Unlit Quotes & Sayings

I kiss him as the train slides into unlit, uncertain land. I kiss him for as long as I want, for longer than I should, given that my brother sits three feet away from me. — Veronica Roth

[ ... ] to catch those unrecorded gestures, those unsaid or half-said words, which form themselves, no more palpably than the shows of moths on the ceiling, when women are alone, unlit by the capricious and coloured light of the other sex. — Virginia Woolf

I love Arkansas but I think Arkansas has its share of unlit minds. — Bette Greene

Baley tried to picture a world as a sphere being lit and unlit as it turned. He found it hard to do and felt scornful of the so-superior Spacers who let such an essential thing as time be dictated to them by the vagaries of planetary movements. — Isaac Asimov

You have been the great green adventure of my life. Without you my days would be unlit. — Katherine Rundell

Most of the lights were burning brightly, but near the center of the spool was a patch of unlit bulbs - a substantia nigra deep inside the tangle. — Jonathan Franzen

That's my window. This minute
So gently did I alight
From sleep--was still floating in it.
Where has my life its limit
And where begins the night?

I could fancy all things around me
Were nothing but I as yet;
Like a crystal's depth, profoundly
Mute, translucent, unlit.

I have space to spare inside me
For the stars, too: so full of room
Feels my heart; so lightly
Would it let go of him, whom

For all I know I have started
To love, it may be to hold.
Strange, as if never charted,
Stares my fortune untold.

Why is it I am bedded
Beneath this infinitude,
Fragrant like a meadow,
Hither and thither moved,

Calling out, yet fearing
Someone might hear the cry,
Destined to disappearing
Within another I. — Rainer Maria Rilke

If a tiny bud dares unfold to a wakening new world, if a narrow blade of grass dares to poke its head up from an unlit earth, then surely I can rise and stretch my winter weary bones, surely I can set my face to the spring sun. Surely, I too can be reborn. — Toni Sorenson

The stranger, with an unlit cigarette between his teeth, turns first. The unflattering elevator lighting enshrouds him in jaundice yellow and a heavy veil of lethargy. Kyungsoo wonders, with the cinquillo pounding into his veins, if the man's skin is as plastic as it seems. — Changdictator

Men are just like unlit lamps: in themselves they are no good for anything, but, when lit, they can be handy to have around the house. — Moderata Fonte

If retirement requires a certain degree of peace of mind and an easy conscience, Victor Florian did not appear to have much of either. He held an unlit cigar in his mouth and had more hair in each eyebrow that most people have on their head. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Operating in an unlit world, the unconscious mind is a brilliant detective. — Jo Coudert

She goes to Frederick's of Hollywood at the mall and purchases an explicit lingerie outfit so sheer that you could read an appliance warranty through it in an unlit closet. — Dave Barry

In fact, candy was at the top of the list of things she was supposed to avoid, especially holiday treats from strangers. But there were also dire warnings about public toilets, dogs (even on leashes), convenience stores (especially at night), unsupervised children and teens, electrical outlets (during storms), unlit rooms, steep staircases, carnival rides, banquet or buffet food, cocktails on a date, and all weather conditions. — Laird Barron

Knowing what you know, be serene also, like a mountain; and do not be distressed by misfortune. Knowledge without serenity is an unlit candle; together they are honey-comb; honey without wax is a noble thing; wax without honey is only fit for burning. — Sanai

In the open sky above the hushed streets, the moon was a porcelain plate on a black table as I walked home. A breeze raised the collar of my jeans jacket as I sliced through the silvery silence, past unlit buildings and quivering trees and cars idle by the curb. The air felt like glass. I crossed empty corners under the mauve light of overhead lamps. — Andrew Cotto

But the moan this time is not simply a moan of will and pain but a call into the emptiness: Is anyone there? There is a blackness spreading into her vision and she feels herself spinning in an unlit sky. Empty, empty, her moan cries. The moan goes on, spiraling deeper into space, and at the end of it Lore falls directly into sleep, with no sense of transition, into a dream of gray waters, of swimming with weary arms and trying to spy the shore. — Pamela Erens

The ship left the construction bay of the factory craft with most of its fitting-out still to be done. Accelerating hard, its course a four-dimensional spiral through a blizzard of stars where it knew that only danger waited, it powered into hyperspace on spent engines from an overhauled craft of one class, watched its birthplace disappear astern with battle-damaged sensors from a second, and tested outdated weapon units cannibalized from yet another. Inside its warship body, in narrow, unlit, unheated, hard-vacuum spaces, constructor drones struggled to install or complete sensors, displacers, field generators, shield disruptors, laserfields, plasma chambers, warhead magazines, maneuvering units, repair systems and the thousands of other major and minor components required to make a functional warship. Gradually, — Iain M. Banks

He went to stand next to the bed and even though the room was unlit, he could make out, faintly, her slight form beneath the covers. The sight somehow calmed his soul. She lay in his bed, in his house, and no matter what bargain she thought she'd made with him, he knew the truth.
He had no plans to let her go - ever. — Elizabeth Hoyt

I have my stars in the sky, but oh for my little lamp unlit in my house. — Rabindranath Tagore

Long ago, there'd been choices he could have made that would have sent him on a different path. But those days were dead, and the future held only nights, a stretch of darkness that led down to the eternal dark. He would meet Vorcan, eventually, and he'd swear his life to the Guild Master, and that would be that, the closing of the final door. And his sense of outrage at the injustices around him, the corruptions of the world, would wither in the unlit tunnels beneath Darujhistan. In the exactness of the methods of assassination, his final victim would be himself. — Steven Erikson

It's imperative that writing consists of not living up to your own taste. Of leaving the world behind so you can hold fast to what's strange inside; what's unlit. A soreness. A neglected joy. The way forward is perhaps not maintaining a standard for accuracy but appraising what naturally heaps. Writing — Durga Chew-Bose

The sour smell was not the smell of fungus. It was unlit incense, and cold ashes, and unsaid prayers. I — Mary Stewart

Let your eyes
get used to light. Don't miss your own splendor! Don't stay in the batlike
mind that loves complexity and doubt, the unlit niches. Bats seek those to live
in, because there a bat's accomplishments seem greater than they are. He can impress
as he confuses you with cave ramifications. Little by little accustom yourself to your own light, — Rumi

Many seasoned porn whores develop an ability to check out at will. The girl, on her back has unlit vacancy signs where her eyes once were. — Tyler Knight

Once inside, Horatia took him to the morning room to warm up, but to their surprise the fire was unlit. Lucien peeled off his wet wool overcoat and looked at the cold fireplace with a raised eyebrow. For a moment she just stared at him. He glanced down, wondering what she was looking at. His shirt clung to his arms, highlighting his forearms and biceps. When he looked back to her, she'd gone wide-eyed and scarlet. Horatia hastily darted past him to the fireplace and pulled back the grate. He bit the inside of his lip to keep from grinning. She'd liked what she'd seen, he was sure of it. — Lauren Smith

These absurd showbiz queens are as much a part of New York street life as sirens, steam from manholes, or ghostly Asian deliverymen ferrying chop-suey-to-go on unlit bikes going the wrong way. — Edmund White

I expect you have seen someone put a a lighted match to a bit of newspaper which is propped up in a grate against an unlit fire. And for a second nothing seems to have happened; and then you notice a tiny steak of flame creeping along the edged of the newspaper. It was like that now. — C.S. Lewis

a campus security officer who'd been waiting quietly in the corner of a stairwell landing told us that the top of the building was off-limits. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth and a cell phone in his hands and looked for all the world like we'd just caught him about to take an unauthorized text and smoke break. What didn't quite jibe with that image was that most campus security guards don't look like they pick their teeth with a chainsaw, and their sidearms aren't made for moose hunting. — Elliott James

So the lovers fall into the background. They are part of the distant sunrise, and only the mountains speak to them. Rickie talks to Mr Pembroke, amidst the unlit valleys of our over-habitable world. — E. M. Forster

Deity of the ruined temple! The broken strings of Vina sing no more your praise. The bells in the evening proclaim not your time of worship. The air is still and silent about you.
In your desolate dwelling comes the vagrant spring breeze. It brings the tidings of flowers
the flowers that for your worship are offered no more.
Your worshipper of old wanders ever longing for favour still refused. In the eventide, when fires and shadows mingle with the gloom of dust, he wearily comes back to the ruined temple with hunger in his heart.
Many a festival day comes to you in silence, deity of the ruined temple. Many a night of worship goes away with lamp unlit.
Many new images are built by masters of cunning art and carried to the holy stream of oblivion when their time is come.
Only the deity of the ruined temple remains unworshipped in deathless neglect. — Rabindranath Tagore

BUDGE (muffled)
No,no,nono.
NURSE BAKER
I understand what you're trying to say.
BUDGE
A hideous scream.
NURSE BAKER
Exactly.
BUDGE
A cry of desperation.
NURSE BAKER
Perfect.
BUDGE
A strangled sob. A plea torn from my throat. What sound can I make to convince you I'm not the one you want? A disconsolate sigh? Maybe that's what you want to hear. The smallest human moan imaginable. A whisper in a corner of an unlit room, with curtains blowing in the wind.
NURSE BAKER
What could be more touching? — Don DeLillo

She slid open the box, extracted a match, and struck it with a flourish. The flame flared up in the gloom of the unlit room, a tiny golden beacon. For a moment, Oma Kristel held it aloft, then the unthinkable happened. The match slipped out of her fingers and fell straight onto her pink mohair bosom. With a whooomph! like the sounds of a gas furnace firing up, the hairspray with which Oma Kristel had doused herself ignited, obliterating her in a column of flames. — Helen Grant

He held an unlit cigar in his mouth and had more hair in each eyebrow than most people have on their entire head. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

What do we mean by the word 'wisdom'? Usually we mean something superior to knowledge, something deeper. In the spiritual world, the word 'wisdom' is not used in that way. Here wisdom means Light, illumining Light, transforming Light. That which illumines our unlit consciousness is wisdom. That which transforms the finite consciousness into the infinite Consciousness is called wisdom. — Sri Chinmoy

She had stepped into the thin strip of earth that they claimed as their own. Bound by the last building on Brewster and a brick wall, they reigned in that unlit alley like dwarfed warrior kings. Born with the appendages of power, circumcised by the guillotine, and baptized with the steam from a million non reflective mirrors, these young men wouldn't be called upon to thrust a bayonet into an Asian farmer, target a torpedo, scatter their iron seed from a B-52 into the wound of the earth, point a finger to move a nation, or stick a pole into the moon
and they knew it. They only had that three-hundred-foot alley to serve them as stateroom, armored tank, and executioner's chamber. — Gloria Naylor

The cigarette hung unlit from his lips. Was he doomed to roam forever in his ghost state, always wanting to light that cigarette? A small twinge of satisfaction rolled through me at the thought of him in permanent nicotine withdrawal. — Deanna Chase

I hear you reproach, "But delay was best, For their end was a crime." Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view! ... Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin; And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is-the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. — Robert Browning

God is most great! Allahu akbar! God is most great!" and sending the most faithful grimly shuffling through the dusky, unlit streets to salat al-'isha, the evening prayer. The Sabbath — Brian Catlos

Seemed to myself to be dull, boring, inadequate, thick brained, unlit, unresponsive, chill skinned, bloodless, and sparrow drab. — Kay Redfield Jamison

Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own. — Leonard Bernstein

I can hear the library humming in the night,
a choir of authors murmuring inside their books
along the unlit, alphabetical shelves,
Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son,
each one stitched into his own private coat,
together forming a low, gigantic chord of language. — Billy Collins

Jyothishmati pragnya means to see your whole mind as light, as a flame. Your consciousness is a flame. Your mind is a flame. You forget this! Your entire body is functioning because of this presence of the mind as a flame in you. Otherwise, you'll be like an unlit candle. What is a flame? How does a flame work? A flame lives on oxygen, doesn't it? What does it do? A flame uses some matter from the substance earth, and it uses oxygen and lives. And what is life? Life is also the same! It uses oxygen and lives on some matter. Just like a flame lives from the wax and wick, and uses oxygen, so too, your life, the mind, uses the body and food in the body as wax, and the air as oxygen. And it exhibits activities in the body like the flame (consciousness) exhibits life. — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

As Nietzsche says about Christians, you can tell from their faces that they don't enjoy doing what they do. Fiction writers cluster in the unlit corners of the room, silently observing everybody, including the poets, who are usually having a fine time in the center spotlight, making a spectacle of themselves as they eat the popcorn and drink the beer and gossip about other poets. — Charles Baxter

How can people think that artists seek a name? There is no such thing as an artist - only the world, lit or unlit, as the world allows. — Annie Dillard

In one sense, burglars seem to understand architecture better than the rest of us. They misuse it, pass through it, and ignore any limitations a building tries to impose. Burglars don't need doors; they'll punch holes through walls or slice down through ceilings instead. Burglars unpeel a building from the inside out to hide inside the drywall (or underneath the floorboards, or up in the trusses of an unlit crawl space). They are masters of architectural origami, demonstrating skills the rest of us only wish we had, dark wizards of cities and buildings, unlimited by laws that hold the rest of us in. — Geoff Manaugh

There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world lit or unlit as the light allows. When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it? — Annie Dillard

Each remembered thing in the room was disenchanted, was deadened as an unlit transparency, till her wandering gaze came to the group of miniatures, and there at last she saw something which had gathered new breath and meaning: it was the miniature of Mr. Casaubon's aunt Julia, who had made the unfortunate marriage - of Will Ladislaw's grandmother. Dorothea could fancy that it was alive now - the delicate woman's face which yet had a headstrong look, a peculiarity difficult to interpret. Was it only her friends who thought her marriage unfortunate? or did she herself find it out to be a mistake, and taste the salt bitterness of her tears in the merciful silence of the night? What breadths of experience Dorothea seemed to have passed over since she first looked at this miniature! She felt a new companionship with it, as if it had an ear for her and could see how she was looking at it. Here was a woman who had known some difficulty about marriage. — George Eliot

At the outset, it is only liking, not understanding, that matters. Gaps in understanding ... are not only important, they are perhaps even welcome, like clearings in the woods, the better to allow the heart's rays to stream out without obstacle. The unlit shadows should remain obscure, which is the very condition of enchantment. — Andre Breton

She especially liked my bedside lamp, which had a five-sided porcelain shade. Unlit, the shade seemed like bumpy ivory. Lit, each panel came to life with the image of a bird: a blue jay, a cardinal, wrens, an oriole, and a dove. Kathleen turned it off and on again, several times. "How does it do that?"
"The panels are called lithophanes." I knew because I'd asked my father about the lamp, years ago. "The porcelain is carved and painted. You can see it if you look inside the shade."
"No," she said. "It's magic. I don't want to know how it's done. — Susan Hubbard

On those occasions when he had killed in the dark, he later needed to see his victims' faces because, in some unlit corner of his heart, he half expected to find his own face looking up at him, ice-white and dead-eyed. "Deep down," the dream-victim had said, "You know that you're already dead yourself, burnt out inside. You realize that you have far more in common with your victims after you've killed them than before. — Dean Koontz