Opens Eyes Quotes & Sayings

And in the kisses, what deep sweetness! There are women's mouths that seem to ignite with love the breath that opens them. Whether they are reddened by blood richer than purple, or frozen by the pallor of agony, whether they are illuminated by the goodness of consent or darkened by the shadow of disdain, they always carry within them an enigma that disturbs men of intellect, and attracts them and captivates them. A constant discord between the expression of the lips and that of the eyes generates the mystery; it seems as if a duplicitous soul reveals itself there with a different beauty, happy and sad, cold and passionate, cruel and merciful, humble and proud, laughing and mocking; and the abiguity arouses discomfort in the spirit that takes pleasure in dark things. — Gabriele D'Annunzio

There is some advantage in having imagination, since that visionary faculty opens the mental eyes to facts that more practical and duller intellects could never see. — E.D.E.N. Southworth

Libraries are a force for good. They wear capes. They fight evil. They don't get upset when you don't send them a card on their birthdays. (Though they will charge you if you're late returning a book.) They serve communities. The town without a library is a town without a soul. The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experiences, the hopes and dreams and strivings of ALL human beings, and it is this passport that opens our eyes and hearts to the world beyond our front doors, that is one of our best hopes against tyranny, xenophobia, hopelessness, despair, anarchy, and ignorance. Libraries are the torch of the world, illuminating the path when it feels too dark to see. We mustn't allow that torch to be extinguished. — Libba Bray

By and large over time, pain turns to grief, grief turns to silence, and silence turns to lonesomeness, as vast and bottomless as the dark oceans ... You think you cannot live anymore. You think that the light of your soul has been put out and that you will stay in the dark forever. But when you are engulfed by such solid darkness, when you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. And only then do you come to realize that eyesight conflicts with inner knowledge. No eye sees so clear and sharp as the eye of love. After grief comes another season, another valley, another you. And the lover who is nowhere to be found, you start to see everywhere. — Elif Shafak

I Keep Six Honest Serving Men ..."

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views;
I know a person small -
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes -
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys! — Rudyard Kipling

This is the codicil of motherhood: Like it or not, you acquire a sixth sense when it comes to your children - viscerally feeling their joy, their frustration, and the sharp blow to the heart when someone causes them pain. "Fast." Mariah sighs. "And with my eyes wide open." As Millie opens her arms, Mariah moves into them, drawing close the comfort of childhood with a great rush of relief. She tells her mother of Ian, who was not following her when she thought he was, who was not the person he made himself out to be. She describes the way they would sit on the porch after Faith went to sleep, and how they would sometimes talk and sometimes just let the night settle over their shoulders. She does not tell Millie of Ian's brother, of what Faith might or might not have briefly done for him. She does not tell Millie how it felt to have Ian's body pressed against hers, heat from head to toe, how even during hours — Jodi Picoult

All great art is almost never received well initially; don't quit before the world opens its eyes. — Gregor Collins

Everyone is asleep. They've all been asleep for years. You seemed ... awake.' Alex is whispering now. He closes his eyes, opens them again.'I'm tired of sleeping. — Lauren Oliver

What will it do to Jimmy's state of mind if he opens his eyes and sees three of his former beloveds bending over him like the three Fates? Demanding his everlasting love, his apologies, his blood in a cat food saucer? — Margaret Atwood

Photography opens your eyes a little wider to the world around you. — Bill Jay

But even more heavenly than the flashing
stars are those infinite eyes which the night opens within us, and which see further even than the palest of those
innumerable hosts. — Novalis

She opens her eyes, says: Stop lying. She says she hopes she'll never know anything, anything in the world, the way you do. She says: I don't want to know anything the way you do, with that death-derived certainty, that hopeless monotony, the same every day of your life, every night, and that deadly routine of lovelessness.
She says: It's day, everything is about to begin, except you, you never begin.
She goes back to sleep. You ask her why she sleeps, what weariness she has to rest from, what monumental weariness. — Marguerite Duras

Should i even bother scanning the crowd for my parents? I could turn around and go back to the dormitory. Then I see her. My mother stands alone near the railing with her hands clasped in front of her. she has never looked more out of place, with her gray slacks and gray jacket buttoned at the throat, her hair in its simple twist and her face placid. I start toward her, tears jumping into my eyes. She came. She came for me. I walk faster. She sees me, and for a second her expression is blank, like she doesn't know who I am. Then her eyes light up, and she opens her arms. She smells like soap and laundry detergent. — Veronica Roth

Lust opens your eyes, passion opens your heart, but love opens your soul. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Silently, God opens his golden eyes over the place of skulls. — Georg Trakl

But man's eyes are blind through sin, and he can discern no part of God's truth till the Spirit opens them. Inner illumination, leading directly as it does to a deep, inescapable conviction, is thus fundamental to the Spirit's work as a teacher. — J.I. Packer

The wizard stirs, opens his eyes, and looks at the reluctant boy. "Oh, you'll get your heart broken," he says. "Is that what you're waiting to hear? It'll be broken, all right. But you'll never get anything done if you walk around with an unchipped heart. That's the way of it, boy. — Peter Straub

She opens her eyes and wipes her hands together as if to say enough of that. Then she reconsiders and adds a final appeal. "Please don't die. I can understand why you'd want to, but think about this: If you die, there's going to be one of those cheesy Princess Diana memorials at school, where everyone puts flowers and candles and notes next to your locker." She wipes away a renegade tear with the back of her hand. "I know you'd hate that kind of thing. — Gayle Forman

Don't worry, Sean. You're still hot even in the hospital gown," Sandra said.

"Don't lie out of pity, Sandy. No one can look hot in these," Flora scolded. A gleam came to life in her hazel eyes. "Wait, are these the type that opens in the back? In that case would you get up and close the blinds over there for us? — Rainbowbrook

You're put in certain situations and it kind of opens up those doors and it opens up your eyes to realize what your true calling was. — Rico Love

Tim, I'd chew you up and spit you out." She slants forward, yanks the straps of her bikini behind her neck, ties them, and settles back. God. I almost can't breathe.
But I can talk.
I can always talk.
"We could progress to that, Alice. But maybe we start with some gentle nibbling?"
Alice shuts her eyes, opens them again, and gives me an indecipherable look.
"Why don't I scare you?" she asks.
"You do. You're scary as hell," I assure her. "But that works for me. Completely. — Huntley Fitzpatrick

infant first opens its eyes on this world, it must see nothing but chaos because it has no memory to make sense of what it sees. The past gives shape to the present. Consciousness — Harvey Click

It's no coincidence that being watchful and prayerful are coupled by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Colossians: "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." The word watchful is a throwback to the ancient watchmen whose job it was to sit on the city walls and scan the horizon for attacking armies or trading caravans. They saw sooner and further than anyone else. Prayer opens our spiritual eyes so we see sooner and further. — Mark Batterson

When it's time to leave, we put on our shoes, kiss Daddy good-bye, and tumble out the front door. Waiting for us on the street in front of his car is Peter with a bouquet of cellophane-wrapped pink carnations. "Happy birthday, kid," he says. Kitty's eyes bulge. "Are those for me?" He laughs. "Who else would they be for? Hurry and get in the car." Kitty turns to me, her eyes bright, her smile as wide as her face. I'm smiling too. "Are you coming too, Lara Jean?" I shake my head. "No, there's only room for two." "You're my only girl today, kid," Peter says, and Kitty runs to him and snatches the flowers out of his hand. Gallantly, he opens the door for her. He shuts it and turns and winks at me. "Don't be jealous, Covey." I've never liked him more than in this moment. — Jenny Han

A person will struggle - she'll fight. She'll do just about anything to avoid making a decision she knows she has to make. We have got to be the most perverse creatures on the planet. Something in the human enjoys misery. It keeps us locked away, some in a mansion, some in a hovel. But then, one day - a day you don't plan, an hour you don't expect - the door opens. You have what you need, or you receive your answer. It's so obvious, and so right, and you even have the wherewithal to carry out what you need to carry out. A big angel with flaming eyes and burnished hair might as well have walked through the wall . . . — Donna Salli

The reading of literature opens our eyes, offering us new perspectives on things that we can evaluate and adopt. — Alister E. McGrath

...just as Elsa opens Audi's door to jump out, he (Dad) turns to her hesitantly and says in a low voice:

"...but there are moments when I sincerely hope that not ALL your best traits come from Granny and Mum, Elsa."

And then Elsa squeezes her eyes together tightly and puts her forehead against his shoulder and her fingers into her jacket pocket and spins the lid of the red felt-tip pen that he gave her when she was small, so she could add her own punctuation marks, and which is still the best present he's ever given her. Or anyone.

"You gave me your words," she whispers. — Fredrik Backman

To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If in one small degree it shows him where he can be ... gentler, saner, cleaner, kindlier ... it is a wonder-working book. If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw for himself and leads him one step toward the God of the Universe, it is a beneficial book ... — Gene Stratton-Porter

Great literature, if we read it well, opens us up to the world and makes us more sensitive to it, as if we acquired eyes that could see through things and ears that could hear smaller sounds. — Donald Hall

One who would really like to know himself would have to be a restless, fanatical collector of disappointments, and seeking disappointing experiences must be like an addiction, the all-determining addiction of his life, for it would stand so clearly before his eyes that disappointment is not a hot, destroying poison, but rather a cool calming balm that opens our eyes to the real contours of ourselves. — Pascal Mercier

Man doesn't realize his real purpose on earth so long as he rolls in comforts. It is absolutely true that adversity teaches a man a bitter lesson, toughens his fiber and moulds his character. In other words, an altogether new man is born out of adversity which helpfully destroys one's ego and makes one humble and selfless. Prolonged suffering opens the eyes to hate the things for which one craved before unduly, leading eventually even to a state of resignation. It then dawns on us that continued yearnings brings us intense agony. But the stoic mind is least perturbed by the vicissitudes of life. It is well within our efforts to conquer grief. It's simple. Develop an attitude of detachment even while remaining in the thick of terrestrial pleasures. — V.S. Naipaul

What kind of self-respecting man doesn't read? That's like saying he doesn't feel the need to eat or bathe either. Reading is nurturing of the mind ... a cleansing of the soul. It opens our eyes to unseen beauty, and our hearts to the untouched pieces of ourselves that we've hidden away from the world. A man without words is a man who has no real awareness of anything or anyone outside of himself. — S.L. Jennings

At least it feels that way standing here with you." He closes his blue eyes and breathes in. When he opens them again, he says, "Actually, standing next to you makes it feel as high as Everest." I — Jennifer Niven

Kate opens a jar of honey and pours a thick line of the sticky stuff over the top edge of the wound. Setting the jar back on the counter, she picks up the first strip of cloth and gently wraps it around his arm. As she works, she can feel his eyes on her, watching her silently. She stands close, and his injured arm is outstretched just enough for his hand to be hanging in the air beside her waist. When she tugs on the bandage to make the first knot, his hand is pulled to her, lightly brushing the side of her body with the tips of his fingers. When she tugs again, he presses his hand to her waist, and she feels the subtle constriction of his fingertips. — Kari Aguila

Praise is so powerful that it opens the eyes of people who don't want to see. — Carl Lentz

I do not know how long this machine has carried us when the roaring finally ceases. My back, my limbs - every bit of me aches. The master eagle lies quiet and still. I do not believe he sleeps. I sense his desperation with each shallow breath he takes. Perhaps he plots as I do. If I could move my lips I would whisper to him. I would tell him I have a plan.

The iron fist opens, and dust pours in stinging my eyes. It opens wider and tilts forward, forcing us to fall to the ground. We do not land with a crunch on jagged terrain. There is only the smooth thud of a sandy floor.

There is a quick, loud smash, like metal slamming into metal. Footsteps approach us - one set. The netting digs into my shoulders from my heaving breath. I close my eyes and try to suppress my panic, knowing that while my hands are bound, I am helpless. — Quoleena Sbrocca

When we claim and constantly reclaim the truth of being the chosen ones, we soon discover within ourselves a deep desire to reveal to others their own chosenness. Instead of making us feel that we are better, more precious or valuable than others, our awareness of being chosen opens our eyes to the chosenness of others. That is the great joy of being chosen: the discovery that others are chosen as well. In the house of God there are many mansions. There is a place for everyone - a unique, special place. Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God's eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God's heart. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Art does not solve problems but makes us aware of their existence. It opens our eyes to see and our brain to imagine. — Magdalena Abakanowicz

It opens our eyes to many quite weird possibilities about disease that most medical scientists, tending to be unaware of current evolutionary thought, don't think of. — Paul W. Ewald

Nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
-excerpt of #35 from 100 Selected Poems — E. E. Cummings

Mystery keeps man alive; it opens his ears, his eyes, and his mind! Find a mystery and try to solve it! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The kingdom of God is just behind the darkness of closed eyes, and the first gate that opens to it is your peace. — Paramahansa Yogananda

black eyes need no translating; the mind itself throws a shadow upon them. In them thought opens or shuts, shines forth or goes out in darkness, hangs steadfast like the setting moon or like the swift and restless lightning illumines all quarters of the sky. They who from birth have had no other speech than the trembling of their lips learn a language of the eyes, endless in expression, deep as the sea, clear as the heavens, wherein play dawn and sunset, light and shadow. The — Rabindranath Tagore

If you make human company too important you will not discover your true Self. Relationships not based in truth are never entirely reliable and are rarely enduring.
Taking time to discover yourself is the best use of time.
Prioritize this.
One should not excessively seek partners or friends, one should seek to know and be oneself. As you begin to awaken to the Truth, you start noticing how well life flows by itself and how well you are cared for. Life supports the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs of the one who is open to self-discovery. Trust opens your eyes to the recognition of this. Surrender allows you to merge in your own eternal being. — Mooji

For me, prayer means launching out of the heart towards God; it means lifting up one's eyes, quite simply, to heaven, a cry of grateful love, from the crest of joy or the trough of despair; it's a vast, supernatural force which opens out my heart, and binds me close to Jesus. — Therese Of Lisieux

Tragedy in the theater opens our eyes so that we can discover and appreciate the heroic in reality. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

I have been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly ... I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try. — Marilynne Robinson

I believe God has instilled in us a craving, a deep desire to run with Him on a fantastic adventure, yet many of us crawl along in life without even a glimpse of our hidden passion. There has to be a reason for living. There must be a Camelot, a hidden Utopia where we can rest from our personal campaigns. Fantasy opens our eyes to a better place, a shining city we do not yet know. And these stories provide a mental bridge to that city as we pursue horizons we could never distinguish with our physical eyes. — Bryan Davis

A strong woman is a woman at work, cleaning out the cesspool of the ages, and while she shovels, she talks about how she doesn't mind crying, it opens the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up develops the stomach muscles, and she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose. — Marge Piercy

As I grow older, what I find interesting is that I get experience with pain, different types of pain, and I start to see the lovely hilarity of life. Things that were once so crushing take on a different essence. I move through it at a faster rate. It's like traveling: it opens my eyes. My process is to allow myself to have it and to not judge myself or the situation too much, and then to create something with it. — Rachael Yamagata

Look at that mallard as he floats on the lake; see his elevated head glittering with emerald green, his amber eyes glancing in the light! Even at this distance, he has marked you, and suspects that you bear no goodwill towards him, for he sees that you have a gun, and he has many a time been frightened by its report, or that of some other. The wary bird draws his feet under his body, springs upon then, opens his wings, and with loud quacks bids you farewell. — John James Audubon

Is there anything you won't do?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I've never done anything like this."
"Well, when you've had sex, was there anything that you didn't like doing?"
For the first time in what seems to be ages, I blush.
"You can tell me, Anastasia. We have to be honest with each other or this isn't going to work."
I squirm uncomfortably again and stare at my knotted fingers.
"Tell me," he commands.
"Well ... I haven't had sex before, so I don't know." My voice is small. I peek up at him, and he's gaping at me, frozen, and pale-really pale.
"Never?" he whispers. T shake my head.
"You're a virgin?" he breathes. I nod, flushing again. He closed his eyes and looks to be counting to ten. When he opens them again, he's angry, glaring at me.
"Why the fuck didn't you tell me?" he growls — E.L. James

A healthy argument, even with an idiot, is always good; it opens one's eyes to own misunderstandings. — Ashok Kallarakkal

We're here,' the Clock says.
The Perfectionist opens her eyes. She sees nothing. It's white. All white. There's no up. There's no down. No horizon. Nothing. It's just white.
'Clock, what is this?' asks the Perfectionist. Her voice is shaky.
'This is the future.'
'This is the future?' the Perfectionist asks. Her mouth is dry. She forces herself to swallow.
'Why is the future like this?'
'Because it hasn't happened yet,' says the Clock — Andrew Kaufman

An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes. — Cato The Elder

Why?" asked her companion. "Why do you love him when you ought not to?"
Edna, with a motion or two, dragged herself on her knees before Mademoiselle Reisz, who took the glowing face between her two hands.
"Why? Because his hair is brown and grows away from his temples; because he opens and shuts his eyes, and his nose is a little out of drawing; because he has two lips and a square chin, and a little finger which he can't straighten from having played baseball too energetically in his youth. Because - "
"Because you do, in short," laughed Mademoiselle. — Kate Chopin

I gave my change to him," says Parvaneh, with a nod at the man with the dirty beard by the house wall. "You know he'll only spend it on schnapps," Ove states. Parvaneh opens her eyes wide with something Ove strongly suspects to be sarcasm. "Really? Will he? And I was sooo hoping he would use it to pay off his student loans from his university education in particle physics! — Fredrik Backman

And at the bottom of each of those eyes I lived, or rather another me lived, one of the images of me, and it encountered the image of her, the most faithful image of her, in that beyound which opens, past the semiliquid sphere of the irises, in the darkness of the pupils, the mirrored hall of retinas, in our true element which extends without shores, without boundaries. — Italo Calvino

It seems like he's keeping my foot within his grasp for longer than necessary when I see his eyes wander up my legs again. I tingle in every spot his gaze touches.
His voice sends shivers up my spine when he asks, "Have you ever been fucked, Eve?"
My eyelids flutter and I let out a small surprised gasp at his question, breath gushing from my lips. I'm not exactly a virgin, not too far off though, and I can safely say that I have never been fucked in the way that Phoenix is insinuating. Most of the sex I've had has been the fantasy kind. Our eyes lock and he moves his hand from the heel of my foot up along the back of my leg, massaging my shin.
I actually moan when his fingers press in, releasing the tension from a knotted muscle. His mouth opens as he watches me.
"I don't think that's a very appropriate question to ask of a friend," I finally manage to croak out.
He smiles darkly. "I told you I was bad news. — Raine Anthony

Avery slides on his glasses and opens his eyes again. "Dammit!" he says again with more feeling. "Why does stuff like this keep happening?"
"You say that as if it's a bad thing," Rob says, smirking. — Laura Kreitzer

As filthy as any night was, a New York City morning is always clean. The eyes get washed.
Flowers in white deli buckets are replenished. The population bathes, in marble mausoleums of Upper East Side showers, or in Greenwich Village tubs, or in the sink of a Chinatown one-bedroom crammed with fifteen people. Some bar opens and the first song on the jukebox is Johnny Thunders, while bums pick up cigarette butts to see what's left to smoke. The smell of espresso and hot croissants. The weather vane squeaks in the sun. Pigeons are reborn out of the mouths of blue windows. — Jardine Libaire

Contrary to what a lot of people believe (or hope), comfort doesn't take the pain away. Comfort slides in beside the pain, pulling up a chair so that we have something more than sorrow in our hearts. Comfort gently expands our spirits so that we can breathe again. Comfort opens our eyes so that we can see possibility again.
And on those days, whether it is the next day or five years removed, on that day when grief rears its dark head again, comfort helps us remember that pain is not all there is — Peggy Haymes

Finally, I say, "long dark hair, blue-violet eyes, slender, tall, she had a Liz Taylor in Black Beauty thing going on." Reluctance sets in. Do I really want to put this together for him? "Like you," he says. Pandora's Box opens. Chocolate anyone? An abundance of heartbreak. Rare happiness. Plenty of self-destruction. Take your pick. Julia's got everything in here. — Katherine Owen

It's offense you maybe can't live with because it opens up a crack inside your thinking, and if you look down into it you see there are evil things down there, and they have little yellow eyes that don't blink, and there's a stink down there in that dark and after a while you think maybe there's a whole other universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything, he would have told them if he could. Go to your church and listen to your stories about Jesus walking on the water, but if I saw a guy doing that I'd scream and scream and scream. Because it wouldn't look like a miracle to me. It would look like an offense. — Stephen King

Christ is indeed presented to all, but God opens the eyes of the elect alone, and enables them by faith to seek after him. The — John Calvin

Don't stay away from me anymore."
I stop myself, just barely, from telling him I won't. I can't promise that. Can't lie.
He opens his eyes. Stares starkly, bleakly. "I need you. — Sophie Jordan

His green-flecked brown eyes twinkle, and we laugh together, easy and light. He opens the door for me, and I say goodbye, floating over to where my family waits in our Winnebago. And I can't tell you if my feet actually touch the ground, because at this very moment, this Bird, well, she flies. — Alecia Whitaker

Growing up watching friends grow, from friends to lovers. Opens the eyes of many every time. Proving in this lifetime, real love still lives. — Jonathan Anthony Burkett

Gratitude opens our eyes ... We are often praying for something God has already given us. — Steve Maraboli

Literature offers us a different way of seeing things. The reading of literature opens our eyes, offering us new perspectives on things that we can evaluate and adopt. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. . . . In reading great literature, I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see.[94] — Alister E. McGrath

Are you going to continue to scold me?" "Is that what I'm doing?" "I think so." "You're lucky I'm just scolding you." "What do you mean?" "Well, if you were mine, you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday. You didn't eat, you got drunk, you put yourself at risk." He closes his eyes, dread etched briefly on his face, and he shudders. When he opens his eyes, he glares at me. "I hate to think what could have happened to you." I scowl back at him. What is his problem? What's it to him? If I was his ... Well, I'm not. Though maybe part of me would like to be. The thought pierces through the irritation I feel at his high-handed words. I flush at the waywardness of my subconscious - she's doing her happy dance in a bright red hula skirt at the thought of being his. — E.L. James

Training attention through meditation opens our eyes. — Sharon Salzberg

I do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses — E. E. Cummings

She looks up. I've caught her by surprise. Her face opens up and all of a sudden it's like that paper mask is transparent. I'm looking right through it, and I get a flash of some kind of life we could've had - barbecues, dogs, kids flopping over us in bed - it rolls through me fast but strong and clear, like one of those cooking smells that blows in the window so sharp you can pick out the ingredients. And then it's gone. It's gone, and Holly's holding my hand. Finally, after that long long wait, her hand is back on mine. Dry cool fingers, slim. The rings loose. I close my eyes. My hand is so hot, I feel my pulse in every finger. I'm afraid she'll let go but she doesn't let go. She keeps her hand around mine and it's like she's holding all of me in her cool sweetness, calming my fever back down. — Jennifer Egan

When you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. — Elif Shafak

By means of supernatural horror we may evade, if momentarily, the horrific reprisals of affirmation. Every one of us, having been stolen from nonexistence, opens his eyes on the world and looks down the road at a few convulsions and a final obliteration. What a weird scenario. So why affirm anything, why make a pathetic virtue of a terrible necessity? We are destined to a fool's fate that deserves to be mocked. And since there is no one else around to do the mocking, we will take on the job. So let us delight in the Cosmic Macabre. At least we may send up a few bitter laughs into the cobwebbed corners of this crusty old universe. — Thomas Ligotti

Art serves a purpose. It expands our horizons, frees our minds, and opens us up to new experiences. It opens the imagination. All these great discoveries of our time - without the desire to reach beyond our boundaries, we would be forever stagnant. The folly is in closing one's eyes and not recognizing it. — Carol Oates

Beneath my eyes opens
a book; I see to the bottom; the heart
I see to the depths. I know what loves are trembling into fire; how jealousy shoots its green flashes hither and thither; how intricately love crosses love; love makes knots; love brutally tears them apart. I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. — Virginia Woolf

Fright is something one can never get over. When a warrior is caught in such a tight spot he would simply turn his back to the ally without thinking twice. A warrior cannot indulge thus he cannot die of fright. A warrior allows the ally to come only when he is good and ready. When he is strong enough to grapple with the ally he opens up his gap and lurches out, grabs the ally, keeps him pinned down and maintains his stare on him for exactly the time he has to, then he moves his eyes away and releases the ally and lets him go. A warrior, my little friend, is the master at all times — Carlos Castaneda

Sometimes to touch us, God touches someone that's close to us. This is what opens our eyes to the fact there is a higher power than ourselves, whether we call it God or not. — Ron Hall

It's hard to tell
if we close our eyes or if night
opens in us other starred eyes,
if it burrows into the wall of our dream
till some other door opens.
But the dream
is only the flitting costume of one moment,
is spent in one beat
of the darkness,
and falls at our feet, cast off
as the day stirs and sails away with us."
-from "In the Tower — Pablo Neruda

Education opens eyes to see, feel, and enjoy the beauty of life in a different way. — Debasish Mridha

Shaftoe opens his eyes just as the tarp is being peeled back from the open top of the truck. He stares straight up into a blue Italian sky torn around the edges by the scrabbling branches of desperate trees. "Shit!" he says. "What's wrong, Sarge?" "I just always say that when I wake up," Shaftoe says. — Neal Stephenson

When she comes
She pulls you close
She breathes in short bursts
Her eyes close
Her head tilts back
Her mouth opens slightly
Her thighs turn to steel, and then melt
She is perfect
And you feel like you are everything. — Henry Rollins

It is not always sorrow that opens the fountains of the eyes ... — Marie De Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise De Sevigne

Willpower should be understood to be the strength of the mind, which makes it capable of meeting success or failure with equanimity. It is not synonymous with certain success. Why should one's attempts always be attended by success? Success breeds arrogance and man's spiritual progress is thus arrested. Failure, on the other hand, is beneficial, inasmuch as it opens his eyes to his limitations and prepares him to surrender himself. Self surrender is synonymous with eternal happiness. — Ramana Maharshi

He is the richest man who enriches his country most; in whom the people feel richest and proudest; who gives himself with his money; who opens the doors of opportunity widest to those about him; who is ears to the deaf, eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. — Orison Swett Marden

Watching them opens your inner being. Just watching them opens your inner eye and that is the real eye; the outside eyes are of not much use. You are fortunate that you don't have them. You are blessed! Blessed are the blind for they shall not be forced to see this ugly world! And it is really ugly - believe me! — Rajneesh

PROLOGUE 7TH SEPTEMBER 1874 It's the music that wakes Alison. She opens her eyes and is instantly alert, with only one thought in her mind: They are in the garden again. — Danny Weston

The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. IT is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is he who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host. — C.S. Lewis

Isaiah opens my car door and his warm silver eyes smile at me. "Hey."
I sweep my bangs from my eyes. "Hi."
He offers his hand and I accept. His fingers wrap around mine and heat surges up my arm, flushes my neck and settles into a blush on my face. He tugs gently and I slip out. I'm not sure if my body vibrates from the rumbling of the garage door closing or from the blood pounding in my veins.
Our fingers lace together, and his other hand smoothly cups my hip. I suck in a breath, surprised that someone touches me so easily and with such care.
"You look nice," he says.
"I'm in my school uniform." White button-down blouse, maroon-and-black plaid skirt, and a pair of white Keds. Nothing spectacular.
"I know." The seductive slide in his voice causes the back of my neck to tickle. — Katie McGarry

Reading is nurturing of the mind ... a cleansing of the soul. It opens our eyes to unseen beauty, and our hearts to the untouched pieces of ourselves that we've hidden away from the world. — S.L. Jennings

His hands find my hips and his breathing slows. What are we doing? What is this exactly? He lowers his head and opens his eyes. They search mine and I know he's asking himself the same questions. — Skyla Madi

In fact he enables us not by making us supernaturally strong, but by opening our eyes. The Holy Spirit is that power which opens eyes that are closed, hearts that are unaware and minds that shrink from too much reality. — John Taylor

In many cases, a bout with sickness stretches your soul, opens your eyes, and introduces you to a world of unimagined grandeur, possibility and joy. — Tony Snow

Charles Dickens said, It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens the temper - so cry away. — Jan Karon

There is something I have noticed about desire, that it opens the eyes and strikes them blind at the same time. — Jane Smiley

The Wishing Bones

A thousand grandmothers ago
Pyrrha and Deucalion repopulated
the world with rocks, bones of mother Earth,
a generation of my ancestors strained
from the mud of a drowned planet.

But I'm more interested in my earliest
grandmothers, their gills and wetness,
before they crawled from that blue expanse
and learned to carry the sea within them,
in their cells, between their cells, in their eyes.

The buoyancy of ocean has never left us.
It hides in skin's complex reservoir
where we're selectively permeable
and our bodies exchange the smallest life.

If we had no need to distinguish ourselves
from others we'd be missing the skin
that defines lovers and enemies
and opens itself to both. — Jalina Mhyana

At birth and at dawn
for each and every day
it triumphs over the eclipse.

It is the very first thing that you see.
Its power is blinding at first,
anon it opens our eyes
to the allure of the world.

Each moment it breathes life into us,
warms our souls and colors our skin.

At gloaming it seems to wane,
while it privily awaits a time
to give birth to a new circle of life. — Akilnathan Logeswaran

Really? And what curse befalls the Adams of the world?"
Ann opens her mouth and, presumably thinking of nothing to say, closes it again.
It is Felicity who answers, eyes steely. "They are weak to temptation. And we are their temptresses. — Libba Bray