In A Mirror City Quotes

Sometimes at night I would look out and up at the glow rising up around me through the plastic and it would just make me shudder. It reminded me of larvae. We were like pale grubs in our eggs. When I got the horrors like that, I requested a little yellow pill from the dial-a-doc and flopped down into the fuzz along with everyone else. ~ Stevie O'Connor

Art is not a mirror but an icon. It takes the chaos in which we live and shows us structure and pattern, not the structure of conformity which imprisons but the structure which liberates,
sets us free to become growing, mature human beings. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

I know the way you can get / When you have not had a drink of Love: / Your face hardens, / Your sweet muscles cramp. / Children become concerned / About a strange look that appears in your eyes / Which even begins to worry your own mirror / And nose. ~ Hafez

In addition to the transience of their members, churches themselves face a crisis of hypermobility. Many churches have put down only shallow roots in their neighborhood, or no roots at all. We've all heard the question, "If our church suddenly moved to a new location fifteen miles away, would anyone in our neighborhood notice we were gone?" But what if we asked ourselves this question: "If our church was magically lifted off the ground and moved to a location fifteen miles away, would we notice the difference?" Western churches have become so disentangled from their own places that this question could be a cold, hard look in the mirror for many faith communities. ~ C. Christopher Smith

Look in the mirror, Brooke. You're a mess, but you're a fucking gorgeous mess. There's a reason I didn't want to stay, and that's it. Don't blame me for waking up with a raging hard-on when you've been lying next to me in bed for six hours." I ~ Emma Hart

I'll never believe I'm any older than 18. I get angry when my body can't do what an 18-year-old's does. And looking in the mirror is really a tragic sight. There are many consolations to getting older, but physically, it's quite unkind. I find that I have as much mobility, but it takes longer to get pretty. ~ Anthony Newley

She remained in this attitude, clearly inviting him to touch her.

Taking a position of advantage, he rested his right hand on her buttock. He considered a moment then raised his arm and brought his palm upon her, delivering a sharp spank. He felt the acuteness of it on his own skin. He gave her another, watching his hand in the mirror opposite, as it made contact.

The slap caused her to flinch, but her heard her sigh also: the timbre of which was now familiar to him. He paused, allowing the sensation of the sting to sink in before giving her more. She remained folded over for him, eager for more of his burning smacks upon her flesh. The peach of her cheeks rippled each time under the impact of his blows. ~ Emmanuelle De Maupassant

Gently Agatha touched her face in the mirror, glowing from inside.
A face no one recognized because it was so happy.
There could be no turning back now. The bread crumbs on the dark trail were gone. Instead, she had the truth to guide her. A truth greater than any magic.
I've been beautiful all along. ~ Soman Chainani

IGNATIUS MARTIN PERRISH SPENT the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke the next morning with a headache, put his hands to his temples, and felt something unfamiliar, a pair of knobby pointed protuberances. He was so ill
wet-eyed and weak
he didn't think anything of it at first, was too hungover for thinking or worry.
But when he was swaying above the toilet, he glanced at himself in the mirror over the sink and saw he had grown horns while he slept. He lurched in surprise, and for the second time in twelve hours he pissed on his feet. ~ Joe Hill

I derive no pleasure from prosecuting a man, even though I know he's guilty; do you think I could sleep at night or look at myself in the mirror in the morning if I hounded an innocent man? ~ Jim Garrison

Makeup is such a weird concept. I'll wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. 'Gee, I really don't look so good. Maybe if my eyelids were blue, I'd be more attractive. ~ Cathy Ladman

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master ... ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

He went to the cupboard where he had stored Eddie's remaining possessions. There was, as he had remembered, a pair of jeans, and he took these out and unfolded them. They were distressed, but no more so than new jeans were these days, and they appeared to fit. William examined himself in the mirror; the jeans took off ten years, he thought, possibly more, and they were perfect with the blazer. This was the very essence of casual smart, he thought - that vague concept that allowed you to wear anything as long as you looked as if you had at least made some effort. He could hold up his head in any company in an outfit like this. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

If a man stands before a mirror and sees in it his reflection, what he sees is not a true reproduction of himself but a picture of himself when he was a younger man ~ Flann O'Brien

It's so simple at the beginning. You meet someone gorgeous and smart and funny. Somebody who's better than you - you both know it, at least on some level. You fall in love with them. But you fall even more in love with their idea of you. You feel lucky. Because you are lucky. Then time passes. You both change too much. You stay too much the same. The truth worms its way out, and the horizon grows dark. Eventually all you're left with is somebody who sees you for who you really are. And sooner or later, they hold up a mirror and you're forced to see for yourself. ~ Kimberly McCreight

The last reports from Las Vegas described the abandoned gambling capital sitting half-submerged in a lake of rain-lashed water, its wheels stilled, the dying lights of its hotels reflected in the meadows of the drowned desert, a violent mirror reflecting all the failure and humiliation of America. ~ J.G. Ballard

The people around you are mirrors, I think.
You see yourself reflected in their eyes. If the mirror is true, and smooth, you see your true self. That's how you learn who you are. ~ Caitlin Moran

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see a child, then I look and see a woman who should be turning 60. ~ LeAnn Rimes

Jaenelle opened her mouth, closed it, and finally said timidly, "Do you think, when I'm grown up, I could wear an outfit like that?" Daemon bit his cheek. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Buying time, he looked down at himself. "Well," he said, giving it slow consideration, "the shirt would have to be altered somewhat to accommodate a female figure, but I don't see why not." Jaenelle beamed. "Daemon, it's a wonderful hat." It took him a moment to admit it to himself, but he was miffed. He stood in front of her, on display as it were, and the thing that fascinated her most was his hat. You do know how to bruise a man's ego, don't you, little one? he thought dryly as he said, "Would you like to try it on?" Jaenelle bounced to the mirror, brushing against him as she passed. ~ Anne Bishop

Sorcha took the elevator down to the basement of the fashion house. She glanced at her stunningly beautiful reflection in the mirror and smiled to herself. How fortunate she was to be a vampire - no gray hairs, no wrinkles, no broken nails, no weight problems, and no PMT. What bliss! And how fortunate it was that all the legends about vampires were not true. She could not imagine an existence where she could not see and admire her own likeness - such a life to her would be intolerable and tedious. How could any female, even a vampire, survive without being able to see their own reflection? How could they do their hair and makeup? The very idea was totally preposterous. ~ Alan Kinross

When a woman buys shoes, she takes them out of the box and looks at herself in the mirror. But she isn't really looking at her shoes - she's looking at herself. If she likes herself, then she likes the shoes. ~ Christian Louboutin

Every time I stare into those eyes of yours, they shine like a mirror with the sharp edges, piercing trough every bit of my reflection. It makes me feel like a child lost in the woods. And all of a sudden I hear a song somewhere and a shiver runs down my spine. A song that I have heard somewhere before. A song that makes all my demons dance forcefully at once. ~ Akshay Vasu

I used to think Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story ever written. But now that I'm middle-aged, I know better. Oh, Romeo certainly thinks he loves his Juliet. Driven by hormones, he unquestionably lusts for her. But if he loves her, it's a shallow love. You want proof?" Cagney didn't wait for Dr. Victor to say yay or nay.

"Soon after meeting her for the first time, he realizes he forgot to ask her for her name. Can true love be founded upon such shallow acquaintance? I don't think so. And at the end, when he thinks she's dead, he finds no comfort in living out the remainder of his life within the paradigm of his love, at least keeping alive the memory of what they had briefly shared, even if it was no more than illusion, or more accurately, hormonal.

"Those of us watching events unfold from the darkness know she merely lies in slumber. But does he seek the reason for her life-like appearance? No. Instead he accuses Death of amorousness, convinced that the 'lean abhorred monster' endeavors to keep Juliet in her present state, her cheeks flushed, so that she might cater to his own dissolute desires. But does Romeo hold her in his arms one last time and feel the warmth of her blood still coursing through her veins? Does he pinch her to see if she might awaken? Hold a mirror to her nose to see if her breath fogs it? Once, twice, three times a 'no.'"

Cagney sighed, listened to the leather creak as he shifted his weight in his chair.
< ~ J. Conrad Guest

This is the creature there has never been.
They never knew it, and yet, none the less,
they loved the way it moved, its suppleness,
its neck, its very gaze, mild and serene.
Not there, because they loved it, it behaved
as though it were. They always left some space.
And in that clear unpeopled space they saved
it lightly reared its head, with scarce a trace
of not being there. They fed it, not with corn,
but only with the possibility
of being. And that was able to confer
such strength, its brow put forth a horn. One horn.
Whitely it stole up to a maid - to be
within the silver mirror and in her. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

In the subway the trains move so swiftly you can never catch your breath. Outside the grimy window that's a reflecting surface like a mirror mostly there are the rushing tunnel walls, that slow as the train slows for a station, and the doors open with a pneumatic hiss like the sigh of a great ugly beast, and passengers lurch off, and new passengers lurch on, and I lift my eyes hopeful and yearning Who will be my destiny? Which one of you? ~ Joyce Carol Oates

At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is. ~ James McGreevey

There it was again - the perverse refusal to acknowledge my hostility. She seemed to me like some magical lake in a fairy tale: nothing could disturb the mirror-calm of her surface. My snide comments and bitter jokes disappeared soundlessly into her depths, leaving not so much as a ripple. ~ Zoe Heller

If God made all our faces, did he laugh when he made me?
Does he make the legs that cannot walk and eyes that cannot see?
Does he curl the hair upon my head 'til it rebels in wild defiance?
Does he close the ears of a deaf man to make him more reliant?
Is the way I look a coincidence or just a twist of fate?
If he made me this way, is it okay, to blame him for the things I hate?
For the flaws that seem to worsen every time I see a mirror,For the ugliness I see in me, for the loathing and the fear.
Does he sculpt us for his pleasure, for a reason I can't see?
If God makes all our faces, did he laugh when he made me? ~ Amy Harmon

Hallie and I ... were all there was. The image in the mirror that proves you are still here. We had exactly one sister apiece. We grew up knowing the simple arithmetic of scarcity: A sister is more precious than an eye. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

If your mirror be broken, look into still water; but have a care that you do not fall in. - Hindu Proverb. ~ Rudyard Kipling

My uncle Bob sees the whole world in a fun-house mirror, TRUST NO ONE lipsticked luridly across its bowed face. ~ Karen Joy Fowler

One of the reasons I got into fighting was because I'd never really been in a fight. It's like in Fight Club, the famous line, 'How much can you really know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?' ... It's the the clearest mirror you'll ever stand in front of. ~ Jon Fitch

On the other side of that big-ass mirror, a video camera was watching us. In about ten seconds, it was going to start spitting static at itself, and everything it saw was going to break up into a fuzzy, gray-white wash, rolling up and down, that wouldn't be admissible as evidence on Judge Judy. Those missing frames would last a little less than a quarter of a minute, consolidate themselves back
into a semblance of reality, and then I would theoretically go walking right back out of here.
Between now and that moment, there stretched an infinite ocean of potential
time. Time enough to walk around the world. Time enough to fall in love, get
married on a white beach under purple stars, write a book of poems about
truest passion, have a few good and bloody screaming matches, get divorced in a court of autumn elves and gypsy moths, then set the ink-stained, tear-streaked pages of your text ablaze. ~ Clinton Boomer

A need for revenge can burn long and hot. Especially if every glance in a mirror reinforces it. ~ Suzanne Collins

Make love to me, Syn." Furi turned slightly and Syn captured his mouth in a passionate kiss. He didn't release Furi's mouth as he withdrew to the head of his dick and slowly slid back in, snapping his hips with the last inch. Furi's back bowed at the move. "Yes! Like that!" he shouted. Syn repeated it exactly how Furi liked it, keeping the pace slow and tight. The gentle waves that rocked the boat aided Syn's rhythm. Furi began to thrust his ass back against him and Syn's eyes rolled. "I'm gonna fuckin' come," Syn groaned, his voice sounding tortured, like Furi was killing him softly. "I need to see you." Syn pulled out slowly, gripping the base of his cock. He rose up so Furi could turn over. The look on Furi's face was his undoing. So much love and adoration shone back at him, reflecting his own feelings like a mirror. Furi spread his legs and Syn took one thigh and pulled it up high, wrapping it around his back. He locked eyes with his lover and buried back inside. "Unh. ~ A.E. Via

The Overlook was still not done with him. Written on the mirror, not in lipstick but in blood, was a single word:
REDRUM ~ Stephen King

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Words written in red, circled by Will. And lived.
"Jesus, I've listened to the lies too long. They've filled my head and led me on a long chase of things that don't matter. I bought into what Satan was feeding me until barely recognized my own face in the mirror. It took Will's death and Lucy's leaving to show me where my priorities should be.
I want to live for you.
I just ... want to live. ~ Jenny B. Jones

Early in a career that began in 1912 when he was 19 years old, Romain de Tirtoff, the Russian-born artists who called himself Erté after the french pronunciation of his initials, was regarded as a 'miraculous magician,' whose spectacular fashions transformed the ordinary into the outstanding, whose period costumes made the present vanish mystically into the past, and whose décors converted bare stages into sparkling wonderlands of fun and fancy. When his career ended with his death in 1990, Erté was considered as 'one of the twentieth-century's single most important influences on fashion,' 'a mirror of fashion for 75 years,' and the unchallenged 'prince of the music hall,' who had been accorded the most significant international honors in the field of design and whose work was represented in major museums and private collections throughout the world.

It is not surprising that Erté's imaginative designs for fashion, theater, opera, ballet, music hall, film and commerce achieved such renown, for they are as crisp and innovative in their color and design as they are elegant and extravagant in character, and redolent of the romance of the pre- and post-Great War era, the period when Erté's hand became mature, fully developed and representative of its time. Art historians and scholars define Ertés unique style as transitional Art Deco, because it bridges the visual gab between fin-de-siècle schools of Symbolism, with its ethereal quality, Art Nouveau, with its high orn ~ Jean Tibbetts

And whatever you do, do not break the mirror."
Without looking away from Mari, Bowe asked, "Why no'?" This seemed an ideal solution to him.
Jillian murmured, "The shock could . . . it could kill her."
No' ideal.
"I want to be alone with her," Bowe said.
She nodded. "We're going to the binding ceremony. Good luck, Bowen."
After they closed the door, Bowe could still hear Mari's father say, "Jill, why are you so confident in MacRieve?"
"Because he won't ever rest until he has her back with him," she replied before they descended the stairs.
Alone with Mari, Bowe said, "Lass, we're about to take a break from the mirror for a bit. How am I to marry you in front of all those witches in an eerie, embarrassing ceremony if you will no' look away?"
No reaction.
He put his arms around her waist and leaned down to kiss her neck, closing his eyes with pleasure just to be close to her once more.
"Doona wish to turn from your glass? Verra well. Then ask it some questions while you're here. Ask it how much your Lykae's missed you."
Had she blinked?
At her other ear, he murmured, "Ask it who Bowe loves."
Her lips parted. Her body seemed to begin thrumming, as if she was struggling with everything she had in her to be free.
"Aye, that's right. Ask it who's the only one Bowe's ever been in love with." He brushed the back of his fingers down her cheek, willing her to meet his gaze in the mirror. "And the last question w ~ Kresley Cole

At that moment, it just seemed as if his face was perfect. Innocent and strong. And - why not? - exotic, too, bu exotic in the sense of being distinct from most of the other faces we saw every day. A face I would design if I could design a face for the son I was never going to have. It was an Asian face. Not unlike the one I used to see in the mirror so many decades ago, the one I was so ashamed of for its distinctive contours. The one I spent years trying to alter with clothespins and duct tape. ~ Alex Tizon

-A cloud is never a mirror
-Words about clouds are clouds themselves
-If snow falls inside a cloud, only the cloud knows
-A cloud dreams only of triangles
-Clouds are in love with horizons
-The cloud that was gone would never come back
-Every lake desires a cloud
-A cloud is a cathedral without belief
-Clouds cannot see what we do under the umbrella
-Clouds are thoughts without words ~ Mark Strand

One of the things you never really see in a romance book is a woman who has self-esteem issues. I mean, I'm sure they're out there, but they're few and far between. Like they can have eating disorders, post-traumatic stress from sexual assault or mental abuse. They can be sold into sex trafficking and they can carry epic amounts of grief. We have female characters who have suffered every loss imaginable and ones who are scarred physically and mentality, but where in the hell are the average women? Ones who look in the mirror and cringe a little? Like, why are all those others acceptable to women, but reading or knowing another woman who has a low self-esteem is, like, worse than all that drama llama? ~ J. Lynn

Shaken to the depths of your soul, you know that day and night someone is waiting for you, thinking of you, longing and sighing for you - a woman, a stranger. She wants, she demands, she desires you with every fiber of her being, with her body, with her blood. She wants your hands, your hair, your lips, your night and your day, your emotions, your senses, and all your thought and dreams. She wants to share everything with you, to take everything from you, and to draw it in with her breath. Henceforth, day and night, whether you are awake or asleep, there is somewhere in the world a being who is feverish and wakeful and who waits for you, and you are the centre of her waking and her dreaming. It is in vain that you try not to think of her, of her who thinks always of you, in vain that you seek to escape, for you no longer dwell in yourself, but in her. Of a sudden a stranger bears your image within her as though she were a moving mirror - no, not a mirror, for that merely drinks in your image when you offer yourself willingly to it, whereas she, the woman, this stranger who loves you, she has absorbed you into her very blood. ~ Stefan Zweig

On that lonely road they looked like mirror images of each other. Perhaps each of them thought of real communication as unnecessary, words divide by multiplying, what was certain was the oneness underneath the words. But now they refrain from talking because it might reveal to them how dangerously unlike one another they are. An image in a mirror is a reversal, the reflection and the original are joined but might cancel each other out. ~ Damon Galgut

It was a Friday morning, and Walmart was populated only by the occasional mom with very young children and the random senior citizen, which made my bathroom makeover less conspicuous. Only one woman came in while I stood in front of the mirror, and she went straight to the toilets. I made sure that when she came out I was no longer standing in front of the mirror but was huddled with my palms stretched out beneath a loud hand dryer, my face completely averted. No one expects to see a celebrity in their local Walmart bathroom. Most of us don't really look at each other anyway. Our eyes glance off without really registering what we're seeing. It's human nature. It's polite society. Ignore each other unless someone is grotesquely fat or immodestly dressed or disfigured in some way - and then we pretend not to see, but we see everything. I was none of those things, and so far human nature was working in my favor. ~ Amy Harmon

The stone is a mirror which works poorly. Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dimness, who's to say? In the hush your heart sounds like a black cricket. ~ Charles Simic

She took a step forward, and so did the unknown woman. Suddenly realization and relief came upon her in equal measures; "It is a mirror! Oh! How foolish! How foolish! To be afraid of my own reflection!" She was so relieved she almost laughed out loud, but then she paused; it had not been foolish to be frightened, not foolish at all; there had been no mirror in that corner until now. ~ Susanna Clarke

It is said that scattered through Despair's domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out onto a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag on your heart. Despair says little, and is patient. ~ Neil Gaiman