Thieves In The Night Quotes & Sayings

The Flower

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
Thro' my garden-bower,
And muttering discontent
Cur'd me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall
It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o'er the wall
Stole the seed by night.

Sow'd it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
"Splendid is the flower."

Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
Call it but a weed. — Alfred Tennyson

If the photographers are soul-thieves, whose soul is being stolen in a photograph of the night sky? The soul of the last one to go to bed and the soul of the first one to rise in the morning, perhaps? Photography is a black art like alchemy. It turns matter into spirit and spirit into matter. Still, there are moments when looking at a photograph of a night sky we have a hunch what the word soul means, what the word infinity encompasses. — Charles Simic

James said, "Who are these lawless men who cut your - our - timber?" "Every man!" Edward said angrily, spit flying. "They are mostly small, mean men seeking to make some money. But there are so many of them. They are often savage hungry fellows who stop at nothing. They fight the owners until blood flows and heads are cracked. Even when we catch and prosecute them, they and their friends slip back at night and continue cutting. Settlers, failed businessmen, shingle makers and clapboard sawyers, those are the thieves. And moonlight nights see many good pines fall. — Annie Proulx

I'm so thankful when I have a job. I would say the worst job I ever had was the one I quit after the first night. I was an overnight restaurant janitor. And it wasn't because of the job. We had to do four restaurants in the night, overnight. But I was working with a den of thieves. I just quit the next day. — Wendell Pierce

In Venice in the Middle Ages there was once a profession for a man called a codega
a fellow you hired to walk in front of you at night with a lit lantern, showing you the way, scaring off thieves and demons, bringing you confidence and protection through the dark streets. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The night was filled with horrors, and he thought he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through the world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts, like a victim through a prison full of thieves. What a welcome sight a leper must have been! — Joseph Heller

Crooked Warden, I will fear no darkness for the night is yours," muttered Locke, pointing the first two fingers of his left hand into the darkness. The Dagger of the Thirteenth, a thief's gesture against evil. "Your night is my cloak, my shield, my escape from those who hunt to feed the noose. I will fear no evil, for you have made the night my friend."
"Bless the Benefactor," said Jean, squeezing Locke's left forearm. "Peace and profit to his children. — Scott Lynch

And as Sean climbs into bed and closes his eyes, Mother comes, riding astride a lion the size of a house, blowing a clarion from a horn made out of a hollowed-out elephant's tusk. Her eyes have a faint crimson glow from the lasers that are mounted behind her irises, ready to fire at will.

'I touched a prince's chest today and made his heart stop,' she says. 'I'll do it again if I have to: they'll see what happens if anyone gets in my way. Good night, my son. Remember that I will always keep you safe; that I am always everywhere and always here.'

'Good night, Mom,' Sean says, and falls asleep.

And Mother recedes, wise and beautiful and strong, a genius and a hero, a punisher of thieves and a slayer of wicked men, to watch over her son in all her different versions. — Dexter Palmer

Like thieves in the night, unwelcome thoughts can and do seek entrance to our minds. But we don't have to throw open the door, serve them tea and crumpets and tell them where the silverware is kept! — Jeffrey R. Holland

We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen. — Will Durant

Of course, the Genshwin are almost as enigmatic as our hero himself: they were some of the last Majiski, those who had managed to survive by taking up refuge in an underground fortress beneath Oblakgrad. Most of them were young, the children of those who had perished in the purges, too young to remember the times before the Wall. They were a secret, hidden from the Demons' sight. They were assassins and spies, thieves and mercenaries - masters of shadow and steel.
-The Penitent God — S.G. Night

One cannot begin a new dream without abandoning the last [one]. — Neil Gaiman

A thief loves the night. I am day. I reveal essences. — Rumi

At night,
when we were little,
we tented Bailey's covers,
crawled underneath with our flashlights
and played cards: Hearts,
Whist, Crazy Eights, and our favourite: Bloody Knuckles.
The competition was vicious,
All day, every day,
we were the Walker Girls -
two peas in a pod
thick as thieves -
but when Gram closed the door
for the night,
we bared our teeth.
We played for chores,
for slave duty,
for truths and dares and money.
We played to be better, brighter,
to be more beautiful,
more,
just more.
But it was all a ruse -
we played
so we could fall asleep
in the same bed
without having to ask,
so we could wrap together
like a braid,
so while we slept
our dreams could switch bodies.


(Found written on the inside cover of Wuthering Heights, Lennie's room) — Jandy Nelson

The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children. — George R R Martin

Getting drunk ... you're in complete control up to a point. It's your choice, every time you take a sip. You have a lot of small choices. It's like ... I guess it's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation ... — Jim Morrison

I was a coward. I used to be haunted by the fear of thieves, ghosts and serpents. I did not dare to stir out of doors at night. Darkness was a terror to me. It was almost impossible for me to sleep in the dark, as I would imagine ghosts coming from one direction, thieves from another and serpents from a third. I could not therefore bear to sleep without a light in the room. — Mahatma Gandhi

Back at the office, Woodward went to the rear of the newsroom to call Deep Throat. Bernstein wished he had a source like that. The only source he knew who had such comprehensive knowledge in any field was Mike Schwering, who owned Georgetown Cycle Sport Shop. There was nothing about bikes - and, more important, bike thieves - that Schwering didn't know. Bernstein knew something about bike thieves: the night of the Watergate indictments, somebody had stolen his 10-speed Raleigh from a parking garage. That was the difference between him and Woodward. Woodward went into a garage to find a source who could tell him what Nixon's men were up to. Bernstein walked into a garage to find an eight-pound chain cut neatly in two and his bike gone.
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

The merits of leadership are so ingrained that it's natural to say, "I'll take the lead."
Sometimes, though, it may make more sense to take the follow. Leading when you don't know where to go, when you don't have the commitment or the passion, or worst of all, when you can't overcome your fear- that sort of leading is worse than none at all.
It takes guts to acknowledge that perhaps this time, right now, you can't lead. So get out of the way and take the follow instead. — Seth Godin

When the job's done, he smacks me on the shoulder and we run off like handsome thieves. We both laugh and run, and the moment is so thick around me that I feel like dropping into it to let it carry me.
I love the laughter of this night.
Our footsteps run, and I don't want them to end. I want to run and laugh and feel like this forever. I want to avoid my awkward moment when the realness of reality sticks its fork into our flesh, leaving us standing there, together. I want to stay here, in this moment, and never go to other places, where we don't know what to say or what to do.
For now, just let us run.
We run straight through the laughter of the night. — Markus Zusak

I thought part of the idea of having therapy was putting one in touch with his or her feelings. And don't give me all that about transference, and counter-transference and all that. I know what I feel. And it has nothing to do with all that. And you also feel for me. And if you don't know that, then maybe it's you who needs to have therapy to gain a better knowledge of yourself. — Olga Nunez Miret

Marriage is a lot like a roller coaster. You have extreme highs and you can have some pretty extreme lows, but the ride is worth it. — Teresa Collins

Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty. Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon, and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal. — William Shakespeare

Nothing can be more airy and beautiful than the transparent seed-globe-a fairy dome of splendid architecture. — Henry Ward Beecher

The day is for honest men, the night for thieves. — Euripides

Jem is my greatest sin. — Cassandra Clare

Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, where the population growth is very high, whereby you don't have the mortgage low yet. Still the demand outstrips supply by much. — Al-Waleed Bin Talal

[Dona Queta] says that her motherly advice is always the same: 'Only whores, thieves, and cops go out at night. Which one are you, asshole?' p. 157 — Daniel Hernandez

We've uncovered some embarrassing ancestors in the not-too-distant past. Some horse thieves, and some people killed on Saturday nights. One of my relatives, unfortunately, was even in the newspaper business. — Jimmy Carter

The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life. — George Carlin

They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing. — Cormac McCarthy

It is unacceptable, all the stunned and anxious missing a person is asked to endure in life. It is not to be endured, not really. — Lorrie Moore

He called out to his father. Since that moment, night after night I hear the man's cry echoing in my soul. He speaks like no man I have ever heard before. He invites one of the thieves to join him that very night in the heavens. He asks his father to forgive us. He asks his father why he is forsaken. And then he says three final words: It is finished. And he leaves. — Janette Oke

Mr. Suttree it is our understanding that at curfew rightly decreed by law and in that hour wherein night draws to its proper close and the new day commences and contrary to conduct befitting a person of your station you betook yourself to various low places within the shire of McAnally and there did squander several ensuing years in the company of thieves, derelicts, miscreants, pariahs, poltroons, spalpeens, curmudgeons, clotpolls, murderers, gamblers, bawds, whores, trulls, brigands, topers, tosspots, sots and archsots, lobcocks, smellsmocks, runagates, rakes, and other assorted and felonious debauchees.
I was drunk, cried Suttree. — Cormac McCarthy

That night, before going to bed, he went on to say, 'Never be afraid of thieves and murderers. They represent the dangers without, which are not worth worrying about. Be afraid of ourselves. Prejudices are the real thieves, vices are the murderers. The greatest dangers are within us. Who cares who threatens our heads or our purses! Let's think only of what threatens our souls. — Victor Hugo

If you say, "Would there were no wine" because of the drunkards, then you must say, going on by degrees, "Would there were no steel," because of the murderers, "Would there were no night," because of the thieves, "Would there were no light," because of the informers, and "Would there were no women," because of adultery. — Saint John Chrysostom

Before turning pro, I would never have just left my skates sitting in the locker room unattended. — Kristi Yamaguchi

The world is a den of thieves, and night is falling. Evil breaks its chains and runs through the world like a mad dog. The poison affects us all. No one escapes. Therefore let us be happy while we are happy. Let us be kind, generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world. — Ingmar Bergman