Looking For The Light Quotes & Sayings

Time had ceased to feel linear. She looked up through the crisscrossing branches, thick with buds, into the night sky. The stars tugged at her gaze, trying to pull her up among them, or she was pulling them down to her. She was on the verge of some great discovery, she realized, but she had no idea what it was, what it related to, whether it even had anything to do with her at all. Was she a participant, or an observer? Did the world center around her, or could it carry on quite easily without her input? Looking up at those stars, feeling the embrace of their light as it enfolded her, she felt both small and large, as though everything mattered and nothing did. When someone crouched down beside her it took years for her to turn her head to see who it was. All she could make out was a dark shape, a vague outline of head and shoulders silhouetted against the stars, the rest of the body lost in the shadows of the rose bushes. — Charles De Lint

Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one's shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades.
Words like 'full', 'round' and even 'pert' creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down.
Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn't about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer.
Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling's Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword.
All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black. — Terry Pratchett

Everything felt fragile and freshly come upon, but for now, at least, my depression had stepped back, giving me room to move forward. I had forgotten what it was like to be without it, and for a moment I floundered, wondering how I would recognize myself. I knew for certain it would return, sneaking up on me when I wasn't looking, but meanwhile there were bound to be glimpses of light if only I stayed around and held fast to the long perspective. It was a chance that seemed worth taking. — Daphne Merkin

I'd wander for days in the fog, scared I'd never see another thing, then there'd be that door, opening to show me the mattress padding on the other side to stop out the sounds, the men standing in a line like zombies among shiny copper wires and tubes pulsing light, and the bright scrape of arcing electricity. I'd take my place in the line and wait my turn at the table. The table shaped like a cross, with shadows of a thousand murdered men printed on it, silhouette wrists and ankles running under leather straps sweated green with use, a silhouette neck and head running up to a silver band goes across the forehead. And a technician at the controls beside the table looking up from his dial and down the line and pointing at me with a rubber glove. — Ken Kesey

She had driven far down the winding road, and the lights of the diner were long since out of sight, when she noticed that she was enjoying the taste of the cigarette he had given her: it was different from any she had ever smoked before. She held the small remnant to the light of the dashboard, looking for the name of the brand. There was no name, only a trademark. Stamped in gold on the thin, white paper there stood the sign of the dollar. — Ayn Rand

Are broken windows a new decorating theme around here?" Archer asked, coming up behind Jenna and me and poking his head into the parlor.
"So it would seem," I said. I was still looking outside when a faint light appeared in the gloom. It took me a minute to realize that it was from Cal's cabin. Was someone out there? Was Cal out there?
But just as quickly as it had appeared, the light went out again. Frowning, I turned from the doorway, and I went to slip my arm through Archer's. Then I remembered what Nausicaa had said earlier. Now wasn't exactly the best time for PDA, probably.
The three of us trailed behind everyone else into the ballroom. Here, at least, things looked more or less the same. Of course, the ballroom had always been one of the more bizarre rooms at Hex Hall, so that didn't say much. Still, I was relieved to see the familiar jumble of tables and chairs and not, like, tree stumps or whatever. — Rachel Hawkins

When we look out into space, we're looking back in time; the light from a galaxy a billion light-years away, for instance, will take a billion years to reach us. It's an amazing thing. The history is there for us to see. It's not mushed up like the geologic record of Earth. You can just see it exactly as it was. — Margaret Geller

She heard the sound of one tremendous flap and looked up in time to see the man who'd put a hole in the roof of her stable hovering in the air over her castle looking down at her. For the space of a breath, Sam's heart completely stopped beating in her chest at what she saw in the bright light of day. Those were wings. They were real. And then she fainted dead away in her garden. — Paula Quinn

I have very vivid memories of being a young child. My mother would create dinner as for us, and when she would bake, she would leave some dough for me. I would roll the dough into little sticks while she was cooking the apple tart of whatever. I was looking through the window of the oven and flipping the light, and then my bread would come out, and it was inedible, of course. — Eric Ripert

Make no mistake, hiding one's true self away in a closet and creating a facade of heterosexuality is not without its consequences. It may appear to have a degree of safety but from my experience they are very unhealthy places and do all kinds of terrible things to individuals psychologically, emotionally and behaviourally ... to say nothing of projection. The damage of the fear, shame, guilt and self-loathing that exist inside a closet are often reflected unknowingly in the external life of the individual. In or out of the closet; there is a price to pay. Each individual must weigh up the consequences of honesty, openness, secrecy and deception for themselves. Coming out, for most of us, is like an exorcism that releases us of the darkness we have lived in for years and caused us to believe awful things about ourselves. On the other side of the looking glass are freedom, light and life. — Anthony Venn-Brown

She turned, and saw a great white moon looking at her over the hill. And her breast opened to it, she was cleaved like a transparent jewel to its light. She stood filled with the full moon, offering herself. Her two breasts opened to make way for it, her body opened wide like a quivering anemone, a soft, dilated invitation touched by the moon. — D.H. Lawrence

We were still looking upon war in the light of Victorian and previous wars," Morton wrote later, adding that he and his brother had failed to appreciate that the "nature and method of war had changed for all time in August 1914 and that no war in the future would exclude anybody, civilians, men, women or children. — Erik Larson

I understand individuals and their personal motivations, but when those same individuals become a part of something bigger, some amorphous corporate ball of greed, I can't anticipate the logical next move, because it has long ago stopped being human. Your average human being has a conscience and the world is structured with checks and balances to shed light on that individual should he or she become something ugly and cruel. But a company can hide its corruption; the individuals responsible can sit innocently and united behind their desks for years before they are discovered. They are as guilty as the guy robbing the liquor store in the ski mask, only they're free to show their faces. I had no idea whether I should be looking for the worker bee or the nest, or both, and my nearsightedness cost my boss his job. — Lisa Lutz

The photograph is in my hand. It is the photograph of a man and a woman. They are at an amusement park, in 1959. [ ... ] I'm tired of looking at the photograph now. I open my fingers. It falls to the sand at my feet. I am going to look at the stars. They are so far away, and their light takes so long to reach us ... All we ever see of stars are their old photographs. [ ... ] It's October, 1985. I'm basking in the two-million-year-old light of Andromeda. I can see the supernova that Ernst Hartwig discovered in 1885, a century ago. It scintillates, a wink intended for the Trilobites, all long dead. Supernovas are where gold forms; the only place. All gold comes from supernovas. — Alan Moore

And sitting there against the wall, listening to Billy's inhalations and exhalations, and watching the light in the glass and through the glass, Cleve knew without doubt that even if he escaped this trap, it was only a temporary respite; that this long night, its minutes, its hours, were a foretaste of a longer vigil. He almost despaired then; felt his soul sink into a hole from which there seemed to be no hope of retrieval. Here was the real world; he wept. Not joy, not light, not looking forward; only this waiting in ignorance, without hope, even of fear, for fear came only to those with dreams to lose. — Clive Barker

And we would always be looking for the light ... together. — A Meredith Walters

He is looking down on the two crystal balls that the old man's foul, strong hands have rolled across to him. In one he sees Margaret, not in her raincoat and her nodding plumes, but as she is transfigured in the light of eternity. Long he looks there; then drops a glance to the other, just long enough to see that in its depths Kitty and I walk in bright dresses through our glowing gardens. We had suffered no transfiguration, for we are as we are, and there is nothing more to us. The whole truth about us lies in our material seeming. He sighs a deep sigh of delight and puts out his hand to the ball where Margaret shines. His sleeve catches the other one and sends it down to crash in a thousand pieces on the floor. The old man's smile continues to be lewd and benevolent; he is still not more interested in me than in the bare-armed woman. Chris is wholly inclosed in his intentness on his chosen crystal. No one weeps for this shattering of our world. — Rebecca West

Life will throw all kinds of obstacles our way. It's our job to scramble over them and hunt for the little miracles tucked away, then leave some reminders for the people that follow behind us. — Emily Page

Stare deep into the world before you as if it were the void: innumerable holy ghosts, buddhies, and savior gods there hide, smiling. All the atoms emitting light inside wavehood, there is no personal separation of any of it. A hummingbird can come into a house and a hawk will not: so rest and be assured. While looking for the light, you may suddenly be devoured by the darkness and find the true light. — Jack Kerouac

Each day millions of children arrive in American classrooms in search of more than reading and math skills. They are looking for a light in the darkness of their lives, a Good Samaritan who will stop and bandage a bruised heart or ego. — Jim Trelease

There was freedom, there was peace, there was, most welcome of all, a summoning together, a resting on a platform of stability. Not as oneself did one find rest ever, in her experience (she accomplished here something dexterous with her needles) but as a wedge of darkness. Losing personality, one lost the fret, the hurry, the stir; and there rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this eternity; and pausing there she looked out to meet that stroke of the Lighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was her stroke, for watching them in this mood always at this hour one could not help attaching oneself to one thing especially of the things one saw; and this thing, the long steady stroke, was her stroke. Often she found herself sitting and looking, sitting and looking, with her work in her hands until she became the thing she looked at - that light, for example. — Virginia Woolf

When I got home, I seemed in a dream. My windows looked upon hers; I remained all the day looking at them, and all the day they were closed and dark. I forgot everything for this woman; I slept not, I eat nothing. That evening I fell into a fever, the next morning I was delirious, and the next evening I was DEAD!'
'Dead!' cried his hearers.
'Dead!' answered the narrator, with a conviction in his voice which words alone cannot give; 'dead as Fabian, the
cast of whose dead face hangs from that wall!'
'Go on,' whispered the others, holding their breath.
The hail still rattled against the windows, and the fire had so nearly died out, that they threw more wood on the feeble flame which penetrated the darkness of the studio and cast a faint light upon the pale face of him who told the story. (The Dead Man's Story — James Hain Friswell

Very often people looking at my pictures say, 'You must have had to wait a long time to get that cloud just right (or that shadow, or the light).' As a matter of fact, I almost never wait, that is, unless I can see that the thing will be right in a few minutes. But if I must wait an hour for the shadow to move, or the light to change, or the cow to graze in the other direction, then I put up my camera and go on, knowing that I am likely to find three subjects just as good in the same hour. — Edward Weston

I'm a perfectionist, so i'm never satisfied with myself. i've always been psychotic about that kind of stuff
in a good way. i'm very disciplined. like the food and the whole thing, i'm always looking to "how can i eventually just turn into a ball of light and fly off the planet?". until that happens and God basically pull the blinds back, i will not be satisfied ... if i found out that if i ate pine nuts for the next month i could see God, i'd be eating pine nuts. — Jim Carrey

Mirrors have come to mean much more than the original 'looking glass.' They are now a part of the decorative scheme of a modern home. By using them, there are no dark, gloomy corners, no drab caverns for halls. There can be a feeling of freedom, light, air, space. — Dorothy Draper

Looking up at [the sky], I think about the October evening world, where 'people' must be going about their lives. Beneath that pale autumn light, they must be walking down streets, going to the store for things, preparing dinner, boarding trains for home. And they think
if they think at all
that these things are too obvious to think about, just as I used to do (or not do). — Haruki Murakami

He stood looking down at her for a moment, then walked to the window and raised it. "Let's let the storm in," he said, and then it was with them, filling the half-dark room with sound and vibration. The rain-chilled air washed over her, cool and fresh on her heated skin. She sighed, the small sound drowned out by the din of thunder and rain.
There by the window, with the dim grey light outlining the bulge and plane of powerful muscle, Wolf removed his wet clothing. — Linda Howard

To tell you the truth the only thing I feel, Peter, is that you're going about this all wrong. You're following the most natural roads, and for that reason you've ended up in particularly unnatural places. You're exploring alibis, gathering clues, looking for motives. But it seems to me that, in this particular case the usual terms of your art have lost their meaning, the same way that the concept of time changes meaning at speeds faster than light ... — Arkady Strugatsky

THERE ARE FEW THINGS as beautiful as a glass bottle filled with deep amber whiskey. Liquor shines when the light hits it, reminiscent of precious things like jewels and gold. But whiskey is better than some lifeless bracelet or coronet. Whiskey is a living thing capable of any emotion that you are. It's love and deep laughter and brotherhood of the type that bonds nations together. Whiskey is your friend when nobody else comes around. And whiskey is solace that holds you tighter than most lovers can. I thought all that while looking at my sealed bottle. And I knew for a fact that it was all true. True the way a lover's pillow talk is true. True the way a mother's dreams for her napping infant are true. But the whiskey mind couldn't think its way out of the problems I had. So I took Mr. Seagram's, put him in his box, and placed him up on the shelf where he belonged. — Walter Mosley

The Maharishi had invited us all to go to India to his ashram in the Indian Himalaya. We were there studying meditation for two and a half months. While the other three Beatles went back to London to start the beginning of their Apple empire, George and I went to Madras for a week's relaxation. I took this photograph of George one morning, as I thought the light on his face was lovely. I think this was the last time that I saw him looking so calm. — Pattie Boyd

That's what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I'm trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it's over and there's one more person in the world who thinks I'm a complete and total waste of space.
The worst thing is the stupid hopefulness. Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance. That I'm going to be normal this time. A new leaf. A fresh start. But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah. This again.
So I stand on the edge of things, crossing my fingers, praying nobody will try to look me in the eye. And the good thing is, they usually don't. — Carol Rifka Brunt

Said Jesus, with a sigh: 'This is the greatest misery that man can suffer, O Barnabas. For man cannot here upon earth have God his creator always in memory; saving them that are holy, for they always have God in memory, because they have in them the light of the grace of God, so that they cannot forget God. But tell me, have ye seen them that work quarried stones, how by their constant practice they have so learned to strike that they speak with others and all the time are striking the iron tool that worketh the stone without looking at the iron, and yet they do not strike their hands? Now do ye likewise. Desire to be holy if ye wish to overcome entirely this misery of forgetfulness. Sure it is that water cleaveth the hardest rocks with a single drop striking there for a long period. — Barnabas

NIGHT 1: LEXI

Lexi arrives at eleven o'clock wearing a black lace dress that is both sexy and modest at the same time. It comes to just above her knees and the v-neckline reveals a hint of her small, round breasts. She's wearing black stockings and short heels, and I'm curious to see if she's wearing a garter belt under there. Her thick brown hair falls to her shoulders and her large brown eyes make her look innocent and doe-like.

"Come in," I say opening the door wide and stepping aside. Lexi hesitates for a second then comes in, looking around at our small studio apartment. The room is dimly lit by shaded lamps, letting most of the light come in through the uncurtained windows. I can see the full moon framed against one pane. In the center of the room is our four-poster king sized bed. Eric is lying on the red silk sheets. — Marketa Giavonni

In the end, Astrid couldn't do anything about my . . . turning into light, but she made a prediction. She said the sun would help me and I would be cured thanks to its efforts.'
'The sun?'
'Yes. It was the symbol I drew from among the runes. Astrid says it represents . . .'
'What?' he said, looking at me curiously, and I could see that he really wanted to hear the answer.
I became embarrassed.
'It's not important . . .' I muttered.
'Please tell me!' He turned fully towards me and I could feel myself blushing pink.
'The . . . man in my life.'
I was done for. My heart was beating heavily but Elijah, for the first time since I had awoken, smiled. I was incredibly ashamed of myself, so I made to go back to the house, but the Dark Angel grabbed my wrist. — A.O. Esther

They couldn't close out the whole world, maybe, but they could sure find something on their TV or radio to put scientists or foreigners or whatever they thought he was in a bad light. Truly, they were no better than the city people always looking down on southerners ... If people played their channels right, they could be spared from disagreement for the length of their natural lives. Finally she got it. The need for so many channels. — Barbara Kingsolver

Like any traveler, I'm always looking for those experiences that are almost unique to any place, and watching films around Alaska of the skies in winter made me want to taste those unworldly showers of light in person. — Pico Iyer

It was a place as blank as a sheet of paper. It was the place I had always been looking for... Flat expanses would call to me... These are the places where the desert is most itself: stark, open, free, an invitation to wander, a laboratory of perception, scale, light, a place where loneliness has a luxurious flavor... — Rebecca Solnit

We compromise ourselves the day we are born. If we are looking for the original sin, there it is- our incapacity to live honestly with ourselves because we are human, because we are shackled by custom, by obligations and we accept compromise only in the light of our conscience, answerable as we are only to ourselves. — F. Sionil Jose

She could not bear to lie in bed and wait, so she pestered the nurse until she could sit on a veranda, screened by a thick curtain of golden shower from the street, because she could assure herself she was not blind by looking through her glowing eyelids at the light from the sky. She sat there all day, and felt the waves of heat and perfume break across her in shock after shock of shuddering nostalgia. But nostalgia for what? — Doris Lessing

In people like us, the craving is as strong as the craving for food or water, the yearning for touch or light or love. I was looking for something--a diversion, an occupation, an unwavering force--that would elevate me, that would lift me out of the melancholy dissection of my own interior geography that otherwise would have consumed me pitilessly, as it had my father. I wanted to fly above myself-- if only for a few hours--and look down in tranquility upon my life. — Ethan Canin

If an object - a star, for instance, like our own sun - is eight hundred light years away from the Earth, it would take light leaving that object eight hundred years until it reached our eyes. So when you look at that object, you are seeing it as it appeared eight hundred light years ago, not as it looks today. It might not even exist anymore. Every time you look up at the stars, you are looking into the past. — Wendy Mass

Writing's funny, it's like walking down a hall in the dark looking for the light switch, and suddenly you find it, flip it on, and then you discover the hallway you passed through is papered with the novel you've written. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I flicked on the light beside my bed, waiting for my breathing to slow, veins full of adrenaline from the realistic dream.
A new dream, but in essence so much the same as the many others that had plagued me in the past months.
No, not a dream. Surely a memory.
I could still feel the heat of Jared's lips on mine. My hands reached out without my permission, searching across the rumpled sheets, looking for something they didn't find. My heart ached when they gave up, falling to the bed limp and empty. — Stephenie Meyer

What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose-knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful, that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through. I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with the aloofness of a work of art. The main requisite, I think, on reading my old volumes, is not to play the part of a censor, but to write as the mood comes or of anything whatever; since I was curious to find how I went for things put in haphazard, and found the significance to lie where I never saw it at the time. — Virginia Woolf

Hold on to the darkness ... I will come looking for your light. — Dimitri Zaik

Smiling now, Michael Dawn sat on his rooftop, gazing at the stars above him, just like men had done for thousands of years. Out there lay secrets and mysteries that an eternity could never unravel, worlds he could only imagine. Yet looking at them then, it all seemed so surreal. As if the only purpose the stars had in this world was to shine their tiny points of light down on him that evening. To give him something beautiful and breathtaking to admire. Maybe that was their only purpose. Maybe trying to get more out of them, trying to travel among them and shed light on things that were better left unexposed, had been the trouble all along. — John A. Ashley

For the life of him, he couldn't figure why these East Enders called themselves black. He kept looking and looking, and the colors he found were gingersnap and light fudge and dark fudge and acorn and butter rum and cinnamon and burnt orange. But never licorice, which, to him, was real black. — Jerry Spinelli

I've been looking for a long, long time,
for this thing called love,
I've ridden comets across the sky,
and I've looked below and above.
Then one day I looked inside myself,
and this is what I found,
A golden sun residing there,
beaming forth God's light and sound. — Rumi

When we look at a solid lump of iron or rock, we are 'really' looking at what is almost entirely empty space. It looks and feels solid and opaque because our sensory systems and brains find it convenient to treat it as solid and opaque. It is convenient for the brain to represent a rock as solid because we can't walk through it. 'Solid' is our way of experiencing things that we can't walk through or fall throug, because of the electromagnetic forces between atoms. 'Opaque' is the experience we have when light bounces off the surface of an object, and none of it goes through. — Richard Dawkins

But then she came closer and we saw the light in her eyes we have been looking for ever since. — Jeffrey Eugenides

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

Looking at the stars is a glimpse of history. Some of the things we see are millions of light-years away. Everything in the universe has a past but stars don't try to hide it. They just keep shinning, for everyone to see. — Kevin Alan Milne

If you want to be holy, if you seek meaning in your life, start looking into your own life and attacking your pride in all of its many forms. God will give you extraordinary light and the ultimate reward of holiness. For your holiness relies not on what you do, but on what you allow God to do through you. Have courage. God will perfect you. — Mother Angelica

It takes great courage and determination, to keep looking for light in all the darkness of life. — Menna Van Praag

Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath - "The Spouter Inn: - Peter Coffin." Coffin? - Spouter? - Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee. — Herman Melville

Then I looked right at Mama, for the first time in what seemed like forever, and she wasn't looking at me, but into me. She was pulling me to her with her eyes, like she used to do. All of a sudden I could see the light that was Mama's shining out of her eyes. I couldn't help smiling at it.
'Be careful,' my heart warned me.
But I was having a hard time remembering that there as anything to be careful about. Because if I just looked at Mama's eyes ... I could tell that the part of her I thought had gone away forever was still there and glowing, only from deep down inside her. — Katherine Hannigan

No more photos. Surely there are enough. No more shadows of myself thrown by light onto pieces of paper, onto squares of plastic. No more of my eyes, mouths, noses, moods, bad angles. No more yawns, teeth, wrinkles. I suffer from my own multiplicity. Two or three images would have been enough, or four, or five. That would have allowed for a firm idea: This is she. As it is, I'm watery, I ripple, from moment to moment I dissolve into my other selves. Turn the page: you, looking, are newly confused. You know me too well to know me. Or not too well: too much. — Margaret Atwood

But these things now belonged to the past, and he was flying toward the future. As they banked, Dr. Floyd could see below him a maze of buildings, then a great airstrip, then a broad, dead-straight scar across the flat Florida landscape - the multiple rails of a giant launching track. At its end, surrounded by vehicles and gantries, a spaceplane lay gleaming in a pool of light, being prepared for its leap to the stars. In a sudden failure of perspective, brought on by his swift changes of speed and height, it seemed to Floyd that he was looking down on a small silver moth, caught in the beam of a flashlight. — Arthur C. Clarke

Warriors of light always have a certain gleam in their eyes.
They are of this world, they are part of the lives of others, and they set out on their journey with no saddlebags and no sandals. They are often cowardly. They do not always make the right decisions.
They suffer over the most trivial things, they have mean thoughts, and sometimes believe that they are incapable of growing. They frequently deem themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle.
They are not always quite sure what they are doing here. They spend many sleepless nights, believing that their lives have no meaning.
That is why they are warriors of light. Because they make mistakes. Because they ask themselves questions. Because they are looking for a reason - and are sure to find it. — Paulo Coelho

In Paris the swaying lanterns are lit in the streets; lights shine through water, fuzzy, diffuse. Saint-Just sits by an insufficient fire, in a poor light. He is a Spartan after all, and Spartans don't need home comforts. He has begun his report, his list of accusations; if Robespierre saw it now, he would tear it up, but in a few days' time it will be the very thing he needs. Sometimes he stops, half-glances over his shoulder. He feels someone has come into the room behind him; but when he allows himself to look, there is nothing to see. It is my destiny, he feels, forming in the shadows of the room. It is the guardian angel I had, long ago when I was a child. It is Camille Desmoulins, looking over my shoulder, laughing at my grammar. He pauses for a moment. He thinks, there are no living ghosts. He takes hold of himself. Bends his head over his task. His pen scratches. His strange letterforms incise the paper. His handwriting is minute. He gets a lot of words to the page. — Hilary Mantel

Don't you think the stairs are a good place for reading letters? I do. One is somehow suspended. One is on neutral ground - not in one's own world nor in a strange one. They are an almost perfect meeting place. Oh Heavens! How stairs do fascinate me when I think of it. Waiting for people - sitting on strange stairs - hearing steps far above, watching the light playing by itself - hearing - far below a door, looking down into a kind of dim brightness, watching someone come up. But I could go on forever. Must put them in a story though! People come out of themselves on stairs - they issue forth, unprotected. — Katherine Mansfield

Warriors of the Light always have a certain gleam in their eyes. They are of this world. They are part of the lives of other people and they set out on their journey with no saddlebags and no sandals. They are often cowardly. They do not always make the right decisions. They suffer over the most trivial things; they have mean thoughts and sometimes believe they are incapable of growing. They frequently deem themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle. They are not always quite sure of what they are doing here. They spend many sleepless nights, believing that their lives have no meaning. That is why they are Warriors of the Light. Because they make mistakes, because they ask themselves questions, because they are looking for a reason they are sure to find it. — Paulo Coelho

Blue, largely against her will, glanced to the booth he pointed to. Three boys sat at it: one was smudgy, just as he said, with a rumpled, faded look about his person, like his body had been laundered too many times. The one who'd hit the light was handsome and his head was shaved; a soldier in a war where the enemy was everyone else. And the third was -- elegant. It was not the right word for him, but it was close. He was fine boned and a little fragile looking, with blue eyes pretty enough for a girl. — Maggie Stiefvater

We skipped stones across the creek, which sounds dumb but it wasn't. I don't know. Like the way the sun is right now, with the long shadows and that kind of bright, soft light you get when the sun isn't quite setting? That's the light that makes everything better, everything prettier, and today, everything just seems to be in that light. — John Green

We should always be prepared for attacks by the enemy and be capable of looking into the eye of death so that death may light our path. — Paulo Coelho

You're not just looking up into a curtain of black. You're looking into the eye of the universe. Stare for a while and you start to realize -- on a deep, gut level -- that the moon is a giant rock circling us in space. The sun is a violent, fusion-fueled ball of plasma and gas millions of miles away that destroyed the atmospheres of all of the inner planets (including Mars, which is farther away from it than we are) and would do the same to ours if we weren't lucky enough to have a magnetic field that diverts the solar wind. The cute little pinpricks of light you see out there are other giant, explosive, incredibly pissed-off balls of gas floating in an infinite void, most of which are far more impressive than our puny sun. And that smear of milky white through the sky? That's the center of our own galaxy -- a gigantic pinwheel circling a supermassive black hole like floating detritus around the vortex of a flushing toilet. — Johnny B. Truant

When a child walks in the room, your child or anybody else's child, do your eyes light up? That's what they're looking for. — Toni Morrison

Merry Christmas!' someone shouted.
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
'Merry Christmas!'
'Merry Christmas!'
'C-cookies for ever'body!' Sammy hollered. And looking both ways, they all fled across to the light, and the warmth, and the books, and the mystery. — Jan Karon

It's been said that the Magi, wise men, gazed up into the night skies, following a star. But they were not looking for a star. They were looking for hope. Hope of a new world. Hope of redemption. Light is not found in dark places, & hope is not found looking down or looking back. May you always look up. — Richard Paul Evans

No way you're calling Ben. We already have a plan. Were going to his house, and I'm going to ring the doorbell with some fake lab work for Chemistry, and then Taylor is going to set off his car alarm while I year through his room looking for evidence."
"Wow. Great plan, Kate. Just out of curiosity, what exactly are you planning on doing when he comes back to his room to find you knee-deep in his secret Brotherhood bullshit?" Liam spat his words at me like nails.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have a better idea? Ooh, I know. Maybe you could call you're brother and have him light his garage on fire or something. — Lisa Roecker

He sauntered to the counter. "What can I do for you?"
The red bandana he wore held back the hair that typically covered his eyes. I loved his eyes. Chocolate-brown, full of mischief and a spark ready to light the world on fire. "Can I have a glass of water, please?" And please let it be free.
"Is that it?"
My stomach growled, loud enough for Noah to hear. "Yep, that's it."
He fixed me a glass and handed it to me. "Are you sure you wouldn't like a burger? A nice thick burger on a toasted bun with salty fries on the side?"
I sucked on my straw, gulping the ice water down. Funny, water didn't give me that warm, fuzzy, full feeling like a burger and fries would. "I'm fine, thank you."
"Suit yourself. You see that nice-looking piece of meat right there?" He motioned to the patty frying. The aroma made my mouth water. — Katie McGarry

Oh, it's mysterious lamplit evenings, here in the galaxy, one after the other. It's one of those nights when I wander from window to window, looking for a sign. But I can't see. Terror and a beauty insoluble are a ribband of blue woven into the fringes of garments of things both great and small. No culture explains, no bivouac offers real haven or rest. But it could be that we are not seeing something. Galileo thought that comets were an optical illusion. This is fertile ground: since we are certain that they're not, we can look at what scientists are saying with fresh hope. What if there are really gleaming castellated cities hung upside-down over the desert sand? What limpid lakes and cool date palms have our caravans passed untried? Until, one by one, by the blindest of leaps, we light on the road to these places, we must stumble in darkness and hunger. — Annie Dillard

There are many ways in which the "check brain" light illuminates, but here's the screwed-up part: the driver can't see it. It's like the light is positioned in the backseat cup holder, beneath an empty can of soda that's been there for a month. No one sees it but the passengers - and only if they're really looking for it, or when the light gets so bright and so hot that it melts the can, and sets the whole car on fire. — Neal Shusterman

But now they must've worn off. He thought he may have groaned. It was hard to be sure in his kinda awake state. He tried to move his hand and yelled out at the pain. Oh yeah, fractured wrist. "Easy there, bad boy." Oh my lord. Curtis would know that sexy whisky-dripped baritone anywhere. He'd force open his own eyes now just to see those green eyes looking down at him. He didn't care if his head exploded into a million pieces. It'd be worth it for this sight. "Open those beautiful baby blues," Genesis said in a hushed drawl. Curtis fought through the fog and the pain and cracked open his eyes. He blinked a few times at the harsh light above his head but he kept on until Genesis' gorgeous face was in focus. Curtis' lips parted in a smile. What on earth was he doing there? He believed it was a Monday now. Genesis should be in school. "Gen. — A.E. Via

Ah, the Hand of Glory!" said Mr. Borgin, abandoning Mr. Malfoy's list and scurrying over to Draco. "Insert a candle and it gives light only to the holder! Best friend of thieves and plunderers! Your son has fine taste, sir." "I hope my son will amount to more than a thief or a plunderer, Borgin," said Mr. Malfoy coldly, and Mr. Borgin said quickly, "No offense, sir, no offense meant - " "Though if his grades don't pick up," said Mr. Malfoy, more coldly still, "that may indeed be all he is fit for - " "It's not my fault," retorted Draco. "The teachers all have favorites, that Hermione Granger - " "I would have thought you'd be ashamed that a girl of no wizard family beat you in every exam," snapped Mr. Malfoy. "Ha!" said Harry under his breath, pleased to see Draco looking both abashed and angry. — J.K. Rowling

Learn from this, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Hell does have an exit, and I found it. For those who are still looking for a way out, I left the door open and I'll be waiting for whoever wants to grow with me. — Kid Cudi

Experimenting with touch, he found he barely had to ripple a light fingertip over his sleeping lover, and Tristan would move, twisting until he was melted into Michael's embrace. Stroking Tristan's cheek got Michael a sleepy kiss. Touching Tristan's back or sliding a hand down his spine earned Michael the satisfying squeeze of arms around him. And squeezing Tristan's ass got him a fully awake and erect boy-toy looking for love. — Z.A. Maxfield

As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are the exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you can't see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but you can't see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I never heard of anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does not mean that they are black, for night has its colours just as day has, but ever so much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ours with a light behind them. The palace is entirely built of many-coloured glasses, and is quite the loveliest of all royal residences, — J.M. Barrie

Looking forward with an eternal perspective gives one hope, a reason to look up and feel gratitude for even the smallest bit of light. — Rosemary M. Wixom

I'm looking for someone who will light candles, not just curse the darkness. — Joshua Harris

Distance, looking out of the window. "You are in love?" I ask. "You must know it," he says in a whisper. I hardly dare think. He must mean me; he must be about to declare his love for me. But I swear if he is talking about someone else I shall just die. I can't bear him to want someone else. But I keep my voice light. "Why should I know it?" "You must know who I love," he says. "You, of all people in the world." This conversation is so delicious I can feel my toes curling up inside my new slippers. I feel hot; I am certain I am blushing and he will be able to see. "Must I?" "The king will see you now," announces the idiot Dr. Butt, and I jump and start away from Thomas Culpepper, for I had utterly forgotten that I was there to see the king and to make — Philippa Gregory

The light bounced off the water and shimmered against the buildings on the other side of the river. Joseph walked, listening to the sound of what was beneath his feet, and soon he noticed he was alone. He turned and saw Frankie had stopped beside Albert and filled her jacket pockets. Looking at the two of them, Joseph wondered for a moment if Leo had ever come down here to go mudlarking, his red hair shining in the sun. the vision seemed so vivid, but then Joseph remembered that Leo wasn't real, and the boy dissolved like smoke into the winter sky. — Brian Selznick

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

Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that's where the light is. It has no other choice. — Noam Chomsky

But why should the soul take to itself a body? For the same reason that I take a looking-glass - to see myself. Thus, in the body, the soul is reflected. The soul is God, and every human being has a perfect divinity within himself, and each one must show his divinity sooner or later. If I am in a dark room, no amount of protestation will make it any brighter - I must light a match. — Swami Vivekananda

If you aren't willing to keep looking for light in the darkest of places without stopping, even when it seems impossible, you will never succeed. — Amelia Shepherd

While the long history of religious oppression and hypocrisy is profoundly sobering, the earnest seeker must look beyond the behavior of flawed humans in order to find the truth. Would you condemn an oak tree because its timbers had been used to build battering rams? Would you blame the air for allowing lies to be transmitted through it? Would you judge Mozart's The Magic Flute on the basis of a poorly rehearsed performance by fifth-graders? If you had never seen a real sunset over the Pacific, would you allow a tourist brochure as a substitute? Would you evaluate the power of romantic love solely in the light of an abusive marriage next door? No. A real evaluation of the truth of faith depends upon looking at the clean, pure water, not at the rusty containers. — Francis S. Collins

Feeling slightly better for having a bit of light to keep with her, she continued down the street, occasionally looking through a window to see the remains of a room. — Thaddeus Nowak

America is looking for answers. She's looking for a new direction; the world is looking for a light. That light can come from America's great North Star; it can come from Alaska. — Sarah Palin

Essentially, in photography, I think on two levels: one emotional and the other technical. The emotional impact has to do with looking for something dramatic happening in the photograph, something that reaches out and touches somebody in some way. And the technical is having to do with composition and framing - light and dark, light and shadow. — Leonard Nimoy

The cashier had long since left for home. By now she was probably bustling by an unmade bed that was waiting in her small room like a boat to carry her off to the black lagoons of sleep, into the complicated world of dreams. The person sitting in the box office was only a wraith, an illusory phantom looking with tired, heavily made-up eyes at the empyiness of light, fluttering her lashes thoughtlessly to disperse the golden dust of drowsiness scattered by the elctric bulbs. — Bruno Schulz

When I meet someone, I look at their eyes and their smile and seek out the good first - it's easy to find when you're looking for it. You let a person shine with their own light and try to connect it to yours. As soon as I say hello, I go right to that light and I don't care who you are! I know we're all pieces of the same thing - I go for that common light because I know it's in all of us. — Dolly Parton

Owen was so tiny, we loved to pick him up; in truth, we couldn't resist picking him up. We thought it was a miracle: how little he weighed. This was also incongruous because Owen came from a family in the granite business. The Meany Granite Quarry was a big place, the equipment for blasting and cutting the granite slabs was heavy and dangerous-looking; granite itself is such a rough, substantial rock. But the only aura of the granite quarry that clung to Owen was the granular dust, the gray powder that sprang off his clothes whenever we lifted him up. He was the color of a gravestone; light was both absorbed and reflected by his skin, as with a pearl, so that he appeared translucent at times - especially at his temples, where his blue veins showed through his skin (as though, in addition to his extraordinary size, there were other evidence that he was born too soon). — John Irving

The child probably overheard their voices; for, looking up to the window, with a bright, but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence, she threw one of the prickly burrs at the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The sensitive clergyman shrunk, with nervous dread, from the light missile. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

I feel like I'm way down this deep, deep hole and I'm looking up and all there is is this little dot of light and I have to shout at the top of my lungs for anyone to hear me and even when I do, I say the wrong thing or they don't really listen or they're just humouring me. — Patrick Ness

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with it's path high above, and it's two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of a gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. — Hayley Williams

A little more patience, a little more charity for all, a little more devotion, a little more love; with less bowing down to the past, and a silent ignoring of pretended authority; brave looking forward to the future with more faith in our fellows, and the race will be ripe for a great burst of light and life. — Elbert Hubbard

When we gaze at a star in the Milky Way which is 50,000 light-years away from our sun, we are looking back 50,000 years in time."
"The idea is much too big for my little head."
"The only way we can look out into space, then, is to look back in time. We can never know what the universe is like now. We only know what it was like then. When we look up at a star that is thousands of light-years away, we are really traveling thousands of years back in the history of space. — Jostein Gaarder

There was a man who sat each day looking out through a narrow vertical opening where a single board had been removed from a tall wooden fence. Each day a wild ass of the desert passed outside the fence and across the narrow opening - first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long brown back, the hindlegs, and lastly the tail. One day, the man leaped to his feet with the light of discovery in his eyes and he shouted for all who could hear him: It is obvious! The nose causes the tail! — Frank Herbert

If you're looking for light entertainment, you can't get much lighter than 'Bye Bye Birdie,' a flyweight farce about the coming of rock n' roll to small-town America. — Terry Teachout