Up Above The Clouds Quotes & Sayings

Later, Phyllis said that the one thing she remembered above all else about that week was the rain. A cold, driving rain from low-hanging clouds that never let up and never let the sun peek through. But then, that Sunday morning as she pulled her car into the hospital — Eben Alexander

If you're feeling alone, and your weariness has grown, look up above, and thank God for His love. There's nothing you can do, to change His love for you; hold on friend, it's not the end. Something beautiful will come, the clouds will part for the sun, the skies will break for the Son, and the Father will say 'Well done.' But until then, until then, you're not alone. He can make bread from stone. Hold on to Him, and He'll hold on to you. Take one day at a time, pray for faith and be kind, and when forgetful becomes your mind, remember what He said, 'You are mine.' — Nick Vujicic

The landscape started hard, sharp black mountains over my shoulder and thirsty young saguaros hugging patchy dirt. Gradually it let go, began to green on me a little. I crossed a river, watched succulents get fatter and farmland start to wave, hoarding the blue above and the few clouds it had to spare.

I knew the route somehow, knew the curves, the directions, the exact way to go. I knew it the way you know the stars are still up in the sky even though white sun obscures them. Everything that had happened before Lukeville and Sonoita began to liquify in memory, feeling more like fiction than personal history. Funerals and pain, girlfriends and mothers, roommates and priests all tumble away with the desert behind me. The only thing that's real is the road I see ahead. The only person in my life is the man sitting silently beside me. The place I'm going is the only place I've ever wanted to go. — Laurie Perez

On A Cold Day, Of A Cool Walking

The day is cold, and the clouds are gray.
The grass is white with frost, and may I say?
The sun is coming up, over the hill.
It's so quiet, and so still.
In the midst of all the trees, by the broke I see.
Something moving in the bush; what could it be?
The frost falls from the dead leaves, as he hops about in the breeze.
It's a bunny, all bundled up with fur, so he will not freeze.
Life keeps on going, even when we think not.
Where are you going, and what is your lot?
Looking for God's Love, from up above?
Jesus will fly to you, like a dove.
He is there; just start talking.
On a cold day, of a cool walking. — Jerrel C. Thomas

Cress?"
"It's beautiful out there."
A hesitation, before, "Could you be more specific?"
"The sky is gorgeous, intense blue color." She pressed her fingers to the glass and traced the wavy hills on the horizon.
"Oh, good. You've really narrowed it down for me."
"I'm sorry, it's just ... " She tried to stamp down the rush of emotion. "I think we're in a desert."
"Cactuses and tumbleweeds?"
"No just a lot of sand. It's kind of orangish-gold, with hints of pink, and I can see tiny clouds of it floating above the ground, like ... like smoke."
"Piles up in lots of hills?"
"Yes, exactly! And it's beautiful."
Thorne snorted. "If this is how you feel about a desert, I can't wait until you see your first real tree. Your mind will explode. — Marissa Meyer

I see the eight of us in the Annexe as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menacing black clouds. The perfectly round spot on which we're standing is still safe, but the clouds are moving in on us, and the ring between us and the approaching danger is being pulled tighter and tighter. We're surrounded by darkness and danger, and in our desperate search for a way out we keep bumping into each other. We look at the fighting down below and the peace and beauty up above. In the meantime, we've been cut off by the dark mass of clouds, so that we can go neither up nor down. It looms before us like an impenetrable wall, trying to crush us, but not yet able to. I can only cry out and implore, 'Oh, ring, ring, open wide and let us out!' Yours, Anne — Anne Frank

After a seven days' march through woodland, the traveler directed toward Baucis cannot see the city and yet he has arrived. The slender stilts that rise from the ground at a great distance from one another and are lost above the clouds support the city. You climb them with ladders. On the ground the inhabitants rarely show themselves: having already everything they need up there, they prefer not to come down. Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests and, when the days are sunny, a pierced, angular shadow that falls on the foilage.
There are three hypotheses about the inhabitants of Baucis: that they hate the earth; that they respect it so much they avoid all contact; that they love it as it was before they existed and with spyglasses and telescopes aimed downward they never tire of examining it, leaf by leaf, stone by stone, ant by ant, contemplating with fascination their own absence. — Italo Calvino

Dark here comes quickly. He undresses and slips into his silky cold sleeping bag. Up above, the clouds mask the stars and the moon alone glows like a strange pearl. Somewhere, he thinks, cherishing his last thought before sleep, somewhere, out there, the last tiger stands with her back to the rising wind and slowly shakes herself awake. — Julia Leigh

THE OLD WISDOM
When the night wind makes the pine trees creak
And the pale clouds glide across the dark sky,
Go out my child, go out and seek
Your soul: The Eternal I.
For all the grasses rustling at your feet
And every flaming star that glitters high
Above you, close up and meet
In you: The Eternal I.
Yes, my child, go out into the world; walk slow
And silent, comprehending all, and by and by
Your soul, the Universe, will know
Itself: the Eternal I. — Jane Goodall

Winkler's breath plumed up onto his glasses. The entire valley was enveloped in a huge, illuminated stillness. Above him the clouds had pulled away and the sky burned with stars. The meadow smoldered with light, and the spruce had become illuminated kingdoms, snow sifting from branch to branch. He thought: This has been here every winter all my life. — Anthony Doerr

Shadows stretched from one side of the street to the other, reaching up the walls like fingers as the street lamps came on. In the north, a bank of dark clouds was building above the ridge of mountains, the tops of Buchanan and Crandell already fading into misty half-light. The last pigmented bands of sunset gilded the sides of buildings in orange light, but the rattle of wind against the panes of glass brought with it a promise of rain.
Autumn was coming, but no one save Hunter Slate seemed to notice the change. — Danika Stone

We're at 103,000 feet. Looking out over a very beautiful, beautiful world ... a hostile sky. As you look up the sky looks beautiful but hostile. As you sit here you realize that Man will never conquer space. He will learn to live with it, but he will never conquer it. Can see for over 400 miles. Beneath me I can see the clouds ... They are beautiful ... looking through my mirror the sky is absolutely black. Void of anything ... I can see the beautiful blue of the sky and above that it goes into a deep, deep, dark, indescribable blue which no artist can ever duplicate. It's fantastic. — Joseph Kittinger

Someday I'll wish upon a star And wake up where the clouds Are far behind me Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops that's where you'll find me — Eva Cassidy

Colors shift like smoke within the branch beneath our feet. Sprites jump from leaf to leaf, leaving sprinklings of glittery dust in the air behind them. Droplets of water are strung like pearls from the silver strands of a spider's web. Bluebottle glow-bugs stick to the leaves and branches, lighting up the night with their blue-green bodies. And high above us, clouds are draped like sashes of color across the sky. Amethyst, azure, jade. — Rachel Morgan

Half asleep and half awake, I became lost in a deep span of my version of a perfect world. A place I wanted so desperately to reach, but would never find except from within the catacombs of my mind.
A place where the sun rose in the west and set in the east, where the mountains bowed to the wind like trees, and the rain sprinkled up from the ground below and onto the clouds above.
A place where no one hurt or lost, or felt any tinge of desperation.
A place where heartbeats were the only words needed, and music floated on the wind like dust.
A place where no place was home. Where a single person could be the only sustenance needed to survive.
A place where there were no yesterdays or todays, only tomorrows. A place for me to find solace, an escape from the real world I was forced to live in. — Katlyn Charlesworth

The silence became uneasy. It was broken by the elderly princess saying, The most distressing thing about being up here above the clouds is that there is no weather to make conversation out of. — Diana Wynne Jones

Pieces
Sometimes there only seem to be clouds.
Tonight, the clouds hang above me, sulking in the sky. They watch me write the words. I don't even think they bother to read.
I imagine myself in a room, where some shattered pieces are strewn on the floor, in front of me.
As I walk towards them, I have no idea what they are, so I approach with trepidation. They seem to be a puzzle, all torn up and thrown apart. They look injured.
I crouch down and being putting them together, finding each scrap that surrounds my feet.
Gradually, I see the picture form as I put it all together.
Gradually, I see.
These pieces on the ground.
Are made of me. — Markus Zusak

I dream of being there,
Where the skies lie below,
Clouds flow like the endless river,
Where all the divinity is before me, with me,
And in the shadows yet above all,
Above all who choose to hide,
I run along the stars,
Wake up the ever-glowing sky,
And sleep to the sound of the universes beating heart... — Mrinalini Mitra

Then overwhelmed by the sense of that unknown infinity, like one bewildered by a strange persecution, confronting the shadows of night, in the presence of that impenetrable darkness, in the midst of the murmur of the waves, the swell, the foam, the breeze, under the clouds, under that vast diffusion of force, under that mysterious firmament of wings, of stars, of gulfs, having around him and beneath him the ocean above him the constellations, under the great unfathomable deep, he sank, gave up the struggle, lay down upon the rock, his face towards the stars, humble, and uplifting his joined hands towards the terrible depths, he cried aloud, Have mercy. — Victor Hugo

Grief. I don't know how to describe it other than as a roller coaster that drops you into the pit of hell with the rats and the demons, and then lifts you up above the clouds to the place where heaven begins. — Jessica Thompson

3I will stand and offer You my thanks, Eternal One, in the presence of others; I will sing of Your greatness among the nations no matter where I am. 4For Your amazing love soars overhead far into the heavens; Your truth rises up to the clouds where passing light bends. 5O God, that You would be lifted up above the heavens in the hearts of Your people until the whole earth knows Your glory. — Anonymous

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the Stooks arise Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behavior Of silk-sack clouds! Has wilder, willful-waiver Meal-drift molded ever and melted across skies? — Gerard Manley Hopkins

The print was an old one made from a negative taken in the 1960's of her parents in Sydney Mines, dancing with thrilled, excited expressions on their faces, in front of a classic car that had been a wedding gift at the time. Her mother's hair, red back then, was held back by a blue handkerchief, and she was dressed in a billowing skirt and white blouse. Her father's denim jeans and faded t-shirt were streaked with coal dust as he held her hands and spun her around in the front yard of their old clapboard house, yellow grass under their feet and a cobalt-blue sky with white clouds drifting above. Mandy could almost feel the late summer breeze as she gazed deeply into the print, watching the flamboyant colors come to life. She hung it up to dry on two wooden clothespins hanging from a string above her. — Rebecca McNutt

No one could see her out here, no one could judge her. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw the animal that she was trapped inside, that grew and fed and wanted. She wished above all else to look ordinary so that people's eyes just slid over her. Because Mum was wrong. It wasn't about believing this or that, it wasn't about good and evil and right and wrong, it was about finding the strength to bear the discomfort that came with being in the world. Clouds scrolled high up. She couldn't get Melissa out of her head. Something magnetic about her, the possibility of a softness inside, the challenge of peeling back those layers. — Mark Haddon

The sun dropped beneath the horizon and then detonated, torching the racks of clouds stacked up above the downtown skyline. Wyatt had forgotten how quickly, in the vast empty sky of the southern plains, the ordinary could turn so flamboyant. — Lou Berney

Sometimes a fog will settle over a vessel's deck and yet leave the topmast clear. Then a sailor goes up aloft and gets a lookout which the helmsman on deck cannot get. So prayer sends the soul aloft; lifts it above the clouds in which our selfishness and egotism befog us, and gives us a chance to see which way to steer. — Charles Spurgeon

As though eavesdropping, the whistling wind refuses to speak above a whisper. The winding road is cut into the side of the mountain in such a way that it seems they are not making any progress; the walk down will require endurance. She looks up at the cluster of clouds which have been pencilled in neatly against the sky, and hopes it doesn't rain. It occurs rapidly, a geisha brusquely folding shut her fan; the sun sets, and brilliant darkness replaces light. — Curtis Ackie

I planted my self in the middle of a great many Glasses full of Dew, tied fast about me, upon which the Sun so violently darted his Rays, that the Heat, which attracted them, as it does the thickest Clouds, carried me up so high, that at length I found my self above the middle Region of the Air. — Cyrano De Bergerac

I dreamed my shoulders held up the sky for a thousand hawks that squawked and cawed and beat their feathered wings against the hotness of the day. I supported their flight, watching and marveling, until sweat dripped from my body, and groans crossed my lips over fatiguing muscles.
Choosing to let the sky fall, I awoke.
My eyes opened to a cast of hawks gripping me in their talons. They supported my weight, hauling me high above the clouds through a blue expanse of heaven. And though they struggled - squawking and flapping wearily - never once did a single bird release its hold. — Richelle E. Goodrich

When heavy cloud decks enveloped the planet, they created a whole new surface that had never before existed, of high mountain ranges, tumbling ravines. Sometimes the clouds would create huge cliffs, sheer walls miles high into which shadows fell to give them a startling sense of solidity, as though the whiteness below was some Antarctic winter mountain scene now spread across all the visible world. No oceans, no land surface, only that startling, shifting panorama, and then, suddenly, it became something else. Ethereal clouds. Some were misty, others wispy, but most were ghostlike. They appeared everywhere or strangely vanished, then showed up again, brushing the edges of islands and the shores of continents. They were members of the cloud family, a living race dancing and floating above the planetary surface. Astonished, awed, he had the strangest thought that perhaps this is what the angels could see . . . Deke gloried — Alan Shepard

The ancient trees are the deep earth's language for speaking to the universe. The earth communicates through trees to the animals and to the birds living above - and to the very heavens. The trees draw the earth's water up from the ground. Then breathing, they return it to the air for the clouds and the blessed rain that falls to begin the cycle anew. She thinks of the thin layer of living things as a fragile space between earth's molten rock core and the frozen outer universe of stars. The thin layer is like her own life here - precious, finite — J.J. Brown

The air was warm and heavy as sprinkles began to fall from the clouds high above. The Triton glided through the waters and the whoosh of the ship combined with the steady beat of the rain to make a concerto, like a pianist fluttering his fingers on the keys at one end and running his fingers up and down the scales at the other. Expectancy hung in the air as the tune moved to a crescendo. — Victoria Kahler

Bad habits are spiraling slides that drag you round and round down the narrowing end of a cone that eventually ends up in a dark, tight, confining spot.

Good habits are hooked wings that steadily grow in girth and strength. At first, they grasp and climb until those beautiful wings can lift the bearer out of the darkness and above the clouds to heights few ever experience. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Raoden turned to regard the large Dula. "What does it matter? It's not like we
have anything pressing to do. It's actually quite pleasant up here - you should
just sit back and enjoy it."
An ominous crash came from the clouds above them, and Raoden felt a wet drop
splat against his head.
"Fantastic," Galladon grumbled. "I'm enjoying myself already. — Brandon Sanderson

I see the eight of us in the Annex as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menacing black clouds. The perfectly round spot on which we're standing is still safe, but the clouds are moving in on us, and the ring between us and the approaching danger is being pulled tighter and tighter. We're surrounded by darkness and danger, and in our desperate search for a way out we keep bumping into each other. We look at the fighting down below and the peace and beauty up above. In the meantime, we've been cut off by the dark mass of clouds, so that we can go neither up nor down. It looms before us like an impenetrable wall, trying to crush us, but not yet able to. I can only cry out and implore, Oh, ring, ring, open wide and let us out! — Anne Frank

The sky above us seems huge, vast. It's clear and crisp and visibility is so good that, when I look up, I feel like I'm staring at an inverted, endless ocean. I'm sure the blue is the colour of water above sand and the tiny, wispy clouds look like waves breaking over distant swells. I envy the birds I see overhead, zipping joyfully from left to right and so far above the death and decay that pollute the lower levels. A day like this should be enjoyed completely. I should be able to forget what dwells in the towns around us, I should find it in myself to dismiss what happened at that crossing, I should. — Jack Croxall

Above their rooftops Nature is doing her best to keep up, and the clouds in colors of saffron and apricot echo the spoils of the glorious republic. Nella — Jessie Burton

Have you ever climbed a mountain in full armour? That's what we did, him going first the whole way up a tiny path into the clouds, with drops sheer on both sides into nothing. For hours we crept forward like blind men, the sweat freezing on our faces, lugging skittery leaking horses, and pricked all the time for the ambush that would tip us into death. Each turn of the path it grew colder. The friendly trees of the forest dropped away, and there were only pines. Then they went too, and there just scrubby little bushes standing up in ice. All round us the rocks began to whine the cold. And always above us, or below us, those filthy condor birds, hanging on the air with great tasselled wings ... Four days like that; groaning, not speaking; the breath a blade in our lungs. Four days, slowly, like flies on a wall; limping flies, dying flies, up an endless wall of rock. A tiny army lost in the creases of the moon. — Peter Shaffer

The old ladies were dressing up, she thought; the clouds draped around the mountains' shoulders like a dirty boa, with the snowcaps jutting above and the broad green bases below. — Linda Howard

When I could hold my eyes open long enough, I did stare up at the rain pelting down on me. I've never looked at it like that, straight up into the sky, and while I flinched more than I could actually see, when I could see it was absolutely beautiful. Like each drop rocketing towards me was separate from the thousands of others and for a suspended moment in time, I could glimpse it and see its delicate facets. I saw the gray clouds churning above me and felt the car shake when the wind from the traffic pushed against it. I shivered even though it's warm enough to swim. But nothing I saw or felt or heard was as warm and fascinating as Andrew's closeness. — J.A. Redmerski

He woke up frozen stiff. A cold dawn was lighting up the peaks on the other side of the valley, making them shine like giant lanterns. Above, through the broken bones of the roof, he could see the sky, clear now, a deep violet blue, waiting for the sun to breach the mountaintops. The snow clouds had gone, off to bother someone else. Where he lay was still dark, wrapped in leftover shadows. The wall, so deliciously warm when he'd fallen asleep, was like ice, sucking the heat out of him, but what had woken him were screams. Long piercing screams, over and over. — Stephen Deas

There is not much talk about the clouds that are visible up here. No one seems to think it remarkable that somewhere above an ocean we are flying past a vast white candy-floss island that would have made a perfect seat for an angel or even God himself in a painting by Piero della Francesca. In the cabin, no one stands up to announce with requisite emphasis that if we look out the window, we will see that we are flying over a cloud, a matter that would have detained Leonardo and Poussin, Claude and Constable. — Alain De Botton

To-night, as ages hence, people would say this, or shut their doors on them, turn in bereaved agony from them, or toward them with love saying: "That is our star up there, yours and mine"; steer by them above the clouds or lost at sea, or standing in the spray on the forecastle head, watch them, suddenly, careen; put their faith or lack of it in them; train, in a thousand observatories, feeble telescopes upon them, across whose lenses swam mysterious swarms of stars and clouds of dead dark stars, catastrophes of exploding suns, or giant Antares raging to its end - a smouldering ember yet five hundred times greater than the earth's sun. — Malcolm Lowry

There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes as near to flying as man has got to yet - except in dreams. The wings of the rushing wind seem to be bearing you onward, you know not where. You are no longer the slow, plodding, puny thing of clay, creeping tortuously upon the ground; you are a part of Nature! Your heart is throbbing against hers! Her glorious arms are round you, raising you up against her heart! Your spirit is at one with hers; your limbs grow light! The voices of the air are singing to you. The earth seems far away and little; and the clouds, so close above your head, are brothers, and you stretch your arms to them. — Jerome K. Jerome

Do you wanna be a poet and write? Do you wanna be an actor up in lights? Do you wanna be soldier, and fight for love? Do you wanna travel the world? Do you wanna be a diver for pearls? Or climb the mountain, and touch the clouds above? Be anyone you want to be. Bring to life your fantasies. But I want something in return, I want you to burn, burn for me, baby. Like a candle in the night. Oh burn, burn for me, burn for me. — Jo Dee Messina

When I look up and see the sun shining on the patch of white clouds up in the blue, I begin to think how it would feel to be up somewhere above it winging swiftly thought the clear air, watching the earth below, and the men on it, no bigger than ants. — Eddie Rickenbacker

We meant well, she thought, looking up at a sky piled with cumulus clouds turning amethyst and indigo above the clearing. No one was deliberately evil. We all did the best we could. Even so, what a mess we made of everything ... — Mary Doria Russell

Along the Oregon coast an arm of the Pacific shushes softly against rocky shores. Above the waves, dripping silver in the moonlight, old trees, giant trees, few now, thrust their heads among low clouds, the moss thick upon their boles and shadow deep around their roots. In these woods nights are quiet, save for the questing hoot of an owl, the satin stroke of fur against a twig, the tick and rasp of small claws climbing up, clambering down. In these woods, bear is the big boy, the top of the chain, but even he goes quietly and mostly by day. It is a place of mosses and liverworts and ferns, of filmy green that curtains the branches and cushions the soil, a wet place, a still place. — Sheri S. Tepper

On A Cold Day, Of A Cold Walking

The day is cold, but clouds are gray.
The grass is white with frost, and may I say?
The sun is coming up, over the hill.
It's so quiet, and so steal.
In the midst of all the trees, by the broke I see.
Something moving in the bush; what could it be?
The frost falls from the dead leaves, as he hops about in the breeze.
It's a bunny, all bundled up with fur, so he will not freeze.
Life keeps on going, even when we think not.
Where are you going, and what is your lot?
Looking for God's Love, from up above?
Jesus will fly to you, like a dove.
He is there; just start talking.
On a cold day, of I called walking. — Jerrel C. Thomas

Nirvikalpa samadhi or sahaja samadhi is all the way up. You get above the cloud line to the land of eternal snows and it's ecstasy beyond ecstasy. — Frederick Lenz