Dancing With Her Quotes

I've had a lot of sucks in life
A lot
My parents died almost four years ago, right after I turned seven
With every day that goes by I remember them less and less
Like my mom…I remember that she used to sing.
She was always happy,
always dancing.
Other than what I've seen of her in pictures, I don't really remember what she looks like.
Or what she smells like
Or what she sounds like

And my Dad
I remember more things about him, but only because I thought he was the most amazing man in the world.
He was smart. He knew the answer to everything.
And he was strong.
And he played the guitar.
I used to love lying in bed at night, listening to the music coming from the living room.
I miss that the most.
His music.

After they died, I went to live with my grandma and grandpaul.
Don't get me wrong…I love my grandparents.
But I loved my home even more.
It reminded me of them.
Of my mom and dad.

My brother had just started college the year they died.
He knew how much I wanted to be home.
He knew how much it meant to me,
so he made it happen.
I was only seven at the time, so I let him do it.
I let him give up his entire life just so I could be home.
Just so I wouldn't be so sad.
If I could do it all over again, I would have never let him take me.
He deserved a shot, too. A shot at being young.
But sometimes when you ~ Colleen Hoover

My mother is European and expresses her love through food and cuddling. She wasn't the type of mother who would make it to school plays or soccer games, but if you wanted to stay at home sick, she was your girl. Whenever you'd go up to her room to cuddle with her, she'd pull out a Kit Kat or Snickers bar from her night table and look at you with dancing eyes. ~ Chelsea Handler

His hand was a claw, sharp enough to open her. She would be like all the others - Ruta Badowski, in her broken dancing shoes. Tommy Duffy, still with the dirt of his last baseball game under his nails. Gabriel Johnson, taken on the best day of his life. Or even Mary White, holding out for a future that never arrived. She'd be like all those beautiful, shining boys marching off to war, rifles at their hips and promises on their lips to their best girls that they'd be home in time for Christmas, the excitement of the game showing in their bright faces. They'd come home men, heroes with adventures to tell about, how they'd walloped the enemy and put the world right side up again, funneled it into neat lines of yes and no. Black and white. Right and wrong. Here and there. Us and them. Instead, they had died tangled in barbed wire in Flanders, hollowed by influenza along the Western Front, blown apart in no-man's-land, writhing in trenches with those smiles still in place, courtesy of the phosgene, chlorine, or mustard gas. Some had come home shell-shocked and blinking, hands shaking, mumbling to themselves, following orders in some private war still taking place in their minds. Or, like James, they'd simply vanished, relegated to history books no one bothered to read, medals put in cupboards kept closed. Just a bunch of chess pieces moved about by unseen hands in a universe bored with itself. ~ Libba Bray

Her slender arms instantly circled his neck so that she could press her body against his hard frame. "I am a superstar,lifemate,yet you wish to leave me along at every opportunity. There are men everywhere who would be happy to take your place by my side."
He bent his head, his teeth scraping a provocative rythm over her pulse. Desari went liquid, boneless, her stomach clenching in anticipation. "No, they would not be happy to take my place at your side,cara mia, because I would promptly end their lives in a most unhappy way."
"You are such a caveman, Julian. You look tall and elegant and princely, yet you have not matured beyond the cave." Desari allowed her tongue a brief inspection of the taste of his skin. She closed her eyes to savor the moment.
"I have no intention of rising above caveman mentality," he growled in her ear, his breath teasing tendrils of hair and sending little flames dancing through her bloodstream. "There are so many benefits for the caveman."
"You like playing the part of the dominant male,no doubt," she whispered, her voice so husky with need that his body tightened in urgent, painful response. Her mouth moved over his throat, her hands seeking skin beneath his shirt. "I have a need of you, lifemate, and you are deliberately ignoring your sworn duties to me."
"Little minx. ~ Christine Feehan

Remind yourself where you come from.

I spent the majority of my life running away from Utah, from the life I led there, from the memories I associated with those early years. It felt very someone-else-ago to me. London changed me profoundly.
When we were dancing on DWTS together, Jennifer Grey called me one night. She was having trouble with her back and wanted to see a physiotherapist. "Can you come with me?" she asked. She drove us through a residential section of Beverly Hills. We pulled into a house with a shed out back. Oddly, it didn't look like a doctor's office. There was a couch and incense burning. An Australian guy with a white beard came in : "Hey, mates." I looked at Jen and she winked at me. This was no physical therapy. She'd signed us up for some bizarre couples therapy!
The guy spoke to us for a while, then he asked Jennifer if she wouldn't mind leaving us to chat. I thought the whole thing was pretty out there, but I didn't think I could make a run for it.
"So, Derek," he said. "Tell me about your childhood." I laid it all out for him--I talked for almost two hours--and he nodded. "You can go pick him up now."
I raised an eyebrow. "Pick who up?"
The therapist smiled. "That younger boy, that self you left in Utah. You left him there while you've been on a mission moving forward so vigorously. Now you can go get him back."
I sat there, utterly stunned and speechless. It was beyond powerful and enlightening. Had I really ~ Derek Hough

Briefly, the nymphaeum glowed with a softer light, like a full moon. Piper smelled exotic spices and blooming roses. She heard distant music and happy voices talking and laughing. She guessed she was hearing hundreds of years of parties and celebrations that had been held at this shrine in ancient times, as if the memories had been freed along with the spirits.
'What is that?' Jason asked nervously.
Piper slipped her hand into his. 'The ghosts are dancing. ~ Rick Riordan

You are the sweetest man, Savannah inserted softly, her voice brushing at him. Echoing.
Gregori frowned. Echoing? Close. He swung around, cursing in French, an eloquent dissertation that had Gary cringing. Savannah,however, simply took Gregori's arm and smiled up at him, the stars in her eyes dancing. She was like that.Distracting him and then slamming him sideways with her smile. With her blue-violet eyes with their accursed star centers. She didn't even have the decency to look repentant.
Don't be angry, Gregori.I was lonesome in the house all by myself. Are you really,really angry? Or just a little angry? Her voice was soft, a siren's whisper, made of silk sheets and candlelight. Her long lashes were thick and heavy, a sweep of magic that caught his eye and held it there.
It is impossible for you to be lonely when you are always running around in my head. ~ Christine Feehan

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

The months passed away. Slowly a great fear came over Viola, a fear that would hardly ever leave her. For every month at the full moon, whether she would or no, she found herself driven to the maze, through its mysterious walks into that strange dancing-room. And when she was there the music began once more, and once more she danced most deliciously for the moon to see. The second time that this happened she had merely thought that it was a recurrence of her own whim, and that the music was but a trick that the imagination had chosen to repeat. The third time frightened her, and she knew that the force that sways the tides had strange power over her. The fear grew as the year fell, for each month the music went on for a longer time - each month some of the pleasure had gone from the dance. On bitter nights in winter the moon called her and she came, when the breath was vapor, and the trees that circled her dancing-room were black, bare skeletons, and the frost was cruel. She dared not tell anyone, and yet it was with difficulty that she kept her secret. Somehow chance seemed to favor her, and she always found a way to return from her midnight dance to her own room without being observed. Each month the summons seemed to be more imperious and urgent. Once when she was alone on her knees before the lighted altar in the private chapel of the palace she suddenly felt that the words of the familiar Latin prayer had gone from her memory. She rose to her feet, she sobbed bitterly, b ~ Barry Pain

West couldn't stop staring at Lady Clare. He had the feeling if he reached out to touch her, he would come away with his fingers scorched. That hair, blazing from beneath a simple gray traveling bonnet... he'd never seen anything like it. Bird-of-paradise red, with glimmers of crimson dancing amid the pinned-up locks. Her skin was flawless ivory except for a tender spray of freckles sprinkled across her nose, like a finishing spice on some luxurious dessert.
She had the look of someone who had been nurtured: educated and well dressed. Someone who had always been lovingly sheltered. But there was a shadow in her gaze... the knowledge that there were some things no human being could be protected from.
God, those eyes... light gray, with striations like the rays of tiny stars. ~ Lisa Kleypas

She said, You cannot hide forever, though you may try. I've seen you in the kitchen, in the garden. I've seen the things you have sewn - curtains of dawn, twilight blankets and dresses for the sisters like a garden of stars. I have heard the stories you tell. You are the one who transforms, who creates. You can go out into the world and show others. They will feel less alone because of you, they will feel understood, unburdened by you, awakened by you, freed of guilt and shame and sorrow. But to share with them you must wear shoes you must go out you must not hide you must dance and it will be harder you must face jealousy and sometimes rage and desire and love which can hurt most of all because of what can then be taken away. So make that astral dress to fit your own body this time. And here are glass shoes made from your words, the stories you have told like a blower -with her torch forming the thinnest, most translucent sheets of light out of what was once sand. But be careful; sand is already broken but glass breaks. The shoes are for dancing, not for running away. ~ Francesca Lia Block

Was there another life she was meant to be living? At times she felt a keen certainty that there was ― a phantom life, taunting her from just out of reach. A sense would come over her while she was drawing or walking, and once while she was dancing slow and close with Kaz, that she was supposed to be doing something else with her hands, with her legs, with her body. Something else. Something else. Something else. ~ Laini Taylor

Let me know when you're ready to talk." She stopped and glanced at them both over her shoulder. "Maybe then I'd be ready to discuss your sexual twists and my own little abnormal desires. You never know what we all might learn that we haven't already."
With that, she turned and moved back into the house, closing the door behind her and disappearing out of sight. And Cam found his back slammed against the side of Ian's Hummer, his brother in his face.
Lust and irritation flared in his brother's eyes. "You better start talking," he grated. "Because you know what she just did?"
"She just dared us, Cam. And I don't know about you, but the thought of 'abnormal desires' dancing through her mind is going to drive me fucking crazy. Now, fix it. ~ Lora Leigh

They'd been sitting on the couch for a few hours trying to find something to watch. Cop and military type shows were out - too much like real life. The Walking Dead marathon was out, because people you liked always died on that show - too much like what they feared life might become. Ike had suggested the World Series of Poker, but Jess thought watching people play cards was boring. She'd suggested a dancing reality show, but Ike put the kibosh on that idea with a single look. Ike's desire to put off sleeping alone again had him finally agreeing to a house hunting show Jess liked where the couple saw three houses and had to decide which to buy. Ike's conclusion: people were idiots sometimes. "Should've picked the older house. More character," he said. "Right?" Jess said, smiling. "You can fix up an older house, but it's harder to give a newer house that kind of character." "I knew I liked you for a reason," he said, giving her a wink. "Because I'm awesome." She turned toward him on the couch and propped her elbow on the back of the couch. ~ Laura Kaye

While they were dancing, the buoyancy that the champagne had given her left her all at once, and she slumped and felt suddenly tired and miserable about all the things that Denys should have said and done and hadn't. At the end of the dance there was one awful moment when she was bored. She didn't want to go and be kissed in the garden, she didn't want to drink any more, and Denys was in no mood for conversation; what was there to do? She was bored. It was a terrible, treacherous thought to feel like that when you were with someone you loved. ~ Monica Dickens

Someone else's laundry is already whipping around in the perennial wind that blows above the city: long white T-shirts dancing in the sun like captive angels. Sam finds a rack that is unoccupied and, with slow and firm movements, squeezes out her washload and hangs it up. she will check on their progress in a couple more hours.

She takes a shower and goes back to bed. The phone is ringing, a fragile hopeful sound. The eighth ring is cut off. Sam allows her mind a few fanciful arabesque before deciding it probably wasn't anyone she would want to talk to. She thinks with relief of how efficiently she has washed the boy and his treacherous molecules of his perspiration, his scent, his heat, his maleness, our of her clothing, out of the very fibers of her being.

There he goes, hello, good-bye, dissipating in the azure sky, bleached of all meaning by the sun and wind.

I live to do the laundry, she thinks, and smiles; she has not felt this clever in a long time. ~ Lakambini A. Sitoy

Remember what they say about dancing with the devil, Rosie."
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at her friend. The devil. Rosie could only think of Devlin.
"But what they don't say is sometimes you need to get burned. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All 'spirit and fire and dew,' as she was, the pleasures and pains of life came to her with trebled intensity. Marilla felt this and was vaguely troubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence would probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficiently understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more than compensate. Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill Anne into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien to her as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows. She did not make much headway, as she sorrowfully admitted to herself. The downfall of some dear hope or plan plunged Anne into 'deeps of affliction.' The fulfillment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight. Marilla had almost begun to despair of ever fashioning this waif of the world into her model little girl of demure manners and prim deportment. Neither would she have believed that she really liked Anne much better as she was. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Like every girl, I only need to look up and a little to the right of me to see the hysteria that belongs to me, the one that hangs om a hook like an empty jacket and flutters with disappointment that I cannot wear her all the time. I call her my hysteric, and this personal hysteric of mine is designer made (though I'm not sure who made her), flattering and comfortable, attractive even, if you're around people who like that sort of thing. She is not anyone, my hysteric; she is blank, electricity dancing around a filament, singing to kill. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

Xav sprinkled olive oil on his lettuce. 'Lola was very particular that it all had to fit properly.'
'Lola?' squeaked Diamond. I wanted to warn her not to rise to the bait Xav was dangling in front of her but it was too late.
Xav added some Parmesan and pepper. 'Suspicious, Diamond? You should be. This is a bachelor party I'm organizing, not a school outing, and it is going to tick all of Trace's boxes. Lola is either a very efficient water sports instructor or an exotic dancing girl; I'll leave it your imagination.'
I rolled my eyes at Diamond. 'Myabe she's both. I mean the guys will really go for that, I guess. Don't worry,Di, Luigi and his crew will not disappoint us girls.' Luigi was in fact Contessa Nicoletta's little bespectacled chef with whom I had been consulting about the menu for Friday, but the Benedicts weren't to know that. 'He has promised to provide something suitably spicy for our tastes. ~ Joss Stirling

In the summer heat the reapers say, We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair. ~ Kahlil Gibran

I toured with Lady Gaga, and her choreographer is incredibly talented and develops some crazy routines. Lady Gaga is very involved in the dancing, too, and she always wants to have creative input. I had an incredible time with her! ~ Caity Lotz

She dances,
She dances around the burning flames with passion,
Under the same dull stars,
Under the same hell with crimson embers crashing,
Under the same silver chains that wires,
All her beauty and who she is inside,
She's left with the loneliness of human existence,
She's left questioning how she's survived,
She's left with this awakening of brutal resilience,
Her true beauty that she denies,
As much she's like to deny it,
As much as it continues to shine,
That she doesn't even have to admit,
Because we all know it's true,
Her glory and success,
After all she's been through,
Her triumph and madness,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.

Broken legs- but she's still standing,
Still dancing in this void,
You must wonder how she's still dancing,
You must wonder how she's not destroyed,
She doesn't even begin to drown within the flames,
But little do you realize,
Within these chains,
She weeps and she cries,
But she still goes on,
And just you thought you could stop her?
You thought you'd be the one?
Well, let me tell you, because you thought wrong.
Nothing will ever silence her,
Because I KNOW,
I know that she is admiringly strong,
Her undeniable beauty,
The triumph of her song,
She's shining bright like a ruby,
Reflecting in the golden sand,
She's shining brighter like no other,
She's far more ~ Gabrielle Renee

Kudra was amused by Alobar's tentative polka until her eyes fell upon the tumescent protrusion dancing with him. Disgusting she thought. An erection is just inappropriate. Then she realized with a shock that she was so wet that children could have sailed toy boats in her underpants. ~ Tom Robbins

Frankie turned back and forth in front of the three-way mirror. "I have absolutely no ass whatsoever."
A few feet away,a woman whose designer velour fit her like a sausage casing, gave an amused snort. "Honey," she said over a display of two-hundred-dollar T-shirts. "I have been waiting forty years to say those words."
Frankie padded toward her in his socks and Alexander McQuenn pants.He thrust his hands into the pockets, pulling the fabric tighter, and presented her with his outthrust bottom. "Honestly. This is what you want?"
She lasted about five seconds before grinning-and sighing at the same time. "No,I guess not."
He turned around, leaned in, and informed her conspiratorially, "There is not a T-shirt on earth worth that much."
She looked down at the plain blue cotton in her hands. "You are so right." She put it back. "And with that face, sweetie, you could have the ass of a rhino and no one would notice.I'm just saying."
"What does she know?" he muttered when she'd gone. "What good has this face done me?"
Apparently, Connor hadn't been quite as available as he'd let on. Apparently, along with dancing, juggling was one of his talents.
"You couldn't have known," Sadie said gently.
"Oh,yes,I could.I mean, he's a guy,isn't he?"
There's not much you can say to a boy when he makes a statement like that. So we just scooted in until we were up against Frankie's thin shoulders, bookending him. ~ Melissa Jensen

For Marquez, the transition from standing around to dancing was instantaneous and total. It wasn't about looking cool, it was about losing all contact with the normal world, gong away to a place where her body and mind and the music were all the same thing. ~ Katherine Applegate

Ron, you're making it snow," said Hermione patiently, grabbing his wrist and redirecting his wand away from the ceiling from which, sure enough, large white flakes had started to fall. Lavender Brown, Harry noticed, glared at Hermione from a neighboring table through very red eyes, and Hermione immediately let go of Ron's arm.
"Oh yeah," said Ron, looking down at his shoulders in vague surprise." Sorry...looks like we've all got horrible dandruff now...."
He brushed some of the fake snow off Hermione's shoulder. Lavender burst into tears. Ron looked immensely guilty and turned his back on her.
"We split up," he told Harry out of the corner of his mouth. "Last night. When she saw me coming out of the dormitory with Hermione. Obviously she couldn't see you, so she thought it had just been the two of us."
"ah," said Harry. "Well - you don't mind it's over, do you?" "No," Ron admitted. "It was pretty bad while she was yelling, but at least I didn't have to finish it."
"Coward," said Hermione, though she looked amused. "Well, it was a bad night for romance all around. Ginny and Dean split up too, Harry."
Harry thought there was a rather knowing look in her eye as she told him that, but she could no possibly know that his insides were suddenly dancing the conga. ~ J.K. Rowling

How is Irene?' I ask politely. I really don't care.

He throws his hands up in despair. 'She drives me insane. The woman has the attention span of a toddler. She's ditched playing bridge and has now informed me that she's enrolled in some Kumba dancing nonsense. I can't keep up with her.'

'You mean Zumba?'

'That's the one,' He points his chocolate digestive at me. 'It's all the rage, apparently.'

I chuckle at the thought of Irene in a leopard print leotard, jigging her over generous rump all over the place. ~ Jodi Ellen Malpas

She had to think about the future, her mother said. Marriage. She was sixteen now. It was time. The word made her sick to her stomach. She watched the other girls her age, braiding flowers into their hair, pinching their cheeks, smiling shyly or picking up their skirts and dancing, showing off their knees for the boys. Competing over who would live with whom in which dark hovel, who would spend their lives plowing which burned out field, making which grey stew in which sad hearth, having her hair torn out by which man, dying of which plague or beating or wretched childbirth...and she thought she'd rather die. She'd rather be dead. ~ Kimberly Cutter

Listen to Your Lover (Or Babe, Sweetie Cakes, Hot Rod, Honey, Dancing Queen, Dairy Queen, etc.)
If she tells you she likes it when you bite her neck - do it! It doesn't matter where she learned that she likes it or why she does, just be thankful you got the tip. Girls don't always express what they want, so when she does say it, you really want to make sure you are paying attention. Also, learn her language (unless it is Mandarin, because that shit is impossible). If you start pulling her hair and she starts moaning, that's her way of saying, "Ohmygod, please do this more, and by more I mean all the time." And the more you please her, the more she'll want to do it with you. It's a win-win! ~ Olivia Munn

mum's dress. mum loved big parties. she loved dressing up and champagne bubbles tickling her nose, and dancing with her arms above her head, shoes thrown to the edges of the dance floor, and shouting inane happy things at people. ~ Elizabeth Noble

I went on a blind date last night. We watched a silent film. We stayed up all night talking in sign language. I fell asleep in the fetal position in her cat's litter box. Ah, 'twas a great night. I'll never forget dancing with an albino under the stars. ~ Jarod Kintz

A child her wayward pencil drew
On margins of her book;
Garlands of flower, dancing elves,
Bud, butterfly, and brook,
Lessons undone, and plum forgot,
Seeking with hand and heart
The teacher whom she learned to love
Before she knew t'was Art. ~ Louisa May Alcott

If you like, I can leave and let you figure this - "
Legna grabbed his arm at the bicep when he made a strong movement to get up off the bed, jerking him back down definitively.
"Absolutely not! You did this to me; therefore, you get to enjoy the fallout."
"You make it sound like a punishment," he remarked, his eyes dancing with silver humor. "There is nowhere I would rather be than in my bed with my beautiful mate."
He leaned forward to engage her mouth in a tender kiss, their lips clinging together as if reluctant to release. Finally, he sat back, leaving her warm and happily flushed.
"Charmer," she accused him without malice.
"Siren," he countered, pulling them back together. And into a deep kiss that left them both longing for breath. ~ Jacquelyn Frank

I do not dance,' said Jean-Claude, who had forsworn that exercise for much the same reasons as Miss Stevenson.

But here he spoke too soon, for Lady Dorothy Bingham, merciless to what she called 'ballroom skulkers', saw him standing about, ordered John to introduce him to her, and became his patroness.

Not till he had miserably danced twice with her and once with each of the twins did he have the brilliant idea of introducing her to his mother. The master minds met, and recognised each other, and for the greater part of the evening they discussed the care and subjugation of a family... ~ Angela Thirkell

You see someone more interesting than me?" asked Simon. In the dream he was mysteriously an expert dance. He steered her through the crowd as if she were a leaf caught in a river current. He was wearing all black, like a shadow hunter, and it showed his coloring to a good advantage: dark hair, lighted brown skin,white teeth. He's handsome, Clary thought, with a jolt of surprise. "There's no one more interesting than you," Clary said. "It's just this place. I've never seen anything like it." She turned again as they passed a champagne fountain ... She was now dancing with Jace, who was wearing white, the material of his shirt a thin cotton ... ~ Cassandra Clare

Because of her frenetic nature and dancing mind, she chatted up a storm with the subjects she interviewed, who ended up overwhelmed or intimidated. Or captivated. ~ Jeffery Deaver

He was shockingly easy to follow. The pressure of his hand, the step of his foot, the angle of his frame... it was like reading his mind. When he leaned right, they turned in perfect unison. He swept her across the gallery in a quick three, a dizzying pace. Gilded frames and glass cases and the window blurred in her vision, and Azalea spun out, her skirts pulling and poofing around her, before he caught her and brought her back into dance position. She could almost hear music playing, swelling inside of her.

Mother had once told her about this perfect twining into one. She called it interweave, and said it was hard to do, for it took the perfect matching of the partners' strengths to overshadow each other's weaknesses, meshing into one glorious dance. Azalea felt the giddiness of being locked in not a pairing, but a dance. So starkly different than dancing with Keeper. Never that horrid feeling that she owed him something; no holding her breath, wishing for the dance to end. Now, spinning from Mr. Bradford's hand, her eyes closed, spinning back and feeling him catch her, she felt the thrill of the dance, of being matched, flow through her.

"Heavens, you're good!" said Azalea, breathless.

"You're stupendous," said Mr. Bradford, just as breathless. "It's like dancing with a top! ~ Heather Dixon Wallwork

Peter smiled as Concheetah sashayed across the ballroom floor
Concheetah sashayed towards him, wriggling her hips, full lips in a pout, followed obediently by the tentative, Tapping Ted dressed in tight shorts and singlet. Tapping? Tapping because he always wore conspicuous, tap-dancing shoes in the club.
Was Ted going to rip up the stage as a mincing Irish dancer or maybe perform a Gene Kelly routine or the Swan Lake ballet in taps? It was terrible to imagine. Peter bit his lip at that thought, hoping he wouldn't burst into howls of laughter.
He had noted after coming to several shows, that Ted usually stood at the side of the stage ready with a drink of champagne and an encouraging word and a dry towel to mop Her Highness's face. And he always cried during the
show's finale, Abba's Dancing Queen. Poor Tapping Ted. ~ T.W. Lawless

She devoutly put away in her drawers her beautiful dress, down to the satin shoes whose soles were yellowed with the slippery wax of the dancing floor. Her heart was like these. In its friction against wealth something had come over it that could not be effaced. ~ Gustave Flaubert

God, you are so beautiful"
Ali's eyes skittered off, nervous with his praise.
"Say thank you," he prompted.
"Thank you."
"Say, kiss me."
A smile curved her perfect mouth. He saw starts, dots dancing through his field of vision. This woman made his knees weak. Thank God he wasn't standing.
"Kiss me," she said.
"Whatever you want. ~ Kylie Scott

The Song Of The Happy Shepherd

The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers? - By the Rood,
Where are now the watring kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.
Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor seek, for this is also sooth,
To hunger fiercely after truth,
Lest all thy toiling only breeds
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass -
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs - the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.
Go gather by the humming sea
Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell.
And to its lips thy story tell,
And ~ W.B. Yeats

Its half a dozen legs, divided into segments – either four or five, it was difficult to count them - had an elegance of movement that Lily found enthralling. As though choreographed to a beat mimicking the thumping in her breast, the precise spasmodic jerks of their several bends made her think of Madonna dancing to Vogue. They had the faultless coordination of intertwining cutlery in the hands of a hungry magician – or of the Queen eating dinner alone. This rush of ridiculous analogies caused Lily to laugh with delight, loudly, now without the slightest fear that the fly might be disturbed, because this fly was unlike other flies, and Lily knew that it would know not to feel under threat. ~ Panayotis Cacoyannis

Can you please also give me instructions for dancing?"

"Excuse me?"

"I need instructions for dancing. Like how do I move my body to music in front of other people? Break it down. Step by step."

"Seriously? Dancing isn't one of those things that come with instructions. It's not like putting together Ikea furniture."

"Please help me."

"Well, first of all, this is not the sort of music that will be playing." She motions to the pianist, who is bald and bearded, which I've always found to be a bizarre combination. You would think you would want cranial and mandibular hair consistency.

"No Ravel's Bolero. Got it."

"No classical music, period. They'll probably just play all the crap that's on the radio."

"I amend my original request. I need instructions for dancing to noise."

"You just move your body to the beat. Feel the music." Miney puts her arms up and sways to sounds I do not hear. She closes her eyes, leans on the tips of her toes, and jumps. After approximately ninety seconds, she stops and looks at me. "Your turn."

"I don't think so." Miney doesn't respond. She just waits.

"Fine." I copy her, jump up and down, though I don't actually jump down, which is a misnomer. I let gravity do its job. My sneakers make discordant squeaks along the marble floor.

"No. Stop. You look like you're having a seizure. Think of dancing like having a conversation but ~ Julie Buxbaum

Magnus didn't look at her; he was looking down at the tent, where Clary sat talking with Tessa, where Alec stood side by side with Maia and Bat, laughing, where Isabelle and Simon were dancing to the music Jace was playing on the piano, the haunting sweet notes of Chopin reminding him of another time, and the sound of a violin at Christmas. ~ Cassandra Clare

The rest of the evening passed agreeably: the crew had their games on the main deck, resigning themselves to Sirs and dice now that dancing was out, those who would go ashore to enjoy the dining halls and tea houses went after their matches were lost, and those who remained either took themselves off to an early rest or remained with the musicians, to sing out the remainder of the evening by way of a few round songs, calling out verses in melodic dissonance, singing the history of Good Marrie the Whore and though there were "Ten hands in her purse, there was still room for one more!", ~ Michelle Franklin

What did you spend so much time talking about with Ila? If you weren't dancing with that long-legged fellow, you were talking to her like it was some kind of secret."
"Ila was giving me advice on being a woman," Egwene replied absently. He began laughing, and she gave him a hooded, dangerous look that he failed to see.
"Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are."
"That," Egwene said, "is probably why you make such a bad job of it. ~ Robert Jordan

It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "How young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are."
"All young ladies accomplished? My dear Charles, what do you mean?"
"Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time without being informed that she was very accomplished."
"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished."
"Nor I, I am sure." said Miss Bingley.
"Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman."
"Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it."
"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can really be esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."
"All this she must possess," added Dar ~ Jane Austen

Dimity said, "I wrote him poetry!"
( ... ) "Dimity," Sophronia said, horrified by such an admission, "you didn't give him the poetry, did you?"
"Certainly not."
Sidheag tilted back in her chair, grinning. "Well, let's hear it."
"Oh, no. I don't think that's a good idea at all."
But Dimity was already dipping into her reticule and pulling out a scrap of paper. She gave it to Sidheag, who read it with a perfectly straight face, her tawny eyes dancing, and then passed it Sophronia.
"My love is like a red red rose
Occasionally he has a red red nose
He could keep me warm in the snows
I wager he has very nice toes."
Sophronia could think of nothing to say except, "Oh, Dimity. ~ Gail Carriger

If I lost focus for even a moment, she's smack me with her stick and say, "Dreaming of dancing with your dark prince? ~ Leigh Bardugo

We'll never be a normal boy and girl, will we?" she managed to say.
"No," he breathed, eyes blazing. "We won't."
And then the music exploded around them, and Chaol took her with it, spinning her so that her cloak fanned out around her. Each step was flawless, lethal, like that first time they'd sparred together so many months ago. She knew his every move and he knew hers, as though they'd been dancing this waltz together all their lives. Faster, never faltering, never breaking her stare.
The rest of the world quieted into nothing. In that moment, after ten long years, Celaena looked at Chaol and realized she was home. ~ Sarah J. Maas

He look back toward the dance floor and greeted his teeth. She was in Tristan's arms moving gracefully in rhythm with the music. Tristan with cutting quite a swath through the ladies, he knew it shouldn't grate that his brother was dancing with Mary. Tristan knew more than he knew any of the others. It was expected. But still he didn't like the way Tristan watched her through hooded eyes. But then Tristan caught his gaze an issue a silent challenge: cut in. I dare you. ~ Lorraine Heath

Eve held his eyes and confidently licked the length of the razor-sharp blade with the tip of her tongue. Red blood beaded up on her tongue, and she licked her lips, giving them a fresh coat of color. Eve used the knife to blow a kiss in Beckett's direction and disappeared into the crowd. Beckett forgot to keep dancing. He stood stock still with Kyle still twirling around him.
Eve had just f*cked his mind so hard, he wanted to smoke a cigarette and cuddle like some soap-watching woman. ~ Debra Anastasia

She can't explain or quite understand what it is that is special about dancing with Harry. When he opens his arms to her, he is so sure, the way he holds her, not too hard, not too soft. Like coming home. Where she belongs. The way he moves her. They are a part of the music. Their bodies fit together, move like one person. Perfect. The way a man and a woman must feel, she thinks, when they are in love. He makes her feel beautiful, too, like when he assures her that someday she will be good enough to be a professional dancer. Harry must know, because he is the best dancer, the best teacher, a girl could have, patient and gentle. She is lucky that he believes in her. That is how she feels outside his door. ~ Alice Simpson

I hate you," she declared wretchedly in the vibrating, lust filled air.
He leaned in close, lips barely touching hers as he nudged at her cheek with his nose, his warm breath a seduction of its own until he was at her ear, "No, sweet pet, you hate that you want me," he imparted huskily.
"Do you feel that?" Her kiss bruised mouth parted in a soft gasp, her golden eyes widening as she felt his fingers dancing just beyond the damp barrier of her panties. "How wet you are? That's your pussy salivating for my cock. ~ Francette Phal

Tancredi and Angelica were passing in front of them at that moment, his gloved right hand on her waist, their outspread arms interlaced, their eyes gazing into each other's. The black of his tail coat, the pink of her dress, combining formed a kind of strange jewel. They were the most moving sight there, two young people in love dancing together, blind to each other's defects, deaf to the warnings of fate, deluding themselves that the whole course of their lives would be as smooth as the ballroom floor, unknowning actors made to play the parts of Juliet and Romeo by a director who had concealed the fact that tomb and poison were already in the script. Neither of them was good, each full of self-interest, swollen with secret aims; yet there was something sweet and touching about them both; those murky but ingenuous ambitions of theirs were obliterated by the words of jesting tenderness he was murmuring in her ear, by the scent of her hair, by the mutual clasp of those bodies of theirs destined to die. . .

For them death was purely an intellectual concept, a fact of knowledge as it were and no more, not an experience which pierced the marrow of their bones. Death, oh yes, it existed of course, but it was something that happened to others. The thought occurred to Don Fabrizio that it was ignorance of this supreme consolation that made the young feel sorrows much more sharply than the old; the latter are nearer the safety exit. ~ Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

Something else?" She huffed as she pushed from the table, grabbing her husband's empty coffee cup. "That's the nice way of saying they're bat shit crazy."
"Hey!" Mr Hamilton's head whipped around, eyes dancing. "You listen here, woman."
"You can listen to my foot up your ass if you call me woman again." Mrs Hamilton refilled the cup and reached for the sugar. "And you can take that to court."
Cam sighed and lowered his head.
I smothered my giggle with my hand. ~ J. Lynn

He has a fascination with mortals.
Raphael had said that to her before she'd woken with wings of midnight and dawn.
"Why are you starting at me, Ellie?" Illium said without taking his eyes from the blade dancing around his fingers.
The words were instinctive, something she might as easily have said to rib Ransom. "You're so pretty, it's difficult to resist."
A flashing grin, a hint of that aristocratic English accent in his response. "It's hard to be me, it's true.
~ Nalini Singh

I wonder why the mountain men's wives don't seem to mind them drinking so much and dancing with other women?" Emma's propped up her chin with her fist, her elbow resting on her knee, as she watched the goings-on. Davis grinned. "You see the size of those men? I'm sure they do whatever it is they want to do. Most Ute women tend to be easy on their men. Besides, not everyone has an exemplary husband such as myself." She slanted him a look and smirked. ~ Callie Hutton

Then Daniel stepped forward and a trumpet sounded, followed by a drum. The dance was beginning. He took her hand. When he spoke, he spoke to her, not to the audience,as the other players did.
"The fairest hand I ever touched," Daniel said. "O Beauty, till now I never knew thee." As if the lines had been written for the two of them.
They began to dance,and Daniel locked eyes with her the whole time. His eyes were crystal clear and violet, and the way they never strayed from hers chipped away at Luce's heart. She knew he'd loved her always,but until this moment,dancing with him on the stage in front of all these people,she had never really thought about what it meant.
It meant that when she saw him for the first time in every life,Daniel was already in love with her. Every time. And always had been. And every time, she had to fall in love with him from scratch.He could never pressure her or push her into loving him. He had to win her anew each time.
Daniel's love for her was one long, uninterrupted stream.It was the purest form of love there was,purer even than the love Luce returned. His love flowed without breaking,without stopping. Whereas Luce's love was wiped clean with every death, Daniel's grew over time, across all eternity. How powerfully strong must it be by now? Hundreds of love stacked one on top of the other? It was almost too massive for Luce to comprehend.
He loved her that much,and yet in every lifetime,over and over again,he had to wait ~ Lauren Kate

... he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered. He wanted her to be a virgin and not a virgin all at once. He wanted to know her. Intimate secrets: Why poetry? Why so sad? Why that grayness in her eyes? Why so alone? Not lonely, just alone - riding her bike across campus or sitting off by herself in the cafeteria - even dancing, she danced alone - and it was the aloneness that filled him with love. He remembered telling her that one evening. How she nodded and looked away. And how, later, when he kissed her, she received the kiss without returning it, her eyes wide open, not afraid, not a virgin's eyes, just flat and uninvolved. ~ Tim O'Brien

When I'm dancing with any woman, I immediately get rid of intimacy barriers. I just give her a big hug and crack on. ~ Anton Du Beke

Jessica was clearly in her element, moving with the music naturally and without effort. Even her lustrous golden hair swayed to the beat, completing the perfect picture of a dancer caught up in ecstasy. ~ Francine Pascal

Where ya goin'?" Coleen asked. "I'm taking Lena to dinner, then we're going dancing." Coleen threw a hand on her hip. "You don't smell the gumbo that's been cooking all day? It's your favorite. I stuffed every aquatic creature I could find into that pot. Claws and legs are hanging out all over the place." "I'll have some tomorrow," Jorie said as she caught one of the screws that dropped from the blade. "I made pie, damn it. Pecan, just because I know you love it. Bring that woman here for dinner and save yourself a buck or two." "Oh, no," Jorie said with a laugh. "I really like her. It's too soon to expose her to an Andolini dinner. ~ Robin Alexander

A gasp caught her attention, followed by a rush of whispers that filled the sudden silence that fell over the room. People stopped talking to turn and stare. People stopped dancing. Even the orchestra stopped playing.
Curious, Rose turned to see what everyone was staring at with such blatant shock.
Oh, dear God. Her eyes had to be deceiving her! But no, she knew who it was she saw standing just inside the ballroom doors, looking as though he owned the place, meeting every gaze with calm, ducal arrogance.
It was Grey.
And everyone else knew it was him as well, because unlike every other person in that ballroom, the Duke of Ryeton did not wear a mask. ~ Kathryn Smith

The ghosts of women once girls

Somewhere a little girl is reading aloud
in the middle of a dirt road. she smiles
at the sound of her own voice escaping
the spine of the book. she feeds her hunger
to know herself. She has not yet been taught
to dim, she sits with the stars beneath her feet,
a constellation of things to come.
as if a swallowed moon, she glimmers.
Her head wrap rolls out in a gutter, bare feet
scat the earth, the ghosts of women once girls
make bridge of the dust dancing behind her,
she decorates the ground in dimples
she stomps suffering out the spirit
hooves drumming the earth in circles
she holds gladness in her mouth
like a secret teased out of a giggle
joy like her sadness overflows
she is not the opinions of others
she is of visions and imagination
somewhere a little girl is reading aloud in the middle of a dirt road.
she smiles at the sound of her own voice escaping the spine of the book.
She is a room full
of listening, lending herself
to her own words
somewhere

a deep remembering of what was, she survives all. ~ Aja Monet

So when a little girl asks her father where the moon came from, he might tell her that the moon circles around the earth and reflects light from the sun. He might tell her that the moon likes to play hide-and-seek with the sun, so sometimes the moon looks like it's peeking out from behind a black curtain; sometimes all you can see is the top of its head, and sometimes you can't even see it at all! He might tell her about how the moon has invisible arms that can pull the oceans back and forth, making tides rise and fall. He might tell her that astronauts have walked on the moon and played golf on the moon and collected rocks from the moon. He might tell her that the moon has dimples and craters and basins that we can see only with a telescope and that there's a special place on the moon called the Sea of Tranquility that isn't really a sea. Then the father might take the little girl outside, hoist her up onto his shoulders, and let her stare at the moon for a while. He might recite a poem about a cow jumping over the moon or sing a song about a dreamy-eyed kid slow-dancing with it. Soon the little girl will become so lost in her father's beautiful stories that she will forget she ever had a question to begin with. ~ Rachel Held Evans

Ma went up to the gate, and pushed against it to open it. But it did not open very far, because there was Sukey, standing against it. Ma said:
"Sukey, get over!" She reached across the gate and slapped Sukey's shoulder.
Just then one of the dancing little bits of light from the lantern jumped between the bars of the gate, and Laura saw long, shaggy, black fur, and two little, glittering eyes.
Sukey had thin, short, brown fur. Sukey had large, gentle eyes.
Ma said, "Laura, walk back to the house."
So Laura turned around and began to walk toward the house. Ma came behind her. When they had gone part way, Ma snatched her up, lantern and all, and ran. Ma ran with her into the house, and slammed the door.
Then Laura said, "Ma, was it a bear?"
"Yes, Laura," Ma said. "It was a bear."
Laura began to cry. She hung on to Ma and sobbed, "Oh, will he eat Sukey?"
"No," Ma said, hugging her. "Sukey is safe in the barn. Think, Laura--all those big, heavy logs in the barn walls. And the door is heavy and solid, made to keep bears out. No, the bear cannot get in and eat Sukey."
Laura felt better then. "But he could have hurt us, couldn't he?" she asked.
"He didn't hurt us," Ma said. "You were a good girl, Laura, to do exactly as I told you, and to do it quickly, without asking why."
Ma was trembling, and she began to laugh a little. "To think," she said, "I've slapped a bear! ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

The swamp roses, Gillie. It was the mare found them. She - if she hadn't run off - it was almost as if she meant me to see them."
"Are you saying? ... "
"I don't know what I'm saying. Yes," she cried, a gay silliness taking her. Drunk with the music and the dancing, drunk with his closeness, she laughed up at him. It was just as in the stories, a kind of magic just like ... " and then she stared at him, confounded.
"Just like what?"
"But in the stories ... "
"In the stories ... what?"
"In the stories ... "
"In the stories there's a prince," Gillie answered quietly. He held her away then. "So the story has come true. ~ Shirley Rousseau Murphy

She didn't understand love, not the golden, shimmering, romance-novel stuff that existed between mates. She was skeptical of it, and had never been one to pretend that it existed just for the sake of excitement. She didn't know what it looked like, what it felt like…at least, she hadn't. But she realized, amid the dancing tendrils of ivy that climbed the gazebo, that love – that good, golden kind she'd always discounted – didn't arrive with a blast of trumpets and an earth-shattering epiphany. It was earned, formed, created, day by day, a little at a time. And it looked like Mike eating toast over her kitchen sink, felt like his hand smoothing her hair back off her face, sounded like his sudden shout of laughter when she spilled a whole sack of flour out of the top cabinet down onto her head in his kitchen, tasted like the kiss he used to make up for it. ~ Lauren Gilley

Ethan filled his gaze with her, so feminine and fine, with glimmers dancing across her dress and little crystal things sparkling in her hair.
Despite her outward delicacy, there was something remarkably sturdy about her, an unyielding toughness he admired more than she would have believed. The life she'd chosen had come with the never-ending obligation to demonstrate what a woman was and was not, and what a woman could be. People would allow her no room for mistakes or ordinary human frailty. God knew she endured it all far better than Ethan would have. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Do you ride?" The question was out of his mouth before he'd thought.
She glanced at him, surprised by the comment coming out of nowhere, but then she nodded and looked ahead. "I love to ride. I don't get as much opportunity as I'd like what with being in London so much, but whenever I can manage it, I'll get on a horse." Her lips twitched and she glanced up at him. "Preferably one of Demon's."
He grinned. "His are the best."
"Do you have any?"
He nodded. "One definite benefit of being connected to the family."
"I love the exhilaration one gets when pounding along-I think that's what I enjoy the most."
He blinked. Decided hard riding wasn't the best choice of conversational topics. At least not for him. Especially not with her. "What about dancing?"
"I love to waltz. I even enjoy the older forms, the quadrilles and cotillions. They might be less fashionable now, but there's a certain...reined power in them, don't you think?"
"Hmm." Where was an innocent topic when he needed one?
"Have you ever danced the gavotte?"
"Years ago." And he still remembered it. And of course the thought of dancing that particular measure with her, in full flight, instantly filled his mind. ~ Stephanie Laurens

Stop! Stop!"
Sophie shrieked with laughter as she ran down the stone steps that led to the garden behind Bridgerton House. After three children and seven years of marriage, Benedict could still make her smile, still make her laugh . . . and he still chased her around the house any chance he could get.
"Where are the children?" she gasped, once he'd caught her at the base of the steps.
"Francesca is watching them."
"And your mother?"
He grinned. "I daresay Francesca is watching her, too."
"Anyone could stumble upon us out here," she said, looking this way and that.
His smile turned wicked. "Maybe," he said, catching hold of her green-velvet skirt and reeling her in, "we should adjourn to the private terrace."
The words were oh-so-familiar, and it was only a second before she was transported back nine years to the masquerade ball.
"The private terrace, you say?" she asked, amusement dancing in her eyes. "And how, pray tell, would you know of a private terrace?"
His lips brushed against hers. "I have my ways," he murmured.
"And I," she returned, smiling slyly, "have my secrets."
He drew back. "Oh? And will you share?"
"We five," she said with a nod, "are about to be six."
He looked at her face, then looked at her belly. "Are you sure?"
"As sure as I was last time."
He took her hand and raised it to lips. "This one will be a girl."
"That's what you said last time."
"I know, ~ Julia Quinn

Lougarry was waiting over the brow of the hill, lying so still in the grass that a butterfly had perched within an inch of her nose. The stems bent and shimmered as she rose to her feet, and the butterfly floated away like a wind-borne petal. Fern wondered if , like Ragginbone, the she-wolf possessed the faculty of making herself at one with her surroundings, not invisible but transmuted, so close to nature that she could blend with it at will and be absorbed into its many forms, becoming grass blade and wildflower, still earth and moving air, resuming her true self at the prompting of a thought. It came to Fern that we are all part of one vast pattern of Being, the real world and the shadow-world, sunlight and werelight, Man and spirit, and to understand and accept that was the first step toward the abnegation of ego, the affirmation of the soul. To comprehend the wind, not as a movement of molecules but as the pulse of the air, the pulse of her pulse, was to become the wind, to blow with it through the dancing grasses to the edge of the sky... ~ Jan Siegel

If, when the prodigal came back to his father, there was the preparation of the fatted calf, and the music and dancing, and the gold ring and the best robe, what will be the preparation when we do not come home as prodigals, but as the bride prepared for her husband, or as the beloved children, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, coming home to the Father who shall see his own image in us, and rejoice over us with singing? ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Excellent," says Gray, rubbing his hands together, a gleam in his eye. "The last
person to sing gets to buy the drinks."
Ivy grins wide. "You're on, Cupcake. I'm going to sing the house down."
We all pause, our gazes darting back and forth as a certain sense of terror falls
over the table.
Ivy sees us and slaps her palm onto the table. "Oh, for fuck's sake. I know what
you twats are thinking! If I suck at dancing, I'll suck at singing? Well, I don't. I'm
awesome."
Awkward silence ensues, and she snorts.
"What? You think I don't know I suck at dancing? I just don't give a shit." She
glares at Gray, though there really isn't any anger in the look. "So you can stop
dancing like an ass now."
A strangled sound leaves him. "You knew?"
"Of course." She tosses a lock of her hair over her shoulder. "You're too
coordinated on the field, and you kind of forget to suck when you do those victory
dances."
He gapes at her for a long second, then gives a bark of laughter. "I fucking love
you, Special Sauce." With that, he hauls Ivy into his lap and kisses her.
Fi, however, finally snaps out of the trance she's been in since Ivy confessed.
"You sneaky shithead," she shouts over the music. "All these years I've been
covering for your craptacular dancing, and you knew!" She shakes a fist. "I swear to
God, Ivy Weed…"
"Oh, please," Ivy counters. "You pretend you suck at baking so you don' ~ Kristen Callihan

Years later I saw a film - poignantly sad, and for me unbearably so - about a scientist who had invented a kind of total sense recorder, not just video but audio and smellio and touchio and the rest, which he set to play every afternoon in a given place a given time, for as long as the mechanism lasted. The scene he projected was that of a dozen or so young couples dancing on a terrace in the same holiday house, on the same island, where the recorder itself was kept. Then this young man comes across it while it is playing and at first is convinced he is watching a real occurrence: he sees this beautiful girl, in her slinky 1930s outfit, dancing and laughing and chattering with her friends, and he falls in love with her on the spot. Second day, same time around, he comes to the island at a slightly different time so he sees a slightly different excerpt, and still doesn't twig and falls deeper in love. And so on and so forth for various days until he happens on a duplicate bit and realises something is wrong. But by then, of course, he is irretrievably hooked. So what does he do? He digs out the machine, fiddles with its insides until he has grasped its workings, and then sets it up in recording mode and records himself into the scene in a desperate last-ditch attempt to join the dancers. Which works, and there he stays: trapped there amongst them in a virtual dimension, forever young, forever re-enacting the same little loop of life, over and over. ~ A.P. .

How are you feeling, Willow?" Ember asked. "Like I swallowed a baby elephant," she said deadpan. "I don't know how I'm going to get through the next two months." Shannon snorted and Willow gave her a look with a raised eyebrow. "Just you wait, little girl. You're going to have two baby elephants dancing on your bladder soon." Shannon groaned. "You're cursing me," she moaned. She'd ~ J.M. Madden

She felt happy and wondered if she'd ever felt this happy before. The gold light, the falling seeds, the dancing bees... it was all one thing. This was the opposite of the dark desert. Here, light was everywhere and filled her up inside. She could feel herself here but see herself from above, twirling with a buzzing shadow that sparkled golden as the light struck the bees. Moments like this paid for it all. ~ Terry Pratchett

This garden was peaceful and calm. Pink cherry blossoms and violet plum blossoms graced the sweeping trees. The petals fell like snowflakes, dancing and swirling until they touched the soft, verdant grass.
There was something familiar about this place.
Her eyes traveled down the flat stone steps. She knew this path, knew those stones. The third one from the bottom had a crack in the middle- from when she was five and the neighbor's boy convinced her there were worms on the other side of the stones. She'd hammered the stone in half, eager to catch a few worms to play with.
There weren't any, of course, but her mother had helped her find some dragonflies by the pond instead, and they'd spent an afternoon counting them in the garden.
Mulan smiled wistfully at the memory. This can't be the same garden. I'm in Diyu.
Yet no painter could have re-created what she saw more convincingly. Every detail was as she remembered. At the bottom of the stone-cobbled path was a pond with rose-flushed lilies, and a marble bench under the cherry tree. She used to play by the pond when she was a little girl, catching frogs and fireflies in wine jugs and feeding the fish leftover rice husks and sesame seeds until her mother scolded her.
And beyond the moon gate was-
Mulan's hand jumped to her mouth.
Home.
That smell of home- of Baba's incense from the family temple, sharp with amber and cedar; of noodles in Grandmother Fa's special pork broth; of jasmine ~ Elizabeth Lim

Do you recall the last time you and I danced? I am afraid I was rude to you." She ducked her head, embarrassed. "You didn't like being forced to dance with me then any more than now, I imagine." It was his turn to be taken aback. "Miss Smallwood, you are mistaken. I am very much enjoying dancing with you. I only hesitated because I thought you would prefer to dance with Phillip. ~ Julie Klassen

Graceful. Lean. Coordinated as she whirls, though how she knows what dancing is, [her grandfather] could never guess.

The song plays on. He lets it go too long. The antenna is still up, probably dimly visible against the sky, the whole attic might as well shine like a beacon. But in the candlelight, in the sweet rush of a concerto, Marie-Laure bites her lower lip, and her face gives off a secondary glow, reminding him of the marshes beyond the town walls, in those winter dusks when the sun has set but isn't fully swallowed, and big patches of red pools of light burn - places he used to go with his brother, in what seems like lifetimes ago. ~ Anthony Doerr

Huffing from her exertion, her face flushed and her expression happy, she looked toward the door - and went still.
Dare pushed past Trace and went to the wall unit to turn down the music.
Into the silence, Chris asked, "Everyone having fun?"
"God, Chris," Dare said. "Trace is going to kill you if you don't shut up."
"Really?" Priss struck a pose of annoyance, one hip cocked out, her arms crossed, her chin elevated. "And here Molly and Chris assured Matt that you weren't the type to cause bodily harm."
"They must have been jesting." Trace was well used to Chris's warped sense of humor, so Chris wasn't in any danger. But Matt . . . Trace zeroed in on him. In a tone more lethal for the quietness of it, he asked, "What are you doing?"
"Harmless dancing?" Matt replied in a nervous question, unsure of the right answer.
Priss suddenly stepped in front of Matt, which left Matt bemused. "Don't act snarky with him, Trace. I asked him to dance with me. We had some time to kill before this crud comes out of my hair. And you were nowhere to be found."
Matt pulled her aside, earning a glare from Trace. He quickly held up his hands, palms out, to prove he wasn't touching her. "Speaking of time, we can go wash your hair right now, if everyone will just excuse us."
"I need a minute with Priss first." Trace eyed her militant stance, and had to fight a smile. She had a backbone of steel. He liked that. "Alone. ~ Lori Foster

When you love a woman, what do you really love in her? It will be different with different people and it will be different at different times. If love really grows, this is the way: first you fall in love with the woman because her body is beautiful. That is the first available beauty - her face, her eyes, her proportion, her elegance, her dancing, pulsating energy. Her body is beautiful. That is the first approach. You fall in love.

Then after a few days you start going deeper into the woman. You start loving her heart. Now a far more beautiful revelation is coming to you. The body becomes secondary; the heart becomes primary. A new vision has arisen, a new peak. If you go on loving the woman, sooner or later you will find there are peaks beyond peaks, depths beyond depths. Then you start loving the soul of the woman. Then it is not only her heart - now that has become secondary. Now it is the very person, the very presence, the very radiance, the aliveness, that unknown phenomenon of her being - that she is. The body is very far away, the heart has also gone away - now the being is.

And then one day this particular woman's being becomes far away. Now you start loving womanhood in her, the femininity, the feminineness, that receptivity. Now she is not a particular woman at all, she simply reflects womanhood, a particular form of womanhood. Now it is no longer individual, it is becoming more and more universal. And one day that womanhood has also disappe ~ Osho

Trust me, she knew who she was dancing with the entire time. She just chose to see good in everybody. I personally don't think she should change that about herself. It's possible her energy could even bring out the best in the devil. ~ Unknown

The force of the blast did not scatter the crystals, as Bridget's common sense told her it absolutely should have. Instead it just seemed to disperse, spreading out like a wave. Where the wave spread, the little crystals burst into hot, angry light. And abruptly and all at once, they rose into the air in a cloud of glowing motes. Folly appeared among them, striding forward, flickers of light dancing along her candy-stripe hair, her mismatched eyes blazing. Sark loosed several more blasts, all of which dispersed into the crystals, making them glow with even brighter light. Folly's voice rang out, cold and hard. "We don't like it when people try to hurt our friends." And the entire cloud of crystals flew at Sark like bullets loosed from a gun. Sark ~ Jim Butcher

Elizabeth," he said, trying not to laugh. "At a wedding reception, the guests cannot leave until the bride and groom retire. If you look over there, you'll notice my great-aunts are already nodding in their chairs."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, instantly contrite. "I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"Because," he said, taking her elbow and beginning to guide her from the ballroom, "I wanted you to enjoy every minute of our ball, even if we had to prop the guests up on the shrubbery."
"Speaking of shrubbery," she teased, pausing on the balcony to cast a last fond look at the "arbor" of potted trees with silk blossoms that occupied one-fourth the length of the entire ballroom, "everyone is talking about having gardens and arbors as themes for future balls. I think you've stared a new 'rage.'"
"You should have seen your face," he teased, drawing her away, "when you recognized what I had done."
"We are probably the only couple," she returned her face turned up to his in laughing conspiracy, "ever to lead off a ball by dancing a waltz on the sidelines." When the orchestra had struck up the opening waltz, Ian had led her into the mock "arbor," and they had started the ball from there.
"Did you mind?"
"You know I didn't," she returned, walking beside him up the curving staircase.
He stopped outside her bed chamber, opened the door for her, and started to pull her into his arms, then checked himself as a pair of servants came marching down ~ Judith McNaught

When she goes about her kitchen duties, chopping, carving, mixing, whisking, she moves with the grace and precision of a ballet dancer, her fingers plying the food with the dexterity of a croupier. ~ Craig Claiborne

She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do.
And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever find
herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella. ~ Terry Pratchett

I'd like to go to one," she said. "It might not be my thing even, but I'd like to go at least once to say I've done it. Sometimes I feel cheated. I know it's selfish, but sometimes I wonder what it would've been like if my grandfather didn't get himself exiled. Who knows, I might have been a lady."

He didn't have much use for ladies. A lady was someone else's wife or daughter or sister. They were not real, almost like trophies forever out of his reach. She was real. And strong.

She looked about to cry.

"Would you like to dance?"

Her eyes opened wide. "Are you serious?"

Once he learned something, he never forgot it. William took a step forward and executed a perfect deep bow, his left arm out. "Would you do me the honor of dancing with me, Lady Cerise?"

She cleared her throat and curtsied, holding imaginary skirts. "Certainly, Lord Bill. But we have no music."

"That's fine." He stepped to her, sliding one arm around her waist. She put her hand on his shoulder. Her body touched his, and he spun with her around the attic, light on his feet, leading her. It took her a moment and then she caught his rhythm and followed him. She was flexible and quick, and he kept picturing her naked.

"You dance really well, Lord Bill."

"Especially if I have a knife."

She laughed. They circled the attic once, twice, and he brought them to the center of the room, shifting from a qu ~ Ilona Andrews

Lauren's eyes widened.An entire page had been devoted to the Children's Hospital Benefit Ball.In the center was a color picture of her-with Nick. They were dancing, and he was grinning down at her. Lauren's face was in profile, tilted up to his. The caption read, "Detroit industrialist J. Nicholas Sinclair and companion."
"It does look like me, doesn't it?" she hedged, glancing at the excited, avidly curious faces surrounding her desk. "Isn't that an amazing coincidence?" She didn't want her relationship with Nick to be public knowledge until the time was right, and she certainly didn't want her co-workers to treat her any differently.
"You mean it isn't you?" one of the women said disappointedly. None of them noticed the sudden lull, the silence sweeping over the office as people stopped talking and typewriters went perfectly still...
"Good morning, ladies," Nick's deep voice said behind Lauren. Six stunned women snapped to attention, staring in fascinated awe as Nick leaned over Lauren from behind and braced his hands on her desk. "Hi," he said, his lips so near her ear that Lauren was afraid to turn her head for fear he would kiss her in front of everyone. He glanced at the newspaper spread out on her desk. "You look beautiful, but who's that ugly guy you're dancing with?" Without waiting for an answer, he straightened, affectionately rumpled the hair on the top of her head and strolled into Jim's office, closing the door behind him.
Lauren felt like si ~ Judith McNaught

Little girls are the nicest things that can happen to people. They are born with a bit of angel-shine about them, and though it wears thin sometimes, there is always enough left to lasso your heart - even when they are sitting in the mud, or crying temperamental tears, or parading up the street in Mother's best clothes.

A little girl can be sweeter (and badder) oftener than anyone else in the world. She can jitter around, and stomp, and make funny noises that frazzle your nerves, yet just when you open your mouth, she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot.

God borrows from many creatures to make a little girl. He uses the song of a bird, the squeal of a pig, the stubbornness of a mule, the antics of a monkey, the spryness of a grasshopper, the curiosity of a cat, the speed of a gazelle, the slyness of a fox, the softness of a kitten, and to top it all off He adds the mysterious mind of a woman.

A little girl likes new shoes, party dresses, small animals, first grade, noisemakers, the girl next door, dolls, make-believe, dancing lessons, ice cream, kitchens, coloring books, make-up, cans of water, going visiting, tea parties, and one boy. She doesn't care so much for visitors, boys in general, large dogs, hand-me-downs, straight chairs, vegetables, snowsuits, or staying in the front yard.

She is loudest wh ~ Alan Beck

on the back. 'Excellent.' Mr Mudge crossed his arms. 'So, at recess, you can polish the lawn bowls. At lunch, report to Mrs Trundle. There are quite a few things that need doing around her office. I'm sure she'll find a use for you.' 'No problem, Mr Mudge.' Mr Mudge waved them past. 'Now, straight to class.' They set off again, moving quickly this time, with Mudge bringing up the rear. 'Good one, Warner,' Sunil whispered in Davey's ear as they approached the classroom. 'What a crazy idea! Who'd have thought you'd pull it off?' Davey rolled his eyes. 'Thanks for the vote of confidence, Deep.' 'Now, we've just got to get McNab out of his dancing thing,' Sunil muttered. 'Wonder what Pepi's other idea was? ~ David Warner

Come for a walk, dear. The air will do you good."
Raoul thought that she would propose a stroll in the country, far from that building which he detested as a prison whose jailer he could feel walking within the walls... the jailer Erik... But she took him to the stage and made him sit on the wooden curb of a well, in the doubtful peace and coolness of a first scene set for the evening's performance.
On another day, she wandered with him, hand in hand, along the deserted paths of a garden whose creepers had been cut out by a decorator's skillful hands. It was as though the real sky, the real flowers, the real earth were forbidden her for all time and she condemned to breathe no other air than that of the theatre. An occasional fireman passed, watching over their melancholy idyll from afar. And she would drag him up above the clouds, in the magnificent disorder of the grid, where she loved to make him giddy by running in front of him along the frail bridges, among the thousands of ropes fastened to the pulleys, the windlasses, the rollers, in the midst of a regular forest of yards and masts. If he hesitated, she said, with an adorable pout of her lips:
"You, a sailor!"
And then they returned to terra firma, that is to say, to some passage that led them to the little girls' dancing-school, where brats between six and ten were practicing their steps, in the hope of becoming great dancers one day, "covered with diamonds..." Meanwhile, Christine gave them sweets ~ Gaston Leroux

So Recklessly Exposed

December and January, gone.
Tulips coming up. It's time to watch
how trees stagger in the wind
and roses never rest.

Wisteria and Jasmine twist on themselves.
Violet kneels to Hyacinth, who bows.

Narcissus winks, wondering what will
the lightheaded Willow say
of such slow dancing by Cypress.

Painters come outdoors with brushes.
I love their hands.

The birds sing suddenly and all at once.
The soul says Ya Hu, quietly.

A dove calls, Where, ku?
Soul, you will find it.

Now the roses show their breasts.
No one hides when the Friend arrives.

The Rose speaks openly to the Nightingale.
Notice how the Green Lily has several tongues
but still keeps her secret.

Now the Nightingale sings this love
that is so recklessly exposed, like you. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi

On her head perched a pillbox hat with an absurd little veil. She'd pulled the dotted veil up out of her eyes, but not completely - it hung lopsidedly, dangling over her right brow. Her dark brown dress was filmed with dust she'd raised, and dust caught on her damp cheeks. One lock of hair had escaped her coiffure, a red snake dancing down her bodice. She was delightfully mussed, and dear God, he wanted her. ~ Jennifer Ashley

The print was an old one made from a negative taken in the 1960's of her parents in Sydney Mines, dancing with thrilled, excited expressions on their faces, in front of a classic car that had been a wedding gift at the time. Her mother's hair, red back then, was held back by a blue handkerchief, and she was dressed in a billowing skirt and white blouse. Her father's denim jeans and faded t-shirt were streaked with coal dust as he held her hands and spun her around in the front yard of their old clapboard house, yellow grass under their feet and a cobalt-blue sky with white clouds drifting above. Mandy could almost feel the late summer breeze as she gazed deeply into the print, watching the flamboyant colors come to life. She hung it up to dry on two wooden clothespins hanging from a string above her. ~ Rebecca McNutt

How about whatever song comes on next, that's our song. It'll be fate."
"We can't just make our own fate."
"Sure we can." Peter reaches over to turn on the radio.
"Wait! Just any radio station? What if it's not a slow song?"
"Okay so we'll put on Lite 101." Peter hits the button.
"Winnie the Pooh doesn't know what to do, got a honey jar stuck on his nose," a woman croons.
Peter says, "What the hell?" as I say, "This can't be our song."
"Best out of three?" he suggests.
"Let's not force it. We'll know it when we hear it, I think."
"Maybe we'll hear it at the prom," Peter offers. "Oh, that reminds me. What color is your dress? My mom's going to ask her florist friend to make your corsage."
"It's dusty pink." It came in the mail yesterday, and when I tried it on for everybody, Trina said it was "the most Lara Jean" dress she'd ever seen. I texted a picture to Stormy, who wrote back, "Ooh-la-la," with a dancing woman emoji.
"What the heck is dusty pink?" Peter wants to know.
"It's like a rose gold color." Peter still looks confused, so I sigh and say, "Just tell your mom. She'll know. ~ Jenny Han

One more second and he would've hit you with the gun. And who knows what else. When I think about what could've happened ... " He gripped her shoulders determinedly. "I should've told you this earlier, Jordan. Now that I've got my chance, you're going to hear it whether you like it or not. You came into my life and messed the whole thing up and now I'm screwed. Because I'm in love with you. As in balls-out, head-over-heels, watching-Dancing-with-the-Stars -on-Monday-nights, wine-and-bubble-bath kind of love. Hell, I think I'd even wear a scarf indoors for you."
Jordan smiled, her eyes misty, as she touched his cheek. "That's the best kind of love. ~ Julie James

Because, George thought as she sat there with her eyes closed back before Christmas in Mrs Rock's self-consciously comfortable chair in the counselling office, how can it be that there's an advert on TV with dancing bananas unpeeling themselves in it and teabags doing a dance, and her mother will never see that advert?
How can that advert exist and her mother not exist in the world?
She didn't say it out loud, though, because there wasn't a point.
It isn't about saying.
It is about the hole which will form in the roof through which the cold will intensify and after which the structure of the house will begin to shift, like it ought, and through which George will be able to lie every night in bed watching the black sky. ~ Ali Smith