Not Smiling In Quotes & Sayings

They knew of the Vth, my legion, of their skill in battle, of how they had won Antium for Octavian, and then fought against Parthia for Tiberius; they were glad the Vth was not yet on their borders, although concerned that it was camped so close in Moesia. I may have loathed the Vth on principle when I was forced to march in its company, but here it was my legion; the men were my brothers. I caught myself smiling broadly once, or rather, Pantera caught me, and threw me a look that ensured I didn't smile again for the rest of the meal. — M.C. Scott

When kindhearted people smile, demons shrink and turn away as if tormented by the gesture. But when those beautiful smiles are made to fade, every awful creature in the world stands surer. So do yourself and mankind a favor and smile BIG whether you feel like it or not. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Smiling despair. No solution, but constantly exercising an authority over myself that I know is useless. The essential thing is not to lose oneself, and not to lose that part of oneself that lies sleeping in the world. — Albert Camus

Blake waited for her to look at him with a smile, but her shoes were still too captivating. He held a hand up to stop Cole from beginning the ceremony. He knelt on one knee, close to the hem of her dress, and looked up at her. She watched him as he kissed her hand.
"Beautiful, enchanting Livia, will you marry me today?"
Livia's disobedient tears emerged, gravity bathing his smiling face with their small, splashy wishes. She took her hand from his and covered her mouth. She nodded over and over as she cried.
Blake stood and gathered her. Livia dissolved into him, leaving the guests alternately tearing up or looking in other directions.
Blake tried to stroke her hair through the veil, but he was afraid he would pull it out. "Shhh. It's okay. I'm not that terrible, am I?"
Livia shook her head.
"I'm making you my wife right now, even if you cry through the whole damn thing." Blake switched to wiping her tears. — Debra Anastasia

Look, if you're going to insist that I've taught you something, I guess I should give you a final exam." "Really?" "One question." "Sure." "Go look at an electron microscope photograph of an atom, okay? Don't just glance at it. It is very important that you examine it very closely. Think about what it means." "Okay." "And then answer this question. Does it make your heart flutter?" "Does it make my heart flutter?" "Yes or no. It's a yes or no question. No equations allowed." "All right, I'll let you know." "Don't be dense. I don't need to know. You need to know. This exam is self-graded. And it's not the answer that counts, it's what you do with the information." We locked eyes. His younger face flashed in my mind. The energetic, smiling bongo drum player I had seen pictured in the front of his book, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. A question popped from my lips. — Anonymous

It is how it has always been. We will accept the legacy of our ancestors,' Asha says, smiling, and in her smile I do not see warmth or wisdom; I see fear.
You're afraid of losing your hold on them,' I say coolly.
I? I have no power.'
Don't you? If you keep them from the magic, they will never know what their lives could be.'
They will remain protected,' Asha insists.
No,' I say. 'Only untested'
-page 569 — Libba Bray

He holds my gaze, and the look in his eyes is a love letter in itself. When he speaks, his voice is rough. "Will you marry me, Cate?"
I go still, the question hanging in the air. I have never felt more accepted 'for the girl I am, not the girl I want to be' never more loved and respected than I am in this moment. It's a choice, and it's mine to make.
"Yes," I breathe.
Finn slides the simple gold band onto my ring finger. I tilt it, and the ruby sparkles, catching the sunlight. He leans down and brushes his lips against mine, sealing the promise. 'I can't wait to make you my wife.'
'Cate Belastra.' I try it out and despite the solemnity of the moment, despite knowing what this will cost him, I can't help smiling. — Jessica Spotswood

Clary shut her eyes. You didn't say no to an angel, no matter what it had in mind. Her heart pounding, she sat floating in the darkness behind her eyelids, resolutely trying not to think of Jace. But his face appear against the blank screen of her closed eyelids anyway - not smiling at her but looking sidelong, and she could see the scar at his temple, the uneven curl at the corner of his mouth, and the silver line on his throat where Simon had bitten him - all the marks and flaws and imperfections that made up the person she loved most in the world. Jace. A bright light lit her vision to scarlet, and she fell back against the sand, wondering if she was going to pass out - or maybe she was dying - but she didn't want to die, not now that she could see Jace's face so clearly in front of her. She could almost hear his voice, too, saying her name, the way he'd whispered it at Renwick's, over and over again. Clary. Clary. Clary.
"Clary," Jace said. "Open your eyes. — Cassandra Clare

It was beautiful, and that is a word I would not need to explain to the girls from back home, and I do not need to explain to you, because now we are all speaking the same language. The waves still smashed against the beach, furious and irresistible. But me, I watched all of those children smiling and dancing and splashing one another in salt water and bright sunlight, and I laughed and laughed and laughed until the sound of the sea was drowned. — Chris Cleave

It looked at me as it passed, smiling in that crazy-happy way that dogs do. And I started laughing. I mean, how can you not laugh at a dog running on the beach? But I was also kind of crying, too. Laughing and crying simultaneously hurts. It hurts and it's confusing. — Em Bailey

He pulled up a chair and sat down by the bed, smiling at me. It was a nice smile. "So you're a werewolf." He nodded. "How did it happen?" He stared down at the floor, then up. His face looked so solemn, I was sorry I'd asked. I was expecting some great tale of a savage attack survived. "I got a bad batch of lycanthropy serum." "You what?" "You heard me." He seemed embarrassed. "You got a bad shot?" "Yes." My smile got wider and wider. "It's not funny," he said. I shook my head. "Not at all." I knew my eyes were shiny, and it was all I could do not to laugh out loud. "You've got to admit it's nicely ironic." He sighed. "You're going to hurt yourself. Go ahead and laugh." I did. I laughed until it hurt, and Richard joined in. Laughter is contagious, too. — Laurell K. Hamilton

How like a male. Pull out some tools and start banging on something, and they flocked in from miles around. She pushed her hair out of her face with the back of one hand and scowled at him. "I am perfectly capable of breaking it down myself."
"Of course you are," he told her smiling. "That's not what I said. I said may I help? — Thea Harrison

When I was a child I had a fishless aquarium. My father set it up for me with gravel and plants and pebbles before he'd got the fish and I asked him to leave it as it was for a while. The pump kept up a charming burble, the green-gold light was wondrous when the room was dark. I put in a china mermaid and a tin horseman who maintained a relationship like that of the figures on Keat's Grecian urn except that the horseman grew rusty. Eventually fish were pressed upon me and they seemed an intrusion, I gave them to a friend. All that aquarium wanted was the sound of the pump, the gently waving plants, the mysterious pebbles and the silent horseman forever galloping to the mermaid smiling in the green-gold light. I used to sit and look at them for hours. The mermaid and the horseman were from my father. I have them in a box somewhere here, I'm not yet ready to take them out and look at them again. — Russell Hoban

Do you mind?" she said indignantly, pointedly glancing at his all-too-masculine display.
He gave a lazy shrug. "It is not exactly as if I can comfortably put everything back together again."
She blushed furiously. "Well, don't talk about it, for heaven's sake!"
He found himself smiling in spite of the raging demands of his body. With unhurried movements he positioned himself within the confines of the tight cloth and buttoned the fly. "Does that make you feel safer?" he teased tenderly. — Christine Feehan

If you are serious about American culture and you are serious about Afro-American culture, you are in a lot of pain. You are not - you are not smiling about it. — Wynton Marsalis

They weren't smiling and were looking in opposite directions, but it was as if their bodies flowed smoothly into each other's, through their arms and fingers ... There was a shared space between their bodies, the confines of which were not well delineated, from which nothing seemed to be missing and in which the air seemed motionless, undisturbed. — Paolo Giordano

Black Wind was Asha's longship. He had not seen his sister in ten years, but that much he knew of her. Odd that she would call it that, when Robb Stark had a wolf named Grey Wind. "Stark is grey and Greyjoy's black," he murmured, smiling, "but it seems we're both windy. — George R R Martin

One last word,' I said in my horrible careful English, 'are you quite, quite sure that - well, not tomorrow, of course, and not after tomorrow, but - well - some day, any day, you will not come to live with me? I will create a brand new God and thank him with piercing cries, if you give me that microscopic hope'
'No,' she said smiling, 'no.'
'It would have made all the difference,' said Humbert Humbert.
Then I pulled out my automatic-I mean, this is the kind of fool thing a reader might suppose I did. It never even occurred to me to do it. — Vladimir Nabokov

I still do find it very difficult in the West to connect to this politeness of smiling, not saying how you're thinking or not saying how you really feel. — Waris Dirie

I felt Seth pulling me to look at him instead of watching her go. That in itself made my pulse race. "That ... " he sighed and licked his lip, "was the hottest thing I've ever seen." "You're not upset with me?" The corner of his mouth lifted just a smidge before he leaned in ever so slowly and captured my lips, his warm palm finding my side inside my open sweater, tugging me to him with a jolt. I gasped against his lips. He enjoyed that immensely, smiling into our kiss. — Shelly Crane

I shall leave you to your Sisyphean task."
"What does that mean?" he heard Daisy ask.
Lillian replied while her smiling gaze remained locked with Marcus's. "It seems you avoided one too many Greek mythology lessons, dear. Sisyphus was a soul in Hades who was damned to perform an eternal task... rolling a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again just before he reached the top."
"Then if the countess is Sisyphus," Daisy concluded, "I suppose we're..."
"The boulder," Lady Westcliff said succinctly, causing both girls to laugh.
"Do continue with our instruction, my lady," Lillian said, giving her full attention to the elderly woman as Marcus left the room. "We'll try not to flatten you on the way down. — Lisa Kleypas

There's no winning or losing in this game, only playing, endless playing, you want your adversary to be strong not weak, smart not dumb, you're delighted to trick him and delighted to be tricked by him, boy learns from girl, white learns from black, old learns from young, the teaching is the doing is the beauty is the grace is the humor, endlessly you go on learning, smiling, moving, feinting, never missing a beat. Gingare, the dance of life: the controlled, prolonged, sustained, ineffable excitement of capoeira is like an endless climax. — Nancy Huston

Was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time," curtsying low and smiling between every little sentence. "I had youth and hope. I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of the three served or saved me. I have the honour to attend court regularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in the Revelations is the Great Seal. — Charles Dickens

And there I suddenly found my articulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that's when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor? — Cary Grant

She opened her eyes.
He sniffed.
Ah! The rosemary! Holding her breath, she waited.
He sniffed again. "Is it an herb, nyet?"
She nodded, smiling shyly. "Rosemary."
"The cook at Tullock puts it in turtle soup."
Her smile faltered. She smelled like a turtle? Not a fragrant loaf of bread, but a turtle? "Surely you've smelled it in some other dishes, too? Bread, perhaps?"
He shook his head.
"In a delicious stew, then? Something savory and warm?"
He released her cloak. "In my country, we throw rosemary onto graves."
She just looked at him, appalled.
"That seems odd to you, nyet? Rosemary keeps fresh the ... How do you say-?" He tapped his forehead. "Thoughts about times no longer here."
"Memories?"
"Da! Rosemary keeps fresh the memories of the dead."
Lovely. She smelled like a turtle and the grave. — Karen Hawkins

This is one of the most serious problems with seeker-sensitive churches. I was talking to a pastor at a seeker-friendly church not long ago about his idea that prospective Christians needed to "feel welcome" and "accepted" before anything else: no "threats," no "judgmental baggage." I asked, "If you had a person living in sin come to your church, would you confront him?" He furrowed his brow and shook his head disapprovingly. "Oh, no! We'd want him to feel loved and welcome." My eyes widened. "How long would it be before you would actually say something about that?" "Maybe a year and a half, two years," he said, smiling. "Because then he would really feel a part of things." That was shocking to me. Is there some virtue in leaving a man in his sin for the sake of feeling accepted? "Well, that's the difference between your church and our church," I said finally. "Openly practicing sinners come to our church, and they either get saved or they don't come back. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

SHE RESEARCHED WHEN everyone slept. In the dead silence, her mind worked with more clarity. No interruptions, no worries. Sometimes she even imagined that her ancestors guided her. That they reached out from the past to share their stories.
"Hocus Pocus!" she thought, smiling. Her inside joke was a source of inspiration.
But her imagination was not far-fetched.
My second cousin, twice removed, is a family historian. She is also a lawyer. And this is why I chose her. I needed her to do me a favor. I chose her, although she is a business lawyer and not a criminal lawyer. That was fine by me. It's not like my lawyers did a superb job at defending me. I was wrongfully executed. — Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

I've become obsessed with my weight. How I look in clothes (do they fit well or not at all). I'm unhappy on so many levels. How do I look today, or in the photograph, am I smiling nicely with my teeth or unsmiling with no show of teeth. Am I well (meaning happy, content with my lot in life) or am I not well (in need of rest, renewal and rejuvenation). Have I made a new friend today or have I lost someone towards the journey to truth and light. — Abigail George

Francisco, I did love you-' she said, and caught her breath, shocked, realizing that she had not intended to say it and, simultaneously, that this was not the tense she had wanted to use.
'But you do,' he said calmly, smiling. 'You still love me-even if there's one expression of it that you'll always feel and want, but will not give to me any longer. I'm still what I was, and you'll always see it, and you'll always grant me the same response, even if there's a greater one that you grant to another man. No matter what you feel for him, it will not change what you feel for me and it won't be treason to either, because comes from the same root, it's the same payment in answer to the same values. No matter what happens in the future, we'll always be what we were to each other, you and I, because you'll always love me. — Ayn Rand

What am I to call it? Diffidence? The fear of ridicule? Inverted vanity? What matters names, if it has brought me to this? I could never bear to be bustling about nothing; I was ashamed of this toy kingdom from the first; I could not tolerate that people should fancy I believed in a thing so patently absurd! I would do nothing that cannot be done smiling. I have a sense of humour, forsooth! I must know better than my Maker. And it was the same thing in my marriage," he added more hoarsely. "I did not believe this girl could care for me; I must not intrude; I must preserve the foppery of my indifference. What an impotent picture!"
"Ay, we have the same blood," moralised Gotthold. "You are drawing, with fine strokes, the character of the born sceptic."
"Sceptic? - coward!" cried Otto. "Coward is the word. A springless, putty-hearted, cowering coward! — Robert Louis Stevenson

My dear Mrs Casaubon," said Farebrother, smiling gently at her ardour, "character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do."
"Then it may be rescued and healed," said Dorothea. — George Eliot

Jeremy's T-Shirts by book:
Hard As It Gets
"ROUTE 69"
"This guy loves BACON" with two hands with their thumbs pointing back at him
"Orgasm Donor" with a red cross
Big Johnson's Tattoo Parlor, "You're going to feel more than a Little Prick"
"I'm not Santa but you can still sit on my lap"

Hard As You Can
Log-holding beaver that says, "Are you looking at my wood?"
"I put the long in schlong"

Hard to Hold On To
"Blink if you're horny"

Hard to Come By
Hand pointing downward and the words, "May I suggest the sausage?"
Charlie (who starts borrowing Jeremy's t-shirts): A smiling fire extinguished that says, "I put out"
Charlie: Schnauzer wearing a saddle that says, "Weiner Rides, 25 cents"
"HEAD Foundation. Please give generously"
Charlie: Mr. T with the words "Mr. T Shirt"
There's a party in my pants. You're invited. — Laura Kaye

The One who has done the greatest thing of all for you, must be concerned about you in everything, and though the clouds are thick and you cannot see His face, you know He is there. 'Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.' Now hold on to that. You say that you do not see His smile. I agree that these earth born clouds prevent my seeing Him, but He is there and He will never allow anything finally harmful to take place. Nothing can happen to you but what He allows, I do not care what it may be, some great disappointment, perhaps, or it may be an illness, it may be a tragedy of some sort, I do not know what it is, but you can be certain of this, that God permits that thing to happen to you because it is ultimately for your good. 'Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness ... ' (Hebrews 12. 11). (Spiritual Depression Its Causes and Cure, 145) — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Why should she dress in a cap and gown and sweat in the sun, when her mother was not there to pose in pictures with her and cheer when her name was called? In her mind, she only saw pictures they would never take, arms around each other, her mother gaining little wrinkles around her eyes from smiling so much. — Brit Bennett

Whoever lives in the spirit lives in perennial peace. It is a happy peace, a smiling peace, but one is not lost in it. One is aware also of the suffering which exists around him or her and the world at large. — Paul Brunton

I want to know, sir-when shall I find God?" "You have found Him." "O no, sir, I don't think so!" My guru was smiling. "I am sure you aren't expecting a venerable Personage, adorning a throne in some antiseptic corner of the cosmos! I see, however, that you are imagining that the possession of miraculous powers is knowledge of God. One might have the whole universe, and find the Lord elusive still! Spiritual advancement is not measured by one's outward powers, but only by the depth of his bliss in meditation. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Amitai shook his head, almost smiling, because here he was, feeling for the first time that the tragedy of European Jewry did belong to him. Before today, his lack of personal connection to the Holocaust had made it a distant history, no more relevant to him than any other. But Natalie, the locket, the painting, the Hall of Names, taking responsibility for Komlos in the Pages of Testimony, these had brought him to he realization that, merely by virtue of being a Jew, even a Jew from another place and time, it was his history, too. Not personally, but collectively. It belonged to him, as he belonged to all those Jews rising up into the infinite ceiling in the Hall of Names. He and Natalie were in the same place, but they had come from different directions. — Ayelet Waldman

I didn't cry out and I didn't weep when I was told that my son Henri was a prisoner in his own world, when it was confirmed that he is one of those children who don't hear us, don't speak to us, even though they're neither deaf nor mute. He is also one of those children we must love from a distance, neither touching, nor kissing, not smiling at them because every one of their senses would be assaulted by the odour of our skin, by the intensity of our voices, the texture of our hair, the throbbing of our hearts. Probably he'll never call me maman lovingly, even if he can pronounce the world poire with all the roundness and sensuality of the oi sound. He will never understand why I cried when he smiled for the first time. He won't know that, thanks to him, every spark of joy has become a blessing and that I will keep waging war against autism, even if I know already that it's invincible. Already, I am defeated, stripped bare, beaten down. — Kim Thuy

Not many people have ever handed in this much money," she said, smiling at Ove. "Many people don't have any decency either, — Fredrik Backman

I've learned that feminism is for everybody and there's nothing wrong with taking up space in the world, even if you have to fight for it a little bit, and that if you don't feel like smiling or waving, that's okay. You don't have to, and you don't have to say sorry. Mostly, I've learned that I don't really care if you like these answers or not, because they're the best, most honest ones I've got, and I just don't feel like I can cheat myself enough to give you what you want me to say. — Libba Bray

There is so much deep contradiction in my soul. Such deep longing for God - so deep that it is painful - a suffering continual - and yet not wanted by God - repulsed - empty - no faith - no love - no zeal. Souls hold no attraction - Heaven means nothing - to me it looks like an empty place - the thought of it means nothing to me and yet this torturing longing for God. Pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything. For I am only His - so He has every right over me. I am perfectly happy to be nobody even to God ...
Your devoted child in J.C.
M. Teresa — Brian Kolodiejchuk

And then I get why Wes can't stop smiling, even though it looks silly with his eyeliner and jet-black hair and hard jaw and scars. I am not alone. The words dance in my mind and in his eyes and against our rings and our keys, and now I smile too. — Victoria Schwab

Forgive me if, in friendship's way, I offer thee a wreath of May ... [N]ourished by the dews of heaven ... So I have Ivy placed between, To prove that worth is ever green. The little blue Forget-me-not ... Spring's messenger in every spot, Smiling on all - Remember me! — John Clare

London is actually a beautiful place when the weather's good; the mood is lighter and everybody's smiling. But for the other 350 days a year, it's miserable. You're standing there waiting for the bus in the rain or you're waiting for a train on a platform and it's freezing. Always a persistent drizzle - or if it's not drizzling, it's overcast and cold. — Craig Taylor

Because she is already a doer who, I am certain, is fully capable of making all her dreams come true.
Well, maybe not all> my dreams, I thought, smiling to Ian, who was smiling back. But most. Which was fine, since I'd learned that getting most of what you wish for in life is often as good as getting it all. — Sarah Strohmeyer

Art was a union of the father and mother worlds, of mind and blood. It might start in utter sensuality and lead to total abstraction; then again it might originate in pure concept and end in bleeding flesh. Any work of art that was truly sublime, not just a good juggler's trick; that was filled with the eternal secret, like the master's madonna; every obviously genuine work of art had this dangerous, smiling double face, was male-female, a merging of instinct and pure spirituality. — Hermann Hesse

For much longer, he could have stayed with Kamaswami, made money, wasted money, filled his stomach, and let his soul die of thirst; for much longer he could have lived in this soft, well upholstered hell, if this had not happened: the moment of complete hopelessness and despair, that most extreme moment, when he hang over the rushing waters and was ready to destroy himself. That he had felt this despair, this deep disgust, and that he had not succumbed to it, that the bird, the joyful source and voice in him was still alive after all, this was why he felt joy, this was why he laughed, this was why his face was smiling brightly under his hair which had turned gray. — Hermann Hesse

Now this court will learn
that I am the greatest in wit and courage.

I am he whose writing the blind see
and whose words grant hearing to the deaf.

Content with complete verses, I sleep,
while others strain for simple rhymes.

I laughed at the frauds and their ignorance
until, with discerning hand and mouth, I destroy them.

If you see the lion bare his teeth,
do not assume he is smiling! — Al-Mutanabbi

It's alright" said a dreamy voice from beside Harry as Ron vanished into the coach's dark interior. "You're not going mad or anything. I can see them too."
"Can you?" said Harry desperately, turning to Luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide, silvery eyes.
"Oh yes," said Luna, "I've been able to see them since my first year here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am."
Smiling faintly, she climbed into the musty interior of the carriage after Ron. Not altogether reassured, Harry followed her. — J.K. Rowling

I think if I heard someone else talking about their life, describing all the problems I've had, they'd look like they were through. Done. But there's something about me - I'm smiling. Those things are really not bad enough to put me in a slump. I'm smiling with the opportunity to wake up every morning. — Nas

Saw Knight smiling, Kat giggling and Kasha in her own world, not helping her father and sister, but for some reason she was in the middle of the kitchen twirling. There it was again. Knight was a natural at everything he touched. — Kristen Ashley

We're not dating. We're not a couple. I don't want people to think something's going on that isn't," she said.
Ben stared at her.
"I just came in your mouth."
Beatriz glared at him.
"Okay, good point," she said, smiling. "Lunch it is then. — Tiffany Reisz

Harper?" Cash murmured after a long moment.
"Hmm?" I turned my head.
"Do you believe in Santa?"
I shifted onto my side to look at him, smiling. "Yeah, I do."
He adjusted his head to look at me. "Even though he's something our parents say isn't real?"
I nodded. "Yeah, definitely. There's usually some kind of truth behind stories."
He looked up to the tree then to me. "Think we can see him tonight?"
I laughed and sat up. "Who? Santa? Why not? It couldn't hurt to try. — Shaye Evans

Will!"
He turned at the familiar voice and saw Tessa. There was a small path cut along the side of the hill, lined with unfamiliar white flowers, and she was walking up it, toward him. Her long brown hair blew in the wind - she had taken off her straw bonnet, and held it in one hand, waving it at him and smiling as if she were glad to see him.
His own heart leaped up at the sight of her. "Tess," he called. But she was still such a distance away - she seemed both very near and very far suddenly and at the same time. He could see every detail of her pretty, upturned face, but could not touch her, and so he stood, waiting and desiring, and his heart beat like the wings of seagulls in his chest.
At last she was there, close enough that he could see where the grass and flowers bent beneath the tread of her shoes. He reached out for her - — Cassandra Clare

Who needs a dream? Who needs ambition? Who'd be the fool in my position? Once I had dreams, now they're obsessions. Hopes became needs, lovers possessions. Then they move in, oh so discretely. Slowly at first, smiling too sweetly. I opened doors, they walked right through them. Called me their friend, I hardly knew them ... Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Times have been good, fast, entertaining. But what's the point if I'm concealing not only love, all other feeling. — Tim Rice

I think,' said the little Queen, smiling, 'that your friend must be the richest man in all the world.' 'I am,' returned the Scarecrow; 'but not on account of my money. For I consider brains to be far superior to money, in every way. You may have noticed that if one has money without brains, he cannot use it to advantage; but if one has brains without money, they will enable him to live comfortably to the end of days.' 'At the same time,' declared the Tin Woodman, 'you must acknowledge that a good heart is a thing that brains cannot create, and that money cannot buy. Perhaps, after all it is I who am the richest man in all the world.' 'You are both rich, my friends,' said Ozma gently; 'and your riches are the only riches worth having - the riches of content!' - The Marvellous Land Of Oz by L. Frank Baum pg 192 chapter 24 — L. Frank Baum

He takes a seat, coming eye to eye with me. His elbows meet his knees and he leans forward, smiling calmly. "My name is Owen Gentry. I'm an artist and this is my studio. I have a showing in less than an hour, I need someone to handle all the transactions, and my girlfriend broke up with me last week."
Artist.
Showing.
Less than an hour?
And girlfriend? Not touching that one. — Colleen Hoover

Stories," she blurted. "The mosaic told stories, didn't it?"
"Yes, old ones."
"I'll tell them to you."
His eyes cracked open. He didn't remember closing them. "You know those tales?"
"Yes."
She didn't. This became clear as she began to tell them. She knew bits and pieces, cobbled together in ways that would have made him smile if smiling didn't hurt. "You," he breathed, "are such a faker."
"Don't interrupt."
Mostly pure invention. She remembered the images--it pleased him, how vividly she knew the temple floor's details. Which god curled around which, or how the snake's tongue forked into three. But the stories she told had little to do with his religion. Sometimes they didn't even make sense.
"Do this again," he said, "when I have strength to laugh."
"As bad as that?"
"Mmm. Maybe not. For a Valorian. — Marie Rutkoski

Once you start spending time together, you'll learn things about her that no one else could have told you. Things that you never would have suspected. Like the fact that she snores and has cold feet." He folded his arms and I caught his smile in my peripheral vision. Why was he smiling at me? Hey, was he referring to our nap on the cot? "Maybe you'll learn that she'd make a great doctor or that she has the capacity to care about people she barely knows." He took a dramatic pause, leaning against the wall. "Maybe you'll learn that she's not the spoiled princess you thought she was."
Maybe you'll learn that she'd rather have someone speak directly to her than about her," I said, folding my arms and leaning against the wall. — Suzanne Selfors

Nobody dast blame this man. You don't understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there's no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back - that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple spots on your hat and your finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream boy, it comes with the territory. — Arthur Miller

She saw both serenity and suffering in the calm of his face, an expression like a smile of pain, though he was not smiling ... He did not look like a man bearing torture now, but like a man who sees that which makes the torture worth bearing. — Ayn Rand

The cross that my Lord calls me to carry may assume many different shapes. I may have to be content with mundane tasks in a limited area of service, when I may balieve my abilities are suited for much greater work. I may be required to continually cultivate the same field year after year, even though it yields no harvest whatsoever. I may be asked of God to nurture kind and loving thoughts about the very person who has wronged me and to speak gently to him, take his side when others oppose him, and bestow sympathy and comfort to him. I may have to openly testify of my Master before those who do not want to be reminded of Him or His claims. And I may be called to walk through this world with a bright, smiling face while my heart is breaking... "I grow under the load." -Alexander Smellie — Lettie B. Cowman

That poem you like, how does it end?"
He knows how it ends. He's looked it up by now, that's why he asks.
But I answer him anyway.
"'We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, by sea-girls wreathed
with seaweed red and brown, till human voices wake us, and we drown.'"
Eliot shakes his head. "It does not need the last three words. The last
three words are wrong."
I laugh at his correcting a Nobel prize-winning poet, but I agree. I
know what drowning feels like. It doesn't need water. And human voices,
if they say the right things, can save you.
"Eliot, do you have a pen I can borrow?"
I can feel him smiling in the dark, and we watch the sea caress the
sand.
"That man in the poem, Mr. Prufrock, he was a coward, wasn't he?"
Eliot says.
My answer to his question is the same as his answer to mine. — Ray Cluley

A child dragging bent useless legs is crawling up the hill outside the village. Nose to the stones, goat dung, and muddy trickles, she pulls herself along like a broken cricket. We falter, ashamed of our strong step, and noticing this, she gazes up, clear-eyed, without resentment - it seems much worse that she is pretty. In Bengal, GS says stiffly, beggars will break their children's knees to achieve this pitiable effect for business purposes: this is his way of expressing his distress. But the child that lies here at our boots is not a beggar; she is merely a child, staring in curiosity at tall, white strangers. I long to give her something - a new life? - yet am afraid to tamper with such dignity. And so I smile as best I can, and say "Namas-te!" "Good morning!" How absurd! And her voice follows as we go away, a small clear smiling voice - "Namas-te!" - a Sanskrit word for greeting and parting that means, "I salute you". — Peter Matthiessen

And Johnson, genuinely hated by his opponent and the crowd, still enjoying every minute of it. Smiling, joking, playing the whole fight. Why not? There's no value in any other reaction. Should he hate them for hating him? Bitterness was their burden and Johnson refused to pick it up. — Ryan Holiday

When I walk out, I am a great event.
I do not have to think, or even rehearse.
What happens in me will happen without attention.
The pheasant stands on the hill;
He is arranging his brown feathers.
I cannot help smiling at what it is I know.
Leaves and petals attend me. I am ready. — Sylvia Plath

The small talk that sprang readily to their lips came to hers only with a tremendous effort. After an opportunity had come and gone, she often scolded herself for not saying this or doing that, for laughing too loud or smiling too little. Whenever she tried to re-create the moment of contact, she was easily rebuffed by the slightest gesture, withdrawing all too quickly if she thought she was in the way. The old stone-and-brick schoolhouse, with its four gabled roofs and round little windows, was the only thing that seemed steadfast to her, while the beings that populated its rooms and thundered down its corridors were unreal and unpredictable. It gripped her like a monstrous truth that she was condemned to lead life without belonging or feeling close to anyone. — Erick Setiawan

I couldn't get a date, but I couldn't be quite sure how unattractive I'd become. I was still friendly; I made jokes, and in my mind, if I saw a woman smiling at me ... I still had a chance. I did not. — Victor LaValle

I have nothing to make me miserable," she said, getting calmer; "but can you understand that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything."
"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly, smiling.
"The most utterly loathsome and coarse; I can't tell you. It's not unhappiness, or low spirits, but much worse. As though everything that was good in me was all hidden away, and nothing was left but the most loathsome. — Leo Tolstoy

Ronan wasn't exactly sure why he was angry. Although Gansey had done nothing to invoke his ire, he was definitely part of the problem. Currently, he propped his cell between ear and shoulder as he eyed a pair of plastic plates printed with smiling tomatoes. His unbuttoned collar revealed a good bit of his collarbone. No one could deny that Gansey was a glorious portrait of youth, the well-tended product of a fortunate and moneyed pairing. Ordinarily, he was so polished that it was bearable, though, because he was clearly not the same species as Ronan's rough-and-ready family. But tonight, under the fluorescent lights of Dollar City, Gansey's hair was scuffed and his cargo shorts were a greasy ruin from mucking over the Pig. He was barelegged and sockless in his Top-Siders and very clearly a real human, an attainable human, and this, somehow, made Ronan want to smash his fist through a wall. — Maggie Stiefvater

I am not a vivacious person in real. I hate smiling. I hate doing small talk. — Anushka Sharma

I need to be alone. After a full day of talking, smiling, listening, showing, nodding, translating, I want to be alone. I want simply to come home, close the door, and sit in silence, gathering up the bits of myself that have come loose. I want to think, or not think. I want to rest. — Jamie Zeppa

We seem to live in a world where you have to walk around grinning like a loon. I can't understand all the fuss about Mona Lisa painting, everyone wondering why she's not smiling, if she's depressed or heartbroken. No, she was just normal!
Emotions are always extreme these days: you either have to be crying with laughter or crying in pain. No wonder water levels are rising. It's not global warming, it's all the tears from crying. — Karl Pilkington

What about me?" Monica whined.
"Do you really want to know?" Shane gave her a glare that should have scorched her hair off. "Be grateful I'm not leaving you as an after-dinner mint on his pillow."
Myrnin leaned close to Claire's ear and said, "I think I like your young man." When she reacted in pure confusion, he held up his hands, smiling. "Not in that way, my dear. He just seems quite trustworthy. — Rachel Caine

My dear boy," said Lord Henry, smiling, "anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there. That is the reason why people who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized. Civilization is not, by any means, an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which men can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. Country people have no opportunity of being either, so they stagnate. — Oscar Wilde

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. — Banana Yoshimoto

Oxthorpe stood. He could do nothing else.
Her hands stilled, and her smile faded away. She stood and dropped into a curtsy. What did one say in such situations, when one knew a lady disapproved? "Miss Clay," he said.
"Duke." She'd given the field laborer a happier smile than she gave him. Most everyone else had stopped smiling, too. This was the effect he had on others. He was the Duke of Oxthorpe, and though he did his duty by his title and his estate, he was not beloved. He did not know how to be beloved the way Miss Clay was. — Carolyn Jewel

We can't stop staring at each other. Saying nothing, nothing to say. I trace the curve of his jaw and throat, the sweet spot below his ear, with only my eyes, because he's too faraway to touch. We stare and we stare and I can't stop myself from smiling, because he's smiling, too. We don't have to speak to have this conversation; in fact, the only way to have it is by not using words. — Megan Hart

I truly meant to only find you and bring you back to the landing, sweet, but when I saw you here alone, I could not help myself. It has been so many years I have longed for the forbidden fruit, Mary, and I am not really a very patient man. You were angered with me today for kissing Maud, but years of smiling and laughing with you and breathing in your sweet scent and seeing that luscious face and body near me and then bidding you a curt goodnight as you go to Will's or Henry's bed is pure hell." He reached over to smooth her hair. "I tell you, Mary, whomever I have slept with these past five years, I have dreamed it was you or, if not, your face came back to tease me-to haunt me-soon after. Do you understand? — Karen Harper

because I'm terrible at almost everything else in life. Take walking or talking, for instance, never mind attempting both at the same time. Or smiling. Or not being weird. Or not creeping people out. Or not being the cause of every awkward silence in a five-mile radius. — L. H. Cosway

What are you smiling about?" Benedict demanded.
She didn't bother to glance up as she replied, "I'm plotting your demise."
He grinned-not that she was looking at him, but it was one of those smiles she could hear in the way he breathed.
She hated that she as that sensitive to his every nuance. Especially since she had a sneaking suspicion that he was the same way about her.
"At least it sounds entertaining,"he said.
"What does?" she asked, finally moving her eyes from the lower hem of the curtain, which she'd been staring at for what seemed like hours.
"My demise," he said, his smile crooked and amused. "If you're going to kill me, you might as well enjoy yourself while you're at it, because Lord knows, I won't."
Her jaw dropped a good inch. "You're mad," she said. — Julia Quinn

He reaches forward slowly, to lift the pen from my lax grip. Wearily I regard the faltering trail of ink it has tracked down my page. I have seen that shape before, I think, but it was not ink then. A trickle of drying blood on the deck of a Red-Ship, and mine the hand that spilled it? Or was it a tendril of smoke rising black against a blue sky as I rode too late to warn a village of a Red-Ship raid? Or poison swirling and unfurling yellowly in a simple glass of water, poison I had handed someone, smiling all the while? The artless curl of a strand of woman's hair left upon my pillow? Or the trail of a man's heels left in the sand as we dragged the bodies from the smoldering tower at Sealbay? The track of a tear down a mother's cheek as she clutched her Forged infant to her despite his angry cries? Like Red-Ships, the memories come without warning, without mercy. — Robin Hobb

On the 11th anniversary of 9/11, it is some consolation that the man most responsible for that terrible morning will not be smiling smugly to himself as satellite TV brings to the leafy boulevards of Abbottabad the somber images of New Yorkers commemorating those who perished in the Twin Towers. — Bobby Ghosh

Our eyes meet. Am I mistaken or does the corner of her mouth tuck in ever so slightly and the petal of her lower lip curl out ever so richly? She is smiling-at me! My mind hits upon half a dozen schemes to circumvent the terrible moment of separation. No doubt she is a Texan. They are nearly always bad judges of men, these splendid Amazons. Most men are afraid of them and so they fall victim to the first little Mickey Rooney that comes along. In a better world I should be able to speak to her: come, darling, you can see that I love you. If you are planning to meet some little Mickey, think better of it. What a tragedy it is that I do not know her, will probably never see her again. What good times we could have! — Walker Percy

Now you tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool, though that father is acting in the spirit just described and in Christian faith, my dear fellow you tell me, which of the two is most keenly ridiculing the other? God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling, not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith. Those who sneer at him and see only the task but not the faith are ridiculing God with all his creatures, as the biggest fool on earth. Indeed, they are only ridiculing themselves; with all their cleverness they are nothing but devil's fools. — Martin Luther

The system loves resistance. Resistance is often creative and it feeds on creativity until the subversive becomes just another pre-packaged lifestyle on special offer. So Cease to Resist. Relax and enjoy the PandaemonAeon. Believe everything and anything. Seek not proof, but take pleasure in your choice of belief. Wipe that superior sneer of your face and try smiling (if only inwardly) at the people/institutions/beliefs that you've waged your personal war against. Wouldn't it be more fun if you didn't run around quite so hard trying to be an individual, or fighting to prove or uphold your chosen belief-system? — Phil Hine

Ode to Douglas Adams

In the solar system we inhabit, we live on a small planet we all call Earth. Okay, when I say small, I mean it's small compared to say, oh, Jupiter. Earth is something like a dime compared to Jupiter's beach ball. On this Earth is a fairly large country we all call The United States of America. Of course, when I say fairly large, it's like the U.S. is a piece of broccoli next to China's really large cauliflower. Now that I think of it, that may not be a good comparison as it depends on the restaurant you go to. At the place I was at last night it would be a good comparison as the cauliflower was larger than the broccoli. Not that I'd touch either. I had a hamburger with fries and somebody at the next table had those ghastly vegetables.

From the Preface to "Sex and the American Male." I was saddened by the passing of Douglas Adams and wrote the preface to sound a little like his "Hitchhiker's..." books and to honor him. I hope he's smiling. — Jay Williams

I did this.
The sudden reality of the situation sets in and I know that not only will I kill again, but I have doomed this poor soul to a life in the shadows, stalking his prey by the silver light of the full moon.
The corners of my mouth slants toward the heavens and I am smiling. — Benjamin M. Strozykowski

He got up, wishing to go around, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox right over Helene, behind her back. Helene moved forward so as to make room and, smiling, glanced around. As always at soirees, she was wearing a gown in the fashion of the time, quite open in front and back. Her bust, which had always looked like marble to Pierre, was now such a short distance from him that he could involuntarily make out with his nearsighted eyes the living loveliness of her shoulders and neck, and so close to his lips that he had only to lean forward a little to touch her. He sensed the warmth of her body, the smell of her perfume, and the creaking of her corset as she breathed. He saw not her marble beauty, which made one with her gown, he saw and sensed all the loveliness of her body, which was merely covered by clothes. And once he had seen it, he could not see otherwise, as we cannot return to a once-exposed deception. — Leo Tolstoy

One last word," I said in my horrible English, "are you quite, quite sure that
well, not tomorrow, of course, and not after tomorrow , but
well
some day, any day, you will not come live with me? I will create a new God and thank him with piercing cries, if you give me that microscopic hope."
"No," she said smiling, "no."
"It would have made all the difference," said Humbert Humbert. — Vladimir Nabokov

So how's Cupid Day treating you?" He pops a mint in his mouth and leans closer. It grosses me out, like he thinks he can seduce me with fresh breath. "Any big romantic plans tonight? Got someone special to cozy up next to?" He raises his eyebrows at me.
[ ... ]
"We'll see," I say, smiling. "What about you? Are you going to be all by your lonesome? Table for one?"
He leans forward even more, and I stay perfectly still, willing myself not to pull away.
"Now why would you assume that?" He winks at me, obviously thinking that this is my version of flirting
like I'm going to offer to keep this company or something.
I smile even wider. "Because if you had a real girlfriend," I say, quietly but clearly, so he can hear every word perfectly, "you wouldn't be hitting on high school girls. — Lauren Oliver

By the time we landed in the hospital, most of our families considered us insensitive liars, but we didn't start out that way. We started out as ultrasensitive truth tellers. We saw everyone around us smiling and repeating "I'm fine! I'm fine! I'm fine!" and we fund ourselves unable to join them in all the pretending. We had to tell the truth, which was: "Actually, I'm not fine. — Glennon Doyle Melton

It is a wonderful morning with the sun shining bright and flowers smiling. There is a sweet breeze kissing my face while a hot cup of coffee warms my heart and awakens my mind. The primordial songs of ocean waves are soothing my soul. I am not on earth; I am in heaven on earth. — Debasish Mridha

I think people need a break. It's not like they're out there selling bacon and booze. They want to pretend for a few hours a day that we don't live in this awful hole getting squeezed by State on one side and pious airheads on the other, all while smiling our shit-eating grins so that the oil companies keep shoveling money into our pockets. Surely God wouldn't mind people pretending life is better, even if it involves fictional pork. — G. Willow Wilson

Oh shit," a super-deep, gravelly voice said. The voice came from a man behind the book counter, and he was the one not smiling. He had long, gray hair pulled back in a braid, a red, rolled bandana wrapped around his forehead and a thick gray beard. — Kristen Ashley

She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm 'i th' bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pinned in thought; and, with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more; but indeed our shows are more than will; for we still prove much in our vows but little in our love. — William Shakespeare

He remembered Apollo, smiling and tan and completely cool in his shades. Thalia had said, He's hot. He's the sun god, Percy replied. That's not what I meant. — Rick Riordan

You just couldn't wait to get me naked, could you, Princess?" Loki asked tiredly. I started to pull my hand back, but he put his own hand over it, keeping it in place.
"No, I - I was checking for wounds," I stumbled. I wouldn't meet his gaze.
"I'm sure." He moved his thumb, almost caressing my hand, until it hit my ring. "What's that?" He tried to sit up to see it, so I lifted my hand, showing him the emerald-encrusted oval on my finger. "Is that a wedding ring?"
"No, engagement." I lowered my hand, resting it on the bed next to him. "I'm not married yet."
"I'm not too late, then." He smiled and settled back in the bed.
"Too late for what?" I asked.
"To stop you, of course." Still smiling, he closed his eyes. — Amanda Hocking

Rush? not in the least. I take it uncommon easy." "Ah I'm bound to say you do!" Mrs. Nettlepoint returned with inconsequence. I guessed at a certain tension between the pair and a want of consideration on the young man's part, arising perhaps from selfishness. His mother was nervous, in suspense, wanting to be at rest as to whether she should have his company on the voyage or be obliged to struggle alone. But as he stood there smiling and slowly moving his fan he struck me somehow as a person on whom this fact wouldn't sit too heavily. He was of the type of those whom other people worry about, not of those who worry about other people. Tall and strong, — Henry James

Why do you hunger for length of days? The point of life is to follow reason and the divine spirit and to accept whatever nature sends you. To live in this way is not to fear death, but to hold it in contempt. Death is only a thing of terror for those unable to live in the present. Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face, under the smile of him who bids you go — Marcus Aurelius