When Darkness Comes Quotes & Sayings

Let the preacher tell the truth. Let him make audible the silence of the news of the world with the sound turned off so that in the silence we can hear the tragic truth of the Gospel, which is that the world where God is absent is a dark and echoing emptiness; and the comic truth of the Gospel, which is that it is into the depths of his absence that God makes himself present in such unlikely ways and to such unlikely people that old Sarah and Abraham and maybe when the time comes even Pilate and Job and Lear and Henry Ward Beecher and you and I laugh till the tears run down our cheeks. And finally let him preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy, of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary, as the tale that is too good not to be true because to dismiss it as untrue is to dismiss along with it that catch of the breath, that beat and lifting of the heart near to or even accompanied by tears, which I believe is the deepest intuition of truth that we have. — Frederick Buechner

By and large over time, pain turns to grief, grief turns to silence, and silence turns to lonesomeness, as vast and bottomless as the dark oceans ... You think you cannot live anymore. You think that the light of your soul has been put out and that you will stay in the dark forever. But when you are engulfed by such solid darkness, when you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. And only then do you come to realize that eyesight conflicts with inner knowledge. No eye sees so clear and sharp as the eye of love. After grief comes another season, another valley, another you. And the lover who is nowhere to be found, you start to see everywhere. — Elif Shafak

When night comes, something speaks
from that soft, fragrant wilderness.
It says, the heart is not a door. But it opens.
We feel in the dark for the hinge. — Carole Glasser Langille

When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed. — Joseph Campbell

So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don't act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present - present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness. — Eckhart Tolle

If a man can permanently establish his awareness in contact with that pure field (of consciousness), then problems wither away. It's a very simple thing. When the light comes, then where is the darkness? — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

When darkness comes,
stars shine.
When storms come,
plants flourish.
When adversity comes,
champions triumph. — Matshona Dhliwayo

For a scientist, it is a unique experience to live through a period in which his field of endeavour comes to bloom - to be witness to those rare moments when the dawn of understanding finally descends upon what appeared to be confusion only a while ago - to listen to the sound of darkness crumbling. — George Emil Palade

Dreams rise in the darkness and catch fire from the mirage of moving light. What happens on the screen isn't quite real; it leaves open a vague cloudy space for the poor, for dreams and the dead. Hurry hurry, cream yourself full of dreams to carry you through the life that's waiting for you outside, when you leave here, to help you last a few days more in that nightmare of things and people. Among the dreams, choose the ones most likely to warm your soul. I have to confess that I picked the sexy ones. No point in being proud; when it comes to miracles, take the ones that will stay with you. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

There is a darkness coming that not even Starclan can prevent. And when it comes, we will be helpless to protect the Clans. Helpless even to protect ourselves. — Erin Hunter

The night is nearly spent waiting for him in vain. I fear lest in the morning he suddenly come to my door when I have fallen asleep wearied out. Oh friends, leave the way open to him
forbid him not.
If the sounds of his steps does not wake me, do not try to rouse me, I pray. I wish not to be called from my sleep by the clamorous choir of birds, by the riot of wind at the festival of morning light. Let me sleep undisturbed even if my lord comes of a sudden to my door.
Ah, my sleep, precious sleep, which only waits for his touch to vanish. Ah, my closed eyes that would open their lids only to the light of his smile when he stands before me like a dream emerging from darkness of sleep.
Let him appear before my sight as the first of all lights and all forms. The first thrill of joy to my awakened soul let it come from his glance. And let my return to myself be immediate return to him. — Rabindranath Tagore

When night comes on in a room lit by kerosene, any flicker of the flame can give the sense that darkness is about to triumph. — Larry Watson

When Darkness Comes — Alexandra Ivy

The side effect of expanding consciousness is that negativity starts to evaporate; it goes away like darkness when you turn on a light. Many students have so much torment, stress, depression, sorrow and hate in them these days, but then they get this technique and the negativity starts to go away. They start to feel good because the torment is leaving. Their health gets better and they get happier, their comprehension and their ability to focus grow, their grades go up and a joy for life grows; all of which comes from within. — David Lynch

It is always at this time, just before he slips into unconsciousness, when the voice comes to him: not as loud and snide and insistent as it once was, but still there, still hounding him from behind, still trying to drive him stumbling forward. Is this the best you can do?

Tonight, for the first time in many, many years, Philip chooses not to ignore it: he answers. It is. It really is.

Then say it, and shout down the darkness.

'It is," Philip whispers between clenched teeth as Alicia mumbles and stirs in her slumber. 'It is! — Dexter Palmer

The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in the striving than in the winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning. — Dean Koontz

When the darkness comes, keep an eye on the light - whatever that is for you - no matter how far away it seems. — Jan Berry

I dined with Legrandin on the terrace of his house by moonlight. "There is a charming quality, is there not," he said to me, "in this silence; for hearts that are wounded, as mine is, a novelist whom you will read in time to come asserts that there is no remedy but silence and shadow. And you see this, my boy, there comes in all our lives a time, towards which you still have far to go, when the weary eyes can endure but one kind of light, the light which a fine evening like this prepares for us in the stillroom for darkness, when the ears can listen to no music save what the moonlight breathes through the flute of silence. — Marcel Proust

Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes, the heart of the people is always right. — John Muir

His failure to defeat something more powerful than himself, and the scar that reminds him of his failure, is no reason for shame; guilt is deserved only when the effort to resist evil is never made. Yet the human heart is disheartened by the most unreasonable self-judgments, because even when we take on giants, we too often confuse failure with fault, which I know too well. The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in the striving than in the winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning.
Odd Thomas
Odd Interlude #3 (An Odd Thomas Story) — Dean Koontz

... you know, sometimes an electric lightbulb goes out all of a sudden. Fizzles, you say. And this burned-out bulb, if you shake it, it flashes again and it'll burn a little longer. Inside the bulb it's a disaster. The wolfram filaments are breaking up, and when the fragments touch, life returns to the bulb. A brief, unnatural, undeniably doomed life - a fever, a too-bright incandescence, a flash. The comes the darkness, life never returns, and in the darkness the dead, incinerated filaments are just going to rattle around. Are you following me? But the brief flash is magnificent!
"I want to shake ...
"I want to shake the heart of a fizzled era. The lightbulb of the heart, so that the broken pieces touch ...
" ... and produce a beautiful, momentary flash ... — Yury Olesha

I have never yet managed to see the moment of the petals of a bud unfurling. I might dedicate the rest of my life to it and might still never see it. No, not might, I will: I will dedicate the rest of my life, in which I walk forward into this blossoming. When there's no blossom I will dead-head and wait. It'll be back. That's the nature of things.
As it is, I am careful when kissing, or when taking anyone in my arms. I warn them about the thorns. I treat myself with care. I guard against pests and frost-damage. I am careful with my roots. I know they need depth and darkness, and any shit that comes my way I know exactly what to do with. I'm composed when it comes to compost. — Ali Smith

Healing comes when we move away from the darkness and walk towards the light. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

How wonderful it would be if everything could always be as clear and simple as it used to be when you were twelve years old, or twenty years old. If there really were only two colors in the world: black and white. But even the most honest and ingenuous cop, raised on the resounding ideal of the stars and stripes, has to understand sooner or later that there's more than just Darkness and Light out on the streets. There are understandings, concessions, agreements. Informers, traps, provocations. Sooner or later the time comes when you have to betray your own side, plant bags of heroin in pockets, and beat people on the kidneys - carefully, so there are no marks. — Sergei Lukyanenko

When our God who is Mercy comes like a shout into your darkness, when the Father stoops down and tenderly picks up the pieces of your broken life, when Jesus steps in front of what you could have deserved, and when the the Lord of Heaven says, "I still want you," after you thought no one would, it is the most amazing truth of all. I have been overwhelmed by this lavish kingdom gift called Mercy. — Angela Thomas

I've wandered through the real world, and written myself through the darkness of the streets inside me. I see people walking through the city and wonder where they've been, and what the moments of their lives have done to them. If they're anything like me, their moments have held them up and shot them down.
Sometimes I just survive.
But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.
That's when the stories show up in me.
They find me all the time.
They're made of underdogs and fighters. They're made of hunger and desire and trying to live decent.
The only trouble is, I don't know which of those stories comes first.
Maybe they all just merge into one.
We'll see, I guess.
I'll let you know when I decide. — Markus Zusak

When darkness comes and eats the light,
bury your fears on sorry night.
Because in the winter's darkest hours,
comes the feasting of the Vours.
You cannot see it, the life they stole.
Your body's there, but not your soul. — Simon Holt

The rain comes through their thin cotton clothes against their muscles. Alice sweeps back her wet hair. A sudden flinging of sheet lighting and Clara sees Alice subliminal in movement almost rising up into the air, shirt removed, so her body can meet the rain, the rest of her ascent lost to darkness till the next brief flutter of light when they hold a birch tree in their clasped hands, lean back and swing within the rain.
They crawl delirious together in the blackness. There is no moon. There is the moon flower in its small power of accuracy, like a compass, pointing to where the moon is, so they can bay towards its absence. — Michael Ondaatje

Loving God, in life and in death, we belong to you. So in the midst of life, we entrust ourselves to your care. We are bold to ask for help when we are confused, lost, or afraid. We are eager to ask for healing for our bodies and minds, whether wounded, ill, or recovering. And we are unceasing in our prayers for those we love who are far from us physically, emotionally, or spiritually. In the midst of death and grief, even though we are weary, we return again and again, praying for comfort, for an easing of the pain that comes from loss, and for the light of your presence to pierce the present darkness. — Kimberly Bracken Long

His point is that when the two seem incompatible we often hang onto the plan, ignore the warnings reality offers us, and so plunge into trouble. Afraid of the darkness of the unknown, the spaces in which we see only dimly, we often choose the darkness of closed eyes, of obliviousness. Gonzalez adds, "Researchers point out that people tend to take any information as confirmation of their mental models. We are by nature optimists, if optimism means that we believe we see the world as it is. And under the influence of a plan, it's easy to see what we want to see." It's the job of writers and explorers to see more, to travel light when it comes to preconception, — Rebecca Solnit

Death comes to me again, a girl
in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling.
It's not so terrible she tells me,
not like you think, all darkness
and silence. There are windchimes
and the smell of lemons, some days
it rains, but more often the air is dry
and sweet. I sit beneath the staircase
built from hair and bone and listen
to the voices of the living. I like it,
she says, shaking the dust from her hair,
especially when they fight, and when they sing. — Dorianne Laux

The universe will never be extinguished because just when the darkness seems to have smothered all, to be truly transcendent, the new seeds of light are reborn in the very depths. That is the Way. When the seed falls, it falls into the earth, into the soil. And beneath, out of sight, it comes to life. — Philip K. Dick

There's a great difference between knowing that a thing is so, and knowing how to use that knowledge for the good of mankind. Thetrouble with a scientist is we quickly tire of our discoveries. We hand them over to people who are not ready for them, while we go off again into the darkness of ignorance, searching for other discoveries, which will be mishandled in just the same way when the time comes. — Jimmy Sangster

We all indulge in the strange, pleasant process called thinking, but when it comes to saying what we think, then how little we are able to convey! The phantom is through the mind and out of the window before we can lay salt on its tail, or slowly sinking and returning to the profound darkness which it has lit up momentarily with a wandering light. — Virginia Woolf

Maybe that's what the night is for, just so's we can know the difference when the light comes again. — Howard Bahr

But he had expressed to Mme. du Chatelet the hope that a way out might lie in applying philosophy to history, and endeavoring to trace, beneath the flux of political events, the history of the human mind. 'Only philosophers should write history,' he said. 'In all nations, history is disfigured by fable, till at last philosophy comes to enlighten man; and when it does finally arrive in the midst of darkness, it finds the human mind so blinded centuries of error, that it can hardly undeceive it; it finds ceremonies, facts and monuments, heaped up to prove lies.' 'History,' he concludes, 'is after all nothing but a pack of tricks which we play upon the dead;' we transform the past to suit our wishes for the future, and in the upshot 'history proves that anything can be proved by history. — Will Durant

As the days grow short, some faces grow long. But not mine. Every autumn, when the wind turns cold and darkness comes early, I am suddenly happy. It's time to start making soup again. — Leslie Newman

A darkness comes from the bottom of our souls. It's like a fire that was burning before you were even born, like stars in space that are infinite compared to us, and so short compared to whatever thing we cannot explain that is beyond this universe. Sometimes it can burn so fast, and other times so slow. We are captivated by it, inspired by it and - it can bring tears to your eyes in those moments where you feel more than you should. When you have nothing to offer, nothing to say, nothing to think, it just sits there, this fire so deep that is burning you, keeping you alive. — Joshua Lee Rogers

The Sun and the science are the same; when they set down, the darkness comes! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

LOVE OF THE GOD"
"Love has power, power of Devine
It fills meaning of one life,
Love is the gift, Gift that gets of fortune,
Rather you aren't going for,
but Some divines put you in.
Without love, Life is like blank book,
Like in darkness one tries to look.
There are some shoulder made for each and Everyone,
To let your self lean and get relax.
But when you are shrugged off by own,
God himself comes and give you calmness.
Be believer of God, he will always with you.
Either anyone loves you or not but he will.
We find gains and such things in sake of Love,
But in his way he always just make you feel better even how wrong or bad you are!
He has his own way to spread love in one life, We should have such a trust and would get that we need to have!!!!
-Samar Sudha — Samar Sudha

Healing comes when we choose to walk away from darkness and move towards a brighter light. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

As each one of us awakens, it is like a light going on, followed by another light, another light, and another light. The darkness of human unconsciousness is slowly, gradually and gently lit, until there comes a day when there is more light than dark, more consciousness than unconsciousness , more joy than pain, ... more truth than illusion. That would indeed be a day for celebration. — Leonard Jacobson

When death comes ... .
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what it's going to be like, that cottage of darkness? — Mary Oliver

Why do bad things happen? For pedagogical reasons, so that we can experience the power of Allah, catch a glimpse of Hell and fear it, so that we can practice seeking refuge in Him and, when relief comes give thanks to His mercy. Darkness was created so that, like plants, we could yearn and turn to the light. — Leila Aboulela

Oftentimes we call Life bitter names, but only when we ourselves are bitter and dark. And we deem her empty and unprofitable, but only when the soul goes wandering in desolate places, and the heart is drunken with overmindfulness of self.
Life is deep and high and distant; and though only your vast vision can reach even her feet, yet she is near; and though only the breath of your breath reaches her heart, the shadow of your shadow crosses her face, and the echo of your faintest cry becomes a spring and an autumn in her breast.
And life is veiled and hidden, even as your greater self is hidden and veiled. Yet when Life speaks, all the winds become words; and when she speaks again, the smiles upon your lips and the tears in your eyes turn also into words. When she sings, the deaf hear and are held; and when she comes walking, the sightless behold her and are amazed and follow her in wonder and astonishment. — Kahlil Gibran

During the winter, you head out into the darkness for a run. When spring comes, and the first crocus pokes up its head ... you know it was worthwhile. — Nina Kuscsik

To me, desert has the quality of darkness; none of the shapes you see in it are real or permanent. Like night, the desert is boundless, comfortless, and infinite. Like night, it intrigues the mind and leads it to futility. When you have flown halfway across a desert, you experience the desperation of a sleepless man waiting for dawn which only comes when the importance of its coming is lost. — Beryl Markham

Most people are afraid of the dark. Literally when it comes to children, while many adults fear, above all, the darkness that is the unknown, the unseeable, the obscure. And yet the night in which distinctions and definitions cannot be readily made is the same night in which love is made, in which things merge, change, become enchanted, aroused, impregnated, possessed, released, renewed. As — Rebecca Solnit

It is not easy being you just when you think you made it and its done and over with something comes up and your back to square one all over again wishing with all your heart that it was not so that you weren't back in the darkness you escaped. don't worry you just started and it is not easy but in the end it'll be worth every tear. — Morigann Sidhe

Bomb Disposal Is a face off with your own mortality. Don't let the fear get to you. When you give in to the fear, the Darkness Comes. — Peter Stillman

Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. — Daniel Keyes

They do not need the sun. Who needs the sun when the eyes glow? Darkness. A woolen fog has wrapped the earth, has dropped a heavy curtain. From far away, from beyond the curtain, comes the sound of drops falling on stone. Far, far away - the autumn, people, tomorrow. ("The North") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I often wonder what kind of person I would be, had I been born in another country, century, or culture. Would I be the same person at heart, or is the heart I know merely the product of a lifetime of circumstances, experiences and relationships? Understanding the 'why' when it comes to human nature is immensely important, particularly when it comes to the villains in our lives. Knowing the subtle differences between hero and villain is to understand the tiny threads which hold the villain back from redemption, and which prevent the hero's own descent into darkness. — J. Swann

A man without the Holy Ghost is a blind man. He may not know it but that's what blindness is all about. A blind man is not just someone who cannot see, he can see alright, but all he sees is darkness. It's the same thing in the realm of the spirit. A blind man in the realm of the spirit is one who doesn't know the things of the spirit, he can't see the things of the Spirit of God. But when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, you will no longer be blind because He will cause you to see what others can't see. — Chris Oyakhilome

Young people," McDonald said contemptuously. "You always think there's something to find out."
"Yes, sir," Andrews said.
"Well, there's nothing," McDonald said. "You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school. You live all your life on lies, and then maybe when you're ready to die, it comes to you - that there's nothing, nothing but yourself and what you could have done. Only you ain't done it, because the lies told you there was something else. Then you know you could of had the world, because you're the only one that knows the secret; only then it's too late. You're too old."
"No," Andrews said. A vague terror crept from the darkness that surrounded them, and tightened his voice. "That's not the way it is."
"You ain't learned, then," McDonald said. "You ain't learned yet ... — John Edward Williams

When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages
hate them to the death. — Joseph Conrad

But the Queen Arwen said: 'A gift I will give you. For I am the daughter of Elrond. I shall not go with him now when he departs to the Havens; for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so I have chosen, both the sweet and the bitter. But in my stead you shall go, Ring-bearer, when the time comes, and if you then desire it. If your hurts grieve you still and the memory or your burden is heavy, then you may pass into the West, until all your wounds and weariness are healed. But wear this now in memory of Elfstone and Evenstar with whom your life has been woven!'
And she took a white gem like a star that lay upon her breast hanging upon a silver chain, and she set the chain around Frodo's neck. 'When the memory of the fear and the darkness troubles you,' she said, 'this will bring you aid. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Fear has a lot of flavors and textures. There's a sharp, silver fear that runs like lightning through your arms and legs, galvanizes you into action, power, motion. There's heavy, leaden fear that comes in ingots, piling up in your belly during the empty hours between midnight and morning, when everything is dark, every problem grows larger, and every wound and illness grows worse. And there is coppery fear, drawn tight as the strings of a violin, quavering on one single note that cannot possibly be sustained for a single second longer - but goes on and on and on, the tension before the crash of cymbals, the brassy challenge of the horns, the threatening rumble of the kettle drums. That's the kind of fear I felt. Horrible, clutching tension that left the coppery flavor of blood on my tongue. Fear of the creatures in the darkness around me, of my own weakness, the stolen power the Nightmare had torn from me. And fear for those around me, for the folk who didn't have the power I had. — Jim Butcher

So know this name. Shout it back at the enemy when he attacks. Comfort yourself and others with it. When the bills pile up and the money isn't there to pay them, Jehovah Shammah! When your spouse leaves you and the loneliness surrounds like a fog, Jehovah Shammah! When affliction strikes and the pain is so intense you think you will die, Jehovah Shammah! When you weep silently in the midnight hour over things you cannot tell your family or friends, Jehovah Shammah! And when the final hour of this life comes, and the darkness of death closes in around you, look for the light. In just a little while, you will stand face to face with Jehovah Shammah, The Lord who is there. — Terri Lynn Main

There comes a time when something changes you ... No matter the impact ... Where the world no longer beats in time with you. You no longer feel amongst the fray.. And the feeling of loneliness is a brandished armor you wear the rest of your life. — Solange Nicole

Come to thee again! ENTWIFE. When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last; When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past; I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again: Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain! BOTH. Together we will take the road that leads into the West, And far away will find a land where both our hearts — J.R.R. Tolkien

There is a thing that lives in us, eating our food, breathing our air, looking out through our eyes, and when it comes out to play nobody is immune; possessed, we turn murderously upon one another, thing-darkness in our eyes and real weapons in our hands, neighbour against thing-ridden neighbour, thing-driven cousin against cousin, brother-thing against brother-thing, thing-child against thing-child. — Salman Rushdie

Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear?
Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet
deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long
night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children
are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and
hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods — George R R Martin

Seconds seem like a life time when the life you lived is slowly drained out of you by those who care not what you felt, hoped, or dreamed. When the darkness comes it is all consuming, there is no light and there is no pain. It is the never ending loss of hope that now consumes me as I die in his arms. — Cassandra Giovanni

Who doesn't have a dark place somewhere inside him that comes out sometimes when he's looking in a mirror? Dark and light, we are all made out of shadows like the shapes on a motion-picture screen. A lot of people think that the function of the projector is to throw light on the screen, just as the function of the story-teller is to stop fooling around and simply tell what happened, but the dark places must be there too, because without the dark places there would be no image and the figure on the screen would not exist. — MacDonald Harris

That night, Zalmai wakes up coughing. Before Laila can move, Tariq swings his legs over the side of the bed. He straps on his prosthesis and walks over to Zalmai, lifts him up into his arms. From the bed, Laila watches Tariq's shape moving back and forth in the darkness. She sees the outline of Zalmai's head on his shoulder, the knot of his hands at Tariq's neck, his small feet bouncing by Tariq's hip.
When Tariq comes back to bed, neither of them says anything. Laila reaches over and touches his face. Tariq's cheeks are wet. — Khaled Hosseini

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When the light comes into a room, we do not have to say, "Now what are we going to do about the darkness?" It's gone! — Dallas Willard

Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light. — Albert Einstein

It is crucial that Jesus is led by the Spirit. There are two wildernesses, two darknesses in the spiritual journey. One you go into by your own stupidity, by your sin, blindness, ignorance and mistakes. We all do that. But there's another darkness. The holy darkness is the darkness that God leads us into, through and beyond. This is a necessary darkness for the journey. In a certain sense, God's darkness is a much better teacher than light. There comes a time when you have to either go deeper into faith or you will turn back, when you have to live without knowing or you lose faith altogether. So we have the Spirit leading Jesus into the wilderness, to face the essential darkness. — Richard Rohr

When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day; When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again! ENTWIFE. When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last; When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past; I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again: Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain! BOTH. Together we will take the road that leads — J.R.R. Tolkien

The moment when a limit is reached, when there is nothing ahead but darkness: something comes in to help that is not real. Another way all this is like madness: a mad person not helped out of his trouble by anything real begins to trust what is not real because it helps him and he needs it because real things continue not to help him. — Lydia Davis

Desert strategies are useful: In times of drought, pull your resources inward; when water is scarce, find moisture in seeds; to stay strong and supple, send a taproot down deep; run when required, hide when necessary; when hot go underground; do not fear darkness, it's where one comes alive. — Terry Tempest Williams

The town knew about darkness.
It knew about the darkness that comes on the land when rotation hides the land from the sun, and about the darkness of the human soul — Stephen King

The depths of winter longing are ice within my heart
The shards of broken covenants lie sharp against my soul
The wraiths of long-lost ecstasy still keep us two apart
The amen winds of bitterness sill keen from turn to pole.
The scares are twisted tendons, the stumps of struck-off limbs,
The aching pit of hunger and throb of unset bone,
My sanded burning eyeballs, as might within them dims,
Add nothin to the torment of lying here alone ...
The shimmering flames of fever trace out your blessed face
My broken eardrums echo yet your voice inside my head
I do not fear the darkness that comes to me apace
I only dread the loss of you thy comes when I am dead. — Robert A. Heinlein

The last good time always comes, and when you see the darkness creeping toward you, you hold on to what was bright and good. You hold on for dear life. — Stephen King

Yesterday was a dark day in the history of humanity, a terrible affront to human dignity. After receiving the news, I followed with intense concern the developing situation, with heartfelt prayers to the Lord. How is it possible to commit acts of such savage cruelty? The human heart has depths from which schemes of unheard-of ferocity sometimes emerge, capable of destroying in a moment the normal daily life of a people. But faith comes to our aid at these times when words seem to fail. Christ's word is the only one that can give a response to the questions which trouble our spirit. Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the final say. Christian hope is based on this truth; at this time our prayerful trust draws strength from it.

~General Audience, September 12, 2001. — Pope John Paul II

We hold these stories and mad idea and events in our head and they run around and around telling us we are different, separate, broken.
Then one day the mad idea escapes the asylum. Most times it's unplanned. It just tumbles out on the lap of the man sitting next to us on the bus, or it slips sideways into a conversation on line at the Trader Joe's or it falls out at the kitchen table when your neighbor comes to pick up her cat.
And there is a terrifying moment when it first hits the light of day, where we think, "holy mother of God! What have I done? How could I have been to casual with my crazy ways?"
But the man on the bus just smiles and nods his head, and the casher takes a moment to look us in the eye and the neighbor sits for a cup of tea and together we move into some new agreements that we are all in fact crazy and it's so much nicer to be out of the closet with it all. — Maureen Muldoon

Just a sort of unexplained sadness that comes each afternoon when the new day is gone forever and there's nothing ahead but increasing darkness. — Robert M. Pirsig

Imagination is strong in a man when that particular function of the brain which enables him to observe is roused to activity without any necessary excitement of the sense. Accordingly, we find that imagination is active just in proportion as our sense are not excited by external objects. A long period of solitude, whether in prison or in a sick room; quiet, twilight, darkness-these are the things that promote its activity; and under their influence it comes into play of itself. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Light is shallow; darkness is infinitely deep. Light is always bounded, it has boundaries. Darkness has no boundaries, it is unbounded. Light comes and goes; darkness always is. When there is light you cannot see it. When light is not there you can see it. But it is always there; you cannot cause it. Light has a cause. You burn the fire, you put on wood. When the wood is finished the light will be gone. It is caused, hence it is an effect. But darkness is not caused by anything, it is not an effect. It is uncaused eternity. — Osho

When the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come that following of Jesus which is an unspeakable joy. — Oswald Chambers

You think you cannot live anymore. You think that the light of your soul has been put out and that you will stay in the dark forever. But when you are engulfed by such solid darkness, when you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. And only then do you come to realize that eyesight conflicts with inner knowledge. No eye sees so clear and sharp as the eye of love. After grief comes another season, another valley, another you. And the lover who is nowhere to be found, you start to see everywhere.
You see him in the drop of water that falls into the ocean, in the high tide that follows the waxing of the moon, or in the morning wind that spreads its fresh smell; you see him in the geomancy symbols in the sand, in the tiny particles of rock glittering under the sun, in the smile of a newborn baby, or in your throbbing vein. How can you say Shams is gone when he is everywhere and in everything? — Elif Shafak

The teaching of the buddhas is: Find time and a place to remain unoccupied. That's what meditation is all about. Find at least one hour every day to sit silently doing nothing, utterly unoccupied, just watching whatsoever passes by inside. In the beginning you will be very sad, looking at things inside you; you will feel only darkness and nothing else, and ugly things and all kinds of black holes appearing. You will feel agony, no ecstasy at all. But if you persist, persevere, the day comes when all these agonies disappear, and behind the agonies is the ecstasy. — Rajneesh

Ten more minutes of walking, he guessed, and the bridge seemed to be no nearer. He was too cold to shiver. His eyes hurt. This was not simply cold: this was science fiction. This was a story set on the dark side of Mercury, back when they thought Mercury had a dark side. This was somewhere out on rocky Pluto, where the sun is just another star, shining only a little more brightly in the darkness. This, thought Shadow, is justm a jhair away from places where air comes in buckets and pours just like beer. — Neil Gaiman

Love isn't an obligation. You don't owe someone your loyalty and you damn well don't owe them your heart. It's an emotion, and it's born from mutual respect and generosity. It is not cruel and it is not judging. It comes from a willingness to live in complete and utter misery for the benefit of another. But when it's real, you don't feel that misery at all. The thought of their face, the scent of their skin brings a light to that darkness so bright that it drives out everything else.
- Ren Waya — Sherrilyn Kenyon

For I say this is death and the sole death,- When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, And lack of love from love made manifest. — Robert Browning

Darkness can always visit us; when it comes, we shall light a candle to welcome it! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Light, Amie, can be blinding when it first comes on. Lasers can be deadly, even when streaming from benevolence. We need perspective. We need it to seem wiser than us, tested and tempered by time. — Laurie Perez

The film medium is some sort of magic. I think also it's a magic that every frame comes and stands still for a fraction of a second and then it darkens. A half part of the time when you see a picture you sit in complete darkness. Isn't that fascinating? That is magic. — Ingmar Bergman

Only when life is quiet, Empress," Oli said. "When the battle comes our way or we see a need, we will pick up our swords and fight beside the bravest of men, even knowing we may fall. But once all is well again... that's when the darkness comes. Then we sit in silence and struggle to grasp our peace the best we can. — Jill Williamson

Shut your eyes and you will know what I mean by thought entombed in darkness. Light comes through the senses, and not only through the sense of sight. When you see without feeling, you are still partly blind; you lack the inner light that brings awareness. Awareness requires the interplay of every faculty, the use of your entire being as an eye. — Charles Lindbergh

Happiness must be a jealous pet. When you try seeking yours out, it tends to keep hidden. But as soon as you turn to help a friend find his, your own happiness comes bounding out of the darkness like some crazed animal. — Richelle E. Goodrich

And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Tessa craned her head back to look at Will. "You know that feeling," she said, "when you are reading a book, and you know that it is going to be a tragedy; you can feel the cold and darkness coming, see the net drawing tight around the characters who live and breathe on the pages. But you are tied to the story as if being dragged behind a carriage and you cannot let go or turn the course aside." His blue eyes were dark with understanding - of course Will would understand - and she hurried on. "I feel now as if the same is happening, only not to characters on a page but to my own beloved friends and companions. I do not want to sit by while tragedy comes for us. I would turn it aside, only I struggle to discover how that might be done."
"You fear for Jem," Will said.
"Yes," she said. "And I fear for you, too."
"No," Will said, hoarsely. "Don't waste that on me, Tess. — Cassandra Clare

Yet the human heart is disheartened by the most unreasonable self-judgments, because even when we take on giants, we too often confuse failure with fault, which I know too well. The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in the striving than in the winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning. In the learning of that simple — Dean Koontz

There comes a time when every life goes off course, when you must choose a direction. Will you fight to stay on path? Will others tell you who you are, or will you label yourself? Will you face your greatest fear bravely? Or will you succumb to the darkness in your soul? Will you be haunted by your choice? Or will you embrace your new path? Each morning you choose to move forward or simply give up."

— Hans Gunther Adler

The test of total independence comes each night when the bedroom door closes behind you, the lights go out and all that there is to keep you company in the infinite darkness are your thoughts. — Jon Richardson

But love truly becomes love only when, no longer an embryo developing painfully in the darkness of the body, it ventures to confess itself with lips and breath. However hard it tries to remain a chrysalis, a time comes when the intricate tissue of the cocoon tears, and out it falls, dropping from the heights to the farthest depths, falling with redoubled force into the startled heart. — Stefan Zweig