Slept So Long Quotes & Sayings

The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix. — Stacy Schiff

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

In my late thirties the dream of disappointment and exhaustion had been the dream of the exploding head: the dream of a noise in my head so loud and long that I felt with the brain that survived that the brain could not survive; that this was death. Now, in my early fifties, after my illness, after I had left the manor cottage and put an end to that section of my life, I began to be awakened by thoughts of death, the end of things; and sometimes not even by thoughts so specific, not even by fear rational or fantastic, but by a great melancholy. This melancholy penetrated my mind while I slept; and then, when I awakened in response to its prompting, I was so poisoned by it, made so much not a doer (as men must be, every day of their lives), that it took the best part of the day to shake it off. And that wasted or dark day added to the gloom preparing for the night. — V.S. Naipaul

She walked down the basement steps. She saw an imaginary framed photo seep into the wall - a quiet-smiled secret. No more than a few meters, it was a long walk to the drop sheets and the assortment of paint cans that shielded Max Vandenburg. She removed the sheets closest to the wall until there was a small corridor to look through. The first part of him she saw was his shoulder, and through the slender gap, she slowly, painfully, inched her hand in until it rested there. His clothing was cool. He did not wake.
She could feel his breathing and his shoulder moving up and down ever so slightly. For a while, she watched him. Then she sat and leaned back.
Sleepy air seemed to have followed her.
The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder.
They breathed.
German and Jewish lungs. — Markus Zusak

Sometimes, when this flawed world seems unusually hateful, I wonder whether there might be some other place, far away, where I should have been. I cannot seem to imagine what that place might be, and if I can't even imagine it then how can I believe it exists? And yet the universe is so very, very wide, and perhaps it might exist anyway? But the stars are so very, very far away. It would take a long, long time to get there, even if I knew the way. And I wonder what I would dream about, if I slept for a long, long time ... — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I wouldn't say I'm the anchor, I'm the one person who sees everyone at work - I don't get to see a lot of people outside of work too much because I'm there all the time. Everyone asks me "how you doing, have you slept?" so I know I'm working long hours. — David Giuntoli

I slept so long and hard that when my mother woke me the next morning I was a stranger to myself. — Lauren Wolk

She pushed the bathroom door open to discover Magnus lurking on the other side, clutching a towel in one hand and his glittery hair in the other. He must have slept on it, she thought, because one side of the glittered spikes looked dented in. "Why does it take girls so long to shower?" he demanded. "Mortal girls, Shadowhunters, female warlocks, you're all the same. I'm not getting any younger waiting out here."
Clary stepped aside to let him pass. "How old are you, anyway?" she asked curiously.
Magnus winked at her. "I was alive when the Dead Sea was just a lake that was feeling a little poorly."
Clary rolled her eyes.
Magnus made a shooing moving. "Now move your petite behind. I need to get in there; my hair is a wreck. — Cassandra Clare

You," I surmised, and gestured round. "Thank you."
"No," he denied. His pale hair floated out from beneath his cap in a halo as he shook his head. "But I assisted. Thank you for bathing. It makes my task of checking on you less onerous. I'm glad you're awake. You snore abominably."
I let this comment pass. "You've grown." I observed.
"Yes. So have you. And you've been sick. And you slept quite a long time. And now you're awake and bathed and fed. You still look terrible. But you no longer smell. It's late afternoon now. Are there any other obvious facts you'd like to review? — Robin Hobb

He knocked on the wall again. "Go check on Reth. But be careful. I haven't slept on purpose in way too long, so I'm going to bed. And since I'll be asleep anyway, come sleep next to me when you get back in, okay?"
I forced my voice to come out light and teasing. "Only if you're wearing footie pajamas."
He laughed. "I'll see if I can find a pair. — Kiersten White

Oh, you know ... , I start. In my head, I finish: Oh, you know, just the usual. I've slept in Otter's bed two or three times now. Oh, don't worry! We haven't really done anything. Except tell stories about you. And me. And him. Did you know he's wanted me for a long time? He really left because he needed me so bad that it hurt, and he thought he was projecting. Remember when I used to say that to you? That you're projecting? Well, he thought it too. But his was so bad that he used it as an excuse and got the hell out of Dodge, but then he came back, and I still don't completely understand why yet. Oh, and we may have made out. And I may have liked it. And this is after you and I broke up, like ... what? Two days ago? Three days ago? After being together since like second grade? So you know, the usual. — T.J. Klune

And so I fell devoutly asleep and slept a long time, because young people seem to need sleep more than the old, who have already slept so much and are preparing to sleep for all eternity. — Umberto Eco

With Naoko gone, I went to sleep on the sofa. I hadn't intended to do so, but I fell into the kind of deep sleep I had not in a long time, filled with a sense of Naoko's presence. In the kitchen were the dishes Naoko ate from, in the bathroom was the toothbrush Naoko used, and in the bedroom was the bed in which Naoko slept. Sleeping soundly in this apartment of hers, I wrung the fatigue from every cell of my body, drop by drop. I dreamed of a butterfly dancing in the half-light. — Haruki Murakami

So they would't suffer too much from hunger, they slept and rested in bed for as long as they could. They lost all notion of time, and if Brossier hadn't come back they would never have left that room, not even the bed, where they listened to music and little by little drifted off. The last thing they saw from the outside world were the snowflakes falling all day on the sill of the open window. — Patrick Modiano

But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent compliment, could win Catherine from thinking that some very different object must occasion so serious a delay of proper repose. To be kept up for hours, after the family were in bed, by stupid pamphlets was not very likely. There must be some deeper cause: something was to be done which could be done only while the household slept; and the probability that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the pitiless hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food, was the conclusion which necessarily followed. Shocking as was the idea, it was at least better than a death unfairly hastened, as, in the natural course of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness of her reputed illness, the absence of her daughter, and probably of her other children, at the time - all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment. Its origin - jealousy perhaps, or wanton cruelty - was yet to be unravelled. — Jane Austen

So the little thing grew bigger. He was healthy and normal, ate regularly, slept long hours, and yet the growing little thing was becoming an obsession. WORK PERFORMED. The phrase haunted his brain. — Jack London

At Evensong one night, while Holly played at sax and Mrs. Bethel Utemeyer joined in, I saw him: Holiday, racing past a fluffy white Samoyed. He had lived to a ripe old age on earth and slept at my father's feet after my mother left, never wanting to let him out of his sight ... I waited for him to sniff me out, anxious to know if here, on the other side, I would still be the little girl he slept beside. I did not have to wait long: he was so happy to see me, he knocked me down. — Alice Sebold

Mollie, tell me what happened. I haven't slept in two days." "Guilty conscience?" "Yes!" he bellowed. "I never should have let you stay in that church so long! I wish I'd thrown you over my shoulder and dragged you to my house that first night." He tried to wrap his arms around her, but a stiff arm kept him at bay. The expression in her eyes was even worse. "For pity's sake, talk to me. Scream at me, hit me . . . just quit glaring like that. — Elizabeth Camden

before I got to the shore, which I conjectured was about eight o'clock in the evening. I then advanced forward near half a mile, but could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; at least I was in so weak a condition, that I did not observe them. I was extremely tired, and with that, and the heat of the weather, and about half a pint of brandy that I drank as I left the ship, I found myself much inclined to sleep. I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept sounder than ever I remembered to have done in my life, and, as I reckoned, about nine hours; for when I awaked, it was just day-light. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for, as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long — Jonathan Swift

He was asleep in a short time and he dreamed of Africa when he was a boy and the long, golden beaches and the white beaches, so white they hurt your eyes, and the high capes and the great brown mountains. He lived along that coast now every night and in his dreams he heard the surf roar and saw the native boats come riding through it. He smelled the tar and oakum of the deck as he slept and he smelled the smell of Africa that the land breeze brought at morning. — Ernest Hemingway,

And Spaceship Earth, that glorious and bloody circus, continued its four-billion-year-long spiral orbit about the Sun; the engineering, I must admit, was so exquisite that none of the passengers felt any motion at all. Those on the dark side of the ship mostly slept and voyaged into worlds of freedom and fantasy; those on the light side moved about the tasks appointed for them by their rulers, or idled waiting for the next order from above. — Robert Anton Wilson

I'm super sorry I slept so long. You should've nudged me or something.
Several somethings came to mind. — Robin Bielman

I am lying in the same bed where my mother died so long ago; on the same mattress,
beneath the same black wool coverlet she wrapped us in to sleep. I slept beside her, her
little girl, in the special place she made for me in her arms.
I think I can still feel the calm rhythm of her breathing; the palpitations and sighs that
soothed my sleep ... I think I feel the pain of her death ... But that isn't true.
Here I lie, flat on my back, hoping to forget my loneliness by remembering those times.
Because I am not here just for a while. And I am not in my mother's bed but in a black box
like the ones for burying the dead. Because I am dead.
I sense where I am, but I can think ... — Juan Rulfo

Experiment with this - on such and such a day I slept so many hours and felt this way afterward. I ate x amount of food and was able to work for this long. In my forties my face began to line - science has told us this is the beginning of old age. How can the science that measures and combines and mixes and observes tell us what is behind the sleep?" Alexander laughed. "Ouspensky, science can measure how long we sleep, but can it tell us what we dreamed about? It will observe our reactions, it can tell if we twitched or laughed, or cried, but can it tell us what was inside our own head? — Paullina Simons

You go to Hawaii alone, buy the way?"
"Who goes to Hawaii alone? I went with a girl. She's only thirteen, though."
"You slept with a thirteen-year-old girl?"
"What Do you think I am? The kid doesn't even wear a bra yet."
"Then why'd you go with her?"
"To teach her table manners, interpret the mysteries of the sex-drive, bad-mouth Boy George, go see E.T. You know, the usual."
"Gotanda gave me a long look. Then he skewed his lips into a smile. "You really are a little odd, you know?"
Now everyone seemed to think so. Motion passed by unanimous vote. — Haruki Murakami

Every single iceberg filled me with feelings of sadness and wonder. Not thoughts of sadness and wonder, mind you, because thoughts require a thinker, and my head was a balloon, incapable of thoughts. I didn't think about Dad, I didn't think about you, and, the big one, I didn't think about myself. The effect was like heroin (I think), and I wanted to stretch it out as long as possible.
Even the simplest human interaction would send me crashing back to earthly thoughts. So I was the first one out in the morning, and the last one back. I only went kayaking, never stepped foot on the White Continent proper. I kept my head down, stayed in my room, and slept, but, mainly, I was. No racing heart, no flying thoughts. — Maria Semple

In the center of the sofa were two oblong companion pillows, shouldered so closely together that they looked like the Decalogue tablets. They were white, or had been white, and painfully stitched upon them with blue thread were companion mottoes, companion pictures. In the left pillow lies a girl, her long blue hair asprawl about her face, her eyes innocently shut, asleep. The motto: I SLEPT AND DREAMED THAT LIFE WAS BEAUTY. But the story continued, and on the next pillow her innocence is all torn away: there she stands, gripping a round broom; her hair now is pinned up severely and behind her sits a disheartening barrel churn. I WOKE AND FOUND THAT LIFE WAS DUTY. The pillows sat, stuffed and stiff as disapproving bishops; they could, he thought, serve as twin tombstones for whole gray generations. — Fred Chappell

That time I thought I was in love
and calmly said so
was not much different from the time
I was truly in love
and slept poorly and spoke out loud
to the wall
and discovered the hidden genius
of my hands
And the times I felt less in love,
less than someone,
were, to be honest, not so different
either.
Each was ridiculous in its own way
and each was tender, yes,
sometimes even the false is tender.
I am astonished
by the various kisses we're capable of.
Each from different heights
diminished, which is simply the law.
And the big bruise
from the long fall looked perfectly white
in a few years.
That astounded me most of all. — Stephen Dunn

The unluckiest of the Caribbean's sick came, in search of cures: a poor woman who, since childhood, had been counting the beats of her heart so long that she had run out of numbers to count; a Jamaican who, because of the tormenting sound the stars made, never slept; a sleepwalker who rose from bed at night, and in sleep undid all the things he had done in waking; and many other ailments too, less serious in nature. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

There are seaons when our passions have slept so long that we know not whether they still exist in us. So does flax forget that it is combustible when the fire is away from it. — Christian Nestell Bovee

I settled on the floor and whispered to Sam, "I want you to listen to me, if you can." I leaned the side of my face against his ruff and remembered the golden wood he had shown me so long ago. I remembered the way the yellow leaves, the color of Sam's eyes, fluttered and twisted, crashing butterflies, on their way to the ground. The slender white trunks of the birches, creamy and smooth as human skin. I remembered Sam standing in the middle of the wood, his arms stretched out, a dark, solid form in the dream of the trees. His coming to me, me punching his chest, the soft kiss. I remembered every kiss we'd ever had, and I remembered every time I'd curled in his human arms. I remembered the soft warmth of his breath on the back of my neck while we slept.
I remembered Sam. — Maggie Stiefvater