Drifted Quotes

Soon his too-loud voice drifted back into the room. "He shot my brother in the back. He's mine. That's a fucking order. Mine. ~ Debra Anastasia

I'd had a cold that day and wasn't as powerful as usual, otherwise Alyss would never have done so well," Redd said as, in the alcove, the final image dissolved. She blew at the cloud and it drifted out into the crypt. "Has a malicious ruler ever suffered more? I think not. ~ Frank Beddor

Rohan's fingertips drifted with stunning delicacy over her throat, behind her ear, pushing into the satiny warmth of her hair. "You are an interesting woman Amelia."
Gooseflesh rose wherever his breath touched. "I can't f-fathom why you would think so."
His playful mouth traced the wing of her brow. "I find you thoroughly, deeply interesting. I want to open you like a book and read every page." A smile curved the corners of his lips as he added huskily, "Footnotes included. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I'm ... It's - it's like torture." His voice was strained, hardly even a whisper. "I think I'm losing it - I don't know what's happening, what happened, but I look at you, I look at you, and I love you so much. Not because of anything you've said, or done, or anything at all. I look at you, and I just love you, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me what I would do for you. Please ... you have to tell me ... tell me I'm not crazy. Please just look at me."
My eyes drifted up to his, and it was over. ~ Alexandra Bracken

One evening he appeared with an infant in his arms at the door of his ex-wife, Martha. Because Briony, his lovely young wife after Martha, had died. Of what? We'll get to that. I can't do this alone, Andrew said, as Martha stared at him from the open doorway. It happened to have been snowing that night, and Martha was transfixed by the soft creature-like snowflakes alighting on Andrew's NY Yankees hat brim. Martha was like that, enrapt by the peripheral things as if setting them to music. Even in ordinary times, she was slow to respond, looking at you with her large dark rolling protuberant eyes. Then the smile would come, or the nod, or the shake of the head. Meanwhile the heat from her home drifted through the open door and fogged up Andrew's eyeglasses. He stood there behind his foggy lenses like a blind man in the snowfall and was without volition when at last she reached out, gently took the swaddled infant from him, stepped back, and closed the door in his face. ~ E.L. Doctorow

I drifted into acting and drifted out. Acting is not everything. Living is. ~ Irene Dunne

She looked out at the other trees, and she realised that her life was one of thousands, any one of which could have been her, she had grown wherever her life had taken her, she had drifted wherever the wind had blown her. ~ Dave McKean

By his own admission, Tom is nothing like his brother. He has neither the fierce ambition nor the compulsion for risk taking. ... Will relied on aggression to anchor the world while Tom passively accepted whatever the world would give or take away. Consequently Tom won no awards, achieved no fame, ... He drifted, bending to daily pressures, never protesting when he was deprived of what he should have rightfully claimed as his own. In his sad trip downstream, Tom dulled the pain with alcohol and a few joints a day - what he called his 'friendly haze'. ~ Mark Z. Danielewski

Kathel, you have the face of a scoundrel." Her eyes drifted slowly over his face and landed for a moment on his full lips. "With lips created for sin."
"Keirah," he whispered, gently squeezing her hands. "Talk like that is not helping matters. ~ Madison Thorne Grey

A kiss, he said, is a conversation. Easing closer, he continued to speak as he caressed her cheeks with featherlight stokes of his thumbs.
"A first kiss", his lips neared hers, is an introduction and then his mouth brushed against hers. The contact sparked, sharp and bright like lightning, yet his lips were soft, unexpectedly so. Her breath caught the same instant his did.
Against her mouth he whispered "That was Hello" His breath mingled with hers as he waited, his lips so close she could feel their warmth. For a moment she simply breathed him in growing heady on the scent of him and the tight anticipation gathering in her belly. Then she understood. Nerves fluttering, she brushed her lips across his as he had done. Again his breath hitched, as if he too felt that same spark, that hot need. Her eyes drifted closed and his voice poured over her like warm cream.
"This is, 'I'm Jack'. ~ Kristen Callihan

They say he is elusive,' he said. 'You will hear that a lot. But listen: he is not elusive; he is at the centre. Wherever he is, that is the centre. He will seem to have broken the circle, drifted to the edge, right until the end, and then you will see that the world has come to him, and he has been waiting for it all along. ~ Chris Wraight

Do you need us to get you anything, sweetie?" Kincaid asked, sitting on the opposite side of the bed from Finn. "Water? A pill? A former football player in his underwear? Because we've got the last one covered. And I can make the first two happen."

Liv looked up at that, registering the fact that Finn was shirtless and his thick hair was sticking up every which way. Her gaze drifted down to his black boxer briefs. "You're in your underwear."

"'Fraid so," he said. "Good thing I don't sleep naked. ~ Roni Loren

Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.

The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.

Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured mar ~ William Golding

Use the rows, otherwise you either go nowhere or you are drifted to somewhere unwanted! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The nothingth of a second for which the hole existed reverberated backwards and forwards through time in a most improbable fashion. Somewhere in the deeply remote past it seriously traumatized a small random group of atoms drifting through the empty sterility of space and made them cling together in the most extraordinarily unlikely patterns. These patterns quickly learnt to copy themselves (this was part of what was so extraordinary about the patterns) and went on to cause massive trouble on every planet they drifted on to. That was how life began in the Universe. ~ Douglas Adams

I was reminded of how years before, he had drifted away from one of our afternoon strolls and got surrounded by the tide - Corrigan, isolated on a sandbar, tangled in light, voices from the shores drifting over him, calling his name. ~ Colum McCann

Agnes shut her eyes, clenched her fists, opened her mouth and screamed.

It started low. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The prisms on the chandelier chimed gently as they shook.
It rose, passing quickly through the mysterious pitch at fourteen cycles per second where the human spirit begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable about the universe and the place in it of the bowels. Small items around the Opera House vibrated off shelves and smashed on the floor.

The note climbed, rang like a bell, climbed again. In the Pit, all the violin strings snapped, one by one.
As the tone rose, the crystal prisms shook in the chandelier. In the bar, champagne corks fired a salvo. Ice jingled and shattered in its bucket. A line of wine-glasses joined in the chorus, blurred around the rims, and then exploded like hazardous thistledown with attitude.

There were harmonics and echoes that caused strange effects. In the dressing-rooms the No. 3 greasepaint melted. Mirrors cracked, filling the ballet school with a million fractured images.
Dust rose, insects fell. In the stones of the Opera House tiny particles of quartz danced briefly...

Then there was silence, broken by the occasional thud and tinkle.
Nanny grinned.
'Ah,' she said, 'now the opera's over. ~ Terry Pratchett

They cowered in a corner as far away as they could from the sound of ripping, tearing and banging. The creature above was frantically trying to find a way through the floor to them.
The terrifying scraping noise signaled that the thing had torn its way through the clean, white woolen carpet that had neatly covered the hard wood floorboards. Now it scraped its claws along the wood trying to find a hold.
In frustration, and after many attempts, it thumped the floor in anger. Screaming a long high-pitched whistle, it smashed itself hard and heavily against the floor.
Dust drifted towards them as they looked to each other for any suggestions to the one impending question upon all of their minds.
How are we going to get out of here alive? ~ Robert E. Kreig

Soft and silent as a new moon, a smile drifted across her face. ~ Haruki Murakami

During the ice age, many animals died of cold, so the porcupines decided to band together to provide one another with warmth and protection. But their spines or quills kept sticking into their surrounding companions, precisely those who provided most warmth. And so they drifted apart again. And again many of them died of cold. They had to make a choice: either risk extinction or accept their fellow porcupines' spines. Very wisely, they decided to huddle together again. They learned to live with the minor wounds inflicted by their relatives, because the key to their survival was that shared warmth. ~ Paulo Coelho

At other times, at the edge of a wood, especially at dusk, the trees themselves would assume strange shapes: sometimes they were arms rising heavenwards, , or else the trunk would twist and turn like a body being bent by the wind. At night, when I woke up and the moon and the stars were out, I would see in the sky things that filled me simultaneously with dread and longing. I remember that once, one Christmas Eve, I saw a great naked women, standing erect, with rolling eyes; she must have been a hundred feet high, but along she drifted, growing ever longer and ever thinner, and finally fell apart, each limb remaining separate, with the head floating away first as the rest of her body continued to waver ~ Gustave Flaubert

Hands folded under my chin, I drifted. A bruise-colored cloud hung over Koko Head. A transistor radio twanged on a seawall where a Hawaiian family picnicked on the sand. The sun-warmed shallow water had a strange boiled-vegetable taste. The moment was immense, still, glittering, mundane. I tried to fix each of its parts in memory. I did not consider, even passingly, that I had a choice when it came to surfing. My enchantment would take me where it would. ~ William Finnegan

After the war, Lucian had drifted back to Wyoming and then back to Absaroka County. He then drifted into being sheriff on the strength of his being the toughest piece of gristle in four states. ~ Craig Johnson

I reached out to hold a daydream. They looked like they were spun from glass and yet their touch was silk-soft. As they drifted between my fingers, I felt them - a nap in the sleepy sunshine of a winter afternoon, a reverie where a sea alight with flowers and bright candles washed over my ankles. ~ Roshani Chokshi

But there's so much to learn," he said, with a thoughtful frown.
"Yes, that's true," admitted Rhyme; "but it's not just learning things that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things at all that matters."
"That's just what I mean," explained Milo as Tock and the exhausted bug drifted quietly off to sleep. "Many of the things I'm supposed to know seem so useless that I can't see the purpose in learning them at all."
"You may not see it now," said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, "but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. ~ Norton Juster

Violet lay next to me and I scooted over, making room for the two of us on the twin-sized bed. She took my hand in hers, slowly and deliberately threading our fingers together, like she used to do when we were little girls. And just like that, I felt six years old again, with my eight-year-old sister next to me, shaking in fear as we listened to one of Momma's tirades outside our bedroom. My eyes flooded with tears while I gripped her hand, hanging on for dear life. Violet softly hummed the old lullaby she made up years ago, the one she used to sing to me when I was scared or sad. I drifted off to sleep, ~ Denise Grover Swank

GORDON WAY DRIFTED miserably along the dark road, or rather, tried to drift. He felt that as a ghost - which is what he had to admit to himself he had become - he should be able to drift. He knew little enough about ghosts, but he felt that if you were going to be one then there ought to be certain compensations for not having a physical body to lug around, and that among them ought to be the ability simply to drift. But no, it seemed he was going to have to walk every step of the way. ~ Douglas Adams

In loneliness I have drifted this long way, alone.
My torn and shabby robe could not keep out the cold.
And tonight the sky was so clear
it made my heart ache all the more. ~ Hiromi Kawakami

Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.
They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.
So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word. ~ Terry Pratchett

I mean, I don't even like guys with light hair, for one thing! Never mind the fact that he'd knock me into a coma every time he opened his mouth. Oh, and that he's a hateful, violent half-wit. Yeah, that's prime courtship material right there."
It wasn't me. YES!
Wait. Was this that Allister fellow?
I drifted over and sat next to her. She looked at me and offered the com unit. "Bram, tell Pamma that there's no way I would want Michael Allister, ever."
I ran this through my "girl talk" translator and said, "I could eat him, if either of you'd like. Seems like it might be the easiest thing to do. ~ Lia Habel

His hand drifted up Jared's spine and into his hair. For a moment, he just stroked Jared's scalp, the movements slow, almost tender.
"Always hot watching a man get fucked." And then he grabbed Jared's hair and jerked his head back. "But even hotter watching him beg for it, isn't it? ~ Aleksandr Voinov

It was the great evil of plays that every character had some kind of purpose. Absorb too much of them, and you could go about believing there was something wrong with you if you drifted unremarked towards your thirties, and coasted into a quiet beach of no interest to anyone. ~ Natasha Pulley

What are we doing? Have we really drifted so far off course? We have it all, don't we? We get along, live comfortably. But what's it all really for in the long run? ~ Lisa Samson

Dr. Kaunda, although he was running a one-party state, was very close to the West, and that is why he achieved as much as he did. But we drifted away from the West to look for new friends. ~ Michael Sata

Her breath caught on the thought. Was he saying that a woman would put her hands - her mouth - there?
Her bodice felt suddenly too tight as her breaths became faster. She didn't know where to look: at those long fingers massaging his own leg or his glinting, knowing green eyes.
"And of course," he continued, "a woman can pleasure herself - with her hand - and a man…" His hand drifted up, straight to the top of his widely spread legs. He gripped himself frankly - lewdly - and looked at her.
She lost all sense of propriety. All sense of place and time and who he was and who she was.
She stared back into those sensuous green eyes and whispered, "Show me. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

When two people really care about each other, they will always look for a way to make it work, no matter how hard it is. ~ Bharat

I bunched the squirrel-fur hat up under my head and left the pack for Mal to use as a pillow. Then I pulled my coat close around me and huddled beneath the new furs. I was nodding off when I heard Mal return and settle himself beside me, his back pressed comfortably against mine. As I drifted into sleep, I felt like I could still taste the sugar from that sweet roll on my tongue, feel the pleasure of laughter gusting through me. We'd been robbed. We'd almost been killed. We were being hunted by the most powerful man in Ravka. But we were friends again, and sleep came more easily than it had in a long time. At some point during the night, I woke to Mal's snoring. I jabbed him in the back with my elbow. He rolled onto his side, muttered something in his sleep, and threw his arm over me. A minute later he started snoring again, but this time I didn't wake him. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Farran studied his new ally, his gaze glittering. "You have no idea." After another moment, he asked, "Why did you do it?"
Arobynn's attention drifted back to the wagon, already a small dot in the rolling foothills above Rifthold. "Because I don't like sharing my belongings. ~ Sarah J. Maas

The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict?
The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don't wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. It takes at least three months' shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don't really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict.
The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict's special need. You don't decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you're an addict. (Junky, Prologue, p. xxxviii) ~ William S. Burroughs

The bridge of stars?" Janeway asked.
"Uh-huh," Glenn said, nodding. "I can't remember the whole story. Two galaxies were one but over time, the natural expansion of the universe separated them. Still, they couldn't bear to be torn apart, so each of them sacrificed a few of their stars to leave a bridge between them so that no matter how far apart they drifted, they could never truly be separated."
"That's beautiful," Chakotay said, glancing toward Janeway with a gentle smile. ~ Kirsten Beyer

The disaster at the Chernobyl plant, along with the war in Afghanistan and the cruise-missile question, is generally seen today as the start of the decline of the Soviet Union. Just as the great famine of 1891 had mercilessly laid bare the failure of czarism, almost a century later Chernobyl clearly showed how divided, rigid and rotten the Soviet regime had become. The principal policy instruments, secrecy and repression, no longer worked in a modern world with its accompanying means of communication. The credibility of the party leadership sank to the point at which it could sink no further. In the early hours of 26 April, 1986, two explosions took place in one of the four reactors at the giant nuclear complex. It was an accident of the kind scientists and environmental activists had been warning about for years, particularly because of its effects: a monstrous emission of iodine-131 and caesium-137. Huge radioactive clouds drifted across half of Europe: ~ Geert Mak

o here I am, upside down in a woman. Arms patiently crossed, waiting, waiting and wondering who I'm in, what I'm in for. My eyes close nostalgically when I remember how I once drifted in my translucent body bag, floated dreamily in the bubble of my thoughts through my private ocean in slow-motion somersaults, colliding gently against the transparent bounds of my confinement, the confiding membrane that vibrated with, even as it muffled, the voices of conspirators in a vile enterprise. That was in my careless youth. Now, fully inverted, not an inch of space to myself, knees crammed against my belly, my thoughts as well as my head are fully engaged. I've no choice, my ear is pressed all day and night against the bloody walls. I listen, make mental notes, and I'm troubled. I'm hearing pillow talk of deadly intent and I'm terrified by what awaits me, by what might draw me in. ~ Ian McEwan

My mom shows me her old yearbooks, and there are tons of people in there she doesn't talk to anymore. Old boyfriends, best friends ... What do you think happened to them?"
"Maybe they drifted apart."
"That's stupid. You don't drift, not if someone matters to you."
"So maybe they didn't matter, not really."
"Anna?"
"Yeah?"
"I'd never do that. Leave you."
"I know. Me either. ~ Abigail Haas

Splatters of mud stained Rothbury's fine lawn shirt, which clung slickly to the broad expanse of his back like a second skin. Having rolled up his sleeves at the onset of his task, his muscled arms were now streaked with mud and rain as were the tall boots and tight black breeches that hugged the sinewy muscles of his long, undoubtedly strong legs.
Her admiring gaze alighted upon his golden-brown hair, which now looked more brown than golden as it was wet with perspiration and mist. A few locks lay plastered to his neck in wispy whorls.
Charlotte suddenly felt overly warm. Seeing him... wet... somehow embarrassed her. It felt dark, intimate. Truly, if it weren't for the mud- and clothes- she rather thought this would be what he looked like after a bath.
A shiver ran down her arms as her eyes drifted to the dewy trails of rain droplets that ran over his slightly bristled jaw and neck, disappearing in the nest of his loosely tied cravat.
And then her hungry gaze raised... and connected with Rothbury's. All thoughts flew straight out of her head.
Looking at her from over his shoulder, he straightened, his smile twisting with arrogance.
Despite the chill in the air, her cheeks felt as if they were on fire. How long had he been watching her in-depth perusal? Long enough, she supposed, if the heated gleam in his eyes was any indication at all.
She blinked, shaking her head hurriedly, hoping by that action she was silently telling him, "No, I defi ~ Olivia Parker

She shouldn't have been beautiful - she was too forward, too freckled, too thin. Still ... Oh, to hell with it all. He wasn't hungry, anyway. He reached out and took her hand, drawing her to him. She drifted near, until she was close enough to kiss. Close enough for him to see the green of her eyes, widening as he turned her hand over, palm up.
"There's something I've wanted to do since the first moment I saw you," he said. It came out close to a whisper.
"Oh?" He could feel the puff of breath from that word against his nose.
"Don't even think of arguing."
She shook her head. Her lips opened, an impossible, inviting fraction.
He set the fork in the palm of her hand and closed his fingers tightly around hers. "I want you to eat," he said. ~ Courtney Milan

Still holding my breath, I worked the dull point inside and slowly, slowly drew back the stopper, plunged it back in, and exhaled. At last, my grateful spirit eased out of the fetid bag of humanity crumpled in that Japanese car, eased out and drifted overhead, until it floated high over the San Fernando Valley, far away from all these people who just didn't understand, far away and high above the awful circumstance of what now passed for my life. ~ Jerry Stahl

There were silences as murmurous as sound. There were pauses that seemed about to shatter and were only to be snatched back to oblivion by the tightening of his arms about her and the sense that she was resting there as a caught, gossamer feather, drifted in out of the dark. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

When was the last time you were kissed?" he went on easily. "And I'm not talking about the dry, noncommittal, meaningless kiss you forget about as soon as it's over."

I scrambled out of my stupor long enough to quip, "Like last night's kiss?"

He cocked an eyebrow. "That so? I wonder, then, why you moaned my name after you drifted to sleep."

"I did not!"

"If only I'd had a video recorder. When was the last time you were really kissed?" he repeated.

"You seriously think I'm going to tell you?"

"Your ex?" he guessed.

"And if he was?"

"Was it your ex who taught you to be ashamed and uncomfortable with intimacy? He took from you what he wanted, but never seemed to be around when you wanted something back, isn't that right? What do you want, Britt?" he asked me point-blank.
"Do you really want to pretend like last night never happened?"

"Whatever happened between me and Calvin isn't your business," I fired back.

"For your information, he was a really great boyfriend. I-I wish I was with him right now!" I exclaimed untruthfully. My careless comment made him flinch, but he recovered quickly.

"Does he love you?"

"What?" I said, flustered.

"If you know him so well, it shouldn't be a hard question. Is he in love with you? Was he ever in love with you?"

I tossed my head back haughtily. "I know what you're doing. You' ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

Time is distance, and when it is suspended, we are no longer in the world but a part of the world. That is what the music of Orpheus did to the women who in a kind of collective trance or ecstasy tore his head off and tossed it into the sea, where it drifted slowly away, still singing. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

I don't know why we stopped reading together, but gradually we were not doing it regularly, and then without realizing it was happening we were reading different books, and gradually we came not to care about the book the other one was reading, because it was not the book we were reading, and we became bored and drifted off when the other one talked about his book. What we were doing, reading different books, was furnishing different rooms, constructing separate worlds almost, in which we could sit and be ourselves again. Of course those were rooms in which we each sat alone, and we gradually spent more and more time in them and less and less in the house we lived in together. ~ Sam Savage

Back in bed, Cecelia drifted off fairly quickly but soon found her mind returning to the green ~ Gayle Curtis

A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Rhy clenched his teeth, fighting back a groan, but his stillness must have betrayed him; he felt Alucard smile against his skin. The man's fingers drifted to his tunic, deftly unbuttoning his collar so his kisses could continue downward, but Rhy felt him hesitate at the sight of the scar over his heart. "Someone has wounded you," he whispered into Rhy's collarbone. "Shall I make it better? ~ Victoria Schwab

I drifted off after a while, staring at the only star visible through the thick covering of leaves. Hope seemed a futile wish, but I troubled the lonely star to grant it anyway. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I started out as Snow White, but then I drifted. ~ Mae West

Oh, look, the lights are so pretty," I said dreamily, having just noticed
them.
I smiled at the way the lights were dancing overhead, pink and yellow and
blue. I felt some pressure on my arm and thought, I should look over and see
what's going on, but then the thought was gone, sliding away like Jell-O off a
hot car hood.
"Fang?"
"Yeah. I'm here."
I struggled to focus on him. "I'm so glad you're here."
"Yeah, I got that."
"I don't know what I'd do without you." I peered up at him, trying to see
past the too-bright lights.
"You'd be fine," he muttered.
"No," I said, suddenly struck by how unfine I would be. "I would be totally
unfine. Totally." It seemed very urgent that he understand this.
Again I felt some tugging on my arm, and I really wondered what that was
about. Was Ella's mom going to start this procedure any time soon?
"It's okay. Just relax." He sounded stiff and nervous. "Just...relax. Don't
try to talk."
"I don't want my chip anymore," I explained groggily, then frowned.
"Actually, I never wanted that chip."
"Okay," said Fang. "We're taking it out."
"I just want you to hold my hand."
"I am holding your hand."
"Oh. I knew that." I drifted off for a few minutes, barely aware of
anything, but feeling Fang's hand still in mine.
"Do you have a La-Z-Boy somewhere?" I roused myself to ask, every word an
effort.
"Um, no," said Ella's v ~ James Patterson

A heavenly female with long, russet tresses that drifted over her right shoulder in undulating waves stepped toward him. A bright blue ribbon held her unruly mass of hair. She wore a light blue, snugly fitted shirt that matched the ribbon. It clung to full breasts tapering to a narrow waist. Skin like polished stone with a light kiss from the sun gleamed in the gathering light. Large, round, azure eyes the shade of sea shoals under a noonday summer sun and blanketed with thick lashes assessed him and left him speechless. ~ Aleigha Siron

His mouth found each of her eyelids, then drifted down her cheek to the corner of her lips. "Don't protest. Just listen to me. I'v thought about this for a long time. Your life is in danger. You've accepted that, and you're willing to chance our love. But I couldn't live with your death at my hands. I can't, Isabella." He kissed her mouth, her soft, pliant lips, drawing strength from her, her endless courage becoming his. ~ Christine Feehan

When my own mother died, there seemed to me to be no answer to anything. For a time the only universality was death. And then I remember walking in the dusk along the quiet little street toward the house now so empty and meaningless. There was light enough from the sky to cast the lattice shadow of leaves on the walk. The sound of the river was steady and swift, and the air smelled of sulphur from the mills beyond it. As I looked up, a delicate petal of moon drifted into the tender blue, and all at once I thought, How beautiful God made the world! How wonderful that the stars still shine! And I was comforted. ~ Gladys Taber

Finn drifted around, rootless and aimless as dandelion fluff in the wind. ~ Laura Ruby

And yet when i finally drifted of in that barely conscious state where logic was absent and dreams encroached i could almost hear bone's voice. he was whispering that same promise he'd made to me months ago when our relationship started and i wondered if it was a sign - and if he'd really meant it. If you run from me i'll chase you. And i'll find you ... ~ Jeaniene Frost

There are all sorts of families," Tom's grandmother had remarked, and over the following few weeks Tom became part of the Casson family, as Micheal and Sarah and Derek-from-the-camp had done before him.
He immediately discovered that being a member of the family was very different from being a welcome friend. If you were a Casson family member, for example, and Eve drifted in from the shed asking, "Food? Any ideas? Or shall we not bother?" then you either joined in the search of the kitchen cupboards or counted the money in the housekeeping jam jar and calculated how many pizzas you could afford. Also, if you were a family member you took care of Rose, helped with homework (Saffron and Sarah were very strict about homework), unloaded the washing machine, learned to fold up Sarah's wheelchair, hunted for car keys, and kept up the hopeful theory that in the event of a crisis Bill Casson would disengage himself from his artistic life in London and rush home to help. ~ Hilary McKay

I always imagined rape as this violent scene of a woman walking alone down a dark alley and getting mugged and beaten by some masked criminal. Rape was an angry man forcing himself inside a damsel in distress. I would not carry the trauma of a cliché rape victim. I would not shriek in the midst of my slumber with night terrors. I would not tremble at the sight of every dark haired man or the mention of Number 1's name. I would not even harbor ill will towards him. My damage was like a cigarette addiction- subtle, seemingly innocent, but everlasting and inevitably detrimental.
Number 1 never opened his screen door to furious crowds waving torches and baseball bats. Nobody punched him out in my honor. The Nightfall crowd never socially ostracized him. Even the ex-boyfriend who'd second handedly fused the entire fiasco continued to mingle with him in drug circles. Everybody continued with business as usual. And when I told my parents I lost my virginity against my will, unconscious on a bathroom floor, Carl did not erupt in fury and demand I give him all I knew about his whereabouts so he could greet him with a rifle. Mom blankly shrugged and mumbled, "Oh, that's too bad," and drifted into the kitchen as if I'd received a stubbed toe rather than a shredded hymen.
Everyone in my life took my rape as lightly as a brief thunderstorm that might have been frightening when it happened, but was easy to forget about. I adopted that mentality as the foundation of my sex life ~ Maggie Georgiana Young

And this is the library," Mrs. Simcosky said, leading Beth into a generous room with a fire flickering in a river rock fireplace. "Or, as Mason liked to call it, my love den." She drifted to one of the floor to ceiling book shelves and trailed her fingers down a bevy of colorful spines. "He used to call my books 'the other men'. ~ Trish McCallan

If you ever feel distant, never mistake who has drifted away. Prayer will close this gap. ~ Tad R. Callister

Mum drifted off to sleep again. I sat on her window seat, looking out at the snow, and had a little think. I love my 'little thinks,' which are just quiet moments of daydreaming, really. I picked up the expression when I was working at a school in England and we were discussing Jack and the Beanstalk. I asked the children, 'What did Jack do at the top of the beanstalk?' and a little boy in grey shorts with chubby, red knees called out, 'He sat on a rock.' 'And then what?' I asked, and the boy said, 'He had a little think. ~ Anny Scoones

We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps, but we have not done so; instead, we have drifted. And that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence. ~ Bill Clinton

One of the things that confirmed Hyacinth's suspicion that America was an evil, lonely place was that people were islands unto themselves. And so when Avril drifted away, there was no friend or neighbor or pastor or coworker to reach out to and ask after her child. ~ Naomi Jackson

I want you to stop taking cracker dust." "And he says it isn't a righteous streak," Andrew mused, more to himself than to Neil. "If it was righteousness I'd ask you to give up drinking and smoking, too," Neil said. "I'm only asking for this one thing. It doesn't have any effect on you anyway and it's an unnecessary risk. You don't need a third addiction." "I don't need anything," Andrew reminded him, right on cue. "If you don't need it, it'll be easy to give it up," Neil said. "Right?" Andrew thought it over a minute, then flicked his cigarette at Neil. It singed the material where it bounced off his shirt. Neil ground it out under his shoe when it hit the asphalt. The cool look he flicked Andrew was wasted; Andrew's gaze had already drifted past him in search of something more interesting. "I'm going to take your temper tantrum as a yes," Neil said. "I'll bring the money by your room tonight. ~ Nora Sakavic

That fellow was like all of us: descended from good people who were stolen from their families and country, sailed over the sea, and forced into slavery. 'We don't let them steal our dignity,' that preacher said. Richard, his name was. He said they cannot steal our honor, our strength, or our love." "True words," I said. "Do you know what he said about this America?" Henry asked. I shook my head. "Remember, lads?" Henry asked his mates. "Join with me. He said, 'This land . . .'" A half dozen voices spoke with Henry, strong black men sharing the preacher's words like a hymn or a prayer. "'Which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country.'" The words drifted up to the stars with the sparks from the fire. "We go to war, Missus Isabel," Henry added, "in order to make our mother country, this land, free for everyone. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

Another demon. This one walked with soft feet like she'd drifted in from the next world and no one had the good sense to send her back. ~ Leigh Bardugo

He felt the heat blasting from the vents of the Jeep and he gave a lot of grateful thought to the fact that he was finally in a comfortable enough place to fall asleep, not driving a stolen car and not sleeping in said stolen car in a copse of trees in twelve-degree weather; not in an unfamiliar bed that smelled like someone else; not in the series of try-hard cots in the Interim Room at Lathrop House but instead in the soft bucket seat of a Jeep that smelled like someone he knew; homeward bound, God what a queer thing to say but he hardly had the wherewithal to correct himself, so heavy were his eyelids, his head full of newfound knowledge, his belly full of egg rolls, and he didn't even notice falling asleep; he just drifted off, Wendy to his left, because he knew, somehow, that she'd get them home. ~ Claire Lombardo

I thought about him trying not to laugh at the 'Molahonkey Song' on a night when the snow drifted gold past the window. I thought about the warm skin and soft hair and hands of someone living, someone who was far cleverer and funnier than I would ever be and who still couldn't see a better future than to obliterate himself. And finally, my head pressed into the pillow, I cried, because my life suddenly seemed so much darker and more complicated than I could ever have imagined, and I wished I could go back, back to when my biggest worry was whether Frank and I had ordered in enough Chelsea buns. ~ Jojo Moyes

I didn't have a vocabulary for what he did to me, but then no one had been able to define the man himself. An enigma, an abomination, a wish on a star. He consumed me, and I drifted inside him, blissed out on the ride. ~ Skye Warren

The hippogriff took off into the air ... He and his rider became smaller and smaller as Harry gazed after them ... then a cloud drifted across the moon ... They were gone. ~ J.K. Rowling

Tonight they granted at least one wish," I whispered, and I lowered my head so our lips drifted over one another. "I love you Adam, no matter how lost you are ... or I am ... I will only ever love you. ~ Cassandra Giovanni

Nothing is more tragic than failure to discover one's true business in life, or to find that one has drifted or been forced by circumstance into an uncongenial calling. ~ John Dewey

It'll be hard not to tease your folk sometimes."

Brishen couldn't imagine how she might go about such a thing. He had no idea if the Kai and the Gauri even knew the same jokes or found the same things funny. "What do you mean?"

He almost leapt out of his skin when Ildiko stared at him as both of her eyes drifted slowly down and over until they seemed to meet together, separated only by the elegant bridge of her nose.

"Lover of thorns and holy gods!" he yelped and clapped one hand across her eyes to shut out the sight. "Stop that," he ordered.

Ildiko laughed and pushed his hand away. She laughed even harder when she caught sight of his expression. "Wait," she gasped on a giggle. "I can do better. Want to see me make one eye cross and have the other stay still?"

Brishen reared back. "No!" He grimaced. "Nightmarish. I'll thank you to keep that particular talent to yourself, wife. ~ Grace Draven

Glancing over at Jon, he wondered whether their shaky, three-part arrangement would survive the truth of Baltsaros's compulsion. He scratched the back of his head, turning the metal collar as he thought. If it did spell the end, would he be made to choose? The thought sobered him, and he drifted closer to Jon's side as they walked towards the brightly lit inn. Tom reached out and let his knuckles graze Jon's arm, a hidden touch just to ground him for the span of a heartbeat. Maybe Jon would turn a blind eye. Maybe they'd continue to live in denial that they both loved a fucking monster. Jon smiled at the brief caress, and Tom felt his chest get tight. Love was a bloody, fucking headache. ~ Bey Deckard

The sky was overcast with thick, grey clouds drifting in the direction of Idasa. That meant rain. It would come, as long as the clouds drifted in that direction. Lightening flashes momentarily parted the clouds...Shango, the god of lightening and thunder, was registering his anger as this strange talk of a new God is taking hold of simple folk who were once unquestioning votaries of his order. The new malady must be nipped in the bud. ~ T.M. Aluko

A thin stream of smoke drifted skyward, speaking of mysteries within. ~ Katherine Howe

And so he drifted back to London ... where he lived a life of increasingly busy idleness as he searched out one diversion after another ~ Mary Balogh

Josiah said that only humans had to endure anything, because only humans resisted what they saw outside themselves. Animals did not resist. But they persisted, because they became part of the wind. ( ... ) So they moved with the snow, became part of the snowstorm which drifted up against the trees and fences. And when they died, frozen solid against a fence, with the snow drifted around their heads? "Ah, Tayo," Josiah said, "the wind convinced them they were the ice. ~ Leslie Marmon Silko

Between the ink mage and the wizard, his mouth falling open at the sight. The hulk had nearly let her go after Talbun's shock attack, but he recovered quickly and took her head in his meaty hands. Don't. With appalling ease, the ink mage twisted. The snap was so loud, it made Brasley flinch even from across the chamber. His mouth fell open to scream. "No!" The brute's mouth twisted into a contemptuous grin as he let the limp body fall from his hands. Brasley watched it happen in slow motion, almost like she was floating, eyes closed, face peaceful, hair floating up around her. It was as if life had been some tremendous weight, and now that it was gone, her shell drifted down to the floor like a dry leaf. Talbun's body hit with a dull thud that brought Brasley back to reality. ~ Victor Gischler

The light from the hallway spilled inside her bedroom. She'd barely stepped over the threshold when he caught her. Kenton spun her around and yanked her up in his arms. Two steps, and they were on the bed. Crashing down. Falling hard into the soft mattress.
He caged her arms over her head, holding them with one hand even as he took her mouth.
That other hand - yes! - drifted down her stomach and pushed between her legs. He'd find her wet, she knew it. One kiss, and she'd been wet for him. Creamy, hot. Ready. ~ Cynthia Eden

I paused to listen to the silence. My breath, crystallized as it passed my cheeks, drifted on a breeze gentler than a whisper. The wind vane pointed toward the South Pole. Presently the wind cups ceased their gentle turning as the cold killed the breeze. My frozen breath hung like a cloud overhead. The day was dying, the night being born - but with great peace. Here were the imponderable processes and forces of the cosmos, harmonious and soundless. Harmony, that was it! That was what came out of the silence - a gentle rhythm, the strain of a perfect chord, the music of the spheres, perhaps.
It was enough to catch that rhythm, momentarily to be myself a part of it. In that instant I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe. The conviction came that the rhythm was too orderly, too harmonious, too perfect to be a product of blind chance - that, therefore, there must be purpose in the whole and that man was part of that whole and not an accidental offshoot. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of man's despair and found it groundless. The universe was a cosmos, not a chaos; man was rightfully a part of that cosmos as were the day and night. ~ Richard Evelyn Byrd

It must have been spring because the big tree in front of the house was shedding pods with two wings like a dragonfly, On days when there wasn't any wind, they would spin around in the air as they drifted softly to the ground.
I watched them float all the way down, sitting with my neck craned back until my mouth opened and holding out my hand just in case, but they never landed on it. When one hit the ground I'd look up again, my eyes darting, waiting for the next magical event, the sun warming the yellow hairs on my head.
Waiting like that for the next magic was as good a moment as any other that I can remember in the last sixty -five years. ~ Marlon Brando

I began as a boy with artistic talent ... as a visual artist ... I thought that was what I'd become and in my late teens drifted into reading serious literature. ~ Russell Banks

As tiny silver flakes drifted down to settle on our bodies
Both the living and the dead
I thought perhaps the moon had hidden her face from us, as full of sorrow as we were. But she couldn't stop her tears from spilling out in the form of silent snow. ~ Andrea Cremer

His words drifted across Death's scythe and split tidily into two ribbons of consonants and vowels. ~ Terry Pratchett

A mist crept into the valley - how could this be, by the light of the climbing sun? It drifted over the form in the grass, nearly obscuring it, seeming to draw all sound into itself. I thought I might burst from the strain of that silence... until a single sound shattered it:

The gasp of an indrawn breath. ~ Tosca Lee

Isabelle drifted over, Jace a pace behind her. She was wearing a long black dress with boots and an even longer cutaway coat of soft green velvet, the color of moss. "I can't believe you did it!" she exclaimed. "How did you get Magnus to let Jace leave?"
"Traded him for Alec," Clary said.
Isabelle looked mildly alarmed. "Not permanently?"
"No," said Jace. "Just for a few hours. Unless I don't come back," he added thoughtfully. "In which case, maybe he does get to keep Alec. Think of it as a lease with an option to buy."
Isabelle looked dubious. "Mom and Dad won't be pleased if they find out."
"That you freed a possible criminal by trading away your brother to a warlock who looks like a gay Sonic the Hedgehog and dresses like the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?" Simon inquired. "No, probably not. ~ Cassandra Clare

Light died in the west. Night and tears took the Nation. The star of Water drifted among the clouds like a murderer softly leaving the scene of the crime. ~ Terry Pratchett

Billy Pilgrim wasn't weak, she decided, as he drifted back to sleep - he was broken. The whole system was broken. Sending young men to war, expecting them to come back whole, their bullets to make things right. Expecting a girl from the Big Sky State to step off a bus in LA and have a career that wouldn't kill her. The machinery of it all was set up unfair from the start. Living in three dimensions meant you learned what you needed to know too late in life. ~ Hugh Howey

Mariam lay on the couch, hands tucked between her knees, watched the whirlpool of snow twisting and spinning outside the window. She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how people like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Some argue that in time there was a noticeable change in Ratzinger's position held during the Council. However, as he himself said, and others would say about him, "It is not Ratzinger who has somehow changed and suddenly become reactionary and conservative. It is the secular culture that has drifted beyond the pale. ~ Gediminas T. Jankunas

Hapi?" I asked.
"Why, yes, I am happy!" Hapi beamed. "I'm always happy because I'm Hapi! Are you happy?"
Zia frowned up at the giant. "Does he have to be so big?"
The god laughed. Immediately he shrank down to human size, though the crazy cheerful look on his face was still pretty unnerving.
"Oh, Setne!" Hapi chuckled and pushed the ghost playfully. "I hate this guy. Absolutely despise him!"
Hapi's smile became painfully wide. "I'd love to rip off your arms and legs, Setne. That would be amazing!"
Setne ... drifted a little farther away from the smiling god.
"Oh!" Hapi clapped excitedly. "The world is going to end tomorrow. I forgot!"
"You'd never get to Memphis without my help. You'd get torn into a million pieces!"
He seemed genuinely pleased to share that news. ~ Rick Riordan

His eyes drifted leisurely back up to my face and he smiled at me appreciatively, "Kelsey, when a man spends time with a beautiful woman, he needs to pace himself. I quirked my eyebrow at him and laughed. "Yeah, I'm a regular marathon alright." He kissed my fingers. "Exactly. A wise man never sprints ... in a marathon. ~ Colleen Houck

James Potter sat up in his bed, stifling a gasp. He listened very intently, peering around the darkened sleeping chamber. All around him were the small sounds of sleeping Gryffindors. Ted rolled over and snorted, muttering in his sleep. James held his breath. He'd awakened a few minutes earlier with the sound of his own name in his ears. It had been like a voice in a dream: distant and whispered, as if blown on smoke down a long, dark tunnel. He had just about convinced himself that it had, in fact, been the tail of a dream and drifted back to sleep when he'd heard it again. It seemed to come out of the walls themselves, a faraway sound, still somehow right next to him, like a chorus of whispers saying his full name. ~ G. Norman Lippert

And so we drifted towards calamity. At times, Cicero was shrewd enough to see it. "Can a constitution devised centuries ago to replace a monarchy, and based upon a citizens' militia, possibly hope to run an empire whose scope is beyond anything ever dreamed of by its framers? Or must the existence of standing armies and the influx of inconceivable wealth inevitably destroy our democratic system? ~ Robert Harris