Closed Eyes Quotes

Maman never told me what to do when the world falls apart like a dress ripped at its seams, the beads scattering into faraway corners, the fabric a storm of shredded pieces left destroyed and unrecognizable. She never told me how to battle the nightmares that creep in like icy shadows, lingering behind closed eyes. She never told me what to do when all the color leaks out of the world like blood oozing from a mortal wound. ~ Dhonielle Clayton

Jesus Christ does not teach us a spirituality 'of closed eyes,' but one of 'alertness,' one which entails an absolute duty to take notice of the needs of others and of situations involving those whom the Gospel tells us are our neighbors ... The gaze of Jesus, what 'his eyes' teach us, leads to human closeness, solidarity, giving time, sharing our gifts and even our material goods. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

There is no higher or purer pleasure than to sit with closed eyes and hear a naturally expressive voice recite ... a play of Shakespeare's. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The kingdom of God is just behind the darkness of closed eyes, and the first gate that opens to it is your peace. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Pip winds his arms up around Lindsay's neck and kisses him back, and this time
he's the one to close his eyes and escape into darkness so there's nothing in the world except the soft curls under his
fingers and the touch of Lindsay's breath on his mouth and the slow, sliding friction.
"Lindsay, do you still hate me?"
"I do when I remember to," Lindsay says quietly, but he doesn't stop moving and he doesn't stop kissing him for a long time, on his trembling mouth and his sweaty forehead and his wet, closed eyes. ~ Richard Rider

The present is always unsettled, no one has had time to contemplate it in tranquillity . I was a painter before I was a writer and a painter never wants the subject right under his nose; he wants to stand back and study a landscape with half-closed eyes. ~ Isak Dinesen

Afraid of the darkness of the unknown, the spaces in which we see only dimly, we often choose the darkness of closed eyes, of obliviousness. ~ Rebecca Solnit

The man who invented the telescope found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of prayer ever discovered. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

He moaned her name against her lips, and then at her temple, and her closed eyes. It seemed to be all he could say, the only word he knew. She remembered how she'd once been incensed by his lazy, mocking use of that butchered form of Bernadette, and decided she had been a pathetic little idiot. ~ Lynn Turner

I prefer to see with closed eyes. ~ Josef Albers

Before we can change anything in our life, we have to recognize that this is the way it is meant to be right now. For me, acceptance has become what I call the long sigh of the soul. It's the closed eyes in prayer, perhaps even the quiet tears. It's "all right," as in "All right, You lead, I'll follow." And it's "all right" as in "Everything is going to turn out all right." This is simply part of the journey ... ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

I picked up a book on wilderness survival by Laurence Gonzalez and found in it this telling sentence: "The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits." His point is that when the two seem incompatible, we often hang onto the plan, ignore the warnings reality offers us and plunge into trouble. Afraid of the darkness of the unknown, the spaces in which we see only dimly, we often choose the darkness of closed eyes, of obliviousness. (Woolf's Darkness) ~ Rebecca Solnit

The dial of the clock wears out unevenly;
Most worn
Is the area round eight.
As it is stared at with abrasive glances
unfailingly twice a day,
It is weathered away.
On the other side
The area at two
Is only half as worn,
For closed eyes at night
Pass without stopping.
If there is one who possesses a flat watch evenly worn,
It is he who, failing at the start, is running one lap behind.

Thus the world is always
A lap fast--
The world he thinks he sees
Has not yet begun.
Illusory time,
When the hands stand vertically on the dial;
Without the bell announcing the raising of the curtain,
The play has come to an end. ~ Kobo Abe

I know as soon as we hit the sweet spot, an intangible instant when the music gains control of fluttering wings to take real flight - soaring, swooping, diving and rising in the small studio. No single one of us is in control. The wall of sound is its own thing - lifted, weight shared, by five pairs of hands. I shake hair from closed eyes just because I need to move. If I let the pressure build and build and keep it in my hands, in the guitar, I'll explode. We carve out places for the verses, the chorus repetitions, and the coda. We line the edges of sonic space with rhythm and melody and stand Scope's sharp samples at each corner. ~ Emma Trevayne

Solitude

Solitude is internal peace in silence
Peace that exists in the lightness of air
It is the flagrant devotion to the oneness of self

Breathing out and breathing in
Interrupts the quiet murmur of heartbeats
Silence is imposed upon
By the faint alternating rhythms
Of breath and heartbeats

Closed eyes
Absorb the darkness of one's chrysalis
The self in solitude allows the soul
To slip into spirit ~ Isabella George

I had always been in love with him. I counted the lashes of each closed eye. He had been my almost, my might have been, and I did not want to leave him ~ Alice Sebold

My heart is burning with love. All I can see is this flame. My heart is burning with passion, like waves on an ocean. I'm at home, wherever I am. And in the room of lovers, I can see with closed eyes the beauty that dances. Behind the veils, intoxicated with love, I too dance the rhythm of this moving world. ~ Rumi

Her hands clutched at his upper arms.
"Y-you make me feel ... "
He glanced up at her, saw the way she was biting her lower lip and the tortured frown between her closed eyes. "What do I make you feel, honey?" he prompted in a low voice, unable to look away from her beautiful face, and he rubbed the heel of his palm against the hard bud of her clitoris.
Her body went wire taut, arching like a hunter's bow as she gasped for him.
"Unbalanced. ~ Edie Harris

CONFORMITY AND REVOLT Have you ever sat very quietly with closed eyes and watched the movement of your own thinking? Have you watched your mind working - or rather, has your mind watched itself in operation, just to see what your thoughts are, what your feelings are, how you look at the trees, at the flowers, at the birds, at people, how you respond to a suggestion or react to a new idea? Have you ever done this? If you have not, you are missing a ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Endymion

The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,--the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,--
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him, who slumbering lies.

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.

Responds,--as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
"Where hast thou stayed so long? ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Light bursts behind my closed eyes, so intensely I nearly hear the popping sound. It's my brain melting, or my world ending, or maybe we've just been hit by a meteor and this is the rapture and I'm given one last perfect moment before I'm sent to purgatory and he;s sent somewhere much, much better.
It isn't his first kiss - I know that - but it's his first real one. ~ Christina Lauren

You see a lot of UFOs with closed eyes and opened mind. ~ Toba Beta

No amount of energy will take the place of thought. A strenuous life with its eyes shut is a kind of wild insanity. ~ Henry Van Dyke

My application's not bought,' I am telling them, calling into the darkness of the red cave that opens out before closed eyes. 'I am not just a boy who plays tennis. I have an intricate history. Experiences and feelings. I'm complex.
'I read,' I say. 'I study and read. I bet I've read everything you've read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM-drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it." My instincts concerning syntax and mechanics are better than your own, I can tell, with due respect. But it transcends the mechanics. I'm not a machine. I feel and believe. I have opinions. Some of them are interesting. I could, if you'd let me, talk and talk. Let's talk about anything. I believe the influence of Kierkegaard on Camus is underestimated. I believe Dennis Gabor may very well have been the Antichrist. I believe Hobbes is just Rousseau in a dark mirror. I believe, with Hegel, that transcendence is absorption. I could interface you guys right under the table,' I say. 'I'm not just a creatus, manufactured, conditioned, bred for a function.'

I open my eyes. 'Please don't think I don't care. ~ David Foster Wallace

Where is everybody?"
"Hiding," she said. "Except for Doolittle. He was excused from the chewing-out due to having been kidnapped. He's napping now like he doesn't have a care in the world. I got to hear all sorts of interesting stuff through the door."
"Give."
She shot me a sly smile. "First, I got to listen to Jim's 'it's all my fault; I did it all by myself' speech. Then I got to listen to Derek's 'it's all my fault and I did it all by myself' speech. Then Curran promised that the next person who wanted to be a martyr would get to be one. Then Raphael made a very growling speech about how he was here for a blood debt. It was his right to have restitution for the injury caused to the friend of the boudas; it was in the damn clan charter on such and such page. And if Curran wanted to have an issue with it, they could take it outside. It was terribly dramatic and ridiculous. I loved it."
I could actually picture Curran sitting there, his hand on his forehead above his closed eyes, growling quietly in his throat.
"Then Dali told him that she was sick and tired of being treated like she was made out of glass and she wanted blood and to kick ass."
That would do him in. "So what did he say?"
"He didn't say anything for about a minute and then he chewed them out. He told Derek that he'd been irresponsible with Livie's life, and that if he was going to rescue somebody, the least he could do is to have a workable plan, instead of a poorly thought-ou ~ Ilona Andrews

Beckendorf closed eyes tight and brought his hand up to his watch.
from that distance, the explosion shook the world. Heat seared the back of my head. The Princess Andromeda blew up from both sides, a massive fireball of
green flame roiling into the dark sky, consuming everything ... I stared out the window into deep blue water. Beckendorf was supposed to go to college in the fall. He had a girlfriend, lots of friends, his whole life ahead of him. He couldn't be gone. ~ Rick Riordan

This tragic brow, these closed eyes, eyebrows raised and knotted. ~ Frederick Leboyer

I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness ~ E. E. Cummings

Don't wander around with your eyes closed, know your path clearly ~ Sunday Adelaja

On the first day of fifth grade, Liz was sitting on the swing beside Liam's at recess. Falling and flying, her hair fanned out behind her and her eyes were closed, and that was what had caught his attention, her closed eyes. She looked a little bit silly and very much alive, and Liam couldn't stop watching.

Liz, on her part, was aware that the boy beside her was watching, but she loved swinging too much to care what he thought. She loved the wind hitting her face and the brief moment of suspension at the top of the arc and the falling sensation that was magnified by the darkness of her eyelids. She imagined that she was a bird, an angel, a wayward star.

At the height of the arc, she let go. And she flew.

Liam watched with his mouth hanging wide open, expecting her to crumple on the asphalt and die tragically before his eyes.

She didn't, and when she walked away, Liam's heart followed. ~ Amy Zhang

The smell of her in the bedroom. Same thing you'd get when you hugged her, or rolled over onto her pillow when she wasn't there. Frank had seen men hug their wives, the way they'd fit their chin down over the woman's shoulder and there would be this smile, a particular young-seeming grin with closed eyes - always made him think - bliss. ~ A. L. Kennedy

November
with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes
days full of a fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper-trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old Tom had built his roof well, and his chimney drew. ~ L.M. Montgomery

I see them in the primitive silkscreen the brain is able to produce, maybe eight inches in front of my closed eyes, miniaturised by time and distance, riddled by visual static, each figure a dancing red ribbon. These are among the people I've tried to know twice, the second time in memory and language. Through them, myself. They are what I've become, in ways I don't understand but which I believe will accrue to a rounded truth, a second life for me as well as for them. ~ Don DeLillo

Sure, nothing succeeds like success. Fact is, dearest, we are fools. We cling to an ideal no one wants or cares about. I am the greater fool of the two of us. I go on eating out my heart and poisoning every moment of my life in the attempt to rouse people's sensibilities. At least if I could do it with closed eyes. The irony is I see the futility of my efforts and yet I can't let go. ~ Emma Goldman

The sleeping draught began to take effect. Idita blew out the candles on the table. Just the torchlight from the courtyard shone into the room. "You will heal, Mauro," she promised.
He lay down on the cot and looked up at her through half-closed eyes. He knew she did not mean his arm. "I know I will. ~ Jillian Bald

I don't seem to require a lot of sleep. I just - if I get four, five good hours, I'm fine. But sleeping is sort of dull. There's a lot of other good stuff that you can do without just lying down and closing your eyes. ~ Betty White

We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience -- and for them all, man is indebted to man. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

You lean back against the door with bowed head making ready to set out. By the time you open your eyes your feet have disappeared and the skirt of your great coat come to rest on the surface of the snow. The dark scene seems lit from below. You see yourself at the last outset leaning against the door with closed eyes waiting for the word from you to go. To be gone.Then the snowlit scene. You lie in the dark with closed eyes and see yourself there as described making ready to strike out and away across the expanse of light. You hear again the click of the door pulled gently to and the silence before the steps can start. Next thing you are on your way across the white pasture afrolic with lambs in spring and strewn with red placantae. ~ Samuel Beckett

the sultry darkness into which the students now followed him was visible and crimson, like the darkness of closed eyes on a summer's afternoon. The bulging flanks of row on receding row and tier above tier of bottles glinted with innumerable rubies, and among the rubies moved the dim red spectres of men and women with purple eyes and all the symptoms of lupus. ~ Aldous Huxley

Truth is a torch, but a terrific one; therefore we all try to reach it with closed eyes, lest we should be scorched. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Close your eyes and you will see. ~ Joseph Joubert

Our first kiss, the first touch of our heating lips, the yearning reciprocating from both sides, I was lost in everything. But I had a sudden feeling of eyes staring at our acts and unnecessary muttering. I could feel it even with my closed eyes. So far the sober girl in me resisted and my palms struggled to escape. David realized my condition and he left me be. I could see anger in his eyes for the crowd around but he stayed calm for my sake. My heart purred. 'I am lost now!'
He sat next to me and didn't bother to look at anyone around. Though, we knew many looked upon us and then they turned their faces away. He was horny. I could see his bulge behind his winter suit. I avoided looking and forced myself to gaze into his eyes instead. His pair was fixed on mine, reading mine. I gave a wide smile in an attempt to hide my lust although it was clearly written over my face. ~ Delicious David

I will die kissing your mad cold mouth,
embracing the lost bouquet of your body,
and searching for the light of your closed eyes ~ Pablo Neruda

The sun's champagne streamed from one body into another. And there was a couple on the green silk of the grass, covered by a raspberry umbrella. Only their feet and a little bit of lace could be seen. In the magnificent universe beneath the raspberry umbrella, with closed eyes, they drank in the sparkling madness.
'Extra! Extra! Zeppelins over the North Sea at 3 o'clock.'
But under the umbrella, in the raspberry universe, they were immortal. What did it matter that in another far-away universe people would be killing each other? ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

I tried to breathe, failing. I clutched her to me, tears slipping from under my closed eyes. It was as if her soul was liquid fire and I could feel her aura, swirling about mine. She was taking my aura. But I wanted to give it to her, to cat her in a small part of me and protect her. Her needs made her so fragile. ~ Kim Harrison

In 1917 I went to Russia. I was sent to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution and to keep Russia in the war. The reader will know that my efforts did not meet with success. I went to Petrograd from Vladivostok, .One day, on the way through Siberia, the train stopped at some station and the passengers as usual got out, some to fetch water to make tea, some to buy food and others to stretch their legs. A blind soldier was sitting on a bench. Other soldiers sat beside him and more stood behind. There were from twenty to thirty.Their uniforms were torn and stained. The blind soldier, a big vigorous fellow, was quite young. On his cheeks was the soft, pale down of a beard that has never been shaved. I daresay he wasn't eighteen. He had a broad face, with flat, wide features, and on his forehead was a great scar of the wound that had lost him his sight. His closed eyes gave him a strangely vacant look. He began to sing. His voice was strong and sweet. He accompanied himself on an accordion. The train waited and he sang song after song. I could not understand his words, but through his singing, wild and melancholy, I seemed to hear the cry of the oppressed: I felt the lonely steppes and the interminable forests, the flow of the broad Russian rivers and all the toil of the countryside, the ploughing of the land and the reaping of the wild corn, the sighing of the wind in the birch trees, the long months of dark winter; and then the dancing of the women in the villages and the youths bathi ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He said, 'Forgive me for being a liar and a fool and an utterly worthless man.' Louise replied, 'I love you.' He took her in his arms for a moment and they held each other with closed eyes. ~ Iris Murdoch

Running toward danger is foolhardy ... But so is closing your eyes to it. Many perils become less dangerous once you understand their potential hazards. ~ Brandon Mull

You can't make your own path with your eyes closed. (pg 388). ~ Brigid Kemmerer

She is entirely in her closed eyes, and quite alone with her soul, in the bosom of the most intimate attention ... She feels in herself that she is becoming some event. ~ Paul Valery

What is the verdict?"

"There is always hope." His face softened. "However, it's unlikely your brain damage will improve."

He'd given me the answer I'd expected and dreaded.

I shut my eyes and sagged into the pillows. I'd braced myself for this result, but I'd wanted a miracle so badly that it was painful to hear the truth.

Sunlight pressed in on me, trying to cheer me up. I would resist a moment longer. This room, the quilt, my closed eyes - they formed a serene barrier against the world, although it wasn't clear to me if I wanted to keep the scary stuff out or the scared me in. ~ Elizabeth Langston

These days, I strive to be a bitch, because not being one sucks. Not being a bitch means not having your voice heard. Not being a bitch means you agree with all the bullshit. Not being a bitch means you don't appreciate all the other bitches who have come before you. Not being a bitch means since Eve ate that apple, we will forever have to pay for her bitchiness with complacence, obedience, acceptance, closed eyes, and opened legs. ~ Margaret Cho

It is the first time I haven't fought the feeling, haven't tried to control it with closed eyes or a redirection of my mind. Instead I embrace it, flexing my hands around the shaking steering wheel, celebrating the release of dark energy as it spreads through my body. ~ Alessandra Torre

ASITA AWOKE in the forest thinking about demons. He hadn't for many years. He could remember glimpsing one or two in the past, on the fringes of a famine or a battle, wherever bodies were being harvested. He knew the misery they caused, but misery was no longer Asita's
concern. He had been a forest hermit for fifty years. The affairs of the world had been kept far away, and he passed whole days in a hidden cave when he retreated even from the affairs of animals, much less those of men.

Now Asita knelt by a stream and considered. He distinctly saw demons in his mind's eye. They had first appeared in the dappled sunlight that fell on his eyelids at dawn. Asita slept on boughs strewn over the bare ground, and he liked the play of light and shadow across his eyes in the early morning. His imagination freely saw shapes that reminded him of the market village where he grew up. He could see hawking merchants, women balancing water jugs on
their heads, camels and cara-vans - anything, really - on the screen of his closed eyes.

But never demons, not before this morning. Asita walked into the nearly freezing mountain stream, his body naked except for a loincloth. As an ascetic, he did not wear clothes, not even the robes of a monastic order. Lately he had felt an impulse to travel very high, nearly in sight of the snowcapped peaks on the north-ern border of the Sakya kingdom. Which put him close to other lokas,worlds apart from Earth. Every mortal is c ~ Deepak Chopra

His throat bobbled. His kiss that time was deep and thorough, unhurried and intent.
I let the dawn creep inside me, let it grow with each movement of his lips and brush of his tongue against mine. Tears pricked beneath my closed eyes.
It was the happiest moment of my life. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Closed books are like closed eyes - you must open them to see anything. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Stop giving energy to the things you don't want. ~ Wayne Dyer

All day long he was docile, intelligent, good, Though sometimes changing to a darker mood. He seemed hypocritical, could tell better lies, in the dark he saw dots of colors behind closed eyes, clenched fists, put his tongue out at his elder brother. ~ Arthur Rimbaud

He watched her through narrowed, half-closed eyes, keeping his breathing regulated so that she dismissed him to take his clothes to the laundry room. He heard her but couldn't see her as she started up the washing machine. Then she was back, meticulously wiping up her hardwood floor until it gleamed. She must have warmed some blankets because she stripped off his blanket and tucked two more around him, still muttering to herself under her breath.
He really was far gone and confused, because he was beginning to find that habit rather adorable. ~ Christine Feehan

I turn around from the window and for the first time I see him ... It is Richard, smiling at my surprise.
I run to him, without thinking what I am doing. I run to the first friendly face that I have seen since Christmas, and in a moment I am in his arms and he is holding me tightly and kissing my face, my closed eyes, my smiling mouth, kissing me till I am breathless and have to pull away from him. ~ Philippa Gregory

With the sleep deprived pounding behind Brent's closed eyes, he made a decision. He wouldn't quit, and he hadn't been fired; however, without a doubt - he wasn't getting paid enough to put up with this shit! He deserved a raise, and if Tony weren't around, then damn, that was something Brent could facilitate on his own! This shit deserved more money! ~ Aleatha Romig

Then I made a stupid mistake and looked up at him. His eyes met mine, and for a moment, his face was open and vulnerable in the moonlight. I caught a hint of wonder there as we stared at each other. Slowly, he leaned forward. I caught my breath, a tiny gasp escaping. He stiffened, and his expression shuttered closed, eyes going hard and frosty.
[ ... ]
'This is getting old,' he said in a voice that matched his eyes. ~ Julie Kagawa

There is a moment that has happened over and over again, in every place children have ever slept, on every dark night for the past ten thousand years, that almost everyone who was once a child will forever remember. It happens when you are being tucked into bed, on a dark and frightened night when the sounds of the nighttime outside are drowned out only by the far more frightening sounds in your head. You have already gone to bed, have tried to go to bed, but because of whatever sounds you hear in your head you have failed to go to bed, and someone much older than you, someone so old that you cannot even imagine yourself becoming that old, has come to sit beside you and make sure you fall asleep. But the moment that everyone who was once a child will remember is not the story the unfathomably old person tells you, or the lullaby he sings for you, but rather the moment right after the story or song has ended. You are lying there with your eyes closed, not sleeping just yet but noticing that the sounds inside your head seem to have vanished, and you know, through closed eyes, that the person beside you thinks that you are asleep and is simply watching you. In that fraction of an instant between when that person stops singing and when that person decides to rise from the bed and disappear -- a tiny rehearsal, though you do not know it yet, of what will eventually happen for good -- time holds still, and you can feel, through closed eyes, how that person, watching your still, sma ~ Dara Horn

If a dream affords the dreamer some light on himself, it is not the person with closed eyes who makes the discovery but the person with open eyes lucid enough to fit thoughts together. Dream-a scintillating mirage surrounded by shadows-is essentially poetry. ~ Michel Leiris

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. ~ Desmond Tutu

Music is an extraordinary locksmith; it is so competent that it can open our soul's door even with closed eyes! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

But as much as Greyson's overly warm body had to be worked around and compensated for in summer, at that moment she was eternally and ridiculously grateful for it. She almost thought she heard her own skin sizzle when it came into contact with his: some of the cramping in her muscles relaxed.
Only to tense up again when she saw, through her half-closed eyes, Greyson's second gaurd and Malleus's brother, Maleficarum, advancing on her with a hypodermic needle. Something clear squirted ominously from it's sharp silver tip.
"Oh, no," she managed, "You are not giving me a shot."
"'Sonly under the skin, m'lady. You'll barely even feel it, honest." Maleficarum's features did no do "innocent" well: he looked like a serial killer trying to hide a severed head behind his back. ~ Stacia Kane

Last night I had rinsed out my sari strip and briefs in the sea. I walked down naked to where they hung in the branches of the silvery leafed tree beside the creek. Underneath the lazy sensuality of a luxurious stretch from toes to nose I felt the strong unequivocal demand of my blood. I hugged myself for a moment watching the grey light yield to dawn through half-closed eyes. ~ Lucy Irvine

Rafe had sat back in his chair so his face was in the shadow, but she knew he
was watching her through half-closed eyes. When he leaned forward,
the fire from the candles flickered, throwing shadows on the planes
of his face. She could see his eyes clearly now, and their steady focus
was causing her insides to stir. There was romance in the still air; the
rhythm of dripping water from the fountain behind him, the velvet
sky studded with stars, the balmy perfumes of the night, all combined
to accompany the endless song that had begun in her heart again as
she watched him, enthralled. ~ Hannah Fielding

Once upon a time, "that woman" seemed more comfortable with herself. Once upon a time, "that woman" appreciated a slimmer physique and relaxed into natural poses that felt less rehearsed. Once upon a time, "that woman" matched the path she had laid out for herself. Her closed eyes now threatened to open at any second, her tight skin bursting with the artificial flavors and toxins she had been assured were good for her. "That woman" had surrendered herself to anything that would make her path clear. "That woman" expected everyone to buy into the lies that she did. Her self-worth depended on it. So would mine. ~ Cherry Tigris

She has decided to keep going, as anyone could tell by her closed eyes and calm expression. She realizes that all big decisions are ones that must be decided and decided again. She imagines that when you fall in love, you must decided to be in love a million times or more, and when you go to college, you must decide again and again to stay in college, and the same thing is true when you decide to run across the United States of America after a horrible tragedy.

When you are a person who cares for any other person, you must decide again to care, she also understands. ~ Deb Caletti

And whatever you do, don't close your eyes.'

'What happens if I close my eyes?'

'You miss the fun. ~ Jessica Townsend

Just behind the darkness of closed eyes shines the light of God. When you behold that light in meditation, hold onto it with devotional zeal. Feel yourself inside it: That is where God dwells. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

For her everything was red, orange, gold-red from the sun on the closed eyes, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing, the having, all of that color, all in a blindness of that color.
- Ernest Hemingway, ~ Ernest Hemingway,

and shoved napkins in her direction. "Are you okay?" an older woman asked. Tears sprang from the corners of Danica's closed eyes. Damn it. Her entire ~ Melissa Foster

And if, behind closed eyes, Cerris saw a face other than hers, a face so slightly younger, gazing at him sadly across a gulf of lost years and broken promises ... Well, it would never hurt her if she never knew. ~ Ari Marmell

I've lost to you. I've lost completely.'

She had not merely lost at battle. Indicating without words that she also meant her defeat at something totally different, she began to weep, the tears overflowing from her half closed eyes. ~ Edogawa Rampo

He raised himself above her pallid face and kissed her on both closed eyes and thought: she thinks she is taking and does not know that she is giving; in her loneliness she has fled to me and does not suspect my loneliness. ~ Hermann Hesse

In that fraction of an instant between when that person stops singing and when that person decides to rise from the bed and disappear-a tiny rehearsal, though you do not yet know it, of what will eventually happen for good-time holds still, and you can feel, through your closed eyes, how that person, watching your still, small face in the darkness, has suddenly realized that you are the reason his life matters. ~ Dara Horn

[A] competent magician should have the ability to stand still at a bus stop with closed eyes and have the entire universe disappear apart from a single blazing visualised sigil or muttered spell. ~ Peter J. Carroll

Journey by Train Stretched across counties, countries, the train Rushes faster than memory through the rain. The rise of each hill is a musical phrase. Listen to the rhythm of space, how it lies, How it rolls, how it reaches, what unwinding relays Of wood and meadow where the red cows graze Come back again and again to closed eyes - That garden, that pink farm, that village steeple, And here and there the solitary people Who stand arrested when express trains pass, That stillness of an orchard in deep grass. Yet landscapes flow like this toward a place, A point in time and memory's own face. So when the clamor stops, we really climb Down to the earth, closing the curve of time, Meeting those we have left, to those we meet Bringing our whole life that has moved so fast, And now is gathered up and here at last, To unroll like a ribbon at their feet. ~ May Sarton

Picking up the pieces of a broken relationship is like gathering up shards of glass with bear hands and eyes closed. ~ Michael Faudet

He offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea. ~ Herman Melville

Closed eyes cannot see light ~ Andrea L'Artiste

Stop that Stuart," Patty said as Stuart struggled with the suitcases, which were too heavy for him, she thought. (Almost everything was way too heavy for Stuart.)" Just put those down. Besides," Patty said, "where will you go? You don't have anyplace to go." But Stuart took her hand and held it for a moment against his closed eyes, and despite the many occasions when Patty had wanted him to go, and the several occasions when she had tried to make him go, despite the fact that he was at his most enragingly pathetic, for once she could think of nothing, nothing at all that he could be trying to shame her into or shame her out of, and so it occurred to her that this he would really leave---that he was simply saying good-bye. All along, Patty had been unaware that time is as adhesive as love, and that the more time you spend with someone the greater the likelihood of finding yourself with a permanent sort of thing to deal with that people casually refer to as "friendship," as if that were the end of the matter,when the truth is that even if "your friend" does something annoying, or if you and "your friend" decided that you hate each other, or if "your friend" moves away and you lose each other's address, you still have a friendship, and although it can change shape, look different in different lights, become an embarrassment or an encumbrance or a sorrow, it can't simply cease to have existed, no matter how far into the past it sinks, so attempts to disavow or destroy it will not ~ Deborah Eisenberg

I tried to close my ears to the strange worshipful chanting and fix my mind on God, but the Egyptians' idolatry weighed down my weary shoulders and brought tears to my closed eyes. ~ Kristen Reed

Religion is not based on belief or faith: religion is based on awe, religion is based on wonder. Religion is based on the mysterious that is your surround. To feel it, to be aware of it, to see it, open your eyes and drop the dust of the ages. Clean your mirror! and see what beauty surrounds you, what tremendous grandeur goes on knocking at your doors. Why are you sitting with closed eyes? Why are you sitting with such long faces? Why can't you dance? and why can't you laugh? ~ Rajneesh

Or I would be the rain itself, wreathing over the island, mingling in the quiet of moist places, filling its pores with its saturated breaths. And I would be the wind, whispering through the tangled woods, running airy fingers over the island's face, tingling in the chill of concealed places, sighing secrets in the dawn. And I would be the light, flinging over the island, covering it with flash and shadow, shining on rocks and pools, softening to a touch in the glow of dusk. If I were the rain and wind and light, I would encircle the island like the sky surrounding earth, flood through it like a heart driven pulse, shine from inside it like a star in flames, burn away to blackness in the closed eyes of its night. There are so many ways I could love this island, if I were the rain. ~ Richard Nelson

If God made all our faces, did he laugh when he made me?
Does he make the legs that cannot walk and eyes that cannot see?
Does he curl the hair upon my head 'til it rebels in wild defiance?
Does he close the ears of a deaf man to make him more reliant?
Is the way I look a coincidence or just a twist of fate?
If he made me this way, is it okay, to blame him for the things I hate?
For the flaws that seem to worsen every time I see a mirror,For the ugliness I see in me, for the loathing and the fear.
Does he sculpt us for his pleasure, for a reason I can't see?
If God makes all our faces, did he laugh when he made me? ~ Amy Harmon

I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and pouring out the tea," said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically. "And asking Diana if she takes sugar! I know she doesn't but of course I'll ask her just as if I didn't know. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Listen to me, Dad. When Dylan's first cornea went bad, I grieved for the perfect child he should have been. I told myself that the diagnosis was wrong. I bargained with God - you know, make his eyes right and I'll do anything. When that didn't work I was absolutely furious that my child had to face this. In the end I had no choice. I had to accept it, because that was the only way I could help Dylan." She straightened. "Grieving is a process. Anger is part of it." She paused. "Right now, you're angry that Mom left you alone. But you're taking it out on Jill and me, and we both need you. You can drink all you want - ~ Barbara Delinsky

I saw the world and its lack of compassion, its harsh, grating judgment, and its cold, resentful eyes. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Why should he treat Elizabeth as if he harbored any feelings for her, including anger?
Elizabeth sensed that he was wavering a little, and she pressed home her advantage, using calm reason: "Surely nothing that happened between us should make us behave badly to each other now. I mean, when you think on it, it was noting to us but a harmless weekend flirtation, wasn't it?"
"Obviously."
"Neither of us was hurt, were we?"
"No."
"Well then, there's no reason why we should not be cordial to each other now, is there?" she demanded with a bright, beguiling smile. "Good heavens, if every flirtation ended in enmity, no one in the ton would be speaking to anyone else!"
She had neatly managed to put him in the position of either agreeing with her or else, by disagreeing, admitting that she had been something more to him than a flirtation, and Ian realized it. He'd guessed where her calm arguments were leading, but even so, he was reluctantly impressed with how skillfully she was maneuvering him into having to agree with her. "Flirtations," he reminded her smoothly, "don't normally end in duels."
"I know, and I am sorry my brother shot you."
Ian was simply not proof against the appeal in those huge green eyes of hers. "Forget it," he said with an irritated sigh, capitulating to all she was asking. "Stay the seven days."
Suppressing the urge to twirl around with relief, she smiled into his eyes. "Then could we have a truce for the time I'm here ~ Judith McNaught

Incidentally, I use the word reader very loosely. Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the very first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do not have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and then can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous masterpiece of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is-a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary between the two is not as clear as is generally believed)-a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only ~ Vladimir Nabokov

True Beauty

True beauty is in the way she laughs
True beauty is in her eyes
True beauty is how she acts
True beauty is inside
True beauty is unseen
True beauty is only felt
True beauty is not mean
True beauty is herself
True beauty can't be cruel
True beauty is bare
True beauty within you
True beauty is always there
True Beauty can't be covered with makeup
True beauty means true love
True beauty can't be baked up
True beauty is the flight of a dove
True beauty has no flaws
For True beauty is all that matters after all...
Even in the moon light your beauty will shine... ~ Jean Pullman

If we desire a kinder nation, seeing it through the eyes of children is an eminently sensible endeavor: A city that is pro-child,for example, is also a more humane place for adults. ~ Richard Louv

He said nothing. Juliana peeped at him again. "You're very anxious to get her in your power again,
Vidal. But I don't quite know why you should be, for you meant to marry her only because you had
ruined her, and so were obliged to, didn't you?"
She thought that he was not going to answer, but suddenly he raised his eyes from the contemplation
of the dregs of his wine. "Because I am obliged to?" he said. "I mean to marry Mary Challoner
because I'm devilish sure I can't live without her."
Juliana clapped her hands with a crow of delight. "Oh, it is famous!" she exclaimed. "I never dreamed
you had fallen in love with my staid Mary! I thought you were chasing her through France just
because you so hate to be crossed! But when you flew into a rage with me for saying she was too dull
to be afraid of you, of course, I guessed at once! My dearest Dominic, I was never more glad of
anything in my life, and it is of all things the most romantic possible! Do, do let us overtake them at
once! Only conceive of their astonishment when they see us! ~ Georgette Heyer

The metal thing was hammered and shaped half-crescent, half-cross.Around the rim of the
main rod little curlicues and doohingies had been soldered on, later. The entire surface of the rod was finely scratched and etched with strange languages, names that could tie the tongue or break the jaw, numerals that added to incomprehensible sums, pictographs of insect animals all bristle, chaff, and claw" (Bradbury 6). In this quote, Bradbury is giving us and showing what the character is describing, In this case, it is an Egyptian Scarab. How the quote was described was to attract the eyes of Jim, or even the readers. ~ Ray Bradbury

I stamped my foot and pointed more forcefully. "Off with you. Courtyard's that way. Be sure to clean those awful boots before coming back in."

"Someone told me I'd find a princess of great worth here.

One with the strength to be the hero this realm needs." He stared at me with those unsettling blue eyes. They were cold, like ice water - made me shiver from head to toe. Then his gaze seemed to search even deeper. Finally, he looked through me, like I was nothing. "It seems she was mistaken. ~ Betsy Schow

Nothing makes sense to him either. His whole world is falling apart, and once he realizes he can't stop it or fix it or change it, there's only one thing left to do." My eyes adjusted slowly, maddeningly. "What's that?" His shadow shrugged in the gloom. "Absolve yourself. Blame it on fate. ~ M.L. Rio