Dazed Quotes

I turned, feeling steady but somewhat dazed, and looked from the hand, now on my elbow, up the strong arm, around the curve of the bulky shoulder, and over the angular jaw and chin, until my eyes met the breath-hijacking sight of Sir Handsome McHotpants's piercing blue eyes. I cringed. ~ Penny Reid

The townsfolk in their darkened rooms were dazed as if by some cataclysm, some devastating earthquake, against which all wisdom and all resistance is of no avail. Such a feeling is produced every time the established order of things is upset, when security is destroyed and everything is hitherto protected by the laws of man or nature is suddenly at the mercy of wild unreasoning brutality. ~ Guy De Maupassant

He was still dazed, and though she hated to admit it, he was actually rather attractive. If a girl happened to like that square-jaw, bright-blue-eyes, devilish-dimples kind of thing. Although he was in desperate need of a haircut and a good shave. ~ Marissa Meyer

Whatever power of the earth rampages, we turn to it dazed but anonymous eyes; whatever the name of the catastrophe, it is never the opposite of love. ~ Mary Oliver

It's nice to meet you, Evay.' I hold out my hand.
She just stares at it - like it's a spider crawling out of the shower drain. 'I don't make direct female-to-female contact. It depletes the beautification cells.'
O-kay. I glance at Billy. He seems unperturbed. I hook a thumb over my shoulder. 'So...do you guys want to eat? How about a booth?'
When Evay answers, her tone is airy, dazed, like a concussion victim. Or an acting coach - *be the tree.*
'I have my lunch right here.' She opens he realm to reveal an assortment of capsules that make my prenatals look like baby candy. 'But I need water. Do you have clear water from a snowy mountain spring?'
Wow.
Somebody call Will Smith - aliens really have landed.
'Uh...we don't get much snow around here, this time of year. We have Greenville's finest tap water, though.'
She shakes her head. And she still hasn't blinked. Not one freaking time.
'I only drink snowy mountain spring water. ~ Emma Chase

He threw her a crooked grin as he removed his shirt completely, revealing a torso that seemed too perfectly muscular and finely honed to be real. Unbearable tension knotted inside her, and she struggled with inhibition and modesty as he bent over her. "Shall I stop now?" he asked, cuddling her against his long body. "I don't want to frighten you."
Her cheek pressed against his shoulder, and she relished the exhilarating sensation of pressing her bare skin against his. She had never felt so vulnerable, so willing to be vulnerable. "I'm not afraid," she said, her voice dazed and wondering, and she withdrew her hands from between their bodies, so that her breasts pushed directly against his chest.
An aching sound came from his throat, and he buried his face against her throat, kissing her, working his way downward. ~ Lisa Kleypas

When he went outside, dazed by the echoes of his dream, the tiger was pacing the roof of the trailer. In the light of dawn he noticed the remarkable fact that the animal had wings harmoniously joined to its body. Wings of a swan or an angel. Two fans of white, silky, well-groomed feathers. It had come from a place where it had been raining because drops of water glistened like pellets of mercury on the edges of its feathers. It was something to see. ~ Eliseo Alberto

By the early-afternoon hours, if your brain is normal, it's running strictly on inertia and reflex. All you can do during those hours are the things that are exactly like other things you've done in similar situations. Creativity is out of the question. You might argue that you don't notice any difference in your thinking during the afternoon. That's because you're too dazed to notice anything during those hours. I'm sure it's true for me; I believe you could set my eyebrows on fire during the afternoon and I wouldn't notice until sometime the next morning. ~ Scott Adams

I feel as if something has been torn suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. I feel as if I couldn't be I - as if I must have changed into somebody else and couldn't get used to it. It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed, helpless feeling. It's good to see you again - it seems as if you were a sort of anchor for my drifting soul. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Once Understanding is unveiled, then victory is won and Peace established in the heart for ever and anon. An understanding heart is ever at peace even amid a war-dazed world. An ignorant heart is a dual heart. A dual heart makes for a dual world. A dual world breeds constant strife and war. Whereas an understanding heart is a single heart. A single heart makes for a single world. A single world is a world at peace. For it takes two to make a war. ~ Mikhail Naimy

Since I emerged that day from the labyrinth,
Dazed with the tall and echoing passages,
The swift recoils, so many I almost feared
I'd meet myself returning at some smooth corner,
Myself or my ghost, for all there was unreal
After the straw ceased rustling and the bull
Lay dead upon the straw and I remained…

I could not live if this were not illusion.
It is a world, perhaps; but there's another.
For once in a dream or trance I saw the gods
Each sitting on the top of his mountain-isle,
While down below the little ships sailed by…

That was the real world; I have touched it once,
And now shall know it always. But the lie,
The maze, the wild-wood waste of falsehood, roads
That run and run and never reach an end,
Embowered in error – I'd be prisoned there
But that my soul has birdwings to fly free.

Oh these deceits are strong almost as life.
Last night I dreamt I was in the labyrinth,
And woke far on. I did not know the place. ~ Edwin Muir

What in the Haven's name just happened?"
Dazed and still trembling from the overload to her senses, Ellysetta floated in Rain's arms, her limp body draped across his, incapable of autonomous movement. She could barely think straight, let alone summon the strength to actually move.
Rain's chest rippled as he dragged in a shuddering breath. "I don't know." His voice came out hoarse, raspy. He swallowed, then tilted his chin against his chest to glance at her. A grin twitched at the corners of his mouth. "But I hope it happens again. ~ C.L. Wilson

Who could sit upon anything in Fleet-street during the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one ever tending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun goes down! ~ Charles Dickens

Almost everybody wore a curious limpidity of expression, like newborn babies or souls just after death. Dazed but curiously dignified ... after a criseof hysterical revulsion and tiredness, I passed beyondand became entered by a rather sublime feeling. ~ Elizabeth Bowen

You really hope that people who want to be politically active aren't so disillusioned at this point. I do feel positive about what's happening. I think that with all of these movements, and this growing collective voice that's emerging, people are starting to come out of the kind of dazed state that they were in for so many years. But it's tough to know the best way to effect change now. Campaigning alone no longer seems to be the answer. ~ Scarlett Johansson

Hold on to me!" Tedros yelled, hacking briars with his training sword.Dazed, Agatha clung to his chest as he withstood thorn lashes with moans of pain. Soon he had the upper hand and pulled Agatha from the Woods towards the spiked gates, which glowed in recognition and pulled apart, cleaving a narrow path for the two Evers. As the gates speared shut behind them,Agatha looked up at limping Tedros, crisscrossed with bloody scratches, blue shirt shredded away.
"Had a feeling Sophie was getting in through the Woods," he panted, hauling her up into slashed arms before she could protest. "So Professor Dovey gave me permission to take some fairies and stakeout the outer gates. Should have known you'd be here trying to catch her yourself."
Agatha gaped at him dumbly.
"Stupid idea for a princess to take on witches alone," Tedros said, dripping sweat on her pink dress.
"Where is she?" Agatha croaked. "Is she safe?"
"Not a good idea for princesses to worry about witches either," Tedros said, hands gripping her waist. Her stomach exploded with butterflies.
"Put me down," she sputtered -
"More bad ideas from the princess."
"Put me down!"Tedros obeyed and Agatha pulled away.
"I'm not a princess!" she snapped, fixing her collar.
"If you say so," the prince said, eyes drifting downward.Agatha followed them to her gashed legs, waterfalls of brilliant blood. She saw blood blurring - Tedros smiled.
"One . . . two . . . three . . ."She f ~ Soman Chainani

When people say that you kind of just get - you know, just feel like a little buzzed or dazed or had your bell rung - they consider that a concussion. I wouldn't. But if that is considered a concussion, I would say any football player at least records 50 to 100 in the course of a year. ~ Troy Polamalu

I drove back in the pouring rain, blurry and dazed buy knowing I had a father who cared enough to make sure my stools were soft. What the hell, it was better than nothing. ~ Sally Field

He looks up.
Our eyes lock,and he breaks into a slow smile. My heart beats faster and faster. Almost there.He sets down his book and stands.And then this-the moment he calls my name-is the real moment everything changes.
He is no longer St. Clair, everyone's pal, everyone's friend.
He is Etienne. Etienne,like the night we met. He is Etienne,he is my friend.
He is so much more.
Etienne.My feet trip in three syllables. E-ti-enne. E-ti-enne, E-ti-enne. His name coats my tongue like melting chocolate. He is so beautiful, so perfect.
My throat catches as he opens his arms and wraps me in a hug.My heart pounds furiously,and I'm embarrassed,because I know he feels it. We break apart, and I stagger backward. He catches me before I fall down the stairs.
"Whoa," he says. But I don't think he means me falling.
I blush and blame it on clumsiness. "Yeesh,that could've been bad."
Phew.A steady voice.
He looks dazed. "Are you all right?"
I realize his hands are still on my shoulders,and my entire body stiffens underneath his touch. "Yeah.Great. Super!"
"Hey,Anna. How was your break?"
John.I forget he was here.Etienne lets go of me carefully as I acknowledge Josh,but the whole time we're chatting, I wish he'd return to drawing and leave us alone. After a minute, he glances behind me-to where Etienne is standing-and gets a funny expression on hs face. His speech trails off,and he buries his nose in his sketchbook. I look back, b ~ Stephanie Perkins

It wasn't until the morning after my uneventful shift, when I wake up, dazed and tense and frustrated as hell, that I realize I'm getting obsessed with that girl, my partner, and this thing is running me ragged. ~ Charlotte Penn Clark

Steve's downstairs. He showed up at the door just as Reed was taken away."
"Steve," Easton echoes, slightly dazed. "Uncle Steve?"
Sebastian makes a croaky sound. "Dead Uncle Steve? ~ Erin Watt

This wasn't - I wasn't." He was burning red with embarrassment, trying to get his pants up and grab his memory stick and hide the fact he'd been about to jerk off."

"What were you doing? Are you - to my porn?" Josh looked a bit dazed.

"I was submitting my paper. And I - "

"You tripped and fell into my porn folder? ~ Lana McGregor

Can you harness the power of drugs without them taking over, without turning into a dazed zombie? ~ Gilles Deleuze

He sent messages to all fifteen of my former suitors, asking if they were still interested in marrying me-"
"Oh, my God," Alex breathed.
"-and, if they were, he volunteered to send me to them for a few days, properly chaperoned by Lucinda," Elizabeth recited in that same strangled tone, "so that we could both discover if we still suit."
"Oh, my God," Alex said again, with more force.
"Twelve of them declined," she continued, and she watched Alex wince in embarrassed sympathy. "But three of them agreed, and now I am to be sent off to visit them. Since Lucinda can't return from Devon until I go to visit the third-suitor, who's in Scotland," she said, almost choking on the word as she applied it to Ian Thornton, "I shall have to pass Berta off as my aunt to the first two."
"Berta!" Bentner burst out in disgust. "Your aunt? The silly widgeon's afraid of her shadow."
Threatened by another uncontrollable surge of mirth, Elizabeth looked at both her friends. "Berta is the least of my problems However, do continue invoking God's name, for it's going to take a miracle to survive this."
"Who are the suitors?" Alex asked, her alarm increased by Elizabeth's odd smile as she replied, "I don't recall two of them. It's quite remarkable, isn't it," she continued with dazed mirth, "that two grown men could have met a young girl at her debut and hared off to her brother to ask for her hand, and she can't remember anything about them, except one of their names ~ Judith McNaught

The police arrived and went to question the driver of the truck, who was still sitting in his cab, scratching his head. The truck looked as if nothing had happened to it. ... The police were giving the driver a hard time, though. They too had worked out that the man sitting dazed and wounded on the grass was Salman Rushdie, and so they wanted to know, what was the driver's religion? The driver was bewildered. "What's my religion got to do with anything?" Well, was he a Muzlim? An Islammic? Was he Eye-ray-nian? Is that why he had tried to kill Mr. Rushdie? Maybe one of the Ayatoller's fellers? Was he carrying out the whatever it was called, the fatso? The poor driver shook his confused head. He didn't know who the guy was he had hit. He had just been driving this truck and didn't know about any fatso. In the end the police believed him and sent him on his way. ~ Salman Rushdie

Hassan and I were stunned. Dazed. John Wayne didn't really speak Farsi ~ Khaled Hosseini

If tomorrow morning by some stroke of magic every dazed and benighted soul woke up with the power to take the first step toward pursuing his or her dreams, every shrink in the directory would be out of business. ~ Steven Pressfield

She would read anything from a dictionary to a treatise on turnips. Print fascinated her, dazed her, made her good for nothing...Kylie Tennant ~ Kylie Tennant

Elspeth had the joyous task of breaking the news to the rest of the Council. There was no such accord among the political leaders of Valdemar as there was among her military leaders.
Lord Gartheser was speechless with outrage and shock; Bard Hyron was dazed. Lady Kester and Lady Cathan, still seething over Orthallen's accusations of complicity with the slavers, were surprised, but not altogether unhappy. Father Aldon had closeted himself in the tiny chapel of the Keep; Lord Gildas was with him. Healer Myrim made no attempt to conceal the fact that Orthallen's treachery had not surprised her. Nor did she conceal that his demise gave her a certain grim satisfaction. But then, she might well be forgiven such uncharitable thoughts; she was one of the four Healers who were tending Talia's wounds.
Once the bare bones had been told to the Councillors as a group, Elspeth went to each of these Councillors in turn, privately. She gave a simple explanation of what had occurred, but would answer no questions. Questions, she told them, must wait until Talia had recovered enough to tell them all more. ~ Mercedes Lackey

What were we like then in that time and space, unburdened of the weight of outer sound? We were angels harboring each other in the notion of desirelessness, dazed in our acquiescence to the drift through subatomic matter. The love of minds should last beyond lives. Maybe it does, each mind a dice-toss of neutron stars, invisible except to theory, pulling at cold space to find its lover. ~ Don DeLillo

She slumped toward the ground, but I grabbed her and heaved her onto my shoulder, then ran down the street through the increasingly terrible rain, trying to get some distance between us and the robot. "Unhand me," Sophie muttered, dazed. "I'm not some damsel from your barbarian lands. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Lindsay strode to the door and picked up his overcoat from the back of the couch, where he'd tossed it when they came in. She wheeled around to hand him his coat; once again, as expected, Fred was standing right behind her. But this time he wasn't looking at her. He was looking up.
At the mistletoe, directly over their heads.
He met her eyes with a look that glimmered with promise. Then he took the overcoat from her hand and tossed it, lightly, onto the back of the sofa once again.
Everything seemed to slow. His intentions were clear, and she had plenty of time to step back. Yet Lindsay did nothing to stop him when he took her chin in his hand, tipped it upward, and brought his lips down to hers, as purposefully as if he'd meant to do it all along.
Lindsay could have sworn she heard bells....
Still dazed, she followed his eyes upward. "And what's the penalty for ignoring mistletoe?"
"Struck by lightning, I think. ~ Sierra Donovan

I saw School of Rock, and I was like, why haven't I worked with Richard Linklater already? Then by the time I got him I was like, I'm really pissed off I feel like you owe me some retroactive swag. He gave me the 10-year anniversary "Dazed and Confused" T-shirt, which I still wear with relish. ~ Robert Downey, Jr.

Suddenly the theater was plunged into utter blinding darkness, while an ominous rumbling rose from beneath the platform. There were several little screams of alarm, a scattering of laughter, and loud gasps of anticipation. Annabelle's spine went rigid as she felt the brush of a hand on her back. His hand, sliding with slow deliberateness up her spine…his scent, fresh and beguiling in her nostrils …and before she could make a sound, his mouth, possessing hers in a warm, softly ravishing kiss.

She was too stunned to move, her hands in the air like butterflies suspended in midflight, her swaying body anchored by his light clasp on her waist, while his other hand cradled the back of her neck. Annabelle had been kissed before, by brash young men who had stolen a quick embrace during a walk in the garden, or in a corner of the parlor when they would not be observed. But none of those brief, flirtatious encounters had been like this …a kiss so slow and dizzying that it filled her with delirium.

Sensations rushed through her, far too strong to manage, and she quivered helplessly in his hold. Compelled by instinct, she lifted blindly into the tenderly restless caress of his lips. The pressure of his lips increased as he demanded more, rewarding her helpless response with a voluptuous exploration that set her senses on fire. Just as she began to lose all sanity, his mouth released hers with startling suddenness, leaving her dazed. Keeping his supportive hand on ~ Lisa Kleypas

The cab pulled over to the curb, and Jamie said in that voice of his, "You never saw us." "I never saw you," the driver repeated, sounding dazed. "You drove this astonishingly hot underwear model from south Texas. You wanted to lick his abs." "I wanted to lick his abs." "You're such an asshole," Stella muttered as she climbed out of the cab. "I get my kicks where I can. ~ Michelle Hodkin

Primatologists Richard Wrandham and Dale Peterson summarize... writing, 'Chimpanzee-like violence preceded and paved the way for human war, making modern humans the dazed survivors of a continuous 5-million-year habit of lethal aggression. ~ Cacilda Jetha

We were bleeding information from the nose and ears, though dazed and disoriented was not how I experienced it. Most of the time, I felt like I was three years old, high on chocolate cake and social networks, constantly wired, ingesting information and news about information, books and books about books, data and metadata - I was, in other words, overstimulated yet gluttonous for more. ~ Marilyn Johnson

He shoved his hips against her, reminding her of what they had just done, and said, "I had never bedded a woman before you. I made that plain. Did you think I let you seduce me lightly? No, I did not. You made a deal with me the moment you gave me entry into your body."
"I made no such deal!" Her eyes were angry - and frightened - but he would not let her make him back down.
"Precious Isabel," he whispered. "You made a deal with your heart, your soul, and your body, and you sealed it with the wash of your climax on my c*ck."
She blinked, looking dazed. He'd never used such words before, especially not with her, but their bluntness was necessary. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

I've always wanted to do a movie that takes place in the 70's and was about rock and roll and getting high, like Dazed and Confused or Fast Times at Ridgemont High. ~ Edward Furlong

Very soon she'll join all the others who know the secret and will not tell it. Or cannot. Or try and fail because they do not know enough. They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter. The way they walk and talk and scream or try to kill (themselves or you) if you laugh back at them. Yes, they've got to be watched. For the time comes when they try to kill, then disappear. But others are waiting to take their places, it's a long, long line. She's one of them. I too can wait - for the day when she is only a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend. Or a lie ... ~ Jean Rhys

I can't explain the birds to you even if I tried. In the early morning, when the sun's rays peek over the mountain and subtly light up the landscape in a glow that, if audible, would sound like a hum, the birds sing. They sing in a layered symphony, hundreds deep. You really can't believe how beautiful it is. You hear bass notes from across the farm and soprano notes from the tree in front of you all at once, at varying volumes, like a massive choir that stretches across fifty acres of land. I love birds. But not as much as my wife loves them. My wife thinks about them, whereas I only notice them once they call for attention. But she looks for them, builds fountains for them, and saves them after they crash into windows. I've seen her save many birds. She holds them gently in the palm of her hand, and she takes them to one of the fountains she's built especially for them and holds their beaks up to the gentle trickle of water to let them drink, to wake them up from their dazed stupor. No matter how much time it takes, she doesn't leave them until they recover. And they mostly always do. ~ Portia De Rossi

We began to walk away when I felt a sharp pain rip through my skull. Trevor had grabbed me by my ponytail and flung me to the floor in a fit of rage. I hit the floor, and the force of the impact dazed me. ~ B.B. Reid

Like the children in fairy stories who have seen their parents make pacts with terrifying strangers, who have discovered that our fears are based on nothing but the truth, but who come back fresh from marvellous escapes and take up their knives and forks, with humility and good manners, prepared to live happily ever after
like them, dazed and powerful with secrets, I never said a word ~ Alice Munro

dazed mind. Early morning rays highlighted the water stains shining through the slap-dash ~ Dale Mayer

I know what you're doing," he whispered to Raphael, whose movements only became more fervent, and the thought slipped from the boy's mind so that he became dazed and undone with pleasure, staring up at the ceiling, watching as it blurred and became indistinct, and he felt the rising rush of pleasure, until he cried out in a sharp gasp.
And the pleasure went on and on, as it did, unbearably, until either Raphael took pity on him, or he pushed his Genitor away. Whichever it was, the pleasure that was leaking into pain, stopped, and he was lifted and laid down on the stone, cold and hard under his spine, and Raphael was bent over him, kissing up this time, up to his lips, flicking his tongue at them, and whispering: "Don't question my love for you. Ever again. ~ Carmen Dominique Taxer

Are you okay, baby?
I don't know. She sounded dazed. Am I alive?
I'm not certain either of us are. Give me a minute and we'll go for round two.
He felt movement and managed to turn his head toward her and pry open one eye. She lifted her head and looked pointedly at his soft cock with a small smile.
"You're feeling optimistic, aren't you?" she said aloud, laughter in her voice.
His fingers found her hair, wrapping a length around his fist. He gave a gentle tug and made an effort to find his voice. "That's a challenge, woman, and all good soldiers find a way to meet a challenge."
He felt her laughter in his mind, that soft, melting molasses that just poured in and filled him with happiness. How had he ever managed without her?
"I wasn't challenging you, Sammy. I'm not certain I'll ever be able to walk again," she pointed out. "I think I have skid marks inside."
Alarm spread instantly. "Did I hurt you?"
"You know you didn't, but we were a little on the wild side. I'm definitely going to be a little sore, but I'm perfectly willing to give up walking. ~ Christine Feehan

For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting. ~ George S. Patton Jr.

But a deeper transition affected people of color in this dazed context. Before course selections and extra-curricular sign-up sheets, before bags could even be unpacked in rooms, black students had to situate themselves within their own race. The process was complicated, conflicting, usually silent, highly fraught, and wholly invisible to their white classmates. Most of whom had never actively had to consider the role of race in their lives. ~ Jeff Hobbs

You're going to, Clay? She whispered before he could leave. You're really going to read to me?
Sure.
The smile that lit Jackie's face was the first Clayton had seen from her in more than a year. It did funny things in the region of his chest. He moved toward the door but ran into the doorpost because he was staring behind him watching her. Eddie who was headed that way laughed when she witnessed it.
Are you in a hurry Eddie asked noticing that he looked a little dazed.
She smiled He said his voice bemused. I saw her smile.
Eddie's gaze became very tender. If Jackie could see him now she'd know in an instant how much he still loved her. ~ Lori Wick

A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused. ~ Nigel Short

Jamie said in that voice of his, "You never saw us."
"I never saw you," the driver repeated, sounding dazed.
"You drove this astonishingly hot underwear model from south Texas. You wanted to lick his abs."
"I wanted to lick his abs."
"You're such an asshole," Stella muttered as she climbed out of the cab. ~ Michelle Hodkin

I'm the warlock who's here to cure you. Didn't they tell you I was coming?"
"I know who you are, but ... " Maia looked dazed. "You look so ... so ... shiny. ~ Cassandra Clare

The older you get, the more rules they're gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin' man, l-i-v-i-n' ~ Matthew McConaughey

We now know I can do it, but I feel like hell," I went on. "I'm so cold, my teeth would chatter if they still could. And I'm hungry enough that both of you are starting to looking really, really good."
Vlad's lips curled. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to remind you that this is just the leftover power talking and you don't really want to cheat on Hones?"
"Not that kind of hungry!" I gasped, eyes bulging that Vlad thought I'd just casually thrown out that I wanted him and Mencheres to double-team me. "I meant hungry like drinking you guys' blood. Not hungry for... you know."
Without thought, my gaze flew to the areas in question before skipping away once I realized what I was doing. Then my cheeks actually tingled with mortification as Vlad let out a long, hearty laugh. Mencheres, more courteous, pretended to suddenly find something fascinating in the door frame, but I saw his lips twitch.
"My dear Reaper," Vlad said, still laughing. "Did you just check out our--"
"No!" I interrupted at once, almost lunging toward the staircase. "I'm tired and still dazed from the Remnants and... fuck it, I'm taking a shower. I mean, not a cold shower, because I don't need that"--Oh Jesus, I was only making this worse--"because I am cold already, and I need to get hot. I mean, warmer. Oh, just shut up! ~ Jeaniene Frost

Morelli looked dazed. "What good is a gun without bullets?" "It's good for scaring people. Or you can hit people with it. Or you can use it to break windows ... or crack walnuts. ~ Janet Evanovich

I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merciless until they can accept its mercy; by it they are at once condemned and redeemed. It is Hell until it is Heaven. Seeing themselves in that light, if they are willing, they see how far they have failed the only justice of loving one another; it punishes them by their own judgment. And yet, in suffering that light's awful clarity, in seeing themselves in it, they see its forgiveness and its beauty, and are consoled. In it they are loved completely, even as they have been, and so are changed into what they could not have been but what, if they could have imagined it, they would have wished to be. ~ Wendell Berry

Abandoned by a God in whom many of us believed, we lay prostrate and dazed in our demi-tomb. From time to time, one of us would look over the parapet to stare across the dusty plain into the east, from which death might bear down on us at any moment. We felt like lost souls, who had forgotten that men are made for something else, that time exists, and hope, and sentiments other than anguish; that friendship can be more than ephemeral, that love can sometimes occur, that the earth can be productive, and used for something other than burying the dead. ~ Guy Sajer

Minutes later, we were back at the sliding glass door that led inside the house--me, leaning against the glass, Marlboro Man anchoring me there with his strong, convincing lips. I was a goner. My right leg hooked slowly around his calf.
And then, the sound--the loud ringing of the rotary phone inside. Marlboro Man ignored it through three rings, but it was late, and curiosity took over. "I'd better get that," he said, each word dripping with heat. He ran inside to answer the phone, leaving me alone in a sultry, smoky cloud. Saved by the bell, I thought. Damn. I was dizzy, unable to steady myself. Was it the wine? Wait…I hadn't had any wine that night. I was drunk on his muscles. Wasted on his masculinity.
Within seconds, Marlboro Man was running back out the door.
"There's a fire," he said hurriedly. "A big one--I've got to go." Without pausing, he ran toward the pickup.
I stood there, still dazed and fizzy, still unable to feel my knees. And then, just as I was beginning to reflect on the utter irony that a prairie fire may have just saved my eternal soul from burning in hell for carnal sin, Marlboro Man's pickup flew into reverse and screeched abruptly to a halt at the edge of The Porch--our porch. Rolling down his window, he leaned out and yelled, "You comin'?"
"Oh…um…sure!" I replied, running toward the pickup and hopping inside.
A prairie fire. A real, live prairie fire, I thought as Marlboro Man's diesel pickup peeled out of his gravel dri ~ Ree Drummond

We are small worms, Zorba, very small worms on the tiniest leaf of a gigantic tree. This tiny leaf is our earth; the other leaves are the stars you see moving at night. We drag ourselves along on our tiny leaf, eagerly ferreting around in it. We smell it: it has an odor. We taste it: it can be eaten. We strike it: it resounds, shouting like a living thing. Some of us human beings, the most fearless, reach the edge of the leaf. We bend over this edge with open eyes and ears, observing chaos below. We shudder. We divine the terrible drop beneath us, occasionally hear a sound made by the gigantic tree's other leaves, sense the sap rising from the roots, swelling our hearts. In this way, leaning over the abyss, we realize with all our body and soul that we are being overcome by terror. What begins at that moment is - " I stopped. I had wanted to say, "What begins at that moment is poetry," but Zorba would not have understood, so I kept silent. "What begins?" asked Zorba eagerly. "Why did you stop?" "At that moment, Zorba, begins the great danger," I replied. "Some become dazed and delirious; others, growing afraid, take great pains to discover an answer that will brace their heart. These say, 'God.' Still others, calmly, bravely, look down at the drop from the leaf's edge and say, 'I like it.' ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

The music started. I felt the blood run out of my face, leaving me cold.
"Oh, oak and ash," I said. "This isn't happening."
I wasn't the only to have that thought. Quentin pushed through the crowd to stand on my other side....
"That's the Luidaeg," he said, sounding dazed.
"Uh huh," I agreed.
"That's the Luidaeg, singing 'Poor Unfortunate Souls.' In a karaoke bar. In front of other people.
"Uh huh," I agreed again. Doing anything else seemed impossible. Well, except for maybe drinking my beer. Drinking my beer, I could do. I drank some of my beer.
The Luidaeg did not disappear. The Luidaeg remained on the stage, belting out the sea witch's song from Disney's 'The Little Mermaid.' Given that the Luidaeg IS the sea witch according to every legend I've ever heard, the overall effect was more than a little jarring.
"We're gonna need more beer," said Danny. ~ Seanan McGuire

The great question she raised involved me: is it worth while? I do not know, my ever greater calm replied, but it is so. There, before my silence, she surrendered to the process, & if she was asking me the great question, it had to go unanswered. She had to giver herself-for nothing. It had to be. And for nothing. She held back, unwilling to surrender. But I waited. I knew that we are that thing that must happen. I could be useful to her silence. And, dazed by misunderstanding, I could hear a heart beating inside me that was not mine. Before my fascinated eyes, like some emanation, she was being transformed into a child. ~ Clarice Lispector

How did you inoculate yourself against the death serum?" he asks me. He's still sitting in his wheelchair, but you don't need to be able to walk to fire a gun.
I blink at him, still dazed.
"I didn't," I say.
"Don't be stupid," David says. "You can't survive the death serum without an inoculation, and I'm the only person in the compound who possesses that substance."
I just stare at him, not sure what to say. I didn't inoculate myself. The fact that I'm still standing upright is impossible. There's nothing more to add. ~ Veronica Roth

The Garden by Moonlight"

A black cat among roses,
Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,
The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.
The garden is very still,
It is dazed with moonlight,
Contented with perfume,
Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.
Firefly lights open and vanish
High as the tip buds of the golden glow
Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.
Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,
Moon-spikes shafting through the snow ball bush.
Only the little faces of the ladies' delight are alert and staring,
Only the cat, padding between the roses,
Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern
As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.
Then you come,
And you are quiet like the garden,
And white like the alyssum flowers,
And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.
Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?
They knew my mother,
But who belonging to me will they know
When I am gone. ~ Amy Lowell

You're a killer, Keeley.You'd tease a man to death."
He didn't mean it as a compliment, but to her it was a revelation. "I've never tried it before. Now one's ever attracted me enough.You do,and I dont even know why."
When she dropped her hand,he took her wrist. It surprised him to feel the gallop of her pulse there, when her eyes, her voice had been so cool, so steady. "Then you're a quick learner."
"I'd like to think so.If I come to you, you'd be the first."
"The first what?" Temper wanted to stir, especially when she laughed. THen his mind cleared and the meaning flashed through like a thunderbolt. His hand tightened on her wrist, then dropped it as though she had turned to fire.
"That scared you enough to shut you up," she observed. "I'm surprised anything could render you speechless."
"I've..." But he couldn't think.
"No,don't fumble around for words. You'll spoil your image." She couldn't think just why his dazed expression struck her as so funny,or why the shock in his eyes was endearing somehow.
"We'll just say that,under these circumstances, we both have a lot to consider.And now,I'm way behind in my work, and have to get ready for my afternoon class."
She walked away,as easily, as casually, Brian thought numbly, as she might have if they'd just finished discussing the proper treatment for windgalls. She left him reeling.
he'd gone and fallen in love with the gentry,and the gentry was his boss's daughter. And his boss ~ Nora Roberts

Hey," Zachary says and she looks up from her book with a dazed expression he's used to wearing himself, the disorientation of being pulled out of one world and back into another.
"Hi," Elena says, coming out of the fiction fog and tucking the Chandler in her bag. ~ Erin Morgenstern

All of the sudden, we were a grown-up married couple! Like little figures in a doll's house, we sat there dazed, in awe, wishing a chubby little arm would pass through a window and move us around, tell us what to do. We would have given anything for a magnificent child to show us how to be husband and wife. ~ Jalina Mhyana

He looked at her curiously. He did something that surprised her then, and took her hand, turning it over. She looked down at it, at her bitten fingernails, the still-healing scratches along the backs of her fingers.
He kissed the back of it, just a light touch of his mouth, and his hair-as soft and light as silk-brushed her wrist as he lowered his head. She felt a shock go through her, strong enough to startle her, and she stood speechless as he straightened, his mouth curving into a smile.
"Mizpah," he said.
She blinked at him, a little dazed. "What?"
"A sort or goodbye without saying goodbye," he said. ~ Cassandra Clare

They said it was going fine and gave him those dazed, fuck-struck smiles of which only newlyweds are capable. ~ Stephen King

Right." Sadie looked dazed. "You've got a monkey butler. Why not? ~ Rick Riordan

I met evil and discovered God. I call it my discovery, but of course, it's nothing new, and it's not mine. Everyone has to make it for himself. People use different language to describe it. I suppose all the great world religions began with individuals making inspired contact with a spiritual reality and then trying to keep that knowledge alive. Most of it gets lost in rules and practices and addiction to power. That's how religions are. In the end though it hardly matters how you describe it once the essential truth has been grasped – that we have within us an infinite resource, a potential for a higher state of being, a goodness . . .' I had heard this before, in one form or another, from a spiritually inclined headmaster, a dissident vicar, an old girlfriend returning from India, from Californian professionals, and dazed hippies. ~ Ian McEwan

My father looked right at me, but he didn't answer. And his eyes were dazed and staring through me, like I was made out of smoke.
That was the first time I thought that maybe I was. ~ Jodi Picoult

But then I didn't run from my challenges. I met them straight on and bashed my head against them, until it left me hurt, bloody, and dazed. ~ Ilona Andrews

Boswell, like Lecky (to get back to the point of this footnote), and Gibbon before him, loved footnotes. They knew that the outer surface of truth is not smooth, welling and gathering from paragraph to shapely paragraph, but is encrusted with a rough protective bark of citations, quotations marks, italics, and foreign languages, a whole variorum crust of "ibid.'s" and "compare's" and "see's" that are the shield for the pure flow of argument as it lives for a moment in one mind. They knew the anticipatory pleasure of sensing with peripheral vision, as they turned the page, gray silt of further example and qualification waiting in tiny type at the bottom. (They were aware, more generally, of the usefulness of tiny type in enhancing the glee of reading works of obscure scholarship: typographical density forces you to crouch like Robert Hooke or Henry Gray over the busyness and intricacy of recorded truth.) They liked deciding as they read whether they would bother to consult a certain footnote or not, and whether they would read it in context, or read it before the text it hung from, as an hors d'oeuvre. The muscles of the eye, they knew, want vertical itineraries; the rectus externus and internus grow dazed waggling back and forth in the Zs taught in grade school: the footnote functions as a switch, offering the model-railroader's satisfaction of catching the march of thought with a superscripted "1" and routing it, sometimes at length, through abandoned stations and submerged, ~ Nicholson Baker

Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew open, and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment with flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with astonishment. "The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir!" he gasped. "Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off through the kitchen window?" Holmes twisted himself round upon the sofa to get a fairer view of the man's excited face. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

What Whitney Houston has accomplished will never be accomplished. She's the most famous person on the planet as far as vocaling and her songs. So I'm very happy that I can sit here and say I had a chance to know her. And I'm still dazed that she's gone. But she lives because her music is so powerful. ~ Narada Michael Walden

I lifted my face to meet the kiss, wanting the comfort of his touch as much as I was willing to provide the comfort of mine. The contact was sweet and soft, yet at the same time desperate.

It was Zane who pulled away first. "Danica, I think..." He trailed off and kissed me again, this time briefly, just the barest touch of lips to lips. "I love you."

From a man who frequently uttered eloquent speeches, the tentative declaration was not the most flattering of compliments-especially when every movement he made and look he cast my way had shown the long truth before now.

But coming from the serpent who had once informed me that he did not love me and did not think he ever could, whose cool, polished words could cut to the bone and freeze the Earth's frozen molten blood - whose eyes right now were just a bid dazed, and whose expression was as open and startled as I had ever seen it - the words were more than enough.

"I know," I answered. Then, soft but certain, I answered, "I love you too."

His smile matched mine and said the same as mine: I know. ~ Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Finally, he reached for the bottle of lubricant, then found one of Zane's hands without breaking their kiss and squeezed some into his palm. Dazed, Zane dragged open his eyes as he panted and shivered under Ty, wondering what he was going to tell him to do. Zane would do anything right now to please him. To please them both. "Get ~ Abigail Roux

I can spend two hours grubbing about in my garden, dazed with pleasure and intent, and it feels like five minutes. ~ Alice Walker

I learned to move silently in the background, a dirty, neglected little kid with no voice, no wants, and who made no trouble so as not to call the wrath of the eight or so tweaking adults who lived there down on me. I drifted, faded, and became a listless, ghostlike scavenger who took what she could get. I lived mostly in my head and for a while actually convinced myself that I was a survivor of one of those catastrophic earthquakes or tornadoes I used to see on the Weather Channel,a dazed, bewildered, and emotionless girl picking her way through an endless landscape of foul and stinking rubble to try and come out on the other side. ~ Laura Wiess

On nights when Gloria stayed up late enough to see Rachel come dreamily home she was always unsettled by the girl's appearance: clothes crushed and hair awry, eyes dazed and mouth swollen, with the lipstick eaten away. Love was often said to be torment, but Rachel could make it seem like punishment as well. ~ Richard Yates

See you at breakfast?"
"Yeah.See ya." I try to say this casually,but I'm so thrilled that I skip from her room and promptly slam into a wall.
Whoops.Not a wall.A boy.
"Oof." He staggers backward.
"Sorry! I'm so sorry,I didn't know you were there."
He shakes his head,a little dazed. The first thing I notice is his hair-it's the first thing I notice about everyone. It's dark brown and messy and somehow both long and short at the same time. I think of the Beatles,since I've just seen them in Meredith's room. It's artist hair.Musician hair. I-pretend-I-don't-care-but-I-really-do-hair.
Beautiful hair.
"It's okay,I didn't see you either. Are you all right,then?"
Oh my.He's English.
"Er.Does Mer live here?"
Seriously,I don't know any American girl who can resist an English accent.
The boy clears his throat. "Meredith Chevalier? Tall girl? Big,curly hair?" Then he looks at me like I'm crazy or half deaf,like my Nanna Oliphant. Nanna just smiles and shakes her head whenever I ask, "What kind of salad dressing would you like?" or "Where did you put Granddad's false teeth?"
"I'm sorry." He takes the smallest step away from me. "You were going to bed."
"Yes! Meredith lives there.I've just spent two hours with her." I announce this proudly like my brother, Seany, whenever he finds something disgusting in the yard. "I'm Anna! I'm new here!" Oh God. What.Is with.The scary enthusiasm? My cheeks catch fire, and it's all so humil ~ Stephanie Perkins

Carlos's smile spreads over his entire face. He reaches out, cups her chin, and presses a light kiss on her lips. Gabi's shocked eyes flutter closed, and when she opens them with a dazed look on her face, Carlos answers, "I'd love to. ~ Rachel Harris

It must be wonderful to marry the person whom we really love." Lany said dazed.
Antony turned his gaze from the moon and faced the girl's face.
"You have ever had that feeling." He said looking into her dark eyes.
She shrugged as she was embarrassed at the coherent thought of the boy.
"I never had that feeling, because I never loved that man. ~ Pet Torres

The next day I was driven down to New York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies, walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.
Some of these guys had dodged the draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals lined up against one of the walls. After eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis.
"Frankly," the doctor said, "I don't know how the hell you're even standing up," and that was when the sergeant told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me "we could take over the world without a shot. ~ John William Tuohy

She came back pinked, sun-dazed and slow moving, with spume-salted hair and a sandy butt, displaying upon a narrow palm, with a child's innocence, a small and perfect white shell, saying in a voice still drugged with sun and heat, "It's like the first perfect thing I ever saw, or the first shell. It's a little white suit of armor with the animal dead and gone. What does it mean when things look so clear and so meaningful? Silly little things." I sat on a low stool, hating the phone. ~ John D. MacDonald

David Greene was kind, and he had a sense of humor. He made your mother laugh."

That was all Gran could muster up? "Did you not like him?"

"He wasn't a big believer in Tarot. Humor aside, he was a very practical man. From New England," she added, as if that explained everything. "I'd been wearing Karen down about the Arcana - until she met him. Before I knew it, your mother was pregnant. Even then, I sensed you were the Empress."

"He didn't want us to live up north?"

"David planned to move there." Her gaze went distant. "To move you - the great Empress - away from her Haven." That must have gone over well. "In the end, I convinced them not to go."
......
I opened up the family albums. As I scrolled through them, her eyes appeared dazed, as if she wasn't seeing the images. Yet then she stared at a large picture of my father.

I said, "I wish I could remember him."

"David used to carry you around the farm on his shoulders," she said. "He read to you every night and took you to the river to skip stones. He drove you around to pet every baby animal born in a ten-mile radius. Lambs, kittens, puppies." She drew a labored breath. "He brought you to the crops and the gardens. Even then, you would pet the bark of an oak and kiss a rose bloom. If the cane was sighing that day, you'd fall asleep in his arms."

I imagined it all: the sugarcane, the farm, the majestic oaks, the lazy river that always had ~ Kresley Cole

Gonna fuck you now."
"Sure," I whispered, dazed. "Not sure I'm gonna be able to participate too much, think you blew a circuit or something. ~ Joanna Wylde

A slave in serving dress presented Kestrel with wine, then led the way to an open solarium with a low fountain and hothouse flowers. Musicians played discreetly behind an ebony screen as guests greeted each other, some chatting where they stood, others retreating for quiet conversations on the stone benches lining the fountain.
Kestrel turned to face Arin.
His eyes were dazed with anger, his hands clenched.
"Arin," she began, concerned, but his gaze flicked away and settled on some point across the room. "Your friends are here," he said.
She followed his line of sight to see Jess and Ronan laughing at something Benix had said.
"Dismiss me," Arin said.
"What?" she said, though in fact he was the only escort in the room. The slaves who threaded through the crowd were servers, and Irex's.
"Join your friends. I don't want to stay here anymore. Send me to the kitchens."
She took a breath, then nodded. He spun on his heel and was gone.
She felt instantly alone. She hadn't expected this. But when she asked herself what she had expected, she had a foolish image of her and Arin sitting on a bench together.
Kestrel looked up at the glass roof, a pyramid of purple sky. She saw the sharp cut of the moon, and remembered Enai saying that it was best to recognize the things one cannot change.
She crossed the room to greet her friends. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Since he'd gone, the world had become unnervingly strange. There was nothing she could do and nowhere she could go. She felt lost, lonely, dazed, deprived of everything, even of her identity, which was not strong enough to survive without his constant encouragement and reassurance. ~ Anna Kavan

When I was in the street throwing a beanbag with the other children and Mr. Tanaka happened to stroll out of the seafood company, I always stopped what I was doing to watch him.
I lay there on that slimy table while Mr. Tanaka examined my lip, pulling it down with his fingers and tipping my head this way and that. All at once he caught sight of my gray eyes, which were fixed on his face with such fascination, I couldn't pretend I hadn't been staring at him. He didn't give me a sneer, as if to say that I was an impudent girl, and he didn't look away as if it made no difference where I looked or what I thought. We stared at each other for a long moment-so long it gave me a chill even there in the muggy air of the seafood company.
"I know you," he said at last. "You're old Sakamoto's little girl."
Even as a child I could tell that Mr. Tanaka saw the world around him as it really was; he never wore the dazed look of my father. To me, he seemed to see the sap bleeding from the trunks of the pine trees, and the circle of brightness in the sky where the sun was smothered by clouds. He lived in the world that was visible, even if it didn't always please him to be there. I knew he noticed the trees, and the mud, and the children in the street, but I had no reason to believe he'd ever noticed me.
Perhaps this is why when he spoke to me, tears came stinging to my eyes. ~ Arthur Golden

Jem drew back from her, looking dazed. "By the Angel," he said. "Perhaps we do need a chaperon. ~ Cassandra Clare

Feeling the slight tremor of his fingers against her skin, Daisy was emboldened to remark, "I've never been attracted to tall men before. But you make me feel - "
"If you don't keep quiet," he interrupted curtly, "I'm going to strangle you."
Daisy felt silent, listening to the rhythm of his breath as it turned deeper, less controlled. By contrast his fingers became more certain in their task, working along the row of pearls until her dress gaped open and the sleeves slipped from her shoulders.
"Where is it?" he asked.
"The key?"
His tone was deadly. "Yes, Daisy. The key."
"It fell inside my corset. Which means… I'll have to take that off too."
There was no reaction to the statement, no sound or movement. Daisy twisted to glance at Matthew.
He seemed dazed. His eyes looked unnaturally blue against the flush on his face. She realized he was occupied with a savage inner battle to keep from touching her.
Feeling hot and prickly with embarrassment, Daisy pulled her arms completely out of her sleeves. She worked the dress over her hips, wriggling out of the filmy white layers, letting them slide to the floor in a heap.
Matthew stared at the discarded dress as if it were some kind of exotic fauna he had never seen before. Slowly his eyes returned to Daisy, and an incoherent protest came from his throat as she began to unhook her corset.
She felt shy and wicked, undressing in front of him. But she was encouraged by the ~ Lisa Kleypas

Sol closed his eyes, tilted his head up for a moment before opening them and meeting my dazed gaze. He leaned his forehead against mine, and said the last thing I ever expected.


"I've been searching my entire life for you."

I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it that had to be the funniest thing anyone had ever said to me…ever. I rested my hand on my stomach, and was bent over at the waist when I heard him clear his throat. I looked up, immediately sobered and stood tall, staring him in the eye.


"Does that line generally work well for you?" I asked with as straight a face as I could manage.


He shifted his weight, raised his hands in mid-air and said, "Usually. Women tend to fall at my feet, and beg me to take them home."


"Arrogance and egotism know no bounds, I see."


"When you've lived as long as I have, you take your kicks where you can get them. ~ E.R. Pierce

Delivered helpless and amazed
From the womb of the All, I am
waiting dazed
For memory to be erased.
Then I shall know the Elysium
That lies outside the monstrous womb
Of time from out of which I come. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Prasanta, who was later going to be sorry to see Purba go, experienced the dazed detachment someone feels when events they ignited go far beyond a reasonable trajectory they had imagined. ~ Neel Mukherjee

[This world] exists nonnecessarily, improbably, and causelessly. It exists for absolutely no reason at all. It is inexplicably and stunningly actual ... The impact of this captivated realisation upon me is overwhelming. I am completely stunned. I take a few dazed steps in the dark meadow, and fall among the flowers. I lie stupefied, whirling without comprehension in this world through numberless worlds other than this one. ~ Quentin Smith

Being with you . . ." he began, drawing my eyes back to his face. His were dazed, unfocused, like he was looking within and without. "Being with me?" I prompted after almost a minute, curious, a bubble of something reluctantly hopeful expanding in my chest. So of course, a joke slipped out. "Is as the prophesy foretold?" Abram's gaze sharpened on mine. He smiled, a real smile. His left dimple making its first appearance, stealing my breath before his words could. "It's living artistry, Mona." Abram's gaze turned cherishing, earnest. "Being with you is like living in a song. ~ Penny Reid

(Brett) "Never been to a football game either?" His voice lowered to a gravelly hush. "Well, like I said. We'll make up for lost time." He bent down and kissed her. "See you Friday?"
Dazed, all she could contribute was, "Yeah, Friday…" before he turned and went back to his car.
She walked inside, shut the door, leaned her back against it and concentrated on the rise and fall of her chest. It felt like he'd stolen her breath. And her heart. She was pretty sure he had taken a small piece of it with him. ~ Jeanette Murray

Sometimes I don't understand why my arms don't drop from my body with fatigue, why my brain doesn't melt away. I am leading an austere life, stripped of all external pleasure, and am sustained only by a kind of permanent frenzy, which sometimes makes me weep tears of impotence but never abates. I love my work with a love that is frantic and perverted, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt that scratches his belly. Sometimes, when I am empty, when words don't come, when I find I haven't written a single sentence after scribbling whole pages, I collapse on my couch and lie there dazed, bogged down in a swamp of despair, hating myself and blaming myself for this demented pride that makes me pant after a chimera. A quarter of an hour later, everything has changed; my heart is pounding with joy. ~ Gustave Flaubert

Nico jumped into the crowd, kicking groins, smacking faces with the flat of his blade, bashing helmets with his pommel. In ten seconds, the Romans all lay groaning and dazed on the ground. ~ Rick Riordan