The Walls Around Us Quotes & Sayings

You're right," he said, jerking open the portal. "There is one place she's sure to go."
"Yes."
"And you.You should take your own advice and leave this place," Daniel said grimly. "You're rotting in here."
"At least this body's pain distracts me from the pain in my soul," his past self said. "No.I wish you luck, but I won't leave these walls now.Not until she's settled in her next incarnation."
Daniel's wings bristled at his neck. He tried to sort out time and lives and memories in his head, but he kept circling around the same irksome thought. "She-she should be settled now. In conception. Can't you feel it?"
"Oh," his imprisoned past self said softly. He closed his eyes. "I don't know that I can feel anything anymore." The prisoner sighed heavily. "Life's a nightmare."
"No,it's not. Not anymore. I'll find her.I'll redeem us both," Daniel shouted, desperate to get out of there, desperately taking another leap of faith through time. — Lauren Kate

ATIONS. Life after death was one thing, life coming into the world was another. Georgia was calm. Beautiful. An old pro, as she put it. But I had missed the first time around, and I was afraid to blink for fear of missing something. And I was not calm.
Tag was not calm either. He had to wait outside. He was my best friend, but even best friends did not share some things. Plus, I didn't think Georgia could give birth and keep us both from passing out.
It was all I could do to hold Georgia's hand and stay at her bedside, praying to God, to Gi, to Eli, to anyone who would listen, to give me strength and self-control. Strength to be the man Georgia needed and self-control to resist covering the walls of Georgia's hospital room in a frenzied mural — Amy Harmon

The illusion of being superior engenders the need to prove it; and so oppression is born. A bishop in Africa told me that, even though there were few Christians in the area, he had built his cathedral bigger than the local mosque. All this to prove that Christianity was a better, more powerful religion than Islam. So we build walls around our group and cultivate our certitudes. Prejudice grows on such walls. How did we, the human race, get to this position where we judge it natural not just to band ourselves into groups, but to set ourselves group against group, neighbour against neighbour, in order to establish some ephemeral sense of superiority? One of the fundamental issues for people to examine is how to break down these walls that separate us one from another; how to open up one to another; how to create trust and places of dialogue. — Jean Vanier

The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy. — Jim Rohn

We have relinquished and abandoned and left behind and forgotten what we believed we had to relinquish, abandon and leave behind and ultimately forget; we have let ourselves go and we have gone away and we have gone under, but we have relinquished nothing and abandoned nothing and left behind nothing and forgotten nothing; we have in reality extinguished nothing whatsoever, because our parents did not inform us of or enlighten us about the fact that our life-process is in reality nothing but a process of illness. We were up above, in the company of our parents, locked up in our walls and in our rooms and in our books and papers and everything around us and in us was nothing but lethal and we are down below, without our parents, again locked up in these walls and in our rooms and in our books and papers and everything around us and in us is nothing but lethal. — Thomas Bernhard

There are hundreds of us living in an abandoned airport outside some large city. We don't need shelter or warmth, obviously, but we like having the walls and roofs over our heads. Otherwise we'd just be wandering in an open field of dust somewhere, and that would be horrifying. To have nothing at all around us, nothing to touch or look at, no hard lines whatsoever, just us and the gaping maw of the sky. I imagine that's what being full-dead is like. An emptiness vast and absolute. — Isaac Marion

It is perhaps not the Church and all that it stands for that some fear so, but instead the demons of humanity that lurk within, tainting its Holy walls with their evil and their lust and their malice.

And what if that window into our own souls wasn't just to show us our reflections, the good and bad of who we are, but instead the reflection of the whole world around us, and how we see that, in all its entirety of good and evil. — Ross Turner

We lay that way for a while, breathing together, watching the shadows flicker over the walls and each other's faces. She played with a wet strand of my hair, wrapping it around her finger. It should have been awkward, but somehow it wasn't. I felt something moving between us, like light or heat, growing with every breath. — Selena Kitt

I think something happens to us biologically when we have children where the worry sets in immediately. And I don't think that ever goes away. But you have to fight your instincts to build walls up around your children or to want to shelter and protect them from everything. — Natalie Maines

The walls around us bear witness to lives past and present. — Jose Parla

I gaze out, to the stars. I remember the first time I saw real stars, through the hatch window. They were beautiful then, but now, seeing them here, all around me, beautiful feels like an inadequate word. I see the stars as a part of the universe, and having spent my life behind walls, suddenly having none fills me with both awe and terror. Emotion courses through my veins, choking me. I feel so insignificant, a tiny speck surrounded by a million stars.
A million suns.
Centuries away is Sol. Circling around it is Sol-Earth, the planet Amy came from. And one of these other stars is the Centauri binary system, where the new planet spins, waiting for us.
And here we are, in the middle, surrounded by a sea of stars.
Any of them could hold a planet. Any of them could hold a home.
But all of them are out of reach. — Beth Revis

Do What?'
'Lie,' he said. 'Why do you fabricate these outlandish stories?'
'Well,' I wanted to say, 'there are those of us who create because all around us, things visible and invisible are crumbling. We are like the stonemasons of Babylon, forever working, as it says in Jeremiah, to shore up the city of walls.'
I didn't say that, of course. What I did say was: 'I don't know. — Alan Bradley

I have refused to believe that Mother will die. And by denying her cancer, even her death, I deny her life. Denial stops us from listening. I cannot hear what Mother is saying. I can only hear what I want. But denial lies. It protects us from the potency of a truth we cannot yet bear to accept. It takes our hands and leads us to places of comfort. Denial flourishes in the familiar. It seduces us with our own desires and cleverly constructs walls around us to keep us safe. — Terry Tempest Williams

Let me take you in my arms, spilling down all my dreams into your eyes and draining down all my love into your heart. Let me make the whole universe sings the song that I wrote for you, where the sun craves to go down every morning and moon waits to raise again every night eagerly just to see us burn down the walls we have built around us, inside each other's arms. — Akshay Vasu

If only we could all escape from this house of incest, where we only love ourselves in the other, if only I could save you all from yourselves, said the modern Christ.
But none of us could bear to pass through the tunnel which led from the house into the world on the other side of the walls, where there were leaves on the trees, where water ran beside the paths, where there was daylight and joy. We could not believe that the tunnel would open on daylight: we feared to be trapped into darkness again; we feared to return whence we had come, from darkness and night. The tunnel would narrow and taper
down as we walked; it would close around us, and close tighter and tighter around us and stifle us. It would grow heavy and narrow and suffocate us as we walked. — Anais Nin

I had read another book, called Chromophobia, by David Batchelor, around this time, and he described how the modernist design aesthetic - the white kitchen, white floors, white walls - is a denial of our humanity. The reason bathrooms are white, too, is not only so you know that they are clean, but also so you know that they are not what's inside of us. — Emily Spivack

Then like a bird, he gingerly landed on a protruding rock inside the monstrous cavern. I looked up at the wet walls teaming with sea life and reeled back feeling like I was going to lose my balance when I felt him reach around and carefully lift me off. He placed me so I could stand on the rock in front of him. His strong arms wrapped tightly around me so I wouldn't fall. We stood in astonishment deafened by the noise of the waves hitting the reef all around us. The warmth of his chest radiated against me. I molded my body up against his, my heart erupting in a flutter that caused my legs to weaken.
"What do you think?" he whispered into my ear. I felt his hot breath against the side of my neck, which caused me to be light-headed as my heart raced even harder.
"Awesome," I whispered, which was all I could get out as I slinked into his chest a little bit more. — Brenda Pandos

Those of us who have been violated or around violence or cruelty - and really those of us who have simply grown up in a racist, sexist, homophobic world - knew how far we could go, how loud we could get, how big we could become, how much space or attention we could occupy. We learned the price we had to pay for our bigness, our desire, and our ambition. We were practiced at the dance. We cherished the walls of our confines because they gave definition to our lives, boundaries. We wrongly believed this was safety, protection. We made sure someone was assigned to bring us down a notch, remind us who we really are, hold the truth of our badness. — Eve Ensler

We need to give you two a couple name," I said, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. "Lucsey, perhaps?" Luc didn't bat an eyelash; he simply turned a page of the newspaper. "Call us what you want, Sentinel. We already have a name for you." That was alarming. Not that there was a way to avoid it, but I wasn't sure I wanted them discussing my relationship around the Ops Room table. "No, you don't." "Yes, we do." Lindsey stirred her spoon noisily around the walls of the yogurt cup to get the remaining drops. "You're Methan." "We're what?" "Methan. Merit and Ethan. Methan. — Chloe Neill

Before Summer Rain


Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid — Rainer Maria Rilke

The few lamps we left on softly illuminate the walls, and I think about all the paper around us, all this love and pain and fear and hope. We're surrounded by words. Nothing about this moment could be more perfect, because I'm absolutely in love with this room and the people in it, on the wall and otherwise. And with this one boy in particular. — Tamara Ireland Stone

And then I notice the music flooding out of every part of the apartment at once - the couch, the walls, even the floor - and I know Bennies alone in Lou's studio, pouring music down around us. A minute ago it was "Don't Let Me Down". Then it was Blondie's "Heart of Glass". Now it's Iggy Pop's "The Passenger". Listening, I think, You will never know how much I understand you. — Jennifer Egan

It takes real feelings to create the illusion that others have power to offend and anger us.
Projecting such interpretations upon everything around us is in many ways like living in a box of our own making ... you might think of these walls as a falsification of reality
a distorted way of seeing, feeling, and thinking about other people that makes them seem offensive or malicious or otherwise untrustworthy. Remember, the people are really there, but we all ourselves off from the truth about them by the false way we picture them ...
Living in a box means being convinced that other people and our circumstances are responsible for our feelings and our helplessness to overcome them. What we can't see when we're in the box is that the way the world appears to us is a projection, and that we are making this projection to justify ourselves in self-betrayal. We cannot see that it's not others' actions but our accusations that result in our feeling offended. — C. Terry Warner

People", Shai said, rising to fetch another seal, "by nature attempt to exercise power over what is around them. We build walls to shelter us from the wind, roofs to stop the rain. We tame the elements, bend nature to our wills. It make us feel as if we're in control. Except in doing so, we merely replace one influence with another. Instead of the wind affecting us, it is a wall. A man-made wall. The fingers of man's influence are all about, touching everything. Man-made rugs, man-made food. Every single thing in the city that we touch, see, feel, experience comes as the result of some person's influence. — Brandon Sanderson

You OK?'
'Yeah,'
He didn't believe me, I guess, because he put his arms around me, and we did an awkward sort of hug. We stayed like that for a couple of minutes, with the snow falling harder around us, and the early winter wind picking up, until I melted, and let my head rest on his shoulder, and closed my eyes to the beautiful, terrible world. — Steve Watkins

When we allow the walls around our hearts to become rigid, and stay that way, we assign ourselves a slow death. Like the very air and water that flows through our physical body to sustain it, love must flow through our heart to keep it supple, and to keep us truly alive. — Jeffrey R. Anderson

Every job is important because each one represents an American's livelihood and ability to raise a family. Yet spending our time building walls around America will do nothing to help us compete for the millions of new jobs being created. — Carly Fiorina

Life. We'd long known it was cruel. — Nova Ren Suma

Above us our palace waits, the only one I've ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming again like fireflies in a summer evening. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I myself have dreamed up a structure intermediate between Dyson spheres and planets. Build a ring 93 million miles in radius - one Earth orbit - around the sun. If we have the mass of Jupiter to work with, and if we make it a thousand miles wide, we get a thickness of about a thousand feet for the base.
And it has advantages. The Ringworld will be much sturdier than a Dyson sphere. We can spin it on its axis for gravity. A rotation speed of 770 m/s will give us a gravity of one Earth normal. We wouldn't even need to roof it over. Place walls one thousand miles high at each edge, facing the sun. Very little air will leak over the edges.
Lord knows the thing is roomy enough. With three million times the surface area of the Earth, it will be some time before anyone complains of the crowding. — Larry Niven

If I could just have him until the day was over. Just a few more hours. But he was gone. I clasped my hand tightly over my mouth and felt a trembling that started deep inside move out to make all of me shake. I had a mighty impulse, it truly was mighty, to rise to my feet and howl. To overturn the chair and nightstand, to rip at my clothes, to bring down the very walls around us. But of course I did not do that. I pulled an elemental sense of outrage back inside and smoothed it down. I forced something far too big into something far too small, and this made for a surprising and unreasonable weight, as mercury does. I noticed sounds coming from my throat, little unladylike grunts. I saw that everything I'd ever imagined about what it would feel like when was pale. Was wrong. Was the shadow and not the mountain. And then, "It's all right," I said, quickly. "It's all right." To whom? I wondered later. — Elizabeth Berg

Some of us had been running all our lives. We ran because we could and because we could not. We ran for our lives. We still thought they were worth running for. — Nova Ren Suma

So the greatest source of happiness is other people- and what does money do? It isolates us from other people. It enables us to build walls, literal and figurative, around ourselves. We move from a teeming college dorm to an apartment to a house, and if we're really wealthy, to an estate. We think we're moving up, but really we're walling off ourselves. — Eric Weiner

Many of us humans have a hard time with understanding one simple truth: the surest way to get love is to start giving love to others. Often, when we desperately need some companionship, understanding and warmth from those who are around us, we chose to blame, shout, criticize, accuse, insult and set ultimatums. But in reply, we only encounter with cold walls of estrangement which was diligently built by our own efforts, farcical walls and fences. — Sahara Sanders

As we approached each other, the noise and the students around us melted away and we were utterly alone, passing, smiling, holding each other's eyes, floors and walls gone, two people in a universe of space and stars.
— Jerry Spinelli

The next day I was driven down to New York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies, walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.
Some of these guys had dodged the draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals lined up against one of the walls. After eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis.
"Frankly," the doctor said, "I don't know how the hell you're even standing up," and that was when the sergeant told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me "we could take over the world without a shot. — John William Tuohy

Finn looped an arm around Callie's waist and waited.
"Are we in big trouble?"
Verdie nodded seriously. "Yes, you are. First thing is, this ain't my place nomore and it ain't my business to fuss at ya'll, but I love that kid and I can't stand to see him cry. My dad gave me a bit of advice when our boys were little that I'm about to give ya'll. You're going to argue, but it's your argument, not his. Don't let him see it and don't go to bed angry with each other. We got enough of a feud goin' on all around us. We don't need one inside the walls of the house. Now let's go have some cookies." Finn gave Callie a gentle squeeze, "Sounds like good advice to me. — Carolyn Brown