When She Is Gone Quotes & Sayings

Mother! what a world of affection is comprised in that single word; how little do we in the giddy round of youthful pleasure and folly heed her wise counsels. How lightly do we look upon that zealous care with which she guides our otherwise erring feet, watches with feelings which none but a mother can know the gradual expansion of our youth to the riper yours of discretion. We may not think of it then, but it will be recalled to our minds in after years, when the gloomy grave or a fearful living separation has placed her far beyond our reach, and her sweet voice of sympathy and consolation for the various ills attendant upon us sounds in our ears no more. How deeply then we regret a thousand deeds that we have done contrary to her gentle admonitions! How we sign for those days once more, that we may retrieve what we have done amiss and make her kind heart glad with happiness! Alas! once gone they can never be recalled, and we grow mournfully sad with the bitter reflection. — Fanny Kelly

Hi, Albert," Quinn called back. He seemed distracted. And Albert was sure that he'd seen Quinn motion for someone to stay down.
"How long is this supposed to go on?" Albert asked.
"Until we get justice," Quinn said.
"Justice? People have been waiting for justice since the dinosaurs."
Quinn said nothing and Albert cursed himself for indulging in sarcasm. "What is it you want, Quinn? I mean in practical terms."
"We want Penny gone," Quinn said.
"I can't afford to pay you any more," Albert shouted back.
"I didn't say anything about money," Quinn said, sounding puzzled.
"Yeah, I know: justice. Usually what people really want is money. So why don't we get down to it?"
"Penny," Quinn said. "She leaves town. She stays gone. When that happens we fish. Until it happens, we sit." He sat down as if to emphasize his point. — Michael Grant

Tick's strategy for dealing with lying adults is to say nothing and watch thee lies swell and constrict in their throats. when this happens, the lie takes on a physical life of its own and must be either expelled or swallowed. Most adults prefer to expel untruths with little burplike coughs behind their hands, while others chuckle or snort or make barking sounds. When Mr. Meyer's Adam's apple bobs once, Tick sees that he's a swallower, and that this particular lie has gone south down his esophagus and into his stomach. According to her father, the man suffers from bleeding ulcers. Tick can see why. She imagines all the lies a man in his position would have to tell, how they must just churn away down there in his intestines like chunks of indigestible food awaiting elimination. By the Tick suspects, lies seek open air. they don't like being confined in dark, cramped places. — Richard Russo

Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She's beautiful; when you're with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence; your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she's been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you. — David Benioff

When I first met Cara, she was twelve and angry at the world. Her parents had split up, her brother was gone, and her mom was infatuated with some guy who was missing vowels in his unpronounceable last name. So I did what any other man in that situation would do: I came armed with gifts. I bought her things that I thought a twelve-year-old would love: a poster of Taylor Lautner, a Miley Cyrus CD, nail polish that glowed in the dark. "I can't wait for the next Twilight movie," I babbled, when I presented her with the gifts in front of Georgie. "My favorite song on the CD is 'If We Were a Movie.' And I almost went with glitter nail polish, but the salesperson said this is much cooler, especially with Halloween coming up."
Cara looked at her mother and said, without any judgment, "I think your boyfriend is gay. — Jodi Picoult

I am standing on the seashore. A ship spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. I stand watching her until she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says, She is gone. Gone where? The loss of sight is in me, not in her. Just at the moment when someone says, She is gone, there are others who are watching her coming. Other voices take up the glad shout, Here she comes! That is dying. — Henry Scott Holland

Moving on was always the end plan.
New York,he remembered, was a fair distance away.It should be far enough. As for tonight, he was going to have a shot of whiskey in his tea to help smooth out the edges. Then by God, he was going to sleep if he had to bash himself over the head to accpmplish it.
And he wasn't going to give Keeley another thought.
The knock on the door had him cursing under his breath.Though she'd been doing well,his first worry was that the mare with bronchitis had taken a bad turn.He was already reaching for the boots he'd shed when he called out.
"Come in,it's open.Is it Lucy then?"
"No,it's Keeley." One brow lifted, she stood framed in the door. "But if you're expecting Lucy,I can go."
The boots dangled from his fingertips, and those fingertips had gone numb. "Lucy's a horse," he managed to say. "She doesn't often come knocking on my door. — Nora Roberts

It's not all gone. She loved someone before and so did I. The Society and the Rising and the world are all still out there, pressing against us. But Lei holds them away. She's made enough space for two people to stand up together, whether or not any Society or Rising says that they can. She's done it before. The amazing thing is that she's not afraid to do it again. When we fall in love the first time, we don't know anything. We risk a lot less than we do if we choose to love again.
There is something extraordinary about the first time falling.
But if feels even better to find myself standing on solid ground, with someone holding on to me, pulling me back, and know that I'm doing the same for her. — Ally Condie

Well," said Mma Ramotswe, "I have felt that anger. I felt it when I saw that the van had gone. I felt it a bit in the truck on the way back. But what is the point of anger now, Mma? I don't think that anger will help us." Mma Makutsi sighed. "You are right about anger," she said. "There is no point in it. — Alexander McCall Smith

When the storm-cloud that lowers o'er the daybeam is gone,
Unchanged, unextinguished its life-spring will shine;
When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan,
She will smile through the tears of revival on thine. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

He let you have the pants anyway?" she asked. I had started talking about Maxon as soon as I could, eager to know how their conversation had gone.
"Yeah. He was very generous about it all."
"I think it's charming that he's a good winner."
"He is a good winner. He's even gracious when he's gotten the raw end of things." Like a knee to the royal jewels, for example. — Kiera Cass

Then Olivia came back. She came back, dancing like a siren. I knew exactly what she was doing the night she came to my frat house and cocked her finger at me from the dance floor. If she hadn't come to me, I would have gone to her. Forget all you know - I said to myself. This is the one you belong with. I don't know how I knew that. Maybe our souls touched underneath that tree. Maybe I decided to love her. Maybe love wasn't our choice. But when I looked at that woman, I saw myself differently. And it wasn't in a good light. Not a thing would keep me from her. And that could make a person do things they never thought themselves capable of. What I felt for her scared the hell out of me. It was a consuming obsession.
In truth, I'd barely touched on the obsession. That was still coming. — Tarryn Fisher

No, you don't understand, young man. You couldn't understand. Emily was my life. I got up in the morning for her, I went to work for her, I built a business for her. I couldn't wait to get home at night to tell her about my day. I went to bed with her and I dreamed about her when I slept. She was my passion, my wife, my best friend, the love of my life. And one day, without warning, she was gone and my life is a void. You couldn't possibly understand. — Christopher Moore

When I woke up and the dark wasn't gone yet, and the dark seemed so big, then she sang soft and made the dark small again.
That is the best of all things we can do for one another: Make the dark small. — Dean Koontz

She reads these books. She doesn't know that I know, but I've seen them and they're full of sex. I am sure she sleeps with other men when I'm gone, with the way she carries on with me when I'm home." "Carries on with you?" "When I am home," he hissed. "She is a living, breathing, penis-raping-machine. — Lucian Bane

When someone asks you where you come from, the answer is your mother...When your mother's gone, you've lost your past. It's so much more than love. Even when there's no love, it's so much more than anything else in your life. I did love my mother, but I didn't know how much until she was gone. — Anna Quindlen

In eight years not a day has gone by when she hasn't thought of him. She misses him and she wants him back. I want my best friend back, she thinks, because without him nothing is good and nothing is right. — David Nicholls

When he has disappeared, Mother clears her throat. I don't turn around and look at her in the rocking chair. I don't want her to see the disappointment in my face that he's gone.
"Go ahead, Mother," I finally mutter. "Say what you want to say."
"Don't you let him cheapen you."
I look back at her, eye her suspiciously, even though she is so frail under the wool blanket. Sorry is the fool who ever underestimates my mother.
"If Stuart doesn't know how intelligent and kind I raised you to be, he can march straight on back to State Street." She narrows her eyes at the winter land. "Frankly, I don't care much for Stuart. He doesn't know how lucky he was to have you. — Kathyrn Stockett

When reading a book, be very certain that you never go past a word you do not fully understand. The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is because he or she has gone past a word that was not understood. — L. Ron Hubbard

Next time I walk away," she whispered into his skin, "come with me." She let her gaze drift up to his throat, his jaw, his lips. "When this is all over, when Osaron is gone and we've saved the world again, and everyone else gets their happily ever after, come with me."
"Lila," he said, and there was so much sadness in his voice, she suddenly realized she didn't want to hear his answer, didn't want to think of all the ways their story could end, of the chance that none of them would make it out alive, intact. She didn't want to think beyond this boat, this moment, so she kissed him, deeply, and whatever he was going to say, it died on his lips as they met hers. — V.E Schwab

Baby Girl," I say. "I need you to remember everything I told you. Do you remember what I told you?"
She still crying steady, but the hiccups is gone. "To wipe my bottom good when I'm done?"
"No, baby, the other. About what you are."
I look deep into her rich brown eyes and she look into mine. Law, she got old-soul eyes, like she done lived a thousand years. And I swear I see, down inside, the woman she gone grow up to be. A flash from the future. She is tall and straight. She is proud. She got a better haircut. And she is remembering the words I put in her head. Remembering as a full grown woman.
And then she say it, just like I need her to. "You is kind," she say, "you is smart. You is important. — Kathryn Stockett

I shared a womb with someone ... does that mean we shared a soul?
Maybe half my soul is buried, deep under the ground, and I'll never get it back.
I'm cold when it isn't. I hear storms that aren't there. There's space in me I can't fill.
Empty. Cold. Storms. And then I smell the carpet, hear deep breaths that aren't mine.
When I open my eyes, she's still gone. — Julie Cross

For when it comes, she is gone, and sometimes I wonder whether she and I will ever love again. — Nicholas Sparks

You know," Marion said, "I met a woman once when I was a teenager. I knew she had gone through a lot but she was so strong, so compassionate. I asked her how she could be the way she was, and you know what she told me?"
Hadley shook her head.
"She said, 'You can be broken, or broken open. That choice is yours. — Erica Bauermeister

You don't fool me, he says in a low voice.
Is that right?
Yea, he says. I see it in yer eyes. All you care about's yer precious brother.
That aint true, I says.
If it'd been Emmi they took, he says, Emmi an not Lugh ... would you of gone after her?
I take in a breath to say of course I would but the look on his face stops me. there ain't no point in lyin when he already knows the truth.
He leaves go of me an steps back.
I thought so, he says. Yer sister'll be safer with me than she could ever be with you. You jest ride along on yer high horse an leave her to me. — Moira Young

Today is one of the days when Ma is Gone.
She won't wake up properly. She's here but not really. She stays in Bed with the pillows on her head.
Silly Penis is standing up, I squish him down.
I eat my hundred cereal and I stand on my chair to wash the bowl and Meltedy Spoon. It's very quiet when I switch off the water. I wonder did Old Nick come in the night. I don't think he did because the trash bag is still by Door, but maybe he did only he didn't take the trash? Maybe Ma's not just Gone. Maybe he squished her neck even harder and now she's -
I go up really close and listen till I hear breath. I'm just one inch away, my hair touches Ma's nose and she puts her hand up over her face so I step back.
I don't have a bath on my own, I just get dressed.
There's hours and hours, hundreds of them.
Ma gets up to pee but not talking, with her face all blank. I already put a glass of water beside Bed but she just gets back under Duvet. — Emma Donoghue

Most people have no idea how much of themselves they store off-site. Your personality is not just a matter of what you know about yourself, but what others know about you. You are one person with your mother, and another with your lover, and yet another with your child. Those other people create you - finish you - as much as you create you. When you're gone, the ones you've left behind get to keep the same part of you they always had." She — Joe Hill

In the dark room she sits and in front of her is a plate and on the plate lies a black hunk of bread the size of a deck of cards. The bread has sawdust in it, and cardboard. She takes a knife and a fork, and cuts it slowly into four pieces. She eats one, chews it deliberately, pushes it with difficulty through her dry throat. eats another and another and finally the last one. She lingers especially on the last one. She knows after this piece is gone there will be no more food until tommorow morning. She wishes she could be strong enough to save half of the bread until dinner, but she isn't, she can't. When she looks up from her plate, her sister Dasha, is staring at her. Her plate is long empty.
" I wish Alexander was coming back" says Dasha. " He might have food for us"
I wish Alexander was coming back, thinks Tatiana. — Paullina Simons

Why don't all Christians and Muslims say something like the abbot when they hear that a friend is dying? When a devout woman is told by the doctor that she has only months to live, why doesn't she beam with excited anticipation, as if she has just won a holiday in the Seychelles? 'I can't wait!' Why don't faithful visitors at her bedside shower her with messages for those that have gone before? 'Do give my love to Uncle Robert when you see him . . . ' Why — Richard Dawkins

So,if it's all love or money, which is Alex Bainbridge?"
I blinked at him. "What?"
"He's a turd, Ella. He looked right through you like you were a ghost, but you still have a thing for him."
"I do n-"
"Don't even. You've gone through the whole week watching for him. So what is it? I would really like to know. Love or money?"
"I have not been watching for him!" I snapped. Oh, but I had, in every hallway, at lunch, when I took my seat at the edge of English class. "And if I have, it's just so I can look away first."
Frankie rolled his eyes. "Shall I get you a pail of water?"
"Why?"
"Your pants are on fire."
I actually looked down at my lap. "Oh, very funny." I shot Sadie a look when she giggled. — Melissa Jensen

All is as it was," she said softly to the young Q. Turning to Janeway, she added, "Humanity is a stubborn thing, Kathryn Janeway. It hopes, even when all hope is gone. — Kirsten Beyer

There is also the fact that red and gold are my colors," he went on. "They are the colors on my family's banners and devices, worn by all Chiavari males when they ride into battle, and worn by their ladies at tournaments or other important occasions. You can imagine my surprise when a lady wearing Chiavari colors fell into my arms inside a drafty castle in England."
"I doubt the color of my gown was the first thing you noticed," she teased.
"No, that was not the first thing I noticed." His voice had gone soft with the memory. The first thing he had noticed was how right she had felt in his arms, the realization that his arms had been empty until that moment when he found what belonged there, who belonged there. — Elizabeth Elliott

dJack be nimble,
Jack be quick,
Jack forgot to check if the ice was thick.
Emma was still,
Emma was late,
Emma's brother is now part of the lake.
Time has passed,
Time has gone,
Time brought Jack back wrong.
He was solemn,
He was brave,
He left his coat on Emma's grave.
Emma was sad,
Emma was scared,
But she knew inside that Jack really cared.
Jack was lost,
Jack had forgot,
That he had a story before the plot.
Jack had wondered,
Jack had fought,
Jack had remembered what he had forgot.
I hope you dream.
I hope you wonder.
I hope you have fun because this is done.
Keep believing everyone.
Jack be fearless,
Jack be bold,
Jack drowned when he was 17 years old. — William Joyce

If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone? — Jodi Picoult

And Modesty, who, when she goes,
Is gone for ever. — Walter Savage Landor

I was waiting for the longest time, she said. I thought you forgot.
It is hard to forget, I said, when there is such an empty space when you are gone. — Brian Andreas

I wish," she continued, turning back to herself, "that there was a path of words I could walk down and they would lead me into a grotto pool where I could re-purify myself and return to the girl I was. But there isn't a path, or even a girl. She's gone, and I'm stuck trying to invent who I want to be, and I'm finding that figuring out who I want to be is so much harder than just being who I was when I was a little kid. — Jack Gantos

Little son, I have longed a while to see you, and now I see you the fairest thing ever a woman bore. In sadness came I hither, in sadness did I bring forth, and in sadness has your first feast day gone. And as by sadness you came into the world, your name shall be called Tristan; that is the child of sadness."

After she had said these words she kissed him, and immediately when she had kissed him she died. — Joseph Bedier

mad maddie: i am SOOOO pissed. SnowAngel: oh no. why? mad maddie: one word. well, two. JANA WHITAKER. SnowAngel: the queen bee of our entire class? *gasps* what'd she do this time? mad maddie: i hate her. she's evil. SnowAngel: i KNOW that. TELL ME WHAT SHE DID!!!! mad maddie: we had a substitute for last period study hall and he insisted on taking roll, cuz god forbid one of us had snuck off to do something productive. when he got to me he called out, "madeleine kinnick?" and jana turns around, all batting eyes and innocent, and goes, "um, isn't your name madigan?" SnowAngel: yr name IS madigan. mad maddie: which jana totally knows! SnowAngel: so what's the problem? mad maddie: r u serious?!! mad maddie: it was the way she said it, like she was honestly confused. like, "oh my goodness, i THINK i know u, don't i?" WHEN WE'VE GONE TO SCHOOL TOGETHER SINCE 7th GRADE!!! — Lauren Myracle

I've learned that for hoarders, every cleanup is a grieving process. We are asking them to say goodbye to items that are heavy with memories - some wonderful, some painful. But all are important and deserve respect. A hoarder finds safety in the hoard, in the stacks and piles, and he or she will grieve over the loss of those items when they are gone. The week after the house cleaning is usually the worst. Instead of being happy and enjoying the new space, hoarders go through a difficult process. They miss their possessions, which were their closest friends for years. — Matt Paxton

When I was little and something awful was happening my Mama would tell me to close my eyes.She was tryin' to keep me from seeing her do drugs or other bad things. And then when she was finished or the bad things were over she'd say, now when I count to three, you open your eyes and the past is gone, the world is a good place,and it's all gonna be okay. — Michael Oher

My mother has always been sickly; and though she has only gone to the hospital when she has been compelled to, it has cost a great deal of money, and my father's life has been practically given up to it. "If only I knew how much the operation costs," says he. "Have you not asked?" "Not directly. I cannot do that - the surgeon might take it amiss and that would not do; he must operate on Mother." Yes, I think bitterly, that's how it is with us, and with all poor people. They don't dare ask the price, but worry themselves dreadfully beforehand about it; but the others, for whom it is not important, they settle the price first as a matter of course. And the doctor does not take it amiss from them. — Erich Maria Remarque

Her mother had come a week after the baby died, the only time Annie had seen her since she'd left Kansas. Her hair gone white, her dress starched stiff, her small hands as dry as paper. Annie had wanted her mother to make it better. What she got was "God decides what's right for us" and a butter cake she'd packed from home, made by someone in the congregation. Maybe something truthful, some real emotion from her mother, might have been a small bridge Annie could have crossed. But hers had been a family of hidden feelings, held tongues. "Life is so hard out here," her mother had said, unable to wipe the sigh from her voice, the disapproval, as if the Panhandle - Annie's choice - was somehow to blame for the baby's death. Annie had been too grief-tired to get angry, but she had had the thought, when she looked at her mother's stolid face, that she would probably never see her — Rae Meadows

There's a lot of craft in songwriting. The divine inspiration is when the idea comes. It may be a riff. It may be a word. It may be a phrase. It may be a title. Sometimes, in the best of both worlds, that divine inspiration extends through the whole song. I've literally sat down and written a song from beginning to end, almost complete lyrics and everything without ever stopping ... in two minutes. The chorus of 'She's Gone' was like that.. — John Oates

I am sixteen when my mother steps out of her skin one frozen January afternoon- pure self, atoms twinkling like microscopic diamond chips around her, perhaps the chiming of a clock, or a few bright flute notes in the distance- and disappears. No one sees her leave, but she is gone. — Laura Kasischke

There's a certain level of comfort that comes when you move in together. The mystery is gone. She starts dressing for bed in your pajamas, cream on her face, Uggs, curlers. What happened to the sexy girl that used to come to bed in lingerie? The girl says, 'We don't need to act.' — Marlon Wayans

The land list of 1625 specified that he had a 200 acre grant in this vicinity. Perhaps, he was established here well before the massacre. When the Indians descended on his place, he must have been away, for his wife stood her ground as she did later when the Colony officials sought to force her to vacate the now isolated post. It is reported that "Mistress Proctor, a proper, civill, modest gentlewoman ... ["fortified and lived in despite of the enemy"] till perforce the English officers forced her and all them with her to goe with them, or they would fire her house themselves, as the salvages did when they were gone.... — Charles E. Hatch

Gone Groupy, has she?' said Hugh. 'How rotten for Tom!' 'Well, it is rather, because Connie's started forgiving him for all sorts of things he never knew he'd done. We're hoping that she'll get over it quickly, because she's president of the Women's Conservative Association, besides running the Mothers, and the Village Club, and now that she's a God-guided citizen she simply hasn't a moment to attend to Good Works. I don't know why it is, but when people get Changed they never seem to be as nice as they were before. — Georgette Heyer

I am standing upon the seashore. a ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. she is an object of beauty and strength. i stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. then someone at my side says: "there, she is gone!" "gone where?" gone from my sight. that is all. she is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port. her diminished size is in me, not in her. and just at the moment when someone at my side says: "there, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "here she comes!" and that is dying. — Henry Van Dyke

Some things a girl has in her to say no to and some things cut her down before she knows she's gone. Sure, some twiggy, thorny snap in her says: no, this is awry, this is a bent thing, in that place that tells her to belly up to the floor before anyone's even shadowed the doorframe. But it don't matter. You can't ask why she did it, when she was warned, when she was told. The plum truth is you would too, if everything impossible stood out there saying you could be loved so perfect the past would go up like a firecracker and shatter across the dark. — Catherynne M Valente

This was how the world persisted. The heaviness of despair - how could it exist in the midst of mascara, zippers, brunches ? It marched forward even when I was barely able to stand ... It had been hard on all of us - not only missing Henry, but facing the idea that your whole world can change, suddenly irreversibly. We were reminded how flimsy everything is, as frail as the airmail envelopes my mother had sent us the summer she disappeared. This is the life you have and then it's gone. I felt sorry for my mother, I knew what it was like not to be able to help your child, to change the incomprehensible randomness of life, to reverse a loss. — Bridget Asher

There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it's always raining a slow and endless drizzle.
You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sign, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken.
Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway who looks like her, but she will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see her again.
Whenever it rains you will think of her. — Neil Gaiman

You know that when Irving puts the dog in the car, it is no longer in the yard. When Edna goes to church, her head goes with her. If Doug is in the house, he must have gone through some opening unless he was born there and never left. If Sheila is alive at 9 A.M. and is alive at 5 P.M., she was also alive at noon. Zebras in the wild never wear underwear. Opening a jar of a new brand of peanut butter will not vaporize the house. People never shove meat thermometers in their ears. A gerbil is smaller than Mt. Kilimanjaro. — Steven Pinker

Pretty enough to make Henley the Huntsman want to save me ... but not too pretty, because too pretty is what sets my stepmother off. And she wants me gone - she wanted me gone years ago."
Viv twisted restlessly. "I don't know what she's waiting for. Waiting to make him hate me, I guess. Make him loyal to her so he'll cut my heart out when she asks him to ... And then if Henley doesn't kill me, there's the matter of being pretty enough to attract some necrophiliac playboy. Someday my prince will come - and be enamored of my lifeless body. There's some happily-ever-after for you. — Sarah Cross

She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing, I practically had to take to sewing my pants shut. Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don't think it's crazy at all and I don't think you do either. No man alive could resist that, and that's why I got into jail to begin with. And now they're telling me I'm crazy over here because I don't sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don't make a bit of sense to me. If that's what being crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that's it. — Ken Kesey

When I'm near you, I can feel you in here."

She pressed her hand against her heart.

"And when you're gone, there's an emptiness there. And it hurts. and the pain only goes away when you're close again. Tell me, Zane, tell me what that is."

~Portia — Tina Folsom

Can I say of her face - altered as I have reason to remember it, perished as I know it is - that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a crowded street? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it fell that night? Can I say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings her back to life, thus only; and, truer to its loving youth than I have been, or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then? — Charles Dickens

LET something be done for them; but THAT something need not be three thousand pounds. Consider," she added, "that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever. If, indeed, it could be restored to our poor little boy
— Anonymous

The cafe was empty, but the cook was unscrewing the outlet plate above my seat. I took my book into the bathroom and read while he finished. When I emerged, the cook was gone and a woman was ready to sit in my seat.
- Excuse me, this is my table.
- Did you reserve it?
- Well, no, but it's my table.
- Did you actually sit here? There's nothing on the table and you have your coat on.
I stood there mutely. If this were an episode of Midsomer Murders she would surely be found strangled in a wild ravine behind an abandoned vicarage. — Patti Smith

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself. — Mark Twain

I am glad," he said. "They will be able to take care of each other when I am gone, or at least I can hope for it. He says she does not love him, but - surely she will come to love him in time. Will is easy to love, and he has given her his whole heart. I can see it. I hope she will not break it. — Cassandra Clare

You really think broken children care about justice?" "Wouldn't you?" "Never really did, no. Justice is a faulty thing at the best of times, and it doesn't actually fix anything." "Would you say that if you'd gotten justice as a child?" That not-quite-smile, bitter and gone too fast. "And what would I have needed justice for?" "My life's work, and you think I won't recognize a broken child when she sits in front of me? — Dot Hutchison

She is leaving him, not all at once, which would be painful enough, but in a wrenching succession of separations. One moment she is here, and then she is gone again, and each journey takes her a little farther from his reach. He cannot follow her, and he wonders where she goes when she leaves. — Debra Dean

Eventually my mother suffered a complete breakdown, and the court orders were finally signed. They took her to the State Mental Hospital at Kalamazoo. My mother remained in the same hospital at Kalamazoo for about 26 years.
My last visit, when I knew I would never come to see her again-there-was in 1952. I was twenty-seven. My brother Philbert had told me that on his last visit, she had recognized him somewhat. "In spots" he said.
But she didn't recognize me at all.
She stared at me. She didn't know who I was.
Her mind, when I tried to talk, to reach her, was somewhere else. I asked, "Mama, do you know what day it is?"
She said, staring, "All the people have gone."
I can't describe how I felt. The woman who had brought me into the world, and nursed me, and advised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn't know me.
It was as if I was trying to walk up the side of a hill of feathers."
-Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X — Malcolm X

I was so sorry, deep in my heart I was sorry, but all your "sorrys" are gone when a person dies. She was gone. Gone. That's why you have to say all your "sorrys" and "I love yous" while a person is living, because tomorrow isn't promised. — James McBride

I look down at my hands. They are what Dancer called them - cut, scarred, burned things. When Eo kissed them, they grew gentle for love. Now that she is gone, they grown hard for hate. — Pierce Brown

Here is the truth, Darrel. She is not at the end. She is at the beginning. Her fear has not become greater; it has become less and less until now, her fear is gone altogether. And she is not experiencing something bad that gets worse until there is nothing at all ... she is experiencing something incredible that gets better, until there is everything." Jones looked down at the woman and lightly touched her head. "Before this woman was ever born, when she was warm and snug inside her mama's belly, she kicked and twisted, moving this way and that. For months — Andy Andrews

They had nothing to eat but Ryan's food, and they ate little of that because it was so dry, but it seemed to sustain them. Their greatest worry was water. Though they drank only a little each day, Westerly's flask was empty and the bottle in Cally's pack now only half-full.
"I wish I was a camel," Cally said.
Westerly said, "I wouldn't want
to spend this much time with a girl who looked like a camel."
She tried to laugh, but her tongue felt thick in her mouth, and her mind full of hopelessness. "When this is gone, we shall just die of thirst."
"We'll be out of the dunes by then," Westerly said encouragingly. But he knew that the mountains, though nearer now on the hazy horizon, were far more than a day's walk away. — Susan Cooper

Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control. I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen? That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. Look out, said Moira to me, over the phone. Here it comes. Here what comes? I said. You wait, she said. They've been building up to this. It's you and me up against the wall, baby. She was quoting an expression of my mother's, but she wasn't intending to be funny. — Margaret Atwood

She will blaze through you like a gypsy wildfire. Igniting you soul and dancing in its flames. And when she is gone, the smell of her smoke will be the only thing left to soothe you. — Nicole Lyons

A writer with her work needs to be like a dog with a bone all the time. She needs to know where she's hidden it. Where she's stored the good stuff. She needs to keep gnawing at it, even after all the meat seems to be gone. When a student of mine says (okay, whines) that she's impatient, or tired, or the worst: isn't it good enough? this may be harsh, but she loses just a little bit of my respect. Because there is no room for impatience, or exhaustion, or self-satisfaction, or laziness. All of these really mean, simply, that the inner censor has won the day. — Dani Shapiro

And when your wife is not the same person you fell in love with eight years ago, where exactly does that leave you? Do you try to get to know who she has become, and hope for the best? Or do you keep deceiving yourself in the hope that she might wake up one morning and have gone back to the woman she used to be? — Jodi Picoult

There is a tradition in Southern cooking of recipes handed down for generations. And when I make my grandmother's strawberry pie - she is gone on now - I feel her right with me. — Kimberly Schlapman

We talk of strong personalities, and they are strong, until the not-every-day when we see them as we might see one woman alone in a desert, and know that all the strength we thought we knew was only courage, only her lone song echoing among the stones; and then at last when we have understood this and made up our minds to hear the song and admire its courage and its sweetness, we wait for the next note and it does not come. The last word, with its pure tone, echoes and fades and is gone, and we realize - only then - that we do not know what it was, that we have been too intent on the melody to hear even one word. We go then to find the singer, thinking she will be standing where we last saw her. There are only bones and sand and a few faded rags. — Gene Wolfe

When Natasha thinks about love, this is what she thinks: nothing lasts forever. Like hydrogen-7 or lithium-5 or boron-7, love has an infinitesimally small half-life that decays to nothing. And when its gone, its like it was never there at all. — Nicola Yoon

I don't believe she's in Heaven and I don't believe she's in a better place. She's dead and when we're dead, we're gone. There are no blinding lights, there is no happy music, there are no Angels waiting to greet us. — James Frey

To my ninth decade I have totter'd on, And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; She, who once led me where she would, is gone, So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready. — Walter Savage Landor

There is, in the Army, a little known but very important activity appropriately called Fatigue. Fatigue, in the Army, is the very necessary cleaning and repairing of the aftermath of living. Any man who has ever owned a gun has known Fatigue, when, after fifteen minutes in the woods and perhaps three shots at an elusive squirrel, he has gone home to spend three-quarters of an hour cleaning up his piece so that it will be ready next time he goes to the woods. Any woman who has ever cooked a luscious meal and ladled it out in plates upon the table has known Fatigue, when, after the glorious meal is eaten, she repairs to the kitchen to wash the congealed gravy from the plates and the slick grease from the cooking pots so they will be ready to be used this evening, dirtied, and so washed again. It is the knowledge of the unendingness and of the repetitious uselessness, the do it up so it can be done again, that makes Fatigue fatigue. — James Jones

The hardest lesson is Clare's solitude. Sometimes I come home and Clare seems kind of irritated; I've interrupted some train of thought, broken into the dreary silence of her day. Sometimes I see an expression on Clare's face that is like a closed door. She has gone inside the room of her mind and is sitting there knitting or something. I've discovered that Clare likes to be alone. But when I return from time traveling she is always relieved to see me. — Audrey Niffenegger

Why do people fall in love if it means there is a chance of feeling this way? What the fuck is wrong with humans?! HUMANS ARE FUCKING SICK AND TWISTED! I mean, I get it - it feels good, you know? Being in love, being happy." Her body trembled as the tears fell faster than she could take breaths. "But when that magical rug is ripped out from under you, it takes all the happy and good feelings with it. And your heart? It just breaks. It breaks and it's unapologetic. It shatters into a million pieces, leaving you numb, blankly staring at the pieces because all your free will, all the common sense you once had in your life is gone. You gave up everything for this bullshit thing called love, and now you're just destroyed." I — Brittainy C. Cherry

She struggled in thought to discover why it was she felt that these people did not read books and that she herself did. She felt that she could look at the end, and read here and there a little and know; know something, something they did not know. People thought it was silly, almost wrong to look at the end of a book. But if it spoilt a book, there was something wrong about the book. If it was finished and the interest gone when you know who married who, what was the good of reading at all? It was a sort of trick, a sell. Like a puzzle that was no more fun when you had found it out. There was something more in books than that. . even Rosa Nouchette Carey and Mrs. Hungerford, something that came to you out of the book, any bit of it, a page, even a sentence - and the "stronger" the author was the more came. — Dorothy M. Richardson

Now he was gone.
She said a silent prayer. Sent it up to heaven.
Sam, if you can hear me, I hope you've got nice food where you are. Some vegetables like these. They're meant to be good for you. So eat them all up, like I'm doing. When I die I'll come and see you, and we'll be together again. But for now I'm going to think of you safe and happy and playing knights with a friend.
Love from Ella. Your sister.
P.S. I got a good long turn with Godzilla today after we got here. Godzilla is very happy.
P.P.S. I forgot, you never met Godzilla. He is a puppy and is very cute. He belonged to a boy called Joel who got killed by monkeys. I think the monkeys were sick. Monkeys are usually nice. At least in stories.
P.P.P.S. Maybe you'll meet Joel where you are. Say hello. He is nice.
P.P.P.P.S. Good night, Sam. The others call you Small Sam. To me you're just Sam - my brother.
I miss you. I wish I was with you. — Charlie Higson

I was on a 747 flight out of Denver with four flight attendants on the plane. One of the flight attendants got off the plane to go check someone's carry-on bag in the cargo hold, and while she was gone, the door closed and we began to taxi out. While we were giving the demo, we looked out the window of the airplane to see the flight attendant running alongside the plane in the snow, waving and yelling and trying to catch up to us. 'Did you notice that we're missing someone?' I said to the other flight attendant. 'Yes, but try to keep it low-key - there's a supervisor on board!' Well, it's hard to keep it low-key when someone is running alongside your plane, waving and screaming. The plane stopped and the air stairs went down so she could get on board, and my co-worker said, 'Tell her to try to be inconspicuous when she gets back on.' Well, she had to walk the entire length of the plane to get back to her station, and everybody on board broke into applause. — Betty N. Thesky

Keep thinking back about what Mum said about being real and the Velveteen Rabbit book (though frankly have had enough trouble with rabbits in this particular house). My favorite book, she claims of which I have no memory was about how little kids get one toy that they love more than all the others, and even when its fur has been rubbed off, and it's gone saggy with bits missing, the little child still thinks it's the most beautiful toy in the world, and can't bear to be parted from it.
That's how it works, when people really love each other, Mum whispered on the way out in the Debenhams lift, as if she was confessing some hideous and embarrassing secret. But, the thing is, darling, it doesn't happen to ones who have sharp edges, or break if they get dropped, or ones made of silly synthetic stuff that doesn't last. You have to be brave and let the other person know who you are and what you feel. — Helen Fielding

Her gaze shifted away. "I don't remember my dreams anymore." It was like she was confessing a dirty secret. And maybe it was, because even though he hated the dreams, each time he had them, he was with his parents again. Hearing their laughter. Watching them live. But when he woke up they were really gone. — Caroline Hanson

And she would not hold back his limbs when his heart was gone to the woods, for it is ever the way of witches with any two things to care for the more mysterious of the two. — Lord Dunsany

You cannot conceive of the depths of my sorrow, Campbell Maria Cooper." Alicia brought her fist to her mouth and her other hand to the rail of the bed and took a deep breath before she continued. "I will never be the same when you are gone. Things for me will be dim and gray and flat. But there is one thing that will keep me going, Campbell, and that is the belief in my connection to you. This thing. This crazy enmeshed love feeling that I have is real. Like this cup is real. Or this phone is real. And it will not just go away when you do. Okay? Wherever you are going, you will be connected to me by this thing, and you will never, ever be alone, okay? I want you to know that. — Wendy Wunder

Do you know how far the wall is from the mines?" He gave her blank look. She closed her eyes and sighed dramatically. "From my shaft, it was three hundred sixty-three feet. I had someone measure."
"So?" Dorian repeated.
"Captain Westfall, how far do slaves make it from the mines when they try to escape?"
"Three feet," he muttered. "Endovier sentries usually shoot a man down before he's moved three feet."
The Crown Prince's silence was not her desired effect. "You knew it was suicide," he said at last, the amusement gone.
Perhaps it had been a bad idea to bring up the wall.
"Yes."
...
"I never intended to escape. — Sarah J. Maas

There's pathos in this familiar routine, in the sounds of homely objects touching surfaces. And in the little sigh she makes when she turns or slightly bends our unwieldy form. It's already clear to me how much of life is forgotten even as it happens. Most of it. The unregarded present spooling away from us, the soft tumble of unremarkable thoughts, the long-neglected miracle of existence. When she's no longer twenty-eight and pregnant and beautiful, or even free, she won't remember the way she set down the spoon and the sound it made on slate, the frock she wore today, the touch of her sandal's thong between her toes, the summer's warmth, the white noise of the city beyond the house walls, a short burst of birdsong by a closed window. All gone, already. — Ian McEwan

1. Are her lips like the hot chocolate your mother made
During the winter months when you were seven? Or have you not tasted her well enough to find the fine granules of cocoa that lightly come with each kiss?

2. Do you know her favorite songs? Not when she is happy, but when she is sad. What music reaches inside her ribcage and softly consoles her heart?

3. When she is sad, are you on the phone or are you at her door? Words do not wipe away tears, fingers do.

4. Do you know all the things that keep her up at night? Do you know why she has gone three days without sleep? Do you know of the insurmountable waves of sadness that wash over her like a tsunami?

5. Do you know the things to say that will calm her heartbeat? The places to touch? The places to love?

6. Everytime you see her do you kiss her like it's the last time but love her like it's the first?

7. Do you love her?

8. Do you love her? — Nishat Ahmed

Madoka: Won't anyone notice that Mami-san is dead?
Homura: Mami Tomoe's only relatives are distant relations. It will be quite some time before anyone files a missing persons report. When one dies on that side of the wards, not even a body is left behind. She'll wind up forever a "missing person" ... That is what happens to magical girls in the end.
Madoka: ... That's too cruel! Mami-san has been fighting all alone for a long time for everyone's sake! For no one to even notice that she's gone ... That's just too lonely a fate ...
Homura: It is just that kind of contract that gives us the power in the first place. It isn't for anyone else's sake. We fight on for the sake of our own prayer. So for no one to notice ... for the world to forget us ... That is just something we have to accept. — Magica Quartet

Byrd: It is important because we are giving her something to take away with her when she goes.
Lalo: What will she take with her?
Byrd: Us.
Sophie: And what will we have when she's gone?
Byrd looked at Sophie and shook her head because she couldn't speak — Patricia MacLachlan

How is it possible to miss a woman whom you kept at a distance, so that when she was gone you would not miss her? — Steve Martin

You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. We bear their children, who are witches if they are female, human if not; and then in the blink of an eye they are gone, felled, slain, lost. Our sons, too. When a little boy is growing, he thinks he is immortal. His mother knows he isn't. Each time becomes more painful, until finally your heart is broken. Perhaps that is when Yambe-Akka comes for you. She is older than the tundra. Perhaps, for her, witches' lives are as brief as men's are to us. — Philip Pullman

True love is a developed and intense appreciation for someone. It's that perfect awareness that you are finally whole when she's with you, and that hollow incompleteness you suffer when she's gone. — Richelle E. Goodrich

DEAR MISS MANNERS:
Should you tell your mother something if it is important when she is talking to company? I am six.
GENTLE READER:
Yes, you should (after saying "Excuse me"). Here are some of the things that are important to tell your mother, even though she is talking to company:
"Mommy, the kitchen is full of smoke."
"Daddy's calling from Tokyo."
"Kristen fell out of her crib and I can't put her back."
"There's a policeman at the door and he says he wants to talk to you."
"I was just reaching for my ball, and the goldfish bowl fell over."
Now, here are some things that are not important, so they can wait until your mother's company has gone home:
"Mommy, I'm tired of playing blocks. What do I do now?"
"The ice-cream truck is coming down the street."
"Can I give Kristen the rest of my applesauce?"
"I can't find my crayons."
"When are we going to have lunch? I'm hungry. — Judith Martin

These people, last seen referring to themselves as the 'Pentagon,' could be anywhere and anyone," the reporter said, looking behind her shoulder and seeming very confused. "It seems to be a huge group, and..." The woman ducked instinctively when she heard someone shout. "As I was saying, the 'Pentagon' is becoming worldwide news, and they are crazy, driven by something called a, 'Ditto?' No one is quite sure what they are planning on doing, or what their intentions are. Everyone is confused, and many are locking themselves in their houses. The Pentagon could be anywhere, anyone, and-"
Jayden turned off the TV. "You know what this means, don't you?"
I sat down, trying to keep my hands from shaking, and nodded. "They're not secret anymore. The Pentagon's gone public. — Embee

When she can't sleep, she writes. All she remembers is his words. It will soon be dawn, with fire-stoked horses thundering to the humming sky of crickets. I will see you run. And I will run with you. That morning, while Ata ate a dripping mango over the sink, she felt him come up behind her and touch the small of her back, light as a current of air. He kissed the side of her neck, inhaled the steam of bitter cocoa, boiling with bay leaves, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and said it reminded him of his childhood. "You are from the islands," she said. But then he was gone. — Oonya Kempadoo

And what do you think true love is? her father had asked her. 'Loving even when all hope is gone,' she had answered. — Kate Forsyth

As I passed a market, I thought I saw Devera, Aliera's daughter, looking at me. I almost stopped, but when I looked again she was gone, so I decided I was either imagining it, or she didn't want to talk to me. She is a very unusual child, but I guess now isn't the best time for that conversation. I put it out of my head and kept walking until I reached the Imperial Palace. — Steven Brust