Smoke In The Air Quotes & Sayings

As soon as we fail to promptly obey the senses of smell and taste, they grow more lax in the fulfilment of their duty, and gradually allow harmful matter to pass unchallenged into the body. You are aware how one can become used to sitting in dense clouds of tobacco-smoke and inhaling it just as if it were healthy fresh air. The tongue has been still further corrupted, and we know that it can gradually be habituated to most unnatural food. Need I remind you of the different dishes and beverages which we now think indispensable, all of which were unknown some centuries ago? To these the present generation has grown so accustomed, that it would rather renounce a natural diet than give them up. — Anonymous

Another time, he blew up his house in Bel Air. Someone was doing drugs there and they left the ether open. The fumes are like wavy cartoon lines; they find fire and then the fire follows the fumes back to the source and explodes. When it's going critical, you can hear it go up in a whistle. Sly was back in a corner of his house, in a bathroom, and the ether had drifted from the kitchen. When he lit the pipe, it blew up the part of the house he was in - it was an addition, and it separated from the rest of the structure. When the smoke cleared, the bathroom had fallen clean off. He was standing on the edge of the house as cars drove by. He was standing on a ledge about six inches wide, with the door heading into the kitchen right next to him. He slid back into the house, closed the door, and stayed like that for more than a year. — George Clinton

Rubbish is immortal, it pervades the air, swells up in water, dissolves, rots, disintegrates, changes into gas, into smoke, into soot, it travels across the world and gradually engulfs it. (...) Rubbish is like death. What else is there that is so indestructible? — Ivan Klima

Weak and narrow are the powers implanted in the limbs of men; many the woes that fall on them and blunt the edge of thought; short is the measure of the life in death through which they toil; then are they borne away, like smoke they vanish into air, and what they dream they know is but the little each hath stumbled on in wandering about the world; yet boast they all that they have learned the whole - vain fools! for what that is, no eye hath seen, no ear hath heard, nor can it be conceived by mind of man. Thou, then, since thou hast fallen to this place, shalt know no more than human wisdom may attain. — Empedocles

My body slid from human to wolf in a crack! of black smoke. Wolf was panting and I watched frost dissipate on my hot tongue, sending tiny rivulets of steam into the air. The world was sharp and clear, and I never realized how many different colors of shadow there were. It made me savor the dark beauty of night even more. — Heather Heffner

We have soon to have everywhere smoke annihilators, dust absorbers, ozonizers, sterilizers of water, air, food and clothing, and accident preventers on streets, elevated roads and in subways. It will become next to impossible to contract disease germs or get hurt in the city, and country folk will got to town to rest and get well. — Nikola Tesla

Now when the men talk, their voices burn in the air, making smoke all over the place. We hear about change, about new country, about democracy, about elections and what-what.
They talk and talk, the men, lick their lips and look at the dead watches on their wrists and shake their hands and slap each other and laugh like they have swallowed thunder. — NoViolet Bulawayo

Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye
corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear — Allen Ginsberg

Luckily, the injured had all been triaged in another area, but there was too much smoke in the air to confirm that the others had moved to safety. Wheezing, Wells ran forward, coughing and wiping his eyes with his sleeves as he called out for anyone who needed help. There — Kass Morgan

From the olive-strewn forum, one could see the village down below. Not a sound came from it; wisps of smoke rose in the limpid air. The sea also lay silent, as if breathless beneath the unending shower of cold, glittering light. From the Chenoua, a distant cock crow alone sang the fragile glory of the day. Across the ruins, as far as one could see, there were nothing but pitted stones and absinthe plants, trees and perfect columns in the transparence of the crystal air. It was as if the morning stood still, as if the sun had stopped for an immeasurable moment. In this light and silence, years of night and fury melted slowly away. I listened to an almost forgotten sound within myself, as if my heart had long been stopped and was now gently beginning to beat again. — Albert Camus

You did study art there?" Gennie persisted.
Grant watched the smoke rise and the haze of heat that rippled the air. "Why?"
"Because it's obvious from that wicked little caricature you drew of me that you have talent, and that you've had training. What are you doing with it?"
"With what?"
Gennie drew her brows together in frustration. "The talent and the training. I'd have heard of you if you were painting."
"I'm not," he said simply.
"Then what are you doing?"
"What I want. Weren't you going to make a salad?"
"Damn it, Grant-"
"All right, don't get testy.I'll make it. — Nora Roberts

Pushing to his feet in an effort to avoid some of the water, Bram gave his wet and distinctly smelly dog a pat before he straightened, his breath becoming lodged in his throat when Miss Plum began walking toward him. Regret settled in as the thought struck him that there was really no way to avoid finally making her acquaintance even while smelling much like his dog. Summoning up a smile, he was about to offer her a greeting when a trace of smoke coming from one of the castle towers captured his attention. Knowing full well there was only one reasonable explanation for the smoke, he stepped toward Miss Plum just as a yell split the air. "Watch out below." As the roar of a cannon sounded, Bram did the only thing that sprang to mind. He yanked Miss Plum close to him, locked his arms around her slender body, and . . . jumped back into the moat. — Jen Turano

He'd probably disappear into a puff of smoke that spelled out "nope" in the air if Kelly told him he'd proposed while drugged. — Abigail Roux

WhhheeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! The scream of jet engines rises to a crescendo on the runways of the world. Every second, somewhere or other, a plane touches down, with a puff of smoke from scorched tyre rubber, or rises in the air, leaving a smear of black fumes dissolving in its wake. From space, the earth might look to a fanciful eye like a huge carousel, with planes instead of horses spinning round its circumference, up and down, up and down. Whhheeeeeeeeeee! — David Lodge

If he would just work with pure ideas like a proper mathematician he could go as fast as thought. As it happens, Alan has become fascinated by the incarnations of pure ideas in the physical world. The underlying math of the universe is like the light streaming in through the window. Alan is not satisfied with merely knowing that it streams in. He blows smoke into the air to make the light visible. He sits in meadows gazing at pine cones and flowers, tracing the mathematical patterns in their structure, and he dreams about electron winds blowing over the glowing filaments and screens of radio tubes, and, in their surges and eddies, capturing something of what is going on in his own brain. Turing is neither a mortal nor a god. He is Antaeus. That he bridges the mathematical and physical worlds is his strength and his weakness. — Neal Stephenson

It's important for a director to provide as much information, especially when we're working with things that we have to conceive out of thin air. You can't just expect an actor to understand: 'Oh, there's a dinosaur coming at you. OK, so I'm going to automatically know how big it is and what it sounds like? I need details. How close does he get to me? How tall is he? What will the impact be of his cry when he's screaming at me or when he's blowing smoke or air in my face? — Zoe Saldana

The air was fresh and crisp and had a distinct smell which was a mixture of the dried leaves on the ground and the smoke from the chimneys and the sweet ripe apples that were still clinging onto the branches in the orchard behind the house. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson

One instance of this failure is the case of smoke, as well as air pollution generally. In so far as the outpouring of smoke by factories pollutes the air and damages the persons and property of others, it is an invasive act. It is equivalent to an act of vandalism and in a truly free society would have been punished after court action brought by the victims. Air pollution, then, is not an example of a defect in a system of absolute property rights, but of failure on the part of the government to preserve property rights. Note that the remedy, in a free society, is not the creation of an administrative State bureau to prescribe regulations for smoke control. The remedy is judicial action to punish and proscribe pollution damage to the person and property of others.48 In — Murray N. Rothbard

Summer came whirling out of the night and stuck fast. One morning late in November everybody got up at Cloudstreet and saw the white heat washing in through the windows. The wild oats and buffalo grass were brown and crisp. The sky was the color of kerosene. The air was thin and volatile. Smoke rolled along the tracks as men began to burn off on the embankment. Birds cut singing down to a few necessary phrases, and beneath them in the streets, the tar began to bubble. The city was full of Yank soldiers; the trams were crammed to standing with them. The river sucked up the sky and went flat and glittery right down the middle of the place and people went to it in boats and britches and barebacked. Where the river met the sea, the beaches ran north and south, white and broad as highways in a dream, and men and babies stood in the surf while gulls hung in the haze above, casting shadows on the immodest backs of the oilslicked women. — Tim Winton

How many times have you struggled with the interpretation of certain Biblical texts related to the time of Jesus' return because they did not fit with a preconceived system of eschatology? Russell's Parousia takes the Bible seriously when it tells us of the nearness of Christ's return. Those who claim to interpret the Bible literally, trip over the obvious meaning of these time texts by making Scripture mean the opposite of what it unequivocally declares. Reading Russell is a breath of fresh air in a room filled with smoke and mirror hermeneutics. — Gary DeMar

So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Odors can be highly transitory, depending on the air currents. If this is happening in your house, ask if there are any possessions of that deceased loved one still around. If it happens elsewhere, consider just how many millions of people use the same perfume or smoke the same brand of cigar as someone you knew. — Seth Shostak

He would talk and talk and talk; the twilight would fill with cigarette smoke and shimmering words would tremble in the blue coils of air... — Simone De Beauvoir

Colors shift like smoke within the branch beneath our feet. Sprites jump from leaf to leaf, leaving sprinklings of glittery dust in the air behind them. Droplets of water are strung like pearls from the silver strands of a spider's web. Bluebottle glow-bugs stick to the leaves and branches, lighting up the night with their blue-green bodies. And high above us, clouds are draped like sashes of color across the sky. Amethyst, azure, jade. — Rachel Morgan

Here I am on the shore of Brittany. Let the cities light up in the evening. My day is done. I am leaving Europe. The sea air will burn my lungs. Lost climates will tan me. I will swim, trample the grass, hung, and smoke especially. I will drink alcohol as strong as boiling metal
just as my dear ancestors did around their fires. — Arthur Rimbaud

And autumn ain't so shabby for wow, either. The colors are broccoli and flame and fox fur. The tang is apples, death, and wood smoke. The rot smells faintly of grapes, of fermentation, of one element being changed alchemically into another, and the air is moist and you sleep under two down comforters in a cold room. The trails are not dusty anymore, and you get to wear your favorite sweaters. — Anne Lamott

It wasn't a party that a Republican could understand
the marijuana smoke sweet on the air, the occasional cocaine sniffle, cold Mexican beer, good food, great conversation, and laughter
but a Parisian deconstructionist scholar might find it about as civilized as America gets. Or at least the one I met, who was visiting at UTEP, maintained. Somewhere along the way, he claimed, Americans had forgotten how to have a good time. In the name of good health, good taste, and political correctness from both sides of the spectrum, we were being taught how to behave. America was becoming a theme park, not as in entertainment, but as in a fascist Disneyland. — James Crumley

Talk uses up ideas. Once I have spoken them aloud, they are lost to me, dissipated into the noisy air like smoke. Only if I bury them, like bulbs, in the rich soil of silence do they grow. — Doris Grumbach

All around the smell of that necro-smoke, that nether-weed. And up and at the hedonist impulse, rejoice, rejoice, in the disconnect my pretty things, fly monkeys, fly! The hip chick in the back, her legs uncrossed to let in air and let out pretention as the lights are down and it's not necessary, nor should it be even with the lights up, all around faces, turned away and yet minds knowing, knowing there is a presence, a power about the room, the charge is different than it was before this small chick came in. Rejoice, simpatico, rejoice. It's her night. A night of the explosion. Pow - bang-ka-boom and yet it's whispered and yet it's heard through the walls at 3 A.M. by attentive ears and hands clenching in the frustration of being unsolicited by the owner of this spectacle. A woman's sigh of ecstasy, and his tears at being not the cause. — Benjamin R. Smith

Life in the country teaches one that the really stimulating things are the quiet, natural things, and the really wearisome things are the noisy, unnatural things. It is more exciting to stand still than to dance. Silence is more eloquent than speech. Water is more stimulating than wine. Fresh air is more intoxicating than cigarette smoke. Sunlight is more subtle than electric light. The scent of grass is more luxurious than the most expensive perfume. The slow, simple observations of the peasant are more wise than the most sparkling epigrams of the latest wit. — Beverley Nichols

They made their way down the drive in the gathering twilight. The air was full of the smells of warm grass, lake water, and wood smoke from Hagrid's cabin. It was difficult to believe that they were heading for anything dangerous or frightening. p. 553 — J.K. Rowling

There, on the far side of of the Atlantic, would be Maine, but despite the shared ocean, her island and this one were worlds apart. Where Inishmaan was gray and brown, its fragile man-made soil supporting only the hardiest of low-growing plants, the fertile Quinnipeague invited tall pines in droves, not to mention vegetables, flowers, and improbable, irrepressible herbs. Lifting her head, eyes closed now, she breathed in the damp Irish air and the bit of wood smoke that drifted on the cold ocean wind. Quinnipeague smelled of wood smoke, too, since early mornings there could be chilly, even in summer. But the wood smoke would clear by noon, giving way to the smell of lavender, balsam, and grass. If the winds were from the west, there would be fry smells from the Chowder House; if from the south, the earthiness of the clam flats; if from the northeast, the purity of sweet salt air. — Barbara Delinsky

I excused myself from the conversation, walked away, and stuck my hands in my jacket pockets. I had no drink. I didn't fidget. I kept my head down and headed for the door. It wasn't that far. I just had to get by some people who wouldn't suspect a thing, because I didn't know any of them. I didn't have to grab my coat because it was still on my shoulders. If Shawn saw me, I would say I was just going for air or a smoke or something. I had been trying to quit, and he knew this, so maybe going out for air was a better excuse. Sure, it was probably eleven below, but it was crowded and he'd buy it because I'd made him believe that I'm shy. I could be out in the midnight winter chill and home within an hour. It would have been safe, and I would have been warm, and no Chinook would have hit me. — Sawyer Paul

He shuddered, and for lack of any other notion, kissed her forehead. Her arms came up sudden as a snare and held him fiercely, pulling him down onto her again and he seized her, too, crushing her to him hard enough to feel the breath go out of her, unable to let go. He thought vaguely of Brianna's talk of giant orbs that whirled through space, the thing called gravity - and what was grave about it? He saw that well enough just now: a force so great as to balance some body unthinkably immense in thin air, unsupported - or send two such bodies crashing into each other, in an explosion of destruction and the smoke of stars. — Diana Gabaldon

We smoked fat cigars by the campfire and they tasted like wood and ash. The inhale and exhale was exciting. Blowing smoke rings in the calm forest air was followed by a deep swallow of cheap beer, and this too was exciting. There was no judgment in the wild, and so indulgences were plentiful. There were no regulators here and we were free to indulge in the deep intoxications that made our minds free. — Daniel J. Rice

She turned back to her sandwich. And here, of all things, was desire again. (She could have put the palm of her hand to the front of his white shirt.) Here was her chicken sandwich and her tea and the waitress with a hard life in her eyes and a pretty face disappearing into pale flesh asking if there's anything else for now, dear. Here was the boudoir air of respectable Schrafft's with its marble counters and pretty lamps and lunchtime bustle (ten minutes until she should be back at her desk), perfume and smoke, with the war over and another life begun and mad April whipping through the streets again. And here she was at thirty, just out of church (a candle lit every lunch hour, still, although the war was over), and yearning now with every inch of herself to put her hand to the worn buckle at a stranger's waist, a palm to his smooth belly. A man she'd never see again. Good luck. — Alice McDermott

Said. Karen inhaled deeply and blew until there was no more air in her lungs and smoke filled the room but there wasn't a single candle still burning. "Never underestimate the power of a strong woman," she said breathlessly. "Amen," Hannah murmured. Kim motioned toward the bar. "Momma's choice tonight. Mexican buffet, which comes before cake." "Not for me. I'm having a slice of that cake right now. It's my birthday and I want dessert first. Momma always let me do that on my birthday when I was a little girl," Karen said. "Yes, I did, and if you want your cake first tonight, then have at it," Hannah agreed. "Well, I'm getting into those tacos," Edith said. "Y'all have to try my watermelon salsa. I hadn't made it in years, but it turned out pretty good considering that the watermelon wasn't as good as I like it to be." "What's in it?" Sue asked. — Carolyn Brown

She went to the window. A fine sheen of sugary frost covered everything in sight, and white smoke rose from chimneys in the valley below the resort town. The window opened to a rush of sharp early November air that would have the town in a flurry of activity, anticipating the tourists the colder weather always brought to the high mountains of North Carolina.
She stuck her head out and took a deep breath. If she could eat the cold air, she would. She thought cold snaps were like cookies, like gingersnaps. In her mind they were made with white chocolate chunks and had a cool, brittle vanilla frosting. They melted like snow in her mouth, turning creamy and warm. — Sarah Addison Allen

LIFE IN ALEXANDRA was exhilarating and precarious. Its atmosphere was alive, its spirit adventurous, its people resourceful. Although the township did boast some handsome buildings, it could fairly be described as a slum, living testimony to the neglect of the authorities. The roads were unpaved and dirty, and filled with hungry, undernourished children scampering around half-naked. The air was thick with the smoke from coal fires in tin braziers and stoves. A single water tap served several houses. Pools of stinking, stagnant water full of maggots collected by the side of the road. Alexandra was known as "Dark City" for its complete absence of electricity. Walking home at night was perilous, for there were no lights, the silence pierced by yells, laughter, and occasional gunfire. So different from the darkness of the Transkei, which seemed to envelop one in a welcome embrace. — Nelson Mandela

Then summer came. A summer limp with the weight of blossomed things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; iris curling and browning at the edges far away from their purple hearts; ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down to their stalks. AND THE BOYS. The beautiful, beautiful boys who dotted the landscape like jewels, split the air with their shouts in the field, and thickened the river with their shining wet backs. EVEN THEIR FOOTSTEPS LEFT A SMELL OF SMOKE BEHIND! — Toni Morrison

was a life that wore you out, used up every ounce of your energy, and kept you profoundly, unquestionably happy. In the literal sense of the word, it stupefied you. The long days in the fields, the coarse food and insufficient sleep, the smell of hops and wood smoke, lulled you into an almost beastlike heaviness. Your wits seemed to thicken, just as your skin did, in the rain and sunshine and perpetual fresh air. — George Orwell

I hadn't understood funeral pyres before, but now I do. It's ghastly to burn someone you love but watching the smoke going into the sky, I think that's rather beautiful now. And I wish Tess could be up in the sky. Somewhere with color and light and air. — Rosamund Lupton

The mist covered the ground like the white veil over a new bride's face. The air was thick with smoke - smelling of death and decay. The birds were no longer singing their sweet songs, nor were there any immediate signs of life in the area. The charred ground crunched under my feet and I realized it was the only sound I could hear in the eerie silence. I looked up at the once milky moon and cringed at its new bright crimson color. What could've possibly caused the moon to turn blood red? I thought to myself as I continued to walk cautiously through the unrecognizable forest. — Christine Gabriel

The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and all his life drift past him like a dream, and the traces of his memory fade from time like smoke in air, or ripples on a stream. — Dante Alighieri

One very great annoyance in open air gatherings is cigar smoke when blown directly in one's face or worse yet the smoke from a smouldering cigar. It is almost worthy of a study in air currents to discover why with plenty of space all around, a tiny column of smoke will make straight for the nostrils of the very one most nauseated by it! — Emily Post

Everyone understands the pain that accompanies death,
but genuine pain doesn't live in the spirit,
nor in the air, nor in our lives,
nor on these terraces of billowing smoke.
The genuine pain that keeps everything awake
is a tiny, infinite burn
on the innocent eyes of other systems. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Bleak as the scene was, though, there was growing joy in Inman's heart. He was nearing home; he could feel it in the touch of thin air on skin, in his longing to see the lead of hearth smoke from the houses of people he had known all his life. People he would not be called upon to hate or fear. He rose and took a wide stance on the rock and stood and pinched down his eyes to sharpen the view across the vast propect to one far mountain. It stood apart from the sky only as the stroke of a poorly inked pen, a line thin and quick and gestural. But the shape slowly grew plain and unmistakable. It was to Cold Mountain he looked. He had achieved a vista of what for him was homeland. — Charles Frazier

When things get really hot, smoke fills the air. And things were definitely hot in here. — S.D. Mary

Outside, as she passed the kitchen window, she watched her breath appear before her in the lamplight and then it died away in moist clouds. This was the smoke of her internal fire and her soul. Every breath was a letter to the world. These she mailed into the cold air leaning back with pursed lips to send it upward. — Paulette Jiles

In the evening, the brilliant yellow pumpkin blossoms will close, drunk on sunshine, while the milky white jasmine will open their slender throats and sip the chill Himalayan air.
At night, low hearths will send up wispy curls of smoke fragrant with a dozen dinners, and darkness will clothe the land.
Except on nights when the moon is full. On those nights, the hillside and the valley below are bathed in a magical white light, the glow of the perpetual snows that blanket the mountaintops. On those nights I lie restless in the sleeping loft, wondering what the world is like beyond my mountain home. — Patricia McCormick

And then they came, right out of the smoke like a freakin' little kid's nightmare! Some were steaming, some were even still burning ... some were walking, some crawling, some just dragging themselves along on their torn bellies ... maybe one in twenty was still able to move, which left ... shit ... a couple thousand? And behind them, mixing with their ranks and pushing steadily toward us, the remaining million that the air strike hadn't even touched! — Max Brooks

Smoke hung heavy in the air. Will's eyes stung. His throat.
His nose. And the crackling. God, the crackling fire was like the devil laughing.
Vera was in that house.
Mikey gripped his arm. "Hold on, Will - "
Will lunged forward. "Vera - "
"Whoa, Will." Mikey's grip tightened. "Stop."
"The hell I will. Vera - "
"Billy?" One of the cops approached him. Said a bunch of
words. Helped Mikey hold Will back.
Vera was in that house.
Vera, her trusty wooden body, her frets, her new strings. Vera,
who'd had his back everywhere from Pickleberry Springs to
Nashville to New York to LA, from seedy bars to stadiums.
Vera, who'd helped him write his first song. His last song.
Every song in between. — Jamie Farrell

A witch, a vampire, and a pixy walk into a bar, I thought as I led the way into the Squirrel's End. It was early, and the sun had yet to set when the door swung shut behind Jenks, sealing us in the warm air smelling faintly of smoke. Immediately Nick yanked it open to come in behind us. And there's the punch line. — Kim Harrison

There was a strange exciting smell in the air - the smell of wine, cigar smoke, and perfume, mingled with the scent of the roses. The bright colors merged into one another, and the music rose and fell. — Joan G. Robinson

In the shadows he could just make out a rough, ghostly wall that stood out in the pitch darkness. As if drawn by an irresistible black beacon, he slowly advanced step by step towards that incandescent wall of shale. Far off, the city was vanishing into the air. The fiesta disappeared somewhere beyond his eyelids. The wall was increasing in size, growing amidst a mixture of shadows and sparks. It was a wall of smoke from which sprouted candles that resembled asteroids. In fact, it was not one wall but two. Two tall, crackling walls, silently burning. But it wasn't two walls either. It was, in fact, a street. — Eugenio Fernandez Granell

Danilo's was the kind of place where many drinking men come to hide, be it from their wives, in-laws, their jobs or life in general. it was where men and women can come to drink poison as if it was the only form of medicine available to remedy the migraine headache called life. The lighting dim and secluded, mostly covering the tables, counters and the door to the bathroom. The walls were decorated in decades of memories, favorite sports teams and other miscellaneous decor that was typical of small bars such as this one. It was too dark to tell what they were from a distance.
There was a thick layer of smoke hovering in the air around the ceiling lights, the place was smothered in it but was strongest above everyone's heads. The smell was the classic stale bar odor of cigarettes and cheap cigars. — J.C. Joranco

The Lord's Creation is like Agarwood, when touched by man (i.e., mould) it becomes infected; as the infection progresses, the Creation produces magic in response to the attack, which only the observant attentive believer can pick up the traces thereof. The purity of that Elixir depends on how it is being distilled from the Agarwood (i.e., The Lord's Creation) by the faithful; the more believing she/he is, the more miraculous the testimony becomes. And only by striving can the incense be extracted into the air (i.e., the public domain) for that its release requires the adequate amount of inquisitive energy to be exerted - that's where the scholar's role lies. Disbelief, however, is touched only by the smoke triggering thereby, disease. Therefore, the Agarwood (i.e., The Lord's Creation) was given to serve man for that without man's interaction with it, there would be no magic to extract. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

You'd think God would come right out and tell us what to do in the Bible, but He doesn't. He mostly tells stories, and He rarely stops the story to say what the point is. He just lets the characters and conflict hang in the air like smoke. — Donald Miller

They departed in the form of white smoke, rose easily upward, waved their hands in parting, and viewed with pity all those who remained behind. Then they danced gaily in celebration of their new freedom, before disintegrating into the air. — Joseph Bau

Lexie Madison developed out of nothing like a Polaroid, she curled off the page and hung in the air like incense smoke, a girl with my face and a life from a half-forgotten dream. — Tana French

When people die they are sometimes put into coffins, which means that they don't mix with the earth for a very long time until the wood of the coffin rots.
But Mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burned and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn't ask at the creamatorium because I didn't go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antarctic, or coming down as rain in the rain forests in Brazil, or snow somewhere. — Mark Haddon

And then there was his love affair with my best friend, perhaps the only woman he'd ever seen drink several glasses of bai-jiu and smoke a half-pack of cigarettes in a single seating. Each dish that night had a special presentation, a colorful ring of carrots about the twice-fried eggplant, a garland of thinly-sliced chilies haloing the garlicky green beans, a well-placed broccoli head in the fish's open mouth. She smiled at him when he gave her one of his cigarettes, coyly lighting it with a subtle turn of the wrist, and after she took her first long drag, he motioned us up. Never to be repeated, he brought us back his narrow kitchen, a blackened wok bubbling over a powerful blue fire. Deftly splashing it with alcohol, he flipped the contents into the air and watched the flame dance across her eyes. — Megan Rich

But even that day, there on the porch, with Charles beside me and the smell of wood smoke in the air, it had the quality of a memory; there it was, before my eyes, and yet too beautiful to believe. — Donna Tartt

But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antarctic, or coming down as rain in the rainforests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere. — Mark Haddon

Thick coils of smoke hung in the air, perhaps to avoid touching the walls. — Terry Pratchett

overhead the birds are calling,
their cries seeming to feel the air.
As i watch, they rise.. flinging their bodies against the sky, intent upon the moment, spinning and turning like embers of smoke upon the air.
I envy them, this life of theirs..
the way they live so free of themselves, they are without past, without future, an exaltation of life beating in so many parts, rising up into the infinity of space. watching them i find i want to weep, and yet i have no tears. — Thomas F. Monteleone

And because they had mass, they became simpler," said Beatty. "Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?" "I think so." Beatty peered at the smoke pattern he had put out on the air. "Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending." "Snap ending." Mildred nodded. "Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. — Ray Bradbury

In the fall of 1988, I worshipped God in a Buddhist temple. As the smell of incense filled the air, I knelt before three images of the Buddha, feeling that the smoke could carry my prayers heavenward. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground ... I will not make any further attempt to convert the Buddhist, the Jew, the Hindu or the Moslem. I am content to learn from them and to walk with them side by side toward the God who lives, I believe, beyond the images that bind and blind us. — John Shelby Spong

As Daenerys Targaryen rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breasts and added their voices to the call, translucent wings unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons. — George R R Martin

Currents of cigarette fumes wafted through what passed for air. Attractive young women in bright-hued gowns glided through the streams of smoke, like tropical fish in an aquarium. Detecting the white uniforms and leathery faces, they promptly approached the Navy men. Very pretty, Ed thought, but hungry, a school of piranha. Just what the doctor ordered: fun and games with no complications. Right: no complications. pg. 27. — Clark Zlotchew

Lying in a featherbed will not bring you fame, nor staying beneath the quilt, and he who uses up his life without achieving fame leaves no more vestige of himself on earth than smoke in the air or foam upon the water. — Dante Alighieri

The smell of cigarette smoke in the air in a tavern that changes names often,
a bar cursed because of a girl who died of a drug overdose
in the basement, we put a few coins in the jukebox;
chose "Angel Band" by Johnny Cash and sat down at the bar,
ordered a soda, you wanted a whiskey on the rocks.
We saw the coal miner who moved here from West Virginia
knocking back liquor like I drink sweet tea.
No one asked why he was so solemn today.
It was warm. It was relatively quiet.
To anyone else, this place could feel sinister.
But to us, it was freedom. It was a hiding place.
No one was ever here long enough to know us.
And we liked it that way. — Taylor Rhodes

Power comes and goes. It can vanish in the twinkling of an eye, like smoke dissolving in the air. — Archie Fire Lame Deer

In the land of wisdom, there is no fog in the air, no haze, no blur, no mirage, no smoke; all is seen plainly; the vision is very clean! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Once learnt, this business of cooking was to prove an ever growing burden. It scarcely bears thinking about, the time and labour that man and womankind has devoted to the preparation of dishes that are to melt and vanish in a moment like smoke or a dream, like a shadow, and as a post that hastes by, and the air closes behind them, afterwards no sign where they went is to be found. — Rose Macaulay

You are linked to the ground mechanic's careless fingers in Nassau just as you are linked to the weak head of the little man in the family saloon who mistakes the red light for the green and meets you head-on, for the first and last time, as you are motoring quietly home from some private sin. There's nothing to do about it. You start to die the moment you are born. The whole of life is cutting through the pack with death. So take it easy. Light a cigarette and be grateful you are still alive as you suck the smoke deep into your lungs. Your stars have already let you come quite a long way since you left your mother's womb and whimpered at the cold air of the world. — Ian Fleming

Do you regret it, amira?"
"Regret . . . what?"
"Meeting me. Knowing me." He searched my face. "Loving me."
Everything seemed to stop at the word; it hung in the air between us, tangible and real. "No," I said at last. "No."
"But you fear you will someday. That's why you hold back. That's why you want to know you can change things before you commit." He let go of my hand and stood. The distance between us ached like the cold of a winter sea. "You watched your father chase your mother for years, and you wished he didn't love her. What will you do to my memory when I'm gone? Will you chase it like a dragon? Or will you banish it like smoke? — Heidi Heilig

The shed of leaves became a cascade of red and gold and after a time the trees stood skeletal against a sky of weathered tin. The land lay bled of its colors. The nights lengthened, went darker, brightened in their clustered stars. The chilled air smelled of wood smoke, of distances and passing time. Frost glimmered on the morning fields. Crows called across the pewter afternoons. — James Carlos Blake

Illugastadir, the farm by the sea, where the soft air rings with the clang of the smithy, and gulls caw, and seals roll over in their fat. Illugastadir, where the night is lit by fire, where smoke turns in the early morning to engulf the stars, and in ruins, always Illugastadir, cradling dead bodies in its cage of burnt beams. — Hannah Kent

He grumbles incoherently, opens the window a fraction and continues to smoke away. It's like every time Sidney Drake enters a new location he has to readjust the atmosphere, akin to one of those sci-fi shows where they oxygenate the planet, but for my dad it's in a suffocating reverse. He replaces the clean wholesome air with a non-stop puff of toxic poison. — Tom Conrad

But I have burned already down to bone.
There is a fire that burns beyond the names
Of sludge and filth of which this world is made.
Agony sears the dark flesh of the body,
And lifts me higher than the smoke, to rise
Above the earth, above the sacrifice;
Until my soul flares outward like a blue
Blossom of gas fire dancing in mid-air:
Free of the body's work of twisted iron. — James Wright

Perhaps magic was once a mighty force in the world, but no longer. What little remains is no more than the wisp of smoke that lingers in the air after a great fire has burned out, and even that is fading. Valyria was the last ember, and Valyria is gone. The dragons are no more, the giants are dead, the children of the forest forgotten with all their lore. — George R R Martin

Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centres are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony. — William S. Burroughs

The company you keep is important. If you leave your coat in a room where people are smoking, pretty soon it will smell of smoke. If you leave it outside in the garden, later on, when you bring it indoors, it will carry with it the fragrance of fresh air and flowers.
"Such is the case with the mind. Your garment of thoughts absorbs the vibrations of those with whom you mix. — Swami Kriyananda

The trouble with most forms of transport, he thought, is basically one of them not being worth all the bother. On Earth - when there had been an Earth, before it was demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass - the problem had been with cars. The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm's way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another - particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish. — Douglas Adams

Fame is not won on downy plumes nor under canopies; the man who consumes his days without obtaining it leaves such mark of himself on earth as smoke in air or foam on water. — Dante Alighieri

Three years passed. Three years without a mother. In three years my grief has grown to enormous proportions.
Grief is now a giant, sad whale that I drag along with me wherever I go.
My grief fills rooms. It takes up space and it sucks out the air. It leaves no room for anyone else.
Grief and I are left alone a lot. We smoke cigarettes and we cry.
Grief holds my hand as I walk down the sidewalk, and grief doesn't mind when I cry because it's raining and I cannot find a taxi.
Grief acts like a jealous friend, reminding me that no one else will ever love me as much as it does.
Grief whispers in my ear that no one understands me.
Grief is possessive and doesn't let me go anywhere without it.
Grief is force and I am swept up in it. — Claire Bidwell Smith

My mansion is, where those immortal shapes Of bright aerial spirits live insphered In regions mild of calm and serene air, Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot Which men call Earth. — John Milton

But it is already light. How long has it been light? All this while, light has come percolating in, along with the cold morning air flowing now across his nipples: it has begun to reveal an assortment of drunken wastrels, some in uniform and some not, clutching empty or near-empty bottles, here draped over a chair, there huddled into a cold fireplace, or sprawled on various divans, un-Hoovered rugs and chaise longues down the different levels of the enormous room, snoring and wheezing at many rhythms, in self-renewing chorus, as London light, winter and elastic light, grows between the faces of the mullioned windows, grows among the strata of last night's smoke still hung, fading, from the waxed beams of the ceiling. All these horizontal here, these comrades in arms, look just as rosy as a bunch of Dutch peasants dreaming of their certain resurrection in the next few minutes. — Thomas Pynchon

It was not a purer realm that loomed vastly over the city. Smokestacks punctured the membrane between the land and the air and disgorged tons of poisonous smog into that upper world as if out of spite. In a thicker, stinking haze just above the rooftops, the detritus from a million low chimneys eddied together. Crematoria vented into the airborne ashes of wills burnt by jealous executors, which mixed with coaldust burnt to keep dying lovers warm. Thousands of sordid smoke-ghosts wrapped New Crobuzon in a stench that suffocated like guilt. — China Mieville

There are souls beneath that water. Fixed in slime
they speak their piece, end it, and start again:
'Sullen were we in the air made sweet by the Sun;
in the glory of his shining our hearts poured
a bitter smoke. Sullen were we begun;
sullen we lie forever in this ditch.'
This litany they gargle in their throats
as if they sand, but lacked the words and pitch. — Dante Alighieri

Bandar had effortlessly converted Ratiram's grit into the smoke rings that he blew triumphantly in the air. — Pawan Mishra

Smoke veils the air like souls in drifting suspension, declining the war's insistence everyone move on. — Jayne Anne Phillips

When there is an accident involving fire, in most cases death is caused by the inhalation of the toxic smoke. What we need is air to go to a driver for 45 seconds. I'm surprised that this is not done, and I would make it compulsory. — Jackie Stewart

We can see through all your disguises: the paths of day, the paths of darkness, whichever paths you take - we're right behind you, following you like a trail of smoke, like a long tail, a tail made of girls, heavy as memory, light as air: twelve accusations, toes skimming the ground, hands tied behind our backs, tongues sticking out, eyes bulging, songs choked in our throats. — Margaret Atwood

A story is alive, as you and I are. It is rounded by muscle and sinew. Rushed with blood. Layered with skin, both rough and smooth. At its core lies soft marrow of hard, white bone. A story beats with the heart of every person who has ever strained ears to listen. On the breath of the storyteller, it soars. Until its images and deeds become so real you can see them in the air, shimmering like oases on the horizon line. A story can fly like a bee, so straight and swift you catch only the hum of its passing. Or move so slowly it seems motionless, curled in upon itself like a snake in the sun. It can vanish like smoke before the wind. Linger like perfume in the nose. Change with every telling, yet always remain the same. — Cameron Dokey

There was a rupture in the fabric of space inside the truck, and a rift developed that connected worlds and dimensions. William Connoley, travelling book-salesman and keeper of the portal between the worlds, saw shimmers of a room with a large, dark, wooden table laden with mysterious utensils, a chair, glass-like shards on the floor, vials, small windows, shelves with jars, and many other things he had never seen before. The vision, strange as it was, only lasted seconds, but it burnt itself into his memory. Then a bright flash of light took away his eyesight momentarily, while an invisible roller-coaster-like sensation filled his stomach with the most unwelcome and sickening feeling. There was a roaring sound, and suddenly smoke filled the cabin, chasing William into the street as he coughed and gasped for air. His eyes burnt from the grey fumes. — Paul Kater

My heart is drumming in my chest so hard it aches, but it's the good kind of ache, like the feeling you get on the first real day of autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are all flaring at the edges and the wind smells just vaguely of smoke - like the end and the beginning of something all at once. — Lauren Oliver

In the slanting light of late autumn, the gestures and bodies of people are more expressive the less meaning they have. Men stand on street corners staring at the emptiness of the day. They spit on the sidewalk and smoke cigarettes. That's the present ... Time, approaching from afar, is like the air that someone else has already breathed. — Andrzej Stasiuk

I remember my visit to the opencast iron ore mines in Keonjhar, Orissa. There was forest there once. And children like these. Now the land is like a raw, red wound. Red dust fills your nostrils and lungs. The air is red, the water is red, the people are red, their lungs and hair are red. All day and all nights trucks rumble through their villages, bumper to bumper, thousands and thousands of trucks, taking ore to Paradip port from where it will go to China. There it will turn into cars and smoke and sudden cities that spring up overnight. Into a 'growth rate' that leaves economists breathless. Into weapons to make war. — Arundhati Roy