Grit Lit Quotes

The town of North Falls consisted of twenty-eight square miles positioned on a high plateau in the southern region of the Green Mountain range. It had the highest altitude of any village in the state, which meant the snow came early and it came often. It also meant that the first thing anybody noticed about the town was the church steeple. The rotting whitewashed wood and the slatted oval window and the copper spire all connected to the simple wood framing. It was the highest point in the state, and people liked to say that it was closer to God than anywhere else in Vermont. Not that it did the town much good. ~ Ian Pisarcik

The waters saw you, God; the waters saw you and lashed about, even the deeps of the sea* trembled.j 18 The clouds poured down their rains; the thunderheads rumbled; your arrows flashed back and forth.k 19 The thunder of your chariot wheels resounded; your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked.l 20 Through the sea was your way; your path, through the mighty waters, though your footsteps were unseen.m 21 You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. ~ United States Conference Of Catholic Bishops

I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble. ~ Donna Tartt

Everyone started to file toward the door, crowding each other in their attempt to get the hell out of this flying deathtrap. I stood and waited for my turn, hefting my purse over my shoulder, and turned my cell phone back on. The second it lit up and I was able, I shot out a text.
Landed. Getting off now.
Romeo's response was instant, and I smiled.
I'm waiting. ~ Cambria Hebert

I sipped the coffee and lit a cigarette. I can't say that I enjoyed the taste of coffee or the feeling of smoke descending into my lungs, I could barely distinguish the two, the point was to do it, it was a routine, and as with all routines, protocol was everything. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

Arsenal play pretty-boy football. Good to watch on the telly, but there's no real grit in their play. ~ Karl Wiggins

In idyllic small towns I sometimes see teenagers looking out of place in their garb of desperation, the leftover tatters and stains and slashes of the fashion of my youth. For this phase of their life, the underworld is their true home, and in the grit and underbelly of a city they could find something that approximates it. Even the internal clock of adolescents changes, making them nocturnal creatures for at least a few years. All through childhood you grow toward life and then in adolescence, at the height of life, you begin to grow toward death. This fatality is felt as an enlargement to be welcomed and embraced, for the young in this culture enter adulthood as a prison, and death reassures them that there are exits. "I have been half in love with easeful death," said Keats who died at twenty-six and so were we, though the death we were in love with was only an idea then. ~ Rebecca Solnit

The buildings of the farm, a shade darker than the sky, could now be distinguished in the gloom, a little distance on, and as Flora and Adam were slowly approaching them, a door suddenly opened and a beam of light shone out. Adam gave a joyful cry.
'Tes the cowshed! 'Tes our Feckless openin' the door fer me!' And Flora saw that it was indeed; the door of the shed, which was lit by a lantern, was being anxiously pushed open by the nose of a gaunt cow.
This was not promising. ~ Stella Gibbons

Find your grit and put in the work to elevate your game. Champions train. Chumps complain. ~ Kwame Alexander

He was talking, politely, with those around him. But even as he conversed, he scanned the crowd. When his eyes rested on her, he stopped. He'd been smiling before, in a friendly fashion. But what lit his face when he saw her was more than a smile, more than a grin. It was as if someone had thrown aside the curtains of a sickroom on a glorious morning, to let sunlight spill into every darkened corner. What was he doing? Everyone would know how he felt. He simply made no effort to hide it. She could feel the heat of his expression, even from halfway across the room. ~ Courtney Milan

Gran, do you believe in angels?" She smiled. Her entire face lit up. "Why of course I do. Who else is going to help God perform all those miracles? ~ Brenda Pandos

Most fires made by underestimated sparks, the greatness fire inside ourselves is lit by the spark of the change, came across a small corner in our souls where the conscience still whispering. ~ Ammar Moussa

And the more I thought of what had happened, the wilder and darker it grew. I reviewed the whole extraordinary sequence of events as I rattled on through the silent gas-lit streets. There was the original problem: that at least was pretty clear now. The death of Captain Morstan, the sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the letter, - we had had light upon all those events. They had only led us, however, to a deeper and far more tragic mystery. The Indian treasure, the curious plan found among Morstan's baggage, the strange scene at Major Sholto's death, the rediscovery of the treasure immediately followed by the murder of the discoverer, the very singular accompaniments to the crime, the footsteps, the remarkable weapons, the words upon the card, corresponding with those upon Captain Morstan's chart, - here was indeed a labyrinth in which a man less singularly endowed than my fellow-lodger might well despair of ever finding the clue. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

You're a dumb shit. There's a million first girls for a million different first things.
There's the first girl you slow-dance with, and the first girl you go to bed with. There's the first girl to give you a kiss, and then the first one you take home to mama." His amber eyes lit up with humor.
"There's the first girl you fight with and the first girl you fight for. There's also the first girl you have to let go of. There's the first girl you love, obviously, and the first girl to break your heart.
There's always a first girl, Rowdy, but there is also the girl that is going to come after her until you get to the last girl.
The last girl is the one that really matters. ~ Jay Crownover

Here she was back in the brightly lit world she had been avoiding for twenty years, and it was exactly as awful as she remembered it. ~ Robert Charles Wilson

The street is no longer measured by meters but by corpses ... Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching howling bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure. ~ Max Hastings

I went up above the quay past the steps to the hotel. I saw a man through the window with a beer in his hand, and another man with a basket full of eggs. I was feeling heavy now, and tired, and I stood there leaning backwards with my hands crossed behind my back at the end of the breakwater before I walked on to the beach on the other side and some way along on the hard-frozen white sand. It had started to blow a bit, and it was still cold with no snow, so I took off my scarf and tied it round my head and ears and sat down in the shelter of a dune and blew into my hands to warm them before I lit a cigarette. Poker ran along the edge of the water with a seagull's wing in his mouth, and I was so young then, and I remember thinking: I'm twenty-three years old, there is nothing left in life. Only the rest. ~ Per Petterson

We are good not in virtue of what we are but in virtue of what we are not, like darkness lit up by a light that enters into it from without. We are not light in ourselves but in virtue of having within us what is light in itself. ~ Kathryn Tanner

Once time is lit, it will burn whether or not you're breathing it in. Even after smoke becomes air, there is the memory of smoke. I am seeing as if by the light of a match, a glimpse of my life and having it feel right. ~ David Levithan

I was in my house, alone in the living room, anxious about you, watching the flashes of lightning. And a flash of lightning lit up this truth for me, right in front of my eye. That night i lost you, I lost something inside me. Or perhaps several things. Something central to my existence, the very support for who I am as a person ~ Haruki Murakami

trying to do things they can't yet do, failing, and learning what they need to do differently is exactly the way that experts practice. ~ Angela Duckworth

I was brought up in a very open, rural countryside in the middle of nowhere. There were no cell phones. If your lights went out, you were lit by candlelight for a good four days before they can get to you. And so, my imagination was crazy. ~ Juno Temple

The lands are lit with all the autumn blaze of golden-rod, and everywhere the purple asters nod and bend and wave and flit. ~ Helen Hunt

But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence. ~ Alberto Manguel

For a split second, his finger touches my skin, and he might as well have brushed me with a lit match. ~ Lauren Henderson

Every woman should feel like a princess on her wedding day; it's practically a law. ~ Anna Bell

When I arrived in the stables, he startled me from behind the door. Without a word, he grabbed me up in his arms and carried me into the loft. There he had lit a dozen candles, and strewn rose petals and blankets over a bed of sweet-smelling hay."
"A dozen lit candles in a stable full of dry hay? You're lucky you survived the experience, sweetheart. You could have been tinder."
Sophia raised her eyebrows and stiffened her posture. "Our love was an inferno. I thought I would go up in flames, so glorious was our pleasure that night."
He covered his eyes with a hand and laughed, loud and long. "What a vivid romantic imagination you have. ~ Tessa Dare

Je fais mon lit et mon ménage; I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my supper takes care, of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless; nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded and monkish; and nothing now living in this world loves me, except some old hearts worn like my own, and some few beings, impoverished, suffering, poor in purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this world own not, but to whom a will and testament not to be disputed has bequeathed the kingdom of heaven. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Go out with me tomorow night," Perry went on. "Let me prove to you that I'm the guy you want."
"I...I guess I coul go out tomorrow night," Miranda sounded shocked and a little swept off her feet.
Then, from the corner of her eyes. Kylie saw something move at the office window. When she looked back, she spotted Burnett and Holiday standing there high-fiving each other. No doubt Burnett was listening to the coversation and sharing the details with Holiday.
Perry nodded, stepped closer, and then pressed a quick kiss on Miranda's cheek. It had to be the most romantic thing Kylie had ever seen.
..."What?" Miranda asked. "You're happy my date [with Todd] wasn't exciting?"
"No," Kylie said. "Let's just say we're more excited about tomorrow night's date."
A bright smile lit up Miranda's face. "Me too. Can you believ Perry did that? I mean, he was so..."
"Romantic," Kylie said.
"Hot," Della added.
"Sweet," Miranda whispered. "I couldn't stop thinkibng about him all night."
And that was the best news Kylie had gotten all day. ~ C.C. Hunter

Stark looked strong and healthy and totally gorgeous. I was distracting myself by wondering what exactly Scottish guys did, or didn't, wear under those kilts when he turned to face me.
His smile lit up his eyes. I can practically hear you thinking. ~ Kristin Cast

Apart from the peace and emptiness of the landscape, there is a special smell about winter in Provence which is accentuated by the wind and the clean, dry air. Walking in the hills, I was often able to smell a house before I could see it, because of the scent of woodsmoke coming from an invisible chimney. It is one of the most primitive smells in life, and consequently extinct in most cities, where fire regulations and interior decorators have combined to turn fireplaces into blocked-up holes or self-consciously lit "architectural features." The fireplace in Provence is still used - to cook on, to sit around, to warm the toes, and to please the eye - and fires are laid in the early morning and fed throughout the day with scrub oak from the Luberon or beech from the foothills of Mont Ventoux. Coming home with the dogs as dusk fell, I always stopped to look from the top of the valley at the long zigzag of smoke ribbons drifting up from the farms that are scattered along the Bonnieux road. It was a sight that made me think of warm kitchens and well-seasoned stews, and it never failed to make me ravenous. ~ Peter Mayle

But for Soraya, words on a page were seductive, free, inviting everyone, without distinction. She could not help it when she found words written down, taking them in, following them as if they were moving and she was in a trance, tagging along. A book was something to hide, the thick enchantment of it, the shame, almost. When everyone was asleep, she would creep indoors, into stifling, badly lit rooms, with cockroaches clicking, to open a book at a page she had marked and step into its pulsating pool of words. ~ Leila Aboulela

childish. Thereupon Filomena excused herself, that she might put a clean shirt on Jacopone, and Odo was left to his melancholy musings. His mind had of late run much on economic abuses; but what was any philandering with reform to this close contact with misery? It was as though white hungry faces had suddenly stared in at the windows of his brightly-lit life. What did these people care for education, enlightenment, the religion of humanity? What they wanted was fodder for their cattle, a bit of meat on Sundays and a faggot on the hearth. ~ Edith Wharton

While I'd been plagued by nightmares of Jonathan's unrest in the hereafter, it was only now that I'd seen Adair again - and seen him so changed - that I could admit, even to myself, that it was him I daydreamed of, who I longed for, who I ached for, physically. That was how I'd betrayed Luke - in my desire for Adair. It wasn't so uncommon, was it? Living with one man while your mind is on another? Being unable to stop thinking of this other man who, for one reason or another, was not the one sitting beside you. Thinking of the way his eyes lit up when he saw you, of his wicked smile and what it was like when he held you, how you responded to the touch of his hands. In solitary moments, you remembered the little intimacies, the feel of his skin against yours, the way he liked to be touched, the velvet nap of his member, the way he tasted. You thought of him even though you could never be with him. His absence nagged like an itch you could never scratch. ~ Alma Katsu

Some people say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. In actuality, you have to make an incision through his skin, both dermis and epidermis, then carefully sever and separate the sternum. Only upon viewing the exposed thoracic cavity can you reach the heart--if indeed the male of the species actually possesses such an organ. ~ Lois Greiman

Done with the whole dark
& the insect dirge
under blue lit lamps.
Done trying to remember

June, first stars & August
when I was Penelope
when I was Eurydice
when July was missing

& I was my own dull shade. ~ Emily Skaja

I grit my teeth. Despite everything, I mutter with a smile, "No."
"No, what?"
"No, I'm glad you came."
"I haven't ... yet."I slap my book across his arm, blushing furiously.
"You're impossible."
"And you're incredible. ~ K.A. Tucker

On westminster Bridge, Arthur was struck by the brightness of the streetlamps running across like a formation of stars. They shone white against the black coats of the marching gentlefold and fuller than the moon against the fractal spires of Westminster. They were, Arthur quickly realized, the new electric lights, which the city government was installing, avenue by avenue, square by square, in place of the dirty gas lamps that had lit London's public spaces for a century. These new electric ones were brighter. They were cheaper. They required less maintenance. And they shone farther into the dime evening, exposing every crack in the pavement, every plump turtle sheel of stone underfoot. So long to the faint chiaroscuro of London, to the ladies and gentlemen in black-on-black relief. So long to the era of mist and carbonized Newcastle coal, to the stench of the Blackfriars foundry. Welcome to the cleasing glare of the twentieth century. ~ Graham Moore

When the last leaf falls,
what will die within us? ~ Sheniz Janmohamed

Everything which originates from pure love is lit with the radiance of beauty. ~ Simone Weil

Never tell her that something is impossible, because she'll kill herself proving you wrong. ~ Kate Lattey

Zia," I said, "that's a goddess. She defeated Bast. What chance do you have?"
Zia held up her staff and the carved lion's head burst into flames - a small red fireball so bright, it lit the entire room. "I am a scribe in the House of LIfe, Sadie Kane. I am trained to fight gods. ~ Rick Riordan

Essentially what photography is is life lit up. ~ Sam Abell

Rock guys were Viagra for my soul. ~ Nicky Wells

Her eyes flashed orange for a half-second and that gruesome and horrifying sight reminded me of the candles being lit on a grinning jack-o-lantern, if said jack-o-lantern was salivating. ~ Sharon Stevenson

I watch as the branches of the chestnut tree slowly darken and turn black against the sky. the wind drops. the leaves are still. the sun fades and dips beyond the square of the window. the clouds are lit up with gold in the middle; deep dark lines score their edges. I watch the color leave them, watch it leak out in pink and purple, until the whole sky is burning and bruised and finally black. I watch the night come, and the day end. I understand that im saying goodbye. not just to this day itself, but to the world outside. outside. I'm giving up. ~ Sharon Dogar

You really think that's where any of us are headed?" She actually gave him a grin, baring straight white teeth, her face lit by the golden glow of the dawn. It jarred him to realize that Brion had been right - this girl was absolutely gorgeous. "I'll see you in the darklands, Agallon. Save a demon or two for me. ~ Morgan Rhodes

Where most people live, most of us, imagining it to be the real sunlit world when it is only a cave lit by the flickering fires of illusion. ~ E.L. Doctorow

... everything was fresh, green and particularly beautiful. Afternoon light, filtering between remnants of monsoon clouds, picked out gullies and spot-lit patches of forest and scrub on the convoluted ridges of the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. Or, after a rainstorm, wisps of clouds clung to the trees as if scared to let go. Behind, himals peeked out shyly between the clouds. ~ Jane Wilson-Howarth