Quotes & Sayings About Shadow Dance

Joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by shadow of the dance. A wedding-party returns from church, and a funeral winds to its door. The smiles and the sadness of life are the tragi-comedy of Shakespeare. Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror he beholds. — Robert Aris Willmott

A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods - the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep. — H.P. Lovecraft

I see what I want of Love ... I see horses making the meadow dance, fifty guitars sighing, and a swarm of bees suckling the wild berries, and I close my eyes until I see our shadow behind this dispossessed place ...
I see what I want of people: their desire to long for anything, their lateness in getting to work and their hurry to return to their folk ... and their need to say: Good Morning ... — Mahmoud Darwish

I said,'What's your problem?' Asshole." There was a question behind his question, and that shadow question was 'Do you want to dance? — Adrian Barnes

On Drinking Alone by Moonlight


Here are flowers and here is wine,
But where's a friend with me to join
Hand in hand and heart to heart
In one full cup before we part?

Rather than to drink alone,
I'll make bold to ask the moon
To condescend to lend her face
The hour and the scene to grace.

Lo, she answers, and she brings
My shadow on her silver wings;
That makes three, and we shall be.
I ween, a merry company

The modest moon declines the cup,
But shadow promptly takes it up,
And when I dance my shadow fleet
Keeps measure with my flying feet.

But though the moon declines to tipple
She dances in yon shining ripple,
And when I sing, my festive song,
The echoes of the moon prolong.

Say, when shall we next meet together?
Surely not in cloudy weather,
For you my boon companions dear
Come only when the sky is clear. — Li Bai

Where tree leaves dance... one shall find flames... the fire's shadow will illuminate the village... and once again tree leaves shall bud anew. — Masashi Kishimoto

A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard
A voice singing on a May Eve like this,
And followed half awake and half asleep,
Until she came into the Land of Faery,
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.
And she is still there, busied with a dance
Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood,
Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top. — W.B.Yeats

Both light and shadow are the dance of Love.
Love has no cause, it is the astrolabe of God's secrets.
Lover and loving are inseparable and timeless.
Although I may try to describe love,
when I experience it, I am speechless.
Although I may try to write about love, I am rendered helpless.
My pen breaks, and the paper slips away
at the ineffable place where lover loving and loved are one.
Every moment is made glorious by the light of Love. — Rumi

We are your shadow uncles, your angel godfathers, your mother's or your grandmother's best friend from college, the author of that book you found in the gay section of the library. We are characters in a Tony Kushner play, or names on a quilt that rarely gets taken out anymore. We are the ghosts of the remaining older generation. You know some of our songs. We do not want to haunt you too somberly. We don't want our legacy to be gravitas. You wouldn't want to live your life like that, and you won't want to be remembered like that, either. Your mistake would be to find our commonality in our dying. The living part mattered more. We taught you how to dance. — David Levithan

But it's not as simple as that," he told himself, because the dance of the Shadow Warrior showed him that silence had its own grace and beauty (just as speech could be graceless and ugly); and that Action could be as noble as Words; and that creatures of darkness could be as lovely as the children of the light. "If Guppees and Chupwalas didn't hate each other so," he thought, "they might actually find each other pretty interesting. Opposites attract, as they say. — Salman Rushdie

I'm a beauty guru, I just love all of that stuff. We have a makeup artist for 'Dance Moms' that touches us up and stuff, but I love doing my own makeup; sometimes I do my friends', too. My favorite is doing eye shadow and eyeliner. — Maddie Ziegler

I want to be taken playfully, not seriously - not with a long British face, but with beautiful laughter. Your laughter, your playfulness is the recognition that you have understood me. Your seriousness shows that you have misunderstood me, you have missed it - because seriousness is nothing but sickness. It is another name of sadness; it is a shadow of death. And I am all for life. If it is needed for your laughter, your dance, even to reject me, then reject me - but don't reject the dance and the song and the life, because that is my teaching. — Rajneesh

He lay with a pack of panting dogs on a hill overlooking plains where antelope grazed. He marched with ants, and labored in the rigors of the nest, filing eggs. He danced the mating dance of the bower bird, and slept on a warm rock with his lizard kin. He was a cloud. He was the shadow of a cloud. He was the moon that cast the shadow of a cloud. He was a blind fish; he was a shoal; he was a whale; he was the sea. He was the lord of all he surveyed. He was a worm in the dung of a kite. He did not grieve, knowing his life was a day long, or an hour. He did not wonder who made him. He did not wish to be other. He did not pray. He did not hope. He only was, and was, and was, and that was the joy of it. — Clive Barker

Her heart sprang up into her throat.
Watching that shadow play was like paying a quarter for a peep show. Only she got it for free.
He thinks I'm pretty.
Butterflies did a dance around her heart before she could swat them away.
Behind the shade. his shadow unbuttoned those soft, worn, butt-hugging jeans and slid them down his lean hips. Charli sucked in a big gulp of air, then headed back to the veranda and her glass of wine.
With all the estrogen doing a conga line through her blood, she needed a drink.
Well, she really needed something else.
But she'd settle for a drink. — Candis Terry

Rand Paul does not like being compared to his father Ron any more than sons named Bush like to dance in their father's shadow, but the crucial difference is that while the Bushes all hail from the relative mainstream of the GOP, the Pauls have an ideological tributary virtually to themselves. — Nancy Gibbs

You're kidding," i said. "i'm thinking about plans for doomsday, and you're worried about being late to a dance? — Serpent's Shadow Rick Riordan

I'm your phantom dance partner. I'm your shadow. I'm not anything more. — Haruki Murakami

I thought cobblers just ate shoe leather" Jocelyn says as she and her shadow dance by us.
I've had enough of this one. "I never have, but if you want to try leather, I'm happy to shove some down your throat. — Jen Calonita

running to and fro with trays of refreshments. Odo, who knew that his mother lived in the Duke's palace, had vaguely imagined that his father's death must have plunged its huge precincts into silence and mourning; but as he followed the abate up successive flights of stairs and down long corridors full of shadow he heard a sound of dance music below and caught the flash of girandoles through the antechamber doors. The thought that his father's death had made no difference to any one in the palace was to the child so much more astonishing than any of the other impressions crowding his brain, that these were scarcely felt, and he passed as in a dream through rooms where servants were quarrelling over cards and waiting-women rummaged in wardrobes full of perfumed finery, to a bedchamber in which a lady dressed in weeds sat disconsolately at supper. "Mamma! Mamma!" he cried, springing — Edith Wharton

Okay, we should go.' Kylie touched Della's arm. But then, being Kylie and unable to leave on a bad note, she looked back at the new vamp. 'Welcome to Shadow Falls. I'm Kylie'
Della rolled her eyes. Why did Kylie think she had to play nice?
'You're Kylie Galen?' he asked, looking in awe 'Wow, I've heard about you.'
'Don't believe half of it,' Kylie said, a bit bashful
'I'm Chase Tallman,' he said, totally trying to impress Kylie. He even puffed out his chest a little, like a damn bird doing some kind of mating dance. Yeah, keep that up and I know a werewolf that'll be chomping on your ass! — C.C. Hunter

Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance. — Carl Sandburg

Capture a shadow, dance with the wind, stand in a rainbow, begin at the end. — Mary Anne Radmacher

Of course, I believe most of the older noblemen are actually bringing their sons - only ones eligible for marriage, of course - to dance with me. The consensus seems to be that I would make a pretty good catch.
You aren't going to marry a boring nobleman's boring son.
No?
No, because if one proposes to you, he'll be eaten by morning. Dragons have very healthy appetites.
Draconi don't eat people.
I've been looking for a new hobby. — C.J. Redwine

Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. — Kahlil Gibran

You think my life is camouflage?" Ben held the stare. "Sir, I think everything you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you let yourself sleep is nothing more than a shadow dance. — John Wiltshire

Some lights cast more than one shadow. Stand before nightfall and you'll see for yourself. The flames shift and dance, never still. The shadows grow tall and short, and every man casts a dozen. Some are fainter than others, that's all. Well, men cast shadows across the future, as well. One shadow or many. - Stannis — George R R Martin

I tend to gravitate away from the more trendy Ibiza style of dance music. It's not me. — DJ Shadow

Shadows." The world seemed darker when he said it.
"Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark. — George R R Martin

At home I have a blue piano.
But I can't play a note.
It's been in the shadow of the cellar door
Ever since the world went rotten.
Four starry hands play harmonies,
The Woman in the Moon sang in her boat.
Now only rats dance to the clanks.
The keyboard is in bits.
I wept for what is blue. Is dead.
Sweet angels, I have eaten
Such bitter bread. Push open
The door of heaven. For me, for now-
Although I am still alive-
Although it is not allowed — Else Lasker-Schuler

You see someone more interesting than me?" asked Simon. In the dream he was mysteriously an expert dance. He steered her through the crowd as if she were a leaf caught in a river current. He was wearing all black, like a shadow hunter, and it showed his coloring to a good advantage: dark hair, lighted brown skin,white teeth. He's handsome, Clary thought, with a jolt of surprise. "There's no one more interesting than you," Clary said. "It's just this place. I've never seen anything like it." She turned again as they passed a champagne fountain ... She was now dancing with Jace, who was wearing white, the material of his shirt a thin cotton ... — Cassandra Clare

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way. — Li Bai

The song is gone; the dance
is secret with the dancers in the earth,
the ritual useless, and the tribal story
lost in an alien tale.
Only the grass stands up
to mark the dancing-ring; the apple-gums
posture and mime a past corroboree,
murmur a broken chant.
The hunter is gone; the spear
is splintered underground; the painted bodies
a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot.
The nomad feet are still.
Only the rider's heart
halts at a sightless shadow, an unsaid word
that fastens in the blood of the ancient curse,
the fear as old as Cain. — Judith A. Wright

Being nonreactive to destructive or hostile behaviour does not imply passive acceptance of it. Rather, it means we need to deal with it, take off our blinders and see the unacceptable. To redirect the destructive enery, we must dance with the shadow, not kill it. When we can achieve this stance, we learn to confront maladaptive or nonproductive behaviour matter-of-factly, without becoming embroiled in the heat of our own emotions. This nonreflexive style of being in the world is potent. — Adele Von Rust McCormick

Bound for your distant home"

Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I've known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.

But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, 'When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.'

But there, alas, where the sky
shines with blue radiance,
where olive-tree shadows lie
on the waters glittering dance,
your beauty, your suffering,
are lost in eternity.
But the sweet kiss of our meeting ......
I wait for it: you owe it me ....... — Alexander Pushkin