Rose In Hand Quotes & Sayings

I was with her when she died," Ned reminded the king. "She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father." He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister's eyes. Ned remembered the way she smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his. — George R R Martin

His blue eyes brightened with a smile. 'I did.' He looked over his shoulder, as if making sure her mom wasn't looking. The he pulled her against him and kissed her. A soft kiss.
'I got you something,' He whispered, his lips breathing words against hers.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a ring. A gold ring with a large diamond. A beautiful, teardrop-shaped diamond that looked like an engagement ring. Kylie's breath caught.
'It was my grandmother's ring. In her letter she wrote you should have it. And before you start panicking, let me say that I know maybe we're too young to call it an engagement, That's why I got you this too.' He pulled out a gold chain 'I want you to wear it around your neck. Call it a promise- A promise that when you do slip a ring on that finger ... ' He ran his hand down to her left hand. 'That it'll be my ring.'
Emotion rose in her chest 'You don't have to give me anything for me to give you that promise. — C.C. Hunter

You may dazzle the mind with a thousand brilliant discoveries of natural science; you may open new worlds of knowledge which were never dreamed of before; yet, if you have not developed in the soul of the pupil strong habits of virtue which will sustain her in the struggle of life, you have not educated her, but only put in her hand a powerful instrument of self-destruction. — Rose Philippine Duchesne

Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,
without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,
which maybe no one knew was growing
like the red beginnings of a rose.
In short, without your presence: without your coming
suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,
gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind:
since then I am because you are,
since then you are, I am, we are,
and through love I will be, you will be, we will be. — Pablo Neruda

I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don't know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams. — Pablo Neruda

So is a murder rose until you decide to hold the blossom in your hand and sniff it. Perfectly inviting and even charming until the poisons burn your skull open." "By the gods, man, where do you hear about these things? — James A. Moore

She scuttled back from his approach and held up a hand. "No!"
Eversley stilled, his eyes widening at the words. "I beg your pardon?"
He was going to smell her. "Don't come any closer!"
"Why not?"
"It's not appropriate."
"What isn't?"
"You. Being here. So near. While I am abed."
One black brow rose. "I assure you, my lady, I've no intention of debauching you."
She had no doubt of that, considering her current situation, but she couldn't well tell him the truth. "Nevertheless, I must insist on the utmost propriety."
"Who do you think nursemaided you for the last day?"
Bollocks. He was right. He'd been close. He'd had to have noticed her odor. But it didn't mean he had to any longer. She straightened her shoulders, ignoring the twinge in the left. "My reputation, you see."
He blinked. "You were shot on the Great North Road while wearing stolen livery - — Sarah MacLean

Blake studied the satisfied expression on Eliza's face. Like a cat just finished the last bowl of cream. His hand rose involuntarily - how he'd like to strike her! Elisa barely flinched. But Blake wasn't going to assault the woman. Instead he dropped his hand slightly and carefully traced his finger down her cheek until it rested above a strategically placed, heart-shaped beauty spot. He peeled off the tiny piece of black leather and held it between his index finger and thumb, studying it with apparent fascination.
"We have one thing in common, Aunt 'Lizzie'. We have both lost our hearts. But our likeness stops there. Unlike you, I wish to find mine." After flicking her beauty spot onto the floor, he stepped on it and strode out of her parlour. — Tanya Kaley

Up the coast of the New World, the ship bearing ten million bananas ground out its course, every minute the waste heaving brokenly around it more brilliant as the moon rose off the starboard bow and moved into the sky with effortless guile , unashamed of the stigmata blemishing the face she showed from the frozen fogs of the Grand Banks to the jungles of Brazil where along the Rio Branco they knew her for a girl who loved her brother the sun; and the sun, suspicious, trapped her in her evil passion by drawing a blackened hand across her face, leaving the marks which betrayed her and betray her still. — William Gaddis

deaf. Unruffled by Herbert Jemson's breach of allegiance, because he had not heard it, Mr. Stone rose and walked to the pulpit with Bible in hand. He opened it and said, "My text for today is taken from the twenty-first — Harper Lee

Friends, huh?" She shook Vincent's hand, but lingered with Peter, giving him a sexy smile. She quickly took in his blond-haired good looks. "If I had a friend like you, I'm not sure I would ever leave the house," she continued, her voice slightly hoarse and extremely sexy. — Rose Wynters

I didn't fall in love with how you looked," he murmured as his hand rose, gently brushing my cheek. "I fell in love with you."
My eyes watered. And everything inside me melted into molten goo. "You are getting entirely too good at making a dragon cry," I saw and kissed him. — Julie Kagawa

I SHALL WIN!" She exclaimed. "You'll see! When the smoke of battle clears away I shall be a rainbow again
and, undying name
an altar of fire that you have tried to dash to hell. I shall weave a rose wreath and hang it round your neck. You will call it a yoke of bondage and curse it
no matter. You are afraid of the light I give you. You crouch in the darkness. Come, take my hand, I will lead you." And her valediction, intimating in its restraint whole words of love and grief and passionate regret, was, simply, Miriam. — T.C. Boyle

Soon only the street lamps rose clear and shone down on a mass that devoured everything, people and houses, we could not see more than three meters in front of us. The lights around us were hard to make out and Jesper stayed where he was; stretching out his arms like a blind man he said:
'This is what it must have been like when the Man from Danzig was shipwrecked. He must have been frightened. He thought he knew where everything was, and then it was all sheer chaos. Put your hand in front of your eyes, Sistermine, and spin around three times, then tell me which is the way home.'
I did as he said, I spun around so I almost fell down, I opened my eyes and peered in all directions.
'I don't know.'
'Then anything can happen. — Per Petterson

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father refuse thy name, thou art thyself thou not a montegue, what is montegue? tis nor hand nor foot nor any other part belonging to a man
What is in a name?
That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,
So Romeo would were he not Romeo called retain such dear perfection to which he owes without that title,
Romeo, Doth thy name!
And for that name which is no part of thee, take all thyself. — William Shakespeare

Then Dantes rose more agile and light than the kid among the myrtles and shrubs of these wild rocks, took his gun in one hand, his pickaxe in the other, and hastened towards the rock on which the marks he had noted terminated. "And now," he exclaimed, remembering the tale of the Arabian fisherman, which Faria had related to him, "now, open sesame! — Alexandre Dumas

Look,I'll pay you for a cup of coffee and the use of this-" she thumped a hand on the sofa and a soft plume of dust rose up "-thing for the night."
"I don't take in lodgers."
"And you'd probably kick a sick dog if he got in your way," she added evenly. — Nora Roberts

He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair. — Arundhati Roy

She rose and walked to the small fireplace, where a kettle had been set long before supper. It was gently steaming now. She caught up a rag and reached for the handle, but another, much bigger, hand got there first. Lily gave a tiny jump, watching wide-eyed as Caliban picked up the hot kettle as easily as lifting a twig. At least he'd had enough sense to shield his palm from the heat with a rag. He stood blank-faced until she pulled herself together. "In here." She stepped gingerly around his bulk and led him into the little bedroom. A tin hip bath was waiting, laid beside the bed on some old cloths. It was already half full of cold water. "You can pour it in there." He lifted the hem of his shirt to hold the bottom of the kettle and she caught an unsettling flash of his stomach. Hastily she looked away, her cheeks heating. — Elizabeth Hoyt

The snow-white angel alone remains, hovering over Tara Burgess's fresh grave, holding a single black rose in one hand. She does not move, does not even bat an eyelash. Her powdered face stays frozen in sorrow. The increasing rain pulls stray feathers from her wings and pins them to the mud below. — Erin Morgenstern

At one stopover on the train journey home, Hans told his sister Inge later, he saw a young girl with the Star of David on her breast; she was repairing tracks on the line, along with other people with yellow badges on their clothes. Her face was pallid, sunken in; her eyes, beyond grief and terror. Impulsively, Hans thrust his rations in her hand. She looked up at him, then at his uniform. She threw the packet of food to the ground.
He scooped it up, wiped off the dust, and picked a daisy growing by the side of the tracks. He placed the package, with the daisy on top, at her feet. He said, "I would have liked to give you a little pleasure." He boarded the train.
When he looked back, the girl was standing there, watching the train disappear, the flower in her hair. — Jud Newborn

In a very bad breach of guardian protocol, he caught a hhold of my hand and pulled me towards him."and?" he asked, wrapping me iin his embrace.
"I think she'd ask,'What have we gotten ourselves into? — Michelle Read

When a child dies, a parent loses a part of themselves," he said. "Your whole world ceases to exist and you're nothing but a shell of the person you once were. Your mom has dealt with it in her way, me in mine, and you in yours." He lifted his hand off John's gravestone and rose. "Your mom hates the world, I avoid it, and you try to save it. — Nicole Williams

He could pick my heart like a rose and watch it wither in his hand. Sometimes I think he is like that. At other times I think he is as simple and golden and generous as our father's fields. And then I see things in his eyes - things that I have never looked at, and I know that I have walked a short and easy road out of my past, while he has walked a thousand roads to meet me. I know Perrin's past; the same road runs into his future. I don't know Corbet. — Patricia A. McKillip

Madams Manec's energy, Marie-Lauren is learning, is extraordinary; she burgeons, shoots off stalks, wakes early, works late, concocts basques without a drop of cream, loaves with less than a cup of flour. They clomp together through the narrow streets, Marie-Laure's hand on the back of Madame's apron, following the odors of her stews and cakes; in such moments Madame seems like a great moving wall of rose bushes, thorny and fragrant and crackling with bees. — Anthony Doerr

Anakin." Obi-Wan's voice had gone soft, and his hand was warm on Anakin's arm. "There is no other Jedi I would rather have at my side right now. No other man."
Anakin turned, and found within Obi-Wan's eyes a depth of feeling he had only rarely glimpsed in all their years together; and the pure uncomplicated love that rose up within him then felt like a promise from the Force itself.
"I ... I wouldn't have it any other way, Master."
"I believe," his onetime Master said with a gently humorous look of astonishment at the words coming out of his mouth, "that you should get used to calling me Obi-Wan. — Matthew Woodring Stover

What? Do you dare smile and suggest for a moment that just because of the Absence between us I cannot make myself vivid to you? Ho! Silly boy! Don't you know that the plainest sort of black ink throbs more than some blood - and the touch of the softest hand is a harsh caress compared to the touch of a reasonably shrewd pen? Here - now, I say - this very moment: Lift this letter of mine to your face, and swear - if you're honestly able to - that you can't smell the rose in my hair! — Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

I want to be your husband, Lucy. I want to be the guy who carries your bag, and holds your hand and sits next to you on planes. I want to be the one who supports you in your career and in your life. The man who loves you through thick and thin. And I'm hoping you'll say yes to being my wife. — Renee Rose

Omg this is like one of those sappy romance movies but I don't care! Jake is holding my hand! I looked back up at him and we slowly rose staring into each other's eyes. Ok, where the heck is my awesome music saying he's the one?! What about a breeze that blows my hair in all directions making me look hot? C'mon Cupid! Give me something!!! A weak chilly breeze blew. It barely even moved my hair. Oh c'mon!!!! — Bella Shadow

Every rose is an autograph from the hand of the Almighty God on this world about us. He has inscribed His thoughts in these marvelous hieroglyphics which sense and science have been these many thousand years seeking to understand. — Theodore Parker

The Offices rerooted me in a tradition where, monk or not, I would always be at home. From long ago I knew the power of their repetition, the incantatory force of the Psalms. But they had an added power now. As a kid, the psalmist (or psalmists) had seemed remote to me, the Psalms long prayers which sometimes rose to great poetry but often had simply to be endured. For a middle-aged man, the psalmists' moods and feelings came alive. One of the voices sounded a lot like a modern New Yorker, me or people I knew: a manic-depressive type A personality sometimes up, more often down, sometimes resigned, more often pissed off, railing about his sneaky enemies and feckless friends, always bitching to the Lord about the rotten hand he'd been dealt. That good old changelessness. — Tony Hendra

I often wish I'd got on better with your father,' he said.
But he never liked anyone who
our friends,' said Clarissa; and could have bitten her tongue for thus reminding Peter that he had wanted to marry her.
Of course I did, thought Peter; it almost broke my heart too, he thought; and was overcome with his own grief, which rose like a moon looked at from a terrace, ghastly beautiful with light from the sunken day. I was more unhappy than I've ever been since, he thought. And as if in truth he were sitting there on the terrace he edged a little towards Clarissa; put his hand out; raised it; let it fall. There above them it hung, that moon. She too seemed to be sitting with him on the terrace, in the moonlight. — Virginia Woolf

Above us all rose my mother's hand, dangling from the column shifter
like some battle-tattered flag for independence, surrounded
by the glass shards and quietude of a parking lot gone empty.
My beautiful mother, safer than ever before,
even in defection. ¼ tank of gas, fully empowered,
her car pointed in every direction. — B.J. Ward

I'd open the door in the morning and the slightly sweet smell of second hand books would greet me. For years I wondered just what that smell was. In the end I decided it was the smell of human thought embedded in paper. — Heather Rose

Judge moaned and rose up to his knees in answer. Michaels gripped the base of his dick. "Oh my god. Look at you." Michaels put his tongue deep inside Judge's cavern, stabbing it in and out without mercy. Judge's sensual moans spurred him on, had him overwhelmed with wanting him. Michaels quickly spread some lube down his length. Holding on to Judge's shoulder with one hand, he parted one fuzzy cheek with the other and slid his lubed cock up and down that dark crevice. Driving both of them mad. "Fuck me. Austin." Michaels — A.E. Via

I looked at her without a word. She held an edge of the beach towel in each hand, pressing the edges against her cheeks. White smoke was rising from the cigarette between her fingers. With no wind to disturb it, the smoke rose straight up, like a miniature smoke signal. She was apparently having trouble deciding whether to cry or to laugh. At least she looked that way to me. She wavered atop the narrow line that divided one possibility from the other, but in the end she fell to neither side. May Kasahara pulled her expression together, put the towel on the ground, and took a drag on her cigarette. The time was nearly five o'clock, but the heat showed no sign of abating. — Haruki Murakami

And don't put a rose in my hand. Put a slim-jim in it. Send me to heaven with a slim-jim! — Bill Engvall

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms,
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers.
Thanks to your love a certain fragrance,
risen darkly from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride,
so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where "I" does not exist, nor "you,"
So close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
So close that your eyes close and I fall asleep. — Pablo Neruda

Ian slid the pot of honey toward his plate. "We should go back upstairs," he said to Beth.
"What?" Beth looked up from a list she was writing. "Why?"
Ian rose and pulled back Beth's chair without answering. Ian had difficulty lying, so when he knew he shouldn't say what was on his mind, he'd learned to keep his mouth firmly closed.
Beth knew him well, though. Without arguing, she let him take her arm and steer her from the table. Before he walked away, Ian reached back and snatched the honey pot from the table, balancing the pot in his hand as he led Beth from the room. — Jennifer Ashley

Later, after Abby had lugged Fred back inside and was taking off his jacket, she heard a crinkling sound and reached into the pocket of her coat. Her hand closed around an envelope. She pulled it out and saw her name in neat printing. ABIGAIL. She waited until she was alone in her room to open it, and inside she found a card showing a girl and boy joyfully riding a giant bumblebee, the words Valentine, I'm abuzz over you trailing in the wake of the bee. She flipped the card open. Zander had written BEE MINE, ZANDER in the same neat handwriting. Abby frowned, then smiled, and added the card to the ones she'd received from Rose and Sarah the day before. She hadn't dared to give Zander a Valentine. — Ann M. Martin

She pointed to a chair,then shifted the finger to her son. "You,go. I'll finish with you later."
"I'll be at the stables, doing penance." With a heavy sigh, Patrick rose, then he wrapped his arms around his mother's waist, laid his chin on top of her head. "Sorry."
"Get."
But Brian saw her lay a hand over Patrick's, and squeeze. With a quick grin tossed to the room in general, he bolted.
"That boy's responsible for every other line on my face," Adelia muttered.
"What lines?" Travis asked, and made her laugh.
"That's the right answer. — Nora Roberts

Even though May came in accompanied by rain, all the fields were bright with the loveliest green imaginable. A sunbeam pierced a little gap in the dark sea of cloud, and the world laughed and glittered in the light of heaven. I stood there marveling and thought, Does God take us for fools, that he should light up the world for us with such
consummate beauty in the radiance of his glory, in his honor? And nothing, on the other hand, but rapine and murder? Where does the truth lie? Should one go off and build a little house with flowers outside the windows and a garden outside the door and extol and thank God and turnone's back on the world and its filth? Isn't seclusion a form of treachery of desertion? I'm weak and puny, but I want to do what is right. — Hans Scholl

The sobs and tears of joy he had not foreseen rose with such force within him that his whole body shook and for a long time prevented him from speaking. Falling on his knees by her bed. He held his wife's hand to his lips and kissed it, and her hand responded to his kisses with weak movement of finger. Meanwhile, at the foot of the bed, in the midwife's expert hands, like the flame of a lamp, flickered the life of a human being who had never existed before ... — Leo Tolstoy

Hush." He kissed her forehead. "Ever since that day, all I've wanted is a second chance. Now," he pulled her body closer, wrapped both arms around her small waist, his hand resting just above the dent in her spine. "We're both a little older, a little more mature. Some of us are much more experienced - "
"And conceited."
"Experienced," he said, the laugh in his voice quiet and seductive, "and things can be so much better. — Peggy Jaeger

Maybe he'll go away if we don't answer," I said, and Jenks rose - sixty feet in a mere second. In another second, he dropped back down.
"He's coming around back," he said, his gold dust looking black through my sunglasses.
Damn it back to the Turn. "Pix the sucker," I said, then waved my hand in negation when Jumoke clearly thought I was serious. The small pixy looked about six, and he took everything literally.
[ ... ]
"Let him come back," I finally said. "If this is about that paper of his, he can suck my toes and die. — Kim Harrison

Founders Day tradition dictated a peck on the cheek, but Travis had never been a follower. He lowered his head and took advantage of her surprise. Her lips were soft as a rose petal and just as pliable. He'd meant it to be a quick, comforting brushing of lips, but then she responded. Just the faintest movement. The yielding lit a fire in his belly that wouldn't be extinguished anytime soon. He went back for seconds. I've missed you so much. He took her face in his hands, wanted to thread his fingers through that long thick hair and pull her closer. But then two palms planted into his chest and pushed hard. Her eyes spat sparks. She dragged the back of her hand across her lips as if wiping the kiss away. Won't be as easy as that, darlin'. — Denise Hunter

Burns immediately left the class, and going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression. "Hardened girl!" exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; "nothing can correct you of your slatternly habits: carry the rod away." Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek. — Charlotte Bronte

You will never again threaten Magdelegna, or any other Demon, with your ignorance and avarice. Your death is too easy a punishment, necromancer. Be grateful for that.
A last breath rattled out of the necromancer, and Gideon released him with an absent shaking of his hand, as if flinging off some vile contaminant as the body fell to the floor. He turned his back on it without the slightest regret.
His mercury gaze sought out Legna, settling on her just as she rose from her position over the female necromancer. She threw back her head and shoulders, taking the deep, cleansing breath of a female predator satisfied with her kill. She'd always been the most beautiful female he'd ever seen, but now, in this victorious moment, she was utterly stunning. Gideon felt a savage response within himself, an urge so vital that it took nearly every ounce of his formidable control to tamp it down and lock it out of his thoughts so she wouldn't become aware of it. — Jacquelyn Frank

Cultivo una rosa blanca, En julio como en enero, Para el amigo sincero Que me da su mano franca. Y para el cruel que me arranca El corazon con que vivo, Cardo ni oruga cultivo Cultivo una rosa blanca. I have a white rose to tend In July as in January; I give it to the true friend Who offers his frank hand to me. And to the cruel one whose blows Break the heart by which I live, Thistle nor thorn do I give: For him, too, I have a white rose. — Jose Marti

The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them, leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind the axe, and hammer the nails into the scaffold. — Charles Dickens

He finds his way up the side of my neck, biting me just a little, moving lightly back and forth, like he's searching for a special spot. When he finds it, I make small sound I've never heard myself make before, like a gasp. He traces his tongue in slow circles around that spot. I realise my hands are just lying in my lap, doing nothing. I concentrate on lifting my arm and reaching for his face, but he catches my hand and holds it tightly at the wrist. His lips leave the spot and find their way back to my mouth, which is waiting, hoping for his return. He plants a gentle kiss on my lower lip and then whispers in my ear, I just got lucky, Rose. — Louise Rozett

Now I know a refuge never grows from a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose gotta tend the earth if you want a rose. — Emily Saliers

Let's walk to the beach
Let's cast the net in the water
And catch freshness from water

Let's pick up a pebble from the ground
Feel the weight of existence

Let's not abuse moonshine if we suffer from fever
(Occasionally I have observed the moon descending during fever
And reaching the hand of the roof of heaven
I have noticed the goldfinch singing better
Sometimes the wound beneath my foot
Has taught the ups and downs of earth
Sometimes in my sickbed the dimension of the rose has multiplied
And the diameter of orange has increased, the radius of lantern too) — Sohrab Sepehri

He took something out of his jacket and handed it to her. It was a long thin dagger in a leather sheath. The hilt of the dagger was set with a single red stone carved in the shape of a rose.
She shook her head. "I wouldn't even know how to use that
"
He pressed it into her hand, curling her fingers around it. "You'd learn." He dropped his voice. "It's in your blood."
She drew her hand back slowly. "All right."
"I could give you a thigh sheath to put that in," Isabelle offered. "I've got tons."
"CERTAINLY NOT," said Simon. — Cassandra Clare

Well you wave your hand and they scatter like crows
They have nothing that will ever capture your heart
They're just thorns without the rose
Be careful of them in the dark
Oh, if I was the one you chose to be your only one
Oh baby can't you hear me now, can't you hear me now
Will I see you tonight on a downtown train
Every night it's just the same, you leave me lonely now — Tom Waits

The Mind

The mind is a hotel with a thousand rooms. When I tilt my head a certain way, I think about certain things. When I tilt my head another way, I think about other things. If I sleep on the right side of my face, for example, I'd dream of a pale rose, the future, or a continental diner in Passaic, New Jersey. When I sleep on the left side of my face, I'd dream that a hand is squeezing my heart, that I'm in prison, or that I'm watching hockey at an airport bar, about to miss a flight. — Linh Dinh

Those cries rose from among the twisted roots
through which the spirits of the damned were slinking
to hide from us. Therefore my Master said:
'If you break off a twig, what you will learn
will drive what you are thinking from your head.'
Puzzled, I raised my hand a bit and slowly
broke off a branchlet from an enormous thorn:
and the great trunk of it cried: 'Why do you break me?'
And after blood had darkened all the bowl
of the wound, it cried again: 'Why do you tear me?
Is there no pity left in any soul?
Men we were, and now we are changed to sticks;
well might your hand have been more merciful
were we no more than souls of lice and ticks.'
As a green branch with one end all aflame
will hiss and sputter sap out of the other
as the air escapes- so from that trunk there came
words and blood together, gout by gout.
Startled, I dropped the branch that I was holding
and stood transfixed by fear, ... — Dante Alighieri

Rose reached out and touched his fingers. He immediately covered her hand in a firm grasp. His warm fingers entwined with hers and made her heart beat erratically. The snake had nearly scared her to death, but his touch and his presence overwhelmed her with comfort and safety. The darkness gave her a feeling of intimacy with him. They could hold each other's hand and no one could see. She liked it - so very much. — Melanie Dickerson

Inside, there was a bed, and upon the bed there was a woman. More beautiful was she even than the damask rose while her scent, drifting through the open window, was that of the night dew. Her hair was silken as the raven's wing. Quite naked, she lay, so still upon the bed, her eyes closed in reverie.

The young man looked first upon her breasts, where her hand rested. And upon each breast, there was a rosebud nipple. Upon each nipple there was a tip most tender. Upon each tip there was a milky drop.

Chin lifted, lips parted, she milked her maiden breast.

'What I would give to suckle at that teat,' thought he.

from 'Against Faithlessness' in Cautionary Tales — Emmanuelle De Maupassant

Sitting in the bathroom, reading the book again, he became so involved in the story that his legs fell asleep. He kept reading, intending to get up at the end of this page, then at the end of this page, if only because he would feel more comfortable with his pants up and buttoned, but he read on. He rose finally at the end of a chapter, although he read a little into the next chapter before he made himself stop. His legs were buoyant with saws and needles as he buttoned up, and he had to hold a hand against the wall not to sway from balance. Then he checked the thickness of pages he had read between his fingers, and experienced something he had never experienced before. Some of it was pride - he was reading a book - and some of it was a preciousness the book had assumed. Feeling relaxed, unthreatened, he wanted to keep the book in his hands, for what it offered. He did not want to turn the pages, for then they would be gone and spent; nor did he want to do anything but turn the pages. — Theodore Weesner

The touch was so hesitant at first, I thought for sure that he was still asleep, shifting in dreams. Liam's hand came down next to mine on the seat, his fingers inching over one at a time, hooking over mine in a way that was as tender as it was shy. I bit my lip, letting his warm, rough skin engulf mine.
His eyes were still shut and stayed that way, even as I saw him struggle to swallow. There was nothing to say now. Our linked hands rose as he guided them to rest against his chest, and they stayed there, through the song, the mountains, the cities. Until the end. — Alexandra Bracken

Kolya rose to a crouch and crept to the front door, keeping his head below the window line. I followed. We kneeled with our backs against the door. Kolya checked his pistol one last time. I pulled the German knife from my ankle sheath. I knew I looked silly holding it, the way a young boy looks holding his father's shaving razor. Kolya grinned at me as though he was about to start laughing. This is all very strange, I thought. I am in the middle of a battle and I am aware of my own thoughts, I am worried about how stupid I look with a knife in my hand while everyone else came to fight with rifles and machine guns. I am aware that I am aware. Even now, with bullets buzzing through the air like angry hornets, I cannot escape the chatter of my brain. — David Benioff

The description of Huck's father grabbed my full attention, and I glanced up at the book in my teacher's hand as if to double check. My eyes bulged reflexively. Huck's father was an abusive drunk just like mine. The boy was hopeful that a corpse found near the river was actually his dad, but it turned out not to be. It was spooky how high my hopes rose for the boy, and then sank so utterly low when the body was discovered to be a female in disguise. I should've mourned for the woman, but it was the boy I felt bad for. — Richelle E. Goodrich

But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us. — Rose Schneiderman

My soul, get Calvary's blood-red rose into thy hand by faith, by love wear it, by communion preserve it, by daily watchfulness make it thine all in all, and thou shalt be blessed beyond all bliss, happy beyond a dream. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I can wait two years, she thought, turning the rose in her hand. I can wait two years for him, longer if need be. If he would ever love me, I'd wait my entire life. — Charlie N. Holmberg

Steven laid Emma gently on the carpet of daisies to take the little flagon from her hand. She watched, half bewitched, as he removed the stopper and touched it ever so lightly to the pulse point at the base of her throat. The lush woodsy scent rose to her nostrils, and Emma closed her eyes to savor this new pleasure. Steven stretched out beside Emma and kissed the place he had just perfumed, one hand resting brazenly on her bare breast. She swallowed a moan, for there was still some vestige of pride held prisoner in a dark part of her heart. The perfume touched the sensitive place beneath her right ear then, and as before, Steven followed the scent with his lips. Emma — Linda Lael Miller

Moving forward quietly to Jerott's side, Adam Blacklock had heard. 'Don't you understand? The authorities are afraid of them both,' he said gently. 'Why do you supose this cordon is here, which only an unarmed girl was allowed to pass through? Lymond, loyal to Scotland, might be a threat to French power greater than even Gabriel, one of these days - Philippa!' And a wordless shout, like a cry at a cockfight, rose among the stone pillars and sank muffled into the old, dusty banners above the choir roof. For Philippa Somerville, who believed in action when words were not enough, had leaned over and snatched the knife from Lymond's left hand. — Dorothy Dunnett

Why books?"
Her brows rose. "I beg your pardon?"
"Why are they your vice?"
She set her plate down and wiped her hand on her skirts before reaching for the top volume on a stack of small, leather bound books nearby and extending it to him. "Go on."
He took it. "Now what?"
"Smell it." He tilted his head. She couldn't help but smile. "Do it."
He lifted it to his nose. Inhaled.
"Not like that," she said. "Really give it a smell."
He raised one brow but did as he was told.
"What do you smell?" Sophie asked.
"Leather and ink?"
She shook her head. "Happiness. That's what books smells like. Happiness. That's why I always wanted to have a book shop. What better life than to trade in happiness? — Sarah MacLean

The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before him rose the black night of Space, like a wall. His mighty bulk towered rugged and mountain-like into the zenith, and His divine head blazed there like a distant sun. At His feet stood three colossal figures, diminished to extinction, almost, by contrast
archangels
their heads level with His ankle-bone. When the Creator had finished thinking, He said, "I have thought. Behold!" He lifted His hand, and from it burst a fountain-spray of fire, a million stupendous suns, which clove the blackness and soared, away and away and away, diminishing in magnitude and intensity as they pierced the far frontiers of Space, until at last they were but as diamond nail heads sparkling under the domed vast roof of the universe. — Mark Twain

I must go
the aunts will be worried. Guy, I don't know if we will meet again, but
" Her voice broke and she tried again. "Sometimes, when you're alone and you look up at
" Once more, she had to stop. Then she managed, "If I cannot be anything else ... could I be your Star Sister? Could I at least be that?"
Guy dug his nails into his palms. Everything in him rose in protest at the fey, romantic conceit. He did not want her in the heavens, linked to him by some celestial whimsy, but here and now in the flesh and after the death of the flesh, her hand in his as they rose from graves like these when the last trump sounded.
"Yes," he managed to say. "You can be my Star Sister. You can at least be that. — Eva Ibbotson

Yesterday you were riding on my shoulders," he murmured. "The house was full of noise. Clomping up and down the steps,doors slamming. Scattered toys. I don't know how many times I stepped on one of those damned little cars of Brady's/"
Turning back, he ran a hand over her hair. "I miss that.I miss all of you."
"Daddy." In one fluid movement she rose and slid her arms around him.
"It's the way it's supposed to work. Three of you off at college, Brendon moving around to get a handle on the busines of things.It's what he wants. And you, building your own.But..I miss the crowd of you."
"I promise to slam the door the very first chance I get."
"That might help."
"Sentimental softie.I love that about you."
"Lucky for me. — Nora Roberts

The gospel tells us who Christ is. Through it, we learn that he is our Savior. He delivers us from sin and death, helps us out of all misfortune, reconciles us to the Father, makes us godly, and saves us apart from our own works. Anyone who doesn't acknowledge Christ in this way will fail. For even if you already know that he is God's Son, that he died, rose again, and sits at the right hand of the Father, you still haven't known Christ in the right way. This knowledge doesn't help you. You also must know and believe that he has done all of this for your sake - in order to help you. — Martin Luther

She held up the pen and gave him a lazy grin. "It's a rose."
He came close. "It's a pen." He tried to pluck it from her hand.
"You are seriously lacking in imagination. — Ronie Kendig

Ildiko clutched his arm, unwilling to have him leave her side. "I enjoy your touch, Brishen."

The stiffness eased from his shoulders. He gave her a wry look and pressed his palm to the pale expanse of skin just below her collarbones. His hand rose and fell in quick time to her breathing. "I believe you, but this tells me you fear it as well."

She winced. "Your teeth are so...sharp."

"They are, but I'm not careless, wife. And if, for some unfathomable reason, I accidently bite you, you're welcome to bite me back."

His attempt at humor worked, and Ildiko chuckled. "Brishen - " She offered him a toothy grin. "These wouldn't do much damage."

He traced the line of her collarbones with the rough pads of his fingers, their dark claws a whisper of movement across her flesh. "You have obviously never been badly bitten by a horse. — Grace Draven

Had he but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made her own sufferings seem but light and easy to bear
a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and despair. Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love and as soon as her light footstep had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade, where her tiny hand had rested last. — Emmuska Orczy

On the other hand, she never looked as -big- as she did at that moment.
"What?" Rose demanded, glaring up at him.
The warning signal flashed bright red in Kane's head. Telling a woman she was as big as a beach ball wouldn't win any points. How did one describe how she looked? A basketball? Volleyball? He studied her furious little face. Yeah. He was in big trouble no matter what he said. Description was out of the question. He needed diplomacy, something that flew out of the window when he was near her and she said the words like contractions. — Christine Feehan

Murtagh was right about women. Sassenach, I risked my life for ye, committing theft, arson, assault, and murder into the bargain. In return for which ye call me names, insult my manhood, kick me in the ballocks and claw my face. Then I beat you half to death and tell ye all the most humiliating things have ever happened to me, and ye say ye love me." He laid his head on his knees and laughed some more. Finally he rose and held out a hand to me, wiping his eyes with the other.
"You're no verra sensible, Sassenach, but I like ye fine. Let's go. — Diana Gabaldon

Well, Nero," Genghis said, "I just wanted to give you this rose-a small gift of congratulations for the wonderful concert you gave us last night!"
"Oh, thank you," Nero said, taking the rose out of Genghis's hand and giving it a good smell. "I was wonderful, wasn't I?"
"You were perfection!" Genghis said. "The first time you played your sonata, I was deeply moved. The second time, I had tears in my eyes. The third time, I was sobbing. The fourth time, I had an uncontrollable emotional attack. The fifth time-" The Baudelaires did not hear about the fifth time because Nero's door swung shut behind them. — Lemony Snicket

She rose to her feet, lining her body up with his and closing the gap between them. "What if I need help in a different way?"
"Darlin', I'm a full-service kind of helper." His hand dropped to her left hips, sending a jolt of awareness straight to her clit. "You tell me what ache is building and I'll relieve it." His other hand fell to her right hip and he pulled her close. "Tell me where it itches and I'll scratch it." His cock, hard and thick, pressed against her, letting lose a wave of desire that threatened to overwhelm her. "Show me where it hurts and I'll kiss it better."
"You make a lot of promises," she managed to get out...
"And I'll deliver on every single one." He dipped his head lower, letting his lips brush across hers. "You can count on it. — Avery Flynn

A cloud, hitherto unseen, came upon the moon, and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face.The illusion went with it, and the lights in the windows were extinguished. I looked upon a desolate shell, soulless at last, unhaunted, with no whisper of the past about its staring walls.
The house was a sepulchre, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins. There would be no resurrection. When I thought of Manderley in my waking hours I would not be bitter. I should think of it as it might have been, could I have lived there without fear. I should remember the rose-garden in summer, and the birds that sang at dawn.Tea under the chestnut tree, and the murmur of the sea coming up to us from the lawns below.
I would think of the blown lilac, and the Happy Valley. These things were permanent, they could not be dissolved.They were memories that cannot hurt. — Daphne Du Maurier

If I had to sum up the gospel I should have to tell you certain facts: Jesus, the Son of God, became man; he was born of the virgin Mary; lived a perfect life; was falsely accused of men; was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God; from whence he shall also come to judge the quick and the dead. This is one of the elementary truths of our gospel; we believe in the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and the life everlasting. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Cambodian dust whipped up in the wind and stuck to my clothes like clay. I put a hand between my face and the sun and blinked Phnom Penn dust from my tired eyes. One idea, drink, beamed light in all directions across my dark consciousness.
A slim lady walked toward me with a big smile and a bigger head. Her left hand rested on her waggling hips and her right hand rose above her head, limp-wristed, like she'd just thrown a winning ball toward a basket and was leaving her hand in the shot position. The lady walking toward me was a man. At least that much was clear, but the nature or our relationship was still a fog to me. She wore blue jeans and a white top accentuating her breasts, but her Adam's apple and cow sized hands revealed more in daylight than she could hide at night. — Craig Stone

Cristina looked after Emma, her hand going to the pendant at her own throat. It was silver, in the shape of a circle with a rose inside it. The rose was wrapped around with thorny briars. Words were written in Latin on the back: she didn't need to look at them to know them. She'd known them all her life. Blessed be the Angel my strength who teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. The rose for Rosales, the words for Raziel, the Angel who had created the Shadowhunters a thousand years ago. Cristina had always thought Emma fought for her parabatai and for revenge, while she fought for family and faith. But maybe it was all the same thing: maybe it was all love, in the end. — Cassandra Clare

Whoa." Adrian leapt up and rushed to Jill's side. "You need to let this go. What, are you going to start a fight with some girl?"
Reed turned his glare on Adrian. "Stay out of this."
"The hell I will! You're crazy."
If anyone had asked me to make up a list of people most likely to risk a fight in defense of a lady's honor, Adrian Ivashkov would have been low on that list. Yet there he stood, face hard and hand sitting protectively on Jill's shoulder. I was in awe. And impressed. — Richelle Mead

Miss Manette!'
The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were now turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her father rose with her, and kept her hand drawn through his arm.
'Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner.'
To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, was far more trying to the accused than to be confronted with all the crowd. Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all the staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled out the herbs before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden; and his efforts to control and steady his breathing shook the lips from which the colour rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud again.
'Miss Manette, have you ever seen the prisoner before?'
'Yes, sir. — Charles Dickens

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh. — Hilary Mantel

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. — John Keats

On Christ, and what he has done, my soul hangs for time and eternity. And if your soul also hangs there, it will be saved as surely as mine shall be. And if you are lost trusting in Christ, I will be lost with you and will go to hell with you. I must do so, for I have nothing else to rely upon but the fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived, died, was buried, rose again, went to heaven, and still lives and pleads for sinners at the right hand of God. — Charles Spurgeon

There is something horrible about a flower;
This, broken in my hand, is one of those
He threw it in just now; it will not live another hour;
There are thousands more; you do not miss a rose. — Charlotte Mew

The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose. — George William Curtis

We have a long distance to travel,' said the Angel of Death to our friend Gil, as soon as they had left the Villa. 'I will order my chariot.' And he struck the ground with his foot.
A hollow rumbling, like that which precedes an earthquake, sounded under the ground. Presently there rose round the two friends an ash-colored cloud of vapor, in the midst of which appeared a species of ivory chariot, resembling the chariots we see in the bas-reliefs of antiquity.
A brief glance would have sufficed (we will not disguise the fact from out readers) to show that the chariot was not made of ivory, but solely and simply of human bones polished and joined together with exquisite skill, but retaining still their natural form.
The Angel of Death gave his hand to Gil and they ascended the chariot, which rose into the air like the balloons of the present day, but with the difference that it was propelled by the will of its occupants. ("The Friend of Death") — Pedro Antonio De Alarcon

Strike, with hand of fire, O weird musician, thy harp strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. But know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh - the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. O rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. O Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief. — Robert G. Ingersoll

He touched the tender skin of her palm and swiped a dot of blood off the tip of her finger. Without thinking, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her finger. She drew in a sharp breath but didn't make an effort to pull away from him. He met her gaze. The silkiness in the depths sent a tremor through his body. He pressed his lips against her smooth skin again, tasting the saltiness of her blood. His lips brushed a path to her palm, and in the tender, moist middle he pressed another kiss. Her chest rose and fell in rapid succession, but she still made no move. Instead, she watched him, almost as if she was remembering the kiss he'd given her on their wedding day, the same kiss that still haunted him. Maybe it was past time for him to give her another. — Jody Hedlund

Pierre held the hand of his betrothed in silence, looking at her beautiful bosom as it rose and fell. — Leo Tolstoy

My name is Lev," said Lev.
"My name is Lydia," said the woman. And they shook hands, Lev's hand holding the scrunched-up kerchief and Lydia's hand rough with salt and smelling of egg, and then Lev asked, "What are you planning to do in En gland?" and Lydia said, "I have some interviews in London for jobs as a translator."
"That sounds promising."
"I hope so. I was a teacher of English at School 237 in Yarbl, so my language is very colloquial."
Lev looked at Lydia. It wasn't difficult to imagine her standing in front of a class and writing words on a blackboard. He said, "I wonder why you're leaving our country when you had a good job at School 237 in Yarbl?"
"Well," said Lydia, "I became very tired of the view from my window. Every day, summer and winter, I looked out at the schoolyard and the high fence and the apartment block beyond, and I began to imagine I would die seeing these things, and I didn't want this. I expect you understand what I mean? — Rose Tremain

when i speak to you
i speak as though
i am offering a rose
in your hand. — Sanober Khan

You dont get your black ass away from this fire I'll kill you graveyard dead. He looked to where Glanton sat. Glanton watched him. He put the pipe in his mouth and rose and took up the apishamore and folded it over his arm. Is that your final say? Final as the judgement of God. The black looked once more across the flames at Glanton and then he moved away in the dark. The white man uncocked the revolver and placed it on the ground before him. Two of the others came back to the fire and stood uneasily. Jackson sat with his legs crossed. One hand lay in his lap and the other was outstretched on his knee holding a slender black cigarillo. The nearest man to him was Tobin and when the black stepped out of the darkness bearing the bowieknife in both hands like some instrument of ceremony Tobin started to rise. The white man looked up drunkenly and the black stepped forward and with a single stroke swapt off his head. — Cormac McCarthy

I'm taking you." He leaned over. "Make no mistake about it."
I slid my hand all the way down and cupped him, giving him a gentle squeeze. A low growl issued out of the back of his throat.
"I'm all in." I rose up on tiptoe to his ear. "But only if the timing's right. I want to enjoy you."
"Oh, there will be much enjoyment to be had. — Amanda Carlson

I didn't think - " Nick began.
"You didn't think! That's your problem, Nick, you just don't think!"
Nick struggled to respond.
"You're invulnerable," Elphaba continued. "You're immortal. You're ancient. Nothing fazes you. No situation is too dangerous for you. Chop off your hand, or your head, or pull your liver out and eat it with some fava beans, you don't care! In a few minutes you'll be right as rain."
Elphaba took a deep breath. "But the rest of us aren't like that, Nick. I only have the one liver, and I need it, thank you very much." Elphaba's diaphragm rapidly rose and fell. — Abramelin Keldor