The Taste Of Blood Quotes & Sayings

In a moment a world will lose its focus and become a different place. They say that blind people have been struck by their affliction without warning, and that Helen Keller found language and light in a word. For me, I suddenly knew, viscerally at least, a number of things about my town that I'd only ever suspected. The dog was a girl. The dog was a native girl. I dug her out of the snow with more care than I'd ever lifted a porcupine or a snapping rat, and feeling that she was still somewhat warm, that her wrappings of rags had protected her from the cold of a Manitoba winter, I placed my jacket around her and covered her head with my hat. Then I set a pace back to the farm that left a taste of blood in my mouth, freezing my lungs by running at minus thirty. — Barry Pomeroy

He lives hard, works hard, has but few comforts and fewer necessities. He has but little, if any, taste for reading. He enjoys a coarse practical joke or smutty story; loves danger but abhors labor of the common kind; never tires riding, never wants to walk, no matter how short the distance he desires to go. He would rather fight with pistols than pray; loves tobacco, liquor and women better than any other trinity. His life borders nearly upon that of an Indian. If he reads anything, it is in most cases a blood and thunder story of sensational style. He enjoys his pipe, and relishes a practical joke on comrades, or a corrupt tale, wherein abounds much vulgarity and animal propensity. — Joseph Mccoy

Kittridge closed his eyes. So, the end. It would happen instantaneously, a painless departure, quicker than thought. he felt the presence of his body one last time: the taste of air in his lungs, the blood surging in his veins, the drumlike beating of his heart. The bomb was dropping toward them.
"I've got you," he said, hugging Tim fiercely; and again, over and over, so that the boy would be hearing these words. "I've got you, I've got you, I've got you, I've got you. — Justin Cronin

You might find it alarming to think that your doctor will not actually need to see you in person but might make a diagnosis based on the position of the stars, the colour and smell of your urine, and the taste of your blood. — Ian Mortimer

I felt badly because I'd been nasty. After your behavior tonight, I only wish I'd been nastier. I can be," she added on a threat.
Alan only smiled as Mario brought the wine to the table. Watching Shelby, Alan tasted it, then nodded. "Very good. It's the sort of flavor that stays with you for hours. Later, when I kiss you,the taste will still be there."
The blood began to hum in her ears. "I'm only here because you dragged me."
To his credit, Mario didn't spill a drop of the wine he poured as he listened.
Her eyes heated as Alan continued to smile. "And since you refuse to give me my keys,I'll simply walk to the nearest phone and call a locksmith. You'll get the bill."
"After dinner," Alan suggested. "How do you like the wine?"
Scowling, Shelby lifted the glass and drained half the contents. "It's fine." Her eyes, insolent now, stayed level with his. "This isn't a date, you know."
"It's becoming more of a filibuster, isn't it? More wine? — Nora Roberts

I bent over him and, before I could say anything, he grabbed me by the back of my head, dragged my mouth down and kissed me. Kissed me, with no drama and no explanation, like it was just something we did.
Knowing in a half-forgotten way that he kissed like a demon was one thing; experiencing it all over again was quite another. There was no refined seduction- Pritkin kissed openmouthed, hard and hungry, until I could hear nothing over the pounding of my heart, until I could taste my blood on his lips as his tongue thrust into me. — Karen Chance

She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation.
In spirit she walks the city, traces its labyrinths, its dingy mazes: each assignation, each rendezvous, each door and stair and bed. What he said, what she said, what they did, what they did then. Even the times they argued, fought, parted, agonized, rejoined. How they'd loved to cut themselves on each other, taste their own blood. We were ruinous together, she thinks. But how else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? — Margaret Atwood

Youth changes its tastes by the warmth of its blood; age retains its tastes by habit. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

If I die this instant will you be more content with the morning news? Will your coffee taste better? I am not your fate. I am not your government ... I am not your mother, not your father or your nightmare or your health. I am not a fence, not a wall. I am not the law or actuarial tables of your insurance broker. I am a woman with my guts loose in my hands, howling and it's not because I committed hari-kiri. I suggest either you cook me or sew me back up. I suggest you walk into my pain as into the breaking waves of an ocean of blood, and either we will climb out together and walk away. — Marge Piercy

I'd say that tea's probably strong enough to hammer nails by now. Do you still want it?"
She looked ... interesting in his shirt. Interesting enough that his blood began to churn again. "What are my options?"
"On my schedule, we have a cup of tea, a little conversation, then you get to seduce me back into bed and make love to me again before I go home."
"That's not bad, but I think it bears improving."
"Oh,and how's that?"
"We cut out the tea and conversation."
She ran her tongue over her top lip-his taste was still there-as he walked toward her. "That would take us straight to you seducing me? Correct?"
"That's my plan."
"I can be flexible."
His grin flashed. "I'd like to test that out."
They never got around to the tea. — Nora Roberts

The flavor of that blood stayed with him through the long years of his service ( ... ) by then he could no longer remember whose blood it was, only that he had grown used to the taste. — Holly Black

Contact with [menstrual blood] turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seed in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees fall off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison. — Pliny The Elder

That is what the taste of blood does. It takes away the gap between thought and action.To think is to do. There is no unlived life inside you as the air speeds past your body, as you look down at the dreary villages and market towns ... — Matt Haig

When I'm there, Rube's eyes fire into mine. Make sure you get up, they tell me, and I nod, then jump up. The jacket's off. My skin's warm. My wolfish hair sticks up as always, nice and thick. I'm ready now. I'm ready to keep standing up, no matter what, I'm ready to believe that I welcome the pain and that I want it so much that I will look for it. I will seek it out. I'll run to it and throw myself into it. I'll stand in front of it in blind terror and let it beat me down and down till my courage hangs off me in rags. Then it will dismantle me and stand me up naked, beat me some more and my slaughter-blood will fly from my mouth and the pain will drink it, feel it, steal it and conceal it in the pockets of its guts and it will taste me. It will just keep standing me up, and I won't let it know. I won't tell it that I feel it. I won't give it the satisfaction. No, the pain will have to kill me. — Markus Zusak

Ha!' cackled the fiend, 'I expect you'd like revenge on that husband of yours. Murder shouldn't go unpunished, and no creature enjoys delivering chastisement as much as I. What about giving him a taste of his own medicine? If you'd be so kind as to lend me your body, I'll set him dancing to my tune.'

The wife's spectre grimaced and nodded, at which the wicked Likho stripped off the nightgown, then the dead woman's pliant skin, peeling back the flaccid folds. These it left in a slack heap.

It gobbled her flesh and sucked the bones clean. These it hid behind the stove, before inserting itself inside the empty, wrinkled carcass, taking the former position of the corpse. Its fat tongue swiped the last juices from around its lips.

When the husband returned home, all was as it had been; there was not a speck of blood to be seen, although the strangest smell of rotten eggs lingered — Emmanuelle De Maupassant

The hunt isn't sustaining me. It's flowing blood that I really crave. The sweet taste of red succulent liquid mixing with the salt of my beloved as it drips and dances on his flesh. To know that someone will ache for me as much as I hunger for him and eternally satiate each other. I want someone to satisfy my hunger forever. — Ellen Schreiber

She begins walking toward the door. "Violette?" I call, craning my head so I can see her.
"Yes, Kate?" she asks, looking curious.
"I hope I'm not the Champion," I say, my voice dead calm now, "because I would hate to give you any additional satisfaction. But if I am, I hope you have to chop off an entire hand this time and eat a raw cat in order to absorb me. And I hope you choke on it."
Her creepily calm demeanor finally shatters. Making a noise between a growl and a scream, she stomps over to the bed and slaps my face as hard as she can. Then, spinning on her heels, she races out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
I lay my head back down and taste blood in my mouth. And smile. — Amy Plum

I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books. I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams
like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves. — Hermann Hesse

They ordered punch. They drank it. It was hot rum punch. The pen falters when it attempts to treat of the excellence thereof; the sober vocabulary, the sparse epithet of this narrative, are inadequate to the task; and pompous term, jewelled, exotic phrases rise to the excited fancy. It warmed the blood and cleared the head; it filled the soul with well-being; it disposed the mind at once to utter wit, and to appreciate the wit of others; it had the vagueness of music and the precision of mathematics. Only one of its qualities was comparable to anything else; it had the warmth of a good heart; but its taste, its smell, its feel, were not to be described in words. — W. Somerset Maugham

I really need that cake now. Startled laughter in his blood, unexpected light in the shadows, the taste of snow in her kiss. And he knew that come what may, they'd stand together. In the light and in the terrible darkness. — Nalini Singh

I remember the feel and smell and taste of him. Heat and wood smoke and sunrise, but no longer. Cal smells like blood, his skin is ice, and I tell myself I don't want to taste him ever again. — Victoria Aveyard

There will always be another war, Gillia." He allowed his cynicism to seep through. "Do you know why? Because there will always be bigots and cowards and power-mad devils in positions of omnipotence. Look around you. There has been war here since time began. It's nature. Animals kill each other for survival, for territory ... and for the taste of blood in their mouths. Man is no different. — V.S. Carnes

When the blood came out of my mouth I could taste my own shit. — Stephen King

Mistress to these footprints
Lover to the wake of where
He has just passed,
for the path he wanders
is between us all.

The sweet taste of loss
feeds every mountain stream,
Failing ice down to seas
warm as blood
threading thin our dreams.

For where he leads her
has lost its bones,
And the trail he walks
is flesh without life
and the sea remembers nothing. — Steven Erikson

In the midst of the battle between rebellion and surrender Bantry was suddenly uncertain what Flynn was starved for. The sensuality of a man's kiss? Or the rich, iron taste of blood? — Mel Keegan

Odd, yes, here in the capital of eternal youth, endless summer and all, that fear should be running the town again as in days of old, like the Hollywood blacklist you don't remember and the Watts rioting you do - it spreads, like blood in a swimming pool, till it occupies all the volume of the day. And then maybe some playful soul shows up with a bucketful of piranhas, dumps them in the pool, and right away they can taste the blood. They swim around looking for what's bleeding, but they don't find anything, all of them getting more and more crazy, till the craziness reaches a point. Which is when they begin to feed on each other. — Thomas Pynchon

You taste like metal & blood,
kiss like a man's last gunshot.
I could find religion in your face.
Build a church in the palms of your hands. — Elisabeth Hewer

What kind of understanding?" he murmured almost absently, his mind clearly on other, more provocative things.
The trace of amusement in his voice irritated her, as if he were merely humoring her. Savannah pushed at the solid wall of his chest to put a few inches between them. His large frame didn't budge, and she was locked in by his arm. She pushed at him again. "Forget it."
He bent his head to taste the vulnerable line of her neck, to feel her pulse in the warm, moist cavern of his mouth. His blood surged and pounded. Little jackhammers began to beat at his skull. "I am listening to every word you say, ma petite," he murmured, lost in her softness, in the scent of her. He wanted her with every fiber of his being, every cell in his body. "I could repeat each word verbatim, if you desire. — Christine Feehan

I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth, one as hated as the other. — Annette Curtis Klause

She could feel tendrils spreading through her chest, like fingers of fire coiling around her heart, and on her tongue was a taste like honey and anise and cream, like mother's milk and Drogo's seed, like red meat and hot blood and molten gold. It was all the tastes she had ever known, and none of them ... and then the glass was empty. — George R R Martin

Mrs. Pritchard could not stand an anticlimax. She required the taste of blood from time to time to keep her equilibrium. — Flannery O'Connor

Now he haunts me seldom: some fierce umbilical is broken,
I live with my own fragile hopes and sudden rising despair.
Now I do not weep for my sins; I have learned to love them
And to know that they are the wounds that make love real.
His face illudes me; his voice, with its pity, does not ring in my ear.
His maxims memorized in boyhood do not make fruitless and pointless my experience.
I walk alone, but not so terrified as when he held my hand.
I do not splash in the blood of his son
nor hear the crunch of nails or thorns piercing protesting flesh.
I am a boy again
I whose boyhood was turned to manhood in a brutal myth.
Now wine is only wine with drops that do not taste of blood.
The bread I eat has too much pride for transubstantiation,
I, too
and together the bread and I embrace,
Each grateful to be what we are, each loving from our own reality. — James Kavanaugh

I mean, if your about to tell me something like I'm dead, that i need to start acquiring a taste for blood, and I can't even eat sushi, I wont be able to handle it. Or if you're going to tell me that I'm going to start howling at the moon, eating peoples cats, and will spend the rest of my life having to get waxed if I want to wear a bathing suit, then I don't think I can handle it, either. I like cats and I tried waxing once, and that hurt like a son of a gun. -Kylie — C.C. Hunter

It had been a shitty night, so it was fitting that it should end with rain.
He closed his eyes and lay where he was, ready for it to stop. The rain, the cold, the pain, the aches, the blood choking the back of his throat, the metallic taste on his tongue. He wanted an off switch to his life; to get it over with. There wasn't much point fighting; he didn't have anything to fight for. He had his family and Levi, but something in his heart said that wasn't enough anymore.
He didn't want to be alone. — Elaine White

I know emptiness. I know the taste of blood against my teeth. I know what it is to fill your belly with iron. I know hunger. I know pain. I know memories that won't stay. I know the ghost of life and the perfume of souls. — Roshani Chokshi

I stood on the dead horse and spread my arms. I held the shield high to my left and the sword to my right, and my mail coat was spattered with blood and the snow fell about my wolf-crested helmet and all I knew was the young man's joy of slaughter. "I killed Ubba Lothbrokson!" I shouted at them. "I killed him! So come and join him! Taste his death! My sword wants you! — Bernard Cornwell

When she made her way to the big picture window that framed the dining room table she froze. She stopped breathing. The anger was growing again.
It grew up into her throat, where she could taste it, coppery like blood, in the back of her mouth. It grew down into her stomach, where it knotted her intestines. It made her arms stiffen and her shoulders lock. It pushed against her ribs until she felt they would snap like sticks. — Ann Brashares

In her dreams, blood tasted like fizzy strawberry soda. If you drank it too fast, you got brain freeze. When she was older, after she'd licked a cut on her finger, the taste of that became the taste in her dreams: copper and tears. — Holly Black

The heady scent of him filled her nostrils, that particular blend of salt and sea and musk that was his alone. Just the smell of him made the blood rush to her core; the feel of his strong arms, the sweet taste of his mouth made her whole body pulse with need and longing.
Marcus made a groaning noise deep in his throat and started to pull away.
"Don't you dare," she breathed in his ear. "If you stop kissing me, I'll... I'll bite you. — Deborah Blake

The sky was aquamarine, stroked with clouds. She could smell the grass, and taste the scent of small, crushed flowers. She looked back up over her forehead at the grey-black wall towering behind her, and wondered if the castle had ever been attacked on days like this. Did the sky seem so limitless, the waters of the straits so fresh and clean, the flowers so bright and fragrant, when men fought and screamed, hacked and staggered and fell and watched their blood mat the grass? Mists and dusk, rain and lowering cloud seemed the better background; clothes to cover the shame of battle. — Anonymous

Bad Kitty. That's what Charlie said. I bite my lip hard enouth to draw blood and savor the metallic taste in my mouth.
If Charlie wants to think of me as just another pussy, he's dead wrong. Because I'm going to be the one cat that has more than nine lives. — Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

She continue kissing me with that ferocity, so much so that her lips lightly scraped my teeth. It was only a few drops, but as the sweet metallic taste of her blood touched my tongue, a blinding ecstasy flooded my body. — Richelle Mead

What will not luxury taste? Earth, sea, and air, Are daily ransack'd for the bill of fare. Blood stuffed in skins is British Christians' food, And France robs marshes of the croaking brood. — John Gay

And let God purge this wicked sadness away with a flood, and let the waters recede to pools and ponds and ditches, and let every one of them mirror heaven. Still, they taste a bit of blood and hair. — Marilynne Robinson

If she kissed him, would he taste like blood or cloves or a mixture of the two? — Cassandra Clare

Running a start-up is like eating glass. You just start to like the taste of your own blood. — Sean Parker

Her heart is racing, blood pulsing fast beneath my finger, and she's taking these tiny sharp breaths. It turns me on in a way I don't even understand. Normally, the skittish, inexperienced types send me running. But the thought of teaching her anything makes my jeans feel too tight. I want her on her back in my bed, legs spread wide, eyes big and blue, lips parted, mouth babbling that nervous nonsense until I make her forget what she's saying, forget how to talk altogether. I want to forget myself in her, too, steal some of her sunshine, and give this pristine, perfect girl a taste of what it's like to get a little dirty. — Cora Carmack

I want to live forever in a land where summer lasts a thousand years. I want a castle in the clouds where I can look down over the world. I want to be six-and-twenty again. When I was six-and-twenty I could fight all day and fuck all night. What men want does not matter.
Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned's little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue. — George R R Martin

My next idea was how nothing was more dreadful than to be forced by another to feel his persuasion as to how horrible it is to exist, how deathly to hope, and taste the same despair. How of all the impositions this was the worst imposition. Not just to be as they make you but to feel as they dictate. If you didn't have the strongest alliance you surely would despair at last and your mouth would drink blood. — Saul Bellow

If we didn't have bodies, we couldn't feel the sun on our faces or smell the earthy, mushroom-y rich smell of the ground right after the rain. If we didn't have bodies, we couldn't wrap our arms around the people we love or taste a perfect tomato right at the height of summer. I'm so thankful to live in this physical, messy, blood-and-guts world. I don't want to live in a world that's all dry ideas and theorems. Food is one of the ways we acknowledge our humanity, our appetites, our need for nourishment. And so it may seem trivial or peripheral to some people, but to me, when I'm telling a story, the part about what we ate really does matter. — Shauna Niequist

The purest joy in the world is joy in Christ Jesus. When the Spirit is poured down, his people get very near and clear views of the Lord Jesus. They eat his flesh and drink his blood. They come to a personal cleaving to the Lord. They taste that the Lord is gracious. His blood and righteousness appear infinitely perfect, full and free to their soul. They sit under his shadow with great delight ... They lean on the Beloved. They find infinite strength in him for the use of their soul - grace for grace - all they can need in any hour of trial and suffering to the very end. — Robert Murray M'Cheyne

You have come to Cambridge to study the interdependence of matter and energy. Please remember that energy and matter are in no way something distinct from yourselves. Remember, too, that scientists are not dispassionate. Your judgement and your ability to do good work will be in part dependent on your digestion, your prejudices and above all, your emotional life. You must face the fact that if another human being, whose welfare means considerably more to you than your own, behaves in a very different way from anything you had expected, then your efficiency may be impaired. When the heart is breaking, it is nothing but an absurd illusion to think you can taste the blood. Still I repeat, your efficiency may be impaired. — Penelope Fitzgerald

He is a rare bird,' the maester said. 'Most ravens will eat grain, but they prefer flesh. It makes them strong, and I fear they relish the taste of blood. In that they are like men ... and like men, not all ravens are alike. — George R R Martin

You walk off the plane in Rio, and your blood temperature goes up. The feel of the wind on your face, the water on your skin, the taste of the food, the music, the sexuality; Brazilians are very comfortable in their sexuality. — Amy Irving

Then I will skin it and suck all the blood out of it unless it's a Troll. Trolls taste like ass. We tried two of the randy bastards just to make sure and we will not be imbibing Troll again any time soon, — Robyn Peterman

Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land's increase
That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again:
That she may long live here, God say amen! — William Shakespeare

Oh love how can we not be together?' Romeo cried. Without the sight of you every day, the smell, the taste of you, I would wither away. My blood would turn to powder in my veins. And you? Have you not found in me a mirror for your soul? When you look at me, when we speak, touch, do you not see who you really are? I dare you to deny that in my presence you love yourself better. I know this is true, for I love myself better in yours. — Robin Maxwell

Avery," Kane began, but Avery wasn't interested in listening to anything else his husband had to say on the matter. He grabbed Kane's face between his palms and silenced him with a demanding kiss. Kane responded immediately, melting against him and returning the kiss with such ferocity that he swore he tasted the coppery tang of blood on his tongue. Kane had always been responsive to his advances and that always turned him on, but just knowing Kane still craved his touch after all these years made his dick twitch and swell painfully against the binding material of his trousers. Avery broke from the sweet taste of Kane's mouth long enough to draw the shirt up over Kane's head and toss it to the floor. — Kindle Alexander

I want to bask deeply in the taste of his blood, in that flowing crimson filled with his feelings melted in it ... — Matsuri Hino

At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer's love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself. — John Gibson Paton

Billy tried to imagine the birth of Cyril's wife's baby. It would happen in grim lights violently. A dripping thing trying to clutch to its hole. Dredged up and beaten. Blood and drool and womb mud. How cute, this neon shrieker made to plunge upward, odd-headed blob, this marginal electric glow-thing. Dressed and powdered now. Engineered to abstract design. Cling, suck and cry. Follow with the eye. Gloom and drought of unprotected sleep. Had there been a light in her belly, dim briny light in that pillowing womb, dusk enough to light a page, bacterial smear of light, an amniotic gleam that I could taste, old, deep, wet and warm? Return, return to negative unity. — Don DeLillo

Along with Alec's blood, Simon could taste the metal of fear, the spark of pain, and the eager flame of something else, something he had tasted the first time he had drunk Jace's blood on the filthy metal floor of Valentine's ship. Maybe all Shadowhunters did have a death wish, after all. — Cassandra Clare

Therese was propped up on one elbow. The milk was so hot, she could barely let her lip touch it at first. The tiny sips spread inside her mouth and released a melange of organic flavors. The milk seemed to taste of bone and blood, of warm flesh, or hair, saltless as chalk yet alive as a growing embryo. It was hot through and through to the bottom of the cup, and Therese drank it down, as people in fairy tales drink the potion that will transform, or the unsuspecting warrior the cup that will kill, Then Carol came and took the cup, and Therese was drowsily aware that Carol asked her three questions, on that had to do with happiness, one about the store and one about the future. Therese heard herself answering. She heard her voice rise suddenly in a babble, like a spring that she had no control over, and she realized she was in tears. She was telling Carol all that she feared and disliked, of her loneliness, of Richard, and of gigantic disappointments. — Patricia Highsmith

I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David, and for drink I desire His Blood, which is love incorruptible. — Ignatius Of Antioch

The girl did not even know the video would be leaked. Yet it is her willingness to suffer hardship that gave her power. Martyrs, you see, are like bees. Their only power comes in death. How many of you would sacrifice yourself to not kill, but merely hurt your enemy? Not one of you, I wager."

I taste blood in my mouth. I have the knifeRing Dancer gave me. But I breathe the fury down. I am no martyr. I am not vengeance. I am Eo's dream. Still, doing nothing while her murderer gloats feels like a betrayal.

"In time you will receive your Scars from my sword," Augustus closes. "But first you must earn them. — Pierce Brown

Terror builds inside him. The reality that tonight will be his last leaves a sour taste in his mouth. The Tainted will eat him, or on a more terrifying note - if that's even possible - maybe turn him into one of them. He'd rather die. But first, he'll take as many of those bastards out as he can. He throws his pack into the throng and jerks the blade from his belt. With a thudding heart, he slices through them. Blood arcs over him, onto him. — Laura Kreitzer

At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ;
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ;
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent, for that's as good
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.
— John Donne

It was not till I experimented with seeds plucked straight from a growing plant that I had my first success ... the first thrill of creation ... the first taste of blood. This, surely, must be akin to the pride of paternity ... indeed, many soured bachelors would wager that it must be almost as wonderful to see the first tiny crinkled leaves of one's first plant as to see the tiny crinkled face of one's first child. — Beverley Nichols

Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII)
Come with me, I said, and no one knew
where, or how my pain throbbed,
no carnations or barcaroles for me,
only a wound that love had opened.
I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying,
and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.
O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!
That is why when I heard your voice repeat
Come with me, it was as if you had let loose
the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine
the geysers flooding from deep in its vault:
in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again,
of blood and carnations, of rock and scald — Pablo Neruda

He had been hurt doing everything he had ever done. He expected it, even wanted it. Nothing centered a man like pain. Nothing drove the irrelevant bullshit our of your mind like the taste of your own blood. Duffy always wanted to tell people who were worried about the future of their children, or about God and the order of the universe, to go out and break a rib or two. A few broken ribs threw all thoughts of children, God and the order of the universe right out the window. Nobody with broken ribs ever had free-floating anxiety, or so Duffy was convinced. It was cheaper that a psychiatrist and never so humiliating. — Harry Crews

Life blindsides you so hard you can taste the bright copper blood in your mouth then it beguiles you with a gift of profound and appalling beauty. — William Gay

Tessa rolled over, burying her face in her pillow. For so many years she had wondered what her first kiss would be like-if he would be handsome, if he would love her, if he would be kind. She had never imagined that the kiss would be so brief and wild. Or that it would taste of holy water and blood. — Cassandra Clare

An animal is not cruel; it lives wholly in the instant leap on its prey, in the present taste of marrow or blood. Cruelty begins with the memory, and the pleasures of the memory are impure; they draw their strength along levels where no sun has reached. — Storm Jameson

I woke, remembering a dream from the night before. Pictures of frightened children lingered in my mind as I approached them with a hunger unsated by mundane appetites. I recalled how flesh smelled: sweet. The texture was tender, yet it was bitter to the taste. Blood was messy and dripped down my chin. The demon, the cold-blooded monster mingled with my DNA: a gift from one of my parents brought to daylight by evil people. — Millicent Ashby

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to remember the taste of her and the feel of her and the smell of her. She was quite lovely. She was altogether ravishing. She would set any man's blood on fire. He shouldn't have kissed her. — Marguerite Kaye

It is something that cannot be explained or even understood until you've lived it; a man can't know or fully appreciate his life until he's been close enough to taste the end of it, and the bonds forged in battle are some of the strongest a man could ever have. We are brothers, the men of ODA 022, and though we didn't have the same blood running through our veins, we had all shed the blood of others together, and knew that none of us would hesitate to step in the way of fate and take a round or jump on a grenade to save one another. — Robert Patrick Lewis

When I'd lost him the first time, before Culloden, I'd remembered. Every moment of our last night together. Tiny things would come back to me through the years: the taste of salt on his temple and the curve of his skull as I cupped his head; the soft fine hair at the base of his neck, thick and damp in my fingers ... the sudden, magical well of his blood in dawning light when I'd cut his hand and marked him forever as my own. Those things had kept him by me. — Diana Gabaldon

He was sitting in the midst of a children's party at Harold's Cross. His silent watchful manner had grown upon him and he took little part in the games. The children, wearing the spoils of their crackers, danced and romped noisily and, though he tried to share their merriment, he felt himself a gloomy figure amid the gay cocked hats and sunbonnets.
But when he had sung his song and withdrawn into a snug corner of the room he began to taste the joy of his loneliness. The mirth, which in the beginning of the evening had seemed to him false and trivial, was like a sothing air to him, passing gaily by his senses, hiding from other eyes the feverish agitation of his blood while through the circling of the dancers and amid the music and laughter her glance travelled to his corner, flattering, taunting, searching, exciting his heart. — James Joyce

It is for that moment when I might steady you so you don't fall, I have added my blood to an inkwell. Indelible now will be my mark on history's canvas and upon any sincere debate of God where reason finally prevails. And when you have the strength, you too may find another to hold up. They lean against each other in a storm, those cypresses grown tall together ... through the years. If they had not trusted and protected one another the way they do, they would not have survived and given us their grace and shade - a place for our eyes to meet. Our friendship can be like this: a needed lift, a sail, a pillar, a springboard to taste the unfathomable. It is to tend you as you come into being, like a new world, that causes me to stay, gives me a purpose. Of course I thank you for that ... for letting me help. — Rumi

We have heard enough about being practical and efficient and prudent. We heard it preached through several decades that these things would save the world. I think that, with the salty taste of blood and sweat on our lips, we are learning that we had best talk once again about doing what is right. — Ellis Arnall

I bit the inside of my lip until I could taste all I had left of my mother, which was her blood. — Lyndsay Faye

So
what's it like, being a vampire?"
"Aline!" Isabelle looked appalled. "You can't just go around asking people what's it like to be a vampire!"
"I don't see why," Aline said. "He hasn't been a vampire that long, has he? So he must still remember what it was like being a person." She turned back to Simon. "Does blood taste like blood to you? Or does it taste like something else now, like orange juice or something? Because I would think the taste of blood would-"
"It tastes like chicken," Simon said, just to shut her up.
"Really?" Aline looked astonished.
"He's making fun of you, Aline," said Sebastain — Cassandra Clare

Traveled so far, and not yet have they come across anything of interest, he mused, except, of course, for that nest of goblins I managed to stir up. Indeed, his brother had always been a valiant fool; why not give him some excitement?
He always did possess a love for a good fight, and who am I to deny him?
The glass sphere, responding to his thoughts, zoomed in on the mountain nearby where Shrukian camped, and by putting both his hands on the sphere's sides and closing his eyes, Pharun could all but smell the power that radiated from its depths. He could taste it on the back of his tongue, and it awake all sorts of things inside of him. The power tasted of death and ash, and it was scalding hot, pouring down his throat like blood of the freshly dead. He did not need further searching to know what kind of power he was sampling.
He smiled to himself, and it came out a satisfied smirk. — C.N. Faust

Real history was unromantic, steeped in greed and blood and abject eye-rolling stupidity. An endless parade of putative Ozymandiases marching off to glory before snapping off at the ankles in the depths of the desert: that was human history. Every now and then there would be the pretence of civilisation, but soon enough the restless, hateful, atavistic hearts of humanity would tear down the towers and slide back into barbarism, squealing with glee. Decadence loves the taste of blood, even though it is poison. — Jonathan L. Howard

Now that I was sitting here holding my own flesh and blood with my heart about to explode from sheer joy, I felt nearer to knowing what it meant to be loved by God. The thought occupied my mind all summer - at every diaper change and every feeding, with every coo and smile and cry.

So this is what it's like to really love someone else, to have the sum total of everything you are and love, living and breathing outside of you?

It was my first, real taste of heaven, of communion with God, and in a way, its own baptism of sorts. — Edie Wadsworth

Nothing like love to put blood
back in the language,
the difference between the beach and its
discrete rocks and shards, a hard
cuneiform, and the tender cursive
of waves; bone and liquid fishegg, desert
and saltmarsh, a green push
out of death. The vowels plump
again like lips or soaked fingers, and the fingers
themselves move around these
softening pebbles as around skin. The sky's
not vacant and over there but close
against your eyes, molten, so near
you can taste it. It tastes of
salt. What touches you is what you touch. — Margaret Atwood

In fear I hurried this way and that. I had the taste of blood and chococlate in my mouth,the one as hateful as the other — Annette Curtis Klause

The burning red taste of blood floods my mouth. The sparkle of life sprays out of his cells like citrus mist from an orange peel, and I suck it in. — Isaac Marion

The images start to darken and she feels another hunger well up in her, this one having to do with another kind of desire. The desire to feed, to possess, and the aggressive thrill of a predator capturing and killing its prey as it tears into unspoiled flesh. Its teeth ripping and rending and the satisfying coppery taste of blood. There is the ultimate moment of surrender of drinking away the life essence. The pinnacle of lust which mounts in the very last breath, when the light drains from the victim's eyes and when the soul fades ... Then there is only a triumphant cry to the moonlight and the beckoning depths of the ever waiting water. — Melissa St. Hilaire

Do trees dream?" "Trees? No . . ." "They do," Bran said with sudden certainty. "They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood. — George R R Martin

Since Christ Himself said in reference to the bread: "This is My Body," who will dare remain hesitant? And since with equal clarity He asserted: "This is My Blood," who will dare entertain any doubt and say that this is not His Blood? ... You have been taught these truths. Imbued with the certainty of faith, you know that what seems to be bread is not bread but the Body of Christ, although it seems to be bread when tasted. You also know that what seems to be wine is not wine but the Blood of Christ although it does taste like wine. — Cyril Of Jerusalem

If you will count, count the stars, dear one. How many stars in the sky, looking down on us as we lie in each other's arms and taste joy? How many gleaming fish in the lake where I splash our son in the water and hear his streaks of glee ring out in the clear air? A fine little salmon you made, that night in the rain. How many times does the heart beat, how fast does the blood run when at last we touch, and touch again, and breathe the same desperate, longing breath? Count those things, for they are the stuff of life and hope. — Juliet Marillier

I will come,' the priest answered, 'for I have read in old books of these strange beings which are neither quick nor dead, and which lie ever fresh in their graves, stealing out in the dusk to taste life and blood. — Francis Marion Crawford

He remembered how nice the kids at Camp Half-Blood had been to him after the war with Kronos. Great job, Nico! Thanks for bringing the armies of the Underworld to save us! Everybody smiled. They all invited him to sit at their table. After about a week, his welcome wore thin. Campers would jump when he walked up behind them. He would emerge from the shadows at the campfire, startle somebody and see the discomfort in their eyes: Are you still here? Why are you here? It didn't help that immediately after the war with Kronos, Annabeth and Percy had started dating ... Nico set down his fartura. Suddenly it didn't taste so good. — Rick Riordan

In all marriages there is the imbalance: one who loves more than the other. One who licks wounds in secret, the rust-taste of blood. — Joyce Carol Oates

All men must sleep, Bran. Even princes."
"When I sleep I turn into a wolf." Bran turned his face away and looked back out into the night. "Do wolves dream?"
"All creatures dream, I think, yet not as men do."
"Do dead men dream?" Bran asked, thinking of his father. In the dark crypts below Winterfell, a stonemason was chiseling out his father's likeness in granite.
"Some say yes, some no," the maester answered. "The dead themselves are silent on the matter."
"Do trees dream?"
"Trees? No ... "
"They do," Bran said with sudden certainty. "They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood."
Maester Luwin tugged at his chain where it chafed his neck. "If you would only spend more time with the other children - "
"I hate the other children," Bran said, meaning the Walders. "I commanded you to send them away. — George R R Martin

I tasted the salt on my own lips, and the bitter taste of blood on his. It was a desperate kiss, the sort of kiss that marks a lovers' parting, a kiss of sorrow and regret and a kind of blind and wordless promise. I would have risen up when it was finished, but he held me close, his hand stroking my hair. "I'll hurt your chest," I protested, but he shook his head. "I am past pain," he lied, "and I've always had a fancy to die in my lover's arms. 'Tis most romantic. — Susanna Kearsley

Fireheart dashed to the warrior's side. Cloudtail was standing stiff-legged, every hair in his pelt on end as if he were facing an enemy. His eyes were fixed on the limp heap of tabby fur huddled at his paws.
"Why, Fireheart?" Cloudtail wailed. "Why her?"
Fireheart knew, but rage and grief made it hard to speak. "Because Tigerstar wants the pack to get a taste of cat blood," he rasped.
The dead cat lying in front of them was Brindleface. — Erin Hunter

None were left now to unname, and yet how close I felt to them when I saw one of them swim or fly or trot or crawl across my way or over my skin, or stalk me in the night, or go along beside me for a while in the day. They seemed far closer than when their names had stood between myself and them like a clear barrier: so close that my fear of them and their fear of me became one same fear. And the attraction that many of us felt, the desire to feel or rub or caress one another's scales or skin or feathers or fur, taste one another's blood or flesh, keep one another warm, that attraction was now all one with the fear, and the hunter could not be told from the hunted, nor the eater from the food. — Ursula K. Le Guin

And you," Jackal interrupted, turning on me, "are part of the problem. Bitching and crying because he's not acting like a human anymore. Here's a news flash, sister. He's not human anymore. He doesn't need you holding his hand every time a kitten dies. Maybe when he was a mewling, pathetic meatsack, he needed some kind of protection, but he's one of us now. Or he would be, if you didn't act like it was the end of the world because he likes the taste of blood. Stop treating him like a mortal and let him be a bloody vampire. — Julie Kagawa