Woman Smiling Quotes & Sayings

Smiling, she went for his throat and almost had him, when - using a move that was all sorts of illegal - he flipped her again so her front pressed into the leaf-laden ground, her wrists still locked in his iron grip and pinned above her head. "Cheater."
"So says the woman who tried to kick my balls into my throat," he pointed out, even as he licked the salt off the skin of her neck in a lazy and highly provocative move. — Nalini Singh

She transcends her sport, which is what any sport needs ... And she does it while smiling the whole time. It's kind of a joke, but then again it's not, especially if you're a male pro trailing in her wake. To have this woman in the middle of such a suffer fest out there crushing people and smiling all the way ... — Lance Armstrong

By the Lady's never-sucked teats!"
"Elas Sil!"
"Oh shut up! I'm a woman, I can curse about things like that. Wait, it's not as dark up ahead. Come on, and hasn't that baby of yours been asleep a long time? You sure it's not dead?"
"Wel, it peed on me halfway down that last corridor, and last I looked it was smiling."
"Huh. It ever amazes me women get talked into motherhood. — Steven Erikson

The photograph showed a young couple smiling at the camera. The man didn't look much older than seventeen or eighteen, with light-coloured hair and delicate, aristocratic features. The woman may have been a bit younger, one or two years at the most. She had pale skin and a finely chiselled face framed by
short black hair. She looked drunk with happiness. The man had his arm round her waist, and she seemed to be whispering something to him in a teasing way. The image conveyed a warmth that drew a smile from me, as if I had recognized two old friends in those strangers. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

There is a song from this old movie called Arth where a man asks a
woman, "You are smiling so much, there must be a deep pain that you're
hiding." I wonder what your deep pains are and I wonder how I have
failed you. — Amulya Malladi

Now you are no longer a giggling child, smiling at whoever comes along. You are a woman with power. Learn to control your smile, and you can control what men will think about you. — Michelle Moran

London wasn't the first city I'd lived in, but it was certainly the largest. Anywhere else there is always the chance of seeing someone you know or, at the very least, a smiling face. Not here. Commuters crowd the trains, eager to outdo their fellow travelers in an escalating privacy war of paperbacks, headphones and newspapers. A woman next to me on the Northern Line on day held the Metro just inches from her face; it was only three stops later that I noticed she was not reading but crying. It was hard not to offer sympathy and harder still to not start crying myself. — Belle De Jour

Got your stuff?"

Nora's checks flushed. "Um, yeah, but..."

"What?"

"My hand hurts so much, and I need two hands to do my button. Could you...um..."

He furrowed his brow, unsure what she meant as she trailed off, blushing more now. Following her gaze, he glanced down at her pants. Sure enough, her jeans were on but unbuttoned, revealing a peek of the tiny green short-shorts from her uniform.

He chuckled and reached forward, buttoning her jeans for her. "I've never put pants on a woman before, but I'll make an exception this time."

"I appreciate your sacrifice," she said sarcastically, and Kane decided then and there that he wanted to see her smiling like that all the time. — Sarah Robinson

In an age of casual, cynical, indifferent routine, among people who held themselves as if they were not flesh, but meat-Dagny's bearing seemed almost indecent, because this was the way a woman would have faced a ballroom centuries ago, when the act of displaying one's half-naked body for the admiration of men was an act of daring, when it had meaning, and but one meaning, acknowledged by all as a high adventure. And this-thought Mrs. Taggart, smiling-was the girl she had believed to be devoid of sexual capacity. She felt an immense relief, and a touch of amusement at the thought that a discovery of this kind should make her feel relieved. The relief lasted only for a few hours. At the end of the evening, she saw Dagny in a corner of the ballroom, sitting on a balustrade as if it were a fence rail, her legs dangling under the chiffon skirt as if she were dressed in slacks. She was talking to a couple of helpless young men, her face contemptuously empty. — Ayn Rand

She's wonderful. Tell her I've never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you."
Waddington, smiling, translated the question.
"She says I'm good."
"As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue," Kitty mocked. — W. Somerset Maugham

He carries no burden, he feels no pain. What man, like woman, lies down in the darkness and gets up with child? The gentle, smiling ones own the good secret. Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Time. They make flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. — Ray Bradbury

I shall expect your reply within a month. Surely that is time enough to ... weigh your other offers.'
She stared at him. Well. She'd underestimated Lord Prescott. Or perhaps, more accurately, she hadn't fully estimated him ...
'Thank you, Lord Prescott. It's helpful to know that your desire for me will expire by a particular date.'
'Much like the desirability of any woman. You of all people should be fully aware that a woman's bloom doesn't last forever. Nor does her ability to bear children.'
...
'Thank you for reminding me. It slipped my mind, temporarily.'
He nodded, smiling a little, acknowledging her little barb. 'Good day, Miss de Ballesteros. I am not a man without feeling, and I think I shall depart now, to recover from the decidedly ambivalent receipt of my proposal.'
She smiled a little at that.
'Good day, Lord Prescott. Perhaps I should retire, too, to preserve my bloom. — Julie Anne Long

I still couldn't banish the image of the Quetzal Flower. In my mind, it merged with that of Priestess Eleuia: everything a man could desire or aspire to, a woman who would suck the marrow from your bones and still leave you smiling. — Aliette De Bodard

I catch myself smiling, and realize that, for the first time since her death, her memory makes me happy, not sad. And that's just the way she'd want it, the woman who loved to laugh. — Lori Nelson Spielman

We must be polite, Syen," he says. He's still smiling, but he's furious; she can tell because he's flashing too many teeth. "We're only orogenes, after all. And this is a member of the Stillness's most esteemed use-caste. We are merely here to wield powers greater than she can comprehend in order to save her region's economy, while she - " He waggles a finger at the woman, not even trying to hide his sarcasm. "She is a pedantic minor bureaucrat. But I'm sure she's a very important pedantic minor bureaucrat. — N.K. Jemisin

All of a sudden, in the good-natured child, the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater. — Emile Zola

My goddess! My queen!'
'Oh, no, no, no!'
He raised his head, smiling a little crookedly down at her. 'Do you dislike to hear yourself called so? There is nothing I would not do to please you, but you cannot help but be my goddess! You have been so these seven years!'
'Only a goddess could dislike it! You see by that how wretchedly short of the mark I fall. I have a little honesty - enough to tell you *now* that you must not worship me.'
He only laughed, and kissed her again. She protested no more, too much a woman not to be deeply moved by such idolatry, and awed by the constancy which, though it might have been to a false image, could not be doubted. — Georgette Heyer

The young woman's smiling lips met his caresses halfway, and her eyes shone in their depths like pools warmed by the sun. — Marcel Proust

Why? How had this otherwise sensible woman who had only met Beamabeth as a screaming purple blob fallen under her spell? Or had Beamabeth slipped immaculate into the world, petal-cheeked and smiling amidst gleaming golden curls? — Frances Hardinge

Two hours later he was ready to kill her. Even his outraged mind, however, recognized that murder was not a viable option, and so he contented himself with devising various plans to make her suffer.
Torture was probably too trite, he decided, and he didn't have the stomach to use it on a female. Although ... He looked over at the person in the baggy breeches. She appeared to be smiling as she lugged the stones. She was no ordinary female.
He shook his head. There were other ways to make her miserable. A snake in her bed perhaps? No, the blasted woman probably liked snakes. A spider? Didn't everyone hate spiders? — Julia Quinn

Ham turned back, still smiling. "You make it sound so desperate, El."
Elend looked over at him. "The Assembly is a mess, a half-dozen warlords with superior armies are breathing down my neck, barely a month passes without someone sending assassins to kill me, and the woman I love is slowly driving me insane."
Vin snorted at this last part.
"Oh is that all?" Ham said. "See? It's not so bad after all. I mean, we could be facing an immortal god and his all-powerful priests instead. — Brandon Sanderson

Allan was next up, and the bidding was going strong as he got into the fun of the auction, flexing his muscles and smiling brightly.
"Way to go, SEAL!" Lori and Rose shouted.
"Take off your shirt!" Emma shouted.
Catherine whooped and whistled. Paul had to smile at Emma and Catherine.
Lori's face reddened a bit, probably because her own grandma had shouted out the recommendation.
Allan began unbuttoning his shirt slowly and the crowd went wild.
Paul laughed. He hadn't thought that a honey-do bachelor auction would be anything like this. Then again, Emma was a wolf and they could change the dynamics of a situation in a heartbeat. The ranch hands made a big deal of jerking their shirts out of their waistbands and then starting to unbutton them.
A woman shouted, "Just the shirts, gentlemen."
And that had everyone laughing. — Terry Spear

A young woman in love always looks like Patience on a monument Smiling at Grief. — Jane Austen

You have a tattoo of a woman's necklace on you back, Silas." She's smiling now. "Very lumberjack-esque." She's enjoying this. "Yeah, well. You have trees on you back. Not much to brag about. You'll probably get termites. — Colleen Hoover

You may have learned from your mother or any other hunted woman. Smiling at devils is a useful learned thing. Swallowing discomfort down in spades. Holding it tight in your belly. Ageing on the inside only. Keeping it forever sexy. — Yrsa Daley-Ward

Lock glanced at the woman in his arms. She was no longer sobbing, but was now smiling and giving her best Queen Elizabeth wave to her nonexistent "people."
"I," she somberly intoned, not to Lock but her invisible "people," "as your ruler and sovereign, do thank you for this lovely throne."
She motioned to the chair. "You may now place me in my throne."
"You have got to be kidding me, Jessica."
"Place me! — Shelly Laurenston

I shall leave you to your Sisyphean task."
"What does that mean?" he heard Daisy ask.
Lillian replied while her smiling gaze remained locked with Marcus's. "It seems you avoided one too many Greek mythology lessons, dear. Sisyphus was a soul in Hades who was damned to perform an eternal task... rolling a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again just before he reached the top."
"Then if the countess is Sisyphus," Daisy concluded, "I suppose we're..."
"The boulder," Lady Westcliff said succinctly, causing both girls to laugh.
"Do continue with our instruction, my lady," Lillian said, giving her full attention to the elderly woman as Marcus left the room. "We'll try not to flatten you on the way down. — Lisa Kleypas

This is why a woman needs to combine niceness with insistence, a style that Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, calls "relentlessly pleasant."22 This method requires smiling frequently, expressing appreciation and concern, invoking common interests, emphasizing larger goals, and approaching the negotiation as solving a problem as opposed to taking a critical stance.23 Most negotiations involve drawn-out, successive moves, so women need to stay focused ... and smile. — Sheryl Sandberg

When you are able to confidently hold the gaze of women with the intent of waiting for them to nonverbally submit and look away first, you will notice that some women simply never do. Some even start smiling or blushing, and some look away for a split second only to resume the eye contact immediately. When a woman does this, it is because you just gave her a very powerful nonverbal compliment; you told her that she is attractive and interesting to you, an attractive (confident enough to keep eye contact) person yourself. This is perhaps the oldest form of compliment available to mankind. It is entirely universal, and it conveys the same message all over the world. — W. Anton

I believe you're as silly as I am," said Mrs. Millard smiling rather sadly. "You're a sentimental young woman, I'm afraid. You mustn't be sentimental; it's a sure road to a broken heart. It's ever so much better to be tough and callous - and a little bit selfish." I thought of Helen - it was dreadful of me to think of Helen but I could not help it - Helen was like that: tough and callous and a little bit selfish and she sailed through life very comfortably. "What shall I do with — D.E. Stevenson

Reaching down, he grabbed the man's ring. "They're promise rings," he whispered. Picking up the woman's, he lifted my right hand. Sliding it on my finger, he softly said, "You wear one." He slipped the man's on the ring finger of his right hand. "And I wear one." Smiling contently, he shook his head. "And we promise that no one comes between us. That we . . . belong to each other, and only each other. — S.C. Stephens

I. At Tea
THE kettle descants in a cosy drone,
And the young wife looks in her husband's face,
And then in her guest's, and shows in her own
Her sense that she fills an envied place;
And the visiting lady is all abloom,
And says there was never so sweet a room.
And the happy young housewife does not know
That the woman beside her was his first choice,
Till the fates ordained it could not be so ...
Betraying nothing in look or voice
The guest sits smiling and sips her tea,
And he throws her a stray glance yearningly. — Thomas Hardy

She was not a little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it all, but they were wet smiles. — J.M. Barrie

She sashayed into the kitchen like she lived there, and grabbed two glasses from the counter, rinsed them in the sink, all very domestic.
His eyes strayed to her breasts. "You came to do dishes?"
"I came to come." She winked, smiling from ear to ear.
"Gotta appreciate a straight-talking woman. — Dana Marton

I sit on the bed and kick off my shoes, and he kneels before me and takes the riding boots, holding one open for my bare foot. I hesitate; it is such an intimate gesture between a young woman and a man. His smiling upward glance tells me that he understands my hesitation but is ignoring it. I point my toe and he holds the boot, I slide my foot in and he pulls the boot over my calf. He takes the soft leather ties and fastens the boot, at my ankle, then at my calf, and then just below my knee. He looks up at me, his hand gently on my toe. I can feel the warmth of his hand through the soft leather. I imagine my toes curling in pleasure at his touch.

'Anne, will you marry me?' he asks simply, as he kneels before me. — Philippa Gregory

How do I look?" Amanda asked.
Jack shook his head ruefully as he glanced at her. No one could mistake the remaining flush on her cheeks, or the soft sparkle of her eyes, or her lusciously swollen mouth, for anything other than the results of physical passion. "Like you've been ravished," he said flatly.
She astonished him by smiling. "Hurry, please. I want to go inside my house and consult a looking glass. I've always wanted to know what a ravished woman looks like. — Lisa Kleypas

Jamie reflected that if he purposely went down to the crags of the Pacific and threw himself to the sharks, when he came before God and his father and mother, he could carry no smiling secret on his face. He would not have kept the faith. He would have broken the laws of God and man. He would have allowed frail woman to surpass him in courage, in endurance. He shut his eyes to close out even the imagined look on his mother's face. So right there Jamie crossed off the Pacific from his scheme of release. — Gene Stratton-Porter

For five years I didn't think it was possible to be this happy.
But then he forgot all those promises he made. He forgot why he loved me. He simply stopped loving me.

And this is how he did it:
He stopped talking to me unless I spoke to him.
He stopped holding my hand.
He stopped kissing me good night.
He stopped kissing me good morning.
He stopped kissing me.
He stopped smiling at me.
He stopped laughing.
He stopped bathing and showering with me.
He stopped wanting me.
He started swearing at me.
He started lying to me.
He started cheating on me.
He hurt me.
And then he told me he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce.
Oh, I forgot. He said he was sorry.

I wanted to blow his fucking brains out. — Terry McMillan

The world has loosened, like a woman preparing for bed who lets her hair flow free. And I am whispering the words, knowing that words matter, and smiling as I say them to the shadows of the gods of this place who linger in the air to watch me and hear me. — Colm Toibin

I couldn't get a date, but I couldn't be quite sure how unattractive I'd become. I was still friendly; I made jokes, and in my mind, if I saw a woman smiling at me ... I still had a chance. I did not. — Victor LaValle

Celaena peered in the mirror - and stopped dead.
The somewhat shorter hair was the least of the changes.
She was now flushed with color, her eyes bright and clear, and though she'd regained the weight she'd lost during that winter, her face was leaner. A woman - a woman was smiling back at her, beautiful for every scar and imperfection and mark of survival, beautiful for the fact that the smile was real, and she felt it kindle the long-slumbering joy in her heart. — Sarah J. Maas

He clicked through a dozen of them until he found a picture of a dark, curly haired woman, ample, smiling, appearing much younger than sixty, so familiar-looking that he was immediately attracted to her simply because he found familiarity, rare these days, so comforting. He opened her ad and realized he was staring at a picture of his wife, — Jami Attenberg

I once dreamt I was telling stories and felt someone patting my foot in encouragement. I looked down and saw that I was standing on the shoulders of an older woman who was steadying my ankles and smiling up at me.
I said to her, "no no come stand on my shoulders, For you are old and I am Young."
"No no" she insisted, "this is the way it is supposed to be." I saw that she stood on the shoulders of a woman far older than she, who stood on the shoulders of a woman even older, who stood on the shoulders of a woman in robes, who stood on the shoulders of another soul, who stood on the shoulders... — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

But a man's beauty represents inner, functional truths: his face shows what he can do. And what is that compared to the magnificent uselessness of a woman's face? Mersault was aware of this now, delighting in his vanity and smiling at his secret demons. — Albert Camus

1. Someday there will be a woman-one who takes your breath away. You won't be afraid of commitment, you'll be afraid of living without her. That's when you'll know. She'll be your reason to exist. You'll want to move heaven and earth to make her happy and see her smiling face. God help you then. He's the only one who can. — Liv Morris

Try being an indie author, a minority author, a woman, and a person with health issues in the world of traditional - that's where you are clearly 'different' and marginalized. I am all of that, yet I am still here and smiling. Life is good! — Kailin Gow

Instead, she sat there, smiling that small, small inscrutable smile, like Mona Lisa herself, although I must say that until that moment, I'd never found Mona Lisa's smile particularly interesting or even particularly a smile. Looking at Lake, I understood what probably everyone else already knows about the woman in that painting: we are drawn to her not because of what the smile gives us but because it gives us nothing. We are waiting to get past the smile. We are waiting
we've spent centuries waiting
for the woman to speak. — Marisa De Los Santos

Elijah: You are a dangerous woman.
Valeria: You do not know the half of it, but I suppose you are not one to always dabble in safe waters either. So, do you still want to work with me?
Elijah: It will be my pleasure.
Valeria: Is there anything I need to know about you?
Elijah: No!
Valeria: That is a lie.
Elijah: Is there anything I need to know about you?
Valeria: No!
Elijah: That is also a lie.
Valeria, smiling: Then we are a pair of liars. — Cristina M. Sburlea

Saddened that I, a smart, semi-funny, nutty, loyal, good woman, could feel so negative about myself under all the smiling and humor, I felt the sting of tears in my eyes. The way I felt about my appearance was bad. Really freakin' bad. — Samantha Young

Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three. What a trash To annihilate each decade. — Sylvia Plath

I think it would be funny to have one of those family decals showing a really skinny teenage girl barfing into a little chalk-outline bag (the bulimic in the family) or the dad figure dressed in the woman's underwear that he truly enjoys slipping into when no one's looking. Or the wife figure smiling with her exaggerated curly hair and tennis skirt, clutching a racket in one hand and a bottle of Stoli' in the other. — Celia Rivenbark

He was a talkative man and jabbered away the whole time as his horse meandered about the road. It saved us from having to construct a story for him, though by the time he left us in Banbury, I was most weary of smiling stupidly out from under my hat brim and trying not to squint. As his wagon pulled away, I turned to Holmes. Next time we do this, I will play the deaf old woman and you can laugh at rude jests for an hour. — Laurie R. King

It is utterly unfair," she said, shooing Wrigley away and
tossing aside her blanket, "that your country boy smile isn't
illegal." She pulled her feet from beneath him, but then she swung a leg over him and straddled his lap, still smiling at him while she took his cheeks in her hands and pressed a soft, open-lipped kiss to his mouth.
Will's pulse kicked up the tempo. He gripped her hips and
pushed against her, parted his lips to make way for her tongue.
Music exploded inside him. Electric guitars, keyboard, fiddle,
bongos. No words, just the white-hot melody of their bodies.
The intoxicating scent of her shampoo tickled his nose, but the intrigued woman scent was stronger - heady and spicy and everything.
He wanted her. — Jamie Farrell

There is a code of behavior, she knew, whose seventh article (it may be) says that on occasions of this sort it behooves the woman, whatever her own occupation may be, to go to the help of the young man opposite so that he may expose and relieve the thigh bones, the ribs, of his vanity, of his urgent desire to assert himself; as indeed it is their duty, she reflected, in her old maidenly fairness, to help us, suppose the Tube were to burst into flames. Then, she thought, I should certainly expect Mr. Tansley to get me out. But how would it be, she thought, if neither of us did either of these things? So she sat there smiling. — Virginia Woolf

My least favorite form of street harassment is when a guy asks why I'm not smiling. It's related to that: Women aren't allowed to be quiet or stoic or shy - or, hell, just in a bad mood - without being criticized. Women are bitchy and frigid if we don't seem accessible at all times, for the most part to men. We're supposed to be perpetually friendly. Who wants to live up to that? And seriously, when was the last time you heard a quiet woman described as "deep"?
Men who are serious are just that - serious. Think laconic cowboys and Clint Eastwood-style movie heroes. Strong and silent is a desirable personality trait for men - women, not so much. Because where silence in men is seen as strength, silence in women (if not seen as bitchy) is seen as weakness - she's shy, a wallflower. — Jessica Valenti

It may well have been, too, that the smiling moderation with which she faced and answered these blasphemies, that this tender and hypocritical rebuke appeared to her frank and generous nature as a particularly shameful and seductive form of that criminal attitude towards life which she was endeavouring to adopt. But she could not resist the attraction of being treated with affection by a woman who had just shewn herself so implacable towards the defenceless dead; she sprang on to the knees of her friend and held out a chaste brow to be kissed; ... — Marcel Proust

Then he smiled again. In spite of herself, Francesca couldn't help noticing he looked much more
attractive when he smiled like this. "You," he said, "are quite a woman."
"It's the Italian side of me," she replied, as if he had just paid her a great compliment.
"Indeed. I have rarely - " He paused with a sharp glance at her. " - never seen such blatantly
managing behavior."
Francesca tipped up her chin, smiling warmly at him. She knew the fight was lost but didn't want to
leave with her tail between her legs. "Then shall I see you tomorrow, to begin our search?"
"I think not." Still smiling, he bowed his head. "Good day, Lady Gordon. — Caroline Linden

A woman stood, smiling with adoration at the baby in her arms. Suddenly, she turned, showing her angelic face. Her eyes were large, beautiful, brown eyes, but terror displayed across her face.
Elizabeth felt a deep, sharp ache penetrate her heart, as she reached deep for air and it came in a low gasp. Her hands flew to her chest. She soon realized the window in front of her was the same one in the vision. — Beth Bares

[Women's magazines]ignore older women or pretend that they don't exist; magazines try to avoid photographs of older women, and when they feature celebrities who are over sixty, 'retouching artists' conspire to 'help' beautiful women look more beautiful, ie less than their age...By now readers have no idea what a real woman's 60 year old face looks like in print because it's made to look 45. Worse, 60 year old readers look in the mirror and think they are too old, because they're comparing themselves to some retouched face smiling back at them from a magazine. — Dalma Heyn

In the early morning as dawn was just beginning to streak through the cabin windows, Jack was stirred awake by the soft sound of slightly off-key humming. He found Mel nestled into the crook of his arm, her breath tickling his chest. She was purring, humming, her lips moving slightly, as though singing. It might've troubled him if her expression had been sad or disturbed. But she was smiling. She snuggled closer, throwing a leg over his. And this sleepy little music, contented, drifted out of her. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd spent the entire night in bed with a woman. And already, he couldn't imagine waking up alone. He pulled her closer knowing he'd never been happier in his life. — Robyn Carr

Love
My soul was a light-blue gown, sky-coloured;
I left it on a cliff by the sea
and naked I came to you, resembling a woman.
And like a woman I sat at your table
and drank a toast with wine and breathed in the scent of several roses.
You found me beautiful, resembling something you'd seen dreaming,
I forgot everything, I forgot my childhood and my homeland,
I knew only that your caresses held me captive.
And, smiling, you took up a mirror and bade me look.
I saw that my shoulders were made of dust and crumbled away,
I saw that my beauty was sick and had no desire other than to - disappear.
Oh, hold me close in your arms, so tightly that I need nothing. — Edith Sodergran

Have you ever entered a kitchen to find a woman, her legs crossed while the rest of her body is dressed in colourful khanga, smiling at you while her hands are making a melodious song with a coconut grater? Have you ever wondered how any woman size can fit on that grater regardless of their body size? The time for wondering is over. East Africa heartily welcomes you to see for yourself. Go and visit it. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

Edgar Allan Poe once called the death of a beautiful woman "the most poetical topic in the world" and I've often found myself wondering how many woman writers who have killed themselves or let themselves be otherwise obliterated were trying, somehow, to fulfill this most popular of narratives. We're most valuable when we're smiling, dead, posing, our words hanging on the page with no real body behind them. I'm — Jessica Valenti

My horizon lightened, I see an old woman. Who is she? Where is she from? Bent over, the ends of her boubou tied behind her, she empties into a plastic bag the left-overs of red rice. Her smiling face tells of the pleasant day she has just had. She wants to take back proof of this to her family, living perhaps in Ouakam, Thiaroye or Pikine.
Standing upright, her eyes meeting my disapproving look, she mutters between teeth reddened by cola nuts: 'Lady, death is just as beautiful as life has been. — Mariama Ba

He had too much fun teasing "the boy" over the real meaning of the words in The Song of Solomon or Pope's The Rape of the Lock.
"Read that verse to me again," Ty said, smiling. "You ran over it so fast I missed most of the words."
Janna tilted her head down to the worn pages of the Bible and muttered, " ' Vanity of vanities . . . all is vanity.'"
"That's Ecclesiastes," Ty drawled. "You were reading The Song of Solomon and a woman was talking about her sweetheart. 'My beloved is gone down into his garden, to tubes of spices, to feed in the gardens . . .' Now what do you suppose that really means, boy?"
"He was hungry," Janna said succinctly.
"Ah, but for what?" Ty asked, stretching. "When you know the answer, you'll be a man no matter what your size or age. — Elizabeth Lowell

I shall die soon ... Here at this Dros. And what will I have achieved in my life? I have no sons nor daughters. No living kin ... Few friends. They will say, 'Here lies Druss. He killed many and birthed none'."
"They will say more than that," said Virae suddenly. "They'll say, 'Here lies Druss the Legend, who was never mean, petty nor needlessly cruel. Here was a man who never gave in, never compromised his ideals, never betrayed a friend, never despoiled a woman and never used his strength against the weak.' They'll say 'He had no sons, but many a woman asleep with her babes slept more soundly for knowing Druss stood with the Drenai.' They'll say many things, whitebeard. Through many generations they will say them, and men with no strength will find strength when they hear them."
"That would be pleasant," said the old man, smiling. — David Gemmell

Because this is how it was with them: the boy's father had dark skin, darker even than my own, and the boy's mother was a white woman. They were holding hands and smiling at their boy, whose skin was light brown. It was the color of the man and the woman joined in happiness. It — Chris Cleave

Wuxi Engineering Complex wasn't detailed by a team, it was detailed by one woman, using, of course, feedback from the departments that would be using the building." I gape. "Exactly," she says, smiling. "A team would not have constructed the building as a unit, but as a series of connected, but compromised and adjusted, ideas." "It can't be done. It had to have taken years." "It did take over two years, but it can be done. — Maureen F. McHugh

How badly I wanted to belong as I had when I was a young Mormon girl, to be simply a working part in the great Mormon plan of salvation, a smiling exemplar of our sparkling difference. But instead I found myself a headstrong Mormon woman staking out her spiritual survival at a difficult point in Mormon history. — Joanna Brooks

What's got you smilin' like a bitch who just had good cock?" I was interrupted by a sexy drawl.
I looked up to see Nash leaning against the door frame, arms crossed in front of him, sexy smirk plastered on his face. He was tall, all muscle and ink; he exuded a couldn't-give-a-fuck attitude. Nash was one of the cockiest men I had ever met and the women flocked to him.
I rolled my eyes. "Can a woman not smile unless she's had cock?" I asked.
He uncrossed his arms and pushed away from the door frame; coming towards me, "No, sweet thing, it all comes down to cock."
"Well, I hate to tell you, Nash, but this woman hasn't had any today, and yet I am still smiling. I think your theory is a little off." I loved bantering back and forth with him.
He raised his eyebrows. "J's fallin' down on the job there sweetheart. You sure you don't want to jump ships? I've got all you'll ever need," he grinned at me, opening his arms wide in an inviting gesture. — Nina Levine

When Pat Buchanan came out against the Beijing Women's Conference and there were women standing next to him, smiling and laughing when he was making fun of it, I was so embarrassed. I don't mind when the more liberal or moderate Republican women talk about smaller government or money issues and things of that nature. But when I see a conservative Republican woman in line with the Christian right or coming out against abortion and day-care issues and for taking away womens' aid, I see a self-hating, unenlightened woman, like a self-hating Jew. That blows my mind. I don't get it at all. — Janeane Garofalo

She's an old, close-to-the-ground, jelly-belly woman with bald patches showing through her wispy grey hair. It doesn't seem like she's got a lot going for her, but she's still smiling. Been around the sunflowers too long, I'd say. — Bill Condon

And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. — Sylvia Plath

How well she does everything! She reads not as if reading were the highest human activity, but as if it were the simplest possible thing, a thing even animals could do. As if she were carrying water from a well, or peeling potatoes.
These reflections calmed him. A rare peace descended upon his soul. His mind stopped darting from subject to subject. He could not help smiling ... — Boris Pasternak

He thought, that all men, trickled away, changing constantly, until they finally dissolved, while the artist-created images remained unchangeably the same. He thought that the fear of death was perhaps the root of all art, perhaps also of all things of the mind. We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do. Perhaps the woman after whom the master shaped his beautiful Madonna is already wilted or dead, and soon he, too, will be dead; others will live in his house and eat at his table- but his work will still be standing hundreds of years from now, and longer. It will go on shimmering in the quiet cloister church, unchangingly beautiful, forever smiling with the same sad, flowering mouth. — Hermann Hesse

An Italian woman came out of the house, wiping her hands on her apron.
'Mr Greenleaf?' Tom asked hopefully.
The woman gave him a long, smiling answer in Italian and pointed downward toward the sea. 'Jew,' she seemed to keep saying. 'Jew. — Patricia Highsmith

A weak male's natural reaction when he senses that a woman is insecure is to become insecure as well (and to act on that weak emotion); he will start to hesitate, ask her if she is alright, stop smiling, and so on, and that reveals just how little confidence he has, making the situation even worse. When this happens, you have to go all in, not fold. It is your only chance to recover, and recover you must. — W. Anton

You have that look on your face," Alessandro said, smiling as he tucked a damp lock of her blonde hair behind her ear. "What look?" Bree asked, resting a hand on his flushed chest, propping herself up on one elbow. She could feel the racing
heart beneath. "The look of a woman who's been rather well fucked, darling," he grinned smugly. She punched his chest lightly. "Ego much?" "I see nothing wrong with taking pride in a job well done," he pointed out. "Oh of course," Bree said, laughing and dropped her head on his chest. — E. Jamie

He reaches forward slowly, to lift the pen from my lax grip. Wearily I regard the faltering trail of ink it has tracked down my page. I have seen that shape before, I think, but it was not ink then. A trickle of drying blood on the deck of a Red-Ship, and mine the hand that spilled it? Or was it a tendril of smoke rising black against a blue sky as I rode too late to warn a village of a Red-Ship raid? Or poison swirling and unfurling yellowly in a simple glass of water, poison I had handed someone, smiling all the while? The artless curl of a strand of woman's hair left upon my pillow? Or the trail of a man's heels left in the sand as we dragged the bodies from the smoldering tower at Sealbay? The track of a tear down a mother's cheek as she clutched her Forged infant to her despite his angry cries? Like Red-Ships, the memories come without warning, without mercy. — Robin Hobb

And then it arose and struck Vimes that, in her own special category, she was quite beautiful; this was the category of all the women, in his entire life, who had ever thought he was worth smiling at. She couldn't do worse, but then, he couldn't do better. So maybe it balanced out. She wasn't getting any younger but then, who was? And she had style and money and common-sense and self-assurance and all the things that he didn't, and she had opened her heart, and if you let her she could engulf you; the woman was a city. — Terry Pratchett

He tilted her face upward as if he meant to kiss her. Shocked, Maria resisted, glancing toward the people at the table, some of them are smiling, some disapproving, some thoroughly appalled.
She looked back at him, doubtful.
"Does a gentleman kiss a woman in front of other people?"
He tilted her head back.
"This one does," he said and captured her lips with his. — Laura Lee Guhrke

The picnic table in the photo was an old door set up on sawhorses, and the seats were old tree stumps, or maybe thick pieces of firewood, topped with square cushions. Six men were sitting there, not looking at the camera, but at the beautiful woman with long, dark hair, almost to her waist, standing at the head of the table. She was smiling, her arms outstretched, as if welcoming everyone to her world. The apple tree in the background, just barely visible, was stretching a single limb out to her, as if wanting to be in the photo with her.
Even it looked a little in love with her. — Sarah Addison Allen

The stranger was still smiling. He transformed himself into a rose bush and entwined me. My Christian education meant that ever since childhood I have had a horror of vice and it was not without a quite understandable terror that I discerned the pleasure I felt in the embrace of this vigorous bush whose branches gradually mingled with my limbs, my hair and my looks. When one of its flowers came apart in my mouth, I could feel myself grasping the sorcerer in my arms in my turn. He was transformed into a torrent, and I was a barge, into desert and I was smoke, into a car and I was a road, into a man and I was a woman. 'What we are doing is very wrong,' he said and was off. — Robert Desnos

I clicked on the link, which showed a picture of a reed-thin blond woman with an artfully tousled chignon smiling as she stood — Jojo Moyes

For, however all other feelings may be withered in a woman's nature, there is always one bright smiling spot in the maternal breast, and that is where a dearly-beloved child is concerned. — Alexandre Dumas

Five members of the heretical sect of Quakers have been arrested," he says, smiling blandly, "and more arrests are anticipated." Two of the Quakers appear onscreen, a man and a woman. They look terrified, but they're trying to preserve some dignity in front of the camera. The man has a large dark mark on his forehead; the woman's veil has been torn off, and her hair falls in strands over her face. Both of them are about fifty. — Margaret Atwood

Ah, the beautiful Celine," Desmund said, earning a smile from her. "Did I ever tell you that you remind me of a courtesan I knew once in King George's court? She was stunning to look upon and much sought after."
Celine toyed with her hair. "You flatter me, Desmund. Was she someone of noble birth?"
"No, but I believe she serviced a duke or two."
I choked on my water. Tristan reached over to pat my back, while smiling graciously at the outraged woman. — Karen Lynch