Sleeping Too Long Quotes & Sayings

Well, I believe she went in to rescue some Raggers from the pits," Cuffs said. "She wasn't all that specific."
"She went in to rescue - why would she do that?" Amon gripped the ironwork, studying the streetlord's face. Was he lying? And if so, what was the purpose?
"Guess she's kind of taken with us," Cuffs said. "You know, the glamor of the gang life and all. Getting beat up every other day, arrested for crimes you didn't commit, long nights in gaol, sleeping in the cold and wet. It's ... seductive." He raised an eyebrow. — Cinda Williams Chima

I growl with frustration at my reflection in the mirror. My hair is fifty shades messed up. Why is it so kinky and out of control? I need to stop sleeping with it wet. As I brush my long brown hair, the girl in the mirror with the brown eyes too big for her head stares back at me. Wait ... my eyes are blue! It dawns on me that I've been staring at a poster of Kristen Stewart for five minutes. My own hair is fine. — Fanny Merkin

I love sleeping in my son's silly racecar bed. I love watching hours of 'Yo Gabba Gabba.' I love long playdates with his best friend Jack and traveling with Zev. Most of all I love coming home from work and seeing Zev run up to me saying, 'My mommy's home! My mommy's home!' — Marissa Jaret Winokur

Anyhow," she went on, "so long as my mother forced me to embroider, I insisted on choosing a pattern that interested me. I've never understood why girls are always made to stitch insipid flowers and ribbons." "Well, just to hazard a guess ... " Colin straightened his edge. "Perhaps that's because sleeping on a bed of flowers and ribbons sounds delightful and romantic. Whereas sharing one's bed with a primeval sea snail sounds disgusting." Her jaw firmed. "You're welcome to sleep on the floor." "Did I say disgusting? I meant enchanting. I've always wanted to go to bed with a primeval sea snail. — Tessa Dare

At midnight the would-be ascetic announced: "This is the time to give up my home and seek for God. Ah, who has held me so long in delusion here?" God whispered, "I," but the ears of the man were stopped. With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed. The man said, "Who are ye that have fooled me so long?" The voice said again, "They are God," but he heard it not. The baby cried out in its dream, nestling close to its mother. God commanded, "Stop, fool, leave not thy home," but still he heard not. God sighed and complained, "Why does my servant wander to seek me, forsaking me? — Rabindranath Tagore

A stranger hurrying as fast as he could over the icy sidewalks looked in. He saw a circle of singing people bathed in the clean white light from a tree, and his heart did a somersault, and the image stayed with him; it merged with him even as he came home to his own children, who were already sleeping in their beds, to his wife crossly putting together the tricycle without the screwdriver that he'd run out to borrow. It remained long after his children ripped open their gifts and abandoned their toys in puddles of paper and grew too old for them and left their house and parents and childhoods, so that he and his wife gaped at each other in bewilderment as to how it had happened so terribly swiftly. All those years, the singers in the soft light in the basement apartment crystallized in his mind, became the very idea of what happiness should look like. — Lauren Groff

In all well-organised brains, the predominating idea - and there always is one - is sure to be the last thought before sleeping, and the first upon waking in the morning. Andrea had scarcely opened his eyes when his predominating idea presented itself, and whispered in his ear that he had slept too long. — Alexandre Dumas

When the bald associate had mentioned a sleeping beauty, he was referring to a fairy tale that you have probably heard one thousand times. Like all fairy tales, the story of Sleeping Beauty begins with 'Once upon a time,' and continues with a foolish young princess who makes a witch very angry, and then takes a nap until her boyfriend wakes her up with a kiss and insists on getting married, at which point the story ends with the phrase 'happily ever after.' The story is usually illustrated with fancy drawings of the napping princess, who always looks very glamorous and elegant, with her hair neatly combed and a long silk gown keeping her comfortable as she snores away for years and years. — Lemony Snicket

I've been half dead for ten years, Gris, but then you walked back into my life, and I came alive again. You make me want to live. You make me want to be a better man.
I love you, and when I said that, I mean that you're my reason for breathing, for eating, for drinking, for sleeping, for living. I will never hurt you. I will never leave you. I will always protect you. There is no one more important to me than you, and as long as I live, there never will be. — Katy Regnery

Will you allow this, Keir of the Cat?"

Keir's face was bland, but I could see the storm in his eyes. After a long moment, he turned to me. "Lara?"

"My oaths require that I treat any that ask it of me," I responded. "You are my Warlord, Keir of the Cat. I respect that you are concerned for my safety. Please respect my oaths in return. Besides," I smiled at him, "it's a tent. If I so much as breathe hard, you will slash your way to my side."

He gave me a look then, an unhappy look, to be sure. But I raised my eyebrows at him, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. "Very well. As my Warprize requests."

Essa struggled to his feet. "Please refrain from slashing your way through my tent, Warlord." He walked toward what must be his sleeping area. "This way, Warprize. — Elizabeth Vaughan

Mom and Dad sleep soundly atop the white cushion, her in his lap and their legs tangled together. His handsome profile is scruffy, his nose buried in her long, pinkish blond hair. The strands twitch, alive with magic. Her gauzy wings are folded behind her like a butterfly's at rest.
They look so lovely together, the White knight and his fairy bride, in one another's arms at last. In spite of all they went through to reach this place, their love never faltered. They deserve this more than anyone I know. — A.G. Howard

It struck Linda suddenly that this was the middle of the night. Even here, in the city that never slept, most people now were sleeping. Law firm time was like casino time, only instead of an endless cocktail hour it was always a neon-bright afternoon. The dead center of the workday, all night long. — Tara Conklin

But the artist began to have misgivings as the wall underwent its transformation. Bigger than any pavement project he had yet undertaken, it made him restless. Over the years, a precise cycle had entered the rhythm of his life, the cycle of arrival, creation, and obliteration. Like sleeping, waking and stretching, or eating, digesting and excreting, the cycle sang in harmony with the blood in his veins and the breath in his lungs. He learned to disdain the overlong sojourn and the procrastinated departure, for they were the progenitors of complacent routine, to be shunned at all costs. The journey
chanced, unplanned, solitary
was the thing to relish.
Now, however, his old way of life was being threatened. The agreeable neighborhood and the solidity of the long, black wall were reawakening in him the usual sources of human sorrow: a yearning for permanence, for roots, for something he could call his own ... — Rohinton Mistry

A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, 'Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can't forget me, there's still more to write!' Impelled by that voice, I would find myself writing a novel. In this sense, too, my short stories and novels connect inside me in a very natural, organic way. — Haruki Murakami

We're involved with flower, fruit, grapevine.
They speak more than the language of the year.
Out of the darkness a blaze of colors appears,
and one perhaps that has the jealous shine
Of the dead, those who strengthen the earth.
What do we know of the part they assume?
It's long been their habit to marrow the loam
with their own free marrow through and through.
Now the one question: Is it done gladly?
The work of sullen slaves, does this fruit
thrust up, clenched, toward us, its masters?
Sleeping with roots, granting us only
out of their surplus this hybrid made of mute
strength and kisses - are they the masters? — Rainer Maria Rilke

A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby. — John Steinbeck

I returned to the fields of glory, where the green grass an' flowers grow,
An' the wind softly sings the story of the braves lad of long ago.

In the great glen, they lie a-sleeping, where the cool waters gently flow,
An' the grey mist is sadly weeping for the brave lads of long ago.

See the tall grass is there a-waving as their flags were so long ago;
With their heads high, were forward braving, marching onwards to meet the foe.

March no more, my soldier laddie, there is peace where there once was war.
Sleep in peace, my soldier laddie. Sleep in peace now, the battle's o'er. — Unknown

The first glance at the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it
cockroaches as large as peach leaves
fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they stuck. I was beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck.
The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island schooner life. — Mark Twain

After the long silence, Mara said, "You know, I never thought I could have love." "Neither did I, though I wanted it quite desperately," Penelope added, standing and moving to the pram in the corner, where she settled the sleeping future duke into his pristine cocoon of blankets. "I did not think it was real," Pippa said. "I could not see it, and therefore, I did not believe it. — Sarah MacLean

Lay down
Your tired & weary head my friend.
We have wept too long
Night is falling
And you are only sleeping

We have come to this journey's end
It's time for us to go
To meet our friends
Who beckon us
To jump again

From across a distant sky
A C-130 comes to carry us
Where we shall all wait
For the final green light

In the light of
The pale moon rising
I see far on the horizon
Into the world of night and darkness
Feet and knees together

Time has ceased
But cherished memories still linger
This is the way of life and all things
We shall meet again
You are only sleeping. — Jose N. Harris

But I have long loved the written word, and come to see in it the power of the sleeping lion. This is my name. This is who I am. This is how I got here. In the absence of an audience, I will write down my story so that it waits like a restful beast with lungs breathing and heart beating. — Lawrence Hill

The simple life on the farm was everything to me. Nothing was more relaxing after a long plane flight than to reach the winding driveway that led up to my house. The quiet of the night was more soothing than a sleeping pill. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

What is it you want from me, Hugh?"
"Short term, I'd like you to say my name with a please attached to it. I'd like to walk into Jester Park with you on my arm."
[ ... ]
"Long term, I want to win. And I will win, Kate. You'll put up a good fight, but eventually you'll be sleeping in my bed and fighting with me back to back. We'll be good together. I promise you."
"What part of no don't you understand?"
"The part where I don't get what I want. — Ilona Andrews

Guilt isn't in cat vocabulary. They never suffer remorse for eating too much, sleeping too long or hogging the warmest cushion in the house. They welcome every pleasurable moment as it unravels and savour it to the full until a butterfly or falling leaf diverts their attention. They don't waste energy counting the number of calories they've consumed or the hours they've frittered away sunbathing.
Cats don't beat themselves up about not working hard enough. They don't get up and go, they sit down and stay. For them, lethargy is an art form. From their vantage points on top of fences and window ledges, they see the treadmills of human obligations for what they are - a meaningless waste of nap time. — Helen Brown

I smiled and looked at her- there she was with such a genuine grin and twinkle in her eyes. I kissed my mother on her forehead and took a long look in to her hazel eyes. I wondered when I would have the next chance to see her as I whispered, 'I love you." Mother didn't respond. She didn't look well- she had a tint of green and yellow to her skin and her thinning hair was a dull salt and pepper color, cut extra short and clinging to her scalp. She had no makeup on, which told me she just had no more energy.

I began to walk out of her room and turned to look at her. I wanted to run up to her, shake her, and beg her to tell me she loved me and was proud of me. But when I looked at her, she was already sleeping. — Jori Nunes

Beside the sleeping Max, who was curled up like a little boy, knees tucked into his chest, mouth pursed into a surprised pout, lay Sanary's Southern Lights. Perdu picked up the slim volume. Max had underlined certain sentences in pencil and jotted some questions in the margins; he had read the book as a book ought to be read. Reading - an endless journey; a long, indeed never-ending journey that made one more temperate as well as more loving and kind. Max had set out on that journey. With each book he would absorb more of the world, things and people. — Nina George

Was emotionally true because I had already grown to feel that there existed men against whom I was powerless, men who could violate my life at will. I resolved that I would emulate the black woman if I were ever faced with a white mob; I would conceal a weapon, pretend that I had been crushed by the wrong done to one of my loved ones; then, just when they thought I had accepted their cruelty as the law of my life, I would let go with my gun and kill as many of them as possible before they killed me. The story of the woman's deception gave form and meaning to confused defensive feelings that had long been sleeping in me. My imaginings, of course, had no objective — Richard Wright

That night Glanton stared long into the embers of the fire. All about him his men were sleeping but much was changed. So many gone, defected or dead. The Delawares all slain. He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He'd long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men's destinies are given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he'd drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he'd ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them. Across — Cormac McCarthy

Samuel had raised his eyebrows and said, "Do you really want us to kill each other? Adam is the Alpha - and I'm a stronger dominant than he is. Now we've both lived long enough to control ourselves up to a point. But, if we're living together, sooner or later, we'd be at each other's throat."
"Adam's house is only a hundred yards from mine," I told him dryly. Samuel would have been right about any other wolf, but Samuel made his own rules. If he wanted to live in peace with Adam, he could manage it.
"Please." His tone was as far from pleading as it was possible to get.
"No," I told him.
There was another, longer pause.
"So how are you going to explain to your neighbors that there is a strange man sleeping on your front porch?"
He'd have done it, too - so I let him move in. — Patricia Briggs

I didn't long to be a designer. I always liked fashion, but it was always a bit sleeping in me. — Carolina Herrera

I was just wondering how long we were going to pretend like we annoyed each other before we started sleeping together. — Beck Anderson

Hey there, sleeping beauty ... "
Over his shoulder, the sky had deepened to a denim blue. "Did you kiss me awake?"
"I did." Daemon was propped on his side, using his arm to support his head. He placed his hand on my stomach and my chest fluttered in response. "Told you, my lips have mystical powers."
My shoulders moved in a silent laugh. "How long have you been here?"
"Not long." His eyes searched mine. "I found Blake sulking around the woods. He didn't want to leave while you were out here."
I rolled my eyes.
"As much as it bothers me, I'm glad he didn't."
"Wow. Pigs are flying. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

'Whatever you need to call yourself to help you sleep at night, that's fine. Just as long as you know you're sleeping next to me.' — T.J. Klune

As the long limousine purred to life Edwina felt as if she were Elizabeth, setting sail to battle the Spanish Armada. She was Elizabeth, damn it! What she had built no one was going to take away from her. Not her house, not her hotels, not her fine stable of horses
and most especially not the young thoroughbred she had left sleeping by the side of her Olympic-size outdoor pool. Some pleasures, she decided, were simply too enticing to give up. — Barbara Taylor Bradford

I take a good long look at her. I know life well enough to know you can't count on things staying around or standing still, no matter how much you want them to. You can't stop people from dying. You can't stop them from going away. You can't stop yourself from going away either. I know myself well enough to know that no one else can keep you awake or keep you from sleeping. That's all on me too. But man, I like this girl. — Jennifer Niven

Perhaps we have been dependent too long on language and thought, and need to reawaken our inherent sense of the subtle vibration of Energy-Consciousness. All you have to do is unblock the blocked parts and awaken the sleeping parts of your being to access it. — Ilchi Lee

More often than not, focusing on stress, pain and chaos in our lives creates even more stress, pain and chaos for us. Here's what I've experienced, and my guess is that it's happened to you as well: Whenever I am focused on how difficult my life is, I begin to feel overwhelmed, stressed, depressed, and worried. These emotions, in turn, influence my productivity, actions and choices. They may even change my sleeping patterns and compromise my immune system. Sooner or later they begin to interfere with my relationships with family and friends. They even hinder the way I worship or approach God. As these emotions continue to influence how I live, cope, function, and relate to those around me, they can even impact my finances and long-term security. — Gaylyn Williams

The night was fading. It was too early to be called dawn yet, but Taylor could just make out the outline of Will's weary, unshaven face. His deep blue eyes were the only color in the gray world of rain and shadows.
Will leaned in, and his mouth covered Taylor's, rough but sweet, his tongue seeking Taylor's. Taylor opened willingly to that kiss, forgetting for a second his scratched, scraped hands and the rain running down the back of his neck. They kissed a lot these days, especially for men who had never been much for kissing. Taylor had become expert in all Will's kisses, from the hungry, lustful kisses that always made his own cock rise so fast it hurt, to the tender, almost cherishing kisses that Will generally saved for when he thought Taylor was sleeping. That dawn kiss beneath the pine trees rippled through him like an electric shock, a reminder that, tired, wet, and lost as they might be, so long as they were together, they were all right. — Josh Lanyon

The corridor was still empty of all the feet in sad generations seeking water. yet the eyes unseeing clenched like teeth not disbelieving doubting even the absence of pain shin ankle knee the long invisible flowing of the stair-railing where a misstep in the darkness filled with sleeping Mother Father Caddy Jason Maury door I am not afraid only Mother Father Caddy Jason Maury geting so far ahead sleeping I will sleep fast when I door Door door It was empty too, the pipes, the porcelain, the stained quiet walls, the throne of contemplation. — William Faulkner

Were you sleeping?"
He chuckles. "Not by a long shot. I was just tryin' to convince myself not to make a move on you. — Simone Elkeles

I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. — John Steinbeck

Adam was in the dream, too; he traced the tangled pattern of ink with his finger. He said, "Scio quid hoc est." As he traced it further and further down on the bare skin of Ronan's back, Ronan himself disappeared entirely, and the tattoo got smaller and smaller. It was a Celtic knot the size of a wafer, and then Adam, who had become Kavinsky, said "Scio quid estis vos." He put the tattoo in his mouth and swallowed it.
Ronan woke with a start, ashamed and euphoric.
The euphoria wore off long before the shame did.
He was never sleeping again. — Maggie Stiefvater

He was only five-foot-ten, but people frequently mistook him for being over six feet, at least in part because his gigantic Afro made him appear larger than life. His thin, angular frame, which was shaped like an inverted triangle, furthered this illusion; he had narrow hips, a small waist, but impossibly wide shoulders and arms. His fingers were abnormally long and sinuous, and like the rest of him, they were a rich caramel color. His bandmates jokingly called him "The Bat" because of his preference for covering his windows and sleeping during the day, but the nickname also fit his penchant for wearing capes, which furthered his superhero appearance. — Charles R. Cross

The day Stamp Paid saw the two backs through the window and then hurried down the steps, he believed the undecipherable language clamoring around the house was the mumbling of the black and angry dead. Very few had died in bed, like Baby Suggs, and none that he knew of, including Baby, had lived a livable life. Even the educated colored: the long-school people, the doctors, the teachers, the paper-writers and businessmen had a hard row to hoe. In addition to having to use their heads to get ahead, they had the weight of the whole race sitting there. You needed two heads for that. Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. — Toni Morrison

And what I said was I'll miss you,
What I meant to say was that I love you,
What I wanted to say was that I meant what I said
I miss you like I miss my own bed
after too many nights of sleeping on couches
or hardwood floors
Or sitting silently behind the doors
Of hotel rooms became wounds
Breathing life in to this loneliness
I miss you
Like a burn victim must miss their own skin
I miss you like a sad ending
Must miss someplace new to begin
Because some say that the highway becomes a flat line
if you travel it for too long
I can't tell if that's true or false,
But I'm racing down it towards you trying to find my
Pulse. — Shane Koyczan

Well," said the third. "Somebody's got to do the honours." "I shall," said the queen, gently. She lowered her face to the sleeping woman's. She touched the pink lips to her own carmine lips and she kissed the sleeping girl long and hard. — Neil Gaiman

You're lost in your own world, in the things that happen there, and you've locked all the doors. Sometimes I look at you sleeping. I wake up and look at you and I feel closer to you when you're like that, unguarded, than when you're awake. When you're awake you're like someone with her eyes closed, watching a movie on the inside of your eyelids. I can't reach you anymore. Once upon a time I could, but not now, and not for a long time. — Nicole Krauss

The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify by their own lonesome familiarities to this feeling. Ecstasy, even , I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass. — Jack Kerouac

When I go to bed at night, I wear a sleeping bag. And for a long time, I wore mittens so that I couldn't open the sleeping bag. — Mike Birbiglia

Sleeping here is harder here in space than on a bed because the sleep position here is the same position throughout the day. You don't ever get that sense of gratifying relaxation here that you do on Earth after a long day at work. — Scott Kelly

I have nothing against 2 men sleeping together so long as I am not one of those 2 men. — Charles Bukowski

To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. — Herman Melville

What about the father?" I demanded. "Who is he?"
There was a long hesitation. "I don't think Tara is all-the-way sure."
"She must have some idea."
"Well, she thought she knew, but ... you know Tara. She's not very organized."
"How organized do you have to be to know who you're sleeping with?"
-Ella & Liza — Lisa Kleypas

And it is because they contain thus within themselves the hours of the past that human bodies have the power to hurt so terribly those who love them, because they contain the memories of so many joys and desires already effaced for them, but still cruel for the lover who contemplates and prolongs in the dimension of Time the beloved body of which he is jealous, so jealous that he may even wish for its destruction. For after death Time withdraws from the body, and the memories, so indifferent, grown so pale, are effaced in her who no longer exists, as they soon will be in the lover whom for a while they continue to torment but in whom before long they will perish, once the desire that owed their inspiration to a living body is no longer there to sustain them. Profound Albertine, whom I at once saw sleeping, and who was dead. — Marcel Proust

It's just that the churches have been sleeping for a long time. A lot of people argue that the churches are even dead. I don't believe they're dead, but they've been sleeping, but they, I hope, will wake up, and that's one of my tasks is to make sure they wake up as much as they do before I die. — Cornel West

Yesterday and today and tomorrow are not an arrow that shoots from past to present to future; rather all tenses, and sleeping and waking, mix and cohabit in an atemporal duration beyond clocks and calendars. The Aboriginal world began long ago when the Ancestors sang in Dreamtime the cosmic rhythms that give shape to the things we see, and it is the beginning right now, when a living Tiwi sings the Dream songs that continue, or are, the world. — Huston Smith

We have gone on too long blaming or pitying the mothers who devour their children, who sow the seeds of progressive dehumanization, because they have never grown to full humanity themselves. If the mother is at fault, why isn't it time to break the pattern by urging all these Sleeping Beauties to grow up and live their own lives? There never will be enough Prince Charmings or enough therapists to break that pattern now. It is society's job, and finally that of each woman alone. For it is not the strength of the mothers that is at fault but their weakness, their passive childlike dependency and immaturity that is mistaken for "femininity." Our society forces boys, insofar as it can, to grow up, to endure the pains of growth, to educate themselves to work, to move on. Why aren't girls forced to grow up - to achieve somehow the core of self that will end the unnecessary dilemma, the mistaken choice between femaleness and humanness that is implied in the feminine mystique? — Betty Friedan

I seem to grow more acutely conscious of the swift passage of time as I grow older. When I was small, days and hours were long and spacious, and there was play and acres of leisure, and many children's books to read. I remember that as I was writing a poem on "Snow" when I was eight. I said aloud, "I wish I could have the ability to write down the feelings I have now while I'm still little, because when I grow up I will know how to write, but I will have forgotten what being little feels like." And so it is that childlike sensitivity to new experiences and sensations seems to diminish in an inverse proportion to growth of technical ability. As we become polished, so do we become hardened and guilty of accepting eating, sleeping, seeing, and hearing too easily and lazily, without question. We become blunt and callous and blissfully passive as each day adds another drop to the stagnant well of our years. — Sylvia Plath

He would give anything if he could feel toward a lover one tenth of what he felt for Darling. Just for one heartbeat. But it wasn't meant to be. He'd accepted that a long time ago. Darling would always be heterosexual. Nothing would ever change that, and his best friend would die before sleeping with him. Why can't I walk away from Darling? Honestly, he'd tried. He'd gone from one man to another, hoping, aching that one of them would find a way into his jaded heart. And every one of them had disappointed him, and left him with scars that were deeper and uglier than the ones marring his body. But as he breathed Ture in, that part of him that he hated most surged forward. Hope was a fickle whore, and he hated the fact that he was her bitch. You've walked this path a million times, Mari. Only Darling was Darling. Everyone else was a poor substitution. Clenching — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Instead, choose decaf for your second cup of the day, engage in good sleeping habits, moderate insulin production in your diet, exercise Primally and boost energy naturally with cold water plunges, deep breathing sequences, napping or quick exercise breaks after long periods of inactivity. — Mark Sisson

I drift off for a while. I don't know how long, but when I open my eyes, the Oscars are still on and Alex tells me that Sid has gone and this makes me a little sad. Whatever the four of us had is over. He is my daughter's boyfriend now, and I am a father. A widower. No pot, no cigarettes, no sleeping over. They'll have to find inventive ways to conduct their business, most likely in uncomfortable places, just like the rest of them. I let him and my old ways go. We all let him go, as well as who we were before this, and now it's really just the three of us. I glance over at the girls, taking a good look at what's left. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

The labels on the little bottles and boxes do not tell you which one is the sleeping pill. Instead they have names, long strange names that slide out of shape while you are reading them. They sound like kings from history or alien planets. There are hundreds of them. — Paul Murray

You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here's a hint - ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn't just the women. It's the great male fantasy - all it takes is one dance to know that she's the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know - this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don't want a very long courtships. They want to know immediately. — David Levithan

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. — Voltaire

We sleep, allowing gravity to hold us, allowing Earth- our larger body- to recalibrate our neurons, composting the keen encounters of our waking hours (the tensions and terrors of our individual days), stirring them back, as dreams, into the sleeping substance of our muscles. We give ourselves over to the influence of the breathing earth. Sleep is the shadow of the earth as it seeps into our skin and spreads throughout our limbs, dissolving our individual will into the thousand and one selves that compose it- cells, tissues, and organs taking their prime directives now from gravity and the wind- as residual bits of sunlight, caught in the long tangle of nerves, wander the drifting landscape of our earth-borne bodies like deer moving across the forested valleys. — David Abram

I write in a hurry, because the little one, who has been sleeping a long time, begins to call for me. Poor thing! when I am sad, I lament that all my affections grow on me, till they become too strong for my peace, though they all afford me snatches of exquisite enjoyment. — Mary Wollstonecraft

The rats had crept out of their holes to look on, and they remained looking on for hours; soldiers and police often passing between them and the spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and hidden himself away with it, when the women who had tended the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy Ball - when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life ran in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course — Charles Dickens

See the land, her Easter keeping, Rises as her Maker rose. Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping, Burst at last from winter snows. Earth with heaven above rejoices ... — Charles Kingsley