Quotes & Sayings About Ribs

My sister Rose lives on the mantelpiece.
Well, some of her does.
A collarbone, two ribs, a bit of skull, and a little toe. — Annabel Pitcher

. . .She started to feel a bubble of lightness coming up through her ribs. It had been very fragile at first, but she thought now it was made of something stronger than suds. . .
(p. 121) — Natasha Pulley

In the United States ... politics is purged of all menace, all sinister quality, all genuine significance, and stuffed with such gorgeous humors, such inordinate farce that one comes to the end of a campaign with one's ribs loose, and ready for King Lear, or a hanging, or a course of medical journals. — H.L. Mencken

Actually, the Sniper's sense of humor frightened Amy more than anything else. The parody of Carla's poem had been witty, the rudeness of Marvy's critique outlandish, and she was still, for some reason, focused on that "youse" in the Sniper's counterfeit email. "Youse" was like a spectral elbow to Amy's ribs. Dangerous, malevolent people should not be amusing. In order to be humorous, you had to have perspective, to be able to stand outside yourself and your own needs and grudges and fears and see yourself for the puny ludicrous creature you really are. How could somebody do that and still imagine himself entitled to harry, to wound, to kill? — Jincy Willett

I was born with music inside me — Ray Charles

Hmmm ... cooking with wine? I usually drink wine while cooking ... I do a good braised short ribs with cabernet, though. We're big red wine drinkers here. All that research showing that it's good for you takes the guilt away. — Alafair Burke

We are made for art ... The moment Maddy took up the tendril phrase, Els knew she was as dear to him as his own life. Talons gripped his ribs, and he felt a joy bordering on panic. He needed to know how this woman would unfold. He needed to write music that would settle into her range like frost on fields. They'd spend their years together, grow old, get sick, die in shared bewilderment. — Richard Powers

It still hurts," she whispered. "Even when you're doing it for someone else, that doesn't stop your ribs from getting cracked, or your wrist swelling, or your cuts from bleeding. — Jodi Picoult

His heart was leaping against his ribs like a frantic bird. Perhaps it knew it had little time left, perhaps it was determined to fulfill a lifetime's beats before the end. — J.K. Rowling

In the evenings in bed, with the light out, I tried to picture death, the "most nothing of all." In imagination I suppressed all the circumstances of my life and I felt gripped in ever tighter circles of panic. There was no longer any "I." What is it after all, "I"? ...Then one night, a marvelous idea came to me: Instead of just submitting to this panic, I would try to observe it, to see where it is, what it is. I perceived then that it was
connected to a contraction in my stomach, a little under my ribs, and also in my throat...I forced myself to unclench, to relax my stomach. The panic disappeared ... when I tried again to think about death, instead of being gripped by the claws of panic I was filled by an entirely new feeling, whose name I did not know, something between mystery and hope."
-Mount Analogue, Rene Daumal — Rene Daumal

In that wounded place,
buried between
my ribs and letting go,
I miss you. — Jessica Kristie

Anyway, my ribs hurt like hell, my vision is still blurry from acceleration sickness, I'm really hungry, it'll be another 211 days before I'm back on Earth, and, apparently, I smell like a skunk took a shit on some sweat socks. This is the happiest day of my life. — Andy Weir

As the Laurel-wreathed boxes come down to Gamma, I think about how clever it really is. They won't let us win the Laurel. They don't care that the math doesn't work. They don't care that the young scream in protest and the old moan their same tired wisdoms. This is just a demonstration of their power. It is their power. They decide the winner. A game of merit won by birth. It keeps the hierarchy in place. It keeps us striving, but never conspiring.

Yet despite the disappointment, some part of us doesn't blame the Society. We blame Gamma, who receives the gifts. A man's only got so much hate, I suppose. And when he sees his children's ribs through their shirts while his neighbors line their bellies with meat stews and sugared tarts, it's hard for him to hate anyone but them. You think they'd share. They don't. — Pierce Brown

In fact her maturity and blood kinship converted her passion to fever, so it was more affliction than affection. It literally knocked her down at night, and raised her up in the morning, for when she dragged herself off to bed, having spent another day without his presence, her heart beat like a gloved fist against her ribs. And in the morning, long before she was fully awake, she felt a longing so bitter and tight it yanked her out of a sleep swept clean of dreams. — Toni Morrison

I stare at his forearms. I can make out a naked woman with a snake going up her vagina. She's holding a knife, slitting her own throat. There are three playing cards on the back of his right hand: the Queen of Spades, the Jack of Hearts and the Joker. Red flames lick his elbow.
There's a watch tattooed on his left wrist with 'Fuck Time' inscribed on its face. Fuck o'clock.
He's not that tall, but his body is carefully cut. The lines of his face, his cheekbones and jaw, are sharp and precise. I can see the tufts of his blond underarm hairs and under them the ladder of his ribs. He's beautiful, in the way that a knife is beautiful. — Kirsty Eagar

The shaman helps you figure it out. I already know what I'm going to be."
I prodded him in the ribs. He couldn't just leave me hanging like that.
"A speech therapist." he said.
The whole world could have stopped. I wouldn't have noticed.
Rafael gave me an unusually stoic look. "I'm going to get your voice back someday," he said. "I though that was obvious. — Rose Christo

With'n these ribs is / a City of Luminous / all thanks t'you. — Evy Zen

Her face brightened with a sudden flash of mischief, and without warning she punched him, surprisingly hard, in the ribs. "There!" she said. "Now I feel much better. — Aldous Huxley

This flirting is all well and good, but I mean it when I tell you, I cant have you leaving me again. It almost broke me."
My ribs seemed to squeeze all of the air out of my lungs at the thought. "I don't think I could. I don't want to be away from you again either."
"But you need to give me a chance to fix things when I screw up. You know I'm an ass sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
Growling, he whispered, "And I tear lingerie."
I pushed a curl off his forehead, "And hoard it. Don't forget the creepy hoarding. — Christina Lauren

Just reflecting on the fact that when the Universe punches you in the teeth, it never just lets you fall down. It kicks you in the ribs a couple of times and dumps mud on your head. — Ilona Andrews

He squeezes my hand, and my heart punches against my ribs. It's just like pain, this pleasure. — Stephenie Meyer

No one can ever use his heart to listen or touch or feel or see or smell. It's just a lump of muscle pumping mechanically inside your ribs. It has no will and no ability to do anything but go on pumping until it gives up and withers away or is choked by some disease. Your spinal cord, on the other hand, feels. The central nervous system pours out from the spinal cord, and with it one feels pain. Pain is the most trustworthy sensation a human being can know because it teaches us what hurts. With the spinal cord, one can hear what will hurt, smell the sting of suffering, taste it, feel it, and see the world with new eyes. I learned a long time ago not to follow my heart, the hunk of meat flexing in the chest. I trust the tube locked up in a column of bone, the tube that shows me what pain is. — Joshua S. Porter

I was an ambassador for Betway during the Rugby World Cup and at the moment I'm working as an ambassador for Artemis Investment Management. I also organised the first Rugby Aid in 2015. We had celebrities playing rugby against former England team players and raised a ton of money for Rugby For Heroes [a charity for former servicemen and women]. Only one celeb got crunched quite badly - Jaime Laing from Made in Chelsea ended up with cracked ribs. — Mike Tindall

Her cheeks turned a deep shade of peach. A pang of jealousy struck me deep inside, and I flopped into my chair. The others joined me at the table. Didn't Montgomery remember last night, during the storm, running his fingers down the bare skin of my back? I did. I could barely think about anything else. Edward sat across from me, deep in his own thoughts. His hands still bore the scratches from our escape. I wondered if his ribs still hurt him. I absently touched my own, remembering the feel of his hands holding me there, that night behind the waterfall. — Megan Shepherd

Blue Duck could never avoid a moment of fear, when his father's eyes became the eyes of a snake. He choked off his insult
he knew that if he spoke, he might, in an instant, find himself fighting Buffalo Hump. He had seen it before, with other warriors. Someone would say one word too many, would fail to see the snake in his father's eyes, and the next moment Buffalo Hump would be pulling his long bloody knife from between the other warrior's ribs.
Blue Duck waited. He knew that it was not a day to fight his father. — Larry McMurtry

I was struggling happily with my ribs. Normally I ended up with barbecue sauce in my socks when I ate ribs, but I always figured they were worth it. — Robert B. Parker

My heart is a protest that I let rally against my ribs. — Shane Koyczan

I would love to tell you I've found the secret to eternal youth. I go to the gym and avoid too many chips. I love to eat, hate to work out, but if you can't count all your ribs from a distance you're considered obese. — Jason Isaacs

How're the cats?" he asked, smiling a little. He did miss Angel Marie. Hell, he missed them all.
"Feral," Benny sniffed. "And horny. Every time one of us walks in, they all start humping our shoes."
"They're fixed," Shane mumbled, but the conversation was oddly reassuring. It sounded normal, and like home.
"Tell that to the big fuzzy brown one ... ."
"Orlando Bloom?"
"Yeah, whatever. Last time I was there that damned animal violated my knitting."
Shane lost a battle with a laugh and then whined because it hurt his ribs.
"Violated?"
[ ... ]
"Let's just say that wool is no longer virgin," she quipped dryly, and Shane's chest shook. — Amy Lane

Look out! Oh, you chump and weak fool, you are one of a humanity that can't be numbered and not more than the dust of metals scattered in a magnetic field and clinging to the lines of force, determined by laws, eating, sleeping, employed, conveyed, obedient, and subject. So why hunt for still more ways to lose liberty? Why go toward, and not instead run from, the huge drag that threatens to wear out your ribs, rub away your face, splinter your teeth? No, stay away!
Be the wiser person who crawls, rides, runs, walks to his solitary ends used to solitary effort, who procures for himself and heeds the fears that are the kings of this world. Ah, they don't give you much of a break, these kings! Many a dead or dying face lies or drifts under them. — Saul Bellow

Dr. Craig says you're the only patient he ever treated who kept saying nothing hurt when he examined you right until you passed out. You think I believe your ribs are all right? — Ellen O'Connell

Why hello!" she said, and the dog jumped and pressed its front paws against her knees, then actually licked her with a dry, paper tongue. Ceony laughed and scratched behind its ears. It panted with excitement. "Wherever did you come from?"
The door squeaked again, announcing Mg. Thane's arrival. He looked a little tired, but no worse for wear, and still wore that long indigo coat. "This one won't give me hives," he said with a smile that beamed in his eyes. "It's not the same, but I thought it would do, for now."
Wide-eyed, Ceony slowly stood, the paper dog yapping in its whispery voice and nudging her ankles with its muzzle. "You made this?" she asked, feeling her ribs knit over her lungs. "This . . . this is what you were doing last night?"
He scratched the back of his head. "Were you up? I apologize - I'm not used to having others in the house again. — Charlie N. Holmberg

Fine. But remember, little rabbit, not a word to anyone." He moved close enough that the dark heat of him lapped against her in a quiet threat that made her glad for the blade. "I'm not a nice man when I'm angry."
She held her position, a ragged attempt to erase the humiliation of the panic attack. "I'm fairly certain you're not a nice man at all."
His answer was a slow smile that whispered of silk sheets, erotic whispers, and sweat-damp skin. The unhidden intent of it had her heart slamming hard against her ribs. "No" she said. Voice raw.
"A challenge." He wasn't touching her and yet she felt caressed by a thousand ropes of fur, soft and lush and unmistakably sexual. "I accept — Nalini Singh

You make a nice mum,' I mumbled.

'I always hoped one day the woman of my dreams would say those words to me,' he said, ruffling my vomity hair. I would've poked him in the ribs in reprisal, but I lacked the motor skills. — Mhairi McFarlane

As the track bends north-east, the ethereal sandstone disappears. The slopes turn black with granite, and the mountain's lower ridges break into unstable spikes and revetments. Their ribs are slashed in chiaroscuro, and their last outcrops pour towards the valley in the fluid, anthropomorphic shapes that pilgrims love. The spine and haunches of a massive stone beast, gazing at Kailas, are hailed as the Nandi bull, holy to Shiva; another rock has become the votive cake of Padmasambhava. — Colin Thubron

The body is the soul's poor house or home, whose ribs the laths are and whose flesh the loam. — Robert Herrick

The Nigger was a handsome, austere woman with snow-white hair and a dark and awful dignity. Her brown eyes, brooding deep in her skull, looked out on an ugly world with philosophic sorrow. She conducted her house like a cathedral dedicated to a sad but erect Priapus. If you wanted a good laugh
and a poke in the ribs, you went to Jenny's and got your money's worth; but if the sweet worldsadness close to tears crept out of your immutable loneliness, the Long Green was your place. When you came out of there you felt that something pretty stern and important had happened. It was no jump in the hay. The dark beautiful eyes of the Nigger stayed with you for days. — John Steinbeck

Creed must have responded in kind, because with a gasp, she broke off the kiss. Time crawled to a standstill, then shifted to a sprint. Nieve shoved the gun lodged between them into his ribs. His hand still covered hers, and with the well-trained instincts of an assassin, he jerked the gun to the side so that the bullet she fired embedded into the ground, kicking up dirt, and not in his heart. — Paula Altenburg

Bruised but not broken, Dr Robinet told me before I left. I though the was talking about my spirit, but he'd been referring to my ribs. — Gayle Forman

Being brokenhearted is like having broken ribs. On the outside it looks like nothing's wrong, but every breath hurts. — Greg Behrendt

I noticed how Brent twitched when I lifted the hem of my tank top to bare my stomach and ribs. The reflex was not an effort to shy away from seeing my body, but from something more carnal in nature. I deduced this from the subtle flicker of red in his blue eyes. Even this Reaper, the most powerful Stygian I had met, next to Head Reaper Marin, couldn't mask his desire. — Abigail Baker

Aye lass," nodded Gizurr, "you are quite the beauty for sure. I'd certainly offer to buy you a beer or two if I ever met you in a pub and that's a fact."
Ragni tutted and elbowed Gizurr in the ribs, "Have some respect, she looks young enough to be your daughter."
"Well she isn't is she?" snorted Gizurr, "She's been trapped here for over two thousand years, made to think that she's an ugly old bird and fooled by some arse wipe into protecting a lump of rock that is perfectly capable of looking after itself."
Ragni pursed his lips and nodded slowly in agreement. — Jake Adler

There we stood, in the middle of the living room, hugging it out, each trying to hold back our tears until our need to cry outweighed our need to be the manly fucking men we were and we were no longer able to hold in the tears.
"I'm not fucking crying," Bear sobbed.
"Me either, you fucking pussy," I sobbed back as my old friend held me tighter and we hugged and punched each other hard on the backs until I was sure we were going to give each other bruises, and if it went on much longer, probably some broken ribs. When he finally let go of me we quickly wiped our eyes and noses on our t-shirts, because real men don't fucking cry. — T.M. Frazier

When Adam kissed him, it was every mile per hour Ronan had ever gone over the speed limit. It was every window-down, goose-bumps-on-skin, teeth-chattering-cold night drive. It was Adam's ribs under Ronan's hands and Adam's mouth on his mouth, again and again and again. It was stubble on his lips and Ronan having to stop, to get his breath, to restart his heart. They were both hungry animals, but Adam had been starving for far longer. — Maggie Stiefvater

Holy shit, dude. I think you just saved my life!'
'I think you broke my ribs.'
'I can't believe you dove at me like fucking batman. It was kind of badass actually.'
'That's me. The high school badass. — Caleb Roehrig

There's this anomaly that happens sometimes with twins. It occurs in the womb when the fetuses are growing too closely to each other. The stronger twin develops normally, while the weaker twin crumples and is encased by the body of the stronger twin, where it becomes a parasite. The result is a single child, plagued by a twin-shaped fossil inside. Like a tumor.
In death Rose became Linden's parasitic twin. They were two separate organisms once, growing steadily beside each other. Two pulses. Two brains. But she has crumpled and died, and still he carries her inside himself. She goes where he goes, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, a shadow behind his ribs. — Lauren DeStefano

He lay awake, restless, heart thumping so hard with alternating hatred and anger that he wondered if it would burst through his ribs. Panic made it beat even faster, sweat beaded his forehead and bathed his chest. — Anthony Ryan

When you think about a barbecue, most people think of slabs of ribs, but you don't need to do that in today's culinary barbecue world. Short ribs, barbecue chicken, skewered shrimp, vegetable kebabs, lobster mac and cheese with or without the lobster, and a donut bread pudding for dessert that's absolutely amazing. These are things that are safe whether you're a novice or a professional. Be creative and stay within your culinary pantheon. — G. Garvin

He dropped my fingers and planted his palms on the counter, one on either side of me. He kept them close enough that his arms were brushing my ribs as he hovered over me. His blue eyes locked on mine, the serious gaze deepening. I want to know if you want to. Will you go to the movies with me? — C.L.Stone

While the egg yolks cooled, he directed the beaters at the egg whites, setting the mixer on high speed that sent small bubbles giggling to the side of the bowl, where a few became many until they were a white froth rising up and then lying down again in patters and ridges, leaving an intricate design like the ribs of a leaf in the wake of the beaters — Erica Bauermeister

Besides, if I'd decided to pull Carver's spine out of his body, I would've done it already."
"Can you actually do that?"
Curran frowned. "I don't know. I mean theoretically if you broke the spine above the pelvis, you could, but then there are ribs ... I'll have to try it sometime. — Ilona Andrews

She bit her lip; she missed Ash. It was like a pain in her ribs, an ache that wouldn't cease. His experience would have been a big help, but more than that, he never made her feel inferior. Funny how her father was so good at that. — Annette Marie

You bastard!" Before she could stop herself, Kat slapped his cheek as hard as she could. Deep caught her hand before she could pull it back. "Very nice, little Kat." Slowly, he drew the two fingers she'd used to touch herself between his lips, sucking and licking gently as though trying to get every last trace of her juices. Kat felt her heart skip a beat and then start to pound crazily against her ribs. Like it or not, she had to admit that the feel of his warm mouth on her flesh and the hot way he was looking at her was having an effect on her overheated body. "St-stop it," she stuttered, trying to pull away. "Let me go." "For now." He released her hand and began shrugging back into his shirt. "But you'll pay for that little love tap, my lady. I promise you that." Kat — Evangeline Anderson

Love is stealthy hiding under ribs. — Veda Hille

How are you?"
"Perfectly fine," he said.
"Are your ribs broken?"
"Probably not. Cracked at most. We fought very carefully."
"Did this settle anything?"
"It made me feel better," he said, sitting up. "Did you see me kick him in the kidneys?"
"I saw. — Ilona Andrews

He had been hurt doing everything he had ever done. He expected it, even wanted it. Nothing centered a man like pain. Nothing drove the irrelevant bullshit our of your mind like the taste of your own blood. Duffy always wanted to tell people who were worried about the future of their children, or about God and the order of the universe, to go out and break a rib or two. A few broken ribs threw all thoughts of children, God and the order of the universe right out the window. Nobody with broken ribs ever had free-floating anxiety, or so Duffy was convinced. It was cheaper that a psychiatrist and never so humiliating. — Harry Crews

Sometimes, I feel my breath coming in shorter, quicker, spastic bursts, feel my heart threaten to thunder through my ribs, feel sweat beading on my brow ... and I know it's time to bust out those "chocolate frogs" from Harry Potter. — Shannon Celebi

Exactly. These guys just want me to play Snow White singing in her little cottage while they do all the work.'
Lucy snorted. 'Snow White and the Seven Buttheads. You could give Disney a run for their money.'
Nicholas poked her in the ribs. 'I am not a singing dwarf!'
'No, you're a butthead. Weren't you paying attention? — Alyxandra Harvey

Never believe a man can change a woman
those men are pretenders
who think
that they created women
from one of their ribs — Nizar Qabbani

I explode. "I FUCKING LOVE HER!" I scream, my heart thrashing in my ribs.
His mouth falls, his brows furrowing in confusion the longer he scrutinizes my features. I feel like he's clawing at my insides for answers.
Here they are. "I fell in fucking love with her. It hurt to be away from Daisy. It hurt to watch her with other guys. Everything fucking hurt, and I didn't want to live with that pain anymore. I fucking couldn't." I inhale deeply. "I can't tell you when it became unbearable, but it did — Becca Ritchie

You know I still don't like your ... hobby."
"Didn't ask your opinion." Jake rubbed his aching ribs. "If you want mine: anyone using the missionary position twice in a row should serve time. — Cherise Sinclair

He had become completely mad in his movements; He seemed to be doing everything at the same time. It was a shaking of the head, up and down, sideways; jerky, vigorous hands; quick walking, sitting, crossing the legs, uncrossing, getting up, rubbing the hands, rubbing his fly, hitching his pants, looking up and saying 'Am,' and sudden slitting of the eyes to see everywhere; and all the time he was grabbing me by the ribs and talking, talking — Jack Kerouac

I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of Death. — John Milton

There is a code of behavior, she knew, whose seventh article (it may be) says that on occasions of this sort it behooves the woman, whatever her own occupation may be, to go to the help of the young man opposite so that he may expose and relieve the thigh bones, the ribs, of his vanity, of his urgent desire to assert himself; as indeed it is their duty, she reflected, in her old maidenly fairness, to help us, suppose the Tube were to burst into flames. Then, she thought, I should certainly expect Mr. Tansley to get me out. But how would it be, she thought, if neither of us did either of these things? So she sat there smiling. — Virginia Woolf

Lie there panning, looking, all ribs and elbows and dilated eyes. The awake floor is littered with gear and dirty clothes, blond hardwood with sealed seams, two throw-rugs, the bare waxed wood shiny in the windows' snowlight, the floor neutral, faceless, you cannot see any face in the floor, awake, lying there, faceless, blank, dilated, playing beam over floor again and again, not sure all night forever unsure you're not missing something that's right there: you lie there, awake and almost twelve, believing with all your might. — David Foster Wallace

Feeling dead was better than when my heart hurt. Sometimes I thought it might burn through my ribs while I was asleep, and smolder in the sheets until the whole house caught fire. — Bryn Greenwood

Caring was a thing with claws. It sank them in, and didn't let go. Caring hurt more than a knife to the leg, more than a few broken ribs, more than anything that bled or broke and healed again. Caring didn't break you clean. It was a bone that didn't set, a cut that wouldn't close. — V.E Schwab

He stood up. His heart was leaping against his ribs like a frantic bird. Perhaps it knew it had little time left, perhaps it was determined to fulfill a lifetime's beats before the end. He did not look back as he closed the office door. — J.K. Rowling

I should be the reigning champion. I punch a guy 300 times, he punches me a couple and they call him the champion? In what parallel universe does that make you the winner? I am the champion. I've been the champion. Anderson's ribs have the exact same problem that his hands and his feet have, they're attached to a cowardly person. — Chael Sonnen

A human being with no daemon was like someone without a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out; something unnatural and uncanny that belonged to the world of nightghasts, not the waking world of sense. — Philip Pullman

Her heart kicked hard against her ribs, seized by a terrible fear that refused to let go no matter how hard she pushed. — Kady Cross

Bread pudding makes me weak. I have been known to be moved to tears by cookies and ice cream, and ribs are a spiritual experience for me. — Bill Rancic

The whole world is pressing in on me, like a weight on my chest, slowly pushing me down and down. And there's nothing between me and this weight but my flimsy skin. It's not enough. It won't protect me. It doesn't keep anything out. The outside will keep pressing in until my ribs are crushed, and then my organs, my heart and liver and stomach ... — Natalie Standiford

I know my husband really loves me because he takes me to have ribs. He says I'm the only girl he ever took out who actually ate anything on her plate, as opposed to pushing it around. — Julia Barr

He felt like that: like a dark, curling force was working through him. It flooded to the tips of his fingers and warmed him. It spread his ribs wide with each breath. — Marie Rutkoski

Dali elbowed Jim in the ribs. "What he meant to say was he is sorry that duties of his office and his own paranoid nature caused him to overreact." Jim looked like someone had hit him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. "Yes." "And — Ilona Andrews

And when the sea swallowed up the shore and the waves heaved under the ship and the blue horizon encircled us, I immediately felt an overwhelming intimacy with the sea. I knew this green, infinite giant, as though it were roving back and forth within my ribs. The whole of the journey I savored that feeling of being nowhere, alone, before and behind me either eternity or nothingness. — Tayeb Salih

Hunger is a blade that carves me
I open my arms and pull the air in
-big hug!-
then poof, right through me, nobody there.
It's only me holding myself.
My arms wrap two times
around my own ribs,
meet behind my back for a secret
handshake.
I am not what was expected.
I'm so sharp-
it's cut me now I'll cut you.
Come closer
closer
No, come closer
I'm gonna make you see what I see. — Madeleine George

Around her ribs and waist were curves of the kind that wind carves in snowdrifts. — Jonathan Franzen

You crawled inside my
ribs to die.

Giant becomes squirrel
becomes a dirt-wet girl

feverishly alive. — Virginia Petrucci

Apparently she was beyond words so she pushed the card into his hands. He looked down. Blinked. Blinked again before stumbling back into a chair. Did he just wet himself? Ah, who cared? He was holding four tickets to the Yankees vs. Red Sox at Yankee Stadium for this Friday and they were without a doubt the best seats in the stadium.
His eyes shifted from Haley to the tickets and back again before he made a split second decision and made a run for it. He didn't make it five feet before his little grasshopper tackled him to the ground and ripped the card from his hands.
He spit grass out of his mouth. "Fine. You can come with me I guess," he said, earning a knee to the ribs. — R.L. Mathewson

Bugle"

Black beetles know where the most recent bones
bake in the heat, tendons and meat long gone,
bleached white, and if you give them cheap wine --
drizzle a few red drops on a flat stone--
they will lead you to a barren gulch
surrounded by sages and nettles, dirt
burnt to powdery sand and sharp thorns. Hunch
above the skeleton, bow your head, start reciting verses you learned as a child, there, under the sun with rocks and brush, bare
locust tree a telling reliquary
of dust to dust, all so brutally hot.
You must pull ribs from that rotting body,
words that matter: love me, love me not. — Tod Marshall

We match each other stroke for stroke until I get a hit on her right arm.

She tries to switch sword arms, but I jab my scim at her wrist faster than she can parry. Her scim goes flying, and I tackle her. Her white-blonde hair tumbles free of her bun.

"Surrender!" I pin her down at the wrists, but she trashes and rips one arm free, scrabbling for a dagger at her waist. Steel stabs at my ribs, and seconds later, I am on my back with a blade at my throat.

"Ha!" She leans down, her hair falling around us like a shimmering silver curtain. — Sabaa Tahir

You. Are. Amazing. Meg, I love a woman who looks like a woman. I don't want to be worried that I'll snap you in half, and when I lay on your stomach, I don't want your ribs poking me in the face. — Kristen Proby

In twenty years you could say and do a lot you wish you hadn't. In twenty years you could store up a lot of regrets. And then, when it was too late, when there was no one left to say "I'm sorry" to, "I didn't mean it" to, you could stop sleeping for regret, stop eating, talking, working, for regret. You could stop wanting to live. You could want to die for regret.
It was only remembering the good times that kept you from taking the knife from the kitchen drawer and, holding it so, tightly in your fist, on the bed, naked to no purpose except that that was how you came into the world and how your best moments in the world had been spent
holding it so, roll onto the blade, slowly so that it slid like love between your ribs and into that stupidly pumping muscle in your chest that kept you regretting. — Joseph Hansen

I've broken my nose, I've broken ribs. You name it. In fact, we just got back from South America, and I fell over a monitor speaker on the stage and almost ended up in the front row of the audience. I managed to sprain my wrist on that one but luckily nothing was broken. — Keith Emerson

You sit beside the sorcerer, your love, and unzip your ribs. Tucked under your heart is a small oak box, plain and unvarnished. You offer it to the sorcerer. 'I brought this for you. — A. Merc Rustad

Yamane leaned over until he was right in Rory's face. "Being with me isn't sweet and romantic. I like it messy, desperate, and sometimes even a little painful."
Rory digested this. He felt something unwind deep inside him. As if he were detached from it, he allowed it to uncoil slowly, building up a pressure of anger and frustration ...
"My kidneys are bleeding, my ribs are broken, and I'm loaded with painkillers. If you Google messy and desperate, you'll find a picture of me. — Z.A. Maxfield

His heart cringed from the fanning motion of ribs like pale spiders crouched and fiddling with their prey. — Ray Bradbury

I followed the curve that rose from the capitals of the semicircle of columns and ran along the ribs of the vault toward the key, mirroring the mystery of the ogive, that supreme static hypocrisy which rests on an absence, making the columns believe that they are thrusting the great ribs upward and the ribs believe that they are holding the columns down, the vault being both all and noting, at once cause and effect. — Umberto Eco

And dying is more natural than living, because what could be more unnatural than that panicstricken thing leaping and falling like a last flame beneath the ribs? — William Golding

I hadn't seen Jennifer in a week. Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder.Whoever said that was a damn fool. Absence makes the heart suicidal. Take my heart for example. It hadn't stopped hurling itself against my ribs - at odd times, day or night - for a week. — Penny Reid

When he laces his fingers through mine, my heart does its now familiar panicked flight, bumping painfully against my ribs. My shoulder twitches as if to pull my hand back, but my heart overrules it. — R.L. LaFevers

Funny how time heals. Like that bullet in my ribs. It's there, I know it's there, but I can barely feel it at all anymore. — Lauren Oliver

The war tried to kill us in the spring. As grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed, we patrolled the low-slung hills beyond the cities and towns. We moved over them and through the tall grass on faith, kneading paths into the windswept growth like pioneers. While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs against the ground in prayer. — Kevin Powers

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind. — Anne Sexton

Stigmata of Love
A light which lives on what the flames devour,
a grey landscape surrounding me with scorch,
a crucifixion by a single wound,
a sky and earth that darken by each hour,
a sob of blood whose red ribbon adorns
a lyre without a pulse, and oils the torch,
a tide which stuns and strands me on the reef,
a scorpion scrambling, stinging in my chest
this is the wreath of love, this bed of thorns
is where I dream of you stealing my rest,
haunting these sunken ribs cargoed with grief.
I sought the peak of prudence, but I found
the hemlock-brimming valley of your heart,
and my own thirst for bitter truth and art. — Federico Garcia Lorca

She blinked, sat up, and saw Chris in the bathroom doorway. He'd just gotten out the shower. His hair was damp, and he was dressed only in his briefs. The sight of his thin, boyish body - all ribs and elbows and knees - pulled at her heart, for he looked so innocent and vulnerable. He was so small adn fragile that she wondered how she could ever protect him, and renewed fear rose in her. — Dean Koontz

The alley and the music all fell away, and there was nothing but her and the rain and Jace, his hands on her ... He made a noise of surprise, low in his throat, and dug his fingers into the thin fabric of her tights. Not unexpectedly, they ripped, and his wet fingers were suddenly on the bare skin of her legs. Not to be outdone, Clary slid her hands under the hem of his soaked shirt, and let her fingers explore what was underneath: the tight, hot skin over his ribs, the ridges of his abdomen, the scars on his back. This was uncharted territory for her, but it seemed to be driving him crazy: he was moaning softly against her mouth, kissing her harder and harder, as if it would never be enough, not quite enough - — Cassandra Clare

His ribs were as visible as hands around a cup. — Edmund White