Scattered Quotes & Sayings

The primal duties shine aloft, like stars;
The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,
Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers. — William Wordsworth

I am all made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam
Lost and found like you and me all scattered out on the seas...
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run upon this beach
Come on and sew us together, we're just some tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember — Listener

A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety. It's as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there ... is ... no ... key. — Bret Easton Ellis

That mighty Being, who heaped up these craggy rocks, and reared these stupendous mountains, and poured out these streams in all directions, and scattered immortal beings throughout these deserts - He is present, by the influence of his Holy Spirit, and accompanies the sound of the gospel with converting, sanctifying power. — Adoniram Judson

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again. — Thich Nhat Hanh

My stories do have plot. They're not just scattered language; they're controlled, toward an end. — Barry Hannah

Every now and then one stands up and orates at length to the unfortunate crowd, after which he bows to their scattered applause. Personally, I think they'd be better served by plates broken over their heads than by hand-claps. — Cat Hellisen

Instead he felt only love. And that was the miracle. The surge in hatred since the war began had created more love around it. It was indomitable, mad, and everlasting, scattered through the rich and the poor, deep and calm in the Quakers, hot and fierce in the mothers, faithful in the warriors, wistful in the pets, seeping its way into mercy and atrocity, destroying things, rebuilding them. — Kathy Hepinstall

thinking how soon
all in this world passes
I loved
the yellow roses
that now have scattered — Shiki Masaoka

French Polynesia embraces a vast ocean area strewn with faraway outer islands, each with a mystique of its own. The 118 islands and atolls are scattered over an expanse of water 18 times the size of California, though in dry land terms the territory is only slightly bigger than Rhode Island. The distance from one end of the island groups to another is four times further than from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Every oceanic island type is represented in these sprawling archipelagoes positioned midway between California and New Zealand. The coral atolls of the Tuamotus are so low they're threatened by rising sea levels, while volcanic Tahiti soars to 2,241 meters. Bora Bora and Maupiti, also high volcanic islands, rise from the lagoons of what would otherwise be atolls.
— David Stanley

The death of God has set the angels free. And they are terrible. There are principalities and powers. Angels are the thoughts of God. Now he had been dissolved into his thoughts which are beyond our conception in their nature and their multiplicity and their power. God was at least the name of something which we thought was good. Now even the name has gone and the spiritual world is scattered. There is nothing any more to prevent the magnetism of many spirits. — Iris Murdoch

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. — Black Elk

The charities of life are scattered everywhere, enameling the vales of human beings as the flowers paint the meadows. They are not the fruit of study, nor the privilege of refinement, but a natural instinct. — George Bancroft

My life is scattered and busy. I think of my home as a resort. When I step through the door, I feel relaxed. I almost feel like I've taken a vacation. — Chip Conley

When you die, the energy that kept you alive filters into the people you loved. Did you know that? It's like a fire you've tended all your life, and the sparks are all scattered into the wind ... That's why we survive as long as we do, because the people who loved us keep us going. — Kevin Brockmeier

Maybe our souls really are scattered in the things we love, and we are all completely lost, but from the moment she looked at me, I felt like I'd been found. — Claire Contreras

Then someone cried out, "Suicide bomber!" The crowd panicked. In the ensuing stampede, terrified pilgrims ran in both directions, many colliding in the middle of the bridge. A side railing collapsed under their weight, and scores leaped into the water whether they could swim or not. Hundreds were trampled to death. More than a thousand died. Hundreds of pairs of sandals were scattered around the bridge, left behind when pilgrims made their desperate dives into the river. I was given all of seventy-five seconds to tell the story on the Nightly News. — Richard Engel

The wolf pack will die when scattered by man, lonesome coyote survives. — Kris Kristofferson

Strong and in control - I don't necessarily feel that way. I'm a little bit more scattered in my life. I'm more of a street girl, in a way. — Rene Russo

NASA has been scattered to the four winds. — Eugene Cernan

Paracelsus At times I almost dream I too have spent a life the sages' way, And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance Ages ago; and in that act a prayer For one more chance went up so earnest, so Instinct with better light let in by death, That life was blotted out - not so completely But scattered wrecks enough of it remain, Dim memories, as now, when once more seems The goal in sight again. — Robert Browning

If scattered and forsaken bricks are enough to build a house, a wise man will collect them and build one — Kenneth Mahuka

Sophie did this?" He said, not for the first time. They were standing at the foot of Jessamine's bed. She lay flung upon it, her chest rising and falling slowly like the famous Sleeping Beauty waxwork or Madame du Barry. Her fair hair was scattered on the pillow, and a large, bloody welt ran across her forehead. Each of her wrists was tied to a post of the bed. "Our Sophie?"
Tessa glanced over at Sophie, who was sitting in a chair by the door. Her head was down, and she was staring at her hands. She studiously avoided looking at Tessa or Will. "Yes,"Tessa said, "and do stop repeating it."
" I think i may be in love with you, Sophie," said Will. "Marriage could be on the cards."
Sophie whimpered. — Cassandra Clare

Let me put it formally: If we ask what are the domains through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life - achieve happiness - the answer is that there are just four: family, vocation, community, and faith, with these provisos: Community can embrace people who are scattered geographically. Vocation can include avocations or causes. It is not necessary for any individual to make use of all four domains, nor do I array them in a hierarchy. I merely assert that these four are all there are. The stuff of life occurs within those four domains. — Charles Murray

The club survived though and became a symbol of hope and pride for over half a million refugees scattered across Azerbaijan, many of whom still live in temporary settlements within a few kilometers of the frontline. — Arthur Huizinga

Like dandelions they flew across the expanse
Of desert calm without advance
They filtered through the stilled "become"
Returning to the land they knew.
They knew no more than where they flew.
And so they gathered, one and all,
And scattered it throughout their path.
Only golden-shafted majesty could still their might.
And so they flew onward, without a path. — Gina Marinello-Sweeney

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount. — Joseph Addison

Do not be discouraged on account of the greatness of the work; only be humble and faithful ... He who scattered Israel has promised to gather them; therefore inasmuch as you are to be instrumental in this great work, He will endow you with power, wisdom, might, and intelligence, and every qualification necessary. — Joseph Smith Jr.

I see pieces of memories in his eyes. Pieces of us. They are broken, and scattered, but they are there, gradually coming together again at the sight of me. — Marie Lu

that we are just scattered pieces of the same puzzle, so when we hurt each other, we hurt ourselves. — Glennon Doyle Melton

I felt and saw the night outside deep within me. Wind and wetness, autumn, bitter smell of foliage, scattered leaves of the elm tree. — Hermann Hesse

Now, let's look again at the partial reflection of light by a layer of glass. How does it work? I talked about light reflected from the front surface and the back surface. This idea of surfaces was a simplification I made in order to keep things easy at the beginning. Light is really not affected by surfaces. An incoming photon is scattered by the electrons in the atoms inside the glass, and a new photon comes back up to the detector. It's interesting that instead of adding up all the billions of tiny arrows that represent the amplitude for all the electrons inside the glass to scatter an incoming photon, we can add just two arrows-for the "front surface" and "back surface" reflections-and come out with the same answer. Let's see why. — Richard Feynman

We are in a factionless storehouse, and the factionless, who are supposed to be scattered, isolated, and without community . . . are together inside it. Are together, like a faction. — Veronica Roth

The thought of how much happiness lay scattered across the universe, unrealized, in fragments, waiting for the right twist of fate to bring it together. — Leah Raeder

The troops were occasionally occupied in pursuing scattered bands going north or south, and on three occasions the large camp of Sitting Bull ventured south of the Canadian border, and important expeditions were sent against them. — Nelson A. Miles

I also remember being struck by de Sade's will, in which he asked that his ashes be scattered to the four corners of the earth in the hope that humankind would forget both his writings and his name. I'd like to be able to make that demand; commemorative ceremonies are not only false but dangerous, as are all statues of famous men. Long live forgetfulness, I've always said - the only dignity I see is in oblivion. — Luis Bunuel

I stood looking down out of the window. The street seemed miles down. Suddenly I felt as if I'd flung myself out of the window. I could see myself lying on the pavement. Then I seemed to be standing by the body on the pavement. I was two people. Blood and brains were scattered everywhere. I knelt down and began licking up the blood and brains — Doris Lessing

Once she was standing by her locker and her puka shells broke and scattered and she made a joke about it but he could tell she was upset. He wanted to buy her some more. He wanted to give her a million strands of little nesting polished shells, and tropical flowers and ice creams and lemonades and a pale blue surfboard to teach her to surf on and anything else she wanted. Instead he let his checkered Vans step on one of the rolling shells and crush it. — Francesca Lia Block

We must remember this when we are ready to reach for the sky.
God came down and confused man's language and scattered them. — Toba Beta

Dead fields under a November sky, scattered rose petals brown and turning up at the edges, empty pools scummed with algae, rot, decomposition, dust ... — Stephen King

The blade was sharp enough that she didn't feel the initial prick, but it didn't matter. The earth beside her opened up and the knife slid from her attacker's suddenly nerveless hand, thudding to the ground about the same time she did. His grip on her hand disappeared the instant that something else emerged in a blast of stone and magic.
Wynn's cavalry had arrived, in the form of one very large and very angry Guardian, a Guardian that was supposed to be nothing but the teeny-tiny pieces still scattered around her.
Huh. How about that? — Christine Warren

I've been scared and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me, Looks like between 'em they done Tried to make me Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'
But I don't care! I'm still here! — Langston Hughes

Beneath Albright's office, the colliery sprawled across the hillside, red brick buildings scattered as though hurled from a great height, a hotchpotch of mismatched structures spattered on the valley floor. At the bottom stood the winding house, wheels motionless, above it, the engineering sheds and workshops, canteen and bath house. All lay empty. No buzz and hum of machinery. No voices raised in laughter or dispute. Gwyn found it unsettling: his lads had been out a month and a half and already the power had drained from the place. In the stillness, he caught the echo of footsteps. The crunch of boots on gravel. Generations of long-gone Pritchards clocking in and out. He was bound to Blackthorn by the coal that clogged his veins and by a bond of duty. The strike left him as diminished as his pit, day dragging after idle day. — Kit Habianic

One night, returning to the house, he went into his father's shed. He stared at the unsold pots and the vases on the shelves, at their shapes and their designs, the illustrations of landscapes. He wondered what would become of them. He reached for one, then hesitated. He thought of them staying here, untouched, through the seasons and the years. He thought of the ones people had purchased, scattered throughout the country. He imagined that somewhere underneath the glaze and the paint there remained his father's hands. That they contained the heat of a kiln and a home that no longer existed. He wondered whether he would be able to recognize them if he saw them again. — Paul Yoon

We have domesticated crops over a very long period of time, like tens of thousands of years. And crops get - seeds get carried. Sometimes, if they're very small seeds, they get scattered off trucks. Pollen travels. — Nina Fedoroff

Cripes, just listen to that desperation mixed with a wild joie de vivre. That doesn't come out of nothing. They'll be able to hear that a massive eruption once rocked the world and scattered pain and passion in it's wake. — Cat Winters

The memories are so close I feel your presence everywhere. And I see forward so clearly and sadly to a time when the memories will be distant. I won't be able to picture your painting things scattered on a flat rock in Ammoudi or your bare feet soaking up the sunshine on Valia's garden wall. Now I see them. Long after that I will remember them. — Ann Brashares

Toward the end of her life a burglar broke into her house and pistol-whipped her. She was an elderly woman by then, and it sent her into a downward spiral. When she was in the hospital dying, I called, and she asked me not to come and see her; she wanted me to remember her as she was. I felt I had to honor her request. As we talked, she told me she was wearing the four-leaf clover necklace I had given her. Barbara [Stanwyck] was cremated wearing it, and her ashes were scattered over Lone Pine. The fact that a piece of me remained with her at the end was and is some consolation for her loss. — Robert Wagner

The author's differing experience of school geography as a faculty member going from parking lot to parking lot and to locations centered around HER office and her experience of the more scattered life of a student speaks to a larger truth. As adults, we are used to following the same routine and look romantically on anything different. — Rebekah Nathan

Eventually Theo would pick up their daughter, kiss the top of her head, and carry her to an old spruce stump. He'd crouch down, gather up the beach glass that was still scattered there, and whisper in her ear. "Let's build a fairy house. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Peter's denial was not just a personal weakness. He was in a leadership position, honored as the one who spoke for the group, and was second in command (when Jesus wasn't around). But his choice to publicly deny his place in the community at the side of Jesus had massive repercussions for the other disciples. They ran and hid, and from this point on in the Way of the Cross there is no mention of the disciples again in the Passion narrative. The sheep are scattered, routed, and demoralized. Peter's sin tore open the seems that held them together. — Megan McKenna

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip. "Hold — Charles Dickens

None of us can help where we were scattered, Blue. But none of us has to remain where we were scattered. — Amy Harmon

She leaped into space, high, higher than she'd ever been in her life. She came down with a clean snap, and the crowd scattered like birds from the swing of her feet. — Emma Donoghue

We Navajos believe in witchcraft. Cut hair and fingernail clippings should be gathered and hidden or burned. Such things could be used to invoke bad medicine against their owner. People should not leave parts of themselves scattered around to be picked up by someone else. Even the smallest children knew that. — Chester Nez

Apart from the positive woes of perdition, an eternity of wretchedness grows from the want of love to Christ as naturally as the oak grows from the acorn, or the harvest from the scattered grain. It is not that love to Christ merits heaven; it does far better, it makes heaven. It is, as it were, the organ of sensation that takes note of heaven's blessedness. — Andrew Kennedy Hutchison Boyd

So Plato talked about these beings that used to exist that had four legs and four arms and two heads. They were totally self-contained and ecstatic and powerful. Too powerful, so Zeus cut them all in half and scattered all the halves around the world so that humans were doomed to forever look for their other half, the one who shared their very soul. Only the luckiest humans find their split-apart, you see. — Jandy Nelson

I'm in a weird-ass mood today, Doc. Wired up, mind all over the place, looking for answers, reasons something solid to cling to, something real, but just when I think I've got it figured out and neatly filed under fixed instead of fucked, turns out I'm still shattered, scattered, and battered. But you probably already knew that, didn't you? ... You might not be able to help me. That makes me sad, but not for me. It makes me sad for you. It must be frustrating for a shrink to have a patient who's beyond fixing. That first shrink I saw when I got back to Clayton Falls told me no one is a lost cause, but I think that's bullshit. I think people can be so crushed, so broken, that they'll never be anything more than a fragment of a whole person. (129) — Chevy Stevens

I dreamed a limitless book,
A book unbound,
Its leaves scattered in fantastic abundance.
On every line there was a new horizon drawn,
New heavens supposed;
New states, new souls.
One of those souls,
Dozing through some imagined afternoon,
Dreamed these words.
And needing a hand to set them down,
Made mine. — Clive Barker

Across her face there seemed to pass many feelings and reflections: it was as if she ached to touch and gather in and make whole those scattered years of change. But how can time be gathered in and kissed? There is only flesh. — John McGahern

When you go out hunting wicked spirits, it's the simple things that matter most. The silvered point of your rapier flashing in the dark; the iron filings scattered on the floor; the sealed canisters of best Greek Fire, ready as a last resort ...
But tea bags, brown and fresh and plenty of them, and made (for preference) by Pitkin Brothers of Bond Street, are perhaps the simplest and best of all.
OK, they may not save your life like a sword-tip or an iron circle can, and they haven't the protective power of a sudden wall of fire. But they do provide something just as vital. They help keep you sane. — Jonathan Stroud

Just is not by other men of intelligence that an intelligent an is afraid of being thought a fool, so it is not by the great gentleman but by boors and 'bounders' that a man of fashion is afraid of finding his social value underrated. Three-fourths of the mental ingenuity displayed, of the social falsehoods scattered broadcast ever since the world began by people whose importance they have served only to diminish, have been aimed at inferiors. — Marcel Proust

That afternoon the sky was scattered with black clouds galloping in from the sea and clustering over the city. Flashes of lightening echoed on the horizon and a charged warm wind smelling of dust announced a powerful summer storm. When I reached the station I noticed the first few drops, shiny and heavy, like coins falling from heaven ... Night seemed to fall suddenly, interrupted only by the lightning now bursting over the city, leaving a trail of noise and fury. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

You're beautiful he whispered as he scattered kisses along the incision line and over to her bellybutton. When he heard her release the breath she'd been holding, he slipped his tongue inside the well of her navel. He heard her gasp again, but this time in a different way, an excited way. — M. Leighton

Back at the scene of the rollover they had brought in the dogs, who got one snootful of all the guts and gore scattered all over the place and, after a whispered conference, expressed their regrets and respectfully declined to participate. — Carsten Stroud

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet; But now I am a great king, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back. - The Road of Kings. The — Robert E. Howard

Our all-powerful God got so scared He scattered the human race across the face of the earth, and shattered their language to keep His children apart. — Chuck Palahniuk

No one goes anywhere alone, least of all into exile - not even those who arrive physically alone, unaccompanied by family, spouse, children, parents, or siblings. No one leaves his or her world without having been transfixed by its roots, or with a vacuum for a soul. We carry with us the memory of many fabrics, a self soaked in our history, our culture; a memory, sometimes scattered, sometimes sharp and clear, of the streets of our childhood, of our adolescence; the reminiscence of something distant that suddenly stands out before us, in us, a shy gesture, an open hand, a smile lost in a time of misunderstanding, a sentence, a simple sentence possibly now forgotten by the one who had said it. — Paulo Freire

I can conceive few human states more enviable than that of the man to whom, panting in the foul laboratory, or watching for his life under the tropic forest, Isis shall for a moment lift her sacred veil, and show him, once and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of; some law, or even mere hint of a law, explaining one fact; but explaining with it a thousand more, connecting them all with each other and with the mighty whole, till order and meaning shoots through some old Chaos of scattered observations. — Charles Kingsley

There are many ways to be haunted, not all of them supernatural. From photo album to love letters, the memory of bad choices, broken promises, lost loves, and scattered dreams can often longer far longer than the glow if satisfaction from our greatest accomplishments. Indeed, the most frightening ways to be haunted may be in the many ways we haunt ourselves. — Tonya Hurley

Neither of us ever threw anything away. We made
a lot of mix tapes while we were together. Tapes for making out, tapes for dancing, tapes for falling asleep. Tapes for doing the dishes, for walking
the dog. I kept them all. I have them piled up on my bookshelves, spilling out of my kitchen cabinets, scattered all over the bedroom floor. I don't
even have pots or pans in my kitchen, just that old boom-box on the counter, next to the sink. So many tapes. — Rob Sheffield

You fight them, his father had said.
You don't trust them. His father had been right. And his father had been ready. Rabatians were cowards and deceivers, they should have scattered when their duplicitous attack met the full force of the Akielon army. But for some reason they hadn't fallen at the first sign of a real fight, they had stood firm, and shown metal, and, for hour upon hour, they had fought, until the Akielon lines had begun to slip and falter.
And their general wasn't the king, it was the twenty-five year old prince, holding the field.
Father, I can take him, he'd said.
Then go, his father had said, and bring
us back victory. — C.S. Pacat

Art
the fresh feeling, new harmony, the transforming magic which by means of myth brings back the scattered distracted soul from its modern chaos
art, not politics, is the remedy. — Saul Bellow

There were about 30 children at one stage, running around like savages at a place called Callow Hill, near Monmouth, which was owned by my grandparents. They lived in the big house, but my dad had five brothers and a sister, and they all lived in various houses scattered on the hill. — Saul David

Clowns, hoboes, gypsies, and furry animals of all kinds scattered madly and dived for cover. No doubt they thought I'd finally lost it and was planning to lob more grenades. — Donna Andrews

Before long four dozen balls lay scattered at the base of the fence, a harvest of dirty white fruit. — Chad Harbach

The towns were like scattered puddles, left behind by a receding tide, still holding some precious drops of electricity, but drying out in a desert of rations, quotas, controls, and power-conservation rules. — Ayn Rand

Across the Atlantic, in the scattered, far-flung, rural settlements of colonial America, hospitality had become a central concern, and hostesses, like peacocks displaying their iridescent plumage, tried to outdo one another with their creative food displays. — Kate Christensen

[P]erhaps the burrows in which our lives were spent really were dark and dirty, and perhaps we ourselves were well suited to these burrows, but in the blue sky above our heads, up among the thinly scattered stars, there were special, artificial points of gleaming light, creeping unhurriedly through the constellations, points created here out of steel, semiconductors, and electricity, and now flying through space. And every one of us, even the blue-faced alcoholic we had passed on the way here, huddling like a toad in a snowdrift, even Mitiok's brother, and of course Mitiok and I - we all had our own little embassy up there in the cold pure blueness. — Victor Pelevin

A really sublime moment is that when the last ray of light breaks in upon the soul, and marshals into a single group all the scattered disconnected truths there. There is such a vast difference between the moment which follows, and the moment which precedes this one, between what we were before, and what we are after, that the word grace has been invented to convey the idea of this magic stroke, of this light from on high. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

I realize then that the disappearance of a culture does not signify the disappearance of human value, but simply of certain means of expressing this value, yet the fact remains that I have no sympathy for the current European civilization and do not understand its goals, if it has any. So I am really writing for friends who are scattered throughout the corners of the globe. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Penny rolled over, got to her feet, trying to get control of her scattered mind, but Quinn was behind her now and had his powerful arm around her neck.
"I will snap your neck, Penny. I swear to God, I will snap your neck. Nothing you can do will stop me."
Penny went limp. "You think the king will let you get away with this, Quinn?" she hissed.
"Anyone messes with me, Penny, you or anyone else, and I go on strike. See how well you enjoy life without me and my crews. Without food. — Michael Grant

Imagine a vast and glittering ocean seen from a great height. It stretches to the clear curved limit of every angle of horizon, the sun burning on a billion tiny wavelets. Now imagine a smooth blanket of cloud above the ocean, a shell of black velvet suspended high above the water and also extending to the horizon, but keep the sparkle of the sea despite the lack of sun. Add to the cloud many sharp and tiny lights, scattered on the base of the inky overcast like glinting eyes: singly, in pairs or in larger groups, each positioned far, far away from any other set. — Iain M. Banks

If astronomy teaches anything, it teaches that man is but a detail in the evolution of the universe, and the resemblant though diverse details are inevitably to be expected in the hosts of orbs around him. He learns that, though he will probably never find his double anywhere, he is destined to discover any number of cousins scattered through space. — Percival Lowell

Perhpas if I call out to Rat he might hear," said the Mole to himself, but without much hope.
Rat! Ratty! O Rat, please hear me!" he called out as loudly as he could, holding up his lantern as he did so, waving it about/ But the wind rushed and roared around him even more, and snatched his weak words away the moment they were they were uttered, and scattered them wildly and uselessly as if they were flakes of snow,
Even worse, the light of the lantern began to gutter, and then, quiet suddenly, an extra strong gust of wind blew it out.
Well then," said the daunted but resolute Mole, putting the spent lantern on the ground, "there's nothing else for it! Frozen rivers are dangerous thinngs, no doubt, but I must try to cross, despite the dangers."
The Willows in the Winter — William Horwood

The entrance ramp had been blocked by an overturned semi. Bright-burning flares had been scattered around it like birthday candles on some idiot child's cake. — Stephen King

Dandelion seeds were scattered across the glass, and as a light breeze blew, the fluffy ends were caught in the moving air and danced delicately off my windshield as they took flight, moving away from me, in the direction the man had gone. — Mia Sheridan

'The Bradshaws' is the appropriately inappropriate English title given to an enigma - some hundreds of thousands of mysterious rock art paintings scattered through the wilds of the Kimberley, an area larger than Germany in the remote, scarcely populated northwest of Australia. — Richard Flanagan

Someone's going to recognize us," Lex said to Uncle Mort without looking at him or moving her lips.
"No, they're not," he said, staring forward, keeping the same straight face. "The guards aren't even watching."
He was right. What few guards were left in the lobby were scattered, disorganized. They shouted for the citizens to remain calm, all the while sounding fairly panicked themselves. No one knew what had happened, as the only witnesses were now casually strolling toward the front door without a single eye looking their way.
Until the receptionist let out a shriek. "There they are!"
Uncle Mort let out a huff of defeat. "Mar-lene," he whined. "I thought we were cool."
"So much for the Wink of Trust," Lex said. — Gina Damico

For paradise we long. For perfection we were made ... This longing is the source of the hunger and dissatisfaction that mark our lives ... This longing makes our loves and friendships possible, and so very unsatisfactory. The hunger is for ... nothing less than perfect communion with the ... one in whom all the fragments of our scattered existence come together ... we must not stifle this longing. It is a holy dissatisfaction. Such dissatisfaction is not a sickness to be healed, but the seed of a promise to be fulfilled ... The only death to fear is the death of settling for something less. — Richard John Neuhaus

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

It's bright pinky-white sand was made entirely of shell dust, like star dust, among which, if you sifted it with your fingers, were infant shells as small as the grains but perfectly shaped. Scattered over the surface were larger shells of many kinds and shapes, some as delicate as flower petals, others, though small, built to withstand any battering sea. — L.M. Boston

And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space. — Kahlil Gibran

I shall gather myself into my self again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one. — Sara Teasdale

Next Christmas he was going to open this shabby sack of hers ... and put something in the money compartment. She would fritter it away, of course, in small unimportances; so that in the end she would not know what she had done with it; but perhaps a series of small satisfactions scattered like sequins over the texture of everyday life was of greater worth than the academic satisfaction of owning a collection of fine objects at the back of a drawer. — Josephine Tey

Moreover, the sciences are monuments devoted to the public good; each citizen owes to them a tribute proportional to his talents. While the great men, carried to the summit of the edifice, draw and put up the higher floors, the ordinary artists scattered in the lower floors, or hidden in the obscurity of the foundations, must only seek to improve what cleverer hands have created. — Charles-Augustin De Coulomb

Think of the glory. Think of your reputation. Think how great it'll look on your next resume."
On my cenotaph, you mean. Nobody will be able to collect enough of my scattered atoms to bury. You going to cover my funeral expenses, son?"
Splendidly. Banners, dancing girls, and enough beer to float your coffin to Valhalla."
- Miles coaxing Ky Tung to agree to an almost suicidal mission — Lois McMaster Bujold

In our own lives the voice of God speaks slowly, a syllable at a time. Reaching the peak of years, dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life-experiences backwards, some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Knowledge can be enormously costly, and is often scattered in widely uneven fragments, too small to be individually usable in decision making. The communication and coordination of these scattered fragments of knowledge is one of the basic problems- perhaps the basic problem- of any society. — Thomas Sowell

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness, And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream. And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space. Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds? And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless? — Khalil Gibran