Streaked Quotes & Sayings

When she finished, the white teacher, his face streaked with tears, tapped his boss on the shoulder, and like a television cop handing in his badge and gun, he solemnly removed the shiny new Teach for America button fastened to his sweater vest, placed it in Charisma's palm, and walked off into the squall. — Paul Beatty

She had streaked blonde hair, long and straight, parted in the middle framing high cheek bones, an aquiline nose and beautiful deep blue eyes. She was young, around 30, tall and lithe with a good body, athletic, not skinny. She wore a sleeveless black dress that exposed her toned arms and shoulders, indicating regular workouts or yoga. There was a hint of vein running the length of her lean muscle. This girl stood out like an arabian in a corral full of draft horses. — Nick Hahn

Madeline Hatter. Her lavender-streaked teal hair exploded around her in messy curls. The polka-dotted, striped, and lacy layers of her skirt were bunched and fluffed. Her teacup hat tilted low over one ear. "Whoops, — Shannon Hale

The evening sky was streaked with purple, the color of torn plums, and a light rain had started to fall when I came to the end of the blacktop road that cut through twenty miles of thick, almost impenetrable scrub oak and pine and stopped at the front gate of Angola penitentiary. — James Lee Burke

Madame de Cintre's face had, to Newman's eye, a range of expression as delightfully vast as the wind-streaked, cloud-flecked distance on a Western prairie. But her mother's white, intense, respectable countenance, with its formal gaze, and its circumscribed smile, suggested a document signed and sealed; a thing of parchment, ink, and ruled lines. — Henry James

I have an African gray parrot; her name is Eli. We thought she was a boy. And a blue-streaked lory named Marco. He's 10. And a yellow and green parakeet, Petey. He's very cute, but he's getting old. — Roz Chast

As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death. "Lord Eddard," Lyanna called again. "I promise," he whispered. "Lya, I promise — George R R Martin

The relief of being clasped firmly, held close by his hands, was so great that Amanda couldn't hold back a sudden gasp. He nuzzled into her bare throat, kissing, tasting, and her knees wobbled at the sensations that streaked through her. "Beautiful Amanda," he muttered, his breath rushing fast and hot against her skin. "A chuisle mo chroi... I said that to you once before, remember?"
"You didn't tell me what it meant," she managed to say, resting her soft cheek on his shaven, faintly scratchy one.
He pulled his head back and stared down at her with shadowed eyes that looked black instead of blue. His broad chest moved jerkily from the force of his breathing. "The very pulse of my heart," he whispered. "From the first moment we met, Amanda, I knew how it would be between us. — Lisa Kleypas

First love is the only pure and happy one. If it goes wrong, nothing can replace it. Later loves can never attain to the same limpid perfection; though they may be as solid, as marble, they are streaked with veins of another colour, the dried blood of the past. — Maurice Druon

The Story of the Rabbit and the Eggplant
Once there was a race between a rabbit and an eggplant. Now, the eggplant, as you know, is a member of the vegetable kingdom, and the rabbit is a very fast animal.
Everybody bet lots of money on the eggplant, thinking that if a vegetable challenges a live animal with four legs to a race, then it must be that the vegetable knows something.
People expected the eggplant to win the race by some clever trick of philosophy. The race was started, and there was a lot of cheering. The rabbit streaked out of sight.
The eggplant just sat there at the starting line. Everybody knew that in some surprising way the eggplant would wind up winning the race.
Nothing of the sort happened. Eventually, the rabbit crossed the finish line and the eggplant hadn't moved an inch.
The spectators ate the eggplant.
Moral: Never bet on an eggplant. — Daniel Pinkwater

He sat in the other chair, taking advantage of the opportunity to take another good look at her. Her fawn-colored hair was sun-streaked from long days spent outdoors. Now it was done up copperhead style, the multiple braids decorated with beads and feathers. One braid per kill - wasn't that the rule? — Cinda Williams Chima

She twisted her hair as if the question made her uncomfortable. "Seeing the past is simple magic. Seeing the present or the future - that is not." "Yeah, well," Leo said. "Watch and learn, Sunshine. I just connect these last two wires, and - " The bronze plate sparked. Smoke billowed from the sphere. A flash of fire raced up Leo's sleeve. He pulled off his shirt, threw it down, and stomped on it. He could tell Calypso was trying not to laugh, but she was shaking with the effort. "Not a word," Leo warned. She glanced at his bare chest, which was sweaty, bony, and streaked with old scars from weapon-making accidents. "Nothing worth commenting on," she assured him. "If you want that device to work, perhaps you should try a musical invocation." "Right," he said. "Whenever an engine malfunctions, I like to tap-dance around it. Works every time. — Rick Riordan

Staring at the floor, she didn't even look up as the final contestant entered.
Not until she heard a deep, rich baritone that filled the hall with the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.
Her heart pounding, she looked up to see Stryder holding his mother's lute.
Only it wasn't a love song he sang.
More like a limerick, it was a song about a woman who fancied herself a goose.
And a man who gobbled her up.
Laughter and applause rang out as soon as he strummed the last note.
Breathe, breathe.
It was the only thing Rowena could think. And even that couldn't get her to take a breath as Stryder approached her.
He smoothed her hair and straightened her feathered crown. "Methinks my goose has molted."
Rowena laughed as more tears streaked down her face. — Kinley MacGregor

The other shoppers were too well behaved to stare at the green-headed stoner and the tear-streaked lady zigzagging up the aisles with a chubby bearded guy scurrying behind them picking up the things they dropped. — Amy Goldman Koss

For nine miles along a submerged ridge, the corals rise in lumpy hillocks that spread out 100 yards or more, resembling heaped scoops of rainbow sherbet and Neapolitan ice cream. The mounds, some 100 feet tall, sprout delicate treelike gorgonians that sift currents for a plankton meal. Fish, worms and other creatures dart or crawl in every crevice. This description could apply to thousands of coral reefs in shallow, sun-streaked tropical waters from Australia to the Bahamas. But this is the Sula Ridge, 1,000 feet down in frigid darkness on the continental shelf 100 miles off Norway's coast. — James Dwight Dana

The world that was not mine yesterday now lies spread out at my feet, a splendor. I seem, in the middle of the night, to have returned to the world of apples, the orchards of Heaven. Perhaps I should take my problems to a shrink, or perhaps I should enjoy the apples that I have, streaked with color like the evening sky. — John Cheever

I couldn't avoid my reflection in the large mirrored wall that sat over the vanity area... I had grey smudges of mascara streaked down my face. I guess that's what you get for buying the cheap makeup. Next breakdown I'd be sure to wear waterproof. — Donna Augustine

Tall and fair, with blue-green eyes, sandy hair streaked by the sun, and a lean and comely body, Gerris Drinkwater had a swagger to him, a confidence bordering on arrogance. — George R R Martin

Leo glanced back, his face streaked with soot. "Apollo, you sense anything?"
"Why is it my job to sense things? Just because I used to be a god of prophecy-"
"You're the one who's been having visions," Calypso reminded me. "You said your friend Meg would be here."
Just hearing Meg's name gave me a twinge of pain. "That doesn't mean I can pinpoint her location with my mind!" Zeus has revoked my access to GPS!"
"GPS?" Calypso asked.
"Godly positioning system."
"That's not a real thing! — Rick Riordan

I eased back on my elbows, tilting my head back to look up at the sky, which was pinkish, streaked with red. This was the time we knew best, that stretch of day going from dusk to dark. It seemed like we were always waiting for nighttime here. I could feel the trampoline easing up and down, moved by our own breathing, bringing us in small increments up and back from the sky as the colors faded, slowly, and the stars began to show themselves. — Sarah Dessen

When she awakened, Hunter was watching her with eyes like dark velvet.
"You're the last woman I'll ever make love to," he said, stroking her breast, toying with the rosy peak. She stroked his sun-streaked hair and the hard nape of his neck, loving the feel of him against her.
"Good," she whispered.
"Keep me with you, Lara. I don't want to leave you. — Lisa Kleypas

Detective Inspector Carver took a picture from the breast pocket of his suit. He handed it to me. 'This is what you did, Michael. Take a good look. See if it jogs your memory.'
I gawped at the mutilated corpse of a naked young girl lying on a blood-soaked double bed. Her hands were bound to the brass headboard with duct tape. Blood covered her upper body, and her long blonde hair was streaked a murderous shade of red. One eye stared at the ceiling as if searching for salvation, the other, a bloody unrecognisable pulp, bore no relation to its sightless counterpart.
'Carla Marie Coombs. Twenty-one years of age. Do you recognise her, Michael? — Mark Tilbury

It may well be that the pictures of Courbet, Manet, Monet and their like contain beauties which escape the notice of such old romantic heads as ours, already streaked with silver threads. — Theophile Gautier

He's seeing the actual Milky Way streaked across the sky. The whole of his entire galaxy, right there in front of him. Billions and billions of stars. Billions and billions of worlds. All of them, all of those seemingly endless possibilities, not fictional, but real, out there, existing, right now. There is so much more out there than just the world he knows, so much more than his tiny Washington town, so much more than even London. Or England. Or hell, for that matter.
So much more that he'll never see. So much more that he'll never get to. So much that he can only glimpse enough of to know that it's forever beyond his reach. — Patrick Ness

One time, your heart almost slipped away on a river
barge. Your hands seemed to claw the sky. I'm sorry.
No one else made anything out of those streaked clouds.
The fact that it happened is proof enough for me. — Richard Jackson

Lilah stood above them, tall and beautiful, her white hair whipping in the fresh breeze, her clothes streaked with gore, her hazel eyes glowing with fire.
She turned slowly to Nix and in her ghostly whisper of a voice said, I hate boys. — Jonathan Maberry

Gorge after gorge, turning, turning. Caverns of sunset, falling, falling away - just a single vast gold air breathed out by beings - they must have been marvelous beings, those gold-breathers. Down. Purple-and-green islands. Cleft and groined and gigantically pocked like something left behind after all the oceans vanished one huge night: the mountains. Their hills fold and fold again, fold away, down. Folded into the dens and rocks of the hills are ghost towns. Broken streets end in them, like a sound, nowhere. Shadow is inside. We walk (oh quietly) even so - breaking lines of force, someone's. Houses stand in their stones. Each house an empty socket. Some streaked with red inside. Words once went on in there - no. I don't believe that. Words never went on in there. — Anne Carson

Teddy had taken his shirt off and had streaked himself with mud. Dad said he looked like one of the boys from Lord of the Flies. — Gayle Forman

I've got you, he whispered.
With strong hands, he raised her body, her lips to his, and the resulting union streaked through her like fire. Their mouths might be made for sniping, but mostly they were made for this. Better they should be used for this. A perfect melding of lips and tongues, the tangle so sweet, the chemistry so right.
I've got you. For the first time in what seemed like forever, someone had her. — Kate Meader

RUSTY watched the dawn blossom into light. At first everything was dark, then gradually objects began to take shape - the desk and chair, the walls of the room - and the darkness lifted like the raising of a veil, and over the tree-tops the sky was streaked with crimson. It was like this for some time, while everything became clearer and more distinguishable; and then, when nature was ready, the sun reached up over the trees and hills, and sent one tentative beam of warm light through the window. Along the wall crept the sun, across to the bed, and up the boy's bare legs, until it was caressing his entire body and whispering to him to get up, get up, it is time to get up ... — Ruskin Bond

I looked up then, out the far window, and there, just within sight, the sun was going down across the river. It was dull red, no longer shining over the land, its ray brought home to roost, contained within its sphere. The sky was streaked with lavendar, a pulsing pale blue, purple and smudged pink and orange melding into one another all the way to the horizon. — Jane Hamilton

Artham felt lighter and stronger, and for the first time in nine years, his mind was clear and sure. The words to a hundred of his own poems scrolled across his memory; he saw faces of old friends, battles he had fought, and even the most terrible moments of his life - and yet he remained himself. The wild animal inside that he had struggled so long to kill pulsed with power, but it was no longer his master. He rode the pain like a knight rides a horse. ...
Artham's eyes watered from the wind and from the speed and from the magnificent beauty of the land arrayed below him. Water streaked from the corners of his eyes ... and , in the vicious cold froze into silvery jewels.
He would have to write a poem about this. — Andrew Peterson

Kendra stared out the side window of the SUV, watching foliage blur past. When the flurry of motion became too much, she looked up ahead and fixed her gaze on a particular tree, following it as it slowly approached, streaked past, and then gradually receded behind her. Was life like that? You could look ahead to the future or back at the past, but the present moved too quickly to absorb. Maybe sometimes. Not today. Today they were driving along an endless two-lane highway through the forested hills of Connecticut. — Brandon Mull

She looked up and smiled. "I'm glad you found some books that interest you. Would you like a glass of lemonade?"
Though I was hoping to thank her for the books and be on my way, I didn't want to seem rude. I nodded and set the stack of books on the counter. While Miz Goodpepper pulled a pitcher from the refrigerator, I asked, "Is the Kama Sutra a volcano?"
She gasped and splashed lemonade across the kitchen counter. The strangest look streaked across her face as she sopped up the mess with a wad of paper towels. "Well, I suppose some might think it's a volcano of sorts, but I can say with absolute assurance you wouldn't enjoy that book."
"That's what I thought," I said, feeling pleased with myself, so I put it back on the shelf.
She let out a barely audible sigh. "Good. — Beth Hoffman

Somebody up there is deuced mad at me," she yelled, "and I want to know why!"
The heavens opened in earnest and within seconds she was soaked to the skin.
"Remind me never to question Your purposes again," she muttered ungraciously, not sounding particularly like the God-fearing young lady her father had raised her to be. "Clearly You don't like to be second-guessed."
Lightning streaked through the sky, followed by a booming clap of thunder.
"Damn!" she grunted, her bonnet sagged against her eyes, blocking her vision. She yanked it off, looked at the sky, and yelled, "I am not amused!"
More lightning.
"They are all against me," she muttered,"All of them." Her father, Sally Foxglove,
Mr. Tibbett, whoever it was who controlled the weather
More thunder. — Julia Quinn

At that instant a dazzling claw of lightning streaked down the length of the sky. The hedge and the distant trees seemed to leap forward in the brilliance of the flash. Immediately upon it came the thunder: a high, tearing noise, as though some huge thing were being ripped to pieces close above, which deepened and turned to enormous blows of dissolution. Then the rain fell like a waterfall. In a few seconds the ground was covered with water and over it, to a height of inches, rose a haze formed of a myriad minute splashes. Stupefied with the shock, unable even to move, the sodden rabbits crouched inert, almost pinned to the earth by the rain. — Richard Adams

Veronica holds up her blood- and sweat-streaked cloth for us to see the image of Christ imprinted on it. All those who suffer and all those who minister to them bear the image of Christ. — Judith A. Meier

KUBLAI: I do not know when you have had time to visit all the countries you describe to me. It seems to me you have never moved from this garden.
POLO: Everything I see and do assumes meaning in a mental space where the same calm reigns as here, the same penumbra, the same silence streaked by the rustling of learn. At the moment when I concentrate and reflect, I find myself again, always, in this garden, at this hour of the evening, in your august presence. — Italo Calvino

POLO: Everything I see and do assumes meaning in a mental space where the same calm reigns as here, the same penumbra, the same silence streaked by the rustling of learn. At the moment when I concentrate and reflect, I find myself again, always, in this garden, at this hour of the evening, in your august presence, though I continue, without a moment's pause, moving up a river green with crocodiles or counting the barrels of salted fish being lowered into the hold. — Italo Calvino

In the half-light through the drawn curtains she sits on her perch, relaxed, hooded, extraordinary. Formidable talons, wicked, curved black beak, sleek, cafe-au-lait front streaked thickly with cocoa-coloured teardrops, looking for all the world like some cappuccino samurai. — Helen Macdonald

The print was an old one made from a negative taken in the 1960's of her parents in Sydney Mines, dancing with thrilled, excited expressions on their faces, in front of a classic car that had been a wedding gift at the time. Her mother's hair, red back then, was held back by a blue handkerchief, and she was dressed in a billowing skirt and white blouse. Her father's denim jeans and faded t-shirt were streaked with coal dust as he held her hands and spun her around in the front yard of their old clapboard house, yellow grass under their feet and a cobalt-blue sky with white clouds drifting above. Mandy could almost feel the late summer breeze as she gazed deeply into the print, watching the flamboyant colors come to life. She hung it up to dry on two wooden clothespins hanging from a string above her. — Rebecca McNutt

The Fairy Godmother surveyed the Princess's bedroom. It was littered with the remains of chocolate bars, potato chips, and ice cream containers. She swept cheesy crumbs off the bed and sat softly beside the grieving girl. The Princess's face was puffy and streaked with mascara. — Kym Petrie

Despereaux looked at his father, at his grey-streaked fur and trembling whiskers and his front paws clasped together in front of his heart, and he felt suddenly as if his own heart would break in two. His father looked so small, so sad.
"Forgive me," said Lester again.
Forgiveness, reader, is, I think, something very much like hope and love - a powerful, wonderful thing.
And a ridiculous thing, too.
Isn't it ridiculous, after all, to think that a son could forgive his father for beating the drum that sent him to his death? Isn't it ridiculous to think that a mouse ever could forgive anyone for such perfidy?
But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, "I forgive you, Pa."
And he said those words because he sensed it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself. — Kate DiCamillo

The Afghan sky, under which the most beautiful idylls on earth were woven, grew suddenly dark with armored predators; its azure limpidity was streaked with powder trails, and the terrified swallows dispersed under a barrage of missiles. War had arrived. In fact, it had just found itself a homeland ... — Yasmina Khadra

He tried to scream, but nothing would come out. All he wanted to be was home, safe with his ma and daddy. Hot tears streaked down his grime-covered cheeks.
The candle in his hand sputtered out, and the darkness took him into its cold and empty embrace. — Hunter Shea

I think I streaked one time when I was 16, which was scary. — Mary Lambert

That beautiful sister of mine was an overwhelming and volatile mixture. One had the feeling that she'd been shot from a canon and showered her sparks over an incredulous world with no thought or care where they fell, a carbon copy of father. She was like some silvery comet who streaked through life with daring speed, the wellspring of which was an inner confidence that I deeply admired. At times, particularly in childhood, I was intimidated by her but she dictated from an aura of affection for me that was never threatening. — Joan Bennett

skidded to the other side and disappeared into the pines. Pelt bristling, eyes wide, Snowfur streaked after them, over the oily Thunderpath. Bluefur froze. A monster was roaring straight at Snowfur. Without slowing down, it slammed into her body. Bluefur heard the dull thump, then the howl of the monster as it thundered away, leaving Snowfur's body lying like a wet leaf at the edge of the Thunderpath. "No! — Erin Hunter

I can never watch you die again," I cried as tears streaked down my cheeks and fell onto him "I cannot do it. Are you listening? — Courtney Cole

Her tear-streaked face is beautiful. I want to wipe away her tears. I want to take the last ten years and erase them. I want to start over. — Heidi McLaughlin

is the answer none of the above
crouched in a hole like a mud-streaked fugitive
everyday a different version of
pouring it away like a water through a sieve — David Peter Gray

There was Annabelle, with her honey-streaked hair curled into shining upswept ringlets, her complexion as fresh as that of the idealized dairymaids who were painted on tins of sweets. Upon first acquaintance, Annabelle's exquisite English-rose beauty had been so intimidating that Evie had been afraid to talk to her, certain that she would receive a crushing snub from such an exquisite creature. However, she had eventually discovered that Annabelle was warm and kind, with a self-deprecating sense of humor. — Lisa Kleypas

There was only one way I could see managing this. I got out, ran around the car, opened his door, and straddled him with one leg outside and one foot on the console. Beeeeeep! My ass was on the horn. Beeeep, beeeep, beeeep, beepbeepbeepbeepbeep! A bead of sweat streaked down the side of Ranger's face. Babe. — Janet Evanovich

As the darkness deepened, the sky was streaked with veins of red, the last low beats of a dying sun. Against this scarlet canopy the hulk of the Rust Road's twin peaks stood tall, mountains of metal, unnaturally jagged. Their sharp pinnacles pierced the sky, and Jacob could not help but wonder if that explained the blood there. — Dean F. Wilson

I never knew. I never knew as I washed, and the blood streaked, faded, and finally disappeared, whether I'd purified myself or ruined the blood sign of the passover. — Annie Dillard

I couldn't compete with Honesty,

With her dark blonde hair streaked with auburn,
With her captivating blue eyes,
With her legs that stretched into forever.
She had the brains,
The body,
The perfect resume for girlfriend.

And me?
I had the perfect resume for
Best friend.
All the boys said so. — Elana Johnson

The demon kept pulling him unconscious, and in those short bursts of blackness, the dreamer snatched at light, and when he swam back to consciousness, he thrust the dream into reality. He shaped them into flapping creatures and earthbound stars and flaming crowns and golden notes that sang by themselves and mint leaves scattered across the blood-streaked pavement and scraps of paper with jagged handwriting on them: Unguibus et rostro.
But he was dying. — Maggie Stiefvater

How do I know Michael hasn't met some other girl?
Some Floridian girl, with long,sun-streaked hair, and a tan,and breasts? Who has access to the Internet and isn't cooped up in a palace with her crazy grandma,a homeless,Speedo-wearing prince and a freakish,hairless miniature poodle? — Meg Cabot

More of the planet was unfolding beneath them as the Heart of Gold streaked along its orbital path. The suns now stood high in the black sky, the pyrotechnics of dawn were over, and the surface of the planet appeared bleak and forbidding in the common light of day - gray dusty and only dimly contoured. It looked dead and cold as a crypt. From time to time promising features would appear on the distant horizon - ravines, maybe mountains, maybe even cities - but as they approached the lines would soften and blur into anonymity and nothing would transpire. The planet's surface was blurred by time, by the slow movement of the thin stagnant air that had crept across it for century upon century. — Douglas Adams

My love," he said with great patience, "you're hair is a rat's nest. Your eyes are swollen from weeping, your nose is red, your clothing is tattered, and you face is streaked with mud. You are still beyond passing fair, but not enough to tempt my immortal soul." He wiped a patch of mud from her delicate cheekbone. "I love you because you have a fierce heart, a brave soul, a tender touch, and woman's grace. I love you for a thousand reasons that I cant even begin to understand, when I didn't want to love you at all. I love your mind and your heart and soul, and yes, I love your pretty face as well. — Anne Stuart

And we drove towards the widening dawn, that now streaked half the sky with a wintry bouquet of pink of roses, orange of tiger-lilies, as if my husband had ordered me a sky from a florist. The day broke around me like a cool dream. — Angela Carter

The vision of this massive body of water with towering monoliths jutting straight upward to the heavens, stole our ability to think.Colors that made the wildflowers look dull, streaked up and down across the great pillars of hardened rock. The clouds and sky were mirrored in the glassy surface of the deep expanse of lake. — Danielle Rohr

It was incredible to watch. Inhuman, really, this gift to heal one's body. The power of the Void. The power of a demon.
Yet when Iseult glanced at the Bloodwitch's sleeping, dirt-streaked face, she didn't see a demon lying limp before her. — Susan Dennard

The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain. This is the kind the anonymous medieval poet makes me remember, the rain that falls on a day when you'd just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam and look out the streaked window with complacency. — Susan Allen Toth

COLORED LIGHTS FROM BLAZE'S truck streaked through the night and the sound of the siren pierced the air. I couldn't help wondering if stealth on our part might have been a better way to go. Why does law enforcement always have to warn the world they are coming? Doesn't that give the bad guys time to pack up and mosey out? — Deb Baker

Limper flopped violently. The gag flew out of his mouth. His ankle bonds parted. He gained his feet, tried to run, tried to mouth some spell that would protect him. He had gone thirty feet when a thousand fiery snakes streaked out of the night and swarmed him. They covered his body. They slithered into his mouth and nose, into his eyes and ears. They went in the easy way and came gnawing out through his back and chest and belly. And he screamed. And screamed. And screamed. — Glen Cook

If guilt can cause heartache, then I've definitely experienced it. Seeing Ivy hunched over and crying for probably the first time in her really long life is making me feel like the worst person in the world. With her tears streaked face in her hands, she looks so fragile, vulnerable, and human.
I come forwards and give her a hug. — Colleen Boyd

On the other side of that big-ass mirror, a video camera was watching us. In about ten seconds, it was going to start spitting static at itself, and everything it saw was going to break up into a fuzzy, gray-white wash, rolling up and down, that wouldn't be admissible as evidence on Judge Judy. Those missing frames would last a little less than a quarter of a minute, consolidate themselves back
into a semblance of reality, and then I would theoretically go walking right back out of here.
Between now and that moment, there stretched an infinite ocean of potential
time. Time enough to walk around the world. Time enough to fall in love, get
married on a white beach under purple stars, write a book of poems about
truest passion, have a few good and bloody screaming matches, get divorced in a court of autumn elves and gypsy moths, then set the ink-stained, tear-streaked pages of your text ablaze. — Clinton Boomer

A tear streaked down her face. I love you.
You're mine.
She laughed at the possessive tone. I've always been yours ... — Nalini Singh

Living there [Horse Mesa] was like living in a natural cathedral. Waking up every morning, you walked outside and looked down at the blue lake, then up at the sandstone cliffs
those awe-inspiring layers of red and yellow rock shaped over the millennia, with dozens of black-streaked crevices that temporarily became waterfalls after rainstorms. — Jeannette Walls

On inspection it turned out to be a tiny toad, a quarter of an inch long, hopping mightily after an escaping millipede, itself no bigger than a thread, both going for all they were worth until they disappeared in the grass. Then a wolf spider, stratling in size and hairiness, streaked over the gravel, either chasing something smaller or being chased by something bigger, I couldn't tell which. I reckoned there must be a million minor dramas playing out around the place without ceasing. Oh, but they were hardly minor to the chaser and the chasee who were dealing in the coin of life and death. I was a mere bystander, an idler. They were playing for keeps. — Jacqueline Kelly

God, she was beautiful. Hair a tangled mess, clothes torn, lips pale and swollen, skin streaked in dirt. And she was so damn beautiful and flawed and perfect. — G.S. Jennsen

They loved him, or loved the thought of him, what they thought he was: a man who could easily have had a good life who chose instead their life: spite and bitterness and age-fogged glasses of watery whiskey in dark, cobwebbed country bars, shit-smeared toilets, blood-streaked piss, and early death. He could have helped it but didn't. They couldn't help it and loved him for being worse than them. He was the king of the wasters. — Donal Ryan

Mace Brown calmly walked over, put his arm on Carlton's shoulder, and looked into his filthy, sweat-streaked face. 'Son, I want to tell you something my daddy told me a long time ago,' he drawled. 'If you hadn't wanted to work, you oughtn't have hired out.' The words struck Carlton like a foul tip off the face mask. It sounded like one of the most profound statements of truth and essence he had ever heard. — Doug Wilson

Champion Ven knelt in the ruins of the village. Sifting through the rubble, he lifted out a broken doll, its pink dress streaked with dirt and its pottery face cracked.
There was always a broken doll.
Why did there always have to be a damn doll? — Sarah Beth Durst

It didn't matter that Daniel had already seen her at her absolute, tear-streaked, bedraggled worst. She still had an overwhelming desire to be pretty for him. Which made her resent herself. — Frankie Rose

The chauffeur drove them home from the hospital, maneuvering the amphibious limousine smoothly through the waist-deep canals in the Back Bay neighborhood. When he pulled to a stop and popped the roof hatch, the oppressive heat stung Cacy's tear-streaked face. The driver held out a hand to lift her onto the dock. She ignored it and scrambled out by herself, her sundress fanning out around her skinny, bruised legs. Her father, elegant and lean in his miraculously unwrinkled three-piece, climbed out after her. — Sarah Fine

The redeemed of God who are snatched from the flames by the hand of the Lord are still covered with ashes. We remain streaked with charcoal and blemished with soot. We are redeemed, but not sinless. Satan is quick to call attention to the dirt. He wants us to be more conscious of our sin than of God's mercy. — R.C. Sproul

What could be more absurd? Yet it is nature's folly, not ours. When she set about her chief masterpiece, the making of man, she should have thought of one thing only. Instead, turning her head, looking over her shoulder, into each one of us she let creep instincts and desires which are utterly at variance with his main being, so that we are streaked, variegated, all of a mixture; the colours have run. Is the true self this which stands on the pavement in January, or that which bends over the balcony in June? Am I here, or am I there? Or is the true self neither this nor that, neither here nor there, but something so varied and wandering that it is only when we give the rein to its wishes and let it take its way unimpeded that we are indeed ourselves? — Virginia Woolf

Hemorrhoids can bleed, typically after a bowel movement, producing blood-streaked stool or toilet paper, .. The blood may turn water in the toilet bowl red. However, the amount of blood is usually small, and hemorrhoids rarely lead to severe blood loss or anemia. — Alfred The Great

Another, more fluid metaphor for the world of thought gradually suggested itself to him, derived from his former voyages at sea. A philosopher who was trying to consider human understanding in all its aspects would behold beneath him a mass molded in calculable curves, streaked by currents which could be charted, and deeply furrowed by the pressure of winds and the heavy, inert weight of water. It seemed to him that the shapes which the mind assumes are like those great forms, born of undifferentiated water, which assail or replace each other on the surface of the deep; each concept collapses, eventually, to merge with its very opposite, like two waves breaking against each other only to subside into the same single line of white foam. — Marguerite Yourcenar

He spread his paint on canvas-here light, there dark-till it looked like a streaked agate stone, and then "with little trouble," he made a finished painting emerge surprisingly out of the chaos of mixed paint. — E.H. Gombrich

Nightingale
Did I wound you, mutilate. Take away your voice. Did I cut something from you. Leave you locked in silence?
This is what you do: you sing. Every part of you. Your locks of hair sing, your eyes, your hands, your smile. If I listen closely I can even hear your blood.
Was I the one that took that away?
Go down to the water where we used to swim. Stand under the sky at dawn when the sky is streaked with blood. Open your mouth and shout our secret to the waves. The ocean will be your voice. You won't have to carry anything alone. Little Sister, my Spring, April. Little nightingale. Sant at the edge of the water. Your voice will come back to you. Maybe. If I am silent. — Francesca Lia Block

When the hornet hangs in the hollyhock,
And the brown bee drones in the rose,
And the west is a red-streaked four-o'clock,
And summer is near its close,
It's, Oh!, For the gate, and the locust lane;
And dusk, and dew, and home again! — Madison Cawein

Passover isn't about eating, Hannah," her mother began at last, sighing and pushing her fingers through her silver-streaked hair. "You could have fooled me," Hannah muttered. — Jane Yolen

Leliana advanced like a predator, hair lashing like a whip behind her. She abandoned the reins, riding the horse like they had merged into one charging centaur.

She aroused images of deities on winged horses, of untamed forests in a windstorm, of legendary heroes of legendary quests. Burning desire shot straight to his loins at the sight of her.

He ached for this woman, this goddess that streaked across his vision like a figment of his imagination, of his deepest desires and most guarded wishes. He could lose himself, mind, body, and soul, to a woman like that. Any sane man would. — Natalia Marx

You,
quiet and alone in your kitchen, cigaretteless.
Me, left tapping on your rain-streaked window,

wanting you to know that everything is going
to get better, and really hoping that it does. — Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

If the windows of your spirit are dirty, and streaked, covered with matter foreign to them, then the world as you look out of them will be dirty and streaked and out of order. ... Go wash your windows. — Ralph Waldo Trine

I wanted him to know that I saw him, a guy who, even with a tear-streaked face, seemed to have two tiny smiles framing his eyes like parentheses, a guy on the ground pantomiming his death to remind the world he was alive. — Jason Reynolds

A girl about her own age reached out and took hold of her hand. The girl was tall and thin. She had long black hair streaked with red, and the whites of her green eyes stood out against the black coal dust that covered her face. Her blue and white dress hung in tatters, and was blackened by coal dust and smeared with blood. The girl smiled and Rosie could see that in her other hand she was holding her red umbrella. — Denny Taylor

Gansey stepped in then, putting his phone neatly into his pocket, fetching out his keys instead. There was still something stretched thin about his expression. He looked, in fact, like he had in the cave, his face streaked and unfamiliar. It was so strange to see him without his Richard Campbell Gansey III guise on in public that Blue couldn't stop staring at his face. No - it wasn't his face. it was the way he stood, his shoulder shrugged, chin ducked, gaze from below uncertain eyebrows.
"SHE WAS ALL RIGHT," Jesse assured him.
"My head knew that," Gansey said. "But the rest of me didn't. — Maggie Stiefvater

For the real movements of a life are gradual, then sudden; they resist becoming anecdotes, they pulse like quasars from long-dead stars to reach the vivid planet of the present, they drift like fog over the ship until the spread sails are merely panels of gray in grayer air and surround becomes object, as in those perceptual tests where figure and ground reverse, the kissing couple in profile turn into the outlines of the mortuary urn that holds their own ashes. Time wears down resolve
then suddenly violence, something irrevocable flashes out of nowhere, there are thrashing fins and roiled, blood-streaked water, death floats up on its side, eyes bulging. — Edmund White

Sure, I'm dramatic and sloppily semi-cynical and semi-sentimental. But, in leisure years I could grow and choose my way. Now I am living on the edge. We all are on the brink, and it takes a lot of nerve, a lot of energy, to teeter on the edge, looking over, looking down into the windy blackness and not being quite able to make out, through the yellow, stinking mist, just what lies below in the slime, in the oozing, vomit-streaked slime; and so I could go on, my thoughts, writing much, trying to find the core, the meaning for myself. — Sylvia Plath

Listening (had there been any one to listen) from the upper rooms of the empty house only gigantic chaos streaked with lightning could have been heard tumbling and tossing, as the winds and waves disported themselves like the amorphous bulks of leviathans whose brows are pierced by no light of reason, and mounted one on top of another, and lunged and plunged in the darkness or the daylight (for night and day, month and year ran shapelessly together) in idiot games, until it seemed as if the universe were battling and tumbling, in brute confusion and wanton lust aimlessly by itself. — Virginia Woolf

Streamed down her mud-streaked face. Peter grabbed her wrist, chuckling the entire time, and — Maggie Brendan

Scholars of the Therin Collegium, from their comfortable position well inland, could tell you that the wolf sharks of the Iron Sea are beautiful and fascinating creatures, their bodies more packed with muscle than any bull, their abrasive hide streaked with every color from old-copper green to stormcloud black. Anyone actually working the waterfront in Camorr and on the nearby coast could tell you that wolf sharks are big aggressive bastards that like to jump. — Scott Lynch

Laughing, Bracken threw his sword aside and extended a hand towards the wizard. "To me," he said ... The unicorn horn lept from the wizard's hand and streaked to Bracken, who caught it effortlessly. In his grasp the horn immediately transformed into a sword ... — Brandon Mull

Camille's tear-streaked face flashed for a moment with triumph. "I knew it," she said. "Whatever else you might say, whatever lies you tell, you hate our kind. Don't you? — Cassandra Clare

Her hair was a tangle. Her filthy clothes would make any self-respecting debutante shriek in horror. Dirt streaked her piquant face. And still he thought she was utterly irresistible. He was in a bad way indeed. Several — Anna Campbell