Dark Retelling Quotes

I'm really enamored with the idea of a reformed society, and I've always been fascinated with the Dark Ages as well as the power vacuum that followed the fall of the Roman Empire. ~ Victoria Aveyard

Even the reeking dark in the lion's cage seemed precious and infinitely preferable to whatever lay beyond. She would go out like the flame of a candle. Where does the candle flame go when the candle is blown out?
She laid her painted face against the iron bars and bared her teeth at death. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Lucy stood on her tiptoes and kissed John Hardin on the cheek and pulled him tightly against her. She put his forehead against hers and smiled at him until he blushed. Then, Lucy stepped back, looked at the coffin, and played to the crowd. Who gave my secret away It's just what I always wanted and I can't wait to try it on ~ Pat Conroy

I'll park somewhere dark." She fisted his T-shirt, not even ashamed of her desperation. "Out of the way - "
"Tempting ... so ... fucking ... tempting."
He gently peeled her hand away, slammed the door, and got in the driver's side. Then he turned to her, the harsh planes of his face in the shadows creating a savage expression the stuck her tongue to the roof of her mouth.
"I need you in a bed tonight, Jillian. I need more than a fuck. I need to make love to you until neither one of us can move, because after tonight, I don't want there to be even the slightest doubt that you're mine. ~ Larissa Ione

Truly?"
I turned around, It was Calhoun. "Hey," I said.
"Would you like to dance?"
My mouth dropped open for the second time that evening. "Uh, sure," I mananged to squeak out.
"You snooze, you lose," said Calhoun, his dark eyes gleaming in triumph. This time he wasn't talking to me, though. He was talking to Scooter, who was standing behind us with two cups of punch and a shocked look on his face. ~ Heather Vogel Frederick

And as the Moon eclipsed,
sulking in envy, he wailed to the Earth
"I wonder how you could never see,
My deep Love for you - illuminating, beautifying your world when the
Sun leaves you hurled...

But despite it all,
you still revolve around the Sun,
who shuns you here in the dark,
half the run."

The Earth confessed with teary eyes
still retaining a smile
"It is not the Sun that leaves me,
It is me who turns away, blocking his light.
But yet his love for me is far more magnanimous,
for he lights you up to render me luminous."

Cosmic Love ~ Drishti Bablani

Like Oz, life is full of beauty and horror. Whether you're in the magical realm or the so-called civilized one, you can look at the world around you and see both things at almost any time. But what being in Oz taught me is that no matter how horrific a situation may be, no matter how devastating or scary or chaotic, there is still always beauty in the colors of it all, even in the grays. As I look back on the last four years of my life, on everything that led me to the place where my life changed forever for a second time, I might think I wasted too many crucial years perceiving my world through a lens that leeched the color from everything I set my eyes on, but now I can forgive myself for my mistakes and maybe even be grateful for the trials I've faced. After all, a rainbow only comes out when it rains. The most spectacular rainbows are set against a backdrop of a half dark sky where gray clouds hover and rain batters the surface of the earth, but the horizon is clear and bright - a pure, radiant blue surrounding a shining golden sun. When I'm in Oz, that rainbow is who I am - a vivid, radiant spectrum of colors with a clear bright landscape ahead only made more rich-hued and vibrant by the darkness that lies behind it. ~ Garten Gevedon

When people fear for their futures, they like to gather in a dark room and stare at a screen, holding hands against the gloom. ~ David Carr

When I was little, I didn't like being left on my own in the dark. ~ John Terry

I took the dog out for a walk tonight, and together we wandered across the meadow next door. It was a warm summer's night, dark, and moonless. There were a handful of fireflies flickering intermittently, some so close to me I could see they were burning green as they flew, and some further away, who seemed to be flashing white.
And in the sky above them a continual roil of distant summer lightning (the storm distant enough that it was silent) burned and flashed and illuminated the clouds. It seemed as if the lightning bugs were talking to the lightning, in a perfect call and response of flash and counterflash. I watched the sky and the meadow flash and flash while the dog walked ahead of me, and realised that I was perfectly happy ... ~ Neil Gaiman

Alone is how she feels, alone is how she'll always be. You're used to solitude, she tells herself. Be a stoic.
Then she's enfolded.
She'd waited so long, she'd given up waiting. She'd longed for this, and denied it was possible. But now how easy it is, like coming home must have been once, for those who'd had homes. Walking through the doorway into the familiar, the place that knows you, opens to you, allows you in. Tells you the stories you've needed to hear. Stories of the hands as well, and of the mouth.
I've missed you. Who said that?
A shape against the night window, glint of an eye. Dark heartbeat.
Yes. At last. It's you. ~ Margaret Atwood

The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who have helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Your eyes drooled. I saw them."
He was totally perplexed by this argument. Was he not allowed to speak to anyone? "I'm wearing dark sunglasses. How can you see my eyes?"
"She's jealous, Seth."
He looked at Maahes for an explanation. "Why?"
Lydia broke off into her hand gestures.
"Are you yelling at me, now?"
Maahes laughed. "Oh yeah, kid. She's calling you a lot of names."
That surprised him. "You understand her?"
Maahes gestured back at Lydia in the same language.
For some reason, it angered and hurt him that they'd cut him out of the conversation. "Are you mocking me?"
Lydia flicked her nails at him, then turned and stormed off.
Seth had no idea what he should do. He didn't understand human emotions or relations. Not really. It'd been too long since he had any.
Maahes let out a heavy sigh. "You hurt her feelings, boy. You need to go apologize."
"How did I hurt them?"
"Think about it, Seth. She risked her life to bring you here, to save you from hell, and what do you do the first minute she leaves you alone? You let another woman flirt with you. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Some nights stay up till dawn,
as the moon sometimes does for the sun.
Be a full bucket pulled up the dark way
of a well, then lifted out into light. ~ Rumi

A naive girl like you should stay in the light and out of the dark. ~ Tachibana Higuchi

Four and I stay behind. I wait until the room is empty and the door is shut before looking at him again. He walks towards me. "Is your-" he begins. "You did that on purpose!" I shout. "Yes, I did," he says quietly. "And you should thank me for helping you." I grit my teeth. "Thank you? You almost stabbed my ear, and you spent the entire time taunting me. Why should I thank you?" "You know, I'm getting a little tired of waiting for you to catch on!" He glares at me, and even when he glares, his eyes looks thoughtful. Their shade of blue is peculiar, so dark it is almost black, with a small patch of lighter blue on the left iris, right next to the corner of his eye. ~ Veronica Roth

I have a sort of a fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things ~ Guillermo Del Toro

But after it's all said and done, don't you want to grow old with your best friend? At the end of the day, that's who you want to share your life and laughter with. Someone who will be there in hard times to hold you tight. Someone who will fight for your honor and support your decisions. Someone who will encourage your dreams and help you to fulfill them. ~ Dannika Dark

He is dark and quiet and completely different from me, which is exactly why I should put distance between us. But it is also the reason I find him so fascinating. ~ Jodi Picoult

Now, Bella suspected by this time that Mr. Rokesmith admired her. Whether the knowledge (for it was rather that than suspicion) caused her to incline to him a little more, or a little less, than she had done at first; whether it rendered her eager to find out more about him, because she sought to establish reason for her distrust, or because she sought to free him from it; was as yet dark to her own heart. But at most times he occupied a great amount of her attention. ~ Charles Dickens

There are no angels yet
here comes an angel one
shut-off the dark
side of the moon turning to me
and saying: I am the plumed
serpent the beast
with fangs of fire and a gentle
heart

But he doesn't say that His message
drenches his body
he'd want to kill me
for using words to name him

I sit in the bare apartment
reading
words stream past me poetry
twentieth-century rivers
disturbed surfaces reflecting clouds
reflecting wrinkled neon
but clogged and mostly
nothing alive left
in their depths

The angel is barely
speaking to me
Once in a horn of light
he stood or someone like him
salutations in gold-leaf
ribboning from his lips
Today again the hair streams
to his shoulders
the eyes reflect something
like a lost country or so I think
but the ribbon has reeled itself
up

He isn't giving
or taking any shit
We glance miserably
across the room at each other

It's true there are moments
closer and closer together
when words stick in my throat
'the art of love'
'the art of words'

I get your message Gabriel
just will you stay looking
straight at me
awhile longer ~ Adrienne Rich

Don't be afraid of the dark. Shine! ~ Vera Nazarian

Kansas afternoons in late summer are peculiar and wondrous things. Often they are pregnant, if not over-ripe, with a pensive and latent energy that is utterly incapable of ever finding an adequate release for itself. This results in a palpable, almost frenetic tension that hangs in the air just below the clouds. By dusk, spread thin across the quilt-work farmlands by disparate prairie winds, this formless energy creates an abscess in the fabric of space and time that most individuals rarely take notice of. But in the soulish chambers of particularly sensitive observers, it elicits a familiar recognition - a vague remembrance - of something both dark and beautiful. Some understand it simply as an undefined tranquility tinged with despair over the loss of something now forgotten. For others, it signifies something far more sinister, and is therefore something to be feared. ~ P.S. Baber

No matter how much sunlight and fresh air she lets in, there's always this dark little pocket of lingering night which she has to uncover. ~ Robert Coover

Until America, door to door, takes every handgun, this is what you're gonna have. It's pathetic. It really is pathetic. It's sad. We're living in the Dark Ages over there. ~ Sylvester Stallone

Women will be the death of you." Julio entered and sat down. "That's why I don't mess with them. They make men weak."
"You don't mess with them because you're gay. ~ Kenya Wright

Yes, it's me, your PA, now your stripper for the evening. How do you do? ~ Kate Meader

It is dark for archery,' said Gimli. 'Indeed it is time for sleep. Sleep! I feel the need of it, as never I thought any dwarf could. Riding is tiring work. Yet my axe is restless in my hand. Give me a row of orc-necks and room to swing and all weariness will fall from me! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

These healers ... my intellect has been unable to assimilate their theories ... But their facts are patent and startling; and anything that interferes with the multiplication of such facts, and with our freest opportunity of observing and studying them, will, I believe, be a public calamity. ~ William James

Then for a moment they faded into the sweet darkness so deep that they were darker than the darkness, so that for awhile they were darker than the black trees- then so dark that when she tried to look up at him she could but look at the wild waves of the universe over his shoulder and say, 'Yes, I guess I love you too. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

But once we shut ourselves away, we soon discover that we are not as alone as we thought. We are in the company of the words of those who came before us, of other people's stories, other people's books, other people's words, the thing we call tradition. I believe literature to be the most valuable hoard that humanity has gathered in its quest to understand itself. Societies, tribes, and peoples grow more intelligent, richer, and more advanced as they pay attention to the troubled words of their authors, and, as we all know, the burning of books and the denigration of writers are both signals that dark and improvident times are upon us. But literature is never just a national concern. The writer who shuts himself up in a room and first goes on a journey inside himself will, over the years, discover literature's eternal rule: he must have the artistry to tell his own stories as if they were other people's stories, and to tell other people's stories as if they were his own, for this is what literature is. But we must first travel through other people's stories and books. ~ Orhan Pamuk

You are the traveler, taking this journey. You are the hero, writing this story. When the trickster Pau-Henoa wandered under the earth, what did he find?"
"The sun,"
"Right," said Chessey firmly. "Even the pagans knew: you will wander the dark places under the earth, but you will come back with the sun. ~ Rachel Hartman

Vietnam ... war ... it did something to us. Or maybe not. Maybe the bad seeds were always in me, and war gave them a dark place in which to grow. ~ Kristin Hannah

After the dark I shall live again, and there will be women. The future holds the little women for me in the lives I am yet to live. And though the stars drift, and the heavens lie, ever remains woman, resplendent, eternal, the one woman, as I, under all my masquerades and misadventures, am the one man, her mate ~ Jack London

Lord, why was it his child you gave to me? Why did you send me here to this man so that I remember the things done to me? Shimei interceded and brought me to you, and you healed me. Now, I see Atretes and feel the old wounds reopened. Hold me fast, Father. Don't let me slip; don't let me fall. Don't let me think as I used to think or live as I used to live. "Life is cruel, Atretes, but you have a choice. Choose forgiveness and be free." "Forgiveness!" The word came out of the dark shadows like a curse. "There are some things in this world that can never be forgiven." Her eyes burned with tears. "I once felt the same way, but it turns back on you and eats you alive. When Christ saved me, everything changed. The world didn't look the same." "The world doesn't change." "No. The world didn't. I did." He ~ Francine Rivers

In the ensuing silence, I have time to contemplate the word cute - how dismissive it is, how it's the equivalent of calling someone little, how it makes a person into a baby, how the word is a neon sign burning through the dark reading, Feel Bad About Yourself. ~ John Green

We face a dark time in the history of God's people ... the forces of evil seem to be gathering for a colossal assault on the work of God in the world. In the darkest hour God can still revive His people, and by the Holy Spirit breathe new vigor and power into the body of Christ. ~ Billy Graham

Nobody panics when things go "according to plan". Even if the plan is horrifying! ~ Heath Ledger

Path is only a name for a place where you find yourself. Where you're going on it is only a story. Where you've been on it is only another. Some of the stories are pleasant ones; some are not. That's dark and light. ~ John Crowley

Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel. You can't always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving... you will come to a better place. ~ Uncle Iroh

Arin's expression changed. She saw how he read her stillness. She wondered if she'd gone pale. Anxiety stole over his features. "Kestrel, can I have a word with you?"
Outside the tent, night had come.
He cupped her face in his hands. "You don't look right."
"I'm fine."
"No. You look like a part of you has disappeared. Like you're not really here. Like"--his hands fell away--"you do when you're plotting something."
Which was how Kestrel realized that she was plotting something. That growing briar inside her was an idea.
"Kestrel."
She blinked, then noticed the hurt shape of his mouth. Arin said, "Tell me." She started to speak. He cut through her first words. "No deceiving," he said.
"I wouldn't."
"Not again. After everything. Don't keep me in the dark."
"Arin, for someone who wants me to tell him something, you're doing an excellent job of not letting me speak."
"Oh." Rubbing a forefinger and thumb into his eyes, he gave her a rueful look. "Sorry. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Henderson sighed. There was a time, he reflected, when the coming of this night meant something. A dark Europe, groaning in superstitious fear, dedicated this Eve to the grinning Unknown. A million doors had once been barred against the evil visitants, a million prayers mumbled, a million candles lit. There was something majestic about the idea, Henderson reflected. ~ Robert Bloch