly, surf, or skydive in, it doesn't matter. What matters is when the red light [camera] comes on. — Jerry Seinfeld

When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair. — Blaise Pascal

Or I would be the rain itself, wreathing over the island, mingling in the quiet of moist places, filling its pores with its saturated breaths. And I would be the wind, whispering through the tangled woods, running airy fingers over the island's face, tingling in the chill of concealed places, sighing secrets in the dawn. And I would be the light, flinging over the island, covering it with flash and shadow, shining on rocks and pools, softening to a touch in the glow of dusk. If I were the rain and wind and light, I would encircle the island like the sky surrounding earth, flood through it like a heart driven pulse, shine from inside it like a star in flames, burn away to blackness in the closed eyes of its night. There are so many ways I could love this island, if I were the rain. — Richard Nelson

The paradox, though, was already evident: that the more solidly the foundations of an English state were cemented together, so the harder did it become to present the island as a single realm. Seen in this light, Athelstan's conquest of York, the feat which had first served to project the power of the West Saxon monarchy deep into the north of Britain, can be seen as the decisive event in the making of Scotland as well as of England. There — Tom Holland

That evening we sat in the courtyard of the hotel once more, watching the sun sink below the western isles. I told Alexi what had happened that day. I fancied I could glimpse the grey stone wall of Lismore House on its island hilltop, the red light of the setting sun glinting from the windows, and from there the wasted frame of Jonathan Blake gazing out across the sea, on nothing, his boy waiting for him to die. But it was my fantasy, simply the image on my mind, like the image burned on to your eyes when you have stared too long at the sun, the passing footprint of a creature long gone. — P.B. North

Out of the firelight everything was black and silver, black island, rocks and trees carved cleanly out of the sky and silver river with a flashing light rippling back and forth along the lip of the fall. — William Golding

It is time I came back to my real life
After this voyage to an island with no name,
Where I lay down at sunrise drunk with light. — May Sarton

The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm - the turning of the light. The island knows no other human voices, no other footprints. On the Offshore Lights you can live any story you want to tell yourself, and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind. — M. L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans

Lindsey looked at him coyly "Grilling is your specialty?" She shook her head. "You really had me fooled."
He set the platter on the island, joined her near the sprawling sectional sofa in the living area, and took her in his arms. She'd never get tired of that feeling.
"Had you fooled how?" he asked.
"I thought kissing was your specialty."
Carden captivated her with his sultry gave. "Grilling ... Kissing ... " He brushed his lips over hers, teasingly light and feathery. "Take your pick, darlin;," he said in a low whisper, pulling her closer ...
"Stay tuned," he said with a rasp in his voice. "I've got a couple other specialties, too. — Tracy March

There, below the cliffs, is a bay of sand where the rocks stand up like the fangs of wolves, and no boat or swimmer can live when the tide is breaking round them. To right and left of the bay the sea has driven arches through the cliff. The rocks are purple and rose-coloured and pale as turquoise in the sun, and on a summer's evening when the tide is low and the sun is sinking, men see on the horizon land that comes and goes with the light. It is the Summer Isle, which (they say) floats and sinks at the will of heaven, the Island of Glass through which the clouds and stars can be seen, but which for those who dwell there is full of trees and grass and springs of sweet water . . .' The — Mary Stewart

The Great Point lighthouse rose at the far end of the barrier beach, a tall white steeple to the sky, with a working light flashing at the top. Here was the end of the island, the great point where the Atlantic Ocean met Nantucket Sound in a froth of waves. All along the point, enormous fat seals lolled on the sand, occasionally lumbering in and out of the water, grunting and lounging like a tribe of overfed Roman emperors. — Nancy Thayer

There are times when the ocean is not the ocean - not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: ferocity on a scale only gods can summon. It hurls itself at the island, sending spray right over the top of the lighthouse, biting pieces off the cliff. And the sound is a roaring of a beast whose anger knows no limits. Those are the nights the light is needed most. — M. L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans

At first, you fall in love. You wake in the morning woozy and your twilight is lit with astral violet light. You spelunk down into each other until you come to possess some inner vision of each other that becomes one thing. Us. Together. And time passes. Like the forming of Earth itself, volcanoes rise and spew lava. Oceans appear. Rock plates shift. Sea turtles swim half the ocean to lay eggs on the mother island; songbirds migrate over continents for berries from a tree. You evolve
cosmically and geologically. You lose each other and find each other again. Every day. Until love gathers the turtles and the birds of your world and encompasses them, too. — Michael Paterniti

Hold me hostage
Hold me tight
On your island
Darkness will turn to light — Frank Julius

Early June, Providence, Rhode Island, the sun up for almost two hours already, lighting up the pale bay and the smokestacks of the Narragansett Electric factory, rising like the sun on the Brown University seal emblazoned on all the pennants and banners draped up over campus, a sun with a sagacious face, representing knowledge. But this sun
the one over Providence
was doing the metaphorical sun one better, because the founders of the university, in their Baptist pessimism, had chosen to depict the light of knowledge enshrouded by clouds, indicating that ignorance had not yet been dispelled from the human realm, whereas the actual sun was just now fighting its way through cloud cover, sending down splintered beams of light and giving hope to the squadrons of parents, who'd been soaked and frozen all weekend, that the unseasonable weather might not ruin the day's activities. — Jeffrey Eugenides

From when she was a baby, Tom has taught the girl to respect, but not fear, the forces of nature- the lightning that might strike the light tower on Janus, the oceans that batter the island. — M.L. Stedman

Oh, island, I adore you, but I hate you, too! You're a prison smothered in flowers, I've never been more eager to leave a place behind. I can't stand this enchantment anymore, I can't stand being bewitched like this- when I look at you, my gaze turns to nothing but a mirror of light, I'll stare at you hypnotized for ages, and when I stop I'll feel you, and when I stop feeling you I'll die. I have such a craving for ugliness and filth, for cities, streets, cars, I want to wake up in the morning and wait at a red light to cross the street. — Margarita Karapanou

May I have this damaged bunch for two cents? Speak strongly and it shall be yours for two cents. That is a saved penny that you put in the star bank ... Suffer the cold for an hour. Put a shawl around you. Sai, I am cold because I am saving to buy land. That hour will save you three cents' worth of coal ... When you are alone at night, do not light the lamp. Sit in the darkness and dream awhile. Reckon out how much oil you saved and put its value in pennies in the bank. The money will grow. Someday there will be fifty dollars and somewhere on this long island is a piece of land that you may buy for that money. — Betty Smith

There were crystal chandeliers, heavy glass with electric sparklights. It was all light, it was an island of light. 'We sneaked into one of the old balconies, the ones that were supposed to be unsafe and roped off. But we were boys, and boys will be boys, so they will. To us everything was dangerous, but what of that? Had we not been made to live forever? We thought so, even when we spoke to each other of our glorious deaths. — Stephen King

The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death's dominion. But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it. — Charles Dickens

Suddenly stopped myself, knowing, by an inverse logic familiar to superstitious people, that the very foretaste of sorrows to come presumed a degree of joy beforehand and would no doubt stand in the way of the very joy I was reluctant to consider for fear of forfeiting it. I felt no different than a castaway who, on glimpsing a sailboat from a high perch on his deserted island, omits to light a pyre because he's spied too many such ships before and doesn't want his hopes dashed again. But — Andre Aciman

Here on the island I find I can sit with a friend without talking, sharing the day's last sliver of pale green light on the horizon, or the whorls in a small white shell, or the dark scar left in a dazzling night sky by a shooting star. Then communication becomes communion and one is nourished as one never is by words. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Girls were not named for flowers, as flowers died so quickly. Girls were named for deathless things - forms of light, forms of cloud, shapes of stars, that which appears and disappears like an island on the horizon. — Louise Erdrich

Perchance the time will come when we shall not be content to go back and forth upon a raft to some huge Homeric or Shakespearean Indiaman that lies upon the reef, but build a bark out of that wreck and others that are buried in the sands of this desolate island, and such new timber as may be required, in which to sail away to whole new worlds of light and life, where our friends are. — Henry David Thoreau

Positivist man is a curious creature who dwells in the tiny island of light composed of what he finds scientifically "meaningful," while the whole surrounding area in which ordinary men live from day to day and have their dealings with other men is consigned to the outer darkness of the "meaningless." Positivism has simply accepted the fractured being of modern man and erected a philosophy to intensify it.
Existentialism, whether successfully or not, has attempted instead to gather all the elements of human reality into a total picture of man. Positivist man and Existentialist man are no doubt offspring of the same parent epoch, but, somewhat as Cain and Abel were, the brothers are divided unalterably by temperament and the initial choice they make of their own being. — William Barrett

Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord,

Who was the Future, died full long ago.

Knowledge which is the Past is folly. Go,

Poor, child, and be not to thyself abhorred.

Around thine earth sun-winged winds do blow

And planets roll; a meteor draws his sword;

The rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord

And the long strips of river-silver flow:

Awake! Give thyself to the lovely hours.

Drinking their lips, catch thou the dream in flight

About their fragile hairs' aerial gold.

Thou art divine, thou livest, - as of old

Apollo springing naked to the light,

And all his island shivered into flowers. — Trumbull Stickney

Past the projects, the land opened up and water came into view. The breeze carried rain and salt. Jetties and barrier walls supported the shore, which was stacked with crumbling brick warehouses. Out in the channel, the Statue of Liberty stood alone on her little island, her corroding flame held high in the air as the sun set over the industrial shoreline and skyways of New Jersey. Across the narrows, the bluffs of Staten Island wavered in the smoky light of dusk that turned the Verrazano into bronze. Faint light burnished water into busy with freighters and tug boats. A lone sail boat flitted in the distance. On the near shore, on a slip of water between a jetty and the land, a blood red barge bobbed on the tide. — Andrew Cotto