Looking To The Sun Quotes & Sayings

Instead of an intellectual search, there was suddenly a very deep gut feeling that something was different. It occurred when looking at Earth and seeing this blue-and-white planet floating there, and knowing it was orbiting the Sun, seeing that Sun, seeing it set in the background of the very deep black and velvety cosmos, seeing - rather, knowing for sure - that there was a purposefullness of flow, of energy, of time, of space in the cosmos - that it was beyond man's rational ability to understand, that suddenly there was a nonrational way of understanding that had been beyond my previous experience.
There seems to be more to the universe than random, chaotic, purposeless movement of a collection of molecular particles.
On the return trip home, gazing through 240,000 miles of space toward the stars and the planet from which I had come, I suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving, harmonious. — Edgar D. Mitchell

I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions. — Henri Matisse

Daybreak has extraordinary hypnotizing influence,
On us, idealistic observers.
When red sun slowly reveals on the rivers surface,
like in a mirror,
It reminds of two lovers embracing,
Just by looking into each others eyes.
In such deep and serious commitment,
Without unnecessary words,
That spoil the instant of confidence.
Water is not stopping it's course,
Neither does the sun.
That's what makes it so exceptional,
So magnificent.
The only tie is their gentle admiration,
As their love is greater than space separating.

And who ever had the chance, to witness that, just once,
Shouldn't say he haven't found God. — Aleksandra Ninkovic

The air is still and freezing cold. The sky is a perfect, pale blue. The sun has just risen, weak and watery-looking, like it has just spilled itself over the horizon and it's too lazy to clean itself up. — Lauren Oliver

Sadhana Start by paying attention to everything you think of as yourself just before you fall asleep: your thoughts, your emotions, your hair, your skin, your clothes, your makeup. Know that none of this is you. There is no need to make any conclusion about what "you" are or what "truth" is. Truth is not a conclusion. If you keep the false conclusions at bay, truth will dawn. It is like your experience of the night: the sun has not gone; it is just that the planet is looking the other way. You're thinking, reading, talking about the self, because you're too busy looking the other way! You haven't paid enough attention to know what the self really is. What is needed is not a conclusion, but a turnaround. If you manage to enter sleep with this awareness, it will be significant. Since there is no external interference in sleep, this will grow into a powerful experience. Over time, you will enter a dimension beyond all accumulations. — Sadhguru

I used to stay up all night playing 'Resident Evil 2,' and it wouldn't stop until the sun came up. Then I'd walk outside at dawn's first light, looking at the empty streets of London, and it was like life imitating art. It felt like I'd stepped into an actual zombie apocalypse. — Edgar Wright

Gil sat baking in the sun for at least 45 minutes before one of the tour guides noticed him looking listless and leaning to his left side. As she approached him, she noticed that he had a stupid grin on his face.
"Are you all right, Mr. Cohen?" she asked as she tried to slowly help him to his feet.
His shirt was drenched with sweat and his skin was mostly clammy, signally that he was suffering from the middle stages of heat stroke.
"It's not so bad?" he muttered as he struggled to stand straight up. "What not so bad, Mr. Cohen?" one of the tour guides asked.
"Death," Gil stated in a glazed response.
The guide looked at the heat-stricken man who appeared to have amoment of clarity amidst all of the sweat and dehydration. "Why is death not so bad?" she pressed on. Gil took a big swig of Gatorade and replied, "Because life wasn't so great. — Phil Wohl

He was looking forward to his visit not only for the pleasure of the shrewd dealing which far transcended mere gross profit, but with the sheer happiness of being out of bed and moving once more at free will, even though a little weakly, in the sun and air which men drank and moved in and talked and dealt with one another - a pleasure no small part of which lay in the fact that he had not started yet and was absolutely nothing under heaven to make him start until he wanted to. He did not still feel weak, he was merely luxuriating in that supremely gutful lassitude of convalescence in which time, hurry, doing, did not exist, the accumulating seconds and minutes and hours to which in its well state the body's slave both waking and sleeping, now reversed and time now the lip-server and mendicant to the body's pleasure instead of the body thrall to time's headlong course. — William Faulkner

On A Cold Day, Of A Cool Walking

The day is cold, and the clouds are gray.
The grass is white with frost, and may I say?
The sun is coming up, over the hill.
It's so quiet, and so still.
In the midst of all the trees, by the broke I see.
Something moving in the bush; what could it be?
The frost falls from the dead leaves, as he hops about in the breeze.
It's a bunny, all bundled up with fur, so he will not freeze.
Life keeps on going, even when we think not.
Where are you going, and what is your lot?
Looking for God's Love, from up above?
Jesus will fly to you, like a dove.
He is there; just start talking.
On a cold day, of a cool walking. — Jerrel C. Thomas

God's terrible face brighter than a spoon
collects the image of one fatal word;
so that my life(which liked the sun and the moon)
resembles something that has not occurred:
i am a birdcage without any bird
a collar looking for a dog a kiss
without lips;a prayer lacking any knees
but something beats within my shirt to prove
he is undead who living noone is.
I have never loved you dear as now i love. — E. E. Cummings

When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of Spring's flowering meads; when learning stripped the Earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone forever, there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world's dreams had fled. — H.P. Lovecraft

The priest gazed around my cell and answered in a voice that sounded very weary to me. 'Every stone here sweats with suffering, I know that. I have never looked at them without a feeling of anguish. But deep in my heart I know that the most wretched among you have seen a divine face emerge from their darkness. That is the face you are asked to see.'
This perked me up a little. I said I had been looking at the stones in these walls for months. There wasn't anything or anyone in the world I knew better. Maybe at one time, way back, I had searched for a face in them. But the face I was looking for was as bright as the sun and the flame of desire - and it belonged to Marie. — Albert Camus

Cattle liked to stand on the roadside at night and would suddenly step out into the paths of oncoming cars, almost as if they were curious to find out what lay behind the headlights. Perhaps they thought that the headlights were torches, held by their owners, and came out to see if they brought food; perhaps they were looking for warmth and thought the lights were the sun. Perhaps they thought nothing in particular, which was always possible with cattle, and with some people too, for that matter. — Alexander McCall Smith

Before the general use of these instruments of precision in time, there was a wider margin for all appointments; a longer period was required and prepared for, especially in travelling--- coaches of the olden period were not expected to start like steamers or trains, on the instant--- men judged of the time by probabilities, by looking at the sun, and needed not, as a rule, to be nervous about the loss of a moment, and had incomparable fewer experiences wherein a delay of a few minutes might destroy the hopes of a lifetime. A nervous man cannot take out his watch and look at it when the time for an appointment or train is near, without affecting his pulse, and the effect on that pulse, if we could but measure and weigh it, would be found to be correlated to a loss to the nervous system. — George Miller Beard

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O! let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack — William Shakespeare

A cloud, the exact color of the boy's hat and shaped like a turnip, had descended over the sun, and another, worse looking, crouched behind the car. Mr. Shiftlet felt that the rottenness of the world was about to engulf him. — Flannery O'Connor

Did you talk to Terry Wilcox?"
"Yes."
"How'd that go?"
I had lifted my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun so I could look at him. During my questioning, Lee was looking beyond me to the alley and into the backyards of my neighbors. When he answered, his eyes shifted to me.
"I gave him your excuses for missing dinner on Wednesday."
"What were those?"
"You'd be with me and I'd be fucking your brains out."
My vagina went into spasm and my knees went week.
"How'd he take that?" I asked, trying to pretend I wasn't about to collapse.
"He wasn't pleased. — Kristen Ashley

Tall, broad-shouldered, every inch of him seemingly corded with muscle, he was a male blooded with power. He paused in a dusty shaft of sunlight, his silver hair gleaming. As if his delicately pointed ears and slightly elongated canines weren't enough to scare the living shit out of everyone in that alley, including the now-whimpering madwoman behind Celaena, a wicked-looking tattoo was etched down the left side of his harsh face, the whorls of black ink stark against his sun-kissed skin. — Sarah J. Maas

The best beauty advice I ever received is to keep skin hydrated and limit harsh exposure to the sun. If you are set on the tanned look, there are plenty of great creams that will give you a healthy-looking glow. — Erica Durance

But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun - the plane of the earth around the sun - the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe. The new results are either telling us that all of science is wrong and we're the center of the universe, or maybe the data is (s)imply incorrect, or maybe it's telling us there's something weird about the microwave background results and that maybe, maybe there's something wrong with our theories on the larger scales. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Her gaze traveled across the western sky that was dotted with clouds and was held by the wintry looking sun, so pure, so lovely, and so impossible to touch. Sheila felt that that was how her love was - Out of reach, unquestionably warm, and as certain as the celestial ball. — Shampa Sharma

A rose lay open in full bloom
and, looking from my garden room,
I watched the sun-baked flower fill with rain.
It seemed so fragile,
resting there,
and such a silence filled the air,
the beauty of the moment caused me pain.
"What more?" I thought. "There must be more."
As if in answer then, I saw
one weighty drop that caused my rose to fall.
It trembled, then cascaded down
to earth just staining gentle brown
and, since then, I've felt different.
That's all. — Julie Andrews Edwards

Looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. The energy and space around a material are as important as the energy and space within. The weather
rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm
is that external space made visible. When I touch a rock, I am touching and working the space around it. It is not independent of its surroundings, and the way it sits tells how it came to be there. — Andy Goldsworthy

This is the definition of clutter: things that exist in your outer life to distract you from the inner things that you're avoiding. If you avoid something, it grows.... The great thing is, the reverse is also true: when you honestly look at something, it shrinks. When you see the situation for what it is, bypassing the emotional layers that coloured it and made it into a clutter monster, it becomes simple. That's how peaceful clutter busting is. You're honestly looking at each layer of distraction, questioning the thing, letting it go, and realizing what's underneath. Looking directly at something has the power of a magnifying glass in the sun. The sun is you; the glass, your attention — Brooks Palmer

The Crocodile The sun of the Macusi people was worried. Every day there were fewer fish in their ponds. He put the crocodile in charge of security. The ponds got emptier. The crocodile, security guard and thief, invented a good story about invisible assailants, but the sun didn't believe it, took a machete, and left the crocodile's body all crisscrossed with cuts. To calm him down, the crocodile offered his beautiful daughter in marriage. "I'll be expecting her," said the sun. As the crocodile had no daughter, he sculpted a woman in the trunk of a wild plum tree. "Here she is," he said, and plunged into the water, looking out of the corner of his eye, the way he always looks. It was the woodpecker who saved his life. Before the sun arrived, the woodpecker pecked at the wooden girl below the belly. Thus she, who was incomplete, was open for the sun to enter. (112) — Eduardo Galeano

Funny sky,' he said, squinting up at the thick-bellied white clouds and the sun shining so hot on them but not breaking through.
'It feels as if there should be a storm,' I said 'but it was like this at haymaking and the weather never properly broke then.'
'If I was at sea I should run for a port,' Ralph said. He was looking towards the horizon where there was a yellow tinge to the sky over the top of the downs. — Philippa Gregory

Ladies and gentlemen, today we're here to honor electricity, the charge that charges everything from those electrons snapping in our brain to our father the sun. What's the sun It's kind of like a brain. Electromagnetic field, solar flares sparking back and forth from those nerve cells. We're all one, folks, giant blobs of electricity, all of us. Positive & negative, electromagnetic fields just circling each other. Positive, negative, north, south, male and female. Looking for that electric moment. Magnet to magnet, opposites attract. — Robin Green

She was asleep. In my car.
I stood next to the passenger side for a minute, looking down at her. The sun made her skin seem translucent and bloodless. For a moment, it didn't matter why I was falling in love with her. Just that I was. — Tessa Gratton

He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking. — Leo Tolstoy

Friendship is about more than facts. It's about knowing what someone is thinking, or knowing enough to know that you don't. But I guess it's also about not letting too much time go by without asking them questions, so you don't end up looking at them one afternoon, the sun so bright you have to squint, realizing that you hardly recognize the person they've become. — Nina LaCour

I use Meaningful Beauty for my daily skincare regime. The system helps to restore, protect, revitalize and renew my skin. Using it daily along with avoiding the sun, not smoking, drinking a lot of water, and getting enough sleep is key to looking and feeling good at any age! — Cindy Crawford

Do you ever think of me when you look up at the moon and the stars? When you look into the horizon as the sun sets? We're looking at the same sun, and the stars may burn brighter where you are, but I can't see them, and they're still there. I spend nights trying to see the stars that you see, but I end up seeing you in the stars instead. — Karen Quan

It would have been only fair to tell him so. To explain, right now, that she was the bloody Titanic whose wake would carry him under, if he didn't jump into the lifeboat and head for the open sea.
Instead, he leaned over to kiss her.
She waited. Hesitated. Then withdrew her head before their lips could touch. For a split second he looked offended, but then he smiled, blinked at the sun, and said, "Well, when it gets to that point, I want to be there."
"When what gets to what point?"
"When you're not looking at everyone else as if they'd just declared war on you. And when you realize" - he pointed across the ravine - "that things may look like the end of the world but the world still goes on, over there on the other side. Maybe just one really large step would cross it. — Kai Meyer

Contrary to John Anthony West's assertion (in his book, Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt) that there are no other possible interpretations of the mummy figure looking at the stars on the depiction in the tomb of Tutankhamen beyond being a matter of consciousness, many proofs point to ancient Egypt's aspiration to be among the stars and it is an essential part of its theology. It is after all evident that [the Pyramid Texts describe early conceptions of an afterlife in terms of eternal travelling with the sun god amongst the stars]. Staying loyal to the Upper Heavens' authority or breaking away from it, made ancient Egypt yearn to such a high position beyond Earth's physical realm where the Sun's shadow (i.e., snake) of the Lower Heavens' authority cannot fly. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

In these considerations there may be an entire philosophy for someone with the strength to draw conclusions. It won't be me. Lucid vague thoughts and logical possibilities occur to me, but they all dim in the vision of a ray of sunlight that gilds a pile of dung like wetly squished dark straw, on the almost black soil next to a stone wall.

That's how I am. When I want to think, I look. When I want to descend into my soul, I suddenly freeze, oblivious, at the top of the long spiral staircase, looking through the upper-storey window at the sun that bathes the sprawling mass of rooftops in a tawny farewell. — Fernando Pessoa

All I can see is you. Why can't you understand that? No one shines as bright as you in the sky I'm looking at. To me there is no sun, no moon, and no stars in the sky, just endless miles of storm clouds and pretty, pretty gray. — Jay Crownover

I even yelled at you last night." Phin eased up. "For which I apologize."
"It was kind of nice," Sophie said. "At least you know I was there."
"Oh hell, Spohie, I always know you're there." Phin rolled twords her on one hip, and Sophie felt felt a flare of hope, but he was just digging something out of his back pocket. "Here." He weld out an emerald-cut diamond ring the size of her head. "Marry me, Julie Ann. Ruin the rest of my life."
"Hello." Sophie gasped at the ring. "Jeez, that thing is huge. Where did you get it?"
"My mother gave it to me," Phin said sounding bemused.
Then the other shoe dropped. "Marry you?" Sophie said, and the sun came out and the birds to sing and the river sent up a cheer. Marriage was probably out- Liz as a mother-in-law was too terrifying to complete , and Phin would never get elected agian if he was married to a pornographer- but suddenly everything else was looking pretty good. — Jennifer Crusie

Without thinking, I knelt in the grass, like someone meaning to pray.
When I tried to stand again, I couldn't move,
my legs were utterly rigid. Does grief change you like that?
Through the birches, I could see the pond.
The sun was cutting small white holes in the water.
I got up finally; I walked down to the pond.
I stood there, brushing the grass from my skirt, watching myself,
like a girl after her first lover
turning slowly at the bathroom mirror, naked, looking for a sign.
But nakedness in women is always a pose.
I was not transfigured. I would never be free. — Louise Gluck

Look at them. Where are they looking? They're not looking at each other, they're not looking at the art on the wall or the sun in the sky; they're looking at their phones. They hang on to every beep and alert and tweet and status update. I don't want to be that. I'm distracted enough as it is by the actual, tangible, physical world. I've embraced the efficiency of a desktop PC for work and research, and I even use a laptop on my own time, but I draw the line at a cell phone. If I want social media, I'll join a book club. I will not be collared and leashed and tracked like a tagged orca in the ocean. — Penny Reid

It was almost painful to watch,that kite of mine.
Tethered to the string in my hand. Dancing in the sky all alone.
My breath caught in my throat, my pulse beating wild and crazy on my chest. My heart soaring with every dip and turn of the kite,as if I were flying along,instead of standing with my two feet on the ground, squinting against the sun to see the dance.
What if it fell?
What if the breeze took it away?
I counted the seconds until I could reel it back in.
I was that kite.
Fragile against the wind. Soaring one minute. Spiraling straight down next. Just looking for something to hold me up.
Before I spun out of control and flew away.
Dissappearing fron sight. — Jenny B. Jones

The heavy black she had worn for years was gone; her dress was of turquoise-colored silk, bright and soft as the evening sky. It belled out full from her hips, and all the skirt was embroidered with thin silver threads and seed pearls and tiny crumbs of crystal, so that it glittered softly, like rain in April. She looked at the magician, speechless. "Do you like it?" "Where - " "It's like a gown I saw a princess wear once, at the Feast of Sun-return in the New Palace in Havnor," he said, looking at it with satisfaction. "You told me to show you something worth seeing. I show you yourself. — Ursula K. Le Guin

It was an innocent enough activity, after all; like looking at the sky, perhaps, when the sun was going down and had made the clouds copper-red, or looking at a herd of fine cattle moving slowly over the land when rains had brought on the sweet green grass. These were pleasures which the soul needed from time to time, and she would wait for Mma Makutsi until she had examined the shoes from all angles. — Alexander McCall Smith

Many days passed before we could speak to the Golden One again. But then came the day when the sky turned white, as if the sun had burst and spread its flame in the air, and the fields lay still without breath, and the dust of the road was white in the glow. So the women of the field were weary, and they tarried over their work, and they were far from the road when we came. But the Golden One stood alone at the hedge, waiting. We stopped and we saw that their eyes, so hard and scornful to the world, were looking at us as if they would obey any word we might speak. — Ayn Rand

The earth has circled the sun more than two thousand times since the day Honi drew his circle in the sand, but God is still looking for circle makers. And the timeless truth secreted within this ancient legend is as true now as it was then: Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God isn't offended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers aren't impossible to you, they are insulting to God. Why? Because they don't require divine intervention. But ask — Mark Batterson

Vimes died. The sun dropped out of the sky, giant lizards took over the world, and the stars exploded and went out and all hope vanished and gurgled into the sinktrap of oblivion. And gas filled the firmament and combusted and behold! There was a new heaven - or possibly not. And Disc and Io and and possibly verily life crawled out of the sea - or possibly didn't because it had been made by the gods, and lizards turned to less scaly lizards - or possibly did not. And lizards turned into birds and bugs turned into butterflies and a species of apple turned into banana and a kind of monkey fell out of a tree and realised life was better when you didn't have to spend your time hanging onto something. And in only a few billion years evolved trousers and ornamental stripey hats. Lastly the game of Crocket. And there, magically reincarnated, was Vimes, a little dizzy, standing on the village green looking into the smiling countenance of an enthusiast. — Terry Pratchett

Never boyfriends? You've NEVER been in LOVE?"
As I shake my head no, I look out the window, yearning to see Cole's sun-filled eyes again looking into mine.
"Don't worry," Tiger said. "Love isn't easy- and it happens on its own time. Just hang in there. He'll come around. — Giorge Leedy

If you think looking at three hundred boiling-mad, half-cocked Virginians holding every kind of breechloader under God's sun staring back at you with murder in their eyes is a ticket to redemption, you is on the dot. — James McBride

One day we had one of those freak storms when the sky turned blue-black and the lightning fretted a silver filigree across it. And then had come the rain - great, fat, heavy drops, as warm as blood. When the storm had passed, the sky had been washed to the clear blue of a hedge-sparrow's egg and the damp earth sent out wonderfully rich, almost gastronomic smells as of fruit-cake or plum pudding; and the olive trunks steamed as the rain was dried off them by the sun, each trunk looking as though it were on fire. — Gerald Durrell

Wow!" My whole body exploded with joy and excitement to see this magnificent sight. Overwhelmed by their presence, my stomach fluttered right along with them. Butterflies of every color, looking as if they were painted with patches of bold bright reds, oranges, blues, purples, and yellows, all intertwined, overlapping each other. As I continued to follow their path, I squinted at the brilliant sun in the cloudless sky. It blinded me for a split second, and then I saw that the butterflies were returning, circling around Michael and me - all of them dancing in the sky. Each knew its location and position with such precision, never colliding while reaching higher and higher to form a tunnel. Countless butterflies, circling around us, gave me chills as I could feel the air gently flowing from their wings. It was incredible to experience such beauty of color and grace so close within reach. — C. Gockel

He could feel the shape of his eyeballs beneath his lids, round and hot, tasty bits of jelly rolling restless to and fro, looking vainly for oblivion, while the rising sun turned his lids a dark and bloody red. — Diana Gabaldon

What do you think of it?" Claire had asked her then. "It's a dump." Claire had smiled. "Exactly, thank you. Just watch." Maya had no creativity for such things. She could not see the potential. Claire could. She had that kind of touch. Soon the two words that came to mind when you pulled up to the home were "cheerful" and "homey." The whole place ended up looking like a happy kid's crayon drawing somehow, with the sun always shining and the flowers taller than the front door. That — Harlan Coben

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

Looking over the beach and the ocean as the sun begins to drop down in the west, a strange sense of pride: pride in all I've done and lived through, proud to think of the thousands of people I've met and known and the few I've loved. — William Boyd

The world is exactly the same as it was before, except that Americans now realize that they are a part of it. People get blown up every day, but not until Americans started getting blown up within our own borders by people who aren't Americans did it become real to us.
The world has not changed, but our attention has been called to it. We are looking directly at the sun now, and it is blinding us. We need the same books we always have; we need our friends and hobbies and meaningful work; and we need them quick, to provide the dark glasses that will let us watch the eclipse, and respond to it usefully, and not go mad. — Peni Griffin

What does our baby think of the cord sprouting
into the whoosh whoosh of my wife's heartbeat?
And does Ramon imagine the lines of seaweed
are kite strings stretching into a heaven of water?

I see Ramon and our baby looking up,
up where stretched-out skin, the roof of the world,
lets in the light of day, up where the sun
is a ballet of burning coins. The heart - a kite
like a bucking bronc straining to break into sky. — Vince Gotera

I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach"; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars - even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. The — Henry David Thoreau

At the end of the day, when the sun falls a willing prisoner of the night ... and humans, males and females alike, become submitted to the mistress of the dark, my mind begins to wander and wonder. Looking upwards at a blank slate of concrete, the psyque expresses freely what my subconscious is afraid to give free rein. And there and then, between the play of reality and dreamland, I find my place. I find myself. — Eiry Nieves

Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. Gentlemen — Charles Dickens

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

Tania ... where did you get all those freckles?" he asked softly. "I know, they're so annoying. It's the sun," she replied, blushing and touching her face as if wanting to scrub off the freckles that covered the bridge of her nose and spread in sprinkles under her eyes. Please stop looking at me, she thought, afraid of his eyes and terrified of her own heart. "What about your blonde hair?" he continued, just as softly. "Is that the sun, too? — Paullina Simons

My lord, when you are looking for ... what I am looking for, you have to look in strange places. Men can never look at the sun, except downwards, at his reflection in things of earth. If he is reflected in a dirty puddle, he is still the sun. There is nowhere I will not look, to find him. — Mary Stewart

First the slender Spear Tower, a hundred-and-a-half feet tall and crowned with a spear of gilded steel that added another thirty feet to its height; then the mighty Tower of the Sun, with its dome of gold and leaded glass; last the dun-colored Sandship, looking like some monstrous dromond that had washed ashore and turned to stone. — George R R Martin

I'm so alive.
As I stand facing the beauty of the never-ending Pacific Ocean, a late afternoon breeze blows down from the hills behind. As always, it is a beautiful day. The sun is making its final descent. The magic is about to begin. The skies are ready to burn with brilliance, as it turns from a soft blue to a bright orange. Looking towards the West, I stare in awe at the hypnotic power of the waves. A giant curl begins to take form, then breaks with a thundering clap as it crashes on the shore. — Dave Pelzer

Because I was the only child, I was completely indulged. My father thought I was the best looking boy. And even though I was at 100 kgs., he dismissed it as puppy fat. He thought that the sun came out of my head. If I got five out of ten marks, he thought I was half there and had only half way more to go. — Karan Johar

Returning the Pencil to Its Tray Everything is fine - the first bits of sun are on the yellow flowers behind the low wall, people in cars are on their way to work, and I will never have to write again. Just looking around will suffice from here on in. Who said I had to always play the secretary of the interior? And I am getting good at being blank, staring at all the zeroes in the air. It must have been all the time spent in the kayak this summer that brought this out, the yellow one which went nicely with the pale blue life jacket - the sudden, tippy buoyancy of the launch, then the exertion, striking into the wind against the short waves, but the best was drifting back, the paddle resting athwart the craft, and me mindless in the middle of time. Not even that dark cormorant perched on the No Wake sign, his narrow head raised as if he were looking over something, not even that inquisitive little fellow could bring me to write another word. — Billy Collins

I'm trying to remember how you tell the time by looking at the sun." -"I should leave it for a while, it's too bright to see the numbers at the moment. — Terry Pratchett

She was as different from her dazzling sister as night was to day. Ballard found it difficult to look at the younger girl for more than a moment at a time. Beauty such as hers blinded him, like looking directly at the sun. Louvaen though--he could happily drown in the dark Louvaen. — Grace Draven

He tried not to look at her long, as if she were the sun; but like the sun, he saw her even without looking." I — Kyle West

It felt like looking into the face of the sun: once I turned away, I was blind to everything else. At — Jodi Picoult

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

When he couldn't walk anymore he sailed, and when he couldn't sail anymore he was at the End of the World, where sat a dignified man in a dinner suit, dangling his long legs over the edge. He was patting his lapels and turning out his pockets and looking generally perplexed. "Bother," said the well-dressed man. "I've lost the Key to the World. If I don't wind it up and set its clockwork going again, the sun and moon and stars won't turn, and the world will be plunged into an eternal nighttime of miserable cold and darkness. Bother! — Lev Grossman

I keep quiet and look out the window. The light is weak and watery-looking, like the sun hast just spilled itself over the horizon and is too lazy to clean itself up. The shadows are as sharp and pointed as needles. I watch three black crows take off simultaneausly from a telephone wire and wish I could take off too, move up, up, up, and watch the ground drop away from me the way it does when you're on an airplane, folding and compressing into itself like an origami figure, until everything is flat and brightly colored - until the world is like a drawing of itself — Lauren Oliver

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

To someone standing in the nave, looking down the length of the church toward the east, the round window would seem like a huge sun exploding into innumerable shards of gorgeous color. — Ken Follett

When you get as old as I am, you kind of believe there's nothing new under the sun, but there's always a fresh way of looking at something. That's why I love working with young people. They remind you of things you used to know and have since forgotten. — Jacki Weaver

Summer fell upon Paris, with everyone still intently following his own subterranean course of passion or habit and looking up like a startled creature of the night at the blazing June sun. Now, all of a sudden, there was an impelling necessity to go away, to give a continuation or a meaning to the winter that had just gone by. — Francoise Sagan

It's about waking up in the morning with everything around you looking gray. Gray sky, gray sun, gray city, gray people, gray thoughts. And the only way out is to have another drink. Then you feel better. Then the colors come back. — Sergei Lukyanenko

Emma's heart was pounding. She chanced a look up at Julian. For the briefest of moments he looked like someone who'd been staggering through the Mojave Desert, half-dead from the sun, and had seen a glimmer of water up ahead only to have it turn out to be a mirage. "Still no Mark?" Emma said hastily as Cristina reached them. Not that there was a real reason Cristina would know where Mark was; Emma just didn't want her looking at Julian. Not when he looked like that. — Cassandra Clare

For John was running, and this was terrible. Because if you ran, time ran. You yelled and screamed and raced and rolled and tumbled and all of a sudden the sun was gone and the whistle was blowing and you were on your long way home to supper. When you weren't looking, the sun got around behind you! The only way to keep things slow was to watch everything and do nothing! You could stretch a day to three days, sure, just by watching! — Ray Bradbury

Oh, I'm with the government all right," said Serge. "But when I say 'with,' I mean in the context of I'm in favor of it because otherwise there are no streets or postage stamps, and everyone wanders the woods carrying their own mail and looking at the sun to know when to eat until there's an eclipse and everyone's blind. That's why you should vote. — Tim Dorsey

How happy he must be, this Hobgoblin," exclaimed Sniff.
"He isn't a bit," replied Snufkin, "and he won't be until he finds the King's Ruby. It's almost as big as the black panther's head, and to look into it is like looking at leaping flames. The Hobgoblin has looked for the King's Ruby on all the planets including Neptune
but he hasn't found it. Just now he has gone off to the moon to search in the craters, but he hasn't much hope of success, because in his heart of hearts the Hobgoblin believes that the King's Ruby lies in the sun, where he can never go because it is too hot. — Tove Jansson

It was sinister, overpowering; it was like a troubled dream conjured by the evil thoughts of a past day. There was no suggestion of ultimate hope, and no possibility of escape. It was a terrible place. I sat up on the deck with my chin in my hands, looking in front of me thinking of nothing, my heart heavy, longing for some nameless thing that I could not explain even to myself. I did not want to feel depressed like this. I wanted to laugh, and not to care about a thought, and to be with people who did not matter, and to have some fun taking that girl ashore. I did not want to be in a lost mood, wretched and distressed. I wished Gudvangen was different, and the mountains wider apart, and the sun shining in a clear sky, and the blue water warm and shallow. — Daphne Du Maurier

Remember the high board at the swimming pool? After days of looking up at it you finally climbed the wet steps to the platform. From there, it was higher than ever. There were only two ways down: the steps to defeat of the dive to victory. You stood on the edge, shivering in the hot sun, deathly afraid. At last you leaned too far forward, it was too late for retreat, and you dived. The high board was conquered, and you spent the rest of the day diving. Climbing a thousand high boards, we demolish fear, and turn into human beings. — Richard Bach

You're so real. You have a bedroom and a brush. All the times I waited for you, I could never picture where you came from - what had made you so extraordinarily different. But you made you different." Blake ran his hand along his neck, smiling shyly in her direction.
"There are a million girls just like me." Livia almost hated to point that out.
"No. There's only you." Blake looked away from her and squinted into the sun.
Look at him looking into the sunlight! — Debra Anastasia

I went through a real punk stage-I had braids, red hair, pink hair, green hair, I cut it into a Mohawk, the lot. Then about five years ago, I dyed it dark and stayed out of the sun to get pale, because I hated looking like everyone else, all blonde hair and tanned skin. — Katie McGrath

The house had a private walk down to a private spit of beach, and in the mornings the four of them would troop downhill and swim - even he did, in his pants and undershirt and an old oxford shirt, which no one bothered him about - and then lie on the sand baking, the wet clothes ungluing themselves from his body as they dried. Sometimes Harold would come and watch them, or swim as well. In the afternoons, Malcolm and JB would pedal off through the dunes on bicycles, and he and Willem would follow on foot, picking up bits of shaley shells and the sad carapaces of long-nibbled-away hermit crabs as they went, Willem slowing his pace to match his own. In the evenings, when the air was soft, JB and Malcolm sketched and he and Willem read. He felt doped, on sun and food and salt and contentment, and at night he fell asleep quickly and early, and in the mornings he woke before the others so he could stand on the back porch alone looking over the sea. — Hanya Yanagihara

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

The interlocking network of stalks and branches and creepers was skeletal, the fossil yard of an extinct species of fineboned insectoid creatures. all of these bones, then, seemed to have been stained by sun and earth from an original living white to brown, and not the tough fibrous flower and seed-spilling green they actually once had been. Howard wondered about a man who had never seen summer, a winter man, examining the weeds and making this inference
that he was looking at an ossuary. the man would take that as true and base his ideas of the world on that mistake. — Paul Harding

In the other train, looking at me through the window, is the most beautiful boy I've ever seen. He has golden hair and bright blue eyes. His skin seems to glow softly, like he carries the sun inside him. One of his paint-stained hands is clutching his chest, like he just got punched, and the other is pressed flat against the glass of the window. I raise my hand and press it against my window, mirroring him. He looks so confused. Stunned. Like he's just seen a ghost. — Josephine Angelini

Like a sun: but a small sun, which she had within her, warming her from the inside out. She was conscious of a feeling she had had before, a sense that she was looking at him, and at all of them, from some far way off, or from a great height. There had been a time when she seemed to herself to be snug, and small, within the large house of Smokey, a safe inhabitant, room to run in yet never leave his encompassment. Now she oftener felt otherwise: over time it was he who seemed to have become a mouse within the house of her. — John Crowley

Looking up at Max he asked, "Do you recommend anything?" He kept his eyes low and to the table, trying but failing to keep his eyes open against the bright sun light.
"You okay?" Max asked, watching as Landon struggled to meet her eyes.
"I'm trying not to look at you," he replied.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I mean I'm trying not to hurt my eyes."
Max crossed her arms over her chest and raised a wicked brow.
Landon shielded the sun with his hand and finally made eye contact with her. "That came out wrong," he said apologetically.
"It sure did," she said with a chuckle. — Shawn Kirsten Maravel

The tears in my pus-filled eyes became a thousand little crystals of ever color. Like stained-glass windows, I thought. God is with you today, Papi! In the midst of nature's monstrous elements, in the wind, the immenseness of the sea, the depth of the waves, the imposing green roof of the bush, you feel your own infinitesimal smallness, and perhaps it's here, without looking for Him, that you find God, that you touch Him with your finger. I had sensed Him at night during the thousands of hours I had spent buried alive in dank dungeons without a ray of sun; I touched Him today in a sun that would devour everything too weak to resist it. I touched God, I felt Him around me, inside me. He even whispered in my ear: You will suffer; you will suffer more. But this time I am on your side. You will be free. You will, I promise you. — Henri Charriere

I realized it was like looking into the sun - you shouldn't do it, because you'd turn your face away and be blind to everything else. — Jodi Picoult

After what seemed like an eternity, we finally reached the summit just as the sun was rising. I couldn't believe that we had actually done it. We were standing at the highest point in all of Africa, looking down at the clouds below us, with the sun directly in front of us, its rays welcoming us to the beginning of a new day. It didn't seem like this was something that humans were meant to experience, yet here we were — Tony Hsieh

And as we walk back down the street, me gingerly clutching what at this point constitutes my entire collection, my father says, 'One day, when you're all grown up and I'm not here any more, you'll remember the sunny day we went to the market together and bought a boat.' My throat feels tight because, as soon as he says it, I am already there. Standing on another street, without my father, trying to get back. And yet I'm here, with him. So I try to soak up every aspect of the moment, to help me get back when I need to. I feel the weight of the chunky parcel under my arm, and the warmth of the sun, and my father's hand in mine. I smell the flowers with their sharp undertang of cheap hot dog, and taste the slick of toffee on my teeth, and hear the chattering hagglers. I feel the joy of an adventurous Saturday with my father and no school, and I feel the sadness of looking back when it is all gone. When he is gone. — Victoria Coren

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun. — William Shakespeare

Ishmael was looking at him through narrowed eyes. "This is very important to you, this box."
"It's important to the world."
Ishmael said: "The sun rises, and the sun sets. Sometimes it rains. We live, then we die." He shrugged.
He would never understand, Wolff thought; but others would. — Ken Follett

Time seemed to drag with dreamlike slowness, like a knife through cold honey, and the room took on a surreal golden sheen as if I was looking through that same jar of honey. Maybe at that moment, the sun shone just right though the grimy windows, but the woman, the shelves, the jars, everything in the room appeared in tones of gold and sepia, except for the painting behind the counter. From behind the shopkeeper's head, a fluorescent Mary and Jesus glared at me, their cartoon-like faces reproaching me for being there. — Sara Stark

On Monday they went out for a private picnic.
On Tuesday they went for a carriage drive.
On Wednesday they went to pick bluebells.
On Thursday they fished at the lake, returning with damp clothes and sun-glazed complexions, laughing together at a joke they didn't share with anyone else.
On Friday they danced together at an impromptu musical evening, looking so well matched one of the guests remarked it was a pleasure to watch them.
On Saturday Matthew woke up wanting to murder someone. — Lisa Kleypas

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