The Inside Of Skin Quotes & Sayings

The world didn't see the inside of you, that it didn't care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. — Khaled Hosseini

The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin" of the other. We "go inside" their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, "to suffer with." — Nhat Hanh

But don't you dare think for one second that I don't remember every single touch and feeling I had with you. I remember the way every inch of you felt under my fingers. I remember the way your skin tasted, and I sure as hell didn't forget the way I fit inside you so damn perfectly. It literally makes me ache at the loss. — Kimberly Lauren

Time is a lie. Each second, when I am not with you, seems like an eternity and every moment when your breath touches my skin, which makes each bit of my soul crave for you feels the same too. Each hour when I am with you seems like a second and when I am inside your arms, even eternity feels the same too. — Akshay Vasu

Chapter 1 JEREMIAH WAS BLACK. HE COULD FEEL IT. THE WAY THE sun pressed down hard and hot on his skin in the summer. Sometimes it felt like he sweated black beads of oil. He felt warm inside his skin, protected. And in Fort Greene, Brooklyn - where everyone seemed to be some shade of black-he felt good walking through the neighborhood. But one step outside. Just one step and somehow the weight of his skin seemed to change. It got heavier. Light-skinned — Jacqueline Woodson

No one has touched me in 264 days. Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin and sometimes I'm not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything at all. Sometimes I'm so desperate to touch to be touched to feel that I'm almost certain I'm going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe where no one will ever be able to find me. It doesn't seem impossible. I've been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me. "Aren't you hungry?" His voice is lower now, a little worried now. I've been starving for 264 days. "No." The word is little more than a broken breath as it escapes my lips — Tahereh Mafi

He let Tech's cock slide from his mouth, then eagerly began nuzzling and lapping at the crinkled skin covering his balls. The clean smell of soap mixed with Tech's own musk had Steele ready to plunge deep inside and claim this man. "Don't — A.E. Via

It has to start from the inside. I've been juicing like crazy, vegetable juice all day long - instead of drinking coffee. I love green juice, and it's amazing how much more energy I have, my skin looks better. Cleansing and moisturizing every morning and night is also really important, but you can't just depend on your creams. I have to do more for the inside so it shows on the outside. — Milla Jovovich

You think you know death, but you don't, not until you've seen it, really seen it... And it gets under your skin and lives inside you.

You also think you know life, stand on the edge of things and what you go by but you're not living it, not really, you're just a tourist, a ghost, then you see it, really see it, it gets under your skin and lives inside you, and there's no escape, there's nothing to be done, and you know what? it's good, it's a good thing.

And that's all I've got to say about it. — Jack O'Connell

unusual in comparison with other tree nuts since the nut is outside the fruit. The cashew apple is an edible false fruit, attached to the externally born nut by a stem. In its raw state, the shell of the nut is leathery, not brittle. It contains the thick vesicant oil, CNSL, within a sponge-like interior. A thin testa skin surrounds the kernel and keeps it separated from the inside of the shell. The primary products of cashew nuts are the kernels which have value as confectionery nuts. Cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL) is an important industrial raw material for resin manufacture and the shells can be burned to provide heat for the decorticating operation. Cashew Apple Nut ShellFigure 2: Cross-section of a Cashew Fruit Tasta Skin Kernal — Anonymous

A child is asleep. Her private life unwinds inside skin and skull; only as she sheds childhood, first one decade and then another, can she locate the actual, historical stream, see the setting of her dreaming private life - the nation, the city, the neighborhood, the house where the family lives - as an actual project under way, a project living people willed, and made well or failed, and are still making, herself among them. I breathed the air of history all unaware, and walked oblivious through its littered layers. — Annie Dillard

Beatrix tilted her head back to look at him. Perspiration had given his skin the sheen of polished metal, strong masculine features worked in bronze. His expression was engrossed, as if her body fascinated him, as if she were made of some precious substance he had never encountered before. She felt the soft, hot shock of his breath as he bent to kiss the inside of her wrist. He let the tip of his tongue rest against a tiny pulse. So new, this intimacy with him, and yet it was as necessary as the beat of her own heart.
She never wanted to be out of his arms again. She wanted to be with him always. — Lisa Kleypas

Inside me is the same desperate hope I have watching the ravenous dead and thinking, Oh please, oh please, oh please.
The craving inside of me is to be clutched at by some dead girl. To put my ear to her chest and hear nothing. Even getting munched on by zombies beats the idea that I'm only flesh and blood, skin and bone. Demon or angel or evil spirit, I just need something to show itself. Ghoulie or ghosty or long-legged beastie, I just want my hand held. — Chuck Palahniuk

In pregnancy, there are two bodies, one inside the other. Two people live under one skin. When so much of life is dedicated to maintaining our integrity as distinct beings, this bodily tandem is an uncanny fact. — Joan Raphael-Leff

She raises her hands and places them on either side of my face. My skin burns beneath her touch. 'I think you're beautiful.'
I smile, thinking she's done. But she releases my face and places her palms on my chest, directly over my heart.
'You're beautiful right here,' she says.
I close my eyes, and the breath rushes from my lungs.
'I see the good in you, Dante,' Charlie continues, her words rolling together off her tongue. 'Even if you don't, I do. You have a good heart. You know how I know?'
I open my eyes. She's looking at me like nothing else in the world exists. Like the entire planet and all of mankind just vanished. She slowly wraps my hands inside her own as best she can and places them on her chest. 'Because I feel it here.' She taps our hands against her chest. 'I know you're good, Dante. Because I feel it inside of me. — Victoria Scott

I do, and the now-familiar warmth of his lips steadies me. He tastes of salt and the wine we shared with the others at our small farewell party.
Aladdin pulls away first and lifts one of my hands to his lips, kissing the delicate henna patterns on my skin, then turning my arm over to kiss the inside of my wrist. The ship's crew makes themselves busy on the other side of the ship, giving us privacy.
"You're the most beautiful girl in the world," Aladdin murmurs. "Have I ever told you that?"
"Enough to make me wonder if your father was a parrot. — Jessica Khoury

I always have a lot of vents and slits in the clothes I design, even inside the pockets so that I can slip my hands inside my clothes and touch my skin. I want to be able to feel my body naked inside my clothes. — Sonia Rykiel

My intentions toward you are definitely ... dirty." "How dirty?" she whispered. Fiery need jolted straight to his groin. He leaned closer to speak right into her ear. "Very. I want to strip you naked and lick you all over. I want to taste you ... everywhere. I want to feed you my cock and feel your teeth on me, and then I want to fuck you blind." Her eyelids drooped, her mouth went soft, and more heat built between them as they stared at each other. His other hand found her knee and slipped over silky skin to the inside of her thigh beneath her coat. "That's pretty dirty," she agreed breathlessly. — Kelly Jamieson

The glittery feeling. She'd named it because it felt to her as if her skin and everything beneath it briefly became shiny and jumpy and bubbly, as if glitter materialized inside her, then rose quickly through the layers of tissue that comprised her, momentarily sparkling all over the surface of her skin before dissipating into the air. Martha — Kevin Henkes

Her cheeks turned a deep shade of peach. A pang of jealousy struck me deep inside, and I flopped into my chair. The others joined me at the table. Didn't Montgomery remember last night, during the storm, running his fingers down the bare skin of my back? I did. I could barely think about anything else. Edward sat across from me, deep in his own thoughts. His hands still bore the scratches from our escape. I wondered if his ribs still hurt him. I absently touched my own, remembering the feel of his hands holding me there, that night behind the waterfall. — Megan Shepherd

She gently bit his bottom lip, his ear. Worked her way down his body until she reached the inside of his thigh, then bit hard, breaking the skin, drawing blood. "My mark," she said, looking up at him. "Now you'll go back to your wife with my mark. — Dominique Wilson

His kissing was slower this time - gentler. The fingertips of his other hand slipped beneath the waist of my undergarment, and I sucked in a breath. He hesitated at the sound, pulling back slightly. But I bit his lip in a silent command that had him growling into my mouth. With one long claw, he shredded through silk and lace, and my undergarment fell away in pieces. The claw retracted, and his kiss deepened as his fingers slid between my legs, coaxing and teasing. I ground against his hand, yielding completely to the writhing wildness that had roared alive inside me, and breathed his name onto his skin. He paused again - his fingers retracting - but I grabbed him, pulling him farther on top of me. I wanted him now - I wanted the barriers of our clothing to vanish, I wanted to taste his sweat, wanted to become full of him. "Don't stop," I gasped out. "I - " he said thickly, resting his brow between my breasts as he shuddered. "If we keep going, I won't be able to stop at all." I — Sarah J. Maas

I think it's better to be comfortable in your skin than to be miserable being who you are. Sure, the meth is horrible. It ruins people from the inside out. It's a waiting game
it's not a matter of if it destroys you, but rather a matter of when it will. I've made it this far. I'm not sending a message that it's "cool" to be on drugs and tell everyone about it. I don't sum myself up as a drug addict and a hooker. That's not what I am. Those are juts things I do, they don't define me. Jobs and addictions do not make us who we are. — Ashly Lorenzana

On that day so long ago, in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, in the Massacre River, my mother did fly. Weighted down by my body inside hers, she leaped from Dominican soil into the water, and out again on the Haitian side of the river. She glowed red when she came out, blood clinging to her skin, which at that moment looked as though it were in flames. — Edwidge Danticat

At what point do they believe what's been branded on their skin instead of just knowing who they are on the inside. — Abi Ketner & Missy Kalicicki

I'd never wanted to consume another body as rabidly as I did when he was inside me, but even like this, I could never seem to get close enough to the parts of him I wanted to feel. And it was with that thought in my mind that the delicious ratcheting tension along my skin and in my belly crystallized into an ache so heavy I slipped my legs off his shoulders, pulling all of his weight on top of me and pleading, "Please, please, please," over and over. — Christina Lauren

I took a breath and watched as he leaned down over my exposed, lumpy belly. Very lightly, he kissed it. He kissed the spot beneath my ribs and all the way down to my navel. He kissed across my lower stomach, that wretched expanse where the stretch marks raked across my skin, then up and down my sides. Harry kissed every inch of my horrible flesh with a tenderness so great and loving, and all the while, my eyes stayed clenched tight. 'I am loved,' a voice inside me declared. — Kelsey Miller

..you can't just break through a person's defenses like thatl the defenses are a part of the person, they are the person. It's our nature to have hidden depths. It's like...skinning a frog and saying, 'Now I understand this frog, because I've seen what's inside it.' But when you skin it, it dies. You haven't understood a frog, you've understood a corpse. — Raphael Carter

You'll never find a worse critic than the one inside your own skin, or a more difficult one to silence," I told Pieras, by means of explanation. "The best you can hope for is to teach it some manners. — Lisa Shearin

The prince inside her did not notice when she began to nibble at him
Bit by bit, she stole morsels of the otherworldly creature that had taken her body for its skin, who did such despicable things with it.
The creature noticed the day she took a bigger bite - big enough that it screamed in agony.
Before it could tell anyone, she leaped upon it, tearing and ripping with her shadowfire until only ashes of malice remained, until it was no more than a whisper of thought. Fire - it did not like fire of any kind. — Sarah J. Maas

My eyes went straight to a soft woman who sat facing the wrong way at the bar top. Soft, because I knew if I were to touch her skin, it would feel like a peach, the kind of woman you could almost smell from inside the building. Instead of facing Andy, she had her back to him, keeping an eye on the door. That must be her. Her hair was exquisite. She was really the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. A golden crown of braids and curls complimented her sun-kissed skin. Her dress draped perfectly over her body, and in that moment, I needed her more than I needed air. — Chelsie Shakespeare

His mouth opens. From inside him comes a slow stream, without breath, without interruption. It flows up through his body and out upon me; it passes through the cabin, through the wreck; washing the cliffs and shores of the island, it runs northward and southward to the ends of the earth. Soft and cold, dark and unending, it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face. — J.M. Coetzee

There's a girl calm people don't know about. It's a girl teen standstill. A motionless peace. It doesn't come from anywhere but inside us, and it only lasts for a few years. It's born from being a not woman yet. It's free flowing and invisible. It's the eye of the violent storm you call my teenage daughter. In this place we are undisturbed by all the moronic things you think about us. Our voices like rain falling. We are serene. Smooth. With more perfect hair and skin than you will ever again know. Daughters of Eve. — Lidia Yuknavitch

He was getting undressed and it snapped something inside of him that had been drawing taut, ready to break for months.
"I'm hungry, Bruno," he said, in a soft voice, as he removed the shirt from his broad shoulders, revealing a perfect sight of smooth dark skin. "I can't wait for dinner," he continued, with a smile.
When he put his hands to the fastening of his trousers, Bruno let out a sigh and put the take out menus on the counter. He couldn't look at him, because he knew Lyon was trying to seduce him on purpose. He didn't want to talk or hear him out or spend time with him that didn't end with an orgasm.
"I can't do this anymore," Bruno confessed, quietly. — Elaine White

Having him hold me like that was the only good thing out of it all, having him hold me and being right there with me. I just wished he could have held me harder and tighter and made the bad feelings, the dirty feelings, go away. But I don't think you can hold a person that tight, so tight that she's in your heart, way inside your skin, being cleaned and warmed by your blood. (11) — Susan Shaw

The neighborhood of Gramercy Park, where Edwin used to live, was built to look like London, which is to say that its considerable beauty is skin deep while its heart beats with the ugliness of monarchy. And at its very center, inside the gates keeping out the riffraff that is all New York, stands the statue of the sad and fancy Edwin Booth, dressed as Hamlet, his signature role. — Sarah Vowell

[Daemon's] arms tightened, drew her closer as his hand stroked up and down her back, just for the simple pleasure of it. She sighed. The tension in her muscles eased a bit, and she rested against him more fully.
He wasn't thinking of seduction when his hands began to wander over her - or when her hands hesitantly stroked him.
He wasn't thinking of seduction when his body delighted in how different the silky skin of her neck felt under his mouth compared to the robe beneath his hands.
He wasn't thinking of sex when he opened his robe and then hers so that only that film of spidersilk separated skin from skin. Or when even the spidersilk no longer separated them.
He wasn't thinking of sex when his mouth settled over hers and he sent them both sliding into dark, hot desire. And by the time he found himself in bed, listening to her purr with pleasure while he moved inside her, he wasn't able to think at all. — Anne Bishop

I closed my eyes then but it was too dark to clearly see that vision that my body would conjure out of blood and the inside of skin when light hit it, but I'd seen it so often, examined it so carefully, that it wasn't hard for me to call to mind. — China Mieville

I've been in your skin," he taunted. "I know you inside and out. There's nothing there. Do us all a favor and die so we can start working on another plan and quit thinking maybe you'll grow the fuck up and be capable of something. — Karen Marie Moning

An intense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his chest, it was inside his very heart ...
Harry's eyes rolled up into his head. He couldn't see. He was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in his ears as though of water. He was being dragged downward, the roaring growing louder ...
And then, from far away, he heard screaming, terrible, terrified, pleading screams. He wanted to help whoever it was, he tried to move his arms, but couldn't ... a thick white fog was swirling around him, inside him - — J.K. Rowling

[I] learned ... that friends are a good source of food and soul when one has not yet gotten the hang of cooking or living (as opposed to dying) alone. That nothing-not booze, not love, not sex, not work, not moving from state to state-will make the past disappear. Only time and patience heal things. I learned that cutting up your arms in an attempt to make the pain move from inside to outside, from soul to skin, is futile. That death is a cop-out. I tried all of these things. — Marya Hornbacher

Self-esteem is that deep-down inside the skin feeling you have of your own self-worth. — Denis Waitley

My skin is kind of sort of brownish pinkish yellowish white. My eyes are greyish blueish green, but I'm told they look orange in the night. My hair is reddish blondish brown, but its silver when its wet, and all the colors I am inside have not been invented yet. — Shel Silverstein

I wish I could break this window. Step through it. But I can't break this window. I can't even find some less dramatic way to die inside of this school, like hanging myself or slitting my wrists, because what would they do with my body? It might put everyone at risk. I won't let myself do that.
I'm not selfish like Lily.
I hate her. I hate her so much my heart tries to crawl out of my throat but it gets stuck there and beats crazily in the too narrow space. I bring my hands to my neck and try to massage it back down. I pres so heard against the skin, my eyes sting, and then I'm hurrying back down the stairs, back to the first floor. I think of Trace running laps, something he can control. — Courtney Summers

More than that, I liked being known, and for the first time in my life, I was known by another. I'm not saying I liked what she knew about me, not proud of the bits and pieces, but somehow she was standing inside my skin and yet I didn't experience shame at her reflection. — Charles Martin

What animal would do this?"he said harshly. "No, little one, animals might scratch you, or bite you, or even rip you apart in hunger or fear, but only a man can crush you inside, in your heart, for no other reason than the colour of tour skin. — Lauren St. John

I wonder which is preferable, to walk around all your life swollen up with your own secrets until you burst from the pressure of them, or to have them sucked out of you, every paragraph, every sentence, every word of them, so at the end you're depleted of all that was once as precious to you as hoarded gold, as close to you as your skin - everything that was of the deepest importance to you, everything that made you cringe and wish to conceal, everything that belonged to you alone - and must spend the rest of your days like an empty sack flapping in the wind, an empty sack branded with a bright fluorescent label so that everyone will know what sort of secrets used to be inside you? — Margaret Atwood

In the other train, looking at me through the window, is the most beautiful boy I've ever seen. He has golden hair and bright blue eyes. His skin seems to glow softly, like he carries the sun inside him. One of his paint-stained hands is clutching his chest, like he just got punched, and the other is pressed flat against the glass of the window. I raise my hand and press it against my window, mirroring him. He looks so confused. Stunned. Like he's just seen a ghost. — Josephine Angelini

I almost jumped when the door opened. Alex came back inside, wearing black sweatpants; I swallowed as I saw his chest bare. "Forgot my T-shirt," he said sheepishly. His bag was on the floor near the bed, and I watched the lantern light play on his skin as he crossed to it. Squatting by the bag, he pulled out a T-shirt; I sat frozen, taking in the movement of his back and shoulders.
I stood up, my heart hammering. "Wait. Can I just ... ?" I trailed off as he turned to look at me.
"What?" he said, rising to his feet.
An embarrassed laugh escaped me. I shook my head. "Just
before you put that on, can I ... ?" In slow motion, I went over to him. I reached out toward his chest and then stopped, my fingers hesitating an inch from his skin. "Is
this all right?"
Alex stood very still, a soft smile on his face. "Anything you want is all right. — L.A. Weatherly

When the mushrooms took hold she sensed some of the gods calling to her from inside her own chest and followed their urging outside into the yard and up the sunny slope into the trees. She felt all gooey, gooey with the slobbered love of various gods gathered within, and smiling full-time went about the woods looking to collect butterflies and pet them until they gave milk, or maybe roll in the dirt until she felt China through her skin. — Daniel Woodrell

All her violence had drained away, replaced by a fear older and deeper than anything she'd ever experienced. An old, old recognition. Something inside her knew him from a time when girls took skin bags to the river to get water, a time when panthers walked in the darkness outside mud huts. From a time before electric lights, before candles, when darkness was fended off with stone lamps. When darkness was the greatest danger of all. — L.J.Smith

He fucks me. It's powerful. Brutal. Hips slam into me from behind as he fills me deeply, over and over. Skin slapping noises echo through the room as he drives me into the table so hard it starts to move. I grip onto the edge of it, trying to hold on, trying to stay still, but he makes it impossible. Pain and pleasure merge inside of me, consuming me, and it doesn't take long before I start to grow numb. Tingles encompass me. My mind blanks out. Nothing exists except his cock inside of me, him on top of me, slamming into me from behind. I cry out with every deep thrust, incoherent noises, like everything inside of me is being purged. — J.M. Darhower

From the slimy, spittle-drenched, sidewalk, they were picking up bits of orange peel, apple skin, and grape stems, and, they were eating them. The pits of greengage plums they cracked between their teeth for the kernels inside. They picked up stray bits of bread the size of peas, apple cores so black and dirty one would not take them to be apple cores, and these things these two men took into their mouths, and chewed them, and swallowed them; and this, between six and seven o'clock in the evening of August 20, year of our Lord 1902, in the heart of the greatest, wealthiest, and most powerful empire the world has ever seen. — Jack London

Close your eyes," Marcus said, his hand moving to her bottom in a circling caress. He brushed his mouth over her forehead and her fragile eyelids. "Rest. You'll need to regain your strength ... because once we're married, I won't be able to leave you alone. I'll want to love you every hour, every minute of the day." He nestled her more closely against him. "There is nothing on earth more beautiful to me than your smile ... no sound sweeter than your laughter ... no pleasure greater than holding you in my arms. I realized today that I could never live without you, stubborn little hellion that you are. In this life and the next, you're my only hope of happiness. Tell me, Lillian, dearest love ... how can you have reached so far inside my heart?" He paused to kiss her damp silken skin ... and smiled as the wisp of a feminine snore broke the peaceful silence. — Lisa Kleypas

The first cut wasn't the deepest. No, not at all. It was like all the others, a subtle rend of anxious skin, a gentle pulse of crimson, just enough to hush the demons shrieking inside my brain. But this time they wouldn't shut up. Just kept on howling, like Mama, when she was in a bad way. Worst thing was, the older I got, the more I began to see how much I resembled Mama, falling in and out of blue, then lifting up into the white. That day I actually thought about howling. So I gave myself to the knife, asked it to bite a little harder, chew a little deeper. The hot, scarlet rush felt so delicious I couldn't stop there. The blade might have reached bone, but my little brother, Bryan, barged into the bathroom, found me leaning against Grandma's new porcelain tub, turning its unstained white pink. You should have heard him scream. — Ellen Hopkins

You ask
if I will write a poem
I could,
I suppose
write the most
splendiferous
one of all

but not
right
now
not when

your hands
are brewing
warm
cinnamon tea
across my skin

not when I'm
trying to imagine
what might happen
if you began
flowering
kisses
upon
me

My dear,
how can
I write
a poem
when I'm already
inside one? — Sanober Khan

Cassidy is the best girlfriend ever. I've dated her for a full two months longer than anyone else. She's smart and witty and original and can chug a beer faster than most guys I know. On top of that, she is absolutely beautiful. I mean spanktacular. Talk about pure colors. She's high-definition. Scandinavian blond hair, eyes as blue as fiords, skin like vanilla ice cream or flower petals or sugar frosting - or really not like anything else but just her skin. It makes my hair ache. Of course, she does believe in astrology, but I don't even care about that. It's a girl thing. I think of it like she has constellations and fortunes whirling around inside her. — Tim Tharp

I think most of us have many personas inside us at the outset, but over time we lean to the one that is dominant and the others atrophy for lack of use. The difference with actors is that we are paid to become all the people inside us and to bring into us all the people we may have met along the way. Thus we remain instinctively aware of, unsettled by, curious about, empathetic toward, and eager to display all those potential beings we carry. Of all these, the empathy part is the most important and is, I believe, why actors - the good ones - tend to be open, progressive creatures: We are asked to get inside the skin of "other," to feel with "other," to understand "other." Being able to see from this "other" point of view gives actors compassion. — Jane Fonda

When she listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin, and she walked out of the world like a witch. — Arundhati Roy

The girl was rotten inside. Peel off a layer of that beautiful skin, and you'd find nothing but rotten flesh. — Haruki Murakami

I also take vitamins because I think when you take care of yourself on the inside it makes a big difference in your skin. — Magdalena Frackowiak

I moaned. "Gonna make this fast and hard," he murmured against my skin. He lifted up my leg and pushed inside of me, stretching and filling me in two hard long thrusts. He started pumping into me before my body was ready for him and the bite of pain made each stroke torturously erotic. "Never felt nothing like this, Ti. Wanna fuck you and smack the living shit out of you all at the same time. Don't know what this is, but it makes me want to keep you filled with my cock all day long and dripping with my cum. I want to mark you. I want to fucking own you." He grunted as his thrusts became harder, more frantic, more erratic. Just more. "What the fuck are you doing to me?" he asked on a ragged exhale. Sparks — T.M. Frazier

Margaret herself hadn't known her body was a parish bell tolling at every heartbreak she heard of, and that night with Pete calmly sitting on the edge of her favorite chair, invading her private room with words this room was sealed from, she felt it just as a bell would. It struck her right inside, until her bronze skin rang out the news. Not of Pete's story, which had not even made him cry, but some other story she'd been trying not to tell herself. So she sat stiffly there and wept, clanging and clanging like a thing that tested its own breaking. — Andrew Sean Greer

Adin looked up at Donte, who was then in the middle of taking a sip of his wine. He took in Donte's demonically beautiful face, long and angular, with its hooded eyes and high cheekbones, its wine-darkened lips. He watched as Donte savored it, imagining the warmth of the wine on the inside of Donte's mouth and against his tongue. He could almost feel it as it slid down the column of Donte's throat, teasing his Adam's apple into a subtle bob, and suddenly Adin was the wine, slipping down that throat, and just as inexplicably, Adin felt Donte's mouth on him everywhere at once, biting ... licking ... sucking. Adin's breath sped up; his skin warmed with the beginnings of a flush brought on by arousal. — Z.A. Maxfield

Thinking has a quiet skin. But I feel the and of things inside it.
Blue hills most gentle in calm light, then stretches of assail
And ransack. Such tangles of charred wreckage, shrapnel-bits
Singling and singeing where they fall. I feel the stumbling gait of what I am,
The quiet uproar of undone, how to be hidden is a tempting, violent thing
Each thought breaking always in another.
All the unlawful elsewheres rushing in. — Laure Sheck

Who do you see
when you think of you?
Are you an outsider,
Cool, distant, angry,
swimming against the current,
or are you in the flow?
When they tell you,
This is who you are,
do you say yes or no?
Who do you see
when you look beyond
the skin and the surface,
when you drift to sleep,
when you are the person
no one else knows? Who
are you on the inside?
Don't answer these questions.
Not yet. First, open your eyes,
your mind, your heart.
See. — James Howe

I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination. — Alan W. Watts

The tallest slugger touched my forehead, and I ignited like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Shards of dazzling light rippled under my skin. I was the constellation Grus. The Trifid Nebula. I was the Big Bang, expanding endlessly through time and space forever.
"I thought I was dying. That I was going to expire on a cold slab, trapped inside an UFO, my body filled with every light that had ever existed. I couldn't imagine a better way to die. — Shaun David Hutchinson

All the colors
Of the rainbow
Hidden 'neath my skin
Hearts have colors
Don't we all know?
Red runs through our veins
Feel the fire burning up
Inspire me with blood
Of blue and green
I have hope
Inside is not a heart
But a kaleidoscope — Sara Bareilles

I let my hands fall to the bed. Her mouth crafts a warm path to mine. There we share the taste of my tears as her top lip slides between my own and her tongue warms the inside of my mouth. Her hand slides up my neck, nails grazing the skin, till she finds purchase in my hair, tugging slightly at the tangle. Shivers lance my body.
Gone is any semblance of resistance. All the guilt that kept me from betraying Eo with Mustang is swept away in the chaos inside me. All the guilt I have for knowing she is a Gold and I am a Red vanishes. I'm a man, and she's the woman I want. — Pierce Brown

Compared with this simple, fibrous life, our civilized history appears the chronicle of debility, of fashion, and the arts of luxury. But the civilized man misses no real refinement in the poetry of the rudest era. It reminds him that civilization does but dress men. It makes shoes, but it does not toughen the soles of the feet. It makes cloth of finer texture, but it does not touch the skin. Inside the civilized man stands the savage still in the place of honor. We are those blue-eyed, yellow-haired Saxons, those slender, dark-haired Normans. — Henry David Thoreau

Tell me ... tell me how much you want me, Leo," I breathed out. "I want to lay you down and slip deep inside you. I want to find every secret part of you with my lips, my tongue, my hands. I want you to ride me while I watch. I want to hear our skin slapping together. I want to wake up next to you in the morning and do it all over again. Need you so much. You're all I want. — Ilsa Madden-Mills

I fall down on my back and instantly feel the pain of my tail splitting in two. The two parts glow a bright green that fades to a dull white glow. I cannot believe my eyes. My black scales turn to skin the same color as my torso. I reach down and touch the space between them that never existed before. It is a moist opening, like a perpetual wound. I insert a finger. It doesn't hurt. It feels just like the inside of a clam. — Leza Cantoral

He was still stroking the inside of her wrist, his touch doing odd delicious things to her skin and nerves. — Cassandra Clare

She didn't know Matt had followed her until he grabbed her shoulder, halting her headlong rush to nowhere. He turned her into his arms, pulled her against his chest, crushed her mouth in a searing kiss.
"Shane," he said when he raised his head from hers. "I love you. I love you."
Her heart opened and the wall inside her trembled as she clung to him. "Burn me up, Matt," she said, her voice a ragged whisper. "Burn it away. Please, please, burn it all away."
She heard him growl deep in his throat and he lifted her into his arms in one swift movement.
As he carried her back across the parking lot and through the door of her room, she rained kisses on his neck and the hard line of his jaw. His skin was warm and damp and tasted of salt and desire. — Jane Taylor Starwood

We cannot make ourselves known to each other; we are not healed and forgiven by each other's presence. With words as valueless as poker chips, we play games whose object it is to keep us from seeing each other's cards. Chit-chat games in which "How are you?" means "Don't tell me who you are," and "I'm alone and scared" becomes "Fine thanks." Games where the players create the illusion of being in the same room but where the reality of it is that each is alone inside a skin in that room, like bathyspheres at the bottom of the sea. Blind man's buff games where everyone is blind. — Frederick Buechner

Inside all of us, she reflected, were smiling bones. She would do her best to remember from now on that even on the hardest days there was always a smile underneath her skin. — Dan Rhodes

Forever wasn't pain and grief.
Forever wasn't a problem.
Forever was my heartbeat and it was the hope tomorrow held. Forever was the glistening silver lining of every dark cloud, no matter how heavy and thick it was. Forever was knowing moments of weakness didn't equate to an eternityof them.Forever was knowing that I was strong.Forever was the fire breathing dragon inside me that had shed the fear like a snake shedding skin. Forever was simply a promise of more. Forever was a work in progress. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

The sound of your voice makes the chaos around me vanish. The smell of your hair calms my soul. The sight of your smile tames the wolf inside of me, and touching your skin ... " He glanced at our joined hands. "Touching your skin makes the broken parts of me whole." - Aren from Hunter's Moon — Lisa Kessler

Card five hundred and thirty-four," repeated Artemis. "Of a series of six hundred standard inkblot cards. I memorized them during our sessions. You don't even shuffle."
Argon checked the number on the back of the card: 534. Of course. "Knowing the number doesn't answer the question. What do you see?"
Artemis allowed his lip to wobble. "I see an ax dripping with blood. Also a scared child, and an elf clothed in the skin of a troll."
"Really?" Argon was interested now.
"No. Not really. I see a secure building, perhaps a family home, with four windows. A trustworthy pet, and a pathway leading from the door into the distance. I think, if you check your manual, you will find that these answers fall inside healthy parameters."
Argon did not need to check. The Mud Boy was right, as usual. — Eoin Colfer

HOW TO TRIUMPH LIKE A GIRL I like the lady horses best, how they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap, or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! But mainly, let's be honest, I like that they're ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don't you want to believe it? Don't you want to lift my shirt and see the huge beating genius machine that thinks, no, it knows, it's going to come in first. — Ada Limon

The thirteen-year-old boy's cheeks were flushed with the wine that his father, half as a joke, had forced upon him. He burrowed into the silken quilts and let his head fall back on the pillow, his breath warm and heavy. The tracery of blue veins under his close-cropped hair throbbed around his earlobes, and the skin was so extraordinarily transparent that one could almost see the fragile mechanism inside. Even in the half-light of the room, his lips were red. And the sounds of breathing that came from this boy, who looked as though he had never experienced anguish, seemed to be the mocking echo of a sad folksong. — Yukio Mishima

Her fingers clenched against his shoulder blades. "You don't know what you're asking."
"Do I not?" He threaded his hands gently around her neck. "I'm asking you to make love with me."
That word again. She opened her eyes. "Gareth," she whispered. "Please. Don't. This is hard enough - "
She stopped speaking as his gaze pierced her.
Incredible. Last night had seemed so intimate. And yet it
had been so dark that she had not been able to see anything other than flashes of light, reflecting off the surface
of his skin. Now she could look into his eyes. They were golden-brown. They were not cutting or dismissive. And
even though she could see the desire smolder inside them, there was something else in them that turned her belly to liquid. — Courtney Milan

You should go home and get some sleep," Harper said drowsily, letting the pain medication help take her under.
Trent stood up, lowered the head of the gurney, and lifted Harper's head to fluff the pillow before gently lowering her back down.
"I'll see you in the morning," Harper said, refusing to acknowledge the fear she suddenly felt at being left alone. The light went off in the room and Harper's heart started to race. She needed the light on.
The mattress sagged as Trent sat down on the side of the bed. She felt him lean forward and heard him kick off his shoes. He pulled his legs up onto the single gurney and lay down on his side, carefully putting his arm around her. The warmth of his breath behind her ear, the sweetness of his lips against her skin eased the pressure she'd felt building inside.
"Yeah, you will, darlin'. I'll be right here. — Scarlett Cole

What's wrong with men?" Tenar inquired cautiously.
As cautiously, lowering her voice, Moss replied, "I don't know, my dearie. I've thought on it. Often I've thought on it. The best I can say it is like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell." She held up her long, bent, wet fingers as if holding a walnut. "It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is. It's all him and nothing else, inside. — Ursula K. Le Guin

It was one of the most sublimely exhilarating moments of my life. I was half a step in front of the real, an inch or two beyond the confines of my body, and when the thing happened just as I thought it would, I felt my skin had become transparent. I wasn't occupying space anymore so much as melting into it. What was around me was also inside me, and I had only to look into myself in order to see the world. — Paul Auster

It's like she was metal and I was a magnet, Roc. But at the same time it felt like someone had shoved an electric wire into my skin and was frying me from the inside. It hurt like hell. No, worse than hell, Roc. And yet, somehow across the distance, through the fence, over the mob of people, I felt a pull to her, even though I knew it would hurt me to be closer to her. I probably would have just let it go, chalked it up to male hormones, but then when she acted so strong, pushed that guy ... I don't know, since then I can't get her out of my mind. — David Estes

A present," he said, then winced. The presents he'd bought for Portia usually included ropes of pearls or gemstones the size of robin's eggs. A man of his wealth ought to provide something much nicer than a sack of strange-looking pods. Sophie peeked inside the bag, her face screwing up in confusion. "What are they?" she asked, lifting the odd vegetable from the bag. It was a ruddy orange shade, larger than her hand, and looked like an oblong pumpkin. There were four of them in the bag. "You once said the cocoa powder in this village was bad, and you wanted to make your own. These are cocoa pods, shipped directly from Brazil. If you split it open, you will find fresh cocoa beans inside. Then you can begin your culinary adventure of making chocolate from scratch." "You remembered!" she exclaimed. Her eyes widened in delight as she held the pod to her nose for a sniff and then ran her fingers along its waxy skin. "It's fabulous. Thank you! — Elizabeth Camden

Kicking the door shut with the heel of my boot, I wedge her against it, raining kisses on her skin, wishing I could climb inside her and kiss away the welts left on her heart and mind. — Poppet

I take a step toward him. My arm reaches up. I don't know if I'm reaching for the pipe or for him. I want to touch his skin. I want to breathe in what he breathes. The yellow swirl. I want to be the yellow swirl. I want him to breathe me in, be sent riding on oxygen molecules deep into his lungs. I want to travel through his body, seeing what makes him happy. Attaching myself to whatever place in him sparks to life on my arrival. His blood, his tissues, his muscles, I want to burrow inside the folds like a windblown dusting of snow, so that each time I melt away he seeks me out again. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Dex gasped, his back arching at the feel of strong hands kneading his ass cheeks, pushing them apart as the head of his lover's slick cock aligned itself then pushed in slowly, the pressure both painful and exhilarating. God, it had been too long. Dex palmed his erection as he was entered, his lover burying deep inside him inch by inch. Hard muscles pressed up against his back, lowering Dex onto the mattress, his breath coming out ragged as his lover buried himself to the root and started rotating his hips, drawing out then pushing back in painfully slow. Dex moaned, his stomach filled with butterflies, the anticipation building like nothing he'd ever felt before. His whole body was on fire, and he writhed with need beneath the deliciously heavy weight. He couldn't remember Lou feeling like this. Had it always felt this damn good? Dex moaned when lips pressed against his skin beneath his ear. "Easy there, Rookie." Dex's — Charlie Cochet

Patch stood over me, and a drop of rain slid from his hair, landing like ice on my collarbone. I felt it slide along my skin, disappearing beneath the neckline of my shirt. His eyes followed the raindrop, and I began to quiver on the inside. — Becca Fitzpatrick

Some people
Are worthy of a bullet straight
to the heart because that is where
cruelty evolves into evil.
Some
humans aren't human at all,
despite how they appear.
Humanity is what lives inside
people,
harbored beneath skin, flesh,
and bone. — Ellen Hopkins

I don't think it matters who you love, just as long as you love. Who cares whether it's a man or a woman? Why does that have anything more to do with the person inside than the color of someone's skin? Personally, I'm pretty fucking disappointed that I seem to be one hundred percent heterosexual. — Jane Green

Am I identical to my skin? If not - and the answer is clearly no - why should the frontier between my outside and my inside be drawn at the skin? If not at the skin, then where does the outside of me stop and the inside of me begin? At my skull? Am I my skull? Am I inside my skull? Let's say yes for the moment, because we are quickly running out of places to look for me. Where inside my skull might I be? And if I'm up there in my head, how is the rest of me me (let alone the inside of me)? — Sam Harris

Sometimes I think there's a beast that lives inside me, in the cavern that's where my heart should be, and every now and then it fills every last inch of my skin, so that I can't help but do something inappropriate. Its breath is full of lies; it smells of spite. — Jodi Picoult

I am filthy. I am riddled with lice. Hogs, when they look at me, vomit. My skin is encrusted with the scabs and scales of leprosy, and covered with yellow pus.[ ... ] A family of toads has taken up residence in my left armpit and, when one of them moves, it tickles. Mind one of them does not escape and come and scratch the inside of your ear with its mouth; for it would then be able to enter your brain. In my right armpit there is a chameleon which is perpetually chasing them, to avoid starving to death: everyone must live.[ ... ] My anus has been penetrated by a crab; encouraged by my sluggishness, he guards the entrance with his pincers, and causes me a lot of pain. — Comte De Lautreamont

First," he said, coming behind me and placing his hands on the counter, just outside of mine, "choose your tomato." He dipped his head so his mouth was at my ear. His breath was warm, tickling my skin. "Good. Now pick up the knife."
"Does the chef always stand this close?" I asked, not sure if I liked or feared the flutter his closeness caused inside me.
"When he's revealing culinary secrets, yes. — Becca Fitzpatrick

The silences after his last gasp were sung together by a blackbird. I lay there, my eyes unable to close. His were unable to open. I listed the places where I hurt, and how much. My loins felt ripped. Something inside had torn. There were seven places on my body where he had sunk his fangs into my skin and bitten. He'd dug his nails into my neck, and twisted my head to one side, and clawed my face. I hadn't made a noise. He had made all the noise for both of us. Had it hurt him? — David Mitchell

We smell the impact of traffic and humans. Humans and traffic. Back and forth. We taste our moment, swallowing it, knowing it. We feel our nerves twitching inside our stomaches, lunging at our skin from beneath. — Markus Zusak