Quotes & Sayings About Thoughts At Night

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didn't get enough sleep." The next one is "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of ... Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack ... This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life. — Brene Brown

It seemed that hell could appear day or night, at any time, at any place, simply in response to one's thoughts or wishes. It seemed that we could summon it at our pleasure and that instantly it would appear. — Yukio Mishima

Sadhana Start by paying attention to everything you think of as yourself just before you fall asleep: your thoughts, your emotions, your hair, your skin, your clothes, your makeup. Know that none of this is you. There is no need to make any conclusion about what "you" are or what "truth" is. Truth is not a conclusion. If you keep the false conclusions at bay, truth will dawn. It is like your experience of the night: the sun has not gone; it is just that the planet is looking the other way. You're thinking, reading, talking about the self, because you're too busy looking the other way! You haven't paid enough attention to know what the self really is. What is needed is not a conclusion, but a turnaround. If you manage to enter sleep with this awareness, it will be significant. Since there is no external interference in sleep, this will grow into a powerful experience. Over time, you will enter a dimension beyond all accumulations. — Sadhguru

That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain. — Ray Bradbury

Every time I am in the dark and a bit of light falls on me, I see a bit of you in my shadows. There is always a bit of you in every song I hear, in every thought I conceive, in every rain that I drench in, in every star that I stare at in the sky every night and in every breeze that touches me. — Akshay Vasu

Magnus's ship would sail that night...His interest in the ship and his thoughts of an adventure to come made him regret his departure less, but even so, he stood at the rail as the ship departed into the night waters. — Cassandra Clare

The conduct to be observed in the night of sense is this: in nowise have recourse to meditations, for, as I have said, the time is now past, let the soul be quiet and at rest, though they may think they are doing nothing, that they are losing time, and that their lukewarmness is the reason of their unwillingness to employ their thoughts. They will do enough if they keep patience, and persevere in prayer; all they have to do is to keep their soul free, unembarrassed, and at rest from all thoughts and all knowledge, not anxious about their meditation, contenting themselves simply with directing their attention lovingly and calmly towards God; and all this without anxiety or effort, or desire to feel and taste His presence. For all such efforts disquiet the soul, and distract it from the calm repose and sweet tranquility of contemplation to which they are now admitted. — San Juan De La Cruz

I think so much
may be it never ends
when this night ends
there's another at hand
I sleep with one
and wake with one
with everything else on
this life goes on. — Jyoti Mishra

I love the Autumn,
And yet I cannot say
All the thoughts and things
That make me feel this way.

I love walking on the angry shore,
To watch the angry sea;
Where summer people were before,
But now there's only me.

I love wood fires at night
That have a ruddy glow.
I stare at the flames
And think of long ago.

I love the feeling down inside me
That says to run away
To come and be a gypsy
And laugh the gypsy way.

The tangy taste of apples,
The snowy mist at morn,
The wanderlust inside you
When you hear the huntsman's horn.

Nostalgia - that's the Autumn,
Dreaming through September
Just a million lovely things
I always will remember. — Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

During last night's insomnia, as these thoughts came and went between my aching temples, I realised once again, what I had almost forgotten in this recent period of relative calm, that I tread a terribly tenuous, indeed almost non-existent soil spread over a pit full of shadows, whence the powers of darkness emerge at will to destroy my life ... — Franz Kafka

Call it dysphoric mania, agitated depression, or a mixed state: nobody will understand anyway. Mania and depression at once mean the will to die and the motivation to make it happen. This is why mixed states are the most dangerous periods of mood disorders. Tearfulness and racing thoughts happen. So do agitation and guilt, fatigue and morbidity and dread. Walking late at night, trying to get murdered, happens. Trying to explain a bipolar mixed state is like trying to explain the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God: you just have to take it on faith when I tell you that the poles bend, cross, never snapping. — Elissa Washuta

In order to abandon the uncomfortable world, I began to linger about in abstraction. Because the world suffocated me with inhibition, an unrestrained fantasy life proceeded to remove me from it for release. It was the natural result of my anxiety to seek some tranquil escape, and my dreams became elaborate, wondrous things to explore in moments when trouble would otherwise have eroded my sense of well-being. I became better and better at dreaming, entering the invisible every time I felt uneasy. Over the years, I refined my fantasies, gliding along languidly in my thoughts, until my gestures were either feeble with hypnotism or ethereal with half-sleep. - Beyond the Furthest Edge of Night — Cliff Gogh

But i'm old now, no longer fit for the fray, i'm even incapable of hating. I only feel sick at heart, irritable and exasperated. At night my head seems to be on fire with so many thoughts crowding in and i can't get any sleep ... Oh, if only i were young again! — Anton Chekhov

He got a good glass for six hundred dollars.
His new job gave him leisure for stargazing.
Often he bid me come and have a look
Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,
At a star quaking in the other end.
I recollect a night of broken clouds
And underfoot snow melted down to ice,
And melting further in the wind to mud.
Bradford and I had out the telescope.
We spread our two legs as it spread its three,
Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it,
And standing at our leisure till the day broke,
Said some of the best things we ever said.
That telescope was christened the Star-Splitter,
Because it didn't do a thing but split
A star in two or three the way you split
A globule of quicksilver in your hand
With one stroke of your finger in the middle.
It's a star-splitter if there ever was one,
And ought to do some good if splitting stars
'Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood. — Robert Frost

I'll work on patient's thoughts about sleep, "So I must get eight hours of sleep tonight or I won't sleep tomorrow." That sometimes - or "I won't function tomorrow." That sometimes makes it very difficult for you to sleep at night — Shelby Harris

The little box that was given to me was by no means unique. I'd heard of prayer boxes, and I knew what they were for.
... Any scrap of paper will do, anywhere, anytime of the day or night. The important part, in a world of fractured thoughts, hurried moments, and scattershot prayers, is to take the time to think through, to write down, to clarify in your own mind the things you're asking for, the things you're grateful for, the things your're troubled about, the hopes you've been nurturing.
And then?
Put them in the box and ...
Let. Them. Go.
That's what trust is. It's letting go of the worry. It's the way of peace and also the way of God. such a hard road to travel for people like me, who are worriers. When I'm writing a story, I control the whole universe. In life ... not so much. Actually, not at all. Things happen that I hadn't anticipated and wouldn't choose and can't change. That's the tough part. — Lisa Wingate

It always gives me a comfort, watching the TV late at night, thinking about all the other people around Ohio watching the same old movie, maybe even thinking the same old thoughts. I picture them curled up on their couches in their living rooms, and all the lonely little sounds of the night drifting in through their window screens. — Donald Ray Pollock

Erienne stared up at him, and when she spoke it was almost in awe. "And what of you, Christopher? If I were to yield myself to you, would you, then, honor me?"
"Honor you?" he breathed. "Sweetest Erienne, how could I not? You are ever in my thoughts, bending me, twisting me, plucking at the fibers of my mind. The man inside me trembles whenever you're near, and I groan in agony for the touch of your hand laid upon me in a soft caress. I am beset with my desire for you, and if I thought for one moment that you would not loathe me forever, I would ease my lusts this very night, be you willing or nay. But I'd rather hear my name fall from your lips with words of love than snarled in tones of hate. 'Tis the one thing that keeps you safe from me, Erienne. 'Tis the only thing."

-Erienne & Christopher — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

My waking thoughts are all of thee. Your portrait and the remembrance of last night's delirium have robbed my senses of repose. Sweet and incomparable Josephine, what an extraordinary influence you have over my heart. Are you vexed? Do I see you sad? Are you ill at ease? My soul is broken with grief, and there is no rest for your lover. — Napoleon Bonaparte

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me -who knows how?
To thy chamber-window, Sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream -
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O beloved as thou art!

Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
Oh press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last! — Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

I came up professionally as a lawyer, and when you're a lawyer, writing a 50-page brief in one night is just another day at the office. You learn to make choices really quickly, and you learn how to get thoughts down very quickly. — Marc Guggenheim

Swann's father, an excellent but an eccentric man in whom the least little thing would, it seemed, often check the flow of his spirits and divert the current of his thoughts. Several times in the course of a year I would hear my grandfather tell at table the story, which never varied, of the behaviour of M. Swann the elder upon the death of his wife, by whose bedside he had watched day and night. My grandfather, who had not seen him for a long time, hastened to join him at the Swanns' family property on the outskirts of Combray, and managed to entice him for a moment, weeping profusely, out of the death-chamber, so that he should not be present when the body was laid in its coffin. They took a turn or two in the park, where there was a little sunshine. Suddenly M. Swann seized my grandfather — Marcel Proust

Dorrigo, the children, her friends, and her wider family - they all existed for her as a way of divining the world. It was a far larger and more wondrous place with them than it was without them. If she hoped for the same love from Dorrigo, and if she was disappointed in her hope, she did not feel its absence as a reason not to love him. The problem was that she did. Her love was without reason and would never yield to reason. Though it longed for requital, her love in the end did not demand it.
But when he was away at night, she would lie awake, unable to sleep. And she would think of him and her and feel the most overwhelming sadness. She may have been a trusting woman but she was very far from a stupid one. She repeated his words and echoed his opinions not because she was without thoughts of her own, but because her nature was one that wished to live through others. Without love, what was the world? Just objects, things, light, darkness. — Richard Flanagan

Some nights, alone, he thinks of her, and some nights, alone, she thinks of him. Some night these thoughts, separated by miles and time zones, occur at the same objective moment, and Ray and Mirabelle are connected without ever knowing it. — Steve Martin

No calls, no emails, no Facebook messages, no letters, no Morse code with a flashlight during the dark hours of the night, no smoke signals blown with steaming breath on a chilly autumn night, no burning thoughts so intense that they could penetrate fog and walls and doors. Nothing. Complete silence. It was as if the whole person had disappeared from the face of the earth. Or, at least, disappeared from Lumikki's life in one swift stroke. Just as unexpectedly and presumptuously as they'd come. — Salla Simukka

Over the years, Raul remembered many events like if they were TV shows, especially at night, like when he and Alberto cruised around town. The open windows, the wide space of the desert, allowed room for his thoughts to emerge. Some memories played over and over again, like the re-runs he watched during the summer. And depending on the events, he didn't mind having to sit through them. At least his memories weren't interrupted with commercials.
Click . . . Click . . . Click . . . — Richard Yanez

I had this dream that my life was a rolling canvas. Everyday it rolled off the sheet, bleached white, into the beach of my life. Come sunup, I'd begin to paint it with my thoughts and actions. My breathing, my living, and my dying. Some days the pictures pleased me, maybe pleased others, pleased God himself, but some days, some months, even some years, they didn't, and I didn't ever want to look at them again. But the thing is this ... every day, no matter what I'd painted the day before, I got a new canvas, washed white. 'Cause each night the tide rolled in, scrubbed it clean, and receded, taking it's stains with it. And my dreams ... I just stood on the beach and watched all that stuff wash out to sea.- Nothing more than ripples in the water. No canvas is ever stained clean through. Not one. — Charles Martin

I lay in my bed night after night staring at the ceiling and thinking, Why have I survived the war? Why was I the last person in my immediate family to be alive? I didn't know. — Ishmael Beah

Miss Gates is a nice lady, ain't she?"
Why sure," said Jem. "I liked her when I was in her room."
She hates Hitler a lot ... "
What's wrong with that?"
Well, she went on today about how bad it was him treating the Jews like that. Jem, it's not right to persecute anybody, is it? I mean have mean thoughts about anybody, even, is it?"
Gracious no, Scout. What's eatin' you?"
Well, coming out of the courthouse that night Miss Gates was
she was going' down the steps in front of us, you musta not seen her
she was talking with Miss Stephanie Crawford. I heard her say it's time somebody time somebody taught 'em a lesson, they were gettin' way above themelves, an' the next thing they think they can do is marry us. Jem, how can you hate Hitler so bad an' then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home
— Harper Lee

He was there alone with himself, collected, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations, and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of night inhale their perfume, lighted like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not himself perhaps have told what was passing in his own mind; he felt something depart from him, and something descend upon him, mysterious interchanges of the depths of the soul with the depths of the universe. — Victor Hugo

But there are thoughts we think in the forward part of our brains, and then there are those whose origins are much deeper, in the animal part, the part that remembers the terrors of the open savanna at night, the oldest part that was there before the primordial voice that spoke the words I AM. — Rick Yancey

I think about so many things, my brain rarely shuts off. At night, my thoughts go over the day I had like replaying a movie. I try to make sense of what happened to the characters.
I'm the director, but can never reshow the edited film. — Tina J. Richardson

Sometimes I would walk with a sense of pain, sometimes with pleasure. If a woman is in one's thoughts all day, one should not have to dream of her at night. — Graham Greene

Last night I've thought about all that kerosene I've used in the past 10 years, and I thought about books. And for the first time, I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper, and I'd never even thought that thought before. It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life. And then I come walking in and BOOM, it's all over. — Ray Bradbury

I readily believe that there are more invisible than visible Natures in the universe. But who will explain for us the family of all these beings, and the ranks and relations and distinguishing features and functions of each? What do they do? What places do they inhabit? The human mind has always sought the knowledge of these things, but never attained it. Meanwhile I do not deny that it is helpful sometimes to contemplate in the mind, as on a tablet, the image of a greater and better world, lest the intellect, habituated to the petty things of daily life, narrow itself and sink wholly into trivial thoughts. But at the same time we must be watchful for the truth and keep a sense of proportion, so that we may distinguish the certain from the uncertain, day from night. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I walk around and think about things. When I come across a thought that makes me laugh, I write it down. Then, at night, I say the thought to people through a microphone. I don't think about politics or pop culture very much, so those thoughts don't often make it to the microphone. — Demetri Martin

Every night I empty my heart, but by morning it's full again.
Slow droplets of you seep in through the night's soft caress.
At dawn, I overflow with thoughts of us
An aching pleasure that gives me no respite.
Love cannot be contained, the neat packaging of desire
Splits asunder, spilling crimson through my days.
Long, languishing days that are now bruised tender with yearning,
Spent searching for a fingerprint, a scent, a breath you left behind. — Shamim Sarif

I do my best thinking at night when everyone else is sleeping. No interruptions. No noise. I like the feeling of being awake when no one else is. — Jennifer Niven

A novel is what you dream in your night sleep. A novel is not waking thoughts although it is written and thought with waking thoughts. But really a novel goes as dreams go in sleeping at night and some dreams are like anything and some dreams are like something and some dreams change and some dreams are quiet and some dreams are not. And some dreams are just what any one would do only a little different always just a little different and that is what a novel is. — Gertrude Stein

From my window I watched the full moon - a moon that reminded me of Brett - become shadowed, little by little until there was only a deep blackness in the woods at night. I would sit there wakeful, hour after hour, and wonder if this aching around my heart, this sense of being alone, forlorn and unwanted in a world where there was gayety and love for others of my age, was going to continue for all of my days. — Irene Hunt

I would dearly love to read the reactions, the observations of each and every person who walks through the gates of Le Cirque des Reves, to know what they see and hear and feel. To see how their experience overlaps with my own and how it differs. I have been fortunate letters with such information, to have reveurs share with me writings from journals or thoughts scribbled on scraps of paper.
We add our own stories, each visitor, each visit each night spent at the circus. I suppose there will never be a lack of things to say, of stories to be told and shared. -Friedrick Thiessen, 1895 — Erin Morgenstern

When you kissed me that night, did it mean anything to you?
How could he give her an honest answer? When he'd kissed her that night, it had meant little. But there'd been moments in the years since - dark, harrowing, nightmarish moments - when that kiss had come to mean everything. Hope. Salvation. A reason to drag one mud-caked boot in front of the other and press on, while men around him fell. He had remembered Cecily, in times and places he hadn't expected to think of her at all. In places a delicate, well-bred lady had no business intruding.

-Luke's thoughts — Tessa Dare

1 Somewhere, out at the edges, the night Is turning and the waves of darkness Begin to brighten the shore of dawn The heavy dark falls back to earth And the freed air goes wild with light, The heart fills with fresh, bright breath And thoughts stir to give birth to color. 2 I arise today In the name of Silence Womb of the Word, In the name of Stillness Home of Belonging, In the name of the Solitude Of the Soul and the Earth. I arise today Blessed by all things, Wings of breath, Delight of eyes, Wonder of whisper, Intimacy of touch, Eternity of soul, Urgency of thought, Miracle of health, Embrace of God. May I live this day Compassionate of heart, Clear in word, Gracious in awareness, Courageous in thought, Generous in love. — John O'Donohue

Sometimes, if the two old women
were not asleep, they heard him pacing slowly along the walks at a very
advanced hour of the night. He was there alone, communing with himself,
peaceful, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the
serenity of the ether, moved amid the darkness by the visible splendor of
the constellations and the invisible splendor of God, opening his heart to
the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. At such moments, while he
offered his heart at the hour when nocturnal flowers offer their perfume,
illuminated like a lamp amid the starry night, as he poured himself out
in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not
have told himself, probably, what was passing in his spirit; he felt
something take its flight from him, and something descend into him.
Mysterious exchange of the abysses of the soul with the abysses of the
universe! — Victor Hugo

Yes, I found happiness. And no, it didn't take years of struggles, hours of meditation or tons of self-help books and yoga lessons. It just happened. Here, it follows me wherever I go. During the day, it joins me, like a willing ally, through the usual cycle of grasping and craving, and, at night, it lets me fall asleep, my mind quiet, no rambling thoughts filling it. — Carol Vorvain

Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before ... It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I come along in two minutes and boom! it's all over. — Ray Bradbury

You are the stories and incidents that you never tell to anyone. You are the thoughts that you get while standing under the
shower. You are those memories that won't lets you sleep at night peacefully. You are those words that you will never say while
speaking with someone. You are those scars that you always hide from everyone. You are those little secrets that you will never let the world know. You are everything that you hide under the identity that you call the real you. — Akshay Vasu

To order a wife by mail seemed strange to him indeed; so strange he could only open the letters in the confidential cloak of night, undisturbed by even the servants..." Lord Hartford's thoughts at the prospect of reading letters in response to his advertisement for a mail order bride in "To Find a Duchess — Lisa M. Prysock

What studies please, what most delight,
And fill men's thoughts, they dream them o'er at night. — Thomas Creech

When I was a young boy, my father taught me that to be a good Catholic, I had to confess at church if I ever had impure thoughts about a girl. That very evening, I had to rush to confess my sin. And the next night, and the next. After a week, I decided religion wasn't for me. — Fidel Castro

If a woman is in one's thoughts all day, one should not have a dream of her at night. — Graham Greene

The stars could have burned out around us, the moon could have fallen from the sky, and I wouldn't have known it. Not when he leaned indecently close and pressed his cheek against mine to murmur, "Tell me a secret."
I wanted him to tell me how he stopped time like that. How he read my mind. I wanted to admit I wondered if thoughts of me troubled him when he lay awake at night. But I could make none of that come to my lips ...
Instead ... I whispered back, "I've seen the future."
He didn't laugh. He didn't mock, not like he had done at Privalovna's performance. In the middle of our waltz, he stopped, nose to nose with me. He uncovered me with a look that somehow bared him, too.
And his question told me everything - that he stopped time because he needed me, that he read my mind because we were one. That I troubled his nights, indeed, because what he asked revealed it all.
"Am I with you there? — Saundra Mitchell

Others wonder about the possibilities. Maybe the princess cheated on her prince with a dashing knight, ran away with him to live in the wilds, cheated on him with a neighbouring farmer and ended up working the fields for the rest of her life. These are the people who lie awake at night, frightened by the stars above them, intimidated by how the world keeps turning and it doesn't matter if they live or die. These are the people who attempt to stop those thoughts by painting, or writing, or reading... anything to plug up that hole in the brain that gushes out a constant stream of consciousness. — Sarah Dalton

This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for - business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business. — Henry David Thoreau

The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.
Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm - which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned.
Dead men can live there, and converse with stars:
Equator speaks with pole, and night with day;
Spirit dissolves the world's material bars -
A million isolations burn away.
The Universe can live and work and plan,
At last made God within the mind of man. — Julian Huxley

At night your thoughts have an unpleasant way of slipping their collars and running free. — Stephen King

There needs but so little to encourage beauty in our soul; so little to awaken the slumbering angels; or perhaps is there no need of awakening --- it is enough that we lull them not to sleep. It requires more effort to fall, perhaps, than to rise. Can we, without putting constraint upon ourselves, confine our thoughts to everyday things at times when the sea stretches before us, and we are face to face with the night? And what soul is there but knows that it is ever confronting the sea, ever in presence of an eternal night? — Maurice Maeterlinck

However interesting and lovely my days were, I could get from one day to the next only by passing through a night. I have, it is true, known lovely nights here; nights of sound sleep and good dreams and nights made wakeful by happy thoughts. but I have not always been a good sleeper, and my thoughts at night have sometimes been far from happy. — Wendell Berry

Insomniacs know that there is something about the night. A darkness, an energy, a mystery that shrouds things. It hides things at the same time as it illuminates them. It is this thing that allows us to examine our thoughts in a way that we can't during the day. It is this thing that brings truth and clarity. — Courtney Cole

Damn it, it wasn't right. When she lay abed at night, she shouldn't see charging boars and violent tussles. She should dream of the scent of night-blooming jasmine and the texture of organdy and the distant strains of an orchestra playing a stately sarabande. As he had, all those freezing, damp nights.
As he would, in all the bitter years to come.
What had she called him, last night? An insufferable, arrogant cad. Yes, he was.
He wanted Cecily pining for him forever, dreaming she could tame him, yearning for the tender love he could never, ever give.
He wanted her to remember the old Luke, not fantasize about some uncivilized beast.
And if this "werestag" had eclipsed the memory of their kiss with his gory midnight rescue . . .
Luke just would have to do it one better, and give Cecily a new memory to occupy her thoughts. An experience she could never forget. — Tessa Dare

When you were awake, stretched out in your bed in the dark, shutters drawn, your thoughts would flow freely. They would grow obscure when you got up and opened the curtains. The violence of daylight would efface the nocturnal clarity. In the daytime, people were barriers, dividing you up, preventing you from hearing what you listened to at night: the voice of your brain. — Edouard Leve

I have hair that drifts like seaweed when I swim. I have eyes that shine like rock pools. My ears are like scallop shells. The ripples on my skin are like the ripples on the sand when the tide has turned back again. At night I gleam and glow like sea beneath the stars and moon. Thoughts dart and dance inside like little minnows in the shallows. They race and flash like mackerel farther out. My wonderings roll in the deep like sails. Dreams dive each night into the dark like dolphins do and break out happy and free into the morning light. These are the things I know about myself and that I see when I look in the rock pools at myself. — David Almond

Dark night lay on my eyes, like a veil of black cloves - dust on my feet, at the beginning of the path of knowledge.
Tracer from an invisible hand, a rainbow, fell in my thoughts - I encountered the truth; and truth shall be my light until the end of days. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Late-Flowering Lust

My head is bald, my breath is bad,
Unshaven is my chin,
I have not now the joys I had
When I was young in sin.
I run my fingers down your dress
With brandy-certain aim
And you respond to my caress
And maybe feel the same.
But I've a picture of my own
On this reunion night,
Wherein two skeletons are shewn
To hold each other tight;
Dark sockets look on emptiness
Which once was loving-eyed,
The mouth that opens for a kiss
Has got no tongue inside.
I cling to you inflamed with fear
As now you cling to me,
I feel how frail you are my dear
And wonder what will be--
A week? or twenty years remain?
And then--what kind of death?
A losing fight with frightful pain
Or a gasping fight for breath?
Too long we let our bodies cling,
We cannot hide disgust
At all the thoughts that in us spring
From this late-flowering lust. — John Betjeman

Sully suffers from a stutter,
simple syllables will clutter,
stalling speeches up on beaches
like a sunken sailboat rudder.
Sully strains to say his phrases,
sickened by the sounds he raises,
strings of thoughts come out in knots,
he solves his sentences like mazes.
At night, he writes his thoughts instead
and sighs as they steadily rush from his head. — Bo Burnham

A driving snow-storm in the night and still raging; five or six inches deep on a level at 7 A.M. All birds are turned into snowbirds. Trees and houses have put on the aspect of winter. The traveller's carriage wheels, the farmer's wagon, are converted into white disks of snow through which the spokes hardly appear. But it is good now to stay in the house and read and write. We do not now go wandering all abroad and dissipated, but the imprisoning storm condenses our thoughts. I can hear the clock tick as not in pleasant weather. My life is enriched. I love to hear the wind howl. I have a fancy for sitting with my book or paper in some mean and apparently unfavorable place, in the kitchen, for instance, where the work is going on, rather a little cold than comfortable. — Henry David Thoreau

Kerrigan?" she tried again.
"Aye, Lady Mouse. I am here."
Relieved, she smiled at the sound of his voice in her head. During the day, he was oft silent. But at night ... at night he would speak softly to her and tell her of his travels through time as he eluded those who were after him.
"Where are you today, my lord?"
"I'm in Venice, during a carnival. It's beautiful here. There are minstrels and acrobats all around. Plenty of places to hide from Morgen and her spies."
"You are safe?"
"Aye, Lady Mouse. I am always safe. But I've no wish to talk about me. How are you doing?"
"I miss you."
She swore she could feel his pain as well as her own.
"I miss you as well and I think of you constantly."
-Kerrigan and Seren communicating though their thoughts as they were apart. — Kinley MacGregor

Inspiration comes from your writing. Thoughts meander subliminally through our subconscious, at night when we sleep the brain is working. In the act of writing, phrases come out and you think: wow, did I write this? Did I have that insight? Sometimes you know something is good, good within your own limits, and those parts make life worth living. — Chloe Thurlow

In your arms was still delight,
Quiet as a street at night;
And thoughts of you, I do remember,
Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,
Were dark clouds in a moonless sky. — Rupert Brooke

This had been happening more and more often: the two of us come upon each other by accident in the early hours of the morning and take solace in each others' company, weathering out the peril of being awake at this time of night, when thoughts that are neatly ordered or justly murdered during the day come loose from their moorings and out of their graves, to tie themselves to each other in new and dangerous ways. — Dexter Palmer

She seemed pleasantly surprised that I'd read the homework assignment the night before, despite being somewhat distracted by the thoughts of gremlins lurking around my computer. Apparently satisfied that I could listen and stare out the window at the same time, Miss Singer finally left me alone, and I went back to brooding in peace. — Julie Kagawa

The chair and desk and stuff, they change in the darkness. Like people change. And I lay in my bed and I think, you know, this is the way the chair really is. The way it looks in the daytime, that's just a foolie. It looks that way to make me think it's all right. But it's an ugly thing, a chair at night is. And I know even in the day that it's ugly underneath. It will be ugly again, when I'm alone with it. When it's dark...I'm scared of chairs... I try not to be scared of things. I try to fight it. But I'm not good at it. It's everywhere at once. It's like fighting the night. — Torey L. Hayden

But if it is love, real love, then I want them to find each other. Because I believe that love is an overwhelming, all-consuming force, and when it's genuine you can't really ignore it. No matter how long it takes. It knocks down your door by force. It keeps you awake at night. It plagues your thoughts and burn your soul. If it is love, they won't need me at all. By telling my daughter that the man of her dreams loves her too, would I not be getting in the way? Meddling with fate? — Jessica Thompson

You are always dragging me down,' said I to my Body. 'Dragging _you_ down!' replied my Body. 'Well I like that! Who taught me to like tobacco and alcohol? You, of course, with your idiotic adolescent idea of being "grown up". My palate loathed both at first: but you would have your way. Who put an end to all those angry and revengeful thoughts last night? Me, of course, by insisting on going to sleep. Who does his best to keep you from talking too much and eating too much by giving you dry throats and headaches and indigestion? Eh?' 'And what about sex?' said I. 'Yes, what about it?' retorted the Body. 'If you and your wretched imagination would leave me alone I'd give you no trouble. That's Soul all over; you give me orders and then blame me for carrying them out. — C.S. Lewis

set up an appointment with yourself in the morning, during a busy work schedule, or at night to find a quiet space and practice mindfulness. It's as easy as being still, listening, focusing on your breathing, and emptying your thoughts, while practicing non-judgment. Every time a thought pops up, just let it go, without judgment, and return your attention to the moment. Build this up and practice every day. This may be one of the hardest things you'll ever do. If you can stick with it, your life (and brain, whoo hoo!) will begin to change in amazing ways. Tool #6: Compassionate Self-Talk "A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day. — Sarah Owens

Tomorrow, at dawn, the moment the countryside is washed with daylight,
I will leave. You see, I know that you wait for me.
I will go through forest, I will go across the mountains.
I cannot rest far from you for long.
I will trudge on, my eyes fixed on my thoughts,
Without seeing what is outside of myself, without hearing a single sound,
Alone, unknown, back bent, hands crossed,
Sad, and the day for me will be like the night.
I will not look upon the golden sunset as night falls,
Nor the sailboats from afar that descend on Harfleur,
And when I arrive, I will place on your grave
A bouquet of holly and heather in bloom. — Victor Hugo

I like to work from home. I do most of my writing in bed, late at night after everyone has gone to sleep. I need to be alone with my thoughts, and late at night is about the only time that can actually happen. — Donald Driver

But maybe it's only been a brief separation that feels like years. Like a solo car ride that takes all night but feels like a lifetime. Watching all those highway dashes flying by at seventy miles an hour, your eyes becoming lazy slits and your mind wandering over the memory of a whole lifetime-past and future, childhood memories to thoughts of your own death-until the numbers on the dashboard clock do not mean anything more. And then the sun comes up and you get to your destination and the ride becomes the thing that is no longer real, because that surreal feeling has vanished and time has become meaningful again. — Matthew Quick

The last glow of sundown dims away. Stars appear in the east. Night encloses us. The ocean seems to enlarge. When you're adrift at night, imagination and perception merge. They have to. You can't see as well, as far, as deep. You tie knots by muscle memory, and you operate your reel mostly by feel. Your boat drifts, your thoughts drift. You sense the sweep of tide and water, and the boat gets rocked in turbulence just past each undersea ridgeline and boulder field. You, too, are looking up, searching constellations, dreaming. You fell again how flexible and expansive your mind can be when it's working right. And you slip your leash to explore the vast vault of sky and great interior spaces. — Carl Safina

Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him from the river, from the twinkling stars at night, from the sun's melting rays. Dreams and a restlessness of the soul came to him. — Hermann Hesse

Oh! how should all hearts be taken with this Christ? Christians! turn your eyes upon the Lord: 'Look, and look again unto Jesus.' Why stand ye gazing on the toys of this world, when such a Christ is offered to you in the gospel? Can the world die for you? Can the world reconcile you to the Father? Can the world advance you to the kingdom of heaven? As Christ is all in all, so let him be the full and complete subject of our desire, and hope, and faith, and love, and joy; let him be in your thoughts the first in the morning, and the last at night. — Isaac Ambrose

To the Red Drum for sets, to hear Bird, whom I saw distinctly digging Mardou several times also myself directly into my eye looking to search if really I was that great writer I thought myself to be as if he knew my thoughts and ambitions or remembered me from other night clubs and other coasts, other Chicagos - not a challenging look but the king and founder of the bop generation at least the sound of it in digging his audience digging the eyes, the secret eyes him-watching, as he just pursed his lips and let great lungs and immortal fingers work, — Jack Kerouac

The Lost Girls

Nomad girls are Lost Ones too,
With leaves at foot and crown;
They too seek shelter in the tress,
Drink Red and Gold and Brown.

Their circlets made of steam and rain,
Their lashes powdered ash,
They're firelight, they're fox's kill,
They're blood and sweat and scratch.

Lost Boys fly forever, and crow the rising sun.
They play all day in Neverland, their laughter mermaid-spun.
But Lost Girls live underground:
They steal from hole to hole.
They drink the shadows, wear the night,
And paint their cheeks with coal.

And when the wind turns colder,
They split a doe and climb inside.
Still-warm sinew wraps their hands,
Dead muscle soaks the light.

You'll never tell what's girl, what's beast,
Once bloody fur's been trussed-
So think your happy thoughts, Lost Boy,
Wish on your Fairy Dust. — Lauren Bird Horowitz

i dreamt that i died. for an instant, all the voices in my head stood calm, and for a moment, my heart stopped panicking, and for once in my whole life, my cheeks dried from all the tears that were falling every night ... i thought to my self: how nice it is to be finally dead, i wish i did it sooner.
my brother once told me that people who commit suicide are mostly doing it for attention. that's so wrong. i'm not asking for attention, nor sympathy. when i put that blade on my shaking skin alone in my room at 3 am, you should be sure that i'm not thinking of anyone and i'm not asking for anyone's attention. all i'm doing is pushing my self to stop the pain. you see, i don't want to die too, all i want is for the pain to stop and for me to smile like everyone else.


yasuko amaya - the day i decided to be God - — Unknown Author 1

I was walking around in an almost blind, crazy rage of madness. There was a story burning a hole in my brain, and it was dying to come out on paper. It was begging of me to create it, but I didn't know where to begin. A month after giving birth to the idea, I felt like I was losing my mind. Ideas would pop into my head in the middle of the night, or during a midterm, and I missed them, quite narrowly, almost every time. Every time an idea left my mind without taking the shape of a word on paper, my mind would automatically begin to churn something just as impressive, or at least close to it. I was digging myself into a shallow grave, and I was getting nowhere. And this was even before the thoughts were committed to paper. — Leigh Hershkovich

The trick in that town was getting through a night at all without stalling in the sludge of your own thoughts. — Mary Karr

There was more she wanted to say. He could feel the words scrabbling at the clasps of her thoughts, eager to be known. Freed. But she stood there, stony- faced and impassive. And he remembered the girl he had glimpsed from the Grotto - the one who let her shoulders drop when no one looked, the one who fought every day when no one noticed. The one who had once hoped that the Night Bazaar traded on dreams. She deserved more than loneliness. — Roshani Chokshi

The Something"

Here come my night thoughts
On crutches,
Returning from studying the heavens.
What they thought about
Stayed the same,
Stayed immense and incomprehensible.

My mother and father smile at each other
Knowingly above the mantel.
The cat sleeps on, the dog
Growls in his sleep.
The stove is cold and so is the bed.

Now there are only these crutches
To contend with.
Go ahead and laugh, while I raise one
With difficulty,
Swaying on the front porch,
While pointing at something
In the gray distance.

You see nothing, eh?
Neither do I, Mr. Milkman.
I better hit you once or twice over the head
With this fine old prop,
So you don't go off muttering

I saw something! — Charles Simic

My new friend," she said. "I met him at the farmers' market."
Friend? Now there was some code. Suddenly, I realized why Patricia [his grandma] had sex on her mind, and then, just as suddenly, I had this whole new batch of unwanted images and thoughts.
"So what do you think, hon? Saturday night, maybe?" Patricia asked my back.
I leaned farther into the refrigerator. "Uhhh..." Milk, orange juice, pickles, mustard, canola oil, cream cheese, my grandmother having sex, please God, make it stop--
Hon? — Lisa Papademetriou

I willingly trust myself to chance. I let my thoughts wander, I digress, not only sitting at my work, but all day long, all night even. It often happens that a sentence suddenly runs through my head before I go to bed, or when I am unable to sleep, and I get up again and write it down. — Simone De Beauvoir

I have almost forgotten the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool'd to hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir as life were in't: I have supt full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, cannot once start me. — William Shakespeare

Father Consett sighed.
'I told you this was an evil place,' he said. 'In the deep forests. She'd not have such evil thoughts in another place.' Mrs Satterthwaite said:
'I'd rather you didn't say that, Father. Sylvia would have evil thoughts in any place.'
'Sometimes,' the priest said, 'at night I think I hear the claws of evil things scratching on the shutters. This was the last place in Europe to be Christianised. Perhaps it wasn't ever even Christianised and they're here yet.'
Mrs Satterthwaite said:
'It's all very well to talk like that in the day-time. It makes the place seem romantic. But it must be near one at night. And things are bad enough as it is.'
'They are,' Father Consett said. 'The devil's at work. — Ford Madox Ford

She's the queen of the herd."
"May I touch her?"
"If she'll let you. She doesn't take to strangers well."
I took a hesitant step forward and reached out my hand. Terror approached me with confidence, then ducked her muzzle beneath my palm. Once she came closer, for a moment, I feared she was going to trample me. But then she brushed gently against my side.
"She wants you to ride her." Jockey looked at me. "This is an honor."
All thoughts of bailing out quietly went to hell with that statement. Why not? How often did you get a chance to ride a Night Mare? — Donna Augustine

He pierced her with a look. "I thought we had an agreement. I keep my men away from your ladies, and you keep your distance from me. You're not holding your end of the bargain."
"It's but a momentary interruption. Just this once."
"Just this once?" He made a dismissive noise, rifling through papers. "What about just now in the church?"
"Very well, twice."
"Try again." He stacked his papers and looked up, devouring her with his intent green gaze. "You invaded my dreams at least a half-dozen times last night. When I'm awake, you keep traipsing through my thoughts. Sometimes you're barely clothed. What excuse can you make for that?"
She stammered to form a response, her tongue tripping against her teeth. "I ... I would never traipse." Idiotic reply.
"Hm." He tilted his head and regarded her thoughtfully. "Would you saunter? — Tessa Dare

I tried so hard to fight the endless sobbing. I remember asking myself one night, while I was curled up in the same old corner of my same old couch in tears yet again over the same old repetition of sorrowful thoughts, "Is there anything about this scene you can change, Liz?" And all I could think to do was stand up, while still sobbing, and try to balance on one foot in the middle of my living room. Just to prove that - while I couldn't stop the tears or change my dismal interior dialogue - I was not yet totally out of control. At least I could cry hysterically while balanced on one foot. Hey, it was a start. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Pape called Basil his sanctuary. In truth we all exist in our own sanctuaries-but I don't mean cathedrals or prisons. I'm talking about our hearts and minds, which imprison us in anxiety, dear, insecurity, anger and other forms of misery. The walls & bars that keep most in a constant state of suffering are thoughts and emotions, not concrete & steel. It's a disease. Insanity. Most are afflicted by it, regardless of which side of the law they find themselves on or where they lay their heads at night. To be free of this, Renee, is to be free indeed. — Ted Dekker

It was no use. Edward rolled his head back against his shoulders, trying to ease the tension. He would have to make a trip to London soon to spend a night or even two at Aphrodite's Grotto. Perhaps after that he could be in his secretary's presence without lustful thoughts taking over his mind. — Elizabeth Hoyt

When Maggie became conscious that she was the person he sought, she felt, in spite of all the thought that had gone before, a glowing gladness at heart. Her eyes and cheeks were still brightened with her childlike enthusiasm in the dance; her whole frame was set to joy and tenderness; even the coming pain could not seem bitter
she was ready to welcome it as a part of life, for life at this moment seemed a keen vibrating consciousness poised above please or pain. This one, this last night, she might expand unrestrainedly in the warmth of the present without those chill, eating thoughts of the past and the future. — George Eliot

I have patches of insomnia, and I'm fascinated by the otherness of the world at night. The stillness. Daytime preoccupations fall away, standards change, thoughts change. It's a canvas for reinvention, I think. — Morag Joss