Gazing Quotes

I love you," Sean whispered when they parted.
Gazing into his eyes, her heart overflowed with happiness, and there was something more-a feeling of completeness she'd never experienced before. Just like her character Shay, who'd found her soul mate in Jared, Kayla had found hers in Sean.
Life had imitated art in the best possible. ~ Alison Packard

His hands slipped from his throat, and he crashed to the ground like a tree falling.
"Oh, dear," said Pangborn, gazing at the fallen body of his comrade with fastidious distaste. "How unpleasant. ~ Cassandra Clare

The time for falling in love was when you were emotionally available and free of cares, when it didn't matter what time you came home or how late you were getting up the next day. When you had hours and hours to spend gazing into each other's eyes and even longer hours making love, uninterrupted. If you wait for the perfect time to fall in love ... it'll never happen. ~ Susan Wiggs

The mistake we make is to look for a source of comfort in ourselves: self-contemplation, instead of gazing upon God. In other words, we look for comfort precisely where comfort never can be. ~ Frederick William Robertson

We stand, gazing at each other, until Ivy moves again, pulling me into another super hug. But this time as my arms touch her waist, it somehow feels softer than before. I wish I could hold on forever. ~ Colleen Boyd

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars. ~ Walt Whitman

Nothing is more symptomatic of the enervation, of the decompression of the Western imagination, than our incapacity to respond to the landings on the Moon. Not a single great poem, picture, metaphor has come of this breathtaking act, of Prometheus' rescue of Icarus or of Phaeton in flight towards the stars. ~ George Steiner

Anyway, here." He handed me a bag. "Thought you might be hungry. Since you're our guests, it would be impolite if we didn't share our food with you. That's your rations for the week. Try to make it last." At my surprised look, he rolled his eyes. "Not all of us live on oil and electricity, you know."
"What about Ash and Puck?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure eating our food won't melt their insides to gooey paste. But you never know." (Glitch)
Puck sat and gazed mournfully into the bowl I handed him. "Not an apple slice to be found," he sighed, picking through the gooey mess with his fingers. "How can mortals even pass this off as fruit? It's like a peach farmer threw up in a bowl."
Ash picked up the spoon, gazing at it like it was an alien life form. ~ Julie Kagawa

The look on his face is intense, his eyes a startlingly vivid blue. Know that you have my heart, he signs to me, and then presses his body against mine, shoving me even further against the rocks. What the heck - Then, I feel a purring. It's not my khui; it's doing the same low rumble it always does, and this one feels bigger. I can't peer over Rokan's shoulders, because he's got me shoved hard against the cliff wall, his arms a protective cage over my head. He's gazing down at me, unblinking, and there's such an intense look on his face that it nearly takes my breath away. The purring continues and I realize it's coming from the ground - and the cliff wall behind me. Oh God. Earthquake? I peer over Rokan's arms just in time to see a sheet of snow and ice cascading over the lip of the cliff. An avalanche. I scream as the world goes dark and the world shakes around us. Rokan's body jolts over mine, but he never moves. The moment seems to last forever, and it feels like the world is collapsing. I cling to the front of his tunic, terrified. All I can think is that he didn't like the weather. He didn't like how today felt. I should have listened. He knew. Somehow, he knew, and he pushed me out of the way before anything bad would happen. ~ Ruby Dixon

I would spend hours and hours gazing at the stars and wondering, what's out there? Sometimes I wondered if maybe there was another girl like me on another planet some place gazing at the stars and thinking about the same things. ~ Anousheh Ansari

Lying down gazing at the cerulean blue-black sky, she slid her hands down to intertwine her fingers with his. "I love you," she whispers. ~ Truth Devour

She straightens, and runs her finger over her lips, gazing down at me. "Did you feel that?"
The spark, the electricity. The desire that feeds on itself, relishing the relief of contact but always wanting more.
"Yes."
She takes my hand and places it over her breast – where her heartbeat throbs wildly in her chest. "And do you feel this?"
My own chest pounds with the same rhythm.
"Yes."
"Some people go their whole lives without feeling that. ~ Emma Chase

Then he smiles as if he'd be happy to lie there and gaze at me forever. ~ Suzanne Collins

Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling
Extremity out of act. ~ William Shakespeare

Where is Grandpa?" I asked Grandma, who was gazing into the distance with the expression of a well-fed cobra on her face.
"Now that I have chopped him up and passed him through the electric meat-grinder at maximum, he is no longer oppressed by the burden of being. ~ Noémi Szécsi

Today, to him gazing south with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the clear sky over their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise; today, the unseen was everything. the unknown the only real fact of life. ~ Kenneth Grahame

Watching a Kubrick film is like gazing up at a mountaintop. You look up and wonder, how could anyone have climbed that high? ~ Martin Scorsese

Listen, open a window to God and begin to delight yourself by gazing upon Him through the opening. ~ Rumi

Trexler knew what he wanted, and what, in general, all men wanted; and he was glad, in a way, that it was both inexpressible and unattainable, and that it wasn't a wing. He was satisfied to remember that it was deep, formless, enduring and impossible of fulfillment, and that it made men sick, and that when you sauntered along Third Avenue and looked through the doorways into the dim saloons, you could sometimes pick out from the unregenerate ranks the ones who had not forgotten, gazing steadily into the bottoms of their glasses on the long chance that they could get another little peek at it. Trexler found himself renewed by the remembrance that what he wanted was at once great and microscopic, and that although it borrowed from the nature of large deeds and of youthful love and of old songs and early intimations, it was not any one of these things, and that it had not been isolated or pinned down, and that a man who attempted to define it in the privacy of a doctor's office would fall flat on his face. ~ E.B. White

Otherwise the silence in the room was profound, the silence of places Brian had not yet been: gazing at the lifeless body of a beloved, the echo of a lost illusion, the tinnitus of betrayal. ~ Rafael Yglesias

Watch it, minx," he warned with a lift of his brow. "If you intend to taunt me for every foolish statement I've made in my life, you'll force me to play Rockton and lock you up in my dark, forbidding manor while I have my wicked way with you."
That sounds perfectly awful,"she said gazing at the man she loved. "How soon can we start? ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Duiri Tal, a small lake, lies cradled on the hill above Okhimath, at a height of 8,000 feet. It was a favourite spot of one of Garhwal's earliest British Commissioners, J.H. Batten, whose administration continued for twenty years (1836-56). He wrote: The day I reached there, it was snowing and young trees were laid prostrate under the weight of snow; the lake was frozen over to a depth of about two inches. There was no human habitation, and the place looked a veritable wilderness. The next morning when the sun appeared, the Chaukhamba and many other peaks extending as far as Kedarnath seemed covered with a new quilt of snow, as if close at hand. The whole scene was so exquisite that one could not tire of gazing at it for hours. I think a person who has a subdued settled despair in his mind would all of a sudden feel a kind of bounding and exalting cheerfulness which will be imparted to his frame by the atmosphere of Duiri Tal. This ~ Ruskin Bond

You must pray with all your might. That does not mean saying your prayers, or sitting gazing about in church or chapel with eyes wide open while someone else says them for you. It means fervent, effectual, untiring wrestling with God. This kind of prayer be sure the devil and the world and your own indolent, unbelieving nature will oppose. They will pour water on this flame. ~ William Booth

From his youth on , he had been accustomed to people's passing him and taking no notice of him whatever , not out contempt -as hehad once believed - But because they were quite unaware of his existence. There was no space surrounding him, no waves broke from him into the atmosphere, as with other people; he had no shadow, so to speak, to cast across another's face. Only if he ran right into someone in a crowd or in a street-corner collision would there be a brief moment of discernment; and th person en countered would bounce off and stare at him for a few seconds as if gazing at a creature that ought not even exist, a creature that, although undeniably there, in some way or other was not present- and would take to his heels and have forgotten him, Grenouille, a moment later ....... ~ Patrick Suskind

Once you get to earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Regardless of others' reactions, do your best to stay true to yourself. Make the choices that allow you to look in the mirror and feel good about the person gazing back at you. ~ Steve Pavlina

Vinyasa Three With the inhalation, lift the whole torso, attempting to concave or at least flatten out the low back while gazing up between the eyebrows. Unless one is extremely flexible, it is recommended to lift the hands off the floor and let only the fingertips keep contact with it. The legs work strongly, and the torso is buoyant, supported by the extensor muscles of the back. Keep the heart lifted, broaden the shoulders, draw the shoulder blades down the back, and press them on to the back. This positioning of the shoulders prepares them to take the weight of the body for the jump-back into Chaturanga Dandasana. ~ Gregor Maehle

Turner twisted in his seat to give her a long stare. "You don't always have to come out swinging. What are you so angry at?"

Alex felt an irritating jolt of embarrassment. "Everything." she muttered, gazing at the fogged-up windshield. ~ Leigh Bardugo

We are all under the same sky, gazing up to the same moon, feeling the same air. We are all existing here together. Exist peacefully. ~ Avina Celeste

We spend more time gazing at luminous screens than into the eyes of our loved ones. ~ Charlie Brooker

I read the story about the loaves and fishes and thought about Jesus gazing at the hungry crowd, saying to his anxious, doubting, screwed-up followers: "You give them something to eat." So we did. ~ Sara Miles

(On belief in miracles) - The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder. ~ David Hume

Mankind is destined to step beyond his earthly bonds just as his ancestors once crawled out of the seas. Colonizing new worlds ... the race will survive. ~ Charles Sheldon

A grower of chrysanthemums awaited a visit from the emperor, who was coming to enjoy his blossoms, of which there were hundreds in bloom. The grower selected one magnificent specimen, then cut down all the others, leaving this one perfect flower. The emperor arrived and sat for several hours quietly gazing at this beautiful flower, letting its beauty have its way with him. Can you imagine being so caught up in appreciation of one flower that everything else fades into the background? ~ John Templeton

I'm like the painter with his nose to the canvas, fussing over details. Gazing from a distance, the reader sees the big picture. ~ Steven Saylor

Happy those early days when I Shined in my Angel-infancy. Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy aught But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first love, And looking back (at that short space) Could see a glimpse of His bright face. When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity. ~ Henry Vaughan

The legs, for example, of that chair
how miraculous their tubularity, how supernatural their polished smoothness! I spent several minutes
or was it several centuries?
not merely gazing at those bamboo legs, but actually being them
or rather being myself in them; or, to be still more accurate (for "I" was not involved in the case, nor in a certain sense were "they") being my Not-self in the Not-self which was the chair. ~ Aldous Huxley

Forty years as an astronomer have not quelled my enthusiasm for lying outside after dark, staring up at the stars. It isn't only the beauty of the night sky that thrills me. It's the sense I have that some of those points of light are the home stars of beings not so different from us, daily cares and all, who look across space with wonder, just as we do. ~ Frank Drake

Gazing on beautiful things acts on my soul. ~ Michelangelo

Just by gazing upon her face ... No matter how weary you are, you will feel happy, deep inside your heart, you will feel a warmth This is a "piece of joy" This is all the happiness you need. Normally, we call this "love" ... ~ Yoshiki Nakamura

It looks as though your shop is doing well," Luka said gazing around, "Could you help me find a gift for a lady friend of mine?"
My heart plunged to my grenn satin slippers, and I had to stare down at Azarte for a minute, petting him hard. Naturally Luka had a "lady friend." She was probably nobly born: the daughter of a count or a duke. I imagined her having thick dark hair and clear skin, and was bitterly jealous. "Of course," I stammered after a time. "What would she like? A gown? A sash?" If she came in for a fitting, I decided to "accidentlly" poke her with every pin. ~ Jessica Day George

Beba moved away for a moment and observed the scene. Standing in the water up to his waist, a young man in wide trousers, with a little waistcoat pulled over his naked torso and a turban on his head, was gazing in reverence at a little old lady, in the shape of a horizontal letter S, wearing child's swimming costume with the Teletubbies printed on it, floating on a lounger. The old lady resembled a hen, while the young man looked like a hero out of A Thousand and One Nights.
'Shall we order another bottle of champagne?' suggested Beba. ~ Dubravka Ugresic

Randy stared into the glass he held in his hand, gazing into its cobra eyes. A double shot of thirty-year-old single malt whisky. You can't be an alcoholic when you only drink top shelf. Right? ~ Ted Magnuson

Alexander - " "Now that it's morning, I'm suddenly Alexander again?" Gazing up at him, Tatiana whispered, "Oh, Shura ... " And Alexander could no longer bear it. He bent to her face and kissed her. Her lips were as soft and young and full as he had imagined them to be. Tatiana's whole body started to tremble as she kissed him back with such tenderness, such passion, such need that Alexander involuntarily emitted a small groan. He was bewildered by her hands pressing his head into hers and not letting go. "Oh, God ... " he whispered into her parted mouth. ~ Paullina Simons

When I was in college I started writing prose, because a very smart professor asked me what I like to read and I said, "Novels," and she said, "You should be writing them then." Memoir never even occurred to me. I think I was afraid of nonfiction and I was afraid of navel-gazing, and of being seen. ~ Melissa Febos

How often, in our Christian lives, do we settle for a "snack"
something quick
instead of feasting on all we have in Jesus? Are we looking into the Word, considering all we have been given, gazing at the cross in gratefulness? Jesus didn't just set us free from bondage
He gave us an inheritance. He didn't simply pay our debt
He gave us His bank account of righteousness. He didn't merely release us from Satan's grip
He asked us to be His bride. He takes us from dungeon to palace. Ashes to beauty. Rejected to cherished. Starving to feasting. ~ Grace Mally

Standing in the back of the dark opera house and gazing at the huge stage before them, gay with gold-scrolled scenery and sumptuously costumed singers, the air vivid with bright music, was one of the most enthralling experiences of Blanche's life. For a time, she forgot her doubts about reality in the sheer delight of illusion. But, as Rose reminded her during the intermission, perhaps it wasn't illusion. Perhaps it was a glimpse of what reality was really like. ~ Regina Doman

Sitting in the shadows, with a killer, in an empty building, gazing at the corpse of another killer. When had her life grown so strange? ~ Lindsay Buroker

She shook her head, gazing at me with a mixture of exasperation and annoyance. "I understand now why you never have a girlfriend, Perry.""What? I've had a girlfriend! What's that got to do with anything?""You do not know how to listen to a woman ~ Joe Schreiber

Religion, according to Alfred North Whitehead, is a phenomenon that begins in wonder and ends in wonder. Feelings of awe, reverence, and gratitude are primary, and these can never be learned from books. We gain them from sitting high on a cliff side, gazing at the sea, lost in reverie and listening to the laughter of children. ~ Gary A. Kowalski

Kossula was no longer on the porch with me. He was squatting about that fire in Dahomey. His face was twitching in abysmal pain. It was a horror mask. He had forgotten that I was there. He was thinking aloud and gazing into the dead faces in the smoke. His agony was so acute that he became inarticulate. He never noticed my preparation to leave him.

So I slipped away as quietly as possible and left him with his smoke pictures. ~ Zora Neale Hurston

Though small, the shrine has a long history. In 1333 - the Third Year of the Genko era - Lord Takeshigé Kikuchi ascended to it in order to implore the divine favor before going into battle. Victory was his, and in gratitude he had the shrine rebuilt. According to tradition, he himself carved the Worship Image, reciting a triple prayer after each stroke. This represented the god as standing on the mountain peak with one hand raised, gazing at the armed host he had blessed. It was an image of victory.
Now, however, the morning after the rising, early on the auspicious Ninth Day of the Ninth Month, the time of the Chrysanthemum Festival, there were gathered around the shrine forty-six hunted survivors of a defeated force. Some standing, some sitting, they stared blankly about them, though the penetrating autumn chill made their wounds sting. The clear light of the rising sun cast a striped pattern as it shone down through the branches of the few old cedars that surrounded the shrine. Birds were singing. The air was fresh and clear. As for signs of last night's sanguinary combat, these were visible in the soiled and bloodstained garments, the haggard visages, and the eyes that burned like live embers.
Among the forty-six were Unshiro Ishihara, Kageki Abé, Kisou Onimaru, Juro Furuta, Tsunetaro Kobayashi, the brothers Gitaro and Gigoro Tashiro, Tateki Ura, Mitsuo Noguchi, Mikao Kashima, and Kango Hayami. Every man was silent, sunk deep in thought, looking off at the sea, ~ Yukio Mishima

She saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires. These were the sons and daughters of Adam from Cathay to Peru. ~ Thornton Wilder

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger. ~ James Joyce

Isn't that a beautiful tale, grandfather," said Heidi, as the latter continued to sit without speaking, for she had expected him to express pleasure and astonishment. "You are right, Heidi; it is a beautiful tale," he replied, but he looked so grave as he said it that Heidi grew silent herself and sat looking quietly at her pictures. Presently she pushed her book gently in front of him and said, "See how happy he is there," and she pointed with her finger to the figure of the returned prodigal, who was standing by his father clad in fresh raiment as one of his own sons again. A few hours later, as Heidi lay fast asleep in her bed, the grandfather went up the ladder and put his lamp down near her bed so that the light fell on the sleeping child. Her hands were still folded as if she had fallen asleep saying her prayers, an expression of peace and trust lay on the little face, and something in it seemed to appeal to the grandfather, for he stood a long time gazing down at her without speaking. At last he too folded his hands, and with bowed head said in a low voice, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am not worthy to be called thy son." And two large tears rolled down the old man's cheeks. Early the next morning he stood in front of his hut and gazed quietly around him. The fresh bright morning sun lay on mountain and valley. The sound of a few early bells rang up from the valley, and the birds were singing their morning song in the fir trees. He stepped ~ Johanna Spyri

And we, from within the sigh of the trees, and the soft moss underfoot, and the calling of night birds, watched him as he watched, gazing where he should not. ~ Emmanuelle De Maupassant

The extension of life beyond Earth is the most important thing we can do as a species. ~ Elon Musk

The Bible is to us what the star was to the wise men; but if we spend all our time in gazing upon it, observing its motions, and admiring its splendor, without being led to Christ by it, the use of it will be lost on us. ~ Thomas Adams

If we spend all our time gazing at the wonders ahead without remembering where we're standing right now, we're going to trip and fall flat on our face, over and over agaain. ~ Greg Egan

You see, ever since the first day of kindergarten, I had been hoping and waiting for some mind-blowingly fantastic, world-altering event to finally shatter the endless monotony of my public education. I had spent hundreds of hours gazing out at the calm, conquered suburban landscape surrounding my school, silently yearning for the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse, a freak accident that would give me super powers, or perhaps the sudden appearance of a band of time-traveling kleptomaniac dwarves. I ~ Ernest Cline

It made her think of Laika, the dog. The man-made satellite streaking soundlessly across the blackness of outer space. The dark, lustrous eyes of the dog gazing out of the tiny window. In the infinite loneliness of space, what could Laika possibly be looking at? ~ Haruki Murakami

Breathless I look up at him and find him gazing at me with a wonder that my deep-seated insecurity finds hard to believe. Then he does this thing. His fingers start moving on my face, tracing outlines. They trail along my eyebrows, the ridge of my nose, the apple of my cheeks and the line of my jaw. His touch is like feather but his eyes ... they blaze and just like that, without saying a single word, he makes me believe. ~ Rucy Ban

She is gazing out into the night, and the night has a thousand eyes, which are mine. ~ Elie Wiesel

Unknowingly, we plow the dust of stars,
blown about us by the wind, and drink the
universe in a glass of rain. ~ Ihab Hassan

A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and soft-hued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face. ~ James Joyce

I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with you."
How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!
Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled.
Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. "Darling, darling," she murmured, "I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so."
I started from her.
She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown, and a face colorless and apathetic.
"Is there a chill in the air, dear?" she said drowsily. "I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? Let us come in. Come; come; come in. ~ J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror. ~ Kahlil Gibran

How did your mother die?" asked Delk.
"Car accident," Katie replied, gazing out over the water. "She'd been to mass. A tire blew on the way home, and she was gone. I was nineteen, Pather's age, when it happened. My brother was only eleven." She paused. "I do know what you're going through." Katie looked at her.
"Pather told you?" Katie nodded. Delk was glad Pather had told his sister; she was relieved not to have to tell the story again. "Does it ever ... you know ... get any better?"
Katie shrugged her narrow shoulders and smiled. "In some ways it does, but it's a bit like running a long race with a rock in your shoe. You get used to it, but it always hurts a little. ~ Suzanne Supplee

Madeleine in her turn stared at him steadily, straight into his eyes, in a profound, strange way, as if seeking to read something there, as if seeking to discover there that hidden part of a human being which can never be fathomed but may perhaps be glimpsed for a fleeting instant, in those moments of unguardedness or surrender or inattention, that are like doors left ajar onto the mysterious depths of the spirit ... they stood for a few seconds, each gazing into the other's eyes, each striving to reach the impenetrable secret of the other's heart, to probe each other's thoughts to the quick. They tried, in a mute and passionate questioning, to see the other's conscience in its essential truth: the intimate struggles of two beings who, living side by side, never really know one another, who suspect and sniff around and spy on one another, but cannot plumb the miry depths of one another's soul. ~ Guy De Maupassant

For over a decade,
She stood there once a while,
Gazing at the Infinite sea,
On-call to engulf whoever jumps,
And then, a day,
She dived into it,
With fragmented emotions,
And worn-out soul,
To a novel desire,
To an unseasoned growth,
En route a superior essence. ~ Irfa Rahat

Listen," Kirillov stopped, gazing before him with fixed, ecstatic eyes. "Listen to a big idea: There was one day on earth, and in the middle of the earth stood three crosses. One on a cross believed so much that he said to another: 'This day you will be with me in paradise.' They day ended, they both died, went, and did not find either paradise or resurrection. What had been said would not prove true. Listen: this man was the highest on all the earth, he constituted what it was to live for. Without this man the whole planet with everything on it is--madness only. There has not been one like Him before or since, not ever, even to the point of miracle. This is the miracle, that there has not been and never will be such a one. And if so, if the laws of nature did not pity even This One, did not pity even their own miracle, but made Him, too, live amidst a lie and die for a lie, then the whole planet is a lie, and stands upon a lie and a stupid mockery. Then the very laws of the planet are a lie and a devil's vaudeville. Why live then, answer me, if you're a man. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

This sort of quiet gazing, which was like a feeding of the heart ... ~ Iris Murdoch

No, my dog used to gaze at me, paying me the attention I need, the attention required to make a vain person like me understand that, being a dog, he was wasting time, but, with those eyes so much purer than mine, he'd keep on gazing at me with a look that reserved for me alone all his sweet and shaggy life, always near me, never troubling me, and asking nothing. ~ Pablo Neruda

Do we dust for fingerprints now?" I asked.
He swiveled his head back around until he was gazing at me. "Who do we look like? The Hardy Boys?"
Silas chuckled at us without looking up from the laptop screen.
Stone, C. L. (2014-01-19). Drop of Doubt: The Ghost Bird Series: #5 (Kindle Locations 945-947). Arcato Publishing. Kindle Edition. ~ C.L.Stone

I thought, gazing at the beauty of the landscape again, it is as though the fiend has prevailed against the angels, and fixed his throne in a heaven, to rule it as though it were Hell. ~ Tom Holland

Anne was curled up Turk-fashion on the hearthrug, gazing into that joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled from the maple cordwood. ~ L.M. Montgomery

True friends ... face in the same direction, toward common projects, interests, goals. ~ C.S. Lewis

Centuries of navel-gazing. Millennia of masturbation. Plato to Descartes to Dawkins to Rhanda. Souls and zombie agents and qualia. Kolmogorov complexity. Consciousness as Divine Spark. Consciousness as electromagnetic field. Consciousness as functional cluster.

I explored it all.

Wegner thought it was an executive summary. Penrose heard it in the singing of caged electrons. Nirretranders said it was a fraud; Kazim called it leakage from a parallel universe. Metzinger wouldn't even admit it existed. The AIs claimed to have worked it out, then announced they couldn't explain it to us. Gödel was right after all: no system can fully understand itself.

Not even the synthesists had been able to rotate it down. The load-bearing beams just couldn't take the strain.

All of them, I began to realize, had missed the point. All those theories, all those drugdreams and experiments and models trying to prove what consciousness was: none to explain what it was good for. None needed: obviously, consciousness makes us what we are. It lets us see the beauty and the ugliness. It elevates us into the exalted realm of the spiritual. Oh, a few outsiders - Dawkins, Keogh, the occasional writer of hackwork fiction who barely achieved obscurity - wondered briefly at the why of it: why not soft computers, and no more? Why should nonsentient systems be inherently inferior? But they never really raised their voices above the crowd. The value of what we are was ~ Peter Watts

I'm
not punishing you baby. I'm just struggling with this. He loves you Layla. It's in his eyes when he looks at you. Every time I turn around he's gazing at
you and I can see it. I should know. It's exactly how I feel every minute of every day. He wants you and I'm terrified that one day you're going to
choose him. I couldn't take it Layla. I'm close to breaking point as it is with that fucker pushing every button I have. He needs to get it into his thick
head that you're mine and I won't let you go without a fight. ~ Marie Coulson

As I turned away, I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world.
- Watson. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

To her complete bafflement, instead of continuing his attack, Ian Thornton turned around and met her stormy eyes, an odd expression on his handsome face. "I apologize, Elizabeth," he said grimly. "My remarks were uncalled for." And on that amazing note he strode off, saying that he intended to spend the day hunting.
Elizabeth tore her startled gaze from his departing back, but the vicar continued staring after him for several long moments. Then he turned and looked at Elizabeth. An odd, thoughtful smile slowly dawned across his face and lit his brown eyes as he continued gazing at her. "Is-is something amiss?" she asked.
His smile widened, and he leaned back in his chair, beaming thoughtfully at her. "Apparently there is," he answered, looking positively delighted. "And I, for one, am vastly pleased."
Elizabeth was beginning to wonder if a tiny streak of insanity ran in the family, and only good manners prevented her from remarking on it. Instead she stood up and began clearing the dishes. ~ Judith McNaught

The master never seemed to have his fill of gazing at his firstborn child. "What do you want him to be when he grows up?" someone asked. "Outrageously happy," said the master. ~ Anthony De Mello

Now she felt as though she were a ghost haunting her own body, gazing at her life through a dirty glass. ~ Margaret Rogerson

There were times when their eyes would meet, and they would stand gazing at each other as though neither could believe the reality of the other being so close to them. The years of waiting for each other offered an anticipation factor still in an immensely high status. At these moments, there was no one else in the world but the two of them and their hearts were bonding for eternity. ~ D. S. Mixell, Lady Ettrick

Strangers are never seen through a window. When our eyes are cast upon another, we are in fact gazing into the depths of a mirror. If you truly desire to understand how you feel about yourself, just take an honest look at how you view the world around you. ~ Carl Henegan

Too many years fighting back tears. Why can't the past just die? Wishing you were somehow here again, knowing we must say goodbye. Try to forgive, teach me to live, give me the strength to try! No more memories, no more silent tears, no more gazing across the wasted years. Help me say goodbye. ~ Charles Hart

Poetry is inspired by the elements of random thoughts, an overflow of gazing at the unseen. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

The International Space Station is a phenomenal laboratory, an unparalleled test bed for new invention and discovery. Yet I often thought, while silently gazing out the window at Earth, that the actual legacy of humanity's attempts to step into space will be a better understanding of our current planet and how to take care of it. ~ Chris Hadfield

And this time
with ardent lips so lightly grazing
he kissed her trembling mouth, and then
answered her pleas, in language dazing
with sweet temptation; once again
those mighty eyes were fixed and gazing
deep into hers. He set her blazing.
He gleamed above her like a spark
or like a knife that finds its mark. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

...You, you look -- bien -- exactly what you were, a high-ranking British officer, used to unwavering obedience and with the air of a Greek god, gazing down on us mere mortals. ~ Marguerite Kaye

II

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear -
O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze - and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel how beautiful they are!

III

My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

...More than looking, what we're really doing is gazing, and we do it for so long I start to get the feeling that nothing else matters.
It's a good feeling.
Better than good.
It's one I could get lost in. ~ Stephanie Kuehn

I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories. ~ Matsuo Basho

The writer's craft, explained!

I have stood on the shores of imagination, gazing at a sea of dreams.
It is a lonely place, for not many can stand on that shifting sand and call it home.
I can see others who also weave a web of dreams and will share them.
We are called storytellers and we alone have that gift that feed the needs of the many.
We are a strange family, united in our separate talents and bonded by our willingness to share.
The price we pay, is a dependence on others, reaching out to listen to our stories.
WE must never forget our need for the herd or they will forget us!
There is no savage punishment for such as we, than to be easily forgotten!
This is our greatest fear and all of us share that terror.
So write brothers and sisters, write and bare your souls without fear.
If you are good enough, they will listen and they will remember you.
Its all we can ask! ~ Barry Woodham

What do you think you're here to do?'
She paused a moment, gazing out the rattling side window at the distant mountains.
'To help people along the way, ' she said, 'to bring them hot coffee when they're cold and scared to death and hangin' on for dear life. ~ Stanley Gordon West

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

your gaze
across
my cheeks

turned them
into
strawberry fields. ~ Sanober Khan

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

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

So this, Harriet thought, gazing at her black-clad reflection, was what bearing up looked like. The eyes in the mirror stared at her, somehow, while fixing themselves far away.
Bearing up, then, must be this: the feeling of perfect frozen stillness, so that to raise your hand was a wrenching and unnatural event. It was not being able to sleep or eat, and the small placid tone in which she heard herself decline the food. It was the presentiment that there must be a crack or a hole somewhere at hand down which she was to throw and extinguish herself, since there must surely be something provided to make this bearable. ~ Jude Morgan

She too was gazing at the glimmering winows across the city. ~ Taichi Yamada