Quotes & Sayings About Never Turning Your Back

I said to myself: Doreen is dissolving, Lenny Shepherd is dissolving, Frankie is dissolving, New York is dissolving, they are all dissolving away and none of them matter any more. I don't know them, I have never known them and I am very pure. All that liquor and those sticky kisses I saw and the dirt that settled on my skin on the way back is turning into something pure. — Sylvia Plath

This poetry is utilitarian - heavy-duty, industrial strength poetry. It is meant to be read aloud and, even better, memorized and recited. It is best used in the natural world where there are starlit skies, the warmth of blazing fires, and sounds and sights of open expanse. This book is meant to be carried with you in the glove box of a pickup truck, the back pocket of a worn pair of pants, even a saddlebag. It is not made to take up space on a library shelf, squeezed between other unread volumes. Take it along; you never know when the opportunity will be just right. Nothing pleases more than to see copies of the book twice as thick as the original from continued page turning, with turned-down corners marking favorite poems, or the whole shape curved to match the owner's posterior. — Hal Cannon

Winter always turns into Spring. Never, from ancient times on, has anyone heard or seen of winter turning back to autumn. — Nichiren

His face is close to mine, his hand warm against my back through my shirt. Despite the smile on his lips, his gaze is so sad it feels like my heart is ripping in two, turning to ash as I look at him. He knows as well as I do that neither of us is leaving Avon alive if we touch down again. He'll never see snow, and I'll never teach him what skis are. — Amie Kaufman

J.Lo gasped. When I looked to see why, he had one hand to his mouth and the other pointing at me.
"You ... " he squealed, wagging his finger. " ... your hand!"
I raised my hand to my face, turning it over and back again.
"What? What's wrong with it?"
"You are bearing the mark! The mark that has been foretold! You are The One ... The One who will bring peace onto the galaxy!"
"What, this? This is taco sauce," I said, wiping it clean.
J.Lo stared at my palm for a moment, then turned back to the wall.
"Never mind," he said. — Adam Rex

At the Foley Center for the Study of Lives at Northwestern University, McAdams studies the stories that people tell about themselves. We all write our life stories as if we were novelists, McAdams believes, with beginnings, conflicts, turning points, and endings. And the way we characterize our past setbacks profoundly influences how satisfied we are with our current lives. Unhappy people tend to see setbacks as contaminants that ruined an otherwise good thing ("I was never the same again after my wife left me"), while generative adults see them as blessings in disguise ("The divorce was the most painful thing that ever happened to me, but I'm so much happier with my new wife"). Those who live the most fully realized lives - giving back to their families, societies, and ultimately themselves - tend to find meaning in their obstacles. In a sense, McAdams has breathed new life into one of the great insights of Western mythology: that where we stumble is where our treasure lies. — Susan Cain

On Hollywood turning its back on him: I wasn't in the club. You see, I'm not going to be a stroker. I never have been all my life. — Mickey Rooney

He leaned closer and she swallowed the rest of her words as he pressed a kiss to her lips. He lifted his head slightly and looked into her eyes. She stared back at him, stunned, her heart thudding against her breastbone. He palmed the nape of her neck, and then he was kissing her again, his tongue sweeping into her mouth this time, turning her legs to jelly.
She pressed her body against his, her skin on fire, desire beating a tattoo through her veins. His tongue stroked hers gently, provocatively, and she reached out and gripped his shoulders with both hands.
After a long, long moment he drew back. "Come home with me?" he asked very quietly, his voice a low husk.
Dear God, I thought you'd never ask. — Sarah Mayberry

I have always swung back and forth between alienation and relatedness. As a child, I would run away from the beatings, from the obscene words, and always knew that if I could run far enough, then any leaf, any insect, any bird, any breeze could bring me to my true home. I knew I did not belong among people. Whatever they hated about me was a human thing; the nonhuman world has always loved me. I can't remember when it was otherwise. But I have been emotionally crippled by this. There is nothing romantic about being young and angry, or even about turning that anger into art. I go through the motions of living in society, but never feel a part of it. When my family threw me away, every human on earth did likewise. — Wendy Rose

Because if it was exceptional, it must be an exception, maybe even the exception that proved the rule. And the rule was that I would always be alone, and could never trust anyone. But my partnership with Dox didn't fit comfortably with that rule. And my relationship with Delilah suggested that Midori hadn't just been a one-off, either. So now, some wretched part of me was intent on turning Dox and Delilah into exceptions, too, so it could pat itself on the back and proclaim, "See? I told you so. — Barry Eisler

There's this word," she continued, turning to study her fingers gripping the wheel. "Nothing like it exists in the English language. It's Portuguese. Saudade. Do you know that one?" I shook my head. I didn't know half of the words in my own language. "It's more ... there's no perfect definition. It's more of an expression of feeling - of terrible sadness. It's the feeling you get when you realize something you once lost is lost forever, and you can never get it back again. — Alexandra Bracken

I knew I'd never make it back to the major leagues as a player. Lee MacPhail came to me and asked if I wanted to manage the Yankees' Fort Lauderdale club. I thought about it for a day or two and decided to take the job. That was the turning point. I knew it was what I wanted to do. — Bobby Cox

Can we get back to work now?" Haley asked, sounding innocent, but Zoe didn't miss the woman's lips twitching
or the humor sparkling in her eyes. Something told her that this woman truly enjoyed torturing her husband.
"For god sake's, my little grasshopper, you love the Yankees more than I do! What the hell is going on?" He turned accusing eyes on Zoe. "How dare you brainwash my wife?" he hissed.
"A re you going to leave so that we can get some work done?" Haley demanded, turning her attention to the computer.
"No," he said stubbornly, folding his arms over his chest, glaring at them.
"Buttercream frosting," Haley said softly, never taking her eyes away from her computer screen.
Jason licked his lips as he looked his pregnant wife over hungrily. "Tonight?" he croaked out.
"If you're good," Haley said, with a small shrug. "But you have to leave-"
"Bye," Jason said quickly, cutting her off and rushing out of the trailer just as fast as he came. — R.L. Mathewson

[Love] feels . . ." I paused, turning the highlighter in my hand, "like an awakening of senses you never knew you had, and once they're awakened, you're never the same. The way you see the world is altered. Instead of riding down a road on your bike and thinking how the wind feels good on your face, you think, 'This is how it feels when he kisses my cheek.' You play a piece on the piano, and instead of imagining a crowd applauding, you only see him, sitting in the chair next to the piano, smiling at you. You catch the scent of sage in the air and think, 'This is how he smells.' But it's also kind of like being on a mousetrap ride. Exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. You smile and laugh and feel a thrill inside of you, all the while wondering in the back of your mind if the car will come off the track at the next turn, or if your harness will come open and you will be tossed to the ground to your death. — Sarah Beard

Dan gestured past Neil toward the changing room. "What happened?" Neil counted it off on his fingers. "Kevin told them Coach is his father, said he's never going back to Edgar Allan, and called the Ravens out as two-faced assholes. Oh," he said, looking up from his hand, "and he said his injury wasn't an accident. Not in so many words, but it won't take them long to figure out what he meant." Dan gaped. "He what?" "Great," Wymack said. "He's turning into another you. That's just what I needed. — Nora Sakavic

Focus is scary - until you realize that it only means turning your back on markets you could never have anyway. Sharp focus on jobs that customers are trying to get done holds the promise of greatly improving the odds of success in new-product development. — Clayton Christensen

His heart and mine added a rhythm all their own. We turned and turned, and with every turning we breathed a little more quickly and held on a little more tightly, and when we came back to the place we started, we stopped dancing and stood with our arms around each other, holding on as if we would never let go, not if the sky fell and the whole world came to an end. — Juliet Marillier

There are no guarantees with finally being honest and coming clean with people. Sometimes you don't win love back. Sometimes you lose the love you had. Sometimes you crush people that cared. Sometimes you break apart families. Sometimes you lose your career. Sometimes you lose your way of life. Sometimes you end up worse off than you were before. However, you walk away with a heart free from lies, regret and you have closure. Within time, you find yourself in a life that is far from the prison you once lived in. This type of freedom is the scariest road you will ever travel. However, it is the road God will never let you travel alone. — Shannon L. Alder

Do you know who I am, little girl?" roared Lucifer, smoke drifting from his ears, his complexion turning from tanned to beet red - never a good sign. "A pain in my ass who has messed up my morning," she shouted back with a lack of fear Mictain found entertaining even as he prepared to protect her from Lucifer's wrath. "I was planning on having some great wake up sex. Instead, you show up, without even a coffee, and piss me off. — Eve Langlais

Dearest Charles
I found a box of this paper at the back of a bureau so I must write to you as I am mourning for my lost innocence. It never looked like living. The doctors despaired of it from the start ... I am never quite alone. Members of my family keep turning up and collecting luggage and going away again, but the white raspberries are ripe. I have a good mind not to take Aloysius to Venice. I don't want him to meet a lot of horrid Italian bears and pick up bad habits. Love or what you will. S. — Evelyn Waugh

It's true; once you are a father, there's no turning back. Your heart strings as well as your purse strings are never again the same. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

If you're frightened of the countless number of books in the library, you'll never write anything, until you close your eyes and hold the pen. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Monarchy is like a splendid ship, with all sails set it moves majestically on, but then it hits a rock and sinks for ever. Democracy is like a raft. It never sinks but, damn it, your feet are always in the water. That is a good metaphor, for raft, he implies, is simply swept along by the tide or the current; one can with a paddle or a plank steer a little to stay afloat, trim forward direction slightly to left or right, perhaps even slow down or speed up a little, but there is no turning back against the current of democracy. — Bernard Crick

Let me but live my life from year to year,
With forward face and unreluctant soul,
Not hastening to, nor turning from the goal;
Nor mourning things that disappear
In the dim past, nor holding back in fear
From what the future veils; but with a whole
And happy heart, that pays its toll
To youth and age, and travels on with cheer.
So let the way wind up the hill or down,
Through rough or smooth, the journey will be joy,
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,
I shall grow old, but never lose life's zest,
Because the road's last turn will be the best. — Henry Van Dyke

It hit her like a loved one turning his back while she was falling, like some great bond that wasn't simply taken away but never truly existed. — Hugh Howey

Thank you, Lord, for never turning me away. For never getting scared, for never lashing out when I hurt you, for always being there with arms wide open, ready to take me back. — Colleen Coble

Lot's Wife

And the just man trailed God's messenger,
his huge, light shape devoured the black hill.
But uneasiness shadowed is wife and spoke to her:
'It's not too late, you can look back still

At the red towers of Sodom, the place that bore you,
the square in which you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows of that upper storey
where children blessed your happy marriage-bed.'

Her eyes that were still turning when a bolt
of pain shot through them, were instantly blind;
her body turned into transparent salt,
and her swift legs were rooted to the ground.

Who mourns one woman in a holocaust?
Surely her death has no significance?
Yet in my heart she never will be lost,
she who gave up her life to steal one glance.

1922-24 — Anna Akhmatova

Oh, I suppose they're not exactly gone, those green boys. It's rather like a sapling turning into a tree. Can't scrape off the bark, and whittle it down until you find that sapling again, now can you? No, of course not. The sapling becomes an oak. Forever changed. The realities of that war will remain inside us through heaven or hell. Best try and face it, Ty. Running from it won't help. You'll never turn back into the innocent sapling you once were." Robert lifted his glass and grinned. "My friend, we've become a pair of gnarled old trees. — Kathleen Baldwin

XXIX Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking. Traveller, the path is your tracks And nothing more. Traveller, there is no path The path is made by walking. By walking you make a path And turning, you look back At a way you will never tread again Traveller, there is no road Only wakes in the sea. — Antonio Machado

That they were torn from mistakes they had no chance to fix; everything unfinished. All the sins of love without detail, detail without love. The regret of having spoken, of having run out of time to speak. Of hoarding oneself. Of turning one's back too often in favour of sleep. I tried to imagine their physical needs, the indignity of human needs grown so extreme they equal your longing for wife, child, sister, parent, friend. But truthfully I couldn't even begin to imagine the trauma of their hearts, of being taken in the middle of their lives. Those with young children. Or those newly in love, wrenched from that state of grace. Or those who had lived invisibly, who were never know. — Anne Michaels

She bewitches you," Trevanion said. "And she is yours for the taking. Any fool can see that. So take her and get whatever needs to be gotten out of your system."
...
"Maybe you are right, Trevanion," he said, turning back to his father. "But it is her hope that bewitches me, and that hope I may never get out of my system, no matter how many times she's to be gotten. Can you not see it burning in her eyes? Does it not make you want to look away when you have none to give in return? Her hope fills me with ... something other than this dull weight I wake with each morning. — Melina Marchetta

But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of 'turning points', one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one's life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one's relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable. — Kazuo Ishiguro

So I'd stabbed needles into my eyes and pretended not to see certain things. Bad things. Only by turning my back on certain thing, I ended up turning my back on my dearest friend, a betrayal I never intended.
Or so I told myself. That was the problem with lying to yourself. Sometimes you got too good. — Lauren Myracle

Of all the things I've ever done, perhaps none was more difficult than turning away from my beautiful girl and walking away, leaving her there, never to look back. But my friend Tom, my ever-faithful good friend Tom said, pointing down the hall away from Cec's room, 'Life's that way. Let's go home.'
And so we did. — Jim Beaver

One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before that at the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or a setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished - if it were possible to wish - you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other." Ransom — C.S. Lewis

I try to never miss the Zumba class since I believe comedy is a great way to start your week.
... It was great fun, although I had to hold myself back from turning it into a giant mosh pit slam dance. Last time I did that they kicked me out for a month. Today I enjoyed watching an 80 year old lady - with a cane no less - shimmy, her boobs flying like weapons around her waist. — Debra Dunbar

All three of them started my way. I bit back a groan.
"It's you," the guy said, coming up beside me.
My eyes snapped up to his and I realized I knew him. Well, sort of. He'd been with Romeo when I ran into him on campus. People never recognized me, so of course this guy did. Here. Now.
"You know him?" Ivy asked, turning to look at me.
"He's drunk and confused," I said. "Can we go now?"
-Braeden, Ivy, & Rimmel — Cambria Hebert

A smile is hidden beneath the mustache, it crinkles the corners of his hooded eyes. "I didn't. I have other business in town and I told my friend I would attend to the matter of his son, as he could not do so himself."
"Very kind of you."
"Yes. I have been looking forward to it for quite some time."
Daddy's lemonade is almost gone, he sips it carefully, turning his eyes back to the water. "Looking forward to seeing the lad or to conducting your business?" Daddy is toying with him.
"Both. You see, I had never actually met his son." The glass rests against Daddy's lips, unmoving. Mr. Geyer watches him closely. "But now I have, so I can get on with my," he fixes his own gaze on the water, as though trying to see whatever it is that has transfixed my father, "business. — Gwenn Wright

Sorry," I said to the Duke.
"Eh, it's not your fault. It's Carla's fault. You were turning the wheel. Carla just wasn't listening. I knew I shouldn't have loved her. She's like all the others, Tobin; as soon as I confess my love, she abandons me."
I laughed. "I never abandoned you," I said patting on her back.
"Yeah, well, (a.) I never confessed my love to you, and (b.) I'm not even female to you. — John Green

There's always that one thing, right? A particular action that is your own personal line in the sand. The nuclear threat you keep in your back pocket, never even mentioning it because it will escalate any conflict beyond the chance of reconciliation.
And yet, here I was, declaring war, turning that line in the sand into a mere dot in the distance behind me. — Stacey Kade

I guess that's the secret. It would never have occurred to Lia to want to escape
but then she gets kicked out. Best thing that ever happened to her? I'm not sure she would say yes, because obliviousness tends to be rather pleasant, but once you realized you've been bolivious, there's no turning back. You can't un-know what you know.
You know? — Robin Wasserman

I had recognized her. They had tried to tear her out, but she had lived in me--deep in my heart and secret, nameless and indescribable, yet never entirely gone. She had been a face in the window of every departing train, a form seen from the back on every crowded street, always just out of my sight, always turning away. And I had known her when she came to me, though I could not say it, and though the very thought had sent my mind skidding across the ice into unconsciousness. — Raphael Carter

I can't believe you know so little about firearms."
"I can't believe you know so much," Devonmont countered. "Never seen a woman as keen on guns as you. It's rather chilling."
"Isn't it, though?" Jackson put in. "Better watch it, Devonmont. Her ladyship is liable to shoot first and ask questions later if she finds you doing anything she doesn't approve of."
"I may just take your caution to heart, Pinter." Devonmont winked at Celia. "Then again, some things are worth risking life and limb for."
Celia looked startled, then cast Jackson a smug smile. With a snort, he drank more ale. Devonmont was really starting to irk him. They all were.
"So, Lord Devonmont," Celia said, turning her back on Jackson, "would you like me to show you the difference between a percussion gun and a flintlock?"
"By all means," Devonmont replied. "Though I can't promise to remember any of it later, explain away. — Sabrina Jeffries

Lottie strode to the center of the study and stared at Gentry expectantly. She made her manner brisk. "When shall we leave?"
Gentry emerged from the corner. She saw from the flicker in his eyes that he had half-expected her to change her mind after speaking with Westcliff. Now that her choice had been reaffirmed, there was no turning back.
"Now," he said softly.
Her lips parted in the beginnings of an objection. Gentry intended to sweep her away without allowing any opportunity to say good-bye to anyone in the household, not even Lady Westcliff. On the other hand, it would be easier for her to simply disappear without having to explain anything to anyone. "Isn't it rather dangerous to travel at night?" she asked, then quickly answered her own question. "Never mind. If we met with a highwayman, I would probably be safer with him than you."
Gentry grinned suddenly. "You may be right."
-Lottie & Nick — Lisa Kleypas

We were just talking about you," Jessamine said as Tessa found a seat. She pushed a sliver toast rack across the table towards Tessa. "Toast?"
Tessa, picking up her fork, looked around the table anxiously. "What about me?"
"What to do with you, of course Downworlders can't live in the Institute forever," said Will. "I say we sell her to the Gypsies on Hampstead Heath," He added, turning to Charlotte. "I hear they purchase spare women as well as horses."
"Will, stop it." Charlotte glanced up from her breakfast. "That's ridiculous."
Will leaned back in his chair. "You're right. They'd never buy her. Too scrawny. — Cassandra Clare

It happened in pieces, tiny little turning points. I'll never figure out when it all turned, because it wasn't a single moments. It doesn't matter how many times I look back, how many times I try to figure it out. There is no before and after. Just a year of choices. — Amanda Grace

Delving into the past had unveiled a cruel lesson - that in the book of life it is perhaps best not to turn back pages; it was a path on which, whatever direction we took, we'd never be able to choose our own destiny. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

He started for his office, but something was bothering him. Turning back to her, he said, "I have to know. DJ walks in and you instantly like her. You've never liked any of the women I've dated, and you've never done more than share a few words with them on the phone. What is different about this one?" he demanded, trying to keep his voice down.
Marge smiled. "You'll remember this one's name. — B. J. Daniels

I want to let you in on a little secret. There are no problems. There are no problems. There never were any problems, there are no problems today, and there will never be any problems. Problems just mean that the world isn't turning the way you want it to. But in truth, there are no problems. Everything is unfolding as it should. Everything is right. You have to forget about yourself and expand your consciousness until you become the whole universe. The Reality in back of the universe is Pure Awareness. It has no problems. And you are That. — Robert Adams

Something girls never understood about poker night. The real point of the card play was to razz. Razzing calls forth unbridled farm-boy humour, earthy by some standards. The best quip involves belittling someone else's penis, or turning it back on the sayer, or both. — Allan Dare Pearce

There is never any turning back Gemma. You have to go forward. Make the future yours. — Libba Bray

Someone was always leaving
and never coming back.
The wooden houses wait like old wives
along this road; they are everywhere,
abandoned, leaning, turning gray. — Lisel Mueller

As we joined the line of people getting off at the last stop before Sofia, I looked once more at the little boy, whom I felt I would never forget, though maybe it wasn't exactly him I would remember, I thought, but the use I would make of him. I had my notes, I knew I would write a poem about him, and then it would be the poem I remembered, which would be both true and false at once, the image I made replacing the real image. Making poems was a way of loving things, I had always thought, of preserving them, of living moments twice; or more than that, it was a way of living more fully, of bestowing on experience a richer meaning. But that wasn't what it felt like when I looked back at the boy, wanting a last glimpse of him; it felt like a loss. Whatever I could make of him would diminish him, and I wondered whether I wasn't really turning my back on things in making them into poems, whether instead of preserving the world I was taking refuge from it. — Garth Greenwell

glanced at the van sitting in the driveway before turning her gaze on the mountains in the distance, all lilac and orange in the rising sunlight. How easy would it be to just drive away? Never look back? Do something different. Something new. Something — Julie Frayn

Sex.
Love.
Fucking.
Call it what you want but they are all the same. Each one requires you to give a piece of yourself that you can never get back.
But with the right person, everything will align perfectly. The world stops turning on its axis, time slows and you realize that while you're losing a piece of yourself, you're also gaining something in return. What they give you fits you just right. — Calia Read

It was a moment before she replied. And in that moment, she realized that what was gone from her was the child in her, she'd crossed a brink from which there was no turning back. Whoever she had been, she was not anymore. And her life, for better or worse, would never again be what it had. — Allan Folsom

steps, deep in thought. A breeze was slightly disturbing his hair. Then, as we watched, he walked very slowly up the steps. At the top, he turned and came back down, a little faster. Turning once more, my father became still again for several seconds, contemplating the steps before him. Eventually, he climbed them a second time, very deliberately. This time he continued on across the grass until he had almost reached the summerhouse, then turned and came walking slowly back, his eyes never leaving the ground. In fact, I can describe his manner at that moment no better than the way Miss Kenton puts it in her letter; it was indeed 'as though he hoped to find some precious jewel he had dropped there'. — Kazuo Ishiguro

Dorian strokes my exposed back with the tips of his fingers, sending shockwaves up and down my spine. I gasp from the contact, resisting the urge to beg him for more. He brings his face down to my neck, letting his lips brush my earlobe. "Gabriella, I would love to bend you over this desk right now and pull your dress up past your thighs and over your ass," he murmurs, sex dripping from his soft lips.
"That sounds good to me," I breathe, turning my head a fraction. "What's stopping you?" Never in my life have I been this bold and eager with a man but Dorian has awakened the sleeping sex giant within me. If my days are numbered, I want to at least die happy.
"Oh, I would do it. But I know Aurora will come looking for me and I don't want to be disturbed when I ... ruin you." Ruin me? It sounds so threatening and violent.
I love it. — S.L. Jennings

One of my superstitions had always been when I started to go anywhere or do anything, not to turn back, or stop until the thing intended was accomplished. I have frequently started to go places where I had never been and to which I did not know the way, depending upon making inquiries on the road, and if I got past the place without knowing it, instead of turning back, I would go until a road was found turning in the right direction, take that, and come in by the other side. — Ulysses S. Grant

In my tradition, God revealed Himself in words and lives in stories and, no, you cannot touch or even see Him. The Word, in Judaism, was never made flesh. The closest God came to embodiment was in the Temple in Jerusalem ... But the Temple was destroyed. In Judaism, the flesh became words. Words were the traditional refuge of the Jewish people - Yochanan ben Zakkai led a yeshiva, my father became a professor. And little boys, in the Middle Ages, ate cakes with verses inscribed on them, an image I find deeply moving and, somehow, deeply depressing. This might help explain a certain melancholy quality books in general, for all their bright allure, have always had for me. As many times as I went down to my parents' library for comfort, I would find myself standing in front of the books and could almost feel them turning back into trees, failing me somehow. — Jonathan Rosen

No mistake about it. Ice is cold; roses are red; I'm in love. And this love is about to carry me off somewhere. The current's too overpowering; I don't have any choice. It may very well be a special place, some place I've never seen before. Danger may be lurking there, something that may end up wounding me deeply, fatally. I might end up losing everything. But there's no turning back. I can only go with the flow. Even if it means I'll be burned up, gone forever. — Haruki Murakami

The night can last twenty hours and even when the day finally breaks it never gets above a level of cold I call "fuck that" - as in you open the door, your face freezes instantly to the point where it hurts to speak, but manfully you manage to say "fuck that," before turning round, and going back to bed. — Mark Lawrence

Trout sat back and thought about the conversation. He shaped it into a story, which he never got around to writing until he was an old, old man. It was about a planet where the language kept turning into pure music, because the creatures there were so enchanted by sounds. Words became musical notes. Sentences became melodies. They were useless as conveyors of information, because nobody knew or cares what the meanings of words were anymore.
So leaders in government and commerce, in order to function, had to invent new and much uglier vocabularies and sentence structures all the time, which would resist being transmuted to music. — Kurt Vonnegut

A city finds its life through the humans who inhabit it. When they go, what is truly left? Just silent stones, witnesses to the history but mute in its telling, remaining thus while slowly turning to rubble. It saddens me that life's moments are thus lost, that one cannot experience the past in the same rich vibrancy as the present. You live the moments and then relegate them to memory, now just two-dimensional shadows, pictures without depth, stripped of their purest emotion, their tactile connections no longer accessible. You try to recall, but can bring back only a fraction of the event lived. The rest is gone, never to be as full and complete as it was in that one place at that one time. That was what I thought as I studied these stone remains; that all the tangible things experienced here abide somewhere in time, but can never again be wholly re-animated, now just ghosts imbedded in the crumbling walls and in the fading memories of those who once lived here. — Michael Puttonen

God, the gown was hideous. So utterly hideous. Never before had so much money been put in the service of so little taste. She batted her eyes at the mirror in glee; her reflection flirted back with her: dark-haired, dark-eyed, coquettish and mysterious. "What do you ladies think?" she asked, turning about. "Ought I have more lace?" At her feet, the beleaguered Mrs. Sandeston let out a whimper. — Courtney Milan

She smiled and shook her head before turning to walk off. As she strutted away from me, my eyes dropped down to her pert little derriere. A little groan escaped my lips. The back view was just as good as the front. She grabbed her purse from the side, and I silently congratulated God for creating something so f**king breathtaking. I'd never longed for anything more in my life. She was beautiful. — Kirsty Moseley

That's what you're after? Establishing new case
precedence? Never going to happen. Not on this point. You
want to turn Dani. Assuming she's ever Dani again."
"Nobody's turning my fucking honey," Lor muttered
darkly.
"You took the Highlander, as your test case," Barrons
said.
Ryodan said nothing.
"Kas doesn't speak. X is half mad on a good day,
bugfuck crazy on a bad one. You're tired of it. You want your
family back. You want a full house, like the old days. — Karen Marie Moning

To count the stones losing count
is the sense of our life: the algebra
of our displacements.
To follow paths losing sense
is the circumvolution, the evolution: the logic
of our moments. But. No.
There is no symmetry in our acts.
Never the chance of steps that surprise us
to salt.
Our time machine. Forward.
Never backward the meat machine.
No turning back. No turning back.
There is no remedy: death
is an incurable asymmetry.
Huge is the ticking of the Clock but
but our time has the clutch, the vortex
the saltwater of a wave that covers us.
It reshapes and hollows out the face, like sand
robs us of our flesh. — Piero Olmeda

My father was English. He date-raped my mother so she's hated English men ever since. You know my boyfriend's English, and I'm, uh, I'm half-English, which she's never been real happy about. If she finds out I'm dating someone English, she'll ah, think I' turning my back on her and becoming a foreigner.'
Cathy, that's the stupidest reason I've ever heard. — Jeaniene Frost

And what, you think you can fix me?" she asks, turning in her stool to face me, shifting her body closer, so close I can smell the liquor on her warm breath as she whispers, "Think you can make me whole again? Save me from the world? Save me from myself? Fill me up, maybe fuck the feeling back into me, like the big, strong, man you are? Make me a real woman, instead of a broken little girl?"
There's a sickening sweetness to her voice that sends a chill down my spine. If I never heard a thinly veiled 'fuck you' before, that was certainly one for the books. I move closer to her, uncomfortably so, cocking my head slightly as I lean in, watching as her body tenses. She thinks I'm about to kiss her, my mouth just inches from hers, before I stop, my voice gritty as I say, "On the contrary, Scarlet, I don't think you need to be fixed at all."
"No?"
"No," I say. "I think you're perfect the way you are. — J.M. Darhower

But this did not seem likely to happen. She went on and on, a long way, but wherever the road divided there were sure to be two finger-posts pointing the same way, one marked 'TO TWEEDLEDUM'S HOUSE' and the other 'TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLEDEE.' 'I do believe,' said Alice at last, 'that they live in the same house! I wonder I never thought of that before - But I can't stay there long. I'll just call and say "how d'you do?" and ask them the way out of the wood. If I could only get to the Eighth Square before it gets dark!' So she wandered on, talking to herself as she went, till, on turning a sharp corner, she came upon two fat little men, so suddenly that she could not help starting back, but in another moment she recovered herself, feeling sure that they must be. — Lewis Carroll

Memories are the enemies that never die," he says, turning away and shoving open his door, leaving me with the pain carved in those words that I am fairly certain he didn't want me to hear. But I did, and they speak to me, diving deep in my soul with the blood of my own loss, and taking root. I say I want my memories back, but I'm not so sure I really do. It's an idea I reject as I shove open my door and stand. — Lisa Renee Jones

I'm here, Papa," she whispered, saying the words she had longed to say for her entire life. "I'm here, and I'm never going to leave you again."
He made a sound of contentment and closed his eyes. Just as Evie thought he had fallen asleep, he murmured, "Where shall we walk first today, lovey? The biscuit baker, I s'pose..."
Realizing that he imagined this was one of her long-ago childhood visits, Evie replied softly, "Oh, yes." Hastily she knuckled away the excess moisture from her eyes. "I want an iced bun... and a cone of broken biscuits... and then I want to come back here and play dice with you."
A rusty chuckle came from his ravaged throat, and he coughed a little. "Let Papa take forty winks before we leaves... there's a good girl..."
"Yes, sleep," Evie murmured, turning the cloth over on his forehead. "I can wait, Papa. — Lisa Kleypas

If you've ever had a dream or goal that you've aspired to accomplish, never give up on it. If you have the perseverance and determination to follow your passion, then you can see it come into fruition. Surround yourself with positive people, keep your eyes on the prize and big doors will open. Be ready to step into them because once you do, there's no turning back. — LaChelle Weaver