Lost Face Quotes & Sayings

I am a member of a small, nearly extinct minority group, a kind of urban lost tribe who insist, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, on the sanctity of being on time. Which is to say that we On-timers are compulsively, unfashionably prompt, that there are only handfuls of us in any given city and, unfortunately, we never seem to have appointments with each other. — Ellen Goodman

When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world, and so he prayed as a lament, as a consolation, and as a hope. — Mohsin Hamid

We only came close to dying six or seven times, which I thought was pretty good. Once, I lost my grip and found myself dangling by one hand from a ledge fifty feet above the rocky surf. But I found another handhold and kept climbing. A minute later Annabeth hit a slippery patch of moss and her foot slipped. Fortunately, she found something else to put it against. Unfortunately, that something was my face.
"Sorry," she murrmured.
"S'okay," I grunted, though I'd never really wanted to know what Annabeth's sneaker tasted like. — Rick Riordan

He had the face of a floating astronaut who had lost his tether and had only one chance to grab a lifeline or forever drift away into endless black. I knew that feeling, the sense of panic that stretched time, turning seconds into years, and the deep pain that came from being hurt by not one person but many, a gang of bullies that expanded into a neighborhood and then into a community, until you questioned the whole world. — Lissa Price

How can he not love your hair? It's the same hair that grows out of his own armpits. The same hair that crawls up out his crotch on up his stomach. All over his chest. The very same. It grows out of his nose, over his lips, and if he ever lost his razor it would grow all over his face. It's all over his head, Hagar. It's his hair too. He got to love it. — Toni Morrison

I turned my face to the east and the first star that shimmered on the horizon. He held my hand, and it was the hand of the man I had married, lost and found again in the Badiyat ash-Sham, the fabled land of camels and caravans that lies just beyond the walls of the city of jasmine. To live with him would be a very great adventure indeed. — Deanna Raybourn

She was crouched in the corner of the room, eating something off the floor. It was the old woman dressed in endless black. When she looked up this time there was no question she was there for me. She had the face of my mother but much older, her ancient decayed mouth coming closer for her good-night kiss. I steeled myself against her putrid smell, the mouthful of bitter dust, but as her lips touched mine it was like biting into a purple black plum whose fruit was brilliant red, like an explosion of intense joy. Its childhood smell wrinkled my nose with pleasure, its sweet juices ran down my chin, turning into a beautiful black ocean where I floated safely, not lost as I had imagined, but securely tucked away deep in space. — Mary Woronov

In order to enter into a real knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image: A man was cast by a tempest upon an unknown island, the inhabitants of which were in trouble to find
their king, who was lost; and having a strong resemblance both in form and face to this king, he was taken for him, and acknowledged in this capacity by all the people. — Blaise Pascal

Scripture says: "Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted." I call on every American family and the family of America to observe a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, honoring the memory of the thousands of victims of these brutal attacks and comforting those who lost loved ones. We will persevere through this national tragedy and personal loss. In time, we will find healing and recovery; and, in the face of all this evil, we remain strong and united, "one Nation under God." — George W. Bush

I was much more afraid in Montgomery when I had a gun in my house. When I decided that I couldn't keep a gun, I came face-to-face with the question of death and I dealt with it. From that point on, I no longer needed a gun nor have I been afraid. Had we become distracted by the question of my safety we would have lost the moral offensive and sunk to the level of our oppressors. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In the moment when the eyes of the two men met, Javert, without having moved or made the least gesture, became hideous. No human emotion can wear an aspect so terrible as that of jubilation. He had the face of a fiend who has found the victim he thought he had lost. — Victor Hugo

The young man being embraced by the Father is no longer just one repentant sinner, but the whole of humanity returning to God. The broken body of the prodigal becomes the broken body of humanity, and the baby-like face of the returning child becomes the face of all suffering people longing to reenter the lost paradise. Thus Rembrandt's painting becomes more than the mere portrayal of a moving parable. It becomes the summary of the history of our salvation. The light surrounding both Father and Son now speaks of the glory that awaits the children of God. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

I close my eyes and lean into him. I think my body makes the choice for me, because my mind has certainly lost all control. I press my face against his neck and listen quietly as our breaths fail to slow. The longer we stand here and the more he says, the heavier our need grows. I can feel it in the way he holds me. I can hear it in the desperate plea of his voice. I can feel it with every rise and fall of his chest. — Colleen Hoover

Not only to myself or before the mirror or at the hour of my death, which I hope will be long in coming, but in the presence of my children and my wife and in the face of the peaceful life I'm building, I must acknowledge: (1) That under Stalin I wouldn't have wasted my youth in the gulag or ended up with a bullet in the back of my head. (2) That in the McCarthy era I wouldn't have lost my job or had to pump gas at a gas station. (3) That under Hitler, however, I would have been one of those who chose the path of exile, and that under Franco I wouldn't have composed sonnets to the caudillo or the Holy Virgin like so many lifelong democrats. One thing is as true as the other. My bravery has its limits, certainly, but so does what I'm willing to swallow. Everything that begins as comedy ends as tragicomedy. — Roberto Bolano

Her [Gilberte's] face, grown almost ugly, reminded me then of those dreary beaches where the sea, ebbing far out, wearies one with its faint shimmering, everywhere the same, encircled by an immutable low horizon. — Marcel Proust

But should it matter what we do as long as we use our strength courageously and lead a life without desperation to the end? Isn't it wrong to escape, make a detour and be lost, all of which have led me here to the farthest-flung edge of the world? Wouldn't I have had a good courageous life if only I had been able to resist sickness and fear? Will I be made to face the consequences just because I had nothing to counter a nameless and agonizing desperation? — Annemarie Schwarzenbach

In the old days, before I was married, or knew a lot of women, I would just pull down all the shades and go to bed for three or four days. I'd get up to shit. I'd eat a can of beans, go back to bed, just stay there for three or four days. Then I'd put on my clothes and I'd walk outside, and the sunlight was brilliant, and the sounds were great. I felt powerful, like a recharged battery. But you know the first bring-down? The first human face I saw on the sidewalk, I lost half my charge right there. — Charles Bukowski

He poked her shoulder. 'Ellie? Ellie?'
'What? Oh, I'm sorry.' Her face colored, even though she knew he couldn't possibly read her thoughts. 'Just woolgathering.'
'Darling, you were practically hugging a sheep. — Julia Quinn

Yakov spent the whole day playing his fiddle; when it got completely dark, he took the notebook in which he recorded his losses daily, and out of boredom began adding up the yearly total. It came to over a thousand roubles. This astounded him so much that he flung the abacus to the floor and stamped his feet. Then he picked up the abacus, again clicked away for a long time, and sighed deeply and tensely. His face was purple and wet with sweat. He thought that if he could have put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, he would have earned at least forty roubles a year in interest. And therefore those forty roubles were a loss. In short, wherever you turned, there was nothing but losses everywhere.
- Rothchild's Fiddle — Anton Chekhov

When you look at women who have had plastic surgery, they have lost something - usually an expression, something unique to their face. — Bo Derek

He shifts on his knees and leans into me until I am lying on my back. He's supporting himself above me on his one elbow and wraps his other hand around my head, pulling me in for a slow kiss. I hold his face in my hands as his lips dance across mine. When he pulls back, he takes his time staring at me, and I get lost in his clear-blue eyes for a moment before he says, "You're not gonna lose me, babe. I love you too much to let you go." - Ryan Campbell — E.K. Blair

Cool wind soothed her. She could breathe sweet air. The only heat she felt was the warm, familiar heat from the mage's body. Opening her eyes, she saw that she stood close to him. Raising her head, she gazed up into his face ... and felt a swift, sharp ache in her heart.
Raistlin's thin face glistened with sweat, his eyes reflected the pure, white flame of the burning bodies, his breath came fast and shallow. He seemed lost, unaware of his surroundings. And there was a look of ecstasy on his face, a look of exultation, of triumph.
"I understand," Crysania said to herself, holding onto his hands. "I understand. This is why he cannot love me. He has only one love in this life and that is his magic. To this love he will give everything, for this love he will risk everything! — Margaret Weis

In the face of excruciating pain and uncertainty, I never lost hope, and it never occurred to me to stop fighting - not ever. — Farrah Fawcett

She looked up at him and her face was pale and austere in the uplight and her eyes lost in their darkly shadowed hollows save only for the glint of them and he could see her throat move in the light and he saw in her face and in her figure something he'd not seen before and the name of that thing was sorrow. — Cormac McCarthy

All emotion disappeared from his face and he took a deep breath through his nose. "I know what you're trying to do." His eyes unfocused for a moment, lost in thought. "I'll just have to prove it to you, then." His eyes narrowed as he looked into my eyes, determined as he was before one of his fights. "If you think I'm just going to go back to fucking around, you're wrong. I don't want anyone else. You wanna be friends? Fine, we're friends. But you and I both know that what happened wasn't just sex. — Jamie McGuire

The woman next to you that looks really bad might be going through the toughest challenge ever with her teenage daughter; think about if it were you in her shoes before gossiping about her. The man at the checkout line using change may have lost his job and is buying diapers for his baby at home because its all the money he has left; think about it before you snicker to your friends because he could've bought beer or cigarettes. The child with holes in his shoes could be homeless but he's still going to school because he feels safe there even though others laugh at him; think about it before you judge the innocent. You never know what challenges you're going to face from day to day! — Barbara Morrison

Unfortunately, the optimistic view that "classical civilization" handed down certain fundamental works that managed to include the knowledge contained in the lost writings has proved groundless. In fact, in the face of a general regression in the level of civilization, it's never the best works that will be saved through an automatic process of natural selection. — Lucio Russo

Finally our eyes held each other.
Don't kiss him.
"I was worried," he said, slowly pulling himself off the bed frame, leaning forward. His face was so close to mine in the quiet morning. My heart faltered once before catching a new rhythm, faster than before. Sebastian's dark hair had never looked so careless and my fingers itched to return to the inky strands. His eyes were the softest mossy green, and I was sure that all his usual awkward reserve had melted in this strange dawn. When I realized that his eyes were glued to my lips, I instinctively parted them, sucking in a fast breath.
Don't you dare kiss him, Evelyn.
He was so close I could have counted the strands of gold that gleamed in the green of his eyes. I could have shifted forward one breath and his lips would be on mine. I was dizzy, lost in the world that existed here between us. — Tarun Shanker

Do you want me, Shea?" This time his voice was hesitant, as if for all his strength, for all his power, one word from her would bring him crashing down. He was kneeling at her feet, his beloved face - so ravaged by torment, so beautifully male, so sensually Carpathian - staring up at her. He was lost without her; it was there for her to see. Raw. Stark. His total vulnerability. For just one moment the wind seemed to cease, and the storm held itself still as if the very skies were awaiting her answer.
"You can't possibly know how much I want you, Jacques, even if you're reading my mind. — Christine Feehan

I care about Cameron. I more than care. He's wonderful, and he should know it every day. He should know how kind he is, how good. How fantastic his story was, and how I can't wait to read more. And how I can't stop looking at him right now, because his face is so perfectly lovely that my eyes just have to make up for lost time. — Charlotte Stein

I swore to myself I would never be that guy, the guy who loses his shit for the first pretty face he sees. And yet my shit was truly lost. — John Goode

Her hair, drawn back off her ears, brushed her shoulders in such a way that the face seemed to have just emerged from it, as if this were the exact moment when she was coming from a wood into clear moonlight. The unknown yielded her up; Dick wished she had no background, that she was just a girl lost with no address save the night from which she had come. — F Scott Fitzgerald

In other circumstances, if Jamie hadn't been so miserable, Ryan would have laughed. Jamie rarely got so pissed that he lost the thread of the conversation. "Yes, you are." Cradling Jamie's face, he brushed his lips against Jamie's forehead. "Everything will be fine, you'll see." He kissed Jamie's temple.

Jamie shuddered. "Don't. Not now. I can't - not now."

Frowning, Ryan pulled back to look at his friend.

Jamie was staring at him oddly, his lips parted and curled in half a grimace, his eyes gleaming with desperation. "I - " he said before suddenly lunging forward and closing the distance between their mouths.

For a moment, Ryan's alcohol-fogged brain couldn't understand what was going on.

Jamie was kissing him.

Jamie was kissing him. Or at least trying to, his lips clumsy and awkward but desperate and needy - so needy it was weirding Ryan out. — Alessandra Hazard

The sound of his anguish spiraled up into a desert night, across a vast spread of tiny stars. Through Shahrzad's very skin. Without a word, Shahrzad took his hand and led him into the desert, far beyond the enclave of tents. When she finally turned to face him, Tariq appeared to have aged a decade in a matter of moments. They stared at each other across a small sea of glittering sand. Across years of friendship and trust, seemingly lost in an instant. — Renee Ahdieh

I have often perplexed myself over what I saw in Nelle Snyder's aged face at that moment. It was no look of paranoia. It was a look of waiting. Perpetual waiting. That look was to come back to me sixteen years later when I heard Rose's narration at the end of James Cameron's Titanic, with its line about survivors "waiting for an absolution that never came." Yet the waiting I saw in Nelle Snyder's face seemed larger even than a waiting for absolution. It seemed vaster even than Titanic herself. Call it the waiting of the Mother of all Perished Vessels. Or of a Ship of Honeymoon Dreams perchance, with a passenger list spanning all humanity, that once proudly sailed but was lost, aeons ago, and sank to a dark, unreachable abode where nothing whatsoever can be grasped about her except her perplexing power still to haunt us. — James Glaeg

Would you have your hand back, Eugenides? And lose Attolia? And see Attolia lost to the Mede?'
Eugenides's eyes were open. In front of his face the floor was littered with tiny bits of glass that glittered in the candlelight.
'You have your answer, Little Thief. — Megan Whalen Turner

Sinking onto the sand, I turned my face into the wind, hoping the breeze would blow away the pain. The pain of rejection, the pain of betrayal, and the pain of everything that had been lost to us. — Kerry Lonsdale

And somebody has lost the face
That made existence home! — Emily Dickinson

When I spoke to a colleague about Joe's report, her face registered surprise. She said, "Is it possible for a death in a nursing home to be premature?"
Joe told me, "If it were happening in any other kind of institution, to any other part of the population - workers, say, or children - there'd be an outcry, media, inquiries, swift intervention. The truth is we do not value the last months or years of a person's life. The remaining life of someone old. Particularly if they are in residential care."
If we are all just economic units who lift or lean, then very little is "lost" when a nursing home resident or anyone getting on in their years dies prematurely. In fact money might be saved - one less nursing-home bed to fund, and the kids can finally get their hands on the house. — Karen Hitchcock

The next day the German police picked them up, loaded them onto an armored truck and took them back to Colditz. Alexander was badly beaten by the German guards and taken to solitary, where he spent so long he lost track of time. With Pasha's death came the death of faith. Release me, Tatiana, release me, forgive me, forget me, let me forget you. I want to be free of you, free of your face, free of your freedom, free of your fire, free, free, free. The flight across the ocean was over, and with it all the warmth of his imagination. A numbness encroached on him, freezing him from the heart out, the anesthetic of despair creeping its tentacles over his ten-dons and his arteries, over his nerves and his veins until he was stiff inside and bereft of hope and bereft of Tatiana. Finally. But not quite. — Paullina Simons

Jacques." She hesitated, wanting to touch him, needing to touch him, but afraid of being lost in the sexual lure she couldn't seem to resist. "How do I know if I'm the one thinking for myself when you're always with me, always sharing my mind?"
"You will have to figure that out for yourself, Shea." His black eyes moved lovingly over her face. "You know me better than anyone, and I have never tried to hide anything from you. If you brand me a monster, even I will believe you." His smile was gentle and reassuring. — Christine Feehan

He was addicted to me
and now he has gone cold turkey.
He used to send me fifty texts a day.
And now he is ignoring me.
It's like I was once his Barack Obama.
And now I am John McCain,
conceding defeat like a sad-face sock puppet, knowing I have sold the best of myself.
He, my electorate,
not only does not want me,
he actively feels pity. — Emma Forrest

I was 21 and had spent the last few years in Stanford University Engineering School at California. Many people advised me to take up a nice, cushy job rather than face the challenges of running a hydrogenated oil business. Looking back, I am glad I decided to take charge instead. Essentially leadership begins from within. It is a small voice that tells you where to go when you feel lost. If you believe in that voice, you believe in yourself. — Azim Premji

On the face of it, China has won the Olympics. But it is not China that has won, but the Communist party. The Chinese people have lost. — Ma Jian

Tuoni takes her by the shoulders and turns her to face him. "Remember this Anya. Dreams have power; they show old truths you are too blind to see on waking. They make you remember memories that are lost in the blood flowing through your veins. Remember her magic. Remember what she did when you wake," he says before he pushes her off the cliff. — Amy Kuivalainen

The advantages of having decisions made by groups are often lost because of powerful psychological pressures that arise when the members work closely together, share the same set of values and, above all, face a crisis situation that puts everyone under intense stress — Irving Janis

Sleepy Christian, let me shout in thine ears: thou are sleeping while souls are being lost, sleeping while men are being damned, sleeping while hell is being peopled, sleeping while Christ is being dishonored, sleeping while the devil is grinning at thy sleepy face, sleeping while demons are dancing round thy slumbering carcass, and telling it in hell that a Christian is asleep. You will never catch the devil asleep; let not the devil catch you asleep. Watch, and be sober, that ye may be always up to do your duty. — Charles Spurgeon

The Lord gives us a spirit of hope and a feeling of comfort and confidence that we can overcome the obstacles we face. He has shown the way to gain strength during our struggles. With His assistance, we have the ability to succeed. Listen to His words of counsel and comfort: 'Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world and none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost. — L. Lionel Kendrick

Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Slaying a villain in the service of your king is the stuff of legends and what heroes are made of." [Fanen told Myron]
"It didn't feel very heroic. It made me sick. I don't even know why I ... no, that's a lie. I really have to stop doing that." [Myron said]
"Doing what?"
"Lying. ( ... ) It's evidence of self loathing. You see, when you are so ashamed of your actions, thoughts, or intentions, you lie to hide it rather than accept yourself for who you really are. The idea of how others see you becomes more important than the reality of you.
"It's like when a man would rather die than be thought of a coward. His life is not as important to him as his reputation. In the end, who is the braver? The man who dies rather than be thought of as a coward or the man who lives willing to face who he really is?" [Myron finished]
"I'm sorry, you lost me there" Fanen said with a quizzical look. — Michael J. Sullivan

Why did you laugh right before you lost consciousness."
"Death's an adventure. I lived big. Rigor mortis makes your face stick. So, who knew how to thaw me?"
"Death's an insult."
"At least an affront," I agree. — Karen Marie Moning

come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish - no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears. Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the deepest fullness. Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe. Deity — Rabindranath Tagore

At dinner, she'd seen the expression flash across his face when he caught Aelin and Rowan smiling at each other. All of Arobynn's jabs and stories had failed to find their mark tonight because Aelin had been too lost in Rowan to hear. She wondered whether the queen knew. Rowan did. Aedion did. And Arobynn did. — Sarah J. Maas

You truly are the most astonishingly beautiful hobbit I've ever seen," he said, and Tamsyn froze.
"Hobbit??"
"Um, yes?" he said, and Tamsyn looked down at herself in panic. Her suit had disappeared and been replaced by a straight dress in a rustic homespun fabric of a drab, brownish grey. Her hair still looked the same, she established when she grabbed a handful and held it up in front of her face, but when she scrabbled up and caught a glimpse of her feet, her legs immediately lost their strength again. She thudded back down hard and grabbed her left leg, yanking her foot up to her eyes.
It was bare, large and very, very hairy.
She checked her other foot as well, hoping against all laws of probability that it would be different, and groaned in consternation when it looked the same as the left one.
"This can't be true!" she wailed, scrambling to get up again. "I'm a hobbit! — Erica Dakin

Whether we're overcoming adversity, surviving trauma, or dealing with stress and anxiety, having a sense of purpose, meaning, and perspective in our lives allows us to develop understanding and move forward. Without purpose, meaning, and perspective, it is easy to lose hope, numb our emotions, or become overwhelmed by our circumstances. We feel reduced, less capable, and lost in the face of struggle. The heart of spirituality is connection. When we believe in that inextricable connection, we don't feel alone. — Brene Brown

Face your financial issues head on. Open your bills, pick up the phone, call your lender. If applicable, tell them you're struggling and explain why. If you lost your job or took a pay cut, be ready to prove it. — Jean Chatzky

He prayed fundamentally as a gesture of love for what had gone and would go and could be loved in no other way. When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world. — Mohsin Hamid

Oh, middle age, how awful. He was used to having to look for his lost beauty in his face, but not in his body that had been so tall and strong all his life. — Lauren Groff

I've wondered since if you can ever truly read a face. It's too easy to see what you so desperately want to see, even if it isn't there. I knew that. — Debbie Howells

A lady?' Jem raised his head. His face as scarlet. 'After all those things she said about you, a lady?'
'She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different than mine, maybe ... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her-I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see through it no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.' (p.112) — Harper Lee

Across galaxies of time and space
Travelling just to see your face
Lost amidst the countless stars
To bring me back to where you are. — Bryce Anderson

Sarsine grabbed his wrists and tugged the hands from his eyes. He looked at her, but didn't see her. He saw Kestrel's wasted face. He saw himself as a child, the night of the invasion, soldiers in his home, how he had done nothing.
Later, he'd told Sarsine when the messenger had come to see him.
No, I won't, he'd promised Roshar when the prince had listed reasons not to rescue the nameless spy from the tundra's prison.
"I was wrong," Arin said. "I should have - "
"Your should haves are gone. They belong to the god of the lost. What I want to know is what you are going to do now. — Marie Rutkoski

The what?"
"Lone Wolves." He turned to show me the back of his raggedy jacket. Sure enough, a snarling wolf face stared back at me from the leather.
"Wait a second," I said. "Isn't it supposed to be 'Lone Wolf' as in, you know, one? If there's more than one, then it kind of defeats the purpose of being 'lone', doesn't it?"
The leader squinted hard, as if trying to follow my logic and getting lost. — Jaye Wells

Billy's one and only moment of candor was when I parked him in front of my computer to play a game. He took one look at the Noah's Ark display and his whole face flinched like someone had hit him. He told me that the snow leopard is extinct. The last surviving specimen died in a zoo a few weeks back. "The snow leopard was my favorite," he said. Then he sat down at the computer and within about 30 seconds he was lost in a realistic prison interior, shooting the guards' heads off, blowing doors open, getting killed. — Michel Faber

He shook the hair out of his face. "I'm not interested in court ladies," he said thickly, and kissed her. His mouth was warm, and his lips were smooth, and Celaena lost all sense of time and place as she slowly kissed him back. He pulled away for a moment, looked into her eyes as they opened, and kissed her again. It was different this time - deeper, full of need. — Sarah J. Maas

I can still see her face
The sorrow in her eyes, her voice, as she condemns me. I didn't know it was possible to feel such shame. To feel so sick at heart. I'm lost inside, my soul
all that I thought I was, and am, and ever will be
shattered, cast to the winds. Compared to this, death is a mercy. — Chris Claremont

Whatever this might have been for you before now baby, there is no trying or going slow. I know you felt it; it was all over your face. I feel like I just found a piece of myself that has been lost forever. A piece of the puzzle that I didn't even know was missing until you walked into my life. This, us ... baby, I will work as hard as I can and then some to prove to you that you have nothing to fear. — Harper Sloan

Eventually we realize that not knowing what to do is just as real and just as useful as knowing what to do. Not knowing stops us from taking false directions. Not knowing what to do, we start to pay real attention. Just as people lost in the wilderness, on a cliff face or in a blizzard pay attention with a kind of acuity that they would not have if they thought they knew where they were. Why? Because for those who are really lost, their life depends on paying real attention. If you think you know where you are, you stop looking. — David Whyte

In the morning I had a look so lost, a face so dead, that perhaps those whom I met did not see me. — Arthur Rimbaud

Tegner's Drapa

I heard a voice that faintly said
"Balder the beautiful lies dead, lies dead . . ."
a voice like the flight of white cranes overhead -
ghostly, haunting the sun, life-abetting,
but a sun now irretrievably setting.

Then I saw the sun's carcass, blackened with flies,
fall into night's darkness, to nevermore rise,
borne grotesquely to Hel through disconsolate skies
as blasts from the Nifel-heim rang out with dread,
"Balder lies dead, gentle Balder lies dead! . . ."

Lost, lost forever - the runes of his tongue;
the blithe warmth of his smile; his bright face, cherished, young;
the lithe grace of his figure, all the girls' hearts undone
O, what god could have dreamed such strange words might be said
as "Balder lies dead, our fair Balder lies dead! — Esaias Tegner

Because." He turns his face back up to the stars. "The sky is always beautiful. Even when it's dark or rainy or cloudy, it's still beautiful to look at. It's my favorite thing because I know if I ever get lost or lonely or scared, I just have to look up and it'll be there no matter what...and I know it'll always be beautiful. It's what you can think about when your daddy is making you sad, so you don't have to think about him. — Colleen Hoover

I slid into the car, had my door closed and locked before Edward opened his door. "Tell me what happened, Anita."
I looked at him. "It would serve you right if I just looked at you and smiled."
Something crossed his face, a frown, a snarl, quickly lost to that perfect blankness he could manage.
"You're right. I've been a secret-loving bastard, and it would serve me right. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things; regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature; and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity? — Blaise Pascal

At the edge of the still, dark pool that was the sea, at the brimming edge of freedom where no boat was to be seen, she spoke the first words of the few they were to exchange. 'I cannot swim. You know it?"

In the dark she saw the flash of his smile. 'Trust me.' And he drew her with a strong hand until the green phosphorescence beaded her ankles, and deeper, and deeper, until the thick milk-warm water, almost unfelt, was up to her waist. She heard him swear feelingly to himself as the salt water searched out, discovered his burns. Then with a rustle she saw his pale head sink back into the quiet sea and at the same moment she was gripped and drawn after him, her face to the stars, drawn through the tides with the sea lapping like her lost hair at her cheeks, the drive of his body beneath her pulling them both from the shore. They were launched on the long journey towards the slim shape, black against glossy black, which was the brigantine, with Thompson on board. — Dorothy Dunnett

Her six-year-old brain had lost her father at sweet and was still stuck trying to decipher lemonade.
"But lemon is pretty, Dad. It's yellow. Like sun."
Her father nodded, his lips curved up at the corners.
"Sun is pretty and it has a smiley face. Sun is not bad."
"No, I guess it's not." Her father chuckled.
"I love sun."
"Of course you do, sweetie-pie."
"So lemon is nice, too."
"I believe so, but some people don't like the taste. It's too sour, they say."
She looked back at her father and said with a tone that suggested what other people thought about lemon was crazy. "Then add sugar. No need to blame the lemon. — E. Mellyberry

I thought he'd pick me, I know he has kids, but when it came down to it, I really thought he'd pick me."
Tears rolled down her face and her nose ran. She sniffed.
"I know I'm selfish"
"You're human"
"I wanted him to abandon his children — Anna McPartlin

Sometimes the world loses its face. it becomes too base. The task of the poet is to restore its face, because otherwise man is lost in doubt and despair. It is an indication that the world need not always be like this; it can be different.
When I wrote...that I accepted the salvational goal of poetry, that was exactly what I had in mind, and I still believe that poetry can either save or destroy nations. — Czeslaw Milosz

Vimes was already lost. Oh, there was the sun, but that was just a direction. He could feel it on the side of his face.
And the camel rocked from side to side. There was no real way of judging distance, except by haemorrhoids. — Terry Pratchett

You fix what's broken, not what's lost. He's gone. You can't fix that. You can't bring him back. But you can fix yourself; you can put yourself back together and not be the person who did that anymore. And I think that's maybe the key, because you can say sorry until you're blue in the face, but it doesn't count until they see repentance. — J.M. Darhower

He kissed her, and knew he was trying to tell her the depth of how he felt. Even as he lost himself in her, felt her hair sweep across his face, his chest, her lips meet his skin, her fingers, he understood that there were people for whom one other was their missing part. — Jojo Moyes

What, you didn't pack your lunch?" Ty asked sarcastically as he
shifted around in the seat and wedged himself against the door. He kicked a
foot up and propped it on the console between the two front seats.
"Sure, in my SpongeBob SquarePants lunch box. I have the thermos,
too," Morrison shot right back.
Zane kept his mouth shut, eyes moving between the two men, and
occasionally back to the driver, who was casually paying attention.
Ty stared at the kid and narrowed his eyes further. "Spongewhat?" he
asked flatly.
Zane didn't even try to hold back the chuckle when Morrison looked
at Ty like he'd lost his mind.
"Spongewha ... you're yanking my chain, aren't you?" Morrison
said. "Henny, he's yanking my chain."
"Yeah, well, that's what you getting for waving it in his face," the
driver answered reasonably.
"What the hell is a SpongeBob?" Ty asked Zane quietly in the
backseat. — Madeleine Urban

For that genuine smile on your face, find the lost confidence and then that's it! — Somya Kedia

And he knew that he would never come again, and that lost magic would not come again. Lost now was all of it-the street, the heat, King's Highway, and Tom the Piper's son, all mixed in with the vast and drowsy murmur of the Fair, and with the sense of absence in the afternoon, and the house that waited, and the child that dreamed. And out of the enchanted wood, that thicket of man's memory, Eugene knew that the dark eye and the quiet face of his friend and brother-poor child, life's stranger, and life's exile, lost like all of us, a cipher in blind mazes, long ago-the lost boy was gone forever, and would not return. — Thomas Wolfe

His face set in grim determination, Richard slogged ahead, his fingers reaching up to touch the tooth under his shirt. Loneliness, deeper than he had never known, sagged his shoulders. All his friends were lost to him. He knew now that his life was not his own. It belonged to his duty, to his task. He was the Seeker. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not his own man, but a pawn to be used by others. A tool, same as his sword, to help others, that they might have the life he had only glimpsed for a twinkling.
He was no different from the dark things in the boundary. A bringer of death. — Terry Goodkind

Is this ... I mean ... have you ever been kissed before?"
My head shakes frantically. I can't control it.
His face lights up.
I don't know why he's happy that he's trying to make out with a pajama wearing, frozen, virgin kisser. That doesn't sound like happy times at all.
"So I'm your first?"
I nod again. The same speed as before. That's it - I've lost control of all bodily function.
"I like that," he says, his mouth slowly descending. He presses his lips softly against mine. — Jay McLean

If one has given oneself utterly, watching the beloved sleep can be a vile experience. Perhaps some of you have known that paralysis, staring down at features closed to your enquiry, locked away from you where you can never, ever go, into the other's mind. As I say, for us who have given ourselves, that is a horror. One knows, in those moments, that one does not exist, except in relation to that face, that personality. Therefore, when that face is closed down, that personality is lost in its own unknowable world, one feels completely without purpose. A planet without a sun, revolving in darkness. — Clive Barker

Tess focuses on Cyclops's placid, one-eyes face. He lost one of his black button eyes year ago, but she wouldn't let Mrs. O'Hare replace it. She said it made him more interesting, and changed his name from Barnabus. — Jessica Spotswood

The Consul looked at the sun. But he had lost the sun: it was not his sun. Like the truth, it was well-nigh impossible to face; he did not want to go anywhere near it, least of all, sit in its light, facing it. — Malcolm Lowry

Fraud in the insurance industry is calculated to be $100 billion to $300 billion a year, a cost that gets passed directly to consumers in the form of higher premiums. All told, combined public- and private-sector fraud costs every household in the United States probably around $5,000 a year - or roughly the equivalent of working four months at a minimum-wage job. A hunter-gatherer community that lost four months' worth of food would face a serious threat to its survival, and its retribution against the people who caused that hardship would be immediate and probably very violent. Westerners — Sebastian Junger

I am lost in the living, in the acceptance
of rain filling a bucket,

in the belief
that the chemical burn was a washing

for the exodus
and the smoke rising through the chimneys

into the pale blue morning was a love song.
There are days when I wake

and find my face is a hole
and I have nowhere to hang my mask.

from "The Emptiness — Carl Adamshick

I shall never forget the peace of his hermitage amidst the eternal snows and the lesson he taught me: that we cannot face the Great Void before we have the strength and greatness to fill it with our entire being. Then the Void is not the negation merely of our limited personality, but the Plenum-Void which includes, embraces and nourishes it, like the womb of space in which the light moves eternally without ever being lost. — Anagarika Govinda

Our field is the sky,
tilled by the sweat of motors,
in the face of night,
at the risk of our dreams
... . ... ... ... ...
Who lived there? Whose hands were pure?
Who glowed in the night,
A ghost to other ghosts?
Who lives down below? Who cries ... .
Who has lost the key to their house?
Who can't find their bed, who is sleeping
on the steps of the stairs? When morning comes, who will
dare interpret the silvery trace: look above me ... When the
water pushes the watermill wheel once again,
who will dare remember the night? — Ingeborg Bachmann

I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude-to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to be lost in the secret of His Face. — Thomas Merton

People who mock incidents in history such as 9/11 or the Holocaust, referring to it all as a hoax or stirring up crazy conspiracy theories about it, should really stop and think about their words first, both because it shows flaws in logic and rationality to deny the obvious, and because to play pretend with incidents which killed innocent people, well, that's just like laughing in the face of tragedy. It's as if to say, "no, it's not horrible enough that these people were killed, oh no, we have to drag on these incidents by indulging in melodramatic fantasies!" In essence this means that those who lost loved ones not only have to live with these losses forever, they also have to live with the people who deny that any of it ever happened. It does no good to forget history or to deny it. All it does is desensitize people; it tells them that it's all just a game, which then risks the possibility of nobody taking it seriously enough to prevent something similar from happening again. — Rebecca McNutt

There's nothing.
Nothing to hold on to while the current takes me.
Whatever I might have had until today, I've lost.
I feel my love for her, swelling; bloating into something that's about to explode, like an abscess that's been allowed to rot for too long, but the pain drowns it so completely I know I'm never coming back out. This feeling, that you're choking and that your body is underwater, immersed in the ocean, a dense flood that overpowers your breathing abilities, and your will to survive gets drowned right along with it. And as I'm drowning I see her face and hear her voice - and it doesn't give me hope, it terrifies me. I'm terrified because I know she's going to be the death of me. I'm terrified because I know I won't be able to cope. I'm terrified because the darkness is the only true friend I've ever had and if it wants to embrace me I don't have the power to make it stop. — Kady Hunt

Reminding me how fragile this life is and how easily it can be lost. Compelling me to live and to live well, while I still can.
Because sooner or later, we must all face eternity. — Jessica Khoury

In the moonlight and under the stars
Somehow your face seems clearer
I revere your presence and remember
We are warriors
Thrusted onto this plane
We are strong
We must use our strength
While bearing compassion
It's easy to get lost
This place makes it so easy to get lost
But-
In the moonlight and under the stars
Somehow your presence seems clearer
And I remember
We are warriors — Nancy Navene

The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify by their own lonesome familiarities to this feeling. Ecstasy, even , I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass. — Jack Kerouac

But Carol had not betrayed her. Carol loved her more than she loved her child. That was part of the reason why she had not promised.
She was gambling now as she had gambled on getting everything from the detective that day on the road, and she lost then, too. And now she saw Carol's face changing, saw the little signs of astonishment and shock so subtle that perhaps only she in the world could have noticed them, and Therese could not think for a moment. — Patricia Highsmith

He who banishes all bad desires arising in his mind may be described as a sthita-prajna - one who is situated in perfect knowledge, one who is steadfast in action. Though, of course, ultimately we all should arrive at a stage when we should banish all desires, even the desire to see God; to a person in that stage all action becomes spontaneous. After one has seen God face to face, how can the desire to see Him still remain? When you have already jumped into the river, the desire to do so will no longer be there. Our desire to see God ceases when we are lost in Him, have become one with Him. — Mahatma Gandhi

The neurotic youth of to-day renews no ante-existent type. You will look in vain for a face like Amos's amongst the busts of the recovered past. The same weakness of outline you may point to - the sheep-like features falling to a blunt prow; the lax jaw and pinched temples - but not to that which expresses a consciousness that combative effort in a world of fruitless results is a lost desire.
("The Accursed Cordonnier") — Bernard Capes