A Midsummer Night S Dream Quotes

Ay me! For aught that I could every read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth,
But either it was different in blood- ~ William Shakespeare

Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go. ~ William Shakespeare

But we are spirits of another sort:
I with the morning's love have oft made sport,
And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams. ~ William Shakespeare

Take us to the in-between,
Where earth meets sky, and wake meets dream.
And time rushes by, unseen.

Take us to the infinite night,
Where up is down, and left is right,
And dark vanquishes light. ~ S.L. Stacy

She glanced upwards for a second at the soft blue vault of the midsummer night sky. Not a cloud misted its solemn depths. Tomorrow would be a beautiful day. ~ Stella Gibbons

He groaned and leaned his forehead against hers, "You drive me mad, Elizabeth. I dream I am holding you every night. I wake in a sweat, aching and disappointed. Dreams of you have replaced my nightmares, but they leave me empty and restless and my body on fire. I can't even remember why we argued. I don't care how things went wrong. ~ Judith James

L'union libre [Freedom of Love]"

My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth
With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass
My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host
With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes
With the tongue of an unbelievable stone
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with wrists of matches
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
With fingers of mown hay
My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut
And of Midsummer Night
Of privet and of an angelfish nest
With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks
And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials
With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking
My wife with a neck of unpearled barley
My wife with a throat of the valley ~ Andre Breton

In my late thirties the dream of disappointment and exhaustion had been the dream of the exploding head: the dream of a noise in my head so loud and long that I felt with the brain that survived that the brain could not survive; that this was death. Now, in my early fifties, after my illness, after I had left the manor cottage and put an end to that section of my life, I began to be awakened by thoughts of death, the end of things; and sometimes not even by thoughts so specific, not even by fear rational or fantastic, but by a great melancholy. This melancholy penetrated my mind while I slept; and then, when I awakened in response to its prompting, I was so poisoned by it, made so much not a doer (as men must be, every day of their lives), that it took the best part of the day to shake it off. And that wasted or dark day added to the gloom preparing for the night. ~ V.S. Naipaul

Need a hand?"

I peeked at the figure on the horse's back through cracks in my fingers. My eyes slowly adjusted to the light emanating from the horse, and the figure came into focus. It was Barack Obama, clad in a white toga.

He pulled me to my feet.

"Thanks," I said. "You wouldn't believe the dream I've had."

"Try me."

"You came to me one night, and said my friend had been hit by a train…and…is that a unicorn? I asked, squinting at the curled horn sprouting up between the horse's ears.

"I call her Little Beast."

I ran my fingers through the unicorn's silken hair, which left rainbow glitter on my hand. The headache that had plagued me off and on all weekend was gone. There was no pain in my knee, or anywhere else in my body. "Is this heaven?"

"No," Barack said. "It's Iowa."

And then suddenly we weren't in the cemetery anymore. We were on a baseball diamond at the edge of a cornfield. ~ Andrew Shaffer

Midsummer Night was roasting hot. The shore, of red granite, glowed with the heat; the dark blood of the earth seemed to be rising from below. There was a sharp, unbearable smell of birds, of cod, of green decaying seaweed. Through the mist the huge ruddy sun loomed nearer and nearer. And in the sea, dark blood welled up to meet it - in bloated, rearing, huge white waves.
Night. The mouth of the bay between two cliffs was like a window. A window shutting out curious eyes with a white shade-white woolly fog. And all that you could see was that behind it something red was happening. ("The North") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

The image of a wood has appeared often enough in English verse. It has indeed appeared so often that it has gathered a good deal of verse into itself; so that it has become a great forest where, with long leagues of changing green between them, strange episodes of poetry have taken place. Thus in one part there are lovers of a midsummer night, or by day a duke and his followers, and in another men behind branches so that the wood seems moving, and in another a girl separated from her two lordly young brothers, and in another a poet listening to a nightingale but rather dreaming richly of the grand art than there exploring it, and there are other inhabitants, belonging even more closely to the wood, dryads, fairies, an enchanter's rout. The forest itself has different names in different tongues- Westermain, Arden, Birnam, Broceliande; and in places there are separate trees named, such as that on the outskirts against which a young Northern poet saw a spectral wanderer leaning, or, in the unexplored centre of which only rumours reach even poetry, Igdrasil of one myth, or the Trees of Knowledge and Life of another. So that indeed the whole earth seems to become this one enormous forest, and our longest and most stable civilizations are only clearings in the midst of it. ~ Charles Williams

I had a good time that night, too," Michael said, "but I kept thinking, This is forever. This is forever. You will have this good time again and again, a million times over, until it will be like a play in which you and Laura and a few fugitive lives sit around an imaginary fire and talk and sing songs and love each other and sometimes throw imaginary brands at the eyes blinking beyond the circle of imaginary firelight. And then I thought - and this is where I sounded just like a real philosopher - And even when you admit that you know every line in the play and every song that will be sung, even when you know that this evening spent with friends is pleasant and joyful because you remember it as pleasant and joyful and wouldn't change it for the world, even when you know that anything you feel for these good friends has no more reality than a dream faithfully remembered every night for a thousand years - even then it goes on. Even then it has just begun. ~ Peter S. Beagle

At noontime in midsummer, when the sun is at its highest and everything is in a state of embroiled repose, flashes may be seen in the southern sky. Into the radiance of daylight come bursts of light even more radiant. Exactly half a year later, when the fjord is frozen over and the land buried in snow, the very same spirit taunts creation. At night cracks in the ice race from one end of the fjord to the other, resounding like gunshots or like the roaring of a mad demon.
The peasants dig tunnels from their door through the drifts over to the cow shed. Where are the trolls and the elves now, and where are the sounds of nature? Even the Beast may well be dead and forgotten. Life itself hangs in suspension - existence has shrunk to nothingness. Now it is only a question of survival. The fox thrashes around in a blizzard in the oak thicket and fights his way out, mortally terrified.
It is a time of stillness. Hoarfrost lies in a timeless shroud over the fjord. All day long a strange, sighing sound is heard from out on the ice. It is a fisherman, standing alone at his hole and spearing eel.
One night it snows again. The air is sheer snow and the wind a frigid blast. No living creature is stirring. Then a rider comes to the crossing at Hvalpsund. There is no difficulty in getting over­ - he does not even slacken his speed, but rides at a brisk trot from the shore out onto the ice.
The hoofbeats thunder beneath him and the ice roars for miles around. He reaches th ~ Johannes V. Jensen

Because..." he used to cradle his daughter in his arms every morning and often they would exchange soft nuances "...if you can dream it, if you can see it in your visions at night, if you can feel it in your soul, it's yours! And it never really belonged to anyone else, in the first place! It was always yours!" Viera returned her scroll to the drawer and closed it, she kissed the compass around her neck and climbed into her bed under the warm quilts, the candle flame crackled and the memories of her father's arms around her embraced her there in bed and his deep, hoarse voice resounded in her ears; "... and if you chance upon a treasure that is yours and it happens to be in the possession of someone else, it's not very wrong to take what is yours, to take what you dreamed, what you saw in your visions at night, what you felt visit you in your spirit! Sure, it's not lawful, but aye aye my little one, listen to me when I tell you that the best things in life are not under the laws of any sort! For which law created love? Which law created courage? The best things, the real things, are the things that are not measured by any man's laws! Fear is the only thing that any law has ever created! And what kind of pirates would we all be if we were afraid of any of our fears, even a little! ~ C. JoyBell C.

I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning:
The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle,
Or paring of paradisaical fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless,
Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain;
A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quite utterly.
This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily,
Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber. ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

I wish i could tell how i really feel, But now its too late and i cant heal. Can't you even pretend to love me? Why is it that you only i see? I tried everything just to lie & now i'm alone left to die. You don't know how how happy i was, When you told me, my life's real cause. Then i started to like you more, It didn't take long for my heart to soar. All i wanted was to be with you, But soon i realized that is my dream nothing comes true. I am living with fear, my night scrming with tears, I wish i could tell how i really feel, But now its too late and i cant heal... ~ Aashis.S.Roy

Last night I encountered a dream cat with a very long neck and a body like a human fetus, gray and transluscent. I don't know what it needs or how to provide for it. Another dream years ago of a human child with eyes on stalks. It is very small, but can walk and talk "Don't you want me?" Again, I don't know how to care for the child. But I am dedicated to protecting and nurturing him at any cost! It is the function of the Guardian to protect hybrids and mutants in the vulnerable stage of infancy. ~ William S. Burroughs

With our collective shock, what we saw seemed to be frozen into a state of suspended animation. Indelibly etched into our memories in terror, forever! My life was in slow motion, it was as if I was no longer in my body and this was a rather bad dream! It is almost impossible to describe with words what I saw, but I will try. This very experience is the one that has continued to shake me awake during the dense night of my lifetime. ~ Alfred Nestor

I don't reply. Surely Tucker wouldn't bring someone back to a room knowing that I'll be in the bed too, first shot. He wouldn't do anything with her after last night, this morning and this afternoon, second shot. Although he is all over her and has been since we got here, third shot. Maybe I didn't drop my knickers quick enough, fourth shot. He's probably laughing at me for everything I told him about the dream and stuff I wince and slam the now empty jager bomb glass down. ~ R.S. Burnett

Stars flicker above, points of bright ice in a dark river. I pull a heavy sheepskin around my legs and stretch my feet toward the fire. Despite the cold, Liam plays his flute, the sound whistling through the night. Soon my eyes are heavy, my head nodding.I open my eyes at the deep melodious baritone of Salvius's voice telling a tale. Liam's flute is silent now. I have heard Salvius tell many tales on market days; he is known for his memory of wandering minstrels and mummers who visit us at Whitsunday and through Midsummer. Salvius is a mockingbird: he can give a fair charade of the rhythmic tones of any wandering bard or any noble of the Royal Court.In this darkness, his eyes catch the light like a cat in the night. ~ Ned Hayes

The day succeeding this remarkable Midsummer night, proved no common day. I do not mean that it brought signs in heaven above, or portents on the earth beneath; nor do I allude to meteorological phenomena, to storm, flood, or whirlwind. On the contrary: the sun rose jocund, with a July face. Morning decked her beauty with rubies, and so filled her lap with roses, that they fell from her in showers, making her path blush: the Hours woke fresh as nymphs, and emptying on the early hills their dew-vials, they stepped out dismantled of vapour: shadowless, azure, and glorious, they led the sun's steeds on a burning and unclouded course. ~ Charlotte Bronte

It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

We came out here to find the American Dream, and now that we're right in the vortex you want to quit ... You must realize that we've found the main nerve."
I know," he said. "That's what gives me the Fear. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

They were furious. Did he not know he might catch cold? Why did he not answer their hail? It was no good his telling them he had not heard; they knew better; he had not got flannel ears--Why had he not waited for them? --What was a boat for? Was this a proper time to go a-swimmin? -- Did he think this was midsummer? Or Lammas? -- He was to see how cold he was, blue an trembling like a fucking jelly -- Would a new-joined ships boy have done such a wicked thing? No, sir, he would not. -- What would the skipper, what would Mr Pullings and Mr Babbington say, when they heard of his capers? -- As God loved them, they had never seen anything so foolish: he might strike them blind, else. -- Where had he left his intellectuals? Aboard the sloop? They dried him with handkerchiefs., dressed him by force, and rowed him quickly back to the Polychrest. He was to go below directly, turn in between blankets--no sheets, mind--with a pint of grog and have a good sweat. he was to go up the side now, like a Christian and nobody would notice. Plaice and Lakey were perhaps the strongest men in the ship, with arms like gorillas; they thrust him aboard and hurried him to his cabin without so much as by your leave, and left him there in the charge of his servant, with recommenations for his present care. ~ Patrick O'Brian

Do you need help with anything?" he asked with a wicked arched brow. "Maybe with cookies for Santa."
Scowling because no one was here but us, I said, "You're a bit late for that. Santa already came."
He hadn't moved, but I knew better than to think he would. Flynn was a pro at filling the bubble air space that was meant to be private and personal. "And were you a good girl?" he asked.
Awkwardly folding my arms over my chest, I said, "Not sure, I haven't checked. But you needn't look. We all know you are all bad."
Laughing, he said, "Yeah, well, there are other things worth unwrapping."
Grinding my teeth, I asked, "What, you didn't get your Ho, Ho, Ho, last night?"
Tossing back another full belly laugh, he said, "You know you're kind of funny when you want to be. ~ Shannon Dermott

There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks. ~ William S. Burroughs

I've spoken in front of members of the U.S. Congress about a new dream of living in communities where everybody is welcome and everyone can live and go to school and work without facing the fear of bullies. ~ Lauren Potter

Without a torch, I stumbled along the paths. The night was dismal. A partial moon hovered bitter and white on the horizon. It was the perfect night for murder. ~ Kimberley Griffiths Little

benedict tips out the door. the night dour and skanky with a rhumba of traffic. warily adjusting a long s/lick multicolored patch-leather jacket to cover ears. collecting himself before tilting forward/falling into rain's cool viola sting. ~ David N. Odhiambo

I took a trip in 2004, a year after the war started in Iraq. I played music on the streets of Baghdad for Iraqi civilians. I'd also play for U.S. soldiers at night when they were off duty in the bars. Then I would talk to people, and I would film them and ask them about their life and the conflict. ~ Michael Franti

The night can hide a great many things.
Even your love. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

I owe nothing to anyone, I swear it! Who hired you? I can pay, just tell me who hired - "
"God hired me!" Rachel's rebuke was like the crack of a toxic whip. Like poisoned thunder. "Humanity owes my kind a debt of flesh for every drop of blood we shed for you. For every one of us that died to save you. ~ S.G. Night

If I had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes. ~ William S. Burroughs

It was not her dream that chilled him, but that she did not weep as she told it. As a hero, he understood weeping women and knew how to make them stop crying
generally you killed something
but her calm terror confused and unmanned him, while the shape of her face crumbled the distant dignity he had been so pleased at maintaining. When he spoke again, his voice was young and stumbling. ~ Peter S. Beagle

Be my angel. Just for the night. ~ S.L. Scott

Mary had a little lamb, its fleece electrostatic / And everywhere Mary went, the lights became erratic. ~ David Foster Wallace

Oh, I thought that I was giving him so much!
And he to me - and the giving and the taking
Seemed so right: not in terms of calculation
Of what was good for the persons we had been
But for the new person, us. If I could feel
As I did then, even now it would seem right.
And then I found we were only strangers
And that there had been neither giving nor taking
But that we had merely made use of each other
Each for his purpose. That's horrible. Can we only love
Something created by our own imagination?
Are we all in fact unloving and unlovable?
The one is alone, and if one is alone
Then lover and beloved are equally unreal
And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams. ~ T. S. Eliot

Let me tell you about this leg, Miss Oldridge," he said. "This used to be a modest, well-behaved leg, quietly going about its business, troubling nobody. But ever since it was hurt, it has become tyrannical."

Her expression eased another degree, and amusement glinted in her eyes, like faint, distant stars in a midsummer night's sky.

Encouraged, he went on, "This limb is selfish, surly, and ungrateful. When English medical expertise declared the case hopeless, we took the leg to a Turkish healer. He plied it with exotic unguents and cleaned and dressed it several times a day. By this means he staved off the fatal and malodorous infection it should have suffered otherwise. Was the leg grateful? Did it go back to work like a proper leg? No, it did not."

Lips twitching, she made a sympathetic murmur.

"This limb, madam," he said, "demanded months of boring exercises before it would condescend to perform the simplest movements. Even now, after nearly three years of devoted care and maintenance, it will fly into a fit over damp weather. And this, may I remind you, is an English leg, not one of your delicate foreign varieties. ~ Loretta Chase

Do people in the twenty-first century still dance?"
My heart beat thundered in my ears, far louder than the slow music. "Um," I said, barely able to swallow, my throat had gone so dry. "Sometimes."
"How about now?" he asked.
And then his strong arms were encircling my waist, his breath soft against my cheek as he gently whispered my name: "Susannah. Susannah ... ~ Meg Cabot

[A]ll these years, I had been telling myself that my feelings for you were a juvenile infatuation; a dream inspired by my secret hope that somewhere there could be a creature who could love me. ~ Kellyn Roth

I've bespelled this locket, for you; my own, my mate. The day has come when death forced us to part. You must know that I for you, forever, I shall wait. So until we meet again I hold your love safely within my heart.
Remember, your oath was to temper strength with mercy. No matter how long apart we shall be, I hold you to that oath
eternally ... eternally ... ~ P.C. Cast

We are joint heirs,' I said in a sharp undertone. 'The land will always be partly mine.'
Richard smiled, a smile like midsummer skies. 'I shan't regard it.' He said sweetly. 'And you don't know the law, my clever little cousin. If they commit you to an asylum, you are disinherited at once. Did you not know that, my dear? If you go on with your seeings and your dreamings, you will lose everything. ~ Philippa Gregory

These are what flowers look like when they stare up in awe at the night sky. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

As for all I can tell, the only difference is that what many see we call a real thing, and what only one sees we call a dream. ~ C.S. Lewis

We live in a time like dreaming ... The edges of our lives flutter and change as we watch them. Listen to the dream. ~ Sheri S. Tepper

The creatures of human myth flourish in Ourea. Trees are this world's skyscrapers. Magic its currency. And while the rest of Earth forgot what it means to dream big, Ourea kept alive its wonder. ~ S.M. Boyce

it's been a long time since i've thought about that night, that wonderful raucous night. I can still see the president s surprise and amusement while opening gifts. I can still hear the music, the guests singing along and the president having such a wonderful time surrounded by his closest family and friends. What a privilege it was to have been there, to witness the joy and laughter. But Always, when I remember that special birthday celebration on the Sequoia, I can't help but think it should not have been his last. At forty six it shouldn't have been his last ~ Clint Hill

Dream a bigger dream to reach uncharted success ~ S.C. Ellington

Some nights are not meant for sleeping; they are meant for talking to the stars! ~ Avijeet Das

You spent the night in the Prince of Vere's rooms.' 'I spent ten minutes in his rooms. If you think I fucked him in that time you underrate me.' Nikandros didn't move his horse out of the way. ~ C.S. Pacat