Moment And Center Quotes & Sayings

The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking. Immediately at the moment of perception, you can feel the mind going to work, sending the odor around from place to place, setting off complex repertories through the brain, polling one center after another for signs of re recognition, for old memories and old connection. — Lewis Thomas

From this moment on, live the Eucharist fully; be persons for whom the Holy Mass, Communion, and Eucharistic adoration are the center and summit of their whole life. — Pope John Paul II

I believe that each of us is entitled to one entire day that affects us so completely,it immediately reorders the narrative of our lives, declaring itself the crucial chapter in the story that unlocks all others. The moment becomes the center of our personal universe, and we revolve around it, continuing to live it and relive it long after the action of the day would seem to have been completed. — Dave Itzkoff

To his surprise he felt a moment of regret, of sadness that his quest for his mother and father would soon be over. As long as he searched for them he was prepared to be hungry and ill, but now that the search had ended he felt saddened by the memory of all he had been through, and of how much he had changed. He was closer now to the ruined battlefields and this fly-infested truck, to the nine sweet potatoes in the sack below the driver's seat, even in a sense to the detention center, than he would ever be again to his house in Amherst Avenue. — J.G. Ballard

Maybe there will always be men who say the right thing at the right time, who step forward like Thespis at just the right moment of history, and then there will be men like Archie Jones, who are just there to make up the numbers. Or, worse still, who are given their big break only to come in on cue and die a death right there, center stage, for all to see. — Zadie Smith

I thought for a moment. "Have you ever seen a nuclear bomb go off?" "Levi ... " "The people in the center, they don't feel anything. One minute they're alive, the next, they're just ash. It's the people who are far away that really suffer." "Levi, I don't understand." "A bomb went off today, and it was my fault. I saw the Do Not Touch sign, and I knew that if I did, that something bad would happen, but I just wanted to know what that something was, and then the bomb went off. I never expected it to be as bad as it was ... — J.J. McAvoy

The central paradox of motherhood is that while our children become the absolute center of our lives, they must also push us backout in the world ... But motherhood that can narrow our lives can also broaden them. It can make us focus intensely on the moment and invest heavily in the future. — Ellen Goodman

And the way I loved her was like nothing else. This, I decided, was the love all other loves were measured against. They say girls look to marry their fathers, but I decided after having Maxie that we all, every one of us, were looking to marry our mothers. Sitting on the sofa with her wrapped in a soft blanket in my arms, I'd think, 'This baby has it so good.'
It just seemed that the love I'd been searching and hoping for all my life was what Maxie already had right now: two big arms and a lap, a warm blanket, the background music of a heartbeat and a pair of lungs, food at a moment's notice, sleep at every urge, and a person totally obsessed with her, whose every moment - waking or otherwise - was totally devoted to her comfort and care. Was that so much to ask for? — Katherine Center

Step into the center of the center of the center - right into your Now - and see: how elegant and honest this moment is. Just being yourself, a world to hold your feet, a universe to lift your gaze, a heart beating - constant, in the center of it all. — Laurie Perez

Luz Castro "And then i explain that the world did know and remained silent. and that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. NEUTRALITY HELPS THE OPPRESSOR, NEVER THE VICTIM. SILENCE ENCOURAGES THE TORMENTOR, NEVER THE TORMENTED. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must- at that moment- become the center of the universe." Elie Wiesel (from his speech when given the Nobel Peace Prize.) — Elie Wiesel

I know she's a special girl, Decker, she deserves to be treated like one. Your father managed to keep me completely wrapped up in his heart because he never stopped for one moment trying to show me how much he loves me. To be honest, he doesn't need to show me, I know he loves me, but women like to see, we like to feel. It's nice to know you are the center of someone's universe, and in return, he'll always be the center of mine. — Kirsty Dallas

We were trying to get all of the planes down out of the sky. And we watched as the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed - something no one expected and anticipated. And you could sit there and see and be aware that thousands of people were at that moment being killed as a result of the terrorist attacks that struck the United States. — Dick Cheney

By definition, the moment one crosses from center to left, one accepts more government control of people's lives. Therefore, the further left society moves, the more there is government control over its citizens' lives. It is astonishing that this obvious fact is not universally acknowledged and that the Left has somehow successfully portrayed itself as preoccupied with personal liberty. — Dennis Prager

By the time he climaxed, Eve was arched and her hair touched the floor. Her face was as far away from his as it could get while still having him inside her.
They panted like this for a moment, until he realized she was too ashamed to sit back up and look at him. He'd just been at the center of her loss. He'd poisoned the only place she'd ever held her baby. Beckett looked at her long, white form. He ran his hand over a fine white scar he found just under her belly button - the scar somehow he had put on her body. — Debra Anastasia

That night marks my life's dark center, the moment when growing up ended and the long downward slope toward death began. The wonder to me now is that I thought myself worth saving ... I reached out and clung for life with my good left hand like a claw, grasping at moving legs to raise myself from the dirt. Desperate to save myself in a river of people saving themselves. And if they chanced to look down and see me struggling underneath them, they saw that even the crooked girl believed her own life was precious. That is what it means to be a beast in the kingdom. — Barbara Kingsolver

Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion. — Jack Kerouac

I need to devour you."
Those words manage to knock the air right back out of my lungs, and my head spinsas one of his hands skims around my body. He splays it across the small of my back, pulling me closer to him, and leaning over until his lips are a centimeter from my collarbone.
"Sienna?" he growls, and I murmur to acknowledge him.
"I'm going to taste you."
He wasn't asking me, he was flat out telling me what was going to happen between us, and yet I felt myself nod, felt my body mold against his the moment his warm lips sought out the center of my throat.
"You smell like apples." he wispers harshly before his tongue darts out to trace the column of my thorat. I moan, letting my head fall all the way back.
"And you taste like the best kind of sin. — Emily Snow

If you're writing a book that takes place in New York in the moment, you can't not write about 9-11; you can't not integrate it. My main character's view is the Statue of Liberty and the Trade Center. It doesn't have to take over, but it has to be acknowledged. — Richard Price

Do you know how many guys I've been with?" Kyle asked, meeting her eyes for just a moment. "So many. You know why? Because in that moment, just before you let them fuck you, you're the center of their universe. It lasts just seconds, but I like that feeling. I crave that feeling.
"This morning - last night? Whenever it was, standing in that church in front of him? I had that feeling. I was the center of his universe. And we had all our clothes on. That feeling lasted for hours." Kyle closed her eyes as if to transport herself back there. — Debra Anastasia

At that moment, I was truly without words. I realized that the world didn't exist by virtue of my mind. On the contrary, he and I and everyone else were swept up in a great whirlpool, swirling around constantly and not knowing where we're bound. Our sensations of pleasure and suffering, our thoughts, none of these things can stop the motion. For the first time, I was able to step away from my imagined position in the center of the universe and see myself as part of something larger. This was my revelation, and I now felt
what? Not particularly happy or sad, but just a bit precarious, as if I'd relaxed some muscle that I hadn't needed to use all along. — Banana Yoshimoto

Fuuuck. Mark that hole, babe." Michaels was pushing his ass up into Judge but there wasn't another inch available, every part of him that could fit was inside Michaels already. His sexy partner moaned while Judge rode out the last shivers of his orgasm. Judge fell to the side, arms thrown over his head, his heart beating so fast he thought he'd pass out. Michaels chuckled next to him. Leaned over and kissed, laughed, swam in the moment. Michaels buried his nose in Judge's armpit, inhaled him a while before he licked around the fury patch in the center, slicking down the fine hairs with his spit. Judge held Michaels' head in place, moaning the more Michaels bathed him. "Feels good," Judge whispered. It was absolutely the most erotic thing in the world. Judge's eyes opened back up and he saw right before he felt that Michaels was still hard as stone. "You didn't come." "Nope," Michaels said, pushing until Judge was on his stomach. Oh — A.E. Via

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

It was then that the train hit her.

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

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

An old Celtic proverb boldly places death right at the center of life. 'Death is the middle of a long life,' they used to say. Ancient people did things like that; they put death at the center instead of casting it out of sight and leaving such an important subject until the last possible moment. Of course, they lived close to nature and couldn't help but see how the forest grew from fallen trees and how death seemed to replenish life from fallen members. Only the unwise and the overly fearful think that death is the blind enemy of life. — Michael Meade

The sensation of "I" as a lonely and isolated center of being is so powerful and commonsensical, and so fundamental to our modes of speech and thought, to our laws and social institutions, that we cannot experience selfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe. I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time - a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment only to vanish forever. Under such conditioning it seems impossible and even absurd to realize that myself does not reside in the drop alone, but in the whole surge of energy which ranges from the galaxies to the nuclear fields in my body. — Alan W. Watts

When we live moment to moment, we place ourselves at the center of life, where infinite wisdom abides, rather than on the periphery, where things are forever changing and we are susceptible to the vagaries of the world. It is in our awareness each moment of our oneness with God that our inner peace and greatest strength lie. — Susan L. Taylor

Find the center of what you believe matters most to you in life ,and act on it today! The moment is now! — Tony Robbins

Dilemmas of the Angels: Flight"

Before the angel there was something else -
not this coffee shop next to a drug rehabilitation center
filled with war veterans of the past, men and women
strapped to their chairs, birds straining to rise
from piles of feathers, bones, and blood.

Drenched in sweat and a little shaky
from too much caffeine, she takes flight,
a shining white-winged trumpeter swan
crossing open water, steam rising
from the feathers' barbs. Below her,
a cormorant, unfolding its black wings,
explodes from the surface, and even fish,
leaping from the oily sheen, glide
for a moment, gills pumping
in the poisonous atmosphere.

Such longing. How large
the muscles in our shoulders must be
to lift our wings even a single time. — David Romtvedt

I cannot explain love," he said. "I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you. That you were the center of everything I did and felt and thought. — Cassandra Clare

Then I noticed it. Red and oval-shaped with a white oval in the center, like the giant eye of a jinni. It sizzled and hissed, the white part expanding, moving closer. It horrified me to my very core. Must get out of here! I thought. Now! It sees me! But I didn't know how to move. Move with what? I had no body. The red was bitter venom. The white was like the sun's worst heat. I started screaming and crying again. Then I was opening my eyes to a cup of water. Everyone's face broke into a smile. "Oh, praise Ani," the Ada said. I felt the pain and jumped, about to get up and run. I had to run. From that eye. I was so mixed up that for a moment, I was sure that what I'd just seen was causing the pain. "Don't — Nnedi Okorafor

His heart was racing and he took slow, deep breaths. And as he inhaled, he suddenly noticed a cold,hard object near the center of his body - like a hard core of earth that remains frozen all year long. This was the source of the pain in his chest, and the difficulty breathing. He had never known, until this moment , that such a thing existed inside him. Yet it was this pain, and this sense of being choked, that he needed. It was exactly what he had to acknowledge, what he had to confront. From now on, he had to make that cold core melt, bit by bit. It might take time, but it was what he had to do. But his own body heat wasn't enough to melt that frozen soil. He needed someone else's warmth. — Haruki Murakami

I watched the Trade Center buildings go down from my balcony, and it was a terrifying moment. I couldn't get my mind around it at all. — Joyce Brothers

Because the truth was, there was a dark underbelly of terror to motherhood. You loved your children with such an overwhelming fierceness that you were absolutely vulnerable at every moment of every day: They could be taken from you. Somehow, you could lose them. You could stop at the corner to buy a newspaper when a drunk driver veered onto the sidewalk. You could feed your child an E. coli-tainted hamburger. You could turn your head for a second while one darted out into the street. The threats to your child were infinite. And the thing was, if any of your children's lives were ruined, even a little bit, yours wold be, too. — Katherine Center

The heart of the engine is the one part that I can't help you find, unfortunately. There is just no way for me to document its location; it's different in every car. I could barely find the heart of my VW-it was too confusing, and there were too many routes. Every time I thought I'd reach the center point I realized I was lost, not where I thought I was, following the wrong sunrise yet again. I wonder: Does the heart move around or something? The geographic arrangement of the engine compartment doesn't make things any easier- some of the mechanical parts are underground, nestled in the hills, and others are hidden behind the hustle and lathe of small mechanical cities. But don't cloudy-day! We'll find the heart eventually- I don't care if we need to tear the engine down to every bolt and moment to do so. — Christopher Boucher

Living closer to the center of our being is the practice of a lifetime, but so, too, is skillfully living on the horizontal plane-the surface of life-where our purpose for being on the planet is uniquely expressed. Redefining moments are simply energy vortexes that draw the authentic self up (vertically) and out (horizontally) and into present moment awareness, revealing it to the light of day and the gifts it holds. — Dennis Merritt Jones

Life was meant to be warm and happy and lovely. Life was meant to be a sweet unhampered thing, joyful and gay. It should have everything in it,--wealth and travel and happiness and a career and friends and Allen. And if it couldn't have them all . . . oh, it ought to have Allen. It ought, anyway, to have Allen.... It had been as though in that one brief bitter-sweet moment, she had been swept again into some haven, had become the center of some great plan. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

We all have a divine light within us," Hayes says, breaking the moment, his hands in a prayer position at the center of his chest. "But it's our job to seek that divine light and let it shine. To take what's on the inside and show it on the outside. It is the only way to true enlightenment." As — Rebekah Crane

Working with Your Budding Adolescent: 16 to 24 Weeks

When you and your puppy reach the budding adolescent stage, you may feel like hiding in the closet. Some days are livable. However, other days you feel like moving. Your puppy doesn't listen or respond to known directions. He bolts, chases, and nips at everything that moves. He demands your attention and barks or mounts you when he doesn't get his way. He insists on being the center of attention every moment of every day.

Keep in mind that this stage is normal. I managed to live through it, and you will too. — Sarah Hodgson

Well, there wasn't much time left after work, but I tried to do something every day. I did rock climbing at an indoor center, and squash, and I went to concerts, and tried new restaurants-
It's easy to do those things if you have money, I protested.
And I went running. Yes, really, he said, as I raised an eyebrow. And I tried to learn new languages for places I thought I might visit one day. And I saw my friends- or people I thought were my friends ... He hesitated for a moment. And I planned trips. I looked for places I'd never been, things that would frighten me or push me to my limit. I swam the Channel once. Yes- he said, as I made to interrupt, I know a lot of these need money, but a lot of them don't. And besides, how do you think I made money? — Jojo Moyes

Here's how I see your weight - it is your smoke detector. And we're all burning up the best part of our lives. I'd never thought of it that way before, but it was a true aha moment. My weight was an indicator warning, a flashing light blaring my disconnection from the center of myself. — Oprah Winfrey

The physical universe was created when Oneness became duality, and we can see this duality, this yin and yang, everywhere in the universe, in every atom, every action, and in every function of the human body. Yin and yang are manifest everywhere, except at the very center of being, the perfect point of balance, at that infinite moment where the future becomes the past. — Robert Tisserand

Honoria clung to him, her heart and mind racing. What did she want of this? A moment of tumbled passion, a few nights of escape from dreariness of her life? or more?
Someone to love her. Someone to hold her on his arms, to tell her that she was the center of his world. Some one to trust. Someone to love back. — Bec McMaster

The next time you feel a sense of dissatisfaction, of something being missing or not quite right, turn inward as an experiment. See if you can capture the energy of that very moment. Instead of picking up a magazine or going to the movies, calling a friend or looking for something to eat or acting up in one way or another, make a place for yourself. Sit down and enter into your breathing, if only for a few minutes. Don't look for anything - neither flowers not light nor a beautiful view. Don't extol the virtues of anything or condemn the inadequacy of anything. Don't even think to yourself, "I am going inward now." Just sit. Reside at the center of the world. Let things be as they are. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

I can't seem to wipe away the blood. I rub my hands against my nightgown, but traces of the red remain, staining the lines of my palms and the crescents beneath my fingernails. I wipe harder, gathering and bunching the soft cotton inside my fists. The fabric has been slit up the center and for a moment I worry that I've been cut, that maybe the blood is my own. I try to ask what's happening, but there's a mask over my mouth and nose. Suddenly it hits me - I'm in an ambulance.
I don't remember how I got here. — Paula Stokes

The sound of her breathing reminded me, as it so often did, of how vulnerable she was. And how vulnerable we were because of how much we loved her. The fear - that something could happen to her at any moment, something I'd be helpless to stop - had become so omnipresent in my life that I sometimes pictured it growing, like a third arm, out of the center of my chest. — Dennis Lehane

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe. — Elie Wiesel

It is a sunny fall afternoon and I'm engaged in one of my favorite pastimes - picking chestnuts. I'm playing alone under the spreading, leafy, protective tree. My mother is sitting on a bench nearby, rocking the buggy in which my sister is asleep. The city, beyond the lacy wall of trees, is humming with gentle noises. The sun has just passed its highest point and is warming me with intense, oblique rays. I pick up a reddish brown chestnut, and suddenly, through its warm skin, I feel the beat as if of a heart. But the beat is also in everything around me, and everything pulsates and shimmers as if it were coursing with the blood of life. Stooping under the tree, I'm holding life in my hand, and I am in the center of a harmonious, vibrating transparency. For that moment, I know everything there is to know. I have stumbled into the very center of plenitude, and I hold myself still with fulfillment, before the knowledge of my knowledge escapes me. — Eva Hoffman

To seek the self, one must first have a clear idea of what one is looking for. Thus, some meditation manuals advise actively cultivating the sense of self, despite the fact that this sense is the target of the analysis. Our sense of identity is often vaguely felt. Sometimes, for example, we identify with the body, saying, "I am sick." At other times, one is the owner of the body, "My stomach hurts." It is said that by imagining a moment of great pride or imagining a false accusation, a strong and palpable sense of the "I" appears in the center [of] the chest: "I did it," or, "I did not do that." This sense of self is to be carefully cultivated, until one is convinced of its reality. One then sets out to find this self, reasoning that, if it exists, it must be located somewhere in the mind or the body. — Donald S. Lopez Jr.

1. Pause and Picture: Pause, allowing your child a moment to orient herself. Even more important, center yourself as well. Picture yourself giving your child a direction that she fulfills well. Allow yourself to imagine — Kim John Payne

I learned that everything is right where we are. No matter our pain or distress, all of life is in whatever moment we wake to. I could clearly see and feel how our fear of death makes us run, though there is nowhere to go. Yet mysteriously, I learned that there's a ring of peace at the center of every fear, if we can only get to it. Every time I shower now, I try to remember that we can-not live fully until we can first accept our eventual death. Otherwise, we will always be running to or running from. Only when we can accept that we are fragile guests on this Earth, only then will we be at home wherever we are. — Mark Nepo

What is running your life at any given moment is your soul. Not external circumstances, not your thoughts, not your intentions, not even your feelings, but your soul. The soul is that aspect of your whole being that correlates, integrates, and enlivens everything going on in the various dimensions of the self. The soul is the life center of human beings. — John Ortberg

Pause, breathe, and lift, undefined, what is possible. Let the feeling of celebration come upon you, even if you do not comprehend cerebral reasons to justify it. For from that center, it will generate its own, able to carry you, until the original ones manifest, from that very portal you chose to fashion, unrestricted. — Tom Althouse

I'm sorry it's had to be this hard. But if I hadn't walked this path, who would I be? At the moment I felt at the center of my life, the dream still braided like sweetgrass in my memory. I remembered Duffy's challenge. Imagine a world worth living in, a world worth fighting for. I closed my eyes and allowed my hopes to soar. I heard the beatings of wings nearby. I opened my eyes. A young man on a nearby rooftop released his pigeons, like dreams, into the dawn. — Leslie Feinberg

By the way, don't ever let someone convince you that there's anything - and I mean anything - good about dying. There is nothing redemptive in decline and decay. The hard candy of necrosis has no nougat center where the human spirit prevails over all. Death is not a 'journey,' a 'part of life,' a 'release from suffering,' or any other such bullshit euphemism we employ to comfort and delude ourselves. And while we're on the subject, no one 'passes on' or 'passes away,' either, and they sure as fuck don't 'cross over.' They die, and then they start to swell and stink in the very moment. — Ron Currie Jr.

Deacon grinned and raised his hand. There was a moment's hesitation, a few seconds where Deacon wasn't sure whether he could really do it. Then he brought his hand down, smacking the center of Mark's ass. Mark's breath hitched, but other than that, nothing much happened. The spot Deacon had slapped was barely pink. "Was that okay?" Deacon asked.
"Was what okay?" Mark asked, lifting his head.
"Uh, the way I did that?"
"Did you do something?"
"What do you mean?"
"I might be wrong, mate, but isn't a spanking supposed to hurt a bit? You've got arm muscles; why don't you use th - "
The crack of Deacon's palm against Mark's flesh made Deacon cringe - not out of sympathy for Mark so much as fear that the entire house had heard it. Mark bucked, and the pink patch that appeared on his right cheek was quite satisfying. "Better?" Deacon asked.
"God. Fuck. Yes. Better," Mark said into the pillow. — Lisa Henry

The moment he leaves, the bees are back. Buzzing. I breathe in and feel their tiny feet in my bronchi. Buzz. Wings beeting in my alveoli. Flutterbuzz.
[ ... ]
Flutterflutterzzzzzzzzbuzzzzzz. I have to do something to make it stop. I have to feel something simple. This
flutterflutterflutterbuzzzzz
is too complicated. Too confusing. I want to feel something about which there can be no argument or debate. Soemthing about which everything will be known. Here. Now. Something that will make all the rest stop.
There is an exquisite and audible pop when the hooked tip of the center tine in the fish fork punctures the fat purple vein. — Juliann Garey

I stand here on this spring day in the center of my life. Chaos, din, and beauty. For a moment, I am still. — Marisa De Los Santos

Falling out of balance doesn't matter, really and truly. How we deal with that moment and how we find our way back to center, every day, again and again - that is the practice of yoga ... it's about trusting that you will find your way. — Cyndi Lee

Disabused of our illusions by much travel and travail, we awaken one day to find that the sacred center is here and now - in every moment of the journey, everywhere in the world around us, and deep within our own hearts. — Parker J. Palmer

He was not quite sure how to phrase it, so he finally went with,
haltingly, "I don't enjoy being at the center of attention."
Her head tilted to the side, she regarded him for a long moment
before saying, "No. You don't." And then: "You were always a
tree."
"I beg your pardon?"
Her eyes grew sentimental. "When we performed our awful
pantomimes as children. You were always a tree."
"I never had to say anything."
"And you always got to stand at the back."
He felt himself smile, lopsided and true. "I rather liked being a
tree."
"You were a very good tree." She smiled then, too - a radiant,
wondrous thing. "The world needs more trees. — Julia Quinn

We build our lives in moments, and even the ones we can't remember become the story of who we are. — Katherine Center

You should have Hugo throw you in the pool."
The golem turned his head toward Seth, who shrugged.
"Sure, that would be fun."
Hugo nodded, grabbed Seth, and, with a motion like a hook shot, flung him skyward. Kendra gasped. They were still thirty or forty feet away from the edge of the pool. She had pictured the golem carrying Seth much closer before tossing him. Her brother sailed nearly as high as the roof of the house before plummeting down and landing in the center of the deep end with an impressive splash.
Kendra ran to the side of the pool. By the time she arrived, Seth was boosting himself out of the waster, hair and clothes dripping. "That was the freakiest, awesomest moment in my life!" Seth declared. "But next time, let me take off my shoes. — Brandon Mull

This word 'individual' is beautiful; it means indivisible. Right now as you are, you are divided. You are only many fragments clinging together anyhow without any center being there, without any master in the house, with only servants. And for a moment any servant can become the master. — Rajneesh

Already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. — F Scott Fitzgerald

She was breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the weight of beings, the insane or static life, the long anguish of living or dying. After so many years running from fear, fleeing crazily, uselessly, she was finally coming to a halt. At the same time she seemed to be recovering her roots, and the sap rose anew in her body, which was no longer trembling. Pressing her whole belly against the parapet, leaning toward the wheeling sky, she was only waiting for her pounding heart to settle down, and for the silence to form in her. The last constellations of stars fell in bunches a little lower on the horizon of the desert, and stood motionless. Then, with an unbearable sweetness, the waters of the night began to fill her, submerging the cold, rising gradually to the center of her being, and overflowing wave upon wave to her moaning mouth. A moment later, the whole sky stretched out above her as she lay with her back against the cold earth. — Albert Camus

For a moment, I lived in the center of the sun, warmed and cleansed, and the smell and sight of sickness fell away; the bitterness lifted from my heart. I — Diana Gabaldon

You go in the weight room and you lift weights and you do all these things to strengthen your body. This is strengthening your mind. When you can stay focused and you can use that focus to always come back with your breath to center yourself, so that you're kind of floating in the moment, in the spirit. — Phil Jackson

When service is unto people, the bones can grow weary, the frustration deep. Because, agrees Dorothy Sayers, "whenever man is made the center of things, he becomes the storm-center of trouble. The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains ... You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause ... When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing the feet of Jesus alone - the bones, they sing joy and the work returns to it's purest state: eucharisteo. The work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness. "The work we do is only our love for Jesus in action" writes Mother Theresa. "If we pray the work ... if we do it to Jesus, if we do it for Jesus, if we do it with Jesus ... that's what makes us content." Deep joy is always in the touching of Christ - in whatever skin He comes to us in. Page 194 — Ann Voskamp

It's crazy, that the defining moment of your life can be nothing to someone else. Like an infatuation, an unrequited love, every bit of you is drawn to it, orbits that heaviness at the center of your universe, everything you think and feel revolving around it and yet, nobody knows. Even the one who caused it. Especially the one who caused it. — Leah Raeder

And right on cue, Viola yells, " TODD! "
And I hit him with everything I got -
Every bit of her behind me -
Every piece of anger and frustrayshun and nothingness -
Every moment I didn't see her -
Every moment I worried -
Everything -
Every little tiny thing I know about her -
I send it right into the center of him -
VIOLA — Patrick Ness

When she's abandoned her moral center and teachings ... when she's cast aside her facade of propriety and lady-like demeanor ... when I have so corrupted this fragile thing and brought out a writhing, mewling, bucking, wanton whore for my enjoyment and pleasure ... enticing from within this feral lioness ... growling and scratching and biting ... taking everything I dish out to her ... at that moment she is never more beautiful to me. — Marquis De Sade

There was a single window that tapered into a funnel, with eerie moonlight passing through it, reflecting directly off the globe like a mirror. For a moment, as I rose I saw something glimmering within. Dumbly, with feverish whispers assailing me, I realized it was the center of one of the distant galaxies, flaring after some unknown cataclysm. Its radiance was such that it burst from its prison. It met the moonlight halfway. It created kaleidoscopic colours on the walls. Then, in answer, the reliefs transformed from majestic art into something approaching divine, alive, plays from Egyptian memory, given the spark of life from space. I saw animal-headed gods move. They stepped from the walls to take their place around the altar. All stared at the globe. Each raised their arms in silent supplication. And such was their toxic ecstasy that I wished to join them, to forget my dreadful experiences and revel in something truly wondrous. — Tim Reed

For me at this time in my life I recognize that everything is about moving closer to that which is God. And without a full, spiritual center - and I am not talking about religion, I am talking about without understanding the fullness from which you've come you can't really fulfill your supreme moment of destiny ... — Oprah Winfrey

There is neither source nor end, for all things are in the Center of Time. As all the stars may be reflected in a round raindrop falling in the night: so too do all the stars reflect the raindrop. There is neither darkness nor death, for all things are, in the Light of the Moment, and their end and their beginning are one. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The left half of your brain deals with logic, language, calculation, and reason. This is the half people perceive as their personal identity. This is the conscious, rational, everyday basis of reality. The right side of your brain, is the center of your intuition, emotion, insight, and pattern recognition skills. Your subconscious. Your left brain is a scientist,. Your right brain is an artist.
People live their lives out of the left half of their brains. It's only when someone is in extreme pain, or upset or sick, that their subconscious can slip into the conscious. When someone's injured or sick or mourning or depressed, the right brain can take over a flash, just an instant, and gives them access to divine inspiration. A flash inspiration. A moment of insight.
According to German philosopher Carl Jung, this lets us connect to a universal body of knowledge. The wisdom all people over all time. — Chuck Palahniuk

Such an incredible, stupefying realization: I am not, indeed, the center of the universe.

Not! Not! Not!

And the overwhelming gratitude, the flooding relief that comes from finally being able to give myself the permission to lay down that excruciating, exhausting burden of needing to prove to the world, every waking moment, that I am, indeed, undeniably, irrefutably The Center of the Universe. — Lionel Fisher

She flapped her hands, anxious energy coursing through her. "How can you be so calm?"
He got to his feet, unfolding with an easy grace. He held out a hand, his dark eyes focused solemnly on hers. "Come with me."
"For what?"
"That's part of the lesson." Was it her imagination, or did a twinkle of humor stir in those eyes? "Center yourself, and grab onto the here and now."
That made no sense - what was he now, Sir Medieval Zen Master? But she slipped her hand into his strong, calloused one. He hauled her up until she bumped into his chest. With a finger under her chin, he tilted her face until she looked in his eyes.
"Listen to the world around you. Hear the birds? Hear the small animals scurrying? You are in this moment, this moment only, and sometimes that's all you can do, all you can be." His finger pulled away, brushing against her skin, and he tapped her nose, stepping away. — Angela Quarles

We resonate with one another's sorrows because we are interconnected. Being whole and simultaneously part of a larger whole, we can change the world simply by changing ourselves. If I become a center of love and kindness in this moment, then in a perhaps small but hardly insignificant way, the world now has a nucleus of love and kindness it lacked the moment before. This benefits me and it benefits others. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

I had thought peace was a place where there was no turbulence or fear. Where there were no highs and lows and where happiness was found in the calm at the center. But at that moment, I finally realized peace wasn't about avoiding things. It was about making the choice to live life with all its chaos around you, and in the midst of it all, having calm in your heart. — Vi Keeland

The difference between the Parthenon and the World Trade Center, between a French wine glass and a German beer mug, between Bach and John Philip Sousa, between Sophocles and Shakespeare, between a bicycle and a horse, though explicable by historical moment, necessity, and destiny, is before all a difference of imagination. — Guy Davenport

When facing reality, we want to see the big picture. To simplify, it's important to consider all aspects of our experience. The experience of being in the moment centers us, and being centered puts us in the moment. Recognizing perfection requires us to notice where we are at any given moment. If we are in the center, also look to the periphery. Likewise, if we are on the periphery, recognize where the other rings are and where the center is. Achieving balance is the ability to be centered wherever we are. Ideally, we want to increase the size of the center so that it encompasses as many rings as possible. — Gene O'Kelly

And I was grateful. For all the things that had brought me to this moment, and for every single thing that would follow. — Katherine Center

And he believed it too, believed, in that moment, that the arrow he had made for himself would continue its long upward motion. As if there was no possibility of return, no aphelion or perihelion to chart the long spiral of his orbit around whatever false burning center he had made.
Know this. That the things that go into the fire are forever changed. That all you have ever done can be measured not by distance but by circumference. That these twin spirals of smoke: they are your life, rising in curls. — Christian Kiefer

It's not just about recognizing how 'precious' every moment is, or about 'living for today.' It's about finding the sacred center of now, and living there, moment to moment, always. — Kathryn E. Livingston

Rhys straightened. "You'd- make me food?"
"Heat," I said. "I can't cook."
It didn't seem to make a difference. But whatever it was, the act of offering him food... I dumped some cold soup into a pan and lit the burner. "I don't know the rules," I said, my back to him. "So you need to explain them to me."
He lingered in the center of the cabin, watching my every move. He said hoarsely, "It's an... important moment when a female offers her mate food. It goes back to whatever beats we were a long, long time ago. But it still matters. The first time matters. Some mated pairs will make an occasion of it- throwing a party just so the female can formally offer mate food... That's usually done amongst the wealthy. But it means that the female... accepts the bond."
I stared into the soup. "Tell me the story- tell me everything."
He understood my offer: tell me while I cooked, and I'd decide at the end whether or not to offer him that food. — Sarah J. Maas

Rachel had a feeling there might have been a story about the procurement of the macarons, but she didn't really listen when Lauren was speaking about anything that didn't involve Jacob. She selected a red one and took a tentative bite. "Oh, God," she moaned a moment later, and thought, for the first time in she didn't know how long, of sex. She took a bigger bite. "Mother Mary." She laughed out loud. No wonder people lined up for them. It was exquisite; the raspberry flavor of the creamy center was like the barest touch of fingertips on her skin, the meringue light and tender, like eating a cloud. — Liane Moriarty

If we cease looking, searching, what are we left with? We're left with what's been right there at the center all the time. Underneath all that searching there is distress. There is unease. The minute that we realize that, we see that the point isn't the search, but rather the distress and unease which motivate the search. That's the magic moment - when we realize that searching outside of ourselves is not the way. — Charlotte Joko Beck

everything actually was all-meaningful, that every symbol and combination of symbols led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with a truly meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created. — Hermann Hesse

You're different. You're more perfect. Time is three things for most people, but for you, for us, just one. A singularity. One moment. This moment. Like you're the center of the clock, the axis on which the hands turn. Time moves about you but never moves you. It has lost its ability to affect you. What is it they say? That time is theft? But not for you. Close your eyes and you can start all over again. Conjure up that necessary emotion, fresh as roses. — Jonathan Nolan

Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is 'unceasing.' Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings, and fears. Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of our unceasing thoughts? No, we can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with our God, who is the source of all love.
Let's break out of our isolation and realize that Someone who dwells in the center of our beings wants to listen with love to all that occupies and preoccupies our minds. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

And then, in a skittering, chittering rush, it came. The hand, running high on its fingertips, scrabbled through the tall grass and up onto a tree stump. It stood there for a moment, like crab tasting the air, and then it made one triumphant, nail-clacking leap onto the center of the tablecloth.
Time slowed for Coraline. The white fingers closed around the black key ... — Neil Gaiman

People returning from a journey carry the distances they have traveled with them like outspread wings - until they put the key in their front door. Then the wings fold up, and they are home again, as though in the center of an impassable steel ring on the horizon. The moment they close the door behind them, they can no longer imagine they have ever been away. — Harry Mulisch

In a moment, at the very center of the swept and cleaned veranda, she had drawn two intersecting triangles, one upward- pointing and the other downward-pointing. In one, god's grace descended from heaven to earth; in the other, the soul ascended, aspiring toward god. Because of Sitamma's faultless eye, both met in perfect harmony. — U.R. Ananthamurthy

The purpose of the Disciplines is freedom. Our aim is the freedom, not the Discipline. The moment we make the Discipline our central focus we will turn it into law and lose the corresponding freedom ... Let us forever center on Christ and view the Spiritual Disciplines as a way of drawing us closer to His heart. — Richard J. Foster

V rolled the Aquafina bottle between his palms. "How long have you wanted to ask me the question? About the gay thing."
"For a while."
"Afraid of what I'd say?"
"Nope, because it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. I'm tight with you whether you like males or females or both."
V looked into his best friend's eyes and realized ... yeah, Butch wasn't going to judge him. They were cool no matter what.
With a curse, V rubbed the center of his chest and blinked. He never cried but he felt as if he could at this moment. — J.R. Ward

To be a mother is to live in fear. Fear of death, of sickness, of loss, of accidents, of strangers, of the Black Man, or simply those small everyday things that somehow manage to hurt us most: the look of impatience, the angry word, the missed bedtime story, the forgotten kiss, the terrible moment when a mother ceases to be the center of her daughter's world and becomes — Joanne Harris

I give in, and I step into him, letting my forehead press deep into the center of his chest as I bring my limp arms around him, my fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt on the back. His chin slowly falls to the top of my head and his own arms circle me tentatively at first, until finally they lock around me, his palms sliding in slow tender circles along my skin. I'm overcome with his strength and the feel of his embrace, and I do something that I regret the moment it starts.
I cry. — Ginger Scott

When you play guitar you are drawing a frame around a moment and saying to the listener, 'Here is how I want you to experience this. How you begin and end a solo is framing, How you structure a song is framing, how you present yourself onstage is framing. See every corner, not just the center, framing should heighten the impact of the art and give clarity to your vision. — Philip Toshio Sudo

My paintings are the result of countless small brushstrokes, each one shaded with a different blend of colors, each one with a single, deliberate purpose. Every moment, every day, we are all making something - whether it's science or art, a relationship or a destiny - building it choice by choice, moment by moment. Our decisions shape other people's worlds as well as our own. We are all the center of our own universe and all of use in someone else's orbit. It's a paradox, but sometimes paradoxes are where truth begins.
My father would point out that the Beatles told us all of this decades ago. They one sang that in the end, the love we take is equal to the love we make. No, we can never be in complete control of our fates - we're all vulnerable to accidents, to cruelty, and to the random misfortune of life. But I try to think about how much of it is up to us. We decide what emotions serve as our building blocks, which feelings we'll use to shape our universe. — Claudia Gray

My foot slips on a narrow ledge; in that split second, as needles of fear pierce heart and temples, eternity intersects with present time. Thought and action are not different, and stone, air, ice, sun, fear, and self are one. What is exhilarating is to extend this acute awareness into ordinary moments, in the moment-by-moment experiencing of the lammergeier and the wolf, which, finding themselves at the center of things, have no need for any secret of true being. In this very breath that we take now lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us ... the present moment. The purpose of mediation practice is not enlightenment' it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life. — Peter Matthiessen

I find L.A. very interesting, partly because I think something new is forming there, but not in a moment of good fellowship as you might think from all this "diversity" claptrap. It's not as if we'll all go down to the Civic Center in our ethnic costumes and dance around. — Richard Rodriguez