Flutter Quotes

The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's match which she had feared to encourage as an exertion of goodness too great to be probable and at the same time dreaded to be just from the pain of obligation were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true He had followed them purposely to town he had taken on himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research in which supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and despise and where he was reduced to meet frequently meet reason with persuade and finally bribe the man whom he always most wished to avoid and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient when required to depend on his affection for her - for a woman who had already refused him - as able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law of Wickham Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had to be sure done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had given a reason for ~ Jane Austen

I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids. ~ William Goldman

Now That I Am in Madrid I Can Think "

I think of you
and the continents brilliant and arid
and the slender heart you are sharing my share of with the American air
as the lungs I have felt sonorously subside slowly greet each morning
and your brown lashes flutter revealing two perfect dawns colored by New York

see a vast bridge stetching to the humbled outskirts with only you
Standing on the edge of the purple like an only tree
and in Toledo the olive groves' soft blue look at the hills with silver
like glasses like an old ladies hair
It's well known that God and I don't get along together
It's just a view of the brass works for me, I don't care about the Moors
seen through you the great works of death, you are greater

you are smiling, you are emptying the world so we can be alone together. ~ Frank O'Hara

There are some things you can do forever. Given a deep enough shaft, you can fall forever. You can forget forever, and disintegrate forever, and you can laugh for a very long time. But you cannot bleed for long - not you, not citruses, not twites or treepies, not orangequits or plushcaps or jewel-babblers, nor any creature whose vessels flutter with warm, swirling, cell-bearing plasma. Either your leak will mend or you will become void.
Only love can bleed forever; only love has endless blood. Only love's slender drooping tassels can bleed yet grow stronger, bleed yet grow brighter; redder, redder, never spent, never phantasmal-gray. Maybe, if it only gets kicked, then love is love-lies-dented, and in a few days it replumps. But when it suffers a terrible wound, love seems able neither to heal - to grow substitute tissue over its damage - nor to run dry. ~ Amy Leach

Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

This, however, is OKCupid, the vast, weird pink-and-blue toned jungle of the id masquerading as a dating site, where rare birds of modern romance flutter amongst the night-terrors of human loneliness and despair and the suspicious skin irritants of late-night hook-uppery. ~ Laurie Penny

flight of confusions and disturbances would flutter across her cheeks like frightened birds. ~ Magda Szubanski

Do you love me, Westley? Is that it?'
He couldn't believe it. 'Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches. If your love were - '
'I don't understand the first one yet,' Buttercup interrupted. She was starting to get very excited now. 'Let me get this straight. Are you saying my love is the size of a grain of sand and yours is this other thing? Images just confuse me so - is this universal business of yours bigger than my sand? Help me, Westley. I have the feeling we're on the verge of something just terribly important.'
'I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids….Is any of this getting through to you, Buttercup, or do you want me to go on for a while?'
'Never stop.'
'There has not been - '
'If you're teasing me, Westley, I'm just going to kill you.'
'How can you even dream I might be teasing?'
'Well, you haven't once said you loved me.'
'That's all you need? Easy. I love you. Okay? Want i ~ William Goldman

There is an air of grace and tradition The South takes pride in upholding. When all hell is breaking loose, southerners face the world with a smile. All anger, resentment, and feelings of hierarchy only flutter in bits of passive aggressive, light-hearted gossip. In southern culture, it is a cardinal sin to utter a single word without a sweet layer of sugarcoating. ~ Maggie Young

I felt my being flutter. each tousled head that came through the door i wanted to be his, but no and on, a dozen boys entered, yet not the one. ~ Laura Whitcomb

Far from such din, when blessed silence returns, I can listen to the butterflies that flutter inside my head. To hear them, one must be calm and pay close attention, for their wingbeats are barely audible. Loud breathing is enough to drown them out. This is astonishing: my hearing does not improve, yet I hear them better and better. I must have butterfly hearing. ~ Jean-Dominique Bauby

I'm not the girl who inspires men to commit acts of heroism. In real life those girls speak much more quietly and breathe a lot louder than I do. I'm not the girl who strikes men speechless with her beauty. Really really not. I don't even know how to flutter my eyelashes. But that's life. Not romance-novel life just real life. ~ Becca Wilhite

I noticed how easily our hands fit together the one time you let me touch you. I noticed that you seemed lonely, really, really lonely, even though I didn't know why." His eyelashes flutter as his eyes flash back and forth between mine. "Which is the most ridiculous thing in the world, considering how badly someone wants to spend time with you. Every single day. ~ Karole Cozzo

We need new words for what this is, this hunger entering our loneliness like birds, stunning our eyes into rays of hope. we need the flutter that can save us, something that will swirl across the face of what we have become and bring us grace. ~ Lucille Clifton

Then like a bird, he gingerly landed on a protruding rock inside the monstrous cavern. I looked up at the wet walls teaming with sea life and reeled back feeling like I was going to lose my balance when I felt him reach around and carefully lift me off. He placed me so I could stand on the rock in front of him. His strong arms wrapped tightly around me so I wouldn't fall. We stood in astonishment deafened by the noise of the waves hitting the reef all around us. The warmth of his chest radiated against me. I molded my body up against his, my heart erupting in a flutter that caused my legs to weaken.
"What do you think?" he whispered into my ear. I felt his hot breath against the side of my neck, which caused me to be light-headed as my heart raced even harder.
"Awesome," I whispered, which was all I could get out as I slinked into his chest a little bit more. ~ Brenda Pandos

I hate most bugs. Bugs fall into two categories as far as I'm concerned: Butterflies - which I want to play with, take pictures of them to post on my FB timeline, and smile if I'm lucky enough that they flutter over and land on my arm. They're so cute I'd kiss their little faces. All other insects - which I declare outright war on, spraying them with the kinds of biological/chemical weapons that we thought the Iraqis had, smashing them with sticks, and crushing their multi-legged bodies beneath my sneakers. ~ Jill Falter

When first I saw Isidore, I believed he would help me to enjoy it I believed he would be content with my being a pretty girl; and that we should meet and part and flutter about like two butterflies, and be happy ~ Charlotte Bronte

The baby. Deep, deep inside of her the baby was moving. It was just a flutter. So curious. So light. Then it came again. She gasped. "What is it?" He was over her instantly. She shook her head. "The baby." "My God!" His voice was harsh, rasping. "Is it all right? Did - " "No, no! It's fine. He's moving! I can feel the baby. It's so strange!" His palm moved over her abdomen. "I can't feel it!" he said. She shook her head again. The darkness cast shadows over them both. "No, you can't feel him, not yet. It's just inside. I think it takes time to feel the movement from the outside. But - oh, there again! He's alive, he's moving, he's kicking, he's ... " "He's what?" Jeremy said. His palm still lay gently against her flesh. "He's real!" she breathed. "He's real, he's going to be born, he's going to live. ~ Heather Graham

The blue face! The obscene protrusion of the tongue! The tumefaction of the penis! The penis, well now, that's a surprise, I'd forgotten I had one. What a pity I have no arms, there might still be something to be wrung from it. No, 'tis better thus. At my age, to start manstuprating again, it would be indecent. And fruitless. And yet one can never tell. With a yo heave yo, concentrating with all my might on a horse's rump, at the moment when the tail raises, who knows, I might not go altogether empty-handed away. Heaven, I almost felt it flutter! ~ Samuel Beckett

When you're moving in a dark and haunted forest the urge is for every step to be taken more quickly than the last. There's a pressure between your shoulder blades. Each creak and groan is a hunter stalking you, each flutter of wind its breath, close against your neck. You want to break and run, in any direction, just as long as it's fast. ~ Mark Lawrence

A Coy Aversion

...a flutter
too shy
to be seen... ~ Muse

Mr. Thornton stood by one of the windows, with his back to the door, apparently absorbed in watching something in the street. But, in truth, he was afraid of himself. His heart beat thick at the thought of her coming. He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through, - to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire. He dreaded lest he should go forwards to meet her, with his arms held out in mute entreaty that she would come and nestle there, as she had done, all unheeded, the day before, but never unheeded again. His heart throbbed loud and quick Strong man as he was, he trembled at the anticipation of what he had to say, and how it might be received. She might droop, and flush, and flutter to his arms, as to her natural home and resting-place. One moment, he glowed with impatience at the thought that she might do this, the next, he feared a passionate rejection, the very idea of which withered up his future with so deadly a blight that he refused to think of it. He was startled by the sense of the presence of some one else in the room. He turned round. She had come in so gently, that he had never heard her; the street noises had been more distinct to his inattentive ear than her slow movements, in her soft muslin gown. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

A man's life will not come again, once it has slipped through his teeth. And no power on earth can bring it back. This is the mortal law. Then no longer will his bones be held together by wet sinews. Then no longer the soul flutter in his mouth. But by Death's blazing light, he is ground out and spent. ~ Paul Pope

For once in her life, she let the butterflies in her stomach flutter eternally, hoping that they'd never land on the branches encasing her heart. ~ Melissa Sweeney

To contemplation's sober eye,
Such is the race of man;
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began,
Alike the busy and the gay,
But flutter through life's little day. ~ Thomas Gray

The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little bells; and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and his devouring hunger far away. ~ Charles Dickens

Large, tawny owl flutter past the window. At ~ J.K. Rowling

My prayers have crystalized and crumbled to pieces. And flutter to the ground. In a thousand shards of memories. ~ Kaori Yuki

Wandering back into the bedroom, my gaze immediately strayed to the large bed along the wall and the lump beneath the covers. Pale light streamed through the half-open curtains, settling around the still-sleeping form of a Winter sidhe. Or a former Winter sidhe. Pausing in the doorframe, I took advantage of the serene moment just to watch him, a tiny flutter going through my stomach. Sometimes, it was still hard to believe that he was here, that this wasn't a dream or a mirage or a figment of my imagination. That he was mine forever: my husband, my knight.
My faery with a soul.

He lay on his stomach, arms beneath the pillow, breathing peacefully, his dark hair falling over his eyes. The covers had slipped off his lean, muscular shoulders, and the early morning rays caressed his pale skin. Normally, I didn't get to watch him sleep; he was usually up before me, in the courtyard sparring with Glitch or just prowling the halls of the castle. In the early days of our marriage, especially, I'd wake up in the middle of the night to find him gone, the hyper-awareness of his warrior days making it impossible for him to stay in one place, even to sleep. He'd grown up in the Unseelie Court, where you had to watch your back every second of every day, and centuries of fey survival could not be forgotten so easily. That paranoia would never really fade, but he was gradually starting to relax now, to the point where sometimes, though not often, I would wake with him still be ~ Julie Kagawa

Don't go far off, not even for a day,
because I don't know how to say it - a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in
an empty station when the trains are
parked off somewhere else, asleep.
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then
the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.
Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve
on the beach, may your eyelids never flutter
into the empty distance. Don't LEAVE me for
a second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll
have gone so far I'll wander mazily
over all the earth, asking, will you
come back? Will you leave me here, dying? ~ Pablo Neruda

These include coats, suits, jackets, skirts, and dresses. My standard is this: hang any clothes that look like they would be happier hung up, such as those made with soft materials that flutter in the breeze or highly tailored cuts, which protest at being folded. These we should hang willingly. ~ Marie Kondo

A penny for the moat, where all the ashen song be wrote - a tune for man, so long eloped in hours of decision and derisive hope. Flutter, flutter heart, beyond your base and noble part. All eyes behold the passing. ~ Chris Galford

Ribbons a-flutter and orchids a-tremble, Yearly the vigilant Daughters assemble, Affirming in fervid and firm resolutions Their permanent veto on all revolutions. ~ Marya Mannes

We live in a time like dreaming ... The edges of our lives flutter and change as we watch them. Listen to the dream. ~ Sheri S. Tepper

She returned many years later. So much time had passed that the smell of musk in the room had blended in with the smell of the dust, with the dry and tiny breath of the insects. I was alone in the house, sitting in the corner, waiting. And I had learned to make out the sound of rotting wood, the flutter of the air becoming old in the closed bedrooms. That was when she came. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

As we're leaving the King's Arms Hotel after Sunday lunch, I watch a beautiful white dove walking down the wet road. A car approaches and the bird accidentally turns into the wheel rather than away from it. A gentle crunch. The car passes. A shape like a discarded napkin left in the road. Still perfectly white, no red stains, but bearing no relation anymore to the shape of a bird. A trail of white feathers flutter down the road after the car. The suddeness is very upsetting. That gentle crunch. ~ Antony Sher

This feeling, this tentative flutter in her belly - this was hers. This was sunlight on her face. It was the warmth she'd dreamed of. It was a curl of honest attraction, the first she'd experienced in years. ~ Courtney Milan

First I need to do something.' He pulled me closer towards him until our lips were almost touching.
'What might that be?' I managed to stutter, closing my eyes, anticipating the warmth of his lips against mine. But the kiss didn't come. I opened my eyes. Alex had jumped to his feet.
'Swim,' he said, grinning at me. 'Come on.'
'Swim?' I pouted, unable to hide my disappointment that he wanted to swim rather than make out with me.
Alex pulled his T-shirt off in one swift move. My eyes fell straightaway to his chest – which was tanned, smooth and ripped with muscle, and which, when you studied it as I had done, in detail, you discovered wasn't a six-pack but actually a twelve-pack.
My eyes flitted to the shadowed hollows where his hips disappeared into his shorts, causing a flutter in parts of my body that up until three weeks ago had been flutter-dormant. Alex's hands dropped to his shorts and he started undoing his belt.
I reassessed the swimming option. I could definitely do swimming.
He shrugged off his shorts, but before I could catch an eyeful of anything, he was off, jogging towards the water. I paused for a nanosecond, weighing up my embarrassment at stripping naked over my desire to follow him. With a deep breath, I tore off my dress then kicked off my underwear and started running towards the sea, praying Nate wasn't doing a fly-by.
The water was warm and flat as a bath. I could see Alex in the distance, his skin gleaming in the n ~ Sarah Alderson

She turned towards me immediately. The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window - and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps - and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer - and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly! Never ~ Wilkie Collins

Crown made my belly flutter even when I begged it to stop.
Until he opened his mouth.
When Crown opened his mouth, I wanted to bust him over the head with a lasagna pan. ~ Lila Felix

She studied the relaxed lines of his features. The soft flutter of his long, dark eyelashes. The adorable way his arms cradled Mrs. Snuggles against his bandaged chest.

I don't know what to do.

She hadn't meant to transmit the words, but... it felt good to say them. And it was like like he could hear her. He hadn't even flinched. His breathing hadn't changed rhythm.

So she told him, I really wish you were awake.

He let out a snuffly snore, which gave her the courage to ask, What if I just want you to wake up because I'm tired of fighting the echoes all by myself?

That wasn't the right question, though.

What if I want you to wake up because I miss you?

She'd been trying to stay busy, trying not to look at the beautiful boy sleeping over in the corner.

She hated having him so close and still so far away.

And when she turned to Fitz, his eyes were more than fluttering.

One blink.

Two.

Three.

And then... they stayed open. ~ Shannon Messenger

I hesitate, hand on my seatbelt buckle. I know I need to get going somewhere, but - well, what's the harm in scoping the area out? Making sure it's as safe as Remy seems to think it is?
"All right, Remy," I say, opening the door.
"Remy," he shoots back. "Jesus, you can't even remember my name? The sewers weren't kind to you, were they?"
"Wait - what?" I ask, shutting the door, locking it. No one's taking my Lucy.
He just looks exasperated, which just makes me confused.
"You called me Ruby," Remy said, indignantly.
I stare at him. There's a flutter of something wild, panicked in my chest I don't understand and I don't particularly want to examine. I'm tired and when I'm tired my tongue gets lazy. "Sorry. Tired. Idiot. ~ Alexandra Bracken

The things by which our emotions can be moved - the shape of a flower or a Grecian urn, the way a baby grows, the way the wind brushes across your face, the way clouds move, their shapes, the way light dances on the water, or daffodils flutter in the breeze, the way in which the person you love moves their head, the way their hair follows that movement, the curve described by the dying fall of the last chord of a piece of music - all these things can be described by the complex flow of numbers.

That's not a reduction of it, that's the beauty of it. ~ Douglas Adams

What people had had shed and left
a pair of shoes, a shooting cap, some faded skirts and coats in wardrobes
those alone kept the human shape and in the emptiness indicated how once they were filled and animated; how once hands were busy with hooks and buttons; how once the looking-glass had held a face; had held a world hollowed out in which a figure turned, a hand flashed, the door opened, in came children rushing and tumbling; and went out again. Now, day after day, light turned, like a flower reflected in water, its sharp image on the wall opposite. Only the shadows of the trees, flourishing in the wind, made obeisance on the wall, and for a moment darkened the pool in which light reflected itself; or birds, flying, made a soft spot flutter slowly across the bedroom floor. ~ Virginia Woolf

I love these pet names," she said, gazing soulfully up into his eyes, "Nitwit. Sap skull. Termagant. How they make my heart flutter! ~ Loretta Chase

It struck me that we-that moth and I-were two opposite extremes. My existence was as unstable as a stream, changing in every
way; but the moth was like a piece of stone, changing not at all. While thinking this thought, I reached out a finger to feel the moth's velvety surface; but when I brushed it with my fingertip, it turned all at once into a pile of ash without even a sound, without even a moment in which I could see it crumbling. I was so astonished I let out a cry. The swirling in my mind stopped; I felt as if I had stepped into the eye of a storm. I let the tiny shroud and its pile of ashes flutter to the ground; and now I understood the thing that had puzzled me all morning. The stale air had washed away. The past was gone. ~ Arthur Golden

Did you ever feel a creeping,
That awoke you from your sleeping,
That made your pulses flutter and bristled all your hair;
While a horrid stealthy crawling
Prevented you from calling,
And something seemed to tell you that a ghost was coming there? ~ Amelia B. Edwards

father and there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it." Anetta felt her stomach flutter at the closeness of him. His arm around her waist was like steel and all she could think of was heat. It radiated from him like the hot Texas sun outside. She gazed up into his stormy eyes and watched ~ Cia Leah

One day he trapped a large raven, whose wings he painted red, the breast green, and the tail blue. When a flock of ravens appeared over our hut, Lekh freed the painted bird. As soon as it joined the flock a desperate battle began. The changeling was attacked from all sides. Black, red, green, blue feathers began to drop at our feet. The ravens ran amuck in the skies, and suddenly the painted raven plummeted to the freshly-plowed soil. It was still alive, opening its beak and vainly trying to move its wings. Its eyes had been pecked out, and fresh blood streamed over its painted feathers. It made yet another attempt to flutter up from the sticky earth, but its strength was gone. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

There had been no snow up to this time, but as Diana crossed the old log bridge on her homeward way the white flakes were beginning to flutter down over the fields and woods, russet and gray in their dreamless sleep. Soon the far-away slopes and hills were dim and wraith-like through their gauzy scarfing, as if pale autumn had flung a misty bridal veil over her hair and was waiting for her wintry bridegroom. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Mason. Darling. Do I have to flutter my eyelashes all morning to get you to pass the teapot down this way or am I going to have to offer you a blow job? Some of us are dehydrating over here. ~ Rolf And Ranger

You're not pushing but I'm falling you're soaring and I'm stalling and it's not a secret that my strength is your weakness the beauty you have inside shines out through your eyes you wear your heart on your sleeve your wings flutter and you leave and when you fly can I be your blue sky when your heart beats alone let my arms be your home if I say it first will you say it second if I give you this verse will you feel protected I need you could you need me too..." He ~ Heidi Hutchinson

Promise me you'll marry me. Not now. Someday. Because I need to know."
Claire felt a flutter inside, like a bird trying to fly, and a rush of heat that made her dizzy. And something else, something fragile as a soap bubble,
and just as beautiful. Joy, in the middle of all this horror and heartbreak.
"Yes," she whispered back. "I promise."
And she kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, while the sun came up and bathed Morganville in one last, shining day. ~ Rachel Caine

When the dark clouds flutter like bats in my head I wish I could open a window and release them. ~ Frank McCourt

The girl sits very still in the corner and wraps her coat around her knees. The way she tucks her ankles up against her bottom. The way her fingers flutter through the space around her. Each a thing he hopes never to forget. ~ Anthony Doerr

Let us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in the old-fashioned way: I love you. You do not know me (although you have seen me, smiled at me). I know you (although not so well as I would like. I want to be there when your eyes flutter open in the morning, and you see me, and you smile. Surely this would be paradise enough?). So I do declare myself to you now, with pen set to paper. I declare it again: I love you. ~ Neil Gaiman

Birds of fortuity flutter down on her shoulders ... ~ Milan Kundera

You know how easily and suddenly these things happen, beginning in playful teasing and ending in something a little warmer than friendship. You squeeze the slender arm which is passed through yours, you venture to take the little gloved hand, you say good night at absurd length in the shadow of the door. It is innocent and very interesting, love trying his wings in a first little flutter. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. ~ Catherynne M Valente

When I was 6, I saw a commercial that Jessica Simpson was in, and that was the first time I felt my little heart flutter. ~ Lee Ryan

He welcomes the chance to do fatherly things with the little girl, and those ten morning minutes with dear little four-year-old Ruby, with her deep soulful eyes, and the wondrous things she sees with them, and her deep soulful voice, and the precious though not entirely memorable things she says with it, and the smell of baby shampoo and breakfast cereal filling the car, that little shimmering capsule of time is like listening to cello music in the morning, or watching birds in a flutter of industry building a nest, it simply reminds you that even if God is dead, or never existed in the first place, there is, nevertheless, something tender at the center of creation, some meaning, some purpose and poetry. ~ Scott Spencer

My heart races and I look away. "Well I care. So, write it down. For nine weekends and eight thousand dollars, what's yours is mine including your friends." I throw in a little sarcastic eye flutter. "We're going to be so head-over-heels-in-love. I can't wait to see how romantic you are!"
"Oh no. I refuse to be your kind of bumper-sticker-romantic. Don't mistake me for Mr. Darcy."

I gasp. "You don't know Hunger Games or Forks, Washington, but you know Mr. Darcy? Start talking."

"Crap! My grandmother's a fan. She's tortured me since birth with Mr. Darcy. Thanks to her DVD collection, I can quote Jane Austen faster than the Elmo song."

I laugh, surprised again. "Prove it."

"Elizabeth, daaarling!" He's launched into a breathless English accent. "I love, love, love you, and I never want to be parted from you from this day forward. Pardon me, whilst I puke…"

"No way!" I beam. "Let the contract state that I want the Mr. Darcy accent once a week!" I can't help but laugh again because he's shaking his head and laughing back. ~ Anne Eliot

Illium says that perhaps I can use them to flutter someone to death.
- Aodhan to Jason, Archangel's Storm ~ Nalini Singh

He watched their flight; bird after bird: a dark flash, a swerve, a flutter of wings. He tried to count them before all their darting quivering bodies passed: six, ten, eleven: and wondered were they odd or even in number. Twelve, thirteen: for two came wheeling down from the upper sky. They were flying high and low but ever round and round in straight and curving lines and ever flying from left to right, circling about a temple of air. ~ James Joyce

The Genesis Of Butterflies

The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies ~ Victor Hugo

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty
distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest. ~ Pablo Neruda

Because of their lust for authority men are in constant turmoil. Those in authority are ever fighting to maintain it. Those out of authority are ever struggling to snatch it from the hands of those who hold it. While Man, the God in swaddling-bands, is trampled under foot and hoof
and left on the field of battle unnoticed, unattended and unsolved. So furious is the fight, and so blood crazed the fighters that none, alas, would stop to lift the painted mask off the face of the spurious bride and expose her monstrous ugliness to all.
Believe, O monks, that no authority is worth the flutter of an eyelash, except the authority of Holy Understanding which is priceless. For that no sacrifice is great. Attain it once, and you
shall hold it to the end of Time. And it shall charge your words with more power than all the armies of the world can ever command; and it shall bless your deeds with more beneficence than all the world authorities combined can ever dream of bringing to the world. ~ Mikhail Naimy

We've made a beautiful mess of things lately, haven't we?" He flashed that sexy crooked smile at me, which made my heart flutter.
"But it's our crazy story," "It's been ours, only ours. There's been a lot of romance, sometimes way too much drama ... " "very memorable comedy, a few pulse-racing action scenes ... "
"We've also had our fair share of suspense and raw terror, and unfortunately gut-wrenching heartache too."
"I think we've covered it all, everything except fo being captured by aliens!"
"But through it all you've loved me unconditionally, and I know how fortunate I am to have your love. I don't want to live without you, not for one more minute, not for one more second. I want to spend the rest of my days living my story with you ... only you."
"It is here that I fell in love with you"
"And as fate would have it, it is here that I humbly kneel before you and ask you to be my wife. ~ Tina Reber

It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world. - Chaos Theory ~ Aleatha Romig

I could see the combinations and permutations flutter through their minds. This was Boulder. It could easily be two moms. Two dads. A dad, a mom, and an orangutan. Three Amish hipsters and a transgendered Aboriginal mermaid. ~ Bill Konigsberg

Tessa had lain down beside him and slid her arm beneath his head, and put her head on his chest,listening to the ever-weakening beat of his heart. And in the shadows they'd whispered, reminding each other of the stories only they knew. Of the girl who had hit over the head with a water jug the boy who had come to rescue her, and how he had fallen in love with her in that instant. Of a ballroom and a balcony and the moon sailing like a ship untethered through the sky. Of the flutter of the wings of the clockwork Angel. Of holy water and blood. ~ Cassandra Clare

I should be sorry to think it was the publishers themselves they got up this entire little flutter to enable them to unload a book that was taking too much room in their cellars, but you can never tell what a publisher will do. I have been one myself. ~ Mark Twain

You're a wonderful dancer, Ria."
"Mademoiselle Geraldine's takes such things seriously."
"Ah. And how many ways do you know to kill me, while we dance?"
"Only two, but give me time."
"You have lovely eyes. Has anyone ever told you that?"
"What rot. They are a muddy green. What are you about, Lord Mersey?"
Felix sighed, looking genuinely perturbed. His air of ennui was shaken. "I am trying to court you. Truth be told, Miss Temminnick, you make it ruddy difficult!"
"Language, Lord Mersey." Sophronia felt her heart flutter strangely. Am I ready to be courted?
"See! ~ Gail Carriger

Behind me a door swung open, revealing a tall figure gilded by light - the background din of staff cleaning up after the terrible opening show accentuated his own silence. He stood there, too shrouded in shadows for me to make out his features, but judging from the involuntary flutter in my chest, it was Thomas. ~ Kerri Maniscalco

He got out a tube and since she'd yet to put the sweater on, squeezed ointment onto his fingers and began to gently rub it on her abraded skin. She recognized the scent.
"That's for horses."
"So?"
She laughed and let him fuss. "Does this make me your mare now?"
"No, you're too young and delicate of bone for that. You're still a filly."
"Are you going to train me, Donnelly?"
"Oh, you're out of my league, Miss Grant." He glanced up, cocked a brow when he saw her grinning at him. "And what amuses you?"
"You can't help it can you? You have to tend."
"I put the marks on you," he muttered as he smoothed on the ointment. "It follows I should see to them."
She lifted a hand to toy with the ends of his damp, gold-tipped hair. "I like being seen to by a man with a tough mind and a soft heart."
That soft heart sighed a little, ached a little. But he spoke lightly. "It's no hardship running my fingers over skin like yours." With his eyes on hers, he used the pad of his thumb to spread ointment over the gentle swell of her breast. "Particularly since you don't seem to have a qualm about standing here half naked and letting me."
"Should I blush and flutter?"
"You're not the fluttering sort. I like that about you." Satisified, he capped the tube, then tugged the sweater over her head himself. "But I can't have such a fine piece of God's work catching a chill. There you are." He lifted her hair out of the neck.
"You don't have ~ Nora Roberts

No one touches you. You got that? As long as I want you, no one else gets you, and after I'm done with you ... " He licks my jawline. My eyes flutter. He presses his erection into my thigh. " ... you'll be forever unsatisfied. No one will ever take care of you the way I can. The way I know you want it. I know what you need, Lexi, even if you don't know it yourself. But I'll teach you. ~ Belle Aurora

All wdl be judged. Master of nuance and scruple, Pray for me and for all writers living or dead;
Because there are many whose works
Are in better taste than their lives, because there is no end T o the vanity of our c a h g : make intercession
For the treason of all clerks.
Because the darkness is never so distant,
And there is never much time for the arrogant
Spirit to flutter its wings,
Or the broken bone to rejoice, or the cruel to cry,
For Him whose property is always to have mercy, the author
And giver of all good things.

W.H. Auden, "At the Grave of Henry James ~ W. H. Auden

In the front room, a two-story flutter, love notes from the German Frau's first marriage barely tethered to a structure so it shifted in the wind, one tiny home movie projected on each. A sculpture of marriage, marriage come alive.
Lancelot felt tears start to his eyes. It was so exactly right. The Germans saw the gleam, and both of them--like budgerigars on their perch--sidled up and hugged Lancelot around the waist. ~ Lauren Groff

Loved. I hadn't even realized how desperetly I'd wanted love.How much we both needed to know that in a world of dark corners and sharp needles, there really is a place where kisses taste like apple pie and where stars spill like suger across the sky. A place where unknown roads no longer scare you because you have another hand to hold. A place where butterflies always flutter whenever you see each other, and a single touch tells you that you are not alone. A place where every kiss still feels like the first. In that place of us, Liv and Dean, love has its own poetry and language. Allure, quartrefoil, fleur-de-lis ... Professor. Beauty. ~ Nina Lane

If an eagle be imprisoned
on the back of a coin,
and the coin tossed
into the sky,
the coin will spin,
the coin will flutter,
but the eagle will never fly. ~ Henry Dumas

You don't have to be worried, okay? You don't have to be scared." His voice is twinkling again. "I'm not flirting with you."
Embarrassment sweeps through me. Flirting. A dirty word. He thinks I think he's flirting. "I'm not - I don't think you were - I would never think that you - " The words collide in my mouth, and now I know there's no amount of darkness that can cover the rush of red to my face.
He cocks his head to the side. "Are you flirting with me, then?"
"What? No," I splutter. My mind is spinning blindly in a panic, and I realize I don't even know what flirting is. I just know about it from textbooks; I just know that it's bad. Is it possible to flirt without knowing you're flirting? Is he flirting? My left eye goes full flutter. ~ Lauren Oliver

Sometimes with a flutter of agitated worry that felt like a beetle was trapped inside my ribs. p. 90 ~ Diane Ackerman

Cinder crossed her arms over her chest. "You're an expert on the sound levels of spaceships now, are you?"
"Nah," said Kai. "I've just been waiting to hear that sound all day."
She smiled at him, feeling the hummingbird flutter of her own pulse. He smiled back.
"Aces," said Thorne with a low groan. "They haven't even kissed yet and they're already making me nauseous. ~ Marissa Meyer

I know your eyelashes flutter when you're having a bad dream, and I know a kiss below your ear will stop them from coming. ~ Alexa Riley

I'm going to wake Peeta," I say.
"No, wait," says Finnick. "Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his."
Well, there's so little opportunity for fun left in my life, I agree. We position ourselves on either side of Peeta, lean over until our faces are inches frim his nose, and give him a shake. "Peeta. Peeta, wake up," I say in a soft, singsong voice.
His eyelids flutter open and then he jumps like we've stabbed him. "Aa!"
Finnick and I fall back in the sand, laughing our heads off. Every time we try to stop, we look at Peeta's attempt to maintain a disdainful expression and it sets us off again. ~ Suzanne Collins

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever. ~ Carl Sagan

From whence it happens, that they which trust to books, do as they that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not; and at last finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to clear themselves; but spend time in fluttering over their books, as birds that entering by the chimney, and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber, flutter at the false light of a glass window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in. ~ Thomas Hobbes

If you were smart," Genghis said, "you would have borrowed the silverware of one of your friends."
"We never thought of that," Klaus said. When one is forced to tell atrocious lies, one often feels a guilty flutter in one's stomach, and Klaus felt such a flutter now. "You certainly are an intelligent man."
"Not only am I intelligent," Genghis agreed, "but I'm also very smart. ~ Lemony Snicket

The feel of your skin, the flutter of your pulse when I touch you, the scent of your arousal are all incredibly beautiful and erotic. See yourself for what you are and revel in your beauty. ~ Evangeline Anderson

Even Ignatius Loyola wavered. That dark night of the soul, man. No one's immune. It would all be meaningless if you didn't wonder and doubt. That's what makes it real. That's what makes us people. God could have sent angels to flutter around like fairies, delivering rum punch and manna all day on a cosmic cruise ship. But what would that avail us? ~ Luis Alberto Urrea

I discovered that silent film is almost an advantage. You just have to think of the feeling for it to show. No lines pollute it. It doesn't take much - a gaze, an eyelash flutter - for the emotion to be vivid. ~ Jean Dujardin

One of the most elusive things about the white shark is their, uh..." His eyes moved to hers and he held them there.
"Their what?" she asked when he didn't finish, a bit rapt by his expression.
He kept his eyes locked on her.
"Their mating."
"Mating," she repeated, feeling a flutter in her stomach at the way he was looking at her...then suddenly not looking at her.
"We don't know if individual animals spawn in a certain spot every time --- kind of like a human might go to a particular pub if she wants some action. Juan an example, mind you?
She folded her arm, feeling her cheeks heat up. "Pub Uh-huh."
Jeff leaned against the railing, his expression looking smug at her embarrassment. "For all we know, sharks are just, ya know, doing it everywhere."
"Like the Kardasians?" ....
"But who know. Maybe, if we play just the right mood music, you and I will get lucky, Sharona Blaire."
Was he talking about shark reproduction... or human?
And... was he flirting? Earlier, he'd gone cold and hostile when she'd tried to apologize. The man was a ball of contradiction. A very sexy, very nice-smelling contradiction.
"Well." She swallowed, staring in his eyes. "I'm all for getting lucky. ~ Ophelia London

He sighed profoundly, and flung himself - there was a passion in his movements which deserves the word - on the earth at the foot of the oak tree. He loved, beneath all this summer transiency, to feel the earth's spine beneath him; for such he took the hard root of the oak tree to be; or, for image followed image, it was the back of a great horse that he was riding; or the deck of a tumbling ship - it was anything indeed, so long as it was hard, for he felt the need of something which he could attach his floating heart to; the heart that tugged at his side; the heart that seemed filled with spiced and amorous gales every evening about this time when he walked out. To the oak tree he tied it and as he lay there, gradually the flutter in and about him stilled itself; the little leaves hung, the deer stopped; the pale summer clouds stayed; his limbs grew heavy on the ground; and he lay so still that by degrees the deer stopped nearer and the rooks wheeled round him and the swallows dipped and circled and the dragonflies shot past, as if all the fertility and amorous activity of a summer's evening were woven web-like about his body. ~ Virginia Woolf

Even when she was just a flutter inside me, I loved her. Because she is ours. ~ Kate Quinn

Plume"

Transfixed to the, by the, on the congruities, who is herself a vanishing point coming to closure - dusky flutter - trilling away like a watchdog on drugged sop, channeling her mother and grandmother who've engraved on her locket phrases in script: "glide on a blade" and "rustling precedes the shuck." This is not my teeming fate, my rind, my roiling ellipsis or valedictory spray of myrrh. Always it's morning, afternoon or evening - the loot of hours - a magic sack grasping vacuum but heavy in the hand, and from which, together, we pull a swarm of telepathic bees, melons beached in a green bin, a lithograph of the city from its crumbling ramparts, crackled pitchers and the mouth of a cave. Perhaps this is my open weave, my phantom rialto or plume of light. We bow to each other in the mash of flickering things. We are completely surrounded. ~ Aaron Shurin

Stray birds of the summer come to my window to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.
O TROUPE of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words ... ~ Rabindranath Tagore

To all the broken-hearted and anyone feeling sad, may your hearts heal and may you feel happy in your lives.Flutter as the butterflies do. ~ Krystal

As he lowered his lips to mine - slowly, this time - I let my eyes flutter closed. And at the first touch of his mouth, all my nervousness magically disappeared. He felt wonderful. Amazing. Impossibly fabulous. Without even thinking about it, I slid my hands up his shoulders, and at the same time I felt his arms come around my waist. His lips were firm, warm . . . perfect. I thought I might just die from happiness. Even though it was about five times longer than our first kiss, it was still over way too soon. With obvious reluctance, he pulled away, then planted one last feather-light kiss on the corner of my mouth before straightening up. "If I don't have the best game of my life now, it'll be a miracle. ~ Brenda Hiatt

Stand firm, don't flutter! ~ Benjamin Franklin

The Meaning of Birds

Of the genesis of birds we know nothing,
save the legend they are descended
from reptiles: flying, snap-jawed lizards
that have somehow taken to air. Better the story
that they were crab-apple blossoms
or such, blown along by the wind; time after time
finding themselves tossed from perhaps a seaside tree,
floated or lifted over the thin blue lazarine waves
until something in the snatch of color
began to flutter and rise. But what does it matter
anyway how they got up high
in the trees or over the rusty shoulders
of some mountain? There they are,
little figments,
animated---soaring. And if occasionally a tern washes up
greased and stiff, and sometimes a cardinal
or a mockingbird slams against the windshield
and your soul goes oh God and shivers
at the quick and unexpected end
to beauty, it is not news that we live in a world
where beauty is unexplainable
and suddenly ruined
and has its own routines. We are often far
from home in a dark town, and our griefs
are difficult to translate into a language
understood by others. We sense the downswing of time
and learn, having come of age, that the reluctant
concessions made in youth
are not sufficient to heat the cold drawn breath
of age. Perhaps temperance
was not enough, foresight or even wisdom
fallacious, not only in ~ Charlie Smith