Nearly Gone Quotes & Sayings

We've gotten so good at growing food that we've gone, in a few generations, from nearly half of Americans living on farms to 2 percent. We no longer think about how the wonderful things in the grocery store got there, and we'd like to go back to what we think is a more natural way. — Nina Fedoroff

And when she thinks of that generation of silent men, the boys who lived through the Depression and grew up to become soldiers or not-soldiers in the war, she doesn't blame them for refusing to talk, for not wanting to go back into the past, but how curious it is, she thinks, how sublimely incoherent that her generation, which doesn't have much of anything to talk about yet, has produced men who never stop talking, men like Bing, for example, or men like Jake, who talks about himself at the slightest prompting, who has an opinion on every subject, who spews forth words from morning to night, but just because he talks, that doesn't mean she wants to listen to him, whereas with the silent men, the old men, the ones who are nearly gone now, she would give anything to hear what they have to say. — Paul Auster

Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full.
Way down here on earth, I could feel it's pull.
The weight of gravity or just the lure of life,
Made me want to leave my only home tonight.
I'm just wondering how we know where we belong
Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn
In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn
Singing in between here and gone — Mary Chapin Carpenter

I have never gone on a real trip, never taken a holiday. The best holiday for me is spent in my workshops when nearly everybody else is on vacation. — Enzo Ferrari

No. Before you say it, I'm not going back outside. I've gone through nearly half a pack of smokes since I've been out there leaving you two to talk. I don't think you're very good for my health. - Evo — L.J. Sealey

Oh, my friend, what have you gone through that being called moral nearly makes you weep? Or was it being called friend? — Brent Weeks

I remember when the houses used to whiz by as I walked - nearly running - to and from home. Ma would ask me afterwards about what I'd seen, whether certain neighbours were out, what I thought about someone's new garden wall. I'd never noticed; it had all gone past in a flash. Now I have plenty of time to look at everything, and no one to tell what I've seen. — Emma Healey

Have any of you taken a look out at Greece in the last, say, hour or so? (Hermes) What? Are they reacting to the fact I cursed the Apollites? (Apollo) I don't think that bothers them nearly as much as the fact the island of Atlantis is now gone and the Atlantean goddess Apollymi is cutting a swathe through our country, laying waste to everyone and everything she comes into contact with. And in case you're curious, she's headed straight for us. I could be really wrong here, but I'm guessing the woman's extremely pissed. (Hermes) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Between the ink mage and the wizard, his mouth falling open at the sight. The hulk had nearly let her go after Talbun's shock attack, but he recovered quickly and took her head in his meaty hands. Don't. With appalling ease, the ink mage twisted. The snap was so loud, it made Brasley flinch even from across the chamber. His mouth fell open to scream. "No!" The brute's mouth twisted into a contemptuous grin as he let the limp body fall from his hands. Brasley watched it happen in slow motion, almost like she was floating, eyes closed, face peaceful, hair floating up around her. It was as if life had been some tremendous weight, and now that it was gone, her shell drifted down to the floor like a dry leaf. Talbun's body hit with a dull thud that brought Brasley back to reality. — Victor Gischler

I'm mad at Maggie for giving me something that nearly killed me to lose when I invariably fucked everything up. For showing me what perfect looked like right before I destroyed it. I'm angry as hell because she built back up what I had broken, she gave me everything; a life, a future. And now it's gone. — A Meredith Walters

Unni will come, if not today, then tomorrow. Today is nearly gone, but other todays stir fecund in the word tomorrow, many other todays when this one has lapsed from existence. And because I think of Unni, invoking his name in this for ever recurrent today, already he is here for me. - The Mountain is Young — Han Suyin

He'd gone so long without a brain, and the thought of all that wasted time was nearly enough to make him cry - except, of course, that he couldn't. At least he was a king now. That was something. He was powerful. He was smart. And he was getting smarter by the minute. — Danielle Paige

Sometimes I look back and I am shocked. Everyday of my life I have prepared for success, worked for it, waited for it, and you don't notice how the days pass until nearly a lifetime is finished. Then it hits you
the thing you have been waiting for has already gone by. And it was going in the other direction. It's like I've been waiting on the wrong side of the road for a bus that was already full. p. 265 — Monica Ali

When I was a child and told my mother I didn't felt this was my planet, she thought I was schizophrenic or autistic. When later I finished a college degree and started working in different countries, she called me monster and started threatening me. Nearly 40 years later, when I was making a living from the books I wrote based on what I know, and making 6 times more money than she ever will, she apologized. I'm just not sure why or what she was apologizing for. I had already forgiven her ignorance when realizing nobody would ever believe the truth but myself. I had to go the whole way alone. Nobody was going to come with me on this very long, painful and challenging journey that humans call life but for me was much more than that, it was my mission, of changing their whole future far beyond the time when I'm gone. She was never my mother but merely the human body that gave me birth. In that sense, I am a monster, because I had no love. I had to find that too, on my own. — Robin Sacredfire

The only trouble with the movement for the preservation of our forests is that it has not gone nearly far enough, and was not begun soon enough. — Theodore Roosevelt

A little while ago I visited Omaha Beach for the second time in my life. In the intervening 26 years, nearly 20,000 tides had come and gone and little remains visible of the greatest military landing in man's history of endless warring. What's to be seen is mostly in a superb museum and a panoramic cemetery. The cemetery memorializes with dignity and grandeur the event and the dead, and moves one deeply. Before they die less precipitously and/or in lesser purpose, Americans who can should visit World War II's Normandy Beach. Such seeing and remembering helps a man's perspective. — Malcolm Forbes

The motto stated a lie. If this nation has ever trusted in God, that time has gone by; for nearly half a century almost its entire trust has been in the Republican party and the dollar
mainly the dollar. I recognize that I am only making an assertion and furnishing no proof; I am sorry, but this is a habit of mine; sorry also that I am not alone in it; everybody seems to have this disease. — Mark Twain

Doug returned five minutes later and shook his head. "Sorry kid. She's single, but she doesn't think you're her type. She's into the Goth and vampire scene. You're too mainstream for her." I was sipping a glass of water and nearly choked on it.
"That," said Peter, as soon as Doug was gone, "is what we call irony."
"How is that possible?" exclaimed Cody. "I am a vampire. I should be exactly what she wants."
"Yeah, but you don't look like one," I said. If Gabrielle had been a Trekkie, he might have had a shot tonight. — Richelle Mead

The benefits [of the resurrection] are innumerable. To list a few: Our illnesses don't seem nearly so final; Our fears fade and lose their grip; Our grief over those who have gone on is diminished; Our desires to press on in spite of the obstacles is rejuvenated ... Our identity as Christians is strengthened as we stand in the lengthening shadows of saints down through the centuries, who have always answered back in antiphonal voice: 'He is risen, indeed!' — Charles R. Swindoll

It was written all in O, or nearly so, and all the O's are gone," said Andrea. "When coat is cat, and boat is bat, and goatherd looks like gathered, and booth is both, since both are bth, the reader's eye is bothered."
"And power is power, and zero zer, and, worst of all, a hero's her." The old man sighed as he said it.
"Anoon is ann, and moan is man." Andrea smiled as she said it.
"And shoe," Andreus said, "is she."
"Ah, woe," the old man said, "is we. — James Thurber

You mentioned something about needing resuscitation?" Her pussy quivered as she mentally visualized him breathing life into her kitty and easing the tension inside her. Her knees buckled and she forced them to straighten. Unable to find her voice she gave a quick, tight nod. He flashed her a bad-boy grin, and in a low, barely controlled voice, he said, "I believe a little mouth to mouth is in order." Mitch's hand slipped between their bodies and cupped her passion-drenched sex. Pleasure engulfed her and she nearly orgasmed right there, on the spot, all over his hand. She clamped her thighs together and leaned into him, her nipples crushed into his chest and tightening to the point of pain. She made a sexy noise and shifted. He sank to his knees, and shot her a glance, all traces of humor gone from his eyes. "Or, rather, a little mouth to kitty." — Cathryn Fox

Do you still have those tranquilizer darts I gave you?" "Oh, please." Cinder forced herself to stand, though her legs still shook. "Do you have any idea how many times I've nearly died since you gave me those? They're long gone." Dr. Erland harrumphed. "I'll make you some more. I have a feeling you're going to need them. — Marissa Meyer

Funnier still how much faith her parents put in him, considering the fact that Jay would officially be younger than Violet in less than a week.
Violet was about to turn seventeen, while Jay would still be sixteen for nearly two full months/
Jay liked that, the whole older-woman thing. He also liked to joke about the fact that Violet would soon be dating a younger man.
One night, when Violet's parents had gone out, he teased her about it, whispering against his throat, "I should probably be dating girls my own age now that you'll be over-the-hill." Jay was stretched out on Violet's bed as she curled against him.
Violet laughed, rising to the bait. "Fine," she challenged, pulling away and leaning up on her elbow. "I'm sure there are plenty of men my own age who would be willing to finish what you've started. — Kimberly Derting

Nearly every species that has ever lived has gone extinct, Laurette. No reason to think we humans will be any different! — Anthony Doerr

After all the shit they'd gone through - the pain, the loss, the heartache, the straight up evil brutality that made them question everything they'd thought to be true and had nearly driven them apart for good - he knew he'd do anything for her. Steal anything, kill anyone, be anyone. — Madeline Sheehan

Somehow the thought she might be next wasn't nearly as terrifying as the realization he was gone. — Marcha A. Fox

My own mental health issues had come and gone the same way, diagnosed nearly a hundred years ago as simple "hysteria," which only meant that I was a woman and really, who gave a shit what was actually wrong with me? Or — Cherie Priest

What are your pleasures and pursuits, Lord Moncrieffe?" Miss Eversea asked too brightly, when the silence had gone on for more than was strictly comfortable or polite.
That creaky conversation lubricant. It irritated him again that she was humoring him.
"Well, I'm partial to whores."
Her head whipped toward him like a weather-vane in a hurricane. Her eyes, he noted, were enormous, and such a dark blue they were nearly purple. Her mouth dropped, and the lower lip was quivering with shock or ... or ...
"Whor ... whores ... ?" She choked out the word as if she'd just inhaled it like bad cigar smoke.
He widened his own eyes with alarm, recoiling slightly.
"I ... I beg your pardon - Horses. Honestly, Miss Eversea," he stammered. "I do wonder what you think of me if that's what you heard. — Julie Anne Long

The dhampir dorm appeared before me, about half its windows lit. It was near curfew; people were going to bed. I burst in through the doors, feeling like my heart was going to explode from the exertion. The first person I saw was Stan, and I nearly knocked him over. He caught my wrists to steady me.
"Rose, wh - "
"Strigoi," I gasped out. "There are Strigoi on campus."
He stared at me, and for the first time I'd ever seen, his mouth seriously dropped open. Then, he recovered himself, and I could immediately see what he was thinking. More ghost stories. "Rose, I don't know what you're - "
"I'm not crazy!" I screamed. Everyone in the dorm's lobby was staring at us. "They're out there! They're out there, and Dimitri is fighting them alone. You have to help him." What had Dimitri told me? What was that word? "Buria. He said to tell you buria."
And like that, Stan was gone. — Richelle Mead

I would give anything to taste. To taste just dust. Because now that I'm nearly gone, I'm more here than I ever was. Now that I'm nothing but air, all I want is to breathe it. Now that I'm silent forever, haha, it's all words words words with me. Now that I can't just reach out and touch, it's all I want, is to. — Ali Smith

Why Mr. Dickens, in his biography of that particular moment, preferred to focus on the adventures of the orphan parish child, Oliver Twist, remains a matter of speculation and mystery to all subsequent scribes of those long-departed times: of a London nearly two centuries gone, back when it was a pox-infested, grimy, depressing, fog-bound, class-favoring, sprawling, noxious, odorous, and overall distasteful place in which to live and breathe and sicken and die - as opposed to modern times, wherein the pox has been largely attended to; so that's progress of a sort. — Peter David

Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game: the heavy financial interests; ... the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the Press; ... but the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt, and it has gone out and conquered the world.
J.B. Priestley in English Journey (referring to football), published in 1934. — J.B. Priestley

According to the most common interpretation of biblical prophecy, Jesus will return only after things have gone horribly awry. Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency. — Sam Harris

Whatever has gone on in the outer world has passed me by. But I think if anyone said to me, 'if you go on like this life will pass you by,' I would reply, 'thank God for that, I nearly got mixed up in the beastly thing. — Quentin Crisp

Back there or maybe even taken an actual shit, and then tried to cover it up with a bunch of coconut air freshener that smelled like suntan lotion. The seats were greasy, and patched with duct tape, and the shocks were nearly gone. Whenever we struck a — Donna Tartt

Jo, they have a baby grand piano, but no one in the family plays. They have shelves of books they've never read, and the tension between the couples was so thick it nearly choked us."
"Let me tell you something 'bout those rich Uptown folk," said Cokie. "They got everything that money can buy, their bank accounts are fat, but they ain't happy. They ain't ever gone be happy. You know why? They soul broke. And money can't fix that, no sir. My friend Bix was poor. Lord, he had to blow that trumpet ten hours a day just to put a little taste in the pot. Died poor, too. You saw him, Jo, with that plate on his chest. But that man wasn't soul broke. — Ruta Sepetys

She was nearly gone, and I could just barely make out tears sparkling in her eyes. " I know you will. I believe in you. I always have."
" I love you."
"I love you too."
She was gone. — Richelle Mead

If you are lying in bed now lamenting life, remember this: If I hadn't been harassed at work by people who lacked professionalism, given bad news by a doctor that saved my life, gone nearly broke, lost girlfriends for stupid reasons, had terrible bosses, made mistakes, and been lonely I never would have started my company or be grateful for every moment in the present. I used all of the above as fuel for my fire. Go to bed tonight knowing that its the tough times that prepare us for the best times. And the tough times teach us to stay up later, get up earlier, and surround ourselves with awesome people! — Robert J. Braathe

There is redemption in sadness. It tells me that for nearly five months in 2003, I lived life with the open, raw, refreshing outlook of the young. The payoff, though difficult to quantify, is much greater than I expected. I have no regrets about having gone -- it was the right thing to do. I think about it every day. Sometimes I can hardly believe it happened. I just quit -- and I was on a monumental trip. I didn't suffer financial ruin, my wife didn't leave me, the world didn't stop spinning. I do think of how regrettable it would have been had I ignored the pull that I felt to hike the trail. A wealth of memories could have been lost before they had even occurred if I had dismissed as a whim my inkling to hike. It is disturbing how tenuous our potential is due to our fervent defense of the comfortable norm. — David Miller

That's what love is, Marissa. It's not magic or voodoo. It's real. You can explain it. I an tell you exactly why I love Sarah." I hold my hand out and, thank God, Sarah gently interlaces her fingers with mine. 'I had lots of friends when I was little but by the time I turned eight they were mostly gone. It turns out blind Parker with a dead mom wasn't nearly as much fun as she was before the accident. I couldn't run around and play and I cried all the time and knocked over everything and turned into a royal bitch and one by one my friends disappeared until there were only two left. I'm not saying they were the only one who understood me or were nice, just that they were the ones who didn't go off and find easier people to be friends with. I love Sarah because she's been my best fiend and stayed that way when it got really really hard to be my friend at all. — Eric Lindstrom

These coins are not very valuable. Jack went out to get a napoleon changed, so as to have money suited to the general cheapness of things, and came back and said he had "swamped the bank, had bought eleven quarts of coin, and the head of the firm had gone on the street to negotiate for the balance of the change." I bought nearly half a pint of their money for a shilling myself. I am not proud on account of having so much money, though. I care nothing for wealth. — Mark Twain

I hurry back to the apartment, wondering how long I've been gone. I push the door open, then promptly drop the frozen peas.
Silas grins at me, shirtless, slightly toned chest glimmering in the sunlight pouring in through the dirty windows. His pants are slung wantonly low on his hips, and I can't help thinking about the drawings I left behind, the way non-Silas's abs looked nearly identical to real Silas's, and therefore everything might look identical ... My face flushes and I exhale shakily. — Jackson Pearce

Before him and since he'd gone away, she'd either contracted or ever-so-subtly contorted her very being to accommodate nearly everybody else. She was only ever wholly herself with him. — Julie Anne Long

I have now gone through the examination of the four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; and when it is considered that the whole space of time, from the crucifixion to what is called the ascension, is but a few days, apparently not more than three or four, and that all the circumstances are reported to have happened nearly about the same spot, Jerusalem, it is, I believe, impossible to find in any story upon record so many and such glaring absurdities, contradictions, and falsehoods, as are in those books. They are more numerous and striking than I had any expectation of finding, when I began this examination, and far more so than I had any idea of when I wrote the former part of 'The Age of Reason. — Thomas Paine

That night the Salt Fish Girl came back looking exhausted and dishevelled. A Malaysian girl who worked at her factory had been stricken with hysteria, had gone to the toilet and begun screaming and tearing at her hair. She had been working at the factory for nearly three years and was half blind and bored out of her wits with the tedious repetitiveness of the work. Her hysteria had provoked others, until half the women in the factory were screaming and howling and throwing themselves against the walls in sheer frustration with the dreariness of their toil and the damage it was exacting from their once young bodies and once bright faces. — Larissa Lai

I've come in and out of America for ... well, I've lived here for 15 years. And I've played here for nearly 30 years. On and off. But I've always played to my fan base. And I can come and do two or three nights in New York or two or three nights in L.A., and all that. But when I go away, nobody knows I've been gone. You know, I don't get reviewed or anything like that. So that's why I've come back and done a longer time in a smaller place, in New York. It's always the people who live here that get a chance to know me. — Billy Connolly

From 1945 to 1991, China was engaged in a series of wars that nearly broke them. This generation has been through hell: the Great Leap Forward, hunger, starvation, near collision with the Russians - the Cultural Revolution gone mad. I have no doubt that this generation wants a peaceful rise. — Lee Kuan Yew

Hatred the only moving force, a petulant unhappy striving - childhood the only happiness, and that unknowing; then the continual battle that cannot ever possibly be won; a losing fight against ill-health - poverty for nearly all. Life is a long disease with only one termination and its last years are appalling: weak, racked by the stone, rheumatismal pains, senses going, friends, family, occupation gone, a man must pray for imbecility or a heart of stone. All under sentence of death, often ignominious,frequently agonizing: and then the unspeakable levity with which the faint chance of happiness is thrown away for some jealousy, tiff, sullenness, private vanity, mistaken sense of honour, that deadly, weak and silly notion. — Patrick O'Brian

December 25, 10:35 p.m.
Dear America,
It's nearly bedtime, and I'm trying to relax, but I can't. All I can think about is you. I'm terrified you're going to get hurt. I know someone would tell me if you weren't all right, and that has led to its own kind of paranoia. If anyone comes up to me to deliver a message, my heart stops for a moment, fearing the worst: You are gone. You're not coming back.
I wish you were here. I wish I could just see you.
You are never getting these letters. It's too humiliating.
I want you home. I keep thinking of your smile and worrying that I'll never see it again.
I hope you come back to me, America.
Merry Christmas.
Maxon — Kiera Cass

This world loses its appeal when the steps become tottering, when the hearing becomes dim, when the faded eyes cannot see as they once did. When loved ones are nearly all gone on ahead, then all the riches or fame or pleasures of this world are baubles and trash. — John R. Rice

Crest, that was his name, was meanwhile droning on, while Kate seemed to be only half listening. I could not hear him clearly, but I could guess at the gist of it.

"Blah blah blah, I am handsome, I make a lot of money, this suit is expensive, and my shoes are made of the finest Corinthian leather hand-stitched by virgins under the moonlight. Of course, I could have gone into pediatrics, but for one of my amazing skill, really, plastic surgery was the only option. Beauty is so important, don't you think? Oh, Kate, you are nearly as attractive as I. Why then should we not be beautiful together?" — Gordon Andrews

Ellie swallowed hard, heat rising in her face. Within hours, she and Collin had gone from kissing in the rain to nearly strangers.
What changed? — Tracy March

Remove them." Stuck in masks - for nearly fifty years. I would have gone mad, would have peeled my skin off my face. "You didn't have a mask as a beast - and neither did your friend." "The blight is cruel like that." Either live as a beast, or live with the mask. "What - what sort of sickness is it? — Sarah J. Maas

John Newton's final recorded words: My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior. — Tony Reinke

Now nearly all the mysteries have gone, and there is scarcely an unknown country left to peer at.) — Jan Morris

The price of gold was fixed at $35 an ounce in 1934, but by the time the U.S. got through the Korean War, the Vietnam war, with all the associated secular inflation, the price level had gone up nearly three times. — Robert Mundell

The use of fashions in thought is to distract men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is in the least danger, and fix its approval on the virtue that is nearest the vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running around with fire extinguishers whenever there's a flood; and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gone under. — C.S. Lewis

I didn't start drama school until I was 20, and I don't think I would have gotten nearly as much out of it had I gone when I was 18. — Ben Schnetzer

Perception is of course intimately tied to preconception. I have, as is true for each of us, a pair of cultural eyeglasses that will determine to greater or lesser degree what will be in focus, what will be a blur, what gives me a headache, and what I cannot see. I was raised a Christian - the mythology resides deep in my bones - and I know the story of Jesus nearly as well as I know my own. Until my late teens I couldn't see some of the darker acts perpetrated in the name of Christ. I still feel a twinge each time I say, "I am not a Christian," a slight apprehension that I may have gone too far. Sometimes I look up, a small part of my upbringing still telling me that my blasphemy will call forth a bolt of lightning from the sky. — Derrick Jensen

Bree stared down at Bernardo's still form. The monitor was the only sound in the room apart from his deep breathing. Alessandro had gone down to the cafeteria with Will and Gianni to grab something to eat before they left for home. Bree lied and told him that she wanted to check in with Tina and her mother Roxanna for a few minutes before they left. Even unconscious, the son of a bitch was formidable and Bree felt nervous around him. "Why don't you do everyone a favour and just die already?" Bree said. No response. Bree sneered and shook her head, turning to leave. "You could always smother me with a pillow," a groggy voice said behind her, making her heart nearly stop. Bree whirled around wide-eyed and met Bernardo's dark gaze. She forced herself to shrug and crossed her arms. "Do you think Alessandro would forgive you for murdering his father?" Bernardo asked. They both knew the answer to that. — E. Jamie

After she was gone there would be no one who knew the whole of her life. She did not even know the whole of it! Perhaps she should have written some of it down ... but really what would have been the point in that? Everything passed, she would too. This perspective offered her an unexpected clarity she nearly enjoyed, but even with this new clarity the world offered no more explanation for itself than it ever had. — Susan Minot

Boston - wrinkled, spindly-legged, depleted of nearly all her spiritual and cutaneous oils, provincial, self-esteeming - has gone on spending and spending her inflated bills of pure reputation, decade after decade. — Elizabeth Hardwick

I was close and when he spread my legs wider and firmly pressed me down to the mattress, I was nearly gone. My hips were now grinding against his mouth.

"That's it, fuck my mouth. My tongue is loving it." His thumbs spread my lips apart as he sucked hard and then moved down to tunnel inside me. — Christina Lee

Picture, if you will, Tommy, the fuse of a cannon. Now, when one touches a flame to a fuse, what happens? It's consumed bit ... '
He stepped toward her, so close that his boot toes nearly touched the toes of her slippers.
She sucked in a breath. But she stood her ground when his knees brushed hers.
' ... by bit ... '
His voice had gone perilously soft. ' ... by bit. Until ... '
His breath fluttered her hair.
His mouth was next to her ear now. 'Boom. — Julie Anne Long

What you can't do is leave me!"
He was thrown back. There were still six crewmen standing against him. That wasn't deterring him in the least, however, which only infuriated her the more. The fool man was going to get tossed in the river yet.
She might do it herself. She was, after all, fed up with being told what she could or couldn't do. "And why can't I leave you?"
"Because I love you!"
He hadn't even paused in throwing another punch to shout that. Georgina, however, went very still, and breathless, and nearly sat down on the deck, her knees had gone so weak with the incredible emotion that welled up inside her. — Johanna Lindsey

Isn't he utterly divine? Beautiful?"
"Somehow,I think he'd disagree with that last one." And not enough with the first.
"All right," she waved her dismissively. "Handsome then. Do you think he noticed me?"
"We were sprawled in a heap of twitching limbs and lace at his feet. He would have had to have been unconscious not to notice us."
She wrinkled her nose. "I meant,do you think he noticed I'm nearly on the Marriage Mart now?"
I didn't know how to reply. I didn't want to hurt her feelings,but I wasn't sure Frederic noticed anything other than cards and port.He was twenty years old,after all,and quite wealthy. He was acting exactly as he was expected to.
Her cheeks were red. "We should return before Mother wonders where we've gone off to.Heaven forbid we might be somewhere enjoying ourselves! — Alyxandra Harvey

After he'd gone, she'd suffered a momentary, nearly immobilizing flash of panic
what if the Hunters somehow managed to find her while he was gone?
but it dissipated swiftly, leaving her astonished to realize that she truly trust him to keep her safe, at least from everything besides himself. — Karen Marie Moning

Nearly dying brings you closer to living. There's a thin border; you feel yourself cross it, going back to the land of the living, going home. Perhaps, if you'd gone the other way, death would have been a different home. — Jackie Kay

Nearly half a century has passed since Watson proclaimed his manifesto. Today, apart from a few minor reservations, the vast majority of psychologists, both in this country and in America, still follow his lead. The result, as a cynical onlooker might be tempted to say, is that psychology, having first bargained away its soul and then gone out of its mind, seems now, as it faces an untimely end, to have lost all consciousness. — Cyril Burt

The boy reported - after the Sergeant had slept for a few hours, which was not nearly enough - that YouTube had actually gone down for ten minutes under the weight of traffic. The story was truly global, truly immense: not Obama, not Justin Bieber, not Psy and not Bin Laden had ever touched this, he said. Not Khaled Saeed and not Mohamed Bouazizi, either. If Pippa Middleton and Megan Fox had announced their intention to marry during a live theatrical production of 50 Shades of Grey starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and then taken off their clothes to reveal their bodies tattooed with the text of the eighth Harry Potter novel, they might have approached this level of frenzy. But probably not, the boy said, because not everyone liked Benedict Cumberbatch. — Nick Harkaway

But it was him, not God or any other ... illusory power ... who tore me away from that fire. I give credit where credit is due. One human being made a choice, he acted, and I owe him my life. No god killed my parents, nearly killed James, and spared me. I know that, and I can't go back and believe in things that I used to believe in.. or that I used to want to believe in. I don't know how much faith I had to lose that night, but whatever I have is gone now — Jessica Park

It was true that Al had asked her to move the jars and magazines, and there was probably a word for the way she'd stepped around those jars and magazines for the last eleven days, often nearly stumbling on them; maybe a psychiatric word with many syllables or maybe a simple word like "spite." But it seemed to her that he'd asked her to do more than "one thing" while he was gone. He'd also asked her to make the boys three meals a day, and clothe them and read to them and nurse them in sickness, and scrub the kitchen floor and wash the sheets and iron his shirts, and do it all without a husband's kisses or kind words. If she tried to get credit for these labors of hers, however, Al simply asked her whose labors had paid for the house and food and linens? Never mind that his work so satisfied him that he didn't need her love, while her chores so bored her that she needed his love doubly. In any rational accounting, his work canceled her work. — Jonathan Franzen

It is a racking thing to have a plague of ideas and no chance to get rid of them on paper. I've nearly gone mad at times. — Inez Haynes Irwin

As the carriage whipped forward, they passed the alley she had spent so many days staring at - it was there, and then gone as they careened around a corner, nearly knocking over a costermonger pushing a donkey cart piled high with new potatoes. Tessa screamed.
Will reached past her and yanked the curtain shut. "It's better if you don't look," he told her pleasantly.
"He's going to kill someone. Or get us killed."
"No, he won't. Thomas is an excellent driver."
Tessa glared at him. "Clearly the word excellent means something else on this side of the Atlantic. — Cassandra Clare

Several years earlier, when Henson Associates' insurance provider had notified Jim that it would no longer be paying all of Christine's medical expenses, Jim had insisted that Henson Associates change insurance companies to ensure her costs would continue to be fully covered. Nelson had gone to Jim's office and tearfully thanked him in person, nearly choking on emotion. "Jerry," said Jim, smiling, "that's what insurance companies are for. — Brian Jay Jones

She was reading Francis Godwin's Man in the Moone--its man was borne into space in a carriage drawn by swans--when she heard the sound of wheels upon the gravel. Two boxes from Martin & Allestyre were set down on the drive. 'My modest closet plays,' she said. She nearly ran down the stairs--for the recovery of her wayward crates that spring and the preparation of her plays for publication had rekindled inside Margaret a flame she'd feared had gone out. ... But now, in turning the pages, she grew concerned and then incensed: 'reins' where she had written 'veins,' 'exterior' when she had clearly meant 'interior.' The sun went down. The room grew dim. ... 'Before the printer ruined it,' she cried, 'my book was good!'

'Could it be,' he asked, soaking his bread in {lamb's} blood, 'that you were yourself the cause of this misfortune? — Danielle Dutton

The entire reason is gone, like the old-time writers who at some point found that very few people, if any, actually practiced reading anymore. But at least those writers had time, the change happening over many decades, until readers became rare enough that they were believed to be nearly extinct, like some twitchy, sensitive creatures who lingered in the twilight brush. — Chang-rae Lee

I used to get an awful lot of letters, and they have almost all gone. I used to answer nearly all of them. — Ruth Rendell

I wrote for nearly six hours. When I stopped, the dark mood, as if by magic, had folded its cloak and gone away. — Zane Grey