Lord Dunsany Quotes

Nobody can tell you about that sword all that there is to be told of it; for those that know of those paths of Space on which its metals once floated, till Earth caught them one by one as she sailed past on her orbit, have little time to waste on such things as magic and so cannot tell you how the sword was made, and those who know whence poetry is, and the need that man has for song, or know any one of the fifty branches of magic, have little time to waste on such things as science, and so cannot tell you whence its ingredients came. Enough that it was once beyond our Earth and was now here amongst our mundane stones; that it was once but as those stones, and now had something in it such as soft music has; let those that can define it. ~ Lord Dunsany

They came as quietly as rain, and went away like mists drifting. There were jests about them and songs. And the songs outlasted the jests. At last they became a legend, which haunted those farms for ever: they were spoken of when men told of hopeless quests, and held up to laughter or glory, whichever men had to give. And ~ Lord Dunsany

Come to Elfland,' the troll said.

The child thought for a while. Other children had gone, and the elves always sent a changeling in their place, so that nobody quite missed them and nobody really knew. She thought awhile of the wonder and wildness of Elfland, and then of her own home.

'N-no,' said the child.

'Why not?' said the troll.

'Mother made a jam roll this morning,' said the child. And she walked on gravely home. ~ Lord Dunsany

Winter descended on Erl and gripped the forest, holding the small twigs stiff and still: in the valley it silenced the stream; and in the fields of the oxen the grass was brittle as earthenware, and the breath of the beasts went up like the smoke of encampments. And Orion still went to the woods whenever Oth would take him, and sometimes he went with Threl. When he went with Oth the wood was full of the glamour of the beasts that Oth hunted, and the splendour of the great stags seemed to haunt the gloom of far hollows; but when he went with Threl a mystery haunted the wood, so that one could not say what creature might not appear, nor what haunted and hid by every enormous bole. What beasts there were in the wood even Threl did not know: many kinds fell to his subtlety, but who knew if these were all? ~ Lord Dunsany

Rodriguez seldom concerned himself with the past, holding that the future is all we can order the scheme of.
And maybe even here he was wrong. ~ Lord Dunsany

And all her unsaid thanks so burned in her heart that all of a sudden she rose and left her tower and went out to the open starlight, and lifted her face to the stars and the place of Orion, and stood all dumb though her thanks were trembling upon her lips; for Alveric had told her one must not pray to the stars. With face upturned to all that wandering host she stood long silent, obedient to Alveric: then she lowered her eyes, and there was a small pool glimmering in the night, in which all the faces of the stars were shining. "To pray to the stars," she said to herself in the night, "is surely wrong. These images in the water are not the stars. I will pray to their images, and the stars will know." And ~ Lord Dunsany

Bricks without straw are more easily made than imagination without memories. ~ Lord Dunsany

The years are going by us like huge birds, whom Doom and Destiny and the schemes of God have frightened up out of some old gray marsh. ~ Lord Dunsany

Of pure poetry there are two kinds, that which mirrors the beauty of the world in which our bodies are, and that which builds the more mysterious kingdoms where geography ends and fairyland begins, with gods and heroes at war, and the sirens singing still, and Alph going down to the darkness from Xanadu. ~ Lord Dunsany

Indeed if one had just seen him at the end of the evening with the dusk and the mist of the fenlands close behind him he might have believed that in the dusk and the mist was an army that followed this gay worn confident man.
Had the army been there Niv was sane.
Had the world accepted that an army was there, still he was sane.
But the lonely fancy that had not fact to feed on, nor the fancy of any other for fellowship, was for its loneliness mad. ~ Lord Dunsany

And there, with their gables lifting into the sunlight above deep hedgerows beautiful with spring. He saw the cottages of earthly men. Past them he walked while the beauty of evening grew, with songs of birds, and scents wandering from flowers, and odours that deepened, and evening decked herself to receive the Evening Star. ~ Lord Dunsany

All sound arises out of Silence
and dissolves into Silence.
All thought arises out of Silence
and dissolves into Silence.
The universe arises out of Silence
and dissolves into Silence.
Suffering arises out of Silence
and dissolves into Silence.
The unbounded spaciousness of Silence,
filled with the clear light of Awareness,
dissolves the roots of pain and sorrow.
Take refuge in Silence and know
unshakable joy ~ Lord Dunsany

But I called, as we came near, to one who stood beside the water's edge, asking him what men did in Astahahn and what their merchandise was, and with whom they traded. He said, "Here we have fettered and manacled Time, who would otherwise slay the gods." I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and he said, "All those gods whom Time has not yet slain." (from "Idle Days on the River Yann") ~ Lord Dunsany

Nothing is as certain as a closed mind ~ Lord Dunsany

Rodriguez, in addition to the pleasant glow in the mind that comes from a generous action, had another feeling that gives all of us pleasure, a feeling of increased safety; for while he had the ring upon his finger and Morano went unpaid the thought could not help occurring, even to a generous mind, that one of these windy nights Morano might come for his wages. ~ Lord Dunsany

grave monsters of fable in deeps of the ferny forest danced minuets that witches had made of their whims and their laughter, long ago long ago in their youth before cities had come to the world. And the trees of the forest heavily lifted slow roots out of the ground and swayed upon them uncouthly and then danced as on monstrous claws, and the insects danced on the huge waving leaves. And in the dark of long caverns weird things in enchanted seclusion rose out of their age-long sleep and danced in the damp ~ Lord Dunsany

Fame as she walked at evening in a city saw the painted face of Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas-lamp, and many kneeled unto her in the dirt of the road. "Who are you?" Fame said to her. "I am Fame," said Notoriety. Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew she had gone. And Notoriety presently went forth and all her worshippers rose and followed after, and she led them, as was most meet, to her native Pit. ~ Lord Dunsany

Yet in the blood of man there is a tide, an old sea-current rather, that is somehow akin to the twilight, which brings him rumours of beauty from however far away, as driftwood is found at sea from islands not yet discovered: and this spring-tide or current that visits the blood of man comes from the fabulous quarter of his lineage, from the legendary, the old; it takes him out to the woodlands, out to the hills; he listens to ancient song. ~ Lord Dunsany

There passed a child of four, a small girl on a footpath over the fields, going home in the evening to Erl. They looked at each other with round eyes.

"Hullo," said the child.

"Hullo, child of men," said the troll.

. . . "What are you?" said the child.

"A troll of Elfland," answered the troll.

"So I thought," said the child.

"Where are you going, child of men?" the troll asked.

"To the houses," the child replied.

"We don't want to go there," said the troll.

"N-no," said the child.

"Come to Elfland," the troll said.

The child thought for a while. Other children had gone, and the elves always sent a changeling in their place, so that nobody quite missed them and nobody really knew. She thought awhile of the wonder and wildness of Elfland, and then of her own house.

"N-no," said the child.

"Why not?" said the troll.

"Mother made a jam roll this morning," said the child. And she walked on gravely home. Had it not been for that chance jam roll she had gone to Elfland.

"Jam!" said the troll contemptuously and thought of the tarns of Elfland, the great lily-leaves lying flat upon their solemn waters, the huge blue lilies towering into the elf-light above the green deep tarns: for jam this child had forsaken them! ~ Lord Dunsany

She gave thanks to the images of the stars for the joy she had had of the night, when the constellations shone in their myriad majesty, and moved like an army dresses in silver mail, marching from unknown victories to conquer in distant wars. She praised those bright reflections shimmering down in the pool. ~ Lord Dunsany

The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. ~ Lord Dunsany

Into that charm and the gloom and the deep silence Oth moved gravely; and a solemness came on his face as he entered the wood; for to go on quiet feet through the wood was the work of his life, and he came to it as men come to their heart's desire. ~ Lord Dunsany

The fear of dogs is deep and universal amongst all that are less than Man. ~ Lord Dunsany

Her feet half rested half floated, upon the floor; Earth scarcely held her down, so fast was she becoming a thing of dreams. No love of hers for Earth, or of the children of Earth for her, had any longer power to hold her there. And ~ Lord Dunsany

Our lord is a magic lord as we all desired, and magical things have sought him from over there, and they all obey his hests."
"It is so," said all but Gazic. And Gazic rose up in a pause of their gladness.
"Many strange things," he said, "have entered our village, coming from over there. And it may be that human folk are best, and the ways of the fields we know. ~ Lord Dunsany

Then I perceived, what I had never thought, that all these staring houses were not alike, but different one from another, because they held different dreams. ~ Lord Dunsany

To those who may have wisely kept their fancies within the boundary of the fields we know it is difficult for me to tell of the land to which Alveric had come, so that in their minds they can see that plain with its scattered trees and far off the dark wood out of which the palace of Elfland lifted those glittering spires, and above them and beyond them that serene range of mountains whose pinnacles took no colour from any light we see. Yet it is for this very purpose that our fancies travel far, and if my reader through fault of mine fail to picture the peaks of Elfland my fancy had better have stayed in the fields we know. Know then that in Elfland are colours more deep than are in our fields, and the very air there glows with so deep a lucency that all things seen there have something of the look of our trees and flowers in June reflected in water. And the colour of Elfland, of which I despaired to tell, may yet be told, for we have hints of it here; the deep blue of the night in Summer just as the gloaming has gone, the pale blue of Venus flooding the evening with light, the deeps of lakes in the twilight, all these are hints of that colour. And while our sunflowers carefully turned to the sun, some forefather of the rhododendrons must have turned a little towards Elfland, so that some of that glory dwells with them to this day. ~ Lord Dunsany

It was the hour when gauze-winged insects are born that only live for a day. ~ Lord Dunsany

Imagine (if you dare) a whimsical marriage of Lord Dunsany and S.J. Perelman, and you have something approaching the tales of Rhys Hughes, filled with gaudy colour, slapstick, puns, fantastic creatures, and the occasional unexpected chill. Hughes' world is a magical one - and his language if the most magical thing of all. ~ T.E.D. Klein

I should have shouted "No" and left him. "But at least" said Satan in the deeps of my mind, "know what the temptation is before you do anything hastily. ~ Lord Dunsany

Then on the River I saw the dream-built ship of the god Yoharneth-Lehai, whose great prow lifted grey into the air above the River of Silence. Her timbers were olden dreams dreamed long ago, and poets' fancies made her tall, straight masts, and her rigging was wrought out of the people's hopes. Upon her deck were rowers with dream-made oars, and the rowers were the people of men's fancies, and princes of old story and people who had died, and people who had never been. ~ Lord Dunsany

Alderic, Knight of the Order of the City and the Assault, hereditary Guardian of the King's Peace of Mind, a man not unremembered among the makers of myth, pondered so long upon the Gibbelins' hoard that by now he deemed it his. Alas that I should say of so perilous a venture, undertaken at dead of night by a valorous man, that its motive was sheer avarice! Yet upon avarice only the Gibbelins relied to keep their larders full, and once in every hundred years sent spies into the cities of men to see how avarice did, and always the spies returned again to the tower saying that all was well.
It may be thought that, as the years went on and men came by fearful ends on that tower's wall, fewer and fewer would come to the Gibbelins' table: but the Gibbelins found otherwise.
("The Hoard Of The Gibbelins") ~ Lord Dunsany

They were like some popular cry, some vehement fancy, that comes down on a page of history for a day, and passes, leaving no other record at all except those lines on one page. And ~ Lord Dunsany

The gardener hath gathered up this autumn's leaves. Who shall see them again, or who wot of them? And who shall say what hath befallen in the days of long ago? ~ Lord Dunsany

How beautiful are dreams! In dreams the dead may live, even the long dead and the very silent. ~ Lord Dunsany

There seemed to be a magic all round that fire of big logs quietly smouldering in the woods upon Autumn's discarded robe that lay brilliant there; and it was not the magic of Elfland, nor had Ziroonderel called it up with her wand: it was only a magic of the wood's very own. And ~ Lord Dunsany

And you that sought for magic in your youth but desire it not in your age, know that there is a blindness of spirit which comes from age, more black than the blindness of eye, making a darkness about you across which nothing may be seen, or felt, or known, or in any way apprehended. ~ Lord Dunsany

There is no beauty or romance or mystery in the sea except for the men that sail abroad upon it, and those who stay at home and dream of them. ~ Lord Dunsany

All the wild ways he had shown me, mosses and rushes and heather, the home of the curlew and snipe, and the grazing grounds of the geese, all those enchanted fields and the magical willows lying under the edge of the bog, all were to be spoiled, hidden, sold and disenchanted by that terrible force named Progress. ~ Lord Dunsany

I have lived to see that being seventeen is no protection against becoming seventy, but to know this needs the experience of a lifetime, for no imagination copes with it. ~ Lord Dunsany

There is indeed a great deal of futility amongst the human race which we do not commonly see, for it all forms part of our illusion; but let a man be much annoyed by something that others do, so that he is separated from them and has to leave them, and looks back at what they are doing, and he'll see at once all manner of whimsical absurdities that he had not noticed before; and Ramon Alonzo in the shade of his oak, waiting for the noon to go by, grew very contemptuous of the attitude that the world took up towards shadows. ~ Lord Dunsany

How would some townsman feel who loved his city, and knew that a band of farmers with their ploughs threatened his very pavements and would tear his high buildings down? As he would feel, fearing that turnips would thrive where his busses ran, so I felt and feared for Lisronagh. ~ Lord Dunsany

He approached the stranger and drew his sword.
"Señor," he said, "we will now discuss music. ~ Lord Dunsany

I heard a cry and awoke and found that I had dreamed, and looking out of my house into the street I found that a flash of lightning had killed a child. Then I knew that the gods still lived. ~ Lord Dunsany

And as the sea wind blew on that high and lonely place, there began to slip away from the voter's mind the meaningless phrases that had crowded it long - thumping majority - victory in the fight - terminological inexactitudes - and the smell of paraffin lamps dangling in classrooms, and quotations taken from ancient speeches because the words were long. ~ Lord Dunsany

If one who looked from a tower for a new star, watching for years the same part of the sky, suddenly saw it (quite by chance while thinking of other things), and knew it for the star for which he had hoped, how many millions of men would never care? ~ Lord Dunsany

What could she do who would not cast away magic and leave the home that an ageless day had endeared to her while centuries were withering like leaves upon earthly shores, whose heart was yet held by those little tendrils of Earth, which are strong enough, strong enough? ~ Lord Dunsany

So he sat and listened to pigeons talking, till it seemed to him they were trying to lull the restlessness of Earth, and thought that they might by drowsy incantation be putting some spell against time, through which it could not come to harm their nests; for the power of time was not made clear to him yet and he knew not yet that nothing in our fields has the strength to hold out against time. ~ Lord Dunsany

Come with me, ladies and gentlemen who are in any wise weary of London: come with me: and those that tire at all of the world we know: for we have new worlds here. ~ Lord Dunsany

The witch approached it and pared its edges with a sword that she drew from her thigh. Then she sat down beside it on the earth and sang to it while it cooled. Not like the runes that enraged the flames was the song she sang to the sword: she whose curses had blasted the fire till it shrivelled big logs of oak crooned now a melody like a wind in summer blowing from wild wood gardens that no man tended, down valleys loved once by children, now lost to them but for dreams, a song of such memories as lurk and hide along the edges of oblivion, now flashing from beautiful years of glimpse of some golden moment, now passing swiftly out of remembrance again, to go back to the shades of oblivion, and leaving on the mind those faintest traces of little shining feet which when dimly perceived by us are called regrets. She sang of old Summer noons in the time of harebells: she sang on that high dark heath a song that seemed so full of mornings and evenings preserved with all their dews by her magical craft from days that had else been lost, that Alveric wondered of each small wandering wing, that her fire had lured from the dusk, if this were the ghost of some day lost to man, called up by the force of her song from times that were fairer. ~ Lord Dunsany

Hooded, and veiled with their night-like tresses, The Fates shall bring what no prophet guesses." And ~ Lord Dunsany

And indeed he had no sooner come to the field than he saw all the toadstools leaning over one way, and that the way he was going; for just as thorn trees all lean away from the sea, so toadstools and every plant that has any touch of mystery, such as foxgloves, mulleins and certain kinds of orchis, when growing anywhere near it, all lean towards Elfland. By this one may know before one has heard a murmur of waves, or before one has guessed an influence of magical things, that one comes, as the case may be, to the sea or the border of Elfland. ~ Lord Dunsany

Then said Fate to Chance: "Let us play our old game again." And they played it again together, using the gods as pieces, as they had played it oft before. So that those things which have been shall all be again, and under the same bank in the same land a sudden glare of singlight on the same spring day shall bring the same daffodil to bloom once more and the same child shall pick it, and not regretted shall be the billion years that fell between. And the same old faces shall be seen again, yet not bereaved of their familiar haunts. And you and I shall in a garden meet again upon an afternoon in summer when the sun stands midway between his zenith and the sea, where we met oft before. For Fate and Chance play but one game together with every move the same, and they play it oft to while eternity away. ~ Lord Dunsany

I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full. ~ Lord Dunsany

Nothing is unobtainable to the sword. ~ Lord Dunsany

Knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance. ~ Lord Byron

Opinions are made to be changed - or how is truth to be got at? ~ Lord Byron

Of course he burst through the door. It cracked against the massive slabs that formed the stone walls, sending splinters flying, and I didn't have to try very hard for the startled jump as Lord Pecus strode into the room.
I gave a maidenly shriek, and in a moment of truly inspired acting, snatched my dressing gown from the bed to my chest and assumed pose #35, Maidenly Horror. Hands clasped below the breasts and clutching my dressing gown as if to protect girlish modesty, eyes wide- maybe finishing school had been useful for something after all. I thought I might have gone too far, but Lord Pecus, who at my shriek had stopped two strides into the room with a look of horror on his mask, hastily turned his face to the wall. He tried to utter a disjointed apology but I threw one of the pot-pourri bowls at him, and it smashed satisfyingly on the wall, cutting off the attempt. ~ W.R. Gingell

The man who does not learn to wait upon the Lord and have his thoughts molded by Him will never possess that steady purpose and calm trust, which is essential to the exercise of wise influence upon others, in times of crisis and difficulty. ~ Dixon Edward Hoste

The first Sunday after my coming to the plantation, he called them together, and began to read the twelfth chapter of Luke. When he came to the 47th verse, he looked deliberately around him, and continued - "And that servant which knew his lord's will," - here he paused, looking around more deliberately than before, and again proceeded - "which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself" - here was another pause - "prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." "D'ye hear that?" demanded Peter, emphatically. "Stripes," he repeated, slowly and distinctly, taking off his spectacles, preparatory to making a few remarks. "That nigger that don't take care - that don't obey his lord - that's his master - d'ye see? - that 'ere nigger shall be beaten with many stripes. Now, 'many' signifies a great many - forty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty lashes. That's Scripter! ~ Solomon Northup

3But You, O LORD, dknow me; You have seen me, And You have etested my heart toward You. ~ Richard Blackaby

We have been in recess since July, and during that time there have been a fuel crisis, a Danish no vote, the collapse of the Euro and a war in the middle east, but what is our business tomorrow? The Insolvency Bill [Lords]. It ought be called the Bankruptcy Bill [Commons], because we play no role. ~ Tony Benn

The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion, it chases all other fears before it." - Charles Spurgeon "We are more concerned about looking stupid (fear of people) than we are about acting sinfully (fear of the Lord)." - Edward T. Welch ~ Randy Alcorn

Time is important to me because I want to sing long enough to leave a message. I'm used to singing in churches where nobody would dare stop me until the Lord arrives! ~ Mahalia Jackson

Returning to the library, Marcus saw Lillian lying on her back on the carpeted floor. His first thought was that she must have drifted into oblivion, but as he approached, he saw that she was holding a long wooden cylinder in her free hand, and squinting through one end. "I found it," she exclaimed in triumph. "The kaleidoscope. It's verrrry interesting. But not quite what I 'spected."
Silently he reached out, plucked the instrument from her hand, and gave her the other end to look through.
Lillian promptly gasped in amazement. "Oh, that's lovely ... How does it work?"
"One end is fitted with strategically placed panels of silvered glass, and then ... " His voice faded as she turned the thing toward him.
"My lord," she pronounced in solemn concern, viewing him through the cylinder, "you have three ... hundred ... eyes." She dissolved into a fit of giggles that shook her until she dropped the kaleidoscope. ~ Lisa Kleypas

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul! ~ Horatio Spafford

My father was afraid of his father, I was afraid of my father, and I don't see why my children shouldn't be afraid of me. ~ Lord Mountbatten

All of science can be divided into physics and stamp-collecting. ~ Lord Kelvin

Those who depend on the merits of their ancestors may be said to search in the roots of the tree for those fruits which the branches ought to produce. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Are you really going to turn down gifted help? That's your plan? Do without what could make all the difference?"
"My plan is to move swiftly, strike fast, and get out. You would slow me down."
She arched an admonishing eyebrow. "And if you break a leg in a badger hole while moving swiftly, who is going to help you? I'm going with you, Lord Rahl, and that is all there is to it."
Richard pressed his lips tight as he appraised the determination in her dark eyes.
"You are one stubborn little girl."
"Not a girl," she said with conviction. "Samantha, sorceress serving the Lord Rahl."

******

Richard sighed as he rose up from beside Kahlan. "I know. But there's no choice. It's something I have to do. This threat could kill people in numbers beyond your ability to imagine. I'm the Lord Rahl. I have to do what is necessary to protect all the people of the New World."
Ester dipped her head. "I can't argue with the word of the Lord Rahl..." Ester gestured at Samantha. "But why is she going?"
"Because she is stubborn," Richard said. ~ Terry Goodkind

Can any praise be worthy of the Lord's majesty? ~ Saint Augustine

Well and good if all things change, O Lord God, provided I am rooted in You. ~ San Juan De La Cruz

Behold the Lord of Life nailed to a cross, with the thorn-crown about his brow, with bleeding head, and hands, and feet. What! can you look upon this miracle of miracles, the death of the Son of God, without feeling within your bosom a marvellous adoration that language never can express? And when you feel the blood applied to your conscience, and know that he has blotted out your sins, you are not a man unless you start from your knees and cry, Let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. ~ Anonymous

Lord Worth: 'I think you may be quite useful to me. The heiress has a brother.'
Captain Audley: 'I am not the least interested in her brother,' objected the Captain. ~ Georgette Heyer

Any day you had gym class was a weird school day. It started off normal. You had English, Social Studies, Geometry, then suddenly your in Lord of the Flies for 40 minutes. Your hanging from a rope, you have hardly any clothes on, teachers are yelling at you, kids are throwing dodge balls at you and snapping towels - you're trying to survive. And then it's Science,Language, and History. Now that is a weird day. ~ Jerry Seinfeld

The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits ... [The Scripture] teaches us that we must not think of man's real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love. ~ John Calvin

This I would like to be- braver and bolder,
Just a bit wiser because I am older,
Just a bit kinder to those I may meet,
Just a bit manlier taking defeat;
This for the New Year my wish and my plea-
Lord, make a regular man out of me.

This I would like to be- just a bit finer,
More of a smiler and less of a whiner,
Just a bit quicker to stretch out my hand
Helping another who's struggling to stand,
This is my prayer for the New Year to be,
Lord, make a regular man out of me.

This I would like to be- just a bit fairer,
Just a bit better, and just a bit squarer,
Not quite so ready to censure and blame,
Quicker to help every man in the game,
Not quite so eager men's failings to see,
Lord, make a regular man out of me.

This I would like to be- just a bit truer,
Less of the wisher and more of the doer,
Broader and bigger, more willing to give,
Living and helping my neighbor to live!
This for the New Year my prayer and my plea-
Lord, make a regular man out of me. ~ Edgar A. Guest

The glow of a lamp filled the main bedroom with quiet amber light. The unmistakable rattle of ice in a glass floated to her ears. Assuming that Shaw was in a drunken stupor, Livia went to the doorway.
The sight that greeted her eyes caused her to gasp.
Gideon Shaw was reclining in a slipper tub that had been set near the fire, his head leaning back against the mahogany rim, one long leg dangling carelessly over the side. He held an ice-filled glass in his hand, his gaze arrowing to hers as he took a swallow. Steam rose in veils from the bathwater, condensing on the golden curvature of his shoulders. Droplets glistened on the amber curls of his chest and the small circles of his nipples.
Good Lord in heaven, Livia thought dazedly. Gentlemen suffering the aftereffects of an excess of strong spirits usually looked terrible. "Death's head on a mop stick" was how Marcus liked to describe them. However, Livia had never seen anything as magnificent as an unshaven and unkempt Gideon Shaw in his bath. ~ Lisa Kleypas

In the foothills of the Himalayas, one hears the prayer: "Oh Lord, we know not what is good for us. You know what it is. For it we pray." ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

There is no problem in the family, ward, or stake that cannot be solved if we look for solutions in the Lord's way by counseling - really counseling - with one another. ~ M. Russell Ballard

Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Don't thank the lord, I gave you that compliment ... Thank me. ~ Hannibal Buress

Vengeance is ours saith the Lord and the writers. ~ Stanley Christopher

The more time that passes without an answer and the longer we wander through the wilderness of silence and shadow, the more fearful we become that maybe God isn't all we have believed him to be. It's in those moments that Satan plants in us the temptation to 'throw away this confident trust in the Lord.' The enemy wants us to forget 'the great reward it brings you' (Hebrews 10:35). ~ Kasey Van Norman

One of my biggest disappointments is watching the trailer for the second 'Lord of the Rings' film and having Gandalf in it. Why? You know, he died in the first one, why give it away in the trailer just to try and sell a thousand more seats? It's daft. ~ Nick Frost

When it is the Lord's work in which we rejoice, we need not be afraid of being too glad. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Mother Duncan, do kisses wash off?............"Lord, na! Freckles," she cried. "At least, the anes ye get from people ye love dinna. They dinna stay on the outside. They strike in until they find the centre of your heart and make their stopping-place there, and naething can take them from ye-I doubt if even death-Na, lad, ye can be reet sure kisses dinna wash off! ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

I do not think of him as Lord Ian Mackenzie, aristocratic brother of a duke and well beyond my reach; not as the Mad Mackenzie, an eccentric people stare at and whisper about.
To me, he is simply Ian. ~ Jennifer Ashley

I want to stay in the habit of 'glancing' at my problems and 'gazing' at my Lord. ~ Joni Eareckson Tada

And out of darkness came the hands that reach thro' nature, moulding men. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Thoren Smallwood, a sinewy ranger with a weak chin and a weaker mouth hidden under a thin scraggle of beard, gave Jon and Sam a cool look. He had been one of Alliser Thorne's henchmen, and had no love for either of them. "The Lord Commander's place is at Castle Black, lording and commanding," he told Mormont, ignoring the newcomers, "it seems to me."
"If you are ever Lord Commander, you may do as you please," Mormont told the ranger, "but it seems to me that I have not died yet, nor have the brothers put you in my place. ~ George R R Martin

18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly. ~ Gary Chapman

Lord Almighty your grace is all I need. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I take a step closer to her because that's my impulse - to be near her. ~ Emery Lord