Lightning Bolt Quotes

We talked into the night, the room blurring around us as it had done at the dance in West Side Story when Tony and Maria first saw each other across a crowd of people. Tonight, tonight, it all began tonight. My friends giggled and sipped wine at the table where I'd abandoned them earlier in the night, oblivious to the fact that their redheaded amiga had just been struck by a lightning bolt.
Before I could internally break into the second chorus of song, my version of Tony--this mysterious cowboy--announced abruptly that he had to go. Go? I thought. Go where? There's no place on earth but this smoky bar…But there was for him: he and his brother had plans to cook Christmas turkeys for some needy folks in his small town. Mmmm. He's nice, too, I thought as a pang stabbed my insides.
"Bye," he said with a gentle smile. And with that, his delicious boots walked right out of the J-Bar, his dark blue Wranglers cloaking a body that I was sure had to have been chiseled out of granite. My lungs felt tight, and I still smelled his scent through the bar smoke in the air. I didn't even know his name. I prayed it wasn't Billy Bob. ~ Ree Drummond

An oceanic expanse of pre-dawn gray white below obscures a checkered grid of Saskatchewan, a snow plain nicked by the dark, unruly lines of woody swales. One might imagine that little is to be seen from a plane at night, but above the clouds the Milky Way is a dense, blazing arch. A full moon often lights the planet freshly, and patterns of human culture, artificially lit, are striking in ways not visible in daylight. One evening I saw the distinctive glows of cities around Delhi diffused like spiral galaxies in a continuous deck of stratus clouds far below us. In Algeria and on the Asian steppes, wind-whipped pennants of gas flared. The jungle burned in incandescent spots in Malaysia and Brazil. One clear evening at 20,000 feet over Manhattan, I could see, it seemed, every streetlight halfway to the end of Long Island. A summer lightning bolt unexpectedly revealed thousands of bright dots on the ink-black veld of the northern Transvaal: sheep. ~ Barry Lopez

People always seemed to think that you stopped believing things in a single, lightning-bolt moment, an instantaneous revelation of loss. For her, at least, the process of disenchantment had been achingly slow. ~ Zoe Heller

Truth be told, there wasn't a single one of them who didn't deserve a lightning bolt from the Almighty. Everything else was straight mercy. ~ Mike Duran

What most people call loving consists of picking out a woman and marrying her. They pick her out, I swear, I've seen them. As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. They probably say that they pick her out because-they-love-her, I think it's just the siteoppo. Beatrice wasn't picked out, Juliet wasn't picked out. You don't pick out the rain that soaks you to a skin when you come out of a concert. ~ Julio Cortazar

screen that was longing to give me a lightning-bolt-thunder-roll odin-bloody headache ~ Robin McKinley

Simon had drawn three pictures. In the top left corner, like a salutation, was a ghost. The middle had a big sketch of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator. The third in place of a signature, was a lightning bolt surrounded by fog. Beside the drawing, someone had scrawled in inch-high letters 10 A.M.
Tori snatched it from me and turned it over. "So where's the message?"
"Right there." I pointed from picture to picture. "It says: Chloe, I'll be back, Simon. ~ Kelley Armstrong

You changed him, Grace, like a God damn lightning bolt to the heart. ~ Christine Zolendz

Ok, look. Whenever I hear people say that they felt 'sparks,' I usually think it's a load of poo. I mean, I have felt attraction to people, sure, and I have even felt some instant lust. But sparks? Please... Then he touched my skin. Sparks. Sparks. Sparks. Hot sparks. Flashing sparks. Lightning bolt sparks. J esus, Mary, and Joseph sparks. ~ Alice Clayton

I guess falling in love with mermaids is pretty dangerous," he finally said.
"Did you?" Ariel asked in a small voice. "Fall for me? At all?"
Eric gave her a measured look, treating the question seriously as she had his. "I did fall for you, just not in the way I expected it would happen. And maybe not in the way you hoped. It wasn't a lightning bolt. As I got to know you, I realized you were the most... energetic, fun, enthusiastic... alive girl I had ever met." He smiled at the memory- and Ariel felt her breath catch. "You know, for a boy who's all about sailing and running around with his dog and exploring, you were just about as perfect a companion as he could ever want. And beautiful, to boot. I would have been very lucky."
He said this wistfully.
Ariel wasn't sure when she was going to start breathing again. ~ Liz Braswell

Venues are all the same, all feel the same, these generic blank spaces. I like artists like Lightning Bolt-bands that go in and kind of change things every time, play on the floor, set up in the middle of the room. They go in and they reinvent the space every time, which I feel is like the kind of thing that should just be happening. ~ Will Oldham

You know what's worse than being in rehab? Being in rehab over the holidays. You know what's worse than that? Being in a rehab that doesn't allow smoking. I mean, what the fuck? Addicts smoke. If we can't drink, we can't shoot up, and we can't ride the lightning bolt, at least we can smoke. ~ Darrell Hammond

My name is Bolt, Lightning Bolt. ~ Usain Bolt

I am not a general or a tactician, but her reasoning is clear. I am the little lightning girl - living electricity, a lightning bolt in human form. People know my name, my face, and my abilities. I am valuable, I am powerful, and Maven will do anything to stop me from striking back. ~ Victoria Aveyard

Hephaistion had known for many ages that if a god should offer him one gift in all his lifetime, he would choose this. Joy hit him like a lightning-bolt. ~ Mary Renault

Once, I had to drive Oliver to soccer, was ten minutes late, and learned that there had apparently been a misprint in the Bible on the Ten Commandments thing: Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not be late to soccer. My father was so pissed, I practically had to get the lightning bolt surgically removed from my back. ~ Deb Caletti

How long has it been since you wrote a story where your real love or your real hatred somehow got onto the paper? When was the last time you dared release a cherished prejudice so it slammed the page like a lightning bolt? ~ Ray Bradbury

Each of us is like a wave in the ocean, a gust of wind, a lightning bolt - unique, yet at the same time part of a pattern of forces. ~ P.Z. Myers

But I– (Jake)
But nothing, Captain. Heaven forbid you leave the helm for more than a minute. Anything could happen. God could toss down a lightning bolt and set fire to the ship. A sea monster could rise up from the depth of the ocean and swallow us whole. Or, dare I say it? The weight of male egos may be so great that it plops a hole right in the center of deck and we sink from it! (Serenity) ~ Kinley MacGregor

The boy, on the other hand, was a menace, in his father's eyes. He could DO THINGS, as he'd overheard it being described to his mother. He was dangerous. He had made a lightning bolt appear, for goodness' sake, like he was Thor himself. If he could do that, what more was he capable of? ~ Vrinda Pendred

In the center stood a marble alter, where a kid in a toga was doing some sort of ritual in front of a massive golden statue of the big dude himself:Jupiter the sky god, dressed in a silk XXXL purple toga, holding a lightning bolt.
"It doesn't look like that," Percy muttered.
"What?" Hazel asked.
"The master bolt," Percy said.
"What are you talking about?"
"I-" Percy frowned. For a second, he'd thought he remembered something. Now it was gone. "Nothing, I guess. ~ Rick Riordan

Where's Shelley?" I ask, scanning the room.
"Playing checkers, as usual," Georgia says, pointing to the corner. Shelley isn't facing me, but I recognize the back of her head and her wheelchair.
She's squealing, a hint that she won the game.
As I get closer to her, I catch a glimpse of who's playing against her. The dark hair should have been a clue that my life is about to be turned upside down, but it doesn't fully register. I freeze.
It can't be. My imagination must be going berserk.
But when he turns around and those familiar dark eyes pierce mine, reality zings up my spine like a lightning bolt.
Alex is here. Ten steps away from me. Oh, God, every feeling I've ever had for him comes rushing back like a tidal wave. I don't know what to do or say. I turn back to Georgia, wondering if she knew Alex was here. One look at her hopeful face tells me she did. ~ Simone Elkeles

Sophie at sixteen," he remembered. "Christ. She was
like a lightning bolt. And she knew it. Irritated the hell out of me. ~ Nora Roberts

Success is like a lightning bolt. It'll strike you when you least expect it, and you just have to keep the momentum going. You have to strike when the iron is hot. So for me, I just kept striking and striking to polish out the sword that I was making. ~ Michelle Phan

...that lightning bolt was mine ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Younger love, it seemed, was mainly about the idea of potential
the illusion that magical transformations were bound to occur when the person you think you love has a miraculous impromptu awakening after some metaphorical lightning bolt, made out of your wishes and projections, suddenly brings them to their senses. On the other hand, older love is all about what you are hoping is still possible, after you have mourned the death of the idea of yourself as manufacturer of miracles. Older love starts with the unpleasant truth that expecting a person to change for the better spontaneously, simply because you wish it, makes as much sense as counting on the lottery for next month's rent. ~ Merrill Markoe

Then a lightning bolt shot straight through my skivvies. Sha-ZAM! ~ Megan McCafferty

Martin Luther King's 1963 'I have a dream' speech was a thrilling milestone in the civil rights movement, so enduring that we tend to attribute its searing power to a kind of magic. But Gary Younge's meditative retrospection on its significance reminds us of all the micro-moments of transformation behind the scenes
the thought and preparation, vision and revision
whose currency fed that magnificent lightning bolt in history. ~ Patricia J. Williams

To harden the earth the rocks took charge: instantly they grew wings: the rocks that soared: the survivors flew up the lightning bolt, screamed in the night, a watermark, a violet sword, a meteor. The succulent sky had not only clouds, not only space smelling of oxygen, but an earthly stone flashing here and there changed into a dove, changed into a bell, into immensity, into a piercing wind: into a phosphorescent arrow, into salt of the sky. ~ Pablo Neruda

Her eyes met his. Garner started, feeling the implosion like a silent lightning bolt all through him. Those eyes, as green as river moss, watched him just above the surface of the water. Her pale hair floated all around her like the petals of some extravagant flower. In the next moment he caught his breath. It was not, could not possibly be Damaris, silent as a wild thing, her nose under water, and from what he could see, naked as an eel. A river creature, he realized, his pulse quickening again. Sunning in the shallows, breathing water like air as she gazed at him. He wondered whether, if he spoke, she would vanish with a twist and a ripple, like a fish.
From the short story Knights of the Well ~ Patricia A. McKillip

Nice shack," I tell him.
"Trade you."
"Any day."
"Really? You like it?" He seems genuinely pleased.
"What's not to like?"
He stands back and studies it as if for the first time. He nods. "Huh. Good to know."
We climb the three steps on the porch, but I grab his arm as he reaches for the door handle. The contact sends heat through my body, roasting me to the core. "Wait."
He pauses mid-motion and stares at my hand. "What? Is something wrong? You're not changing your mind are you?"
"No. I just...have to tell you something."
"What?"
I forced a nervous laugh. "Well, the good news is, you don't have to worry about me rejecting you anymore."
He shakes his head. "That is good news. But you say it like it's not."
I take a deep breath. Where is a good lightning bolt when you need one? Because even if I take a hundred deep breaths, this will still be humiliating...
"Emma?"
"I told my mom we were dating," I blurt. There. Doesn't that feel better? Nope. Nope, it doesn't.
While his smile surprises me, it mostly mesmerizes me beyond rational thought. "Are you kidding?" he says.
I shake my head. "It's the only thing she would believe. So now...now you have to pretend that we're dating if you come to my house. But don't worry, you don't ever have to go over there again. And in a few days, I'll pretend that we broke up."
He laughs. "No, you won't. I told her the same thing."
"Shut. Up."
"Why? What'd ~ Anna Banks

Computers can deliver nuclear explosions to precisely anywhere on earth.
A lightning bolt is made entirely of error. ~ Galway Kinnell

He has the attention span of a lightning bolt. ~ Robert Redford

Finding the book was like kissing a lightning bolt. ~ Karen Miller

Poetry for me is very easy. It's like a lightning bolt. I feel this calling, and the first line of the poem comes into my head, and I just have to go to the page, to the typewriter, to the computer or whatever and write it. ~ Gioconda Belli

Seeing him tower above me, lightning bolt raised, I had to fight the urge to cower and plead. I knew it was only a statue, but if you've ever been traumatized by someone, you'll understand. It doesn't take much to trigger those old fears: a look, a sound, a familiar situation. Or a fifty-foot-tall golden statue of your abuser - that does the trick. ~ Rick Riordan

Whether

Whether anger quickens a lagging stride,

and periodic burn-offs in the forest

revitalize exhausted soil and flora - .

Whether we should take pleasure in the wildcat


jubilation of a lightning bolt

that whips its silver vein of genesis

through the night sky, flash-photo of a white

birch upended, the root-system buckled


to swollen thunderheads - . And whether naming

an offense amounts to sour grapes and common

bitterness, or even the conceited nonsense

of unwashed yahoo multitudes, a yawping


insult to civilized behavior - . Whether

a July rainstorm, even when it drenches

the unprepared pedestrian and befuddles

traffic, might be extravagant, a joy,


like the whoops and escalating bop glissandos

of Gillespie's upraised horn, cascading pitches

a countersong to meteoric chalk marks

Perseids burn across the House of Leo - .


And whether peaceful ecstasy might float

up from a fifteen-second avalanche

reflected in the skier's goggles, his jacket

a spark of scarlet on the topmost slope,


waiting for the homeward track to clear. ~ Alfred Corn

Question (from a reader) : Will the Wise Goddess Athena overthrow Zeus and become the ruler of Olympus?
Athena's answer : What an interesting idea ... No, just kidding, Dad. Put away the lightning bolt. ~ Rick Riordan

They only see us when we do something they don't want us to do, Mahmoud realized. The thought hit him like a lightning bolt. When they stayed where they were supposed to be - in the ruins of Aleppo or behind the fences of a refugee camp - people could forget about them. But when refugees did something they didn't want them to do - when they tried to cross the border into their country, or slept on the front stoops of their shops, or jumped in front of their cars, or prayed on the decks of their ferries - that's when people couldn't ignore them any longer.
Mahmoud's first instinct was to disappear below decks. To be invisible. Being invisible in Syria had kept him alive. But now Mahmoud began to wonder if being invisible in Europe might be the death of him and his family. If no one saw them, no one could help them. And maybe the world needed to see what was really happening here. ~ Alan Gratz

Your shadow stealthily leaves nothing of where you go, like a poisoned needle that sews together my footsteps. Your light pliantly strikes the water tower, like a lightning bolt that severs the source of my life. -Soifon ~ Tite Kubo

I wanted to be in love like in the storybooks and songs and ballads. Love that hits you like a lightning bolt. And I'm sorry, because yeah, I get that you think I'm ridiculous. I get that you think I'm hilarious. I know, I get that you're mocking me. I get how stupid I am, but at least I know. ~ Holly Black

When your mother is the grave and your father is a lightning bolt it tends to make you kind of horny. And death has a way of removing one's inhibitions. ~ Aussiescribbler

When I first read the Harry Potter books and learned about the lightning bolt scar on Harry's forehead, I thought, Of course. Of course love worked that way. Of course it left its mark on the beloved. This secret mark protected you, kept you safe from harm, reminded you of who you were. All it took was the smallest symbol and you were safe. As I grew older and discovered my love of literature, I externalized the markings, wrote them down in my Moleskine, kept my notebook close - so much so that when the LIA counselors took away my notebook years later, they took away much of this protection. But they didn't take all of it. The empty pages still carried ghosts. ~ Garrard Conley

Just because you can say something, doesn't mean you should. You are the Crown Princess - your attitude reflects on all of us. You must behave," I choke out the next word, "…properly."

Then I glance at the ceiling and brace for the lightning bolt that's sure to come down from the sky and strike me right in the arse. Because…the irony.

When it doesn't come, I continue.

"You should be humble, Jane. Show gratitude. ~ Emma Chase

I once got stabbed with a lightning bolt. True story. (No it isn't). ~ Jarod Kintz

What is love? Is it a lightning bolt that instantaneously unites two souls in utter infatuation and admiration through the meeting of a simple innocent stare? Or is it a lustful seed that is sown in a dark dingy bar one sweaty summer's night only to be nurtured with romantic rendezvous as it matures into a beautiful flower? Is it a river springing forth, creating lifelong bonds through experiences, heartaches, and missed opportunities? Or is it a thunderstorm that slowly rolls in, climaxing with an awesome display of unbridled passion, only to succumb to its inevitable fade into the distance? I define love as education....
It teaches us to learn from our opportunities, and made the stupidest of decisions for the rightest of reasons. It gives us a hint of what "it" should be and feel like, but then encourages us to think outside the box and develop our own understanding of what "it" could be. Those that choose to embrace and learn from love's educational peaks and valleys are the ones that will eventually find true love, that one in a million. Those that don't are destined to be consumed with the inevitable ring around the rosy of fake I love you's and failed relationships. I have been lucky enough to have some of the most amazing teachers throughout my romantic evolution and it is to them that I dedicate this book. The lessons in life, passion and love they taught me have helped shape who I am today and who I will be tomorrow. To the love that stains my heart, but define ~ Ivan Rusilko

There's a metal train that a mile long and at the very back end a lightning bolt struck her. How long til it reaches and kills the driver, provided that he's a good conductor? ~ Bo Burnham

at man's height the mouth utters its cries, tosses forth its oracles, gives vent to its puns. To allow words to come to life, bare themselves, and show us by chance, for the space of a lightning bolt bony with dice, a few of our reasons for living and dying ~ Michel Leiris

It's a real lightning bolt, this Science of Phrenology. I've found out more in the last three days than I knew in my whole life before. Mrs. Guilbert has always been a nasty one, but now I know that she can't help it - she's got a big pit in her Benevolence spot. She fell in the quarry when she was a girl, and my guess is she cracked her Benevolence and was never the same since. ~ Mary Ann Shaffer

As he shook off his servant's grip and staggered heavily to his feet, the sunlight streaming through the outside door struck him full in the face.

Samantha gasped.

A fresh scar, still red and angry, bisected the corner of his left eye and descended down his cheek in a jagged lightning bolt, drawing the skin around it taut. It had once been an angel's face with the sort of masculine beauty reserved only for princes and seraphim. ~ Teresa Medeiros

The creative process is not like a situation where you get struck by a single lightning bolt. You have ongoing discoveries, and there's ongoing creative revelations. Yes, it's really helpful to be marching toward a specific destination, but, along the way, you must allow yourself room for your ideas to blossom, take root, and grow. ~ Carlton Cuse

They will never have this, will they? They might not ever know the feeling of cozying up to a lightning bolt, what it feels like to look at someone's face and see your heart there. ~ Alexandra Bracken

As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. ( ... ) You don't pick out the rain that soaks you to the skin when you come out of a concert. ~ Julio Cortazar

If you think your life's purpose needs to hit you like a lightning bolt, you'll overlook the little day-to-day things that fascinate you. ~ Derek Sivers

There is something quite amazing and monstrous about the education of upper-class women. What could be more paradoxical? All the world is agreed that they are to be brought up as ignorant as possible of erotic matters, and that one has to imbue their souls with a profound sense of shame in such matters until the merest suggestion of such things triggers the most extreme impatience and flight. The "honor" of women really comes into play only here: what else would one not forgive them? But here they are supposed to remain ignorant even in their hearts: they are supposed to have neither eyes nor ears, nor words, nor thoughts for this -- their "evil;" and mere knowledge is considered evil. And then to be hurled as by a gruesome lightning bolt, into reality and knowledge, by marriage -- precisely by the man they love and esteem most! To catch love and shame in a contradiction and to be forced to experience at the same time delight, surrender, duty, pity, terror, and who knows what else, in the face of the unexpected neighborliness of god and beast!
Thus a psychic knot has been tied that may have no equal. Even the compassionate curiosity of the wisest student of humanity is inadequate for guessing how this or that woman manages to accommodate herself to this solution of the riddle, and to the riddle of a solution, and what dreadful, far-reaching suspicions must stir in her poor, unhinged soul -- and how the ultimate philosophy and skepsis of woman casts anchor at this point!< ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

So you don't do one night stands. And you're not looking for a boyfriend, or a husband. What do you want, Reina?"
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. How could one sentence strike with the force of a lightning bolt? "How about you make me an offer? ~ Tara Leigh

Bolt actions speak louder than words. ~ Craig Roberts

I fill my lungs with the scent of lightning-born ozone, and cool air pushing out the heat, and the earth, opening up, releasing everything that's been baked into it by the searing sun. Dirt. Life. Country. Summer. ~ Tudor Robins

All I know is that the fear I have been battling all night is breaking down the door of my ignorance. As my feet slam down I feel not the hard, wet asphalt but the soft Persian rug that led to the staircase in my father's home. In the glow of lightning the dancing trees are illuminated but I see my mother in the glow of candlelight, spinning, twirling, her hair fanned out
behind her. It is falling over me, saturating my thoughts, and I cannot. I cannot let it in. ~ Gwenn Wright

Sottoportico San Zaccaria"

It rains on the roofs
As it rains in my poems
Under the thunder
We fit together like parts
Of a magic puzzle
Twelve winds beat the gulls from the sky
And tear the curtains
And lightning glisters
On your sweating breasts
Your face topples into dark
And the wind sounds like an army
Breaking through dry reeds
We spread our aching bodies in the window
And I can smell the odor of hay
In the female smell of Venice ~ Kenneth Rexroth

As we strolled into the hospital, I couldn't help thinking about Maroon 5's "Harder to Breathe" because I was having a difficult time staying calm. I had been kidnapped and beaten senseless by an agent of Lucifer, and yet the white coats the doctors wore scared me just as badly. The men who had taken me from my mother wore those same damned lab coats. Every time I saw one, it awakened a dormant fear inside me - fear that I'd be dragged away from someone I loved again, fear that I'd be placed into the waiting hands of another horrible person. It would never truly go away.
Michael's shoulder bumped mine, which shook me out of my thoughts. I glanced at him. "What?"
"You're frowning."
"Am I supposed to be smiling right now?"
He faced forward, looking at our reflection in the elevator doors. "No, but you look like you're about to bolt at any second."
I watched the digital numbers change one by one as we rose up to the right floor, fiddling with the rosary in the pocket of my leather jacket. Somehow, the beads had a calming effect on me. "I'm fine."
"Hard ass."
A tiny smirk touched my lips. "Stop thinking about my butt. You're an archangel."
He grinned, but didn't reply. ~ Kyoko M.

We came from a mystery and it's to a mystery we go Maybe there's something there, but I'm betting it's not God as any church understands Him. Look at the babble of conflicting beliefs and you'll know that. They cancel each other out and leave nothing. If you want truth, a power greater than yourselves, look to the lightning - a billion volts in each strike, and a hundred thousand amperes of current, and temperatures of fifty thousand degrees Fahrenheit. There's a higher power in that, I grant you. But here in this building? No. Believe what you want, but I tell you this: behind Saint Paul's darkened glass, there is nothing but a lie. ~ Stephen King

The image of him shifted with the violent frenzy of leaves. He was there and he wasn't, as the leaves whipped and the lightning fell away in a slow strobe effect across the expanse of sky. How he had gotten up there, I had no idea, but he had been there. Crouched in the tree in the middle of the courtyard, he watched me intently through the open window. ~ Gwenn Wright

The mind ... It's an engine essentially. That's what it is. A very delicate, intricate motor. And it's got all these pieces, all these gears and bolts and hinges. And we don't even know what half of them do. But if just one gear slips, just one ... Have you thought about that?
It's just like a car. No different. One gear slips, one bolt cracks, and the whole system goes haywire. Can you live knowing that?" He tapped his temple. "That it's all trapped in here and you can't get to it and you don't really control it. But it controls you, doesn't it? And if it decides one day that it doesn't feel like coming to work?" He leaned forward and they could see tendons straining in his neck. "Well, then you're pretty much good and fucked, aren't you? ~ Dennis Lehane

the hackers realizes which one is which. As a political statement, the hacker changes the amount of fluoride flowing into the drinking water. He plans to do this for only a few minutes. Almost immediately, lightning strikes a phone pedestal a mile down the road. The DSL line the hacker is using "goes dark". Panic finds its way across the hacker's face as he realizes he just murdered over a thousand people with fluoride poisoning. ~ Jeremy Martin

I love your eyes, my darling friend, Their play so passionate and bright'ning, When a sudden stare up you send, And like a heaven-blown lightning, It'd take in all from end to end But there's more that I admire: Your eyes when they're downcast In bursts of love-inspired fire And through the eyelash goes fast A somber, dull call of desire.. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky

If you can't see the sun you will be impressed with a street light. If you've never felt thunder and lightning you'll be impressed with fireworks. And if you turn your back on the greatness and majesty of God you'll fall in love with a world of shadows and short-lived pleasures. ~ John Piper

As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space
an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble
a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightning
view all created things like this. ~ Red Pine

The wheat had survived the hail and lightning of the summer storms, but luck could not deliver it from the cold. By the time the refugees took shelter in the old house, the wheat was dead, killed by the hard fist of a deep frost. ~ Rick Yancey

I loved being outside. We'd hold lightning bugs in our fingers and pretend they were diamond rings. ~ Loretta Lynn

The sun was so bright outside that for a moment, I couldn't see. But then I could, and there he was, leaning against the red Mustang, hands in his pockets, looking at the ground. He looked up, saw me, froze for a second ... and then his lightning smile flashed, and I realized I was smiling, too. ~ Kristan Higgins

If lightning strikes a rotten tree and it collapses, it's not the fault of the lightning. ~ Ayn Rand

We think that Hillary [Clinton] will be a symbol and a reality for the women of the world, and it's very important because so many - so many underdeveloped countries, not the least of which is Afghanistan, the women of the world need help, and she understands those issues and is a lightning rod for them. ~ Eleanor Smeal

The older I get, the less I am bothered by talk like that. I have total faith in my coach [Yohan Blake], total faith. ~ Usain Bolt

In the war I once drove a gunpowder cart down a mountain," declared Black. "The cart aflame. Lightning
striking to left and right. Knife in teeth. One hand on the reins, the other firing a pistol. French dragoons leaping
from all sides." He stared into the past, beholding glory. "City traffic is only a bit more difficult. ~ Raymond St. Elmo

I'd rather say something profound in an average way than say something average in a profound way. ~ Morgan Bolt

Shock and desire have my nerves tingling like I've been struck by horny lightning. ~ Nicole Christie

An image of that sexy, soul-searching stare sent a bolt of heat through her. Sexy? It wasn't sexy. It was…invasive. And annoying.

And sexy. ~ Christine Bell

The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.
So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought.
The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.
And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections! ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

A herd of minuscule lightning bugs poured out of One-Eye's nostrils. Good soldiers all, they fell into formation, spelling out the words Goblin is a Poof. ~ Glen Cook

He could feel the end of the battle approaching, and so could the blur of the Sith he faced in the Force, the shadow had become a pulsar of fear.

Easily, almost effortlessly, he turned the shadow's fear into a weapon: he angled the battle to bring them both out onto the window ledge.

Out in the wind. Out with the lightning. Out on a rain-slicked ledge above a half kilometer drop.

Out where the shadow's fear's fear made it hesitate.

Out where the shadow's fear turned some of it's Force-powered speed into a Force-powered grip on the slippery permacrete.

Out where Mace could flick his blade in one precise arc and slash the shadow's lightsaber in half.

One piece flipped back in through the cut open window. The other tumbled from opening fingers, bounced on the ledge, and fell through the rain towards the distant alleys below.

Now the shadow was only Palpatine: old and shrunken, thinning hair bleached white by time and care, face lined with exhaustion.

'For all your power, my lord,you are no Jedi. All you are, my lord,' Mace said evenly, staring past his blade, 'is under arrest. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover

Images barraged him. Connections darted electric. Veins. Roots. Forked lightning. Tributaries. Branches. Vines snaked around trees, herds of animals, drops of water running together.

I don't understand.

Fingers twined together. Shoulder leaned on shoulder. Fist bumping fist. Hand dragging Adam up from the dirt.

Cabeswater rifled madly through Adam's own memories and flashed them through his mind. It hurled images of Gansey, Ronan, Noah, and Blue so fast that Adam couldn't keep up with all of them.

Then the grid of lightning blasted across the world, an illuminated grid of energy.

Adam still did not understand, and then he did.

There was more than one Cabeswater. Or more of whatever it was. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

From when she was a baby, Tom has taught the girl to respect, but not fear, the forces of nature- the lightning that might strike the light tower on Janus, the oceans that batter the island. ~ M.L. Stedman

There are little wisps of jelly in a living brain. Deagle knows this well: neurons, transmitting signals - and the soul, so to speak, is somewhere in those flashes. He heard once on a science program that the spindle cell - present in humans, whales, some apes, elephants - may be at the heart of what we call our "selves."
What we recognize in the mirror - that thread we follow through time that we call "me"? It's just a diatom, a paramecium, a bit of ganglia that branches and shudders assertively. A brief brain orgasm, like lightning.
In short, it's all chemicals. You can regiment it easily enough: fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, escitalopram, citalopram - the brain can be washed clean, and you can reset yourself, Ctrl+Alt+Del. You don't have to be a prisoner of your memories and emotions. ~ Dan Chaon

Tints were charged with a leaden tinge from the solid cloud-bank overhead. The river was leaden; all distances the same; and even the far-reaching ranks of combing white-caps were dully shaded by the dark, rich atmosphere through which their swarming legions marched. The thunder-peals were constant and deafening; explosion followed explosion with but inconsequential intervals between, and the reports grew steadily sharper and higher-keyed, and more trying to the ear; the lightning was as diligent as the thunder, and produced effects which enchanted the eye and sent electric ecstasies of mixed delight and apprehension shivering along every nerve in the body in unintermittent procession. ~ Mark Twain

Rain falls on everyone, lightning strikes some. What cannot be changed is best forgotten. God made the world, and He saw that it was good. Not fair. Not happy. Not perfect. Good. ~ Mary Doria Russell

She wasn't absolutely sure who kissed whom this time. Maybe it was gravity tilting, stars exploding. It felt like it ...
She gasped into his open mouth, and he moaned. Moaned. She had no idea a sensation could go through her like that, traveling through her skin and nerves like lightning ...
Okay, this was kissing. Serious kissing. Not just a kiss before moving out, not a goodbye, this was Hello, sexy, and wow, she'd never even suspected it could feel this way. ~ Rachel Caine

Slant narrowed his eyes. "Do the Clans walk alone into the final battle?"
Half Moon flattened her ears. "Never alone!" She lifted her chin. "I will fight alongside Jayfeather."
Broken Shadow unsheathed her claws. "And I will fight alongside my son."
"I will fight beside Jagged Lightning and my kits to defeat this darkness." Owl Feather's eyes sparked.
Bluestar thrashed her tail. "And I will die a tenth time to defend ThunderClan!"
"These cats will never stand alone," Half Moon declared. "We are with them just as we have always been. ~ Erin Hunter

High overhead, in the reflected glare of arc lamps, one of the unfinished Fuller domes shut out two thirds of the salmon-pink evening sky, its ragged edge like broken gray honeycomb. The Sprawl's patchwork of domes tended to generate inadvertent microclimates; there were areas of a few city blocks where a fine drizzle of condensation fell continually from the soot-stained geodesics, and sections of high dome famous for displays of static-discharge, a peculiarly urban variety of lightning. ~ William Gibson

I wake up every morning bolt upright, whether it's a commercial, not that that's a good thing or a bad thing, because I shoot commercials in between movies. But whether it's a commercial or a movie where I'm shooting a major train wreck, the thing that worries me most is when I'm doing a performance thing. ~ Tony Scott

I love competing. I am so competitive. I definitely need to win because I hate losing. I am the type who if I know I will lose I won't compete. ~ Usain Bolt

True thought is pre-physical. This is the thinking-behind-the-thinking responsible for all the genuinely consequential choices we make in the world. A thinking that is not dependent on linear deduction, but that moves fast as lightning, making connections on different levels, bringing them together. ~ Eben Alexander

The most unusual salesman I ever met is a fellow who made a modest fortune purveying lightning rods. But he suddenly lost interest in his work. He got caught in a storm with a bunch of samples in his arms. ~ Shelley Berman

I've been thinking," he said huskily.
A tremulous smile curved her lips. "About what?"
"Trust. When I told you I couldn't count on someone loving me..."
"Yes, I remember."
"I realized that before I can have trust... actually feel it... I'll have to start doing it. Trusting blindly. I'll have to learn how. It's... difficult."
Her beautiful eyes shimmered. "I know, darling," she whispered.
"But if I'm ever going to try it with anyone, it has to be you."
Phoebe inched closer to him. Her eyes were so bright, they were like bottled lightning. "I've been thinking, too."
"About?"
"About surprises. You see, there was no way of knowing how much time Henry and I would have together before his decline started. As it turned out, it was even less time than we'd expected. But it was worth it. I would do it again. I wasn't afraid of his illness, and I'm not afraid of your past, or whatever might leap out at us. That's the chance everyone takes, isn't it? The only ironclad guarantee is that we'll love each other." Her voice thickened with emotion. "And I do, West. I love you so very much. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Lightning my pilot sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Towers in a modern town are a frill and a survival; they seem like the raised hands of the various churches, afraid of being overlooked, and saying to the forgetful public, Here I am! Or perhaps they are rival lightning rods, saying to the emanations of divine grace, Please strike here! ~ George Santayana

An unspoken question arose in those green eyes. Aelin?
She ignored the silent inquiry, unable to bear opening that silent channel between them again, and surveyed the powerful lines of his body, the sheer size of him. A gentle wind kissed with ice and lightning brushed against her wall offlame, an echo of his silent inquiry.
Her magic flared in answer, a ripple of power dancing through her.
As if it had found a mirror of itself in the world, as if it had found the countermelody to its own song.
Not once in those illusions or dreams had it done that. Had her own flame leaped in joy at his nearness, his power.
He was here. It was him, and he'd come for her. ~ Sarah J. Maas

But now I gotta pay,' he said.
To pay?'
For my sin. That's why I'm here, right? Justice?'
The Blue Man smiled. 'No, Edward. You are here so I can teach you something. All the people you meet here have one thing to teach you...That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more seperate a breeze from the wind.'
...'It was my stupidity, running out there like that. Why should you have to die on account of me? It ain't fair.'
The Blue Man held out his hand. 'Fairness,' he said, 'does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young...Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should?
It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.
You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.'
... 'I still don't understand,' Eddie whispered. 'What good came from your death?'
You lived,' the Blue Man answered.
But we barely knew each other. I might as well ~ Mitch Albom

For these are the bolt-holes of cornered Man - not to burrow or cower, not to spit or howl or chew off the limb snared, but to mend his broken bow with his own heartstrings, and ere his spark is snuffed out to fit to it and hurl forth everything at his back, be it his home and the very world he leaves. ~ Harley J. Sims

lightning Collecting all the world's lightning into one place is obviously impossible. What about gathering all the lightning from just one area? No place on Earth has constant lightning, but there's an area in Venezuela that comes close. Near the southwestern edge of Lake Maracaibo, there's a strange phenomenon: perpetual nighttime thunderstorms. There ~ Randall Munroe