One Spring Night Quotes & Sayings

What if heaven is just a vast consciousness that the dead return to? And their assignment is to report on the experiences they collected during their time on earth? ... The spring mornings they woke up to a million birds singing their hearts out, and the summer afternoons with the swim towels hung over the porch rail, and the October air that smelled like wood smoke and apple cider, and the warm yellow windows of home when they came in on a snowy night. That's what my experience has been,' they say, and it gets folded in with the others
one more report on what living felt like. What it was like to be alive. — Anne Tyler

I was 8 years old in the spring of 1945 when my family fled Silesia to escape the Russian army. On our way, we passed through Dresden. A few days later, it was firebombed. The fire was so bright that night that one could read a newspaper from the light, though we were many kilometers away. — Gunter Blobel

Maryam closed her eyes and listened as Noruz began. 'You know that every spring, crocuses grow in the courtyard outside. They come from the dirt, green shoots from nothing. One day the flowers come purple as night, the nights when we were young. And inside the petals, saffron grows the color of blood. Then they die, and the ground is dirt again where chickens shit. That's the way of things: saffron, shit, saffron, shit.' Maryam smiled at the word in Noruz's mouth. 'I was sad and Dr. Ahlavi told me this: to remember that saffron comes from the dirt. — Yasmin Crowther

With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.
In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed. — Ernest Hemingway,

Her soul died that night under a radiant silver moon in the spring of 1918 on the side of a blood-spattered trench. Around her lay the mangled dead and the dying. Her body was untouched, her heart beat calmly, the blood coursed as ever through her veins. But looking deep into those emotionless eyes one wondered if they had suffered much before the soul had left them. Her face held an expression of resignation, as though she had ceased to hope that the end might come. — Helen Zenna Smith

It's a calculated risk, you see. You're either laughing all over your face or you're in deep, deep shit. Whether to take the risk or not. If you take the gamble, you may fall off the twig frozen stiff one night and not thaw out till spring. Bottle it and you might not have anywhere to nest when you return. These are, as it were, the eternal dilemmas you're confronted with. — Jo Nesbo

I came from Paris in the Spring of 1884, and was brought in intimate contact with him [Thomas Edison]. We experimented day and night, holidays not excepted. His existence was made up of alternate periods of work and sleep in the laboratory. He had no hobby, cared for no sport or amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene. There can be no doubt that, if he had not married later a woman of exceptional intelligence, who made it the one object of her life to preserve him, he would have died many years ago from consequences of sheer neglect. So great and uncontrollable was his passion for work. — Nikola Tesla

The Jetavana Temple bells
ring the passing of all things.
Twinned sala trees, white in full flower,
declare the great man's certain fall.
The arrogant do not long endure:
They are like a dream one night in spring.
The bold and brave perish in the end:
They are as dust before the wind. — Royall Tyler

You are not the only one who has spent the night in reflection. The final festival of the spring season is this coming Sabbath, fifty days after Passover. In Hebrew it is called Shavuot, though many now call it by its Greek name, Pentecost. It marks the end of the spring harvest, and the day carries a divine purpose. We are called to draw near to the throne of God, to receive an earthly foretaste of the splendor to come. — Janette Oke

Of course we have a Tomorrow on the map ... located east of Today and west of Yesterday ... and we have no end of "times" in fairyland. Spring-time, long time, short time, new-moon time, good-night time, next time ... but no last time, because that is too sad a time for fairyland; old time, young time ... because if there is an old time there ought to be a young time, too; mountain time ... because that has such a fascinating sound; night-time and day-time ... but no bed-time or school-time; Christmas-time; no only time, because that also is too sad ... but lost time, because it is so nice to find it; some time, good time, fast time, slow time, half-past kissing-time, going-home time, and time immemorial ... which is one of the most beautiful phrases in the world. — L.M. Montgomery

That night I lay in bed, thinking about how summer romances really do happen so fast, and then they're over so fast.
But the next morning, when I went to the deck to eat my toast, I found an empty water bottle on the steps that led down to the beach. Poland Spring, the kind Cam was always drinking. There was a piece of paper inside, a note. A message in a bottle. The ink was a little smeared, but I could still read what it said. It said, IOU one skinny-dip. — Jenny Han

SPRING Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring I think of her, her four black fists flicking the gravel, her tongue like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is only one question: how to love this world. I think of her rising like a black and leafy ledge to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees. Whatever else my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities, it is also this dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting; all day I think of her - her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love. — Mary Oliver

I have a lady as dear to me As the westward wind and shining sea, As breath of spring to the verdant lea, As lover's songs and young children's glee. Swiftly I pace thro' the hours of light, Finding no joy in the sunshine bright, Waiting 'till moon and far stars are white, Awaiting the hours of silent night. Swiftly I fly from the day's alarms, Too sudden desires, false joys and harms, Swiftly I fly to my loved one's charms, Praying the clasp of her perfect arms. Her eyes are wonderful, dark and deep, Her raven tresses a midnight steep, But, ah, she is hard to hold and keep - My lovely lady, my lady Sleep! Leolyn Louise Everett. — Various

Bad, or good, as it happens to be, that is what it is to exist! ... It is as though I have been silent and fuddled with sleep all my life. In spite of all, I know now that at least it is better to go always towards the summer, towards those burning seas of light; to sit at night in the forecastle lost in an unfamiliar dream, when the spirit becomes filled with stars, instead of wounds, and good and compassionate and tender. To sail into an unknown spring, or receive one's baptism on storm's promontory, where the solitary albatross heels over in the gale, and at last come to land. To know the earth under one's foot and go, in wild delight, ways where there is water. — Malcolm Lowry

Your name is a -- bird in my hand
a piece of -- ice on the tongue
one single movement of the lips.
Your name is: five signs,
a ball caught in flight, a
silver bell in the mouth

a stone, cast in a quiet pool
makes the splash of your name, and
the sound is in the clatter of
night hooves, loud as a thunderclap
or it speaks straight into my forehead,
shrill as the click of a cocked gun.

Your name -- how impossible, it
is a kiss in the eyes on
motionless eyelashes, chill and sweet.
Your name is a kiss of snow
a gulp of icy spring water, blue
as a dove. About your name is: sleep. — Marina Tsvetaeva

One springs to mind: one of our very first gigs in a small East Texas town was not well promoted. At least, that was our conclusion. After the band loaded in and the curtain opened, we realized there was exactly one paying customer in the audience. We kind of made the best of it playing through the first set, took a break and bought him a Coke and then went on to perform for the remainder of the night. It wasn't exactly a catastrophe but it certainly stands as legendary. — Billy Gibbons

If I should see your eyes again, I know how far their look would go
Back to a morning in the park With sapphire shadows on the snow. Or back to oak trees in the spring When you unloosed my hair and kissed The head that lay against your knees In the leaf shadow's amethyst. And still another shining place We would remember
how the dun Wild mountain held us on its crest One diamond morning white with sun. But I will turn my eyes from you As women turn to put away The jewels they have worn at night And cannot wear in sober day. — Sara Teasdale

There Will Come Soft Rains
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone. — Sara Teasdale

The night of the fireworks changed the course of many lives in England, though no one suspected the dark future as hundreds of courtiers stared, faces upturned in delight, at the starbursts of crimson, green, and gold that lit up the terraces, gardens, and pleasure grounds of Rosethorn House, the country home of Richard, Baron Thornleigh. That night, no one was more proud to belong to the baron's family than his eighteen-year-old ward, Justine Thornleigh; she had no idea that she would soon cause a deadly division in the family and ignite a struggle between two queens. Yet she was already, innocently, on a divergent path, for as Lord and Lady Thornleigh and their multitude of guests watched the dazzle of fireworks honoring the spring visit of Queen Elizabeth, Justine was hurrying away from the public gaiety. Someone had asked to meet her in private. — Barbara Kyle

There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are. — Chogyam Trungpa

But as spring blooms, the birds grow drunk with love and the bushes riot with their songs. Far, far into the night, darkness mutes but does not silence them, and small melodious conversations break out at all hours, invisible and strangely intimate in the dead of night, as though one overheard the lovemaking of strangers in the room next door. — Diana Gabaldon

A latent warmth flickers behind those golden, burning rings. The Cold struggles to squelch it, shrouding it with the frigid Night. It almost smothers it entirely.
Almost.
But I know it is still there. It is like the heat of an unassuming coal beneath a blanket of graying ash. It is hidden, but not extinguished.
I can feel it. I can feel its gentle breath against my skin, like distant sunlight during newborn spring.
I can hear it. I can hear it reaching to divide the curtains of shadow on his face, like the whispers of blossoms unfolding.
I can see it. I can see it behind his fiery eyes, flickering like a starlight-dappled pool, dancing in and out of view.
It is buried. Buried, but burning nonetheless. Buried but burning, like one last hope in my heart. One last Ember in the dark.
-The Penitent God — S.G. Night

Two things of opposite natures seem to depend
On on another, as Logos depends
On Eros, day on night, the imagined
On the real. This is the origin of change.
Winter and spring, cold copulars, embrace
And forth the particulars of rapture come.
Music falls on the silence like a sense
A passion that we feel, not understand.
Morning and afternoon are clasped together
And North and South are an intrinsic couple
And sun and rain a plural, like two lovers
That walk away together as one in the greenest body. — Wallace Stevens

We came out on Coldra Crescent, one of those warm air nights, stars spitting in the sky like firebugs stuck on a big black velvet rump. A summer night to make anybody with standard glands feel that tidy homes, spring mattresses, four guaranteed meals per day, and legalised religion were all criminal to human development. — Ron Berry

This is what I know: God can make something beautiful out of anything, out of darkness and trash and broken bones. He can shine light into even the blackest night, and he leaves glimpses of hope all around us. An oyster, a sliver of moon, one new bud on a black branch, a perfect tender shoot of asparagus, fighting up through the dirt for the spring sun. New life and new beauty are all around us, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be seen. — Shauna Niequist

As if reading his mind, Lily huffed. "You're as predictable as the spring rains, son of mine, and as boring as drying paint. Unless there's an emergency, you're home every night by seven, you eat dinner by yourself, go for a run, watch exactly one hour of TV by yourself, and go to bed at ten o'clock. If God ever loses his watch, he only has to look at Lance Beaufort to get back on schedule."
...
"I've been having trouble with my phone," he tried.
Lily took two strides to the desk, leaned over it with both hands braced on the surface, and stared.
"Okay, yes! I have been over there. But it's for work. And ... and it's work related!"
"Oh? Explain that to me, because I thought you were the sheriff, not in training for a role in Lassie. — Eli Easton

That night they camped, in a grove of oaks and beeches where a spring ran. The nights were still cool and they had a fire against it, of a rail lifted from a nearby fence and cut into lengths - a small fire, neat, niggard almost, a shrewd fire; such fires were his father's habit and custom always, even in freezing weather. Older, the boy might have remarked this and wondered why not a big one; why should not a man who had not only seen the waste and extravagance of war, but who had in his blood an inherent voracious prodigality with material not his own, have burned everything in sight? — William Faulkner

As the seasons age us
I close my eyes and wish for snow
Alas the Irish seasons been foretold
For Spring will dawn and I will go
Into another season Jack Frost cold.
And when its here, I wish for night
As childhood memories flash right by
To see the birds in humble flight
I wish for Summer with a sigh
And on I go to months so sweet
Dawns sweet chorus and sunbeams bright
I yearn for Autumn leaves under feet
Yet now I dream of Winters night
As Auld Lang Syne rings in New Year
Alas! I'm one year older as Spring draws near. — Michelle Geaney

It was a lovely uneventful spring evening. The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night. When — Haruki Murakami

Sent to the Monk"

Night falls
and the empty intimacy of the whole world
fills my heart to frothing.
The past has trudged to this one spot
and falls into the stream,
its flashlight in its mouth.
Ancient tears beneath the surface
rise and scatter like carp,
while an ivory hairpin floats away
like a loose tooth going back in time.

Columbia Poetry Review. Spring 2014 — Mary Ruefle

When she went out into the dark kitchen to fix her plants for the night, she used to stand by the window and look out at the white fields, or watch the currents of snow whirling over the orchard. She seemed to feel the weight of all the snow that lay down there. The branches had become so hard that they wounded your hand if you but tried to break a twig. And yet, down under the frozen crusts, at the roots of the trees, the secret of life was still safe, warm as the blood in one's heart; and the spring would come again! Oh, it would come again! — Willa Cather

She looked at the sky and wondered where her baby's soul was now: was it following her, or floating aloft yonder among the stars and thinking nothing now of his mother? Oh, how lonely it was in the open country at night, in the midst of that singing when one cannot sing oneself; in the midst of the incessant cries of joy when one cannot oneself be joyful, when the moon, which cares not whether it is spring or winter, whether men are alive or dead, looks down as lonely, too ... — Anton Chekhov

The time of minor poets is coming. Good-by Whitman, Dickinson, Frost. Welcome you whose fame will never reach beyond your closest family, and perhaps one or two good friends gathered after dinner over a jug of fierce red wine ... While the children are falling asleep and complaining about the noise you're making as you rummage through the closets for your old poems, afraid your wife might've thrown them out with last spring's cleaning.
It's snowing, says someone who has peeked into the dark night, and then he, too, turns toward you as you prepare yourself to read, in a manner somewhat theatrical and with a face turning red, the long rambling love poem whose final stanza (unknown to you) is hopelessly missing. — Charles Simic

All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air. With one enormous chair; Oh wouldn't it be loverly? Lots of choc'late for me to eat; Lots of coal makin' lots of heat. Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet, Oh wouldn't it be loverly? Oh, so loverly sittin' abso-bloomin'-lutely still! I would never budge 'til Spring crept over my window sill. Someone's head restin' on my knee; Warm and tender as he can be, Who takes good care of me; Oh wouldn't it be loverly? Loverly, loverly, loverly, loverly. — Audrey Hepburn

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda? — Ogden Nash

It was the face of spring, it was the face of summer, it was the warmness of clover breath. Pomegranate glowed in her lips, and the noon sky in her eyes. To touch her face was that always new experience of opening your window one December morning, early, and putting out your hand to the first white cool powdering of snow that had come, silently, with no announcement, in the night. And all of this, this breath-warmness and plum-tenderness was held forever in one miracle of photographic is chemistry which no clock winds could blow upon to change one hour or one second; this fine first cool white snow would never melt, but live a thousand summers. — Ray Bradbury

After the clouds, the sunshine; after the winter, the spring; after the shower, the rainbow; for life is a changeable thing. After the night, the morning, bidding all darkness cease, after life's cares and sorrows, the comfort and sweetness of peace. — Helen Steiner Rice

But, you know, I just did a big trip in the spring to Vietnam and Cambodia and Thailand, and that's when I bought a Kindle. I have like 15 books on this one little gizmo. But when I came home, the first night I picked up the book that was on my nightstand and I went right back to that. — Lisa See