When She Sleep Quotes & Sayings

Lilah did little more than sleep and eat and cry, which to me was the most fascinating thing in the entire universe. Why did she cry? When did she sleep? What made her eat a lot one day and little the next? Was she changing with time? I did what any obsessed person would do in such a case: I recorded data, plotted it, calculated statistical correlations. First I just wrote on scraps of paper and made charts on graph paper, but I very quickly became more sophisticated. I wrote computer software to make a beautifully colored plot showing times when Diane fed Lilah, in black; when I fed her, in blue (expressed mother's milk, if you must know); Lilah's fussy times, in angry red; her happy times, in green. I calculated patterns in sleeping times, eating times, length of sleep, amounts eaten.
Then, I did what any obsessed person would do these days; I put it all on the Web. — Mike Brown

Brain Juice was a recipe invented by Eve years before, when she had had to stay awake all day to look after Caddy and Indigo and Saffron, and all night to take care of the fragile and impermanent baby Rose. It was Coca-Cola with a great deal of instant coffee stirred into it. It was black and frothy and gritty, and it tasted like a primitive, medieval poison, but it banished sleep like magic. — Hilary McKay

A woman needed half her leg amputated after she slipped and broke the leg as she was cleaning her bath while she was still asleep. Not even the pain of a broken bone woke her and the angle at which she fell cut off circulation to the leg, killing the limb. When she finally awoke, she was close to multi-organ collapse. — Michael McGirr

I had to make a guess about what would be right and what would be wrong for her. I had to take a risk. I based the risk on what I know of loneliness, of the need of closeness in loneliness. I stroked her, totally impersonal, the way you soothe a terrified animal. At first she would leap and buck at the slightest touch. After a while there was only a tremor when I touched her, and finally that too was gone. She hiccuped and at last fell down into sleep, curled and spent. — John D. MacDonald

This is the codicil of motherhood: Like it or not, you acquire a sixth sense when it comes to your children - viscerally feeling their joy, their frustration, and the sharp blow to the heart when someone causes them pain. "Fast." Mariah sighs. "And with my eyes wide open." As Millie opens her arms, Mariah moves into them, drawing close the comfort of childhood with a great rush of relief. She tells her mother of Ian, who was not following her when she thought he was, who was not the person he made himself out to be. She describes the way they would sit on the porch after Faith went to sleep, and how they would sometimes talk and sometimes just let the night settle over their shoulders. She does not tell Millie of Ian's brother, of what Faith might or might not have briefly done for him. She does not tell Millie how it felt to have Ian's body pressed against hers, heat from head to toe, how even during hours — Jodi Picoult

You didn't think I really liked you? Do you think I really like you now?"
He turned toward her, uncertainty in his face."You did go quite a lot of effort to be having this conversation, but ... I don't want to read too much of what I hope into that."
Val stretched out beside him, resting her head in the crook of his arm. "What do you hope?"
He pulled her close, hands careful not to touch her wounds as they wrapped around her. "I hope that you feel for me as I do for you," he said, his voice like a sigh against her throat.
And how is that?" she asked, her lips so close to his jaw that she could taste the salt of his skin when she moved them.
You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that."
She smiled and let her eyes drift closed. They lay there together, under the bridge, city lights burning outside the windows like a sky full of falling stars, as they slid off into sleep — Holly Black

Mr. Robbins let slip that he had not been
sleeping well. He'd given up his room at the lodging house to a lady traveling by herself,
who'd come into Nowshera too tired to stand, when Nowshera was overrun and beds
impossible to find. When the lady left, the landlord had given the room to someone else,
leaving Mr. Robbins to sleep in rather atrocious places."
"Dear me," said Lady Vera.
"He didn't know it, but that lady was Mrs. Marsden. And I, for one, will always be grateful
that he helped her when there was absolutely nothing in it for him."
Lady Vera set down her tea. She reached forward and took Leo's hands. "Thank you, Mr.
Marsden. Sometimes I forget that beneath Michael's ambition, there is not a void, but much
kindness. Thank you for reminding me. — Sherry Thomas

Sometimes in dreams there are visions of the past. For that reason Alice Prentice had always welcomed sleep, but she suffered an insomniac's dread of the time just before sleeping, the act of falling asleep itself, the perilous twilight of semi-awareness when the mind must struggle for coherence, when a siren or a cry in the street is the very sound of terror and the ticking of the clock is a steady reminder of death. — Richard Yates

Amy Poehler did a really cute thing, [] [her son] said his prayers before he went to sleep that she was going to win [a Golden Globe] and when she got home she put [the trophy] in his bedroom. So when he woke up, he was like "Yes I did it, I did it". He was so excited, he felt like he had somehow engendered the trophy into existence, which is so cute. — Michael Schur

They were just clear of the summer colony before the first sleeper turned over and lifted a drowsy head; their cry sounded in the dreams of little children... who lifted their arms to drag down, to cuddle the darling little woolly lambs of sleep. Then the first inhabitant appeared; it was the Burnells' cat Florrie, sitting on the gatepost, far too early as usual, looking for their milk-girl. When she saw the old sheep-dog she sprang up quickly, arched her back, drew in her — Katherine Mansfield

Don't believe everything she says, okay? Don't leave without talking to me."
I turned around, and said, fiercely, "Never. Not even if I talk to you first. You aren't getting away now, buster."
He dove for my mouth. And when he was finished ensuring that neither of us was going to get much sleep for a while, he said, "Remember that. We're both likely to be clinging to that thought by the time this is over. — Patricia Briggs

The guilt over his secret was eating him up alive, but hell, the feel of her in his arms threatened to override all of it. This was Maria, the woman he'd fantasized about for almost a decade. In his arms.
He shifted again and tried to pull his hips back, but Maria snuggled tighter against him, hooking one leg over his hip.
Fuck.
Yeah, he had to get out of here. It was still dark outside, so maybe he could salvage a few hours and get some rest in his own bed. She'd just asked him to stay until she fell asleep. Which he'd done. Now it was time to relocate.
Slowly he reached back and lightly grasped her wrist, moving her hand so that she wasn't wrapping her arm around him. Next, he tried to do the same with her leg. Grasping her silky-smooth thigh, he froze when she let out a tiny moan in her sleep. And when she practically ground against him, he groaned.
Couldn't help it. She felt so good the sound just escaped - and woke her up. — Katie Reus

You tried to kill me. Don't think we won't be telling that story to our kids someday," David said.
"Kids?" she asked, feeling breathless.
"You heard me," he said, eyes intent. "At least three of them. I figure as soon as we're married we should get started on that first one."
"Okay," she said, voice shaking.
"Glad that's settled. When we get back to Prague I'll get you a ring."
"Okay," she said again, her heart soaring.
"I'm going to sleep now, I think."
"You do that. — Debbie Viguie

You've become my friend, and I love you."
It was right and true and that made saying it easy.
She heard the surprise in the intake of his breath.
"And I, you, Helen. I think I've loved you since the moment you first stood on my doorstep." He paused. "But now, I really must insist that you sleep. My love will still be here when you wake up. — Michelle Zink

Harry Potter," a voice says from my left. "Have you tried reading the Bible?" A woman, mid-forties, judgment scribbled all over her pinched, powdered face. Why do Bible lovers always have that constipated look on their face? Don't stereotype, Helena! I do my best to smile politely. "Is that the book where that lady turns into a statue after looking back at a burning city after God told her not to?" I say. "And where three defiant men are thrown into a furnace and don't burn. Oh, and isn't there a gal who feeds and puts to sleep the general of an enemy's army, and then uses a mallet to drive a tent peg into his brain?" She looks at me blankly. "But those are true. And that," she says, pointing to Harry, "is fiction. Not to mention devil worship." "Uh huh, uh huh. Devil worship? Is that like when the Israelites made a cow god of gold and worshipped it?" She's enraged. "You would love this book," I say, shoving The Goblet of Fire at her. "It's PG-rated compared to the Bible." "You, — Tarryn Fisher

He asked, looking at her dark-rimmed eyes, "You do not sleep?"
She shivered. "No. I do not want to sleep any more. I sleep too much already. It is so cold, where Quincy sends me in my sleep. Deep into the house, farther in, not into the house we see. It is as if that house were a face, and when you see a face you can't see the brain or the thoughts of the person behind it. And it is so strange - the house inside the house."
********
"How is it strange - this that you call the house inside the house?"
She said vaguely, her eyes growing glassy, "Strange. Shapes change, and sizes. The rooms are different: bigger and blacker and longer and the shadows are full of things. Creatures - or sometimes the rooms get smaller, fewer, and the furnishings change and change, like the scenes in a kaleidoscope, and I see the people in the portraits walking about in them. — Evangeline Walton

WHAT vain weathercocks we are! I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable - I, weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk. — Emily Bronte

What a good thing, for instance, it was that one princess should sleep for a hundred years! Was she not saved from all the plague of young men who were not worthy of her? And did not she come awake exactly at the right moment when the right prince kissed her? For my part, I cannot help wishing a good many girls would sleep till just the same fate overtook them. It would be happier for them, and more agreeable to their friends. — George MacDonald

Evelyn was an insomniac so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that. — Garrison Keillor

I don't remember forms or faces now, but I know the girl was beautiful. I know she was; for in the bright moonlight nights, when I start from my sleep, and all is quiet about me, I see, standing still and motionless in one corner of this cell, a slight and wasted figure with long black hair, which streaming down her back, stirs with no earthly wind, and eyes that fix their gaze on me, and never wink or close ... — Charles Dickens

My favorite thing to do is watch her sleep, when she's at total ease, not stressing about her imperfections - imperfections I find perfect. — Nancee Cain

I'm here, little one," came a voice made for coaxing
secrets from the heart. "Sleep now. We'll talk when it's
time."
"Yes, sir," she said, now knowing where she was. She
surrendered to sleep again.
The most familiar darkness ... her darkness ... she was
home. — Tiffany Reisz

In fact her maturity and blood kinship converted her passion to fever, so it was more affliction than affection. It literally knocked her down at night, and raised her up in the morning, for when she dragged herself off to bed, having spent another day without his presence, her heart beat like a gloved fist against her ribs. And in the morning, long before she was fully awake, she felt a longing so bitter and tight it yanked her out of a sleep swept clean of dreams. — Toni Morrison

Really love him, I mean," Geilie persisted. "Not just to bed him; I know you want that, and he does too. They all do. But do you love him?"
Did I love him? Beyond the urges of the flesh? The hole had the dark anonymity of the confessional, and a soul on the verge of death had no time for lies.
"Yes," I said, and laid my head back on my knees.
It was silent in the hole for some time, and I hovered once more on the verge of sleep, when I heard her speak once more, as though to herself.
"So it's possible," she said thoughtfully. — Diana Gabaldon

Yukiko rolled over.
That plain, that simple.
Her body was small in its moving.
And her hair followed, dreaming her as she moved.
A cat, her cat, in bed with her was awakened by her moving, and watched her turn slowly over in bed. When she stopped moving, the cat went back to sleep.
It was a black cat and could have been a suburb of her hair. — Richard Brautigan

But when a woman decides to sleep with a man, there is no wall she will not scale, no fortress she will not destroy, no moral consideration she will not ignore at its very root: there is no God worth worrying about. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I knew I was in love with Lorri when I started to wake up in the middle of the night furious and cursing her for making me feel the way she did. It was pain beyond belief. Nothing has ever hurt me that way. I tried to sleep as much as possible just to escape. I was grinding my teeth down to nubs. Now, years later, it's exactly the opposite. Now there is no pain, yet she still makes my heart explode. Now there is only fun and love and silliness. She drives me to frenzy, because I can never get enough. — Damien Echols

Gary tried not to notice how pale Savannah was as she fixed him a pot of coffee.Her satin skin was almost translucent.He was groggy from the trance-induced sleep and had a hard time waking up, even after a long shower. He had no idea where the change of clothes had come from,but they were lying on the end of the bed when he awakened.
Savannah was beautiful, moving through the house like flowing water, like music in the air.She was dressed in faded blue jeans and a pale turquoise shirt that clung to her curves and emphasized her narrow rib cage and small waist.Her long hair was pulled back in a thick braid that hung below her bottom.Gary tried to keep his eyes to himself.He hadn't seen any evidence of Gregori this evening,but he didn't want to take any chances.He had a feeling the one thing that could change that remote expression fast was to have another man ogling Savannah. — Christine Feehan

I walked down the hall and saw that [she] was sitting on the floor next to a chair. This is always a bad sign. It's a slippery slope, and it's best just to sit in chairs, to eat when hungry, to sleep and rise and work. But we have all been there. Chairs are for people, and you're not sure if you are one. — Miranda July

I don't know why you want to hang out when I'm half asleep?"
Cooper leaned over and kissed me softly. His lips sucked at my bottom lip for a second before he pulled back and relaxed into the corner of the couch. "You pout when you sleep."
"Huh?"
"Like an angry little pout," he said, demonstrating with his lips. "It's the hottest thing I've ever seen. I thought you might give me a real talking to like my old gym teacher. Man, did that bitch hate me."
"I'm sure she had her reasons."
Cooper snorted. "Of course, you'd take a stranger's side over the guy who's feeding you."
"Maybe you called her a bitch forty times."
"Yeah, there was that. — Bijou Hunter

I like singing," said Alys.
Wylan shook his head frantically, mouthing, No, no, no.
"Shall I sing?" Alys asked hopefully. "Bajan says that I'm good enough to be on the stage."
"Maybe we save that for later - " suggested Jesper.
Alys' lower lip began to wobble like a plate about to break.
"Sing," Matthias blurted, "by all means, sing."
And then the real nightmare began.
It wasn't that Alys was so bad, she just never stopped. She sang between bites of food. She sang while she was walking through the graves. She sang from behind a bush when she needed to relieve herself. When she finally dozed off, she hummed in her sleep .
"Maybe this was Van Eck's plan all along," Kaz said glumly when they'd assembled outside the tomb again.
"To drive us mad?" said Nina. "It's working."
Jesper shut his eyes and groaned. "Diabolical. — Leigh Bardugo

You never know when you might come home and find Mam sitting by the fire chatting with a woman and a child, strangers. Always a woman and child. Mam finds them wandering the streets and if they ask, Could you spare a few pennies, miss? her heart breaks. She never has money so she invites them home for tea and a bit of fried bread and if it's a bad night she'll let them sleep by the fire on a pile of rags in the corner. The bread she gives them always means less for us and if we complain she says there are always people worse off and we can surely spare a little from what we have. — Frank McCourt

I forced myself to keep my eyes open so I could memorize every curve of her face. I wanted the image burned so deeply in my memory that when I closed my eyes to sleep at night, she would be the last thing I saw and the first person on my mind when I woke. — Teresa Mummert

Veda began it, but when she finished it, or whether she finished it, Mildred never quite knew. Little quivers went through her and they kept going through her the rest of the night, during the supper party, when Veda sat with the white scarf wound around her throat, during the brief half hour, while she undressed Veda, and put the costume away; in the dark, while she lay there alone, trying to sleep, not wanting to sleep.
This was the climax of Mildred's life. — James M. Cain

From her pocket Karamander took a vial of black liquid labelled: "Headbanger. Maximum strength." With a long pipette she dropped the liquid into Oraton-Marr's mouth, then she held his nose closed until he swallowed it... "He is asleep. He will sleep for seven days. And when he wakes he will have the worst headache imaginable. I have something that will cure it if he wishes to ask me. But he will have to come to me in person and ask very, very nicely indeed. — Angie Sage

Hyacinth, who wept before sleep, had wept that night; he had wept too - had wept in joy and pain, and in joy at his pain. When tears were done and their heads rested on one pillow, she had said that no man had ever wept with her before. Two floors below them, their reflected images knelt in the fishpond at Thelxiepeia's feet, subsistent but invisible. There she would weep for him longer than they lived. He lowered his naked body into a rising pool, warm and scarcely less romantic. Ermine — Gene Wolfe

Patty knew that feeling, a dream hangover, like when she jumped up from a panicky sleep at 2 in the morning and tried to talk herself into thinking the farm was OK, that this year would pick up, and then felt all the sicker when she woke up to the alarm a few hours later, guilty and duped. It was suprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were OK, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that that simply wasn't so.' -Dark Places — Gillian Flynn

How she poisoned her sisters so slyly and quietly that it took them days to die. How when it was over they looked so peaceful that had it not been for the froth on their lips, you would have thought they had died in their sleep. — Kendare Blake

As her vision flickered one last time, the man was gone; it was her mother looking into her eyes.
Her mother's eyes were filled with so much love that it seemed to release her from her pain and fear as it did when she was a small child. Her mother cradled her as a baby, rocking her back and forth. She was safe now in her mother's arms. She was at peace. Mommy, her heart sang, you're here to save me. — Kim Cormack

She was determined to keep her promise of 'no fandom' to her mother. Trouble was, fandom was more than a hobby, it was a support system. Without it, Liv had no one to talk to when she was lonely. She had nothing to look forward to after school, and no outlet for creativity. Liv found herself spiraling back into melancholy.
She got up.
She went to classes.
She came home... And then did it all over again. Sleep became the escape that fandom had once been. — Danika Stone

When our daughter, Alexandra, was about three years old, she used to wake up at night and come down the stairs into our room. Of course, we would have to take her back to bed. For a few months she was waking up two or three times a night and coming down. This was not long after I took over for my father and started pastoring. I was learning to minister, and there was a lot of stress and change just with that, so I wasn't sleeping much. One time I was telling Victoria, "We've just got to do something about Alexandra. She's coming down so much. You know, I'm just so tired. I'm not getting enough sleep." On and on. Victoria said something I'll never forget. She said, "Joel, just remember, twenty years from now, you'll give anything to hear those little footsteps coming down the stairs. You'll give anything to have her wanting to come into your room." That changed my whole perspective. I began looking forward — Joel Osteen

What were you asleep? Helen would say as I opened the door. "I've been up since five." In her hand would be aluminum tray covered with foil, either that or a saucepan with a lid on it.
"Well," I'd tell her, "I didn't go to bed until three."
"I didn't go to bed until three thirty."
This was how it was with her: If you got fifteen minutes of sleep, she got only ten. If you had a cold, she had the flu. If you'd dodged a bullet, she'd dodged five. Blindfolded. After my mother's funeral, I remember her greeting me with "So what? My mother died when I was half your age."
"Gosh," I said. "Thing of everything she missed."
pgs. 86-87 — David Sedaris

MINDY TRUDGED to her computer. Today's shift began at 2:10 p.m. Her schedule matched Watney's every day. She slept when he slept. Watney simply slept at night on Mars, while Mindy had to drift forty minutes forward every day, taping aluminum foil to her windows to get any sleep at all. — Andy Weir

What was the question? ... Oh. Where do I get my crazy ideas? Answer: sleep-fairy, walk-fairy, shower-fairy. Book-fairy. And in these last few years, from my wife. Now when I have questions I ask her and she tells me the answer. If you haven't already, I'd suggest you want to find your soulmate, as soon as you can. Next question? — Richard Bach

You never told me you love me." He said bitterly.

Alynna looked down. If only Cullan knew, she is saying those words every time she lays her eyes on him, when she thinks of him, when she watches him on his sleep...

And right this moment.

I love you so much, Cullan, it hurts. — Nicholaa Spencer

Did you really sleep back here before I rented you the trailer?"
Caleb leaned against a wall. "I did. It wasn't as bad as it looks. Very quiet."
She leaned against the opposite wall."Pretty kinky, Chief. Sleeping in a jail cell."
"Is that an invitation?" He let his eyes run up and down, smiling when she began to laugh.
"You're shameless."
"I am. Persistent, too. — Elizabeth Hunter

This girl who's slept a hundred years has something after all. It's called Centuryitis, and it has turned me into a man. Oh, what will mamma think when she sees me?!
-Karen Quan and Jarod Kintz — Karen Quan

Lily Thomas lay in bed when the alarm went off on a snowy January morning in Squaw Valley. She opened her eyes for just an instant and saw the thick snow swirling beyond the windows of the house her father had rented, and for a fraction of an instant, she wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. She could hear the dynamite blasts in the distance to prevent avalanches, and just from a glance, she knew what kind of day it was. You could hardly see past the windows in the heavy blizzard, and she knew that if the mountain was open, it wouldn't be for long. But she loved the challenge of skiing in heavy snow. It would be a good workout, and she didn't want to miss a single day with one of her favorite instructors, Jason Yee. — Danielle Steel

When they throw the water on the witch, she says, "Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness". That line inspired my life. I sometimes say it to myself before I go to sleep, like a prayer. — John Waters

I get to see her at night."
"No deal."
"That's the only deal. I sleep over."
"She's my daughter."
"She's the love of my life". My heart was pumping so damn fast I needed to see her.
David was searching my eyes.
I let him see the truth. I needed her. That was the only way.
"Fine, but only you. Logan can't start sleeping over, too."
"He'll try."
David groaned. "You two, you just storm your way in-"
"We're family to her. We took her in when you let her go. We protected her from that woman. — Tijan

Ironically, just when she needed to get as much sleep as possible to prepare her for the next few days, her excited anticipation kept her awake long into the night. — Emily Arden

The night was at her disposal. She might walk back to Great Mop and arrive very late; or she might sleep out and not trouble to arrive till to-morrow. Whichever she did Mrs Leak would not mind. That was one of the advantages of dealing with witches; they do not mind if you are a little odd in your ways, frown if you are late for meals, fret if you are out all night, pry and commiserate when at length you return. Lovely to be with people who prefer their thoughts to yours, lovely to live at your own sweet will, lovely to sleep out all night! — Sylvia Townsend Warner

The first one to bed always lit the candle, and the last one turned out the lamp ... The tradition had seen them through quite a bit by now, and Rebecca had come to love the candlelight, not only because it meant that Mike loved to see her just the way she was, which was incredibly liberating once you began to actually believe it, but also because the light just felt holy to her. It made the end of the day into a kind of prayer, whether they made love or just lay in each other's arms and chewed over the day's portion of craziness; and there was that beautiful little puff of "Amen" when they blew the candle out and settled into sleep. — Tim Farrington

But she missed simple things, parents' birthdays, a rug underfoot, nights when she didn't have to sleep in a zipped bag. She began to think she was inadequate to the strict plain shapes of churchly faith. Head pains hit her at the end of the day. They came with a shining, an electrochemical sheen, light from out of nowhere, brain-made, the eerie gleam of who you are. — Don DeLillo

It is my custom to have sherry in the drawing room at eight-thirty and supper at nine. In future, please join me here promptly at eight-thirty, Alexandra."
Fire ignited in Alexandra's eyes, but she managed to keep her voice level. "You've already told me where I may sleep, where I may go, who must accompany me, and when I must eat. Would you care to instruct me as to when I may breathe? — Judith McNaught

Lying between the sheets, she felt different; her body had turned into bread dough, dough that's been kneaded and pounded till it's grey, lumpen, no yeast in it, no lightness, no prospect of rising. Her arms lay stiff by her sides. When, finally, she drifted off to sleep, she dreamt she was on her knees in a corner of the room, trying to vomit without attracting the attention of the person who was asleep on the bed. Her eyes wide open in the darkness, she tried to cast off the dream, but it stayed with her till morning. — Pat Barker

I didn't sleep with Brodick," she blurted out. "I have no need for a priest."
"Yes, you did too."
"Alec, it isn't polite to contradict your elders."
"But, Mama ... "
"Hush, sweetheart."
Gillian glared at Brodick. He could easily correct this horrid misunderstanding if he would only offer a quick explanation.
He wasn't inclined. He winked at her. "I didn't know a face could get that red," he remarked.
"Do explain," she demanded.
"Explain what?" he asked, feigning innocence.
She turned to Judith. "We were camping ... and it isn't what it sounds like ... I did sleep, and when I awakened ... they were all there ... "
"They?" Iain asked.
"His soldiers."
"You slept with his soldiers too? — Julie Garwood

Besides, as much as she loved Bruckner's symphonies, he just couldn't touch a man who had painted his bedroom walls with views of the sea to please her, who gave his precious smiles to her alone, who wept when he watched his daughter sleep. — Lynn Kurland

He'd unbuttoned his shirt so the night breeze would soothe him; his body always ran too hot. The blood. Too hot. The large, gold crucifix on his neck, dangling to his thick chest hairs, caught there, and winked in the candlelight. His childhood prayers. For food. Warmth. His beloved mother. That the cruelty of his father. Stop. No more. Beatings. He never. Stopped. Beating her. Mama. [...] Pompeii remembered - like tuning into a clear TV channel - his mother's gentle face. Her fingertips on his boy's face, calming him to sleep. The sound of his father's drunken entrance, when she would hold her breath, stop stroking his boy face. — Alma Luz Villanueva

I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She used to wake me up in the middle of the night if I wasn't sleeping straight and was messing up the sheets. Now when I stay in hotels I sleep so straight they don't even think I've used the bed. — Marina Abramovic

I cannot do anything fake; that is why even when I sleep with a prostitute, she falls in love with me. — M.F. Moonzajer

She rolls over with a little protesting noise, reaching sleepily after me. Then she begins to register the raindrops as they connect with her skin, and she sits up with straight with a gasp. I'm busy sitting up too, because when you go to sleep wrapped around a pretty girl, there are some things going on first thing in the morning that you don't exactly want making headline news. — Amie Kaufman

She wondered if you could love someone too much. If you could it wasn't fair. People didn't have a chance. Love was all you had in the end. It was like sleep, like clean water. When you fell off the world there was still love because love made the world. That's what she believed. That's how it was. — Tim Winton

Standing over his bed, watching him sleep, Luce could see it. The way their love would have bloomed here.She could see Lucia coming in to bring Daniel his meals,him opening up to her slowly. The pair being inseparable by the time Daniel recovered. And it made her feel jealous and guilty and confused because she couldn't tell right now whether their love was a beautiful thing, or whether this was yet another instance of how very wrong it was.
If she was so young when they met, they must have had a long relationship in this life.She would have gotten to spend years with him before it happened. Before she died and was reincarnated into another life completely. She must have thought they'd spend forever together-and must not even have known how long forever meant.
But Daniel knew.He always knew. — Lauren Kate

At last, in the dead of the night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid the heavy head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she sat at the gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing the clouds pass over them in their wild flight-which was the dance at Little Dorrit's party. — Charles Dickens

Do you see the butterfly?" Suri grinned with enthusiasm.
"Yes, I see it, but - "
"So stunning and delicate; it's marvelous. No one can see a butterfly and not stop to admire it. I'd love to be one. To go to sleep and wake up a season later with such beautiful wings and the ability to flutter about. That's the most wonderful sort of magic, don't you think? To change, to grow, to fly. But ... " She paused. "I wonder what the cost would be." The smile diminished once more. "There's always a cost when it comes to magic. I suspect there is a great price to go from lowly caterpillar to glorious butterfly. — Michael J. Sullivan

The truth is, Sidonie, I don't fare well with women." He spoke coolly, and without looking at her. "It is my own fault, of course. I ... I neglect them. I forget where I'm supposed to be, and when I'm supposed to be there. I'm irresponsible. I drink to excess, gamble to excess, and sometimes I brawl. I never remember special occasions. And I very often go to sleep before they've ... well, never mind that." Devellyn fell silent for a moment. "And I cheat on them," he quietly added. "Dreadfully. Did I mention that?"
"You did not," she answered. "But a full disclosure of one's fidelity, or even one's skill in the bedroom, is not, strictly speaking, necessary before having dinner with someone."
Devellyn smiled down at her a little wearily. "Ah, Sid, I have no charm at all, have I?" he said almost regretfully. — Liz Carlyle

But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after - oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock my the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down. — Barbara Kingsolver

I study my daughter's sleeping face. She curves her body the way I do when I sleep and draws her knees up close to her chest. She stretches her legs and her eyes flutter open as if to look at me, but then she closes them again. I hope she dreams in colour. — Wame Molefhe

So then they'd snuggled up to each other, naked, and started to talk. Ezra told her about the time he was six and sculpted a red squirrel out of clay, only to have his brother squash it. How he used to smoke a lot of pot after his parents got divorced. About the time he had to take the family's fox terrier to the vet to have her put to sleep. Aria told him about how when she was little, she kept a can of split pea soup named Pee as a pet and cried when her mom tried to cook Pee for dinner. — Sara Shepard

By then she's lost in the land of sleep and he is too, and when they go there they never go together, and she is afraid that it is also a preview of death, a place where there may be dreams but never love, never home, never a hand to hold yours when squadrons of birds flock across the burnt-orange sun at the close of the day. — Stephen King

Many nights, Ai-ming said, ignoring my question, her father's music pulled her from sleep. Sparrow, she slowly pieced together, had been one of Shanghai's most renowned composers. But after the Conservatory was shut down in 1966 and all five hundred of its pianos destroyed, Sparrow worked in a factory making wooden crates, then wire, and then radios, for two decades. Ai-ming heard him humming fragments of music when he thought no one was listening. Eventually she came to understand that these fragments were all that remained of his own symphonies, quartets and other musical works. The written copies had been destroyed. — Madeleine Thien

That afternoon she was wearing a yellow dress the same shade as her hair, and again his throat tightened when he saw her, and again he could not speak. But when the first moment passed and words came, it was all right, and their thoughts flowed together like two effervescent brooks and coursed gaily through the arroyo of the afternoon. This time when they parted, it was she who asked, "Will you be here tomorrow?" - though only because she stole the question from his lips - and the words sang in his ears all the way back through the woods to the cabin and lulled him to sleep after an evening spent with his pipe on the porch. — Robert F. Young

Only two. Practically an innocent. So unlike all the men she'd known, and he must have known it. And yet the thoughts swelled and crashed and swelled again, a torrent of unprecedented jealousy, raw and unfamiliar: Who? Who knows how it feels to be covered by your body? Who knows the taste of your mouth, the feel of you inside her? Who has tangled her bare legs with yours, seen your eyelashes against your cheek while you sleep, your hair smashed across the pillow, knows the scrape of your morning beard against her cheek?
What are you like when you lose control, Reverend Sylvaine? — Julie Anne Long

In her final months [Princess] Diana was being shat upon by the tabloids
basically for sleeping with an Arab. When she died, these same papers were astonished by the millennial wave of emotionalism that swept the country ... [One paper] had a print-ready story about what a slag the Princess was, and they had to pull it at the last moment. It was replaced with an image of Diana as an angel, ascending to heaven. — Martin Amis

Someday we'll look back on all of this and we won't even believe we were here," she whispered. "We'll say, 'Do you remember when we used to live in Iowa?'" I smiled, warm, already falling back to sleep. I told her, "We'll say, 'That happened during the Iowa years. — Ann Patchett

Black Cat
A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:
just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.
She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once
as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly. — Rainer Maria Rilke

It were ... she'd fell asleep, and she'd fell asleep on him. Like she trusted him that much she could just sleep, she were that comfortable. She weren't freaking out touching him or blushing or looking all embarrassed or rushing to get away, though he knew she might when she woke up. But for that moment she were just sleeping there, next to him. Like she was his. — Stacia Kane

My mom tells this story that even when I was in the womb, my father played the piano and she sang. So, before I officially got here, I was already surrounded by music. I also like the way my father explains it. When I was about 3-years old, in order to keep me quiet, my father would put me in the bassinet and either put on some music or play the piano. When he started playing, I got quiet and eventually went to sleep. He said by the time I turned 3, I just climbed up on the piano and started playing it with the attitude of I'm gonna play dis here piano. — Cyrus Chestnut

The tears coursed down her cheeks - not freely, however, for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets. A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her face whereupon she threw up her hands, sank into a chair and went off into a deep vinous sleep. — F Scott Fitzgerald

But there were moments when she played songs that made you wonder where she learned them, where indeed she came from. Harsh-tender wandering tunes with words that smacked of pinewoods or prairie. One went: Don't wanna sleep, Don't wanna die, Just wanna go a-travelin' through the pastures of the sky; and this one seemed to gratify her the most, for often she continued it long after her hair hard dried, after the sun had gone and there were lighted windows in the dusk. — Truman Capote

Come on. Say it, Raffe." I give him a half smile. "I love it when you say Pooky Bear. It's just so perfect when it comes out of your mouth."
"She might kill you in your sleep one of these days just so she can get rid of that name. — Susan Ee

I'll tell you if you tell me," I say, washing my hands of maturity. I'm tired of the double standard-she keeps secrets, but I'm not allowed. Also, I'm tired, period. I need sleep. Which means I need answers.
"What do you mean? Tell you what?"
"I'll tell you what we were really doing out there. After you tell me who my real parents are." There, I opened it. A chunky can of wiggling worms.
She laughs, just like I expect her to. "Are you serious?"
I nod. "I know I'm adopted. I want to know how. Why. When."
She laughs again, but there's something false in it, as if it wasn't her first reaction. "So that's what this is about? You're rebelling because you think you're adopted? Why on earth would you think that?"
I fold my hands in front of me on the table. "Look at me. We both know I'm different. I don't look like you or Dad."
"That's not true. You have my chin and mouth. And there's no disinheriting the McIntosh nose. — Anna Banks

Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world. — Napoleon Bonaparte

She asked if she could sleep in my bed that night and I said yes and we went upstairs and lay close together in the narrow bed and I wondered if maybe she missed her mother, and then around halfway through the night Edmond came in saying he was lonely and he lay down too only facing in the other direction since it was the only way he could fit, and then around sunrise Isaac wandered in too wondering where everyone had gone and when he saw us he just smiled a little and went down to the kitchen and brought up the big brown teapot and some mugs on a tray and we all piled together on the bed on top of each other like puppies and drank our tea while the sun streamed in thick and yellow through the window. And — Meg Rosoff

I'm not saying it will be perfect, it seldom ever is, BUT what's wrong with giving love another chance? I want to make new memories with you, Chase. I want you to show up at my house for a date. A real date. I want to stress over what to wear. I want to miss you when you're not with me. I want to get all giggly whenever you call saying you need to hear my voice one last time before you can go to sleep. I want get jealous because some girl realizes what I've got and tries to convince you ... you can do better. I want to smile when you tell her that she doesn't have a chance ... . -Chasing Memories — Adriana Law

When assaulted by sexual knowledge for the first time, a girl plunges into a period of blackness, which is required in order to let her emotions catch up with her body.
Sleeping Beauty sleeps. Cinderella waits, and while she waits she works her way through the darkness of depression. Snow White both works and sleeps before she is ready to open her eyes and find a Prince leaning over her. — Joan Gould

When, finally, she did sleep, it was the slumber of a watcher and waiter. Light, and full of sighs. — Clive Barker

She lay in bed, naked because her body had become an unfamiliar possession, too precious for the touch of a nightgown, because it gave her pleasure to feel naked and to feel as if the white sheets of her bed were touched by Francisco's body - when she thought that she would not sleep, because she did not want to rest and lose the most wonderful exhaustion she had ever known ... — Ayn Rand

He watched Attolia out of the corner of his eye. She was still cool, like a breath of winter in the warm evening air, but in the last few days he had begun to sense a subtle humor in her chilly words. When Gen had complained earlier that evening that Petrus, the palace physician, should stop fussing over him like a worried old woman, Attolia had asked, archly,"And me as well?"
"When you stop fussing," Gen had said, slipping to his knees beside her couch, "I will sleep with two knives under my pillow."
Allolia had looked down at him and said sharply, "Don't be ridiculous."
Only when Eugenides laughed had Sounis realized her implication: If she ever turned against Eugenides, a second knife wouldn't save him. He almost swallowed the olive in his mouth unchewed. — Megan Whalen Turner

When you see a white woman and a white man eating dinner together, watching a movie, or drinking at a bar you probably think they are a couple. Not so fast! White people often engage in something called a "platonic friendship." These arrangements feature a white male who is in love with a white female who needs companionship or access to someone with a car. The relationship is symbiotic for a long time as the white male believes he is making "progress" in his efforts to sleep with the white woman. The white female is in turn rewarded with companionship, someone to help her move, and an excellent "backup" plan in case she is unable to date the male of her choice. — Anonymous

She's so warm, and her deepened breathing is hypnotic. I wish I could let myself drift off with her, but I have miles to go before I can sleep. This is the trick every night, to leave after she's surrendered the fight to be up, but before I give in to the desire to close my eyes. When I'm convinced she's fully unconscious, I slide out from under the covers, tiptoe around all the toys and crafts (land mines) strewn on the floor, and steal out of her darkened room like I'm James Bond. — Lisa Genova

You should get more sleep," he remarked. "You won't need so many chemicals."
She raised an eyebrow. "This from the man with half his bloodstream registered in the patent office." Jovellanos hadn't had her shots yet. She didn't need them in her current position, but she was too good at her job to stay where she was much longer. Desjardins looked forward to the day when her righteous stance on the Sanctity of Free Will went head-to-head against the legal prerequisites for promotion. She'd probably take one look at the list of perks and the new salary, and cave.
He had, anyway. — Peter Watts

Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; 'Why, what a long sleep you've had!' 'Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, 'It was a curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it's getting late.' So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been. — Lewis Carroll

Can you imagine how lonely she must have felt when she received that phone call? Your lover has just died, your companion has abandoned you, but don't you dare make an inappropriate sound, because your family is around. No one to touch you the way he did, no one to understand you, no one to hug you to sleep, but don't dare allow your face to show a glint of grief. The cutting pain of feeling alone amid loved ones. — Rabih Alameddine

Almondine
Eventually, she understood the house was keeping a secret from her.
All that winter and all through the spring Almondine had known something was going to happen, but no matter where she looked she couldn't find it. Sometimes, when she entered a room, there was the feeling that the thing that was going to happen had just been there, and she would stop and pant and peer around while the feeling seeped away as mysteriously as it had arrived. Weeks might pass without a sign, and then a night would come, when, lying nose to tail beneath the window in the kitchen corner, listening to the murmur of conversation and the slosh and clink of dishes being washed, she felt it in the house again and she whisked her tail in long, pensive strokes across the baseboards and silently collected her feet beneath her and waited. When half an hour passed and nothing appeared, she groaned and sighed and rolled onto her back and waited to see if it was somewhere in her sleep. — David Wroblewski

His desperation and misery swept her up like a storm capturing the sea. She turned her mind to even these feelings, because they were his, like his terrified rage in the lift when they had first met, being wrapped in his arms in the cold well, being dazzled by his wonder at the woods and her home and her. Like being a child, awareness of him the morning chorus that woke her and the lullaby that sent her to sleep, his thoughts always her first and last song.
I love you, Kami told him, and cut. — Sarah Rees Brennan

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

Love at first sight is a hypnosis: I am fascinated by an image: at first shaken, electrified, stunned, "paralysed" as Menon was by Socrates, the model of loved objects, of captivating images, or again converted by an apparition, nothing distinguishing the path of enamoration from the Road to Damascus; subsequently ensnared, held fast, immobilised, nose stuck to the image (the mirror). In that moment when the other's image comes to ravish me for the first time, I am nothing more than the Jesuit Athanasius Kirchner's wonderful Hen: feet tied, the hen went to sleep with her eyes fixed on the chalk line, which was traced not far from her beak; when she was untied, she remained motionless, fascinated, "submitting to her vanquisher," as the Jesuit says (1646); yet, to waken her from her enchantment, to break off the violence of her Image-repertoire (vehemens animalis imaginatio), it was enough to tap her on the wing; she shook herself and began pecking in the dust again. — Roland Barthes

He got lost in a memory for a moment, then glanced over at Gina. "What I miss most ... she always used to say good-night just before she'd drift off to sleep. I miss those words, the good-night." "Someone was there, someone to share the end of the day," Gina said softly. She understood. Bishop nodded. "Someone was there. That's why you get married, Gina. Beyond all the other details of why, it's having someone there when the days ends. It's being together and sharing life. — Dee Henderson