Open Your Arm Quotes & Sayings

And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing.
Aaron's Noise roars up in red and black.
The current takes us on.
"I'm sorry!" I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can't barely breathe. "I'm sorry, Manchee!"
"Todd?" he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. "Todd?"
"Manchee!" I scream.
Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog.
"MANCHEE!"
"Todd?"
And Aaron wrenches his arms and there's a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever.
And the pain is too much it's too much it's too much and my hands are on my head and I'm rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that's inside of me. — Patrick Ness

Her eyes scanned the room and spotted her cell phone lying on the coffee table at least three whole feet away from her hands. She groaned. This was when she didn't want to be a witch, she wanted to be a Jedi, so she could use the Force to make her phone fly right into her hand.
What the hell, right? Lifting one arm she reached out an open hand toward the small electronic device. Use the Force, Wynn, she thought and had to stifle a slightly punch-drunk giggle.
From his seat in the oversized chair, Knox eyed her strangely. After a moment, she gave up and dropped her hand to her side, rolling her head along the sofa cusions to meet her mate's gaze. "What were just doing?" he asked warily.
"Using the Force."
He looked from her to the table and back again. "Did you do this successfully?"
She shook her head and grinned. "The Force is weak with this one. I'll never be a Jedi Master. — Christine Warren

Woman and children behind the lines!' he yelled, and all the girls jumped. Henry froze with his mouth open. 'Bang the drum slowly and ask not for whom the bell's ringing, for the answer's unfriendly!' He threw a fist in the air. 'Two years have my black ships sat before Troy, and today its gate shall open before the strength of my arm.' Dotty was laughing from the kitchen. Frank looked at his nephew. 'Henry, we play baseball tomorrow. Today we sack cities. Dots! Fetch me my tools! Down with the French! Once more into the breach, and fill the wall with our coward dead! Half a league! Half a league! Hey, batter, batter!'
Frank brought his fist down onto the table, spilling Anastasia's milk, and then he struck a pose with both arms above his head and his chin on his chest. The girls cheered and applauded. Aunt Dotty stepped back into the dining room carrying a red metal toolbox. — N.D. Wilson

Your sister," I say evenly, "is incredibly sick. I'm sorry if that interferes with your dentist's appointment or your plan to go buy a pair of cleats. But those don't rate quite as high in the grand scheme of things right now. I'd think that since you're ten, you might be able to grow up enough to realize that the whole world doesn't always revolve around you."
Jesse looks out the window, where Kate straddles the arm of an oak tree, coaching Anna in how to climb up. "Yeah, right, she's sick," he says. "Why don't you grow up? Why don't you figure out that the world doesn't revolve around her?"
...
There is a scuffle on the other side of the door, and then it swings open. Blood covers Jesse's mouth, a vampire's lipstick; bits of wire stick out like a seamstress's pins. I notice the fork he is holding, and realize this is what he used to pull off his braces.
"Now you never have to take me anywhere," he says. — Jodi Picoult

I have this, well, this boo-boo, and Alex says I need sticky rice to treat it." Had I really just referred to the place on my arm that had been ripped open by an undead Chinese zombie vampire thing as a boo-boo? Yep. I had. Apparently having kiang shi toxins race through your system was a little like being drunk. "He says to get it from Zen Toro. — Eileen Rendahl

Scarlet found herself pinned beneath his gaze, intense and terrified. He was still breathing hard. She was still shaking, couldn't stop shaking. Her mind emptied of everything but the gusting wind and how fragile Wolf looked in that heartbeat, like one movement could break him open. "I'm all right," she assured him again, wrapping her free arm around his back and pulling him toward her until she could curl up beneath the shelter of his body, burying her head against his neck. She felt his gulp, then his arms were around her, crushing her against his chest. — Marissa Meyer

They don't sleep here." My brow furrows. "How do you know?" "I just know," he says. "I can tell by looking at it." Before I can ask him any more, the curtain in the living room moves. The door yanks open, my mother appearing, eyes wide. She looks frantic. "Karissa," she shouts, her voice high-pitched, full of panic. "Oh God. Get away from him, sweetie." I blink a few times, caught off guard, as Naz slips his arms around me, pulling me flush against him. One arm encircles my waist as his other settles along my chest, — J.M. Darhower

Well, now," Mrs. Havisham said, all but purring as she leaned forward, ample cleavage on display. "You've grown up, haven't you? Tell me, Gustavo. What are your thoughts on having an experienced lover?"
"Not many," Gus said. "In fact, none at all. Also? I came out when I was thirteen. You were there. As was the whole town. Pastor Tommy announced it at the Fall Harvest Festival. On stage. Into a microphone. There was apple pie afterward."
"Still?" she said with an exaggerated pout.
"Yes," Gus said, deadpan as he could make it. "Still. Funny how that works."
"Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me," she said, dragging a pink fingernail down his arm. "My door is always open. Like my body."
"That's not even remotely healthy," Gus said with a sniff.
"Maybe that's why I need your protein," she said with a wink.
"Nope," Gus said. "Nope, nope, nope."
"You sure about that?"
"Maybe you should close that door. And your legs. — T.J. Klune

Isabelle took out her invitation and waved it like a white flag. "I have an invitation. These" - she indicated the rest of the group with a grand wave of her arm - "are my friends."
Magnus plucked the invitation out of her hand and looked at it with fastidious distaste. "I must have been drunk," he said. He threw the door open. "Come in. And try not to murder any of my guests."
Jace edged into the doorway, sizing up Magnus with his eyes. "Even if one of them spills a drink on my new shoes?"
"Even then." Magnus's hand shot out, so fast it was barely a blur. He plucked the stele out of Jace's hand - Clary hadn't even realized he was holding it - and held it up. Jace looked faintly abashed. "As for this," Magnus said, sliding it into Jace's jeans pocket, "keep it in your pants, Shadowhunter. — Cassandra Clare

A small lady moved on after greeting Livia to address the wedding couple. "Cole Bridge. Look at you!"
Cole's mouth dropped open. "Mrs. D?" After a shocked pause, he scooped her into a hug. "You're here?"
"Of course I am, sweetheart. Your wonderful wife delivered the invitation by hand. She insisted it be a surprise." Mrs. D rubbed Cole's arm.
Cole turned to Kyle. "Thank you so much. I didn't know you were going to do this."
Kyle nodded. "I know how much she means to you," she said. — Debra Anastasia

Go to dinner with me?" His voice whispers against my ear. I start to shake my head when his fingertip lightly traces the birdcage tattoo on my arm. My eyes shut at the sensation. His touch. "I dream about you almost every night." Join the club, buddy, I want to tell him. I dream about me every night, too ... well, until I met him. Now I dream too damn much about him. "Just one date and I will leave you alone if you never want to see me again. Deal?" I open my eyes to gaze into his. There are too many things happening at once. Everything within me says to tell him no. Nothing good can come of this. I know what I have to tell him. "Dinner, not a date," I say, looking him square in the eyes. Holy hell! What did you just do, Keller? Really? Seriously? He grins, not hiding his happiness at my words. I step away, allowing him time to button his shirt up. "Dinner then dessert, and, Keller, it will definitely be a date," he says, — Nicole Reed

... bleak, wind-swept fens and moors; empty fields with broken walls and gates hanging off their hinges; a black, ruined church; an open grave; a suicide buried at a lonely crossroads; a fire of bones blazing in the twilit snow; a gallows with a man swinging from its arm; another man crucified upon a wheel; an ancient spear plunged into the mud with a strange talisman, like a little leather finger, hanging from it; a scarecrow whose black rags blew about so violently in the wind that he seemed about to leap into the grey air and fly towards you on vast black wings ... — Susanna Clarke

his shattered arm. Dirty Jim ripped open the wounded man's shirt. — R.G. Robertson

Next came the drawing room and Abigail stared in surprise. It appeared as though the occupants had just been called away. A tea set sat on the round table, cups encrusted with dry tea. A book lay open over the arm of the sofa. A needlework project, nearly finished, lay trapped under an overturned chair. What had happened here? Why had the family left so abruptly, and why had the rooms been entombed for almost two decades? — Julie Klassen

There was a light knock at the door. Cal let go of my arm and we jumped about six feel apart as Lara eased the door open. If Mrs. Casnoff had caught Cal in my bedroom back at Hecate--with the door closed, and me still in my pajamas--I had a feeling there would have been steely glares, pursed lips, and words like "wildly inappropriate". — Rachel Hawkins

Why do you do that?" Torrin's voice echoes in the empty hall. His hand is holding my arm gently, not at all like Derek does. I can't have this. I can't. I shouldn't have ever come here with him.
I draw in a shaky breath and pull my arm away.
"Do what?"
"Walk away every time I ask you something personal?"
I stare hard at him. "Why do you do that?
He blinks. "Huh?"
"Ask so many questions."
His mouth drops open and closes and five long seconds pass before he says, "It's what people do, Quinn. When they're getting to know each other."
I shake my head and spin toward the door.
"You don't want to get to know me. — Brooklyn Skye

God first appeared on the scene of human history in the role of a matchmaker. What a profound and exciting revelation!
Is it too much to suggest that Eve came to Adam on the arm of the Lord Himself in the same way that a bride today walks down the aisle of the church on her father's arm? What human mind can fathom the depth of love and joy that filled the heart of the great Creator as He united the man and woman in this first marriage ceremony?
Surely this account is one among countless indications that the Bible is not a work of merely human authorship. Moses is generally accepted as the author of the creation record. But apart from supernatural inspiration, he would never have dared to open human history with a scene of such amazing intimacy - first between God and man, and then between man and woman. — Derek Prince

Glancing in through the open door to Xav's room, I saw Zed stretched out on the queen mattress, his arm hugging a pillow as if he felt Sky's absence at his side. — Joss Stirling

If I had other choices, I would have presented them," she snapped. "But if you know of some eligible gentleman you can strong-arm into courting me, then by all means, tell me. I'm open to suggestions."
He blinked. "There has to be some fellow-"
"Right." Lifting her skirts, she headed for the door. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Pinter. I can see I'll have to pursue this on my own."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She glared at him. "That should be obvious. Since you refuse to investigate the gentlemen I've chosen, I shall have to do it myself. — Sabrina Jeffries

He glanced down at his naked chest. "Where's my shirt?" Cheeks heating, Tori reached behind him and snagged the dangling shirt sleeve and held it open for him to push his left arm through. When she finally found the wherewithal to look him in the face again, the teasing look in his pain-filled eyes nearly toppled her onto her backside. "Knew you liked my muscles." Of all the . . . Oh, who was she kidding? She did like his muscles. Though they both knew that had nothing to do with his shirt being undone. "Modesty is obviously not one of your virtues." She'd tried to make the statement sound prim, but it filtered through her smile and came out sounding flirtatious instead. Her. Flirtatious. Good grief. Head injuries must be contagious. Offering — Karen Witemeyer

Will interrupted. "Henry," he said, "you're on fire. You do know that, don't you?"
"Oh, yeas," Henry said eagerly. The flames were now nearly to his shoulder. "I've been working like a man possessed all day. Charlotte, did you hear what I said about the Sensor?"
Charlotte dropped her hand from her mouth. "Henry!" she shrieked. "Your arm!"
Henry glanced down at his arm, and his mouth dropped open. "Bloody hell!" was all he had time to say before Will, exhibiting a starling presence of mind, stood up, seized the vase of flowers off the table, and hurled the contents over Henry. — Cassandra Clare

Zev nodded. He smiled up at Tatijana as she came to his side. "It's good to see you," he greeted her. "Thanks for saving us out there."
She smiled back at him and sank down into the grass, taking his arm to inspect the damage. "It's getting to be a habit. We can't have anyone killing you, Zev. My sister wouldn't be too pleased. She's hoping to get another dance with you sometime."
"She probably doesn't remember my name," Zev said. "But it's kind of you to say so."
Tatijana laughed. "Silly man. Your name is probably the only one she does remember. She's not very social."
Fen gave a small derisive snort. "The lengths you go to, getting yourself hurt just for a little female sympathy. You know, Tatijana, he really is far faster than he lets on and he could have prevented the knife from slicing him open. He was just hoping your sister would show up and kiss it all better."
Zev sent him a warning glare. "I'm still armed to the teeth, you bastard. — Christine Feehan

I wanted to tell Ren the truth. I wanted to say that he was the best friend I'd ever had. That I was sorry about the way I had treated him. I wanted to tell him ... that I loved him. But I couldn't say anything. My throat was closed up, probably swollen from snake venom. All I could do was look at him as he knelt over me.
That's okay. Looking at his gorgeous face one last time is enough for me. I'll die a happy woman.
I was so tired. My eyelids were too heavy to keep open. I closed my eyes and waited for death to come. Ren cleared a space and sat down near me. Pillowing my head on his arm, he pulled me onto his lap and into his arms. I smiled.
Even better. I can't open my eyes to see him anymore, but I can feel his arms around me. My warrior angel can carry me in his arms up to heaven.
He squeezed my closer to his body and whispered something in my ear that I couldn't make out. Then darkness overtook me. — Colleen Houck

He finally moved, walking those few feet between them. Without hesitation, his hands slid around her waist, pulling her flush against him. Her hand slid up his arm all by itself, grasping the hard muscles there. The warmth that seemed a natural part of him spread into her. Smoothly, his mouth found hers, gently grazing her lips before settling more firmly. She moaned as he tasted her, coaxing her to open for him. When she did, her eyelids fluttered shut and the whole world utterly disappeared. — Dee Tenorio

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. — John Adams

He is a blond man with pale, swollen face. He is lying on his back, with his left arm thrown out, in a position which is expressive of cruel suffering. His parched, open mouth with difficulty emits his stertorous breathing ; his blue, leaden eyes are rolled up, and from beneath the wadded coverlet the remains of his right arm, enveloped in bandages, protrude. The oppressive odor of a corpse strikes you forcibly, and the consuming, internal fire which has penetrated every limb of the sufferer seems to penetrate you also. — Leo Tolstoy

Open-source software shows the potential of social norms. In the case of Linux and other collaborative projects, you can post a problem about a bug on one of the bulletin boards and see how fast someone, or often many people, will react to your request and fix the software-using their own leisure time. Could you pay for this level of service? Most likely. But if you had to hire people of the same caliber they would cost you an arm and a leg. Rather, people in these communities are happy to give their time to society at large (for which they get the same social benefits we all get from helping a friend paint a room). What can we learn from this that is applicable to the business world? There are social rewards that strongly motivate behavior-and one of the least used in corporate life is the encouragement of social rewards and reputation. — Dan Ariely

I quietly walk to my room, and keeping the door open, I pick up my cello settling it between my knees. The tips of my left hand press down on the fingerboard, while my right hand saws the bow across the strings. The notes hit the air and I shut my eyes, urging them to find their target. I want them to surround my mom and her dad, but I also want the notes to glue them together, reattach their bond. I know it can happen, and so when my calluses become useless, I keep playing. When my arm protests with fatigue, I keep playing. I keep playing because I believe. — Cassie Shine

Is that you, Sergeant Angua?" said a voice in the gloom. A lantern was open, and lit the approaching face of Constable Visit. As he drew near, she could just make out the thick wad of pamphlets under his other arm.
"Hello, Washpot," she said. "What's up?"
" ... looks like a twist of lemon ... " said a damp voice from the shadows.
"Mister Vimes sent me to search the bars of iniquity and low places of sin for you," said Visit.
"And the literature?" said Angua. "By the way, the words "nothing personal" could have so easily been added to that last sentence. — Terry Pratchett

We have been happily borne - or perhaps have unhappily dragged our weary way - down the long and crooked streets of our lives, past all kinds of walls and fences made of rotting wood, rammed earth, brick, concrete, iron railings. We have never given a thought to what lies behind them. We have never tried to penetrate them with our vision or our understanding. But there is where the Gulag country begins, right next to us, two yards away from us. In addition, we have failed to notice an enormous number of closely fitted, well-disguised doors and gates in these fences. All those gates were prepared for us, every last one! And all of a sudden the fateful gate swings quickly open, and four white male hands, unaccustomed to physical labor but nonetheless strong and tenacious, grab us by the leg, arm, collar, cap, ear, and drag us in like a sack, and the gate behind us, the gate to our past life, is slammed shut once and for all.
That's all there is to it! You are arrested! — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Josh Bard is a catcher with excellent defensive tools and someone ... whose best days are ahead of him. He's not coming off his best [offensive] season, but we still think there is some ceiling on him. He has outstanding makeup and calls a good game. [He's] a solid receiver with a plus arm, and he's going to be coming to camp with a chance to open some eyes. — Theo Epstein

The passageway smelled of smoke: burning wood, a torch, acrid. His head ached. Blood was wet and sticky upon his arm and on his fingers, and the orange glow of torchlight played from behind his back and over the corridor walls, leaping like a bonfire. There was a strange familiarity to it: the narrow walls in around him. And when he came to a wooden door set in the wall, he put his hand upon it and pushed it open.
There was a room, and a pallet inside it; a small torch burned low in a socket upon the wall. A man lay upon the cot, his face bruised and battered, his hands curled against his chest bloody: and Laurence knew him; knew him and knew himself. He remembered another door opening, in Bristol, three years before, and a voice asking him to come outside his prison, in a Britain under siege.
"Tenzing," Laurence said, and, as Tharkay opened feverish eyes, went to help him stand. — Naomi Novik

Admiral Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy: How old do you think I am, anyway?
Lt. Commander Data: 137 years, Admiral, according to Starfleet records.
Admiral Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy: Explain how you remember that so exactly!
Lt. Commander Data: I remember every fact I am exposed to, sir.
Admiral Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy: [looking at both sides of Data's head] I don't see no points on your ears, boy, but you sound like a Vulcan.
Lt. Commander Data: No, sir. I am an android.
Admiral Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy: Hmph. Almost as bad.'
'Data: [uses a device in his arm to open a door] Open sesame! You could say I have a magnetic personality.
[laughs at his joke]
Data: Humor! I love it!'
'Lt. Commander Data: Spot, you are disrupting my ability to work.
[he puts Spot to the floor, but she jumps back on Data's desk]
Spot: Meow.
Lt. Commander Data: Vamoose, ye little varmint! — Star Trek The Next Generation

I truly and deeply wanted to kill him. And I believe I could have done it, with nothing but my hands. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Peter had an arm around me. "Let it go, Kade," he was whispering very gently, though his arm was nearly crushing me. "Open your fists," he said, "and let go of the coals. — David James Duncan

In Norwegian that would be 'hun ma dra. Kanskje er hun gravid.'" Astley sttempts to smile.
i can't help teasing him. "Which? Asking to go to the bathroom or dissing me because I'm pregnant."
"you are with child?" his eyes open wid, all mock terrified.
"No! Shut up. You know I'm not." I punch him in the arm and then lead him into the stairwell, shutting the door behind us. "Okay. Seriously, Astley, what happened to you? Why is your head bleeding? — Carrie Jones

Stop her!" Matthias bellowed as he thundered downstairs.
Blake's mouth twisted sideways, hand tightened on the knob. What little breath I'd regained, caught. Heart sputtered to a standstill. Then he swung the door open with a sweep of his arm.
"After you, milday."
My legs didn't hesitate. I vaulted off the porch and hit the driveway running.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?!"
"I'm her knight in shining armor. Seriously, dude, your chivalry needs some work. Ow! — A&E Kirk

Jill felt an emptiness open inside of her as she lifted her arm, a sense that something vital was being subtracted from her life. It was always like that when somebody you cared about went away, even when you knew it was inevitable, and it probably wasn't your fault. (341) — Tom Perrotta

One day a man's son was run over by a car and he was killed and all mangled up. The father couldn't go on living, he felt ill, he cried all day, he went to a wizard and gave him all his money to bring his son back to life. The wizard said: "Go home and wait. Your son will return tonight." The father waited, but the son did not come home, so in the end he went to bed. He was just falling asleep when he heard footsteps in the kitchen. He got up feeling very happy and saw his son, he was all mangle up and had one arm missing and his head was split open, with the brains running out and he said he hated him because he'd left him in the middle of the road to go with women and it was his fault he was dead.' 'So?' 'So the father got some petrol and set fire to him.' 'I don't blame him.' I threw and finally hit the target. 'Point!' 'Four-two. — Niccolo Ammaniti

Antonio, I speak to you from beyond the grave, in seriousness. I have loved you with all my shameful heart, as much as I once loved Francisco, and I have conquered any envy that I might have felt. If a dead man may have a wish, it is that you should find your future with Pelagia. She is beautiful and sweet, there is no one who deserves you more, and no one else worthy of you. I wish that you will have children together, and I wish that once or twice you will tell them about their Uncle Carlo that they never saw. As for me, I hoist my knapsack on my shoulders and buckle the webbing, I put my arm through the sling of my rifle, and I open the veil to march into the unknown as soldiers always will. Remember me.
Carlo. — Louis De Bernieres

Ben! You should have waited for me." The wagon wobbled a bit, no doubt from Tori climbing up into the bed. An instant later, her hand clasped his shoulder. "Here. Wrap your arm around me." She reached for the arm that didn't have a death grip on the wagon side and wrapped it around her neck. He cracked his eyes open a smidge. "I'd never . . . turn that . . . request down." Her cheeks turned a lovely shade of pink. Score one for him. "Lean — Karen Witemeyer

This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. Hurry now, it's getting late. I don't know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields. — Jeanette Winterson

At such times, the heart of man turns instictively towards his Maker. In prosperity, and whenever there is nothing to injure or make him afraid, he remembers Him not, and is ready to defy Him; but place him in the midst of dangers, cut him off from human aid, let the grave open before him, then it is, in the time of his tribulation, that the scoffer and unbelieving man turns to God for help, feeling there is no other hope, or refuge, or safety, save in his protecting arm. — Solomon Northup

By Moradin's arm and Clangeddin's horn, by Dumathoin's tricks and Delzoun true born, open I tell ye, open yer gates! Me name's Athrogate, me blood's Delzoun, and I'm told me home awaits! — R.A. Salvatore

It's okay,' he says, eyes closed. He's not even awake. 'It's okay.'
He says these words even in his sleep, like he has said them so often that it's his mouth's default sentiment. All this pain in his life, all this care he doles out to everyone else. And yet he still cracks his broken heart open even wider - wide enough to fit me, too. I wonder how much this must hurt him, the toll it just take to give more of himself to me when he already has so little left to give.
In slumber, his arm stays wrapped around me, encasing me for safekeeping. He would protect me even in his unconscious state, as we lie beneath my ceiling's half-painted sky.
This thought is enough to swell my heart - to swell, and to break. — Emery Lord

The door of the jail being flung open, the young woman stood fully revealed before the crowd. It seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom that she might conceal a certain token which was wrought or fastened to her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush and yet a haughty smile, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

You're going to have to take care of yourself," Karrin said quietly. "Over the next few weeks. Rest. Give yourself a chance to heal. Keep the wound on your leg clean. Get to a doctor and get that arm into a proper cast. I know you can't feel it, but it's important that
"
I stood, leaned over the bed, and kissed her on the mouth.
Her words dissolved into a soft sound that vibrated against my lips. Then her good arm slid around my neck, and there wasn't any sound at all. It was a long kiss. A slow kiss. A good one. I didn't draw away until it came to its end. I didn't open my eyes for a moment after.
" ... oh ... ," she said in a small voice. Her hand slid down my arm to lie upon mine.
"We do crazy things for love," I said quietly, and turned my hand over, fingers curling around hers. — Jim Butcher

I open the orangutan's door and set a pan of fruits, vegetables, and nuts on the floor. As I close it, her long arm reaches through the bars. She points at an orange in another pan.
'That? You want that?'
She continues to point, blinking at me with close-set eyes. Her features are concave, her face a wide platter fringed with red hair. She's the most outrageous and beautiful thing I've ever seen.
'Here,' I say, handing her the orange. 'You can have it.'
She takes it and sets it on the floor. Then she reaches out again. After several seconds of serious misgivings, I hold out my hand. She wraps her long fingers around it, then lets go. She sits on her haunches and peels her orange.
I stare in amazement. She was thanking me. — Sara Gruen

A strong hand suddenly grasped my arm above the elbow. My eyes flew open in surprise. It was that hateful, arrogant man from earlier, standing a few steps below me. He looked at me with a strange expression on his face. It almost looked like ... concern. What did he want? I tried to ask him, but the walls were falling in on me again. I closed my eyes tightly. "I think you're about to faint," a low voice said. Whose voice was it? It was too nice to belong to that man. I shook my head and said weakly, "I don't faint." And then darkness rushed up while I swooped down. We met in the middle and it swallowed me whole. — Julianne Donaldson

Buying a fly rod in the average city store, that is, joining it up and safely waggling it a bit, is much like seeing a woman's arm protruding from a car window: all one can readily be sure of is that the window is open. — John D. Voelker

Cassia had a feeling Kane might not follow her instructions to the letter, but she never expected him to come barreling into the docking lot with Arabelle hoisted over one shoulder, shielding his head with his free arm and yelling like his pants were on fire. Behind him, Doran and Solara ran through the open doorway, each armed with a stolen pulse pistol and firing indiscriminately at someone out of view.
So much for smooth negotiating. — Melissa Landers

Prison left me with some strange little tics.' She has taken all the door off their hinges in all the apartments she has lived in since. It's not that she has anxiety attacks about small spaces, she says, it's just that she starts to sweat and go cold. 'This apartment is perfect for me,' she says, looking around the open space.
'How about elevators?' I ask, recalling the schlepp up the stairs.
'Exactly,' she replies, 'I don't like them much either.'
One day, years later, her husband Charlie was fooling around at home, playing the guitar. Miriam said something provocative and he stood up suddenly, lifting his arm to take off the guitar strap. He was probably just going to say 'That's outrageous', or tickle her or tackle her. But she was gone. She was already down in the courtyard of the building. She does not remember getting down the stairs-it was an automatic flight reaction. — Anna Funder

You need to understand something, Krissy," he began, taking careful steps towards me. "Whenever I drop the words 'gonna shower', it means, we're gonna shower. I expect to see you sliding the doors open and stepping in under that shower with me, no more than a minute later. Aroused, eager, and impatient to be fucked under the spraying shower and against the tiles."

When he reached me, he took the cup of coffee still suspended mid-air from my hand and set it down on the table. Then he bent and slid one arm beneath my thighs, the other around my waist, and lifted my inert body up off the chair. "If I don't want you to join me, I won't tell you I'm gonna shower. 'Cause, then, what would be the fucking point? — S. Ann Cole

Somehow the painted door now stood open. Blaise was following Livia through it, past Throgmorton's outstretched arm. Sunni shed her slippers and hurried after them, still not quite believing they were walking through what she had thought was only paint on a wall. — Teresa Flavin

We were all grinning and everyone had their eyes open for once. Ian must have been moving - his hand was blurred. It was exactly how I imagined us, right down to Kieran's arm around me and the peace sign he was making above Matty's head. The big carving was behind us, and the other trees leaned into the picture, like giant people.

Then a cloud went over the sun and Ian said he had better get going. I wished we had taken five pictures so that we could all have a copy. When I looked at the image again, the colours had already started to fade, as if it was a moment we could never have back. — Inga Simpson

The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it, whether we arm ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be vanquished before night comes-or whether we open our eyes with the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend who will keep us delightful company and who will make us feel at evening that the day was well worth its fatigue. — Lucy Larcom

Jared stalked to the door and swung it wide open. Ash stood in the doorway, face red and shoulders hunched. Jared didn't speak to him; he shoved past him and walked off down the corridor.

Kami expected certain terrible behaviors from Jared, and right now she felt let down.

If you wanted something done, she supposed, you just had to do it yourself, so she walked over to the doorway and punched Ash hard in the arm. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Nothing irrevocable had yet been spoken, but there was only the barest margin of safety left them, each of them moving delicately along the outskirts of an open question, and, once spoken, such a question-as "Do you love me?" -could never be answered or forgotten. They walked slowly, meditating, wondering, and the path sloped down from their feet and they followed, walking side by side in the most extreme intimacy of expectation; their feinting and hesitation done with, they could only await passively for resolution. Each knew, almost within a breath, what the other was thinking and wanting to say; each of them almost wept for the other. They perceived at the same moment the change in the path and each knew then the other's knowledge of it; Theodora took Eleanor's arm and, afraid to stop, they moved on slowly, close together, and ahead of them the path widened and blackened and curved. — Shirley Jackson

The Set animal's jaws were pried open so fast that it yelped and let go of my arm. I stood, now encased in a magical barrier twice my normal size, and kicked Leroy into a wall.
Good! said Horus. Now dispatch the beast to the netherworld!
Quiet man. I'm doing all the work. — Rick Riordan

The most consistent thing about Graham Wessit was his attitude of open experiment. Can you even imagine , she asked herself, plain, quiet, intellectual little you spending a lifetime on the arm of such a havoc-producing man? — Judith Ivory

If you start thinking about who's going to read it [you're writing], or what grade will you get, or is it going to win that award, or are you going to get into this graduate program, you're blocking the light, and the light is that guidance and love we get when we open up our hearts and are guided by our higher selves, or God, or the Buddha Lupe [Buddha and the Virgin of Guadalupe fused together, as they are in the tattoo on Sandra's right arm], or whatever you believe in, or love. — Sandra Cisneros

The chilly mist settled down around them, sinking like midnight into his bones. His arm hurt, and his heart felt like an open wound in his chest. — Laura Kinsale

Gosh, it's easy!' he marveled, open-mouthed. 'I never knew before how easy it is to kill anyone! Twenty years to grow 'em, and all it takes is one little push!'
He was suddenly drunk with some new kind of power, undiscovered until this minute. The power of life and death over his fellowmen! Everyone had it, everyone strong enough to raise a violent arm, but they were afraid to use it. Well, he wasn't! And here he'd been going around for weeks living from hand to mouth, without any money, without enough food, when everything he wanted lay within his reach all the while! He had been green all right, and no mistake about it!
Death had become familiar. At seven it had been the most mysterious thing in the world to him, by midnight it was already an old story. ("Dusk To Dawn") — Cornell Woolrich

The duty of the inn-keeper,is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, dirty
sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty small
purses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter travelling families
respectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick the child
clean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the chimney-corner,the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the feather-bed, the mattress
and the truss of straw; to know how much the shadow uses up the
mirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five hundred thousand devils, to
make the traveller pay for everything, even for the flies which his dog
eats! — Victor Hugo

It takes a very long time to sever a marriage in which children are involved. There is a table, two chairs, and a small pile of bargaining chips. This is how it begins, but it ends with one chair in an empty room. The days darken. The children are slices open and split down the middle. Someone takes an arm; someone takes a foot. The car pulling into the driveway on a Friday afternoon becomes a hearse, and everything is couched in lies. The house of old assumes a silence. — Kate Mulgrew

Again the water rose, they both took a breath; again they were submerged and his leg hooked over something, an old pipe, unmoving. The next time, they both reached their heads high as the water rushed back, another breath taken. He heard Mrs. Kitteridge yelling from above. He couldn't hear the words, but he understood that help was coming. He had only to keep Patty from falling away, and as they went again beneath the swirling, sucking water, he strengthened his grip on her arm to let her known: He would not let her go. Even though, staring into her open eyes in the swirling salt-filled water, with sun flashing through each wave, he thought he would like this moment to be forever: the dark-haired woman on shore calling for their safety, the girl who had once jumped rope like a queen, now holding him with a fierceness that matched the power of the ocean - oh, insane, ludicrous, unknowable world! Look how she wanted to live, look she wanted to hold on. — Elizabeth Strout

Shall we?" The doors slide open and he leisurely extends his arm to the looming double doors marked Penthouse. I get the feeling that I'm about to step through the wardrobe. And the lion is right behind me. — Vi Keeland

Where is Sin's plaid? (Lochlan)
Plaid cloth is for people of true Scots blood, Lochlan. They are not for half-blooded Sassenachs. (Aisleen)
(He had found Sin later that day, alone in their room. Sin had been sitting in the middle of the floor with his arm cut open while he let blood trail from the wound into a bowl.)
What are you doing? (Lochlan)
I'm trying to get rid of the English blood in me, but it doesn't look any different than yours. How can I make it go away when I can't find the difference? (Sin) — Kinley MacGregor

She rubs her arm where I grabbed her. "What do you do to the people you don't like?"
I flash my teeth like knives in the dark. "Do you really want to know?"
She kicks my shin in a halfhearted pout. "You think different around him, you know."
"Oh?" A cab pulls to the side and I open the door. "Clearer. Happier. But scarier. — Kiersten White

One day in May, the whiteness in Milo's brain turns into that of a flock of Canadian geese that fills the entire sky. Pan to the young man staring up at them. Clinging to his arm is a pert and pretty, dark-haired girl by the name of Viviane, also looking up. Their mouths are open in amazement. Milo recites a few lines from "The Wild Swans at Coole." De trees are in deir autumn beauty, De woodland paths are dry, Under de October twilight de water Mirrors a still sky; Upon de brimming water among de stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. Viviane looks at him adoringly. "Sounds beautiful!" she says. "Who's it by?" "Yeats." "Never heard of him. — Nancy Huston

Wells?" Someone was prodding his arm. "Hey, Wells?" Wells's eyes snapped open, draining the last droplets of a dream from his mind. He'd been floating down a canal in Venice. No, wait, he'd been riding a horse into battle alongside Napoleon. Kendall — Kass Morgan

Eena!"
Recognizing Ian's voice, Eena turned to find him approaching her from behind. He was entirely clad in body armor and gauntlets, cradling an open-faced helmet in one arm. Painted on his chest plate was a flaming, gold sword. From his side hung a leather sheath, a golden hilt peeking from the top.
"I'm glad you're back. You are going to stay and watch us play, aren't you?" He looked hopeful she'd say yes.
Eena smiled brightly. "I didn't know you were talented enough to be on a dueling team. Nice sword," she teased.
Ian blushed a degree. "Thanks. They call us the Savage Warriors!" He rasped their team name in a semi-ferocious voice. "Jerin's team captain."
She laughed at the showy designation. "And who's your challenger today?"
"The Dragon Slayers - Derian's team."
Eena's face fell. "Derian is playing?" She groaned internally, knowing she should've guessed as much. This was starting to look like another setup. — Richelle E. Goodrich

You never make fun of anybody with a club foot or a withered arm, but it's open season on anybody who stutters. — Joe Biden