Marveling Quotes

Candlelight flickered in the adjacent bedroom. She followed the ambient warmth to the threshold and paused there, marveling at what she saw. Lucan's austere bedroom had been transformed into something out of a dream. Four tall black pillar candles set into intricate silver sconces burned in each corner. Red silk draped the bed. On the floor before the fireplace was a cushioned next of fluffy pillows and even more crimson silk. It looked so romantic, so inviting.
A room intended for lovemaking.
She took a step farther inside. Behind her, the door closed softly on its own.
No, not quite on its own. Lucan was there, standing on the other side of the room, watching her. His hair was damp from a shower. He wore a loosely tied, satiny red robe that skated around his bare calves, and there was a heated look in his eyes that melted her where she stood.
"For you," he said, indicating the romantic setting. "For us tonight. I want things to be special for you."
Gabrielle was moved, instantly aroused by the sight of him, but she couldn't bear to make love the way things had been left between them.
"When I left tonight, I wasn't going to come back," she told him from the safety of distance. If she went any closer, she didn't think she'd have the strength to say what had to be said. "I can't do this anymore, Lucan. I need things from you that you can't give me."
"Name them." It was a soft command, but still a command. He moved toward her with careful ste ~ Lara Adrian

Do you know how hard it is to diet with a name like Cookie?" "That's so weird." I stared off into space, marveling at the similarities of our situation. "It's hard to diet with a name like Charley, too ~ Darynda Jones

A TWIST OF LIGHT-prologue
Reissue date; 6-16-14

The new mother mover the sacking away from the tiny red face, marveling at the perfect mouth and the arc of dark eyebrows of the child she cradled. "Did you ever see anything so pretty?" She spoke to no one in particular, but addressed her question to the group of women huddled inside the hut. Fashioned from cardboard and corrugated iron, the hut wasn't much bigger than the flatbed of the truck that had brought her here.

"Nothing's quite as pretty as a healthy baby." the flat vowels marked the midwife's origins in Oklahoma as surely as her faded sunbonnet and her residence in the labor camp. Set up less than two months ago, it already bulged with over five hundred people who'd been blown out of their homes along with the rich topsoil.(less) ~ Joyce Mandeville

Thanks for the hint," I laughed. "And thanks for the invitation too. Only I don't know if I can make it - " I stalled automatically, marveling at the strength of my reflex - the never-appear-too-eager one, for of course nothing would have stopped me. ~ Elaine Dundy

Then, marveling at the recuperative powers and endurance of the Ranger horse breed, he tightened the girths on Blaze's saddle and swung astride the bay, groaning softly as he did so. Ranger horses might recover quickly. Ranger apprentices took a little longer. It ~ John Flanagan

No one outside could imagine what it felt like to squeeze the life out of a man, to feel the jerking and juddering as you throttled away their last breath. Sometimes Jared found himself staring at his own hands, marveling at what they'd done, disgusted at their violence but proud of their ability to protect. ~ Holly Stone

The rest were nondescript, as yet undifferentiated - yet nondescripts, thought Harriet, were the most difficult of all human beings to analyze. You scarcely knew they were there, until - bang! Something quite unexpected blew up like a depth charge and left you marveling, to collect strange floating debris. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Marveling at this boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Kaitlyn remebered the things he'd given her, the sun-flooded afternoons, and the cool healing ocean waves, and the music he'd written. He'd given her everything that was best in him, everything he was.
She wanted to give him the same thing back.
I don't know how you can love me. The words came soflty, as if he were thinking them to himself. You've seen what I am.
That's why I do love you, Kaitlyn told him. I hope you'll still love me when you see what I am.
"I know what you are, Kait. Everything beautiful and brave and gallant and..." He stopped as if his throat had closed. "Everything that makes me want to be better for you. That makes me sorry I'm such a stupid mess..."
You looked like a knight with that shard, Kaitlyn said, moving toward him.
"Really?" He laughed shakily.
My knight. And I never said thank you.
She was almost touching him, now. Looking up into his eyes. What she could feel in him was something she'd only felt before when she gave him her life energy. Childlike, marveling joy. Trust and vulnerability. And such love...
Then she was in his arms and they weren't separate beings any longer. Their minds were together, sharing thoughts, sharing happiness beyond thought. Sharing everything.
She never even knew whether he kissed her. ~ L.J. Smith

He couldn't be -

Oh, Lord. He was. He was going to kiss her.

"Wait." Panicked, Maddie put both hands on his chest, holding him off.

"Your men, my servants … they could be watching us."

"I'm certain they're watching us. That's why we're going to kiss."

"But I don't know how. You know I don't know how."

His lips quirked. "I know how."

Those three little words, spoken in that low, devastating Scottish burr, did absolutely nothing to ease Maddie's concerns.

Thankfully, she had a reprieve. He pulled back and peered at her hair. He looked like a boy marveling at clockwork, wondering how it all worked. After a few moments, she felt him grasp the pencil holding her chignon.
With one long, slow tug, he eased it loose and cast it aside.

It landed in the loch with a splash.

His fingers sifted through her hair, teasing the locks free of their haphazard knot and arranging them about her shoulders. Tenderly. Like she'd always imagined a lover would. Sparks of sensation danced from her scalp to her toes.

"That was my best drawing pencil," she said.

"It's just a pencil."

"It came from London. I have a limited supply."

His thumb caressed her cheek. "It almost put out my eye. I've a limited supply of those, too. And it's better this way."

"But - " Her breath caught. "Oh."

He bracketed her cheeks with his hands, til ~ Tessa Dare

At some point in the night she had a dream. Or it was possible that she was partially awake, and was only remembering a dream? She was alone among the rocks on a dark coast beside the sea. The water surged upward and fell back languidly, and in the distance she heard surf breaking slowly on a sandy shore. It was comforting to be this close to the surface of the ocean and gaze at the intimate nocturnal details of its swelling and ebbing. And as she listened to the faraway breakers rolling up onto the beach, she became aware of another sound entwined with the intermittent crash of waves: a vast horizontal whisper across the bossom of the sea, carrying an ever-repeated phrase, regular as a lighthouse flashing: Dawn will be breaking soon. She listened a long time: again and again the scarcely audible words were whispered across the moving water. A great weight was being lifted slowly from her; little by little her happiness became more complete, and she awoke. Then she lay for a few minutes marveling the dream, and once again fell asleep. ~ Paul Bowles

As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea's foot and marveling at a midge's humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life. ~ Desiderius Erasmus

I calmed myself by walking into my nearby bookstore and marveling at all the books other people had written. So many people had finished and published novels; it couldn't be so hard, right? ~ Heidi Julavits

Mine. Kira had stood silently, embarrassed but proud, as the guardian examined the threading she had done. He made no comment, simply nodded and returned the small piece to her. But his eyes had been bright with interest, she could see. Each year following, he had asked to see her work. Kira always stood at her mother's side, never touching the fragile ancient cloth, marveling each time at the rich hues that told the history of the world. Golds and reds and browns. And here and there, faded pale, almost reduced to white, there had once been blue. Her mother showed her the faded places that remained of it. Her mother did not know how to make blue. Sometimes they talked of it, Kira and Katrina, looking at the huge upturned bowl of sky above their ~ Lois Lowry

We must open our eyes to admire God who hides and at the same time reveals himself in things and introduces us into the realms of mystery ... we must be pure and simple like children, capable of admiring, being astonished, of marveling, and being enchanted by the divine gestures of love and closeness we witness. ~ Pope John Paul II

The silence in the giant redwood forest near my house draws me...At eight in the morning, the great trees stand rooted in a silence so absolute that one's inmost self comes to rest. An aged silence. Some mornings I sleep through two alarms and awaken only after the first buses have arrived. I go anyway. There are hundreds of people in the woods before me. People speaking French, German, Spanish; people marveling to each other and calling to their children in Japanese, Swedish, Russian, and some languages I do not know. And children shrieking in the universal language of childhood. But the silence is always there, unchanged. It is as impervious to these passing sounds as the trees themselves. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

I signaled when Owen's wife was linked to him, who was linked to Yelena. Valek paused, marveling at the intricacies of magical communication. Ixia really needed to find a way to keep up. ~ Maria V. Snyder

After driving 30-minutes East of Seattle, I expect to see a great bowling alley. But, as we pull into the parking lot, all I see are pot holes, a horse and Amish buggy, and no cars to speak of- broken down or otherwise. Even the building is in shambles, needs painted and looks a bit haunted. The old road sign reading- Flicker Lanes- is half-burnt out. Seeing the building's interior lights on, I'm reassured that the place is open- but then again, maybe they've been left on by mistake. "There's LOTS of NICE bowling alleys in SEATTLE," I said. "Why did we come ALL THIS WAY to go BOWLING?"
"I take it that you've never BEEN here before."
"I don't think ANYONE HAS. I don't even KNOW what PLANET we're on."
"I don't know what PLANET you're on either... but the rest of us are on your ANUS."
I half-smile, marveling at his wittiness. ~ Giorge Leedy

It isn't a first kiss. It isn't even their first kiss. But it feels like one.
Not because it is fumbling or awkward. Not because she doesn't know where to put her hand, or he doesn't know where to put his nose. None of those. They slot together like puzzle pieces. As Allyson and Willem kiss for the first time in a year, both are thinking the same thing: This feels new.
Though perhaps thinking is not the right term, because with a kiss like this, thinking goes out the window and something more instinctual takes over: inner voices, gut instincts. 'Knowing it in your kishkes' is how Willem's saba would've described it.
In his kishkes, Willem is marveling at how Allyson found him, as Yael found Bram. He doesn't know how it happened, only that it did happen and that it means something. ~ Gayle Forman

No one could work harder to be happy," Tocqueville observes of Americans, marveling at the ceaseless, restless energy they expand in search of a better life. Rushing from one thing tho the next, an American will travel hundreds of miles in a day. He will build a house in which to pass his old age and then sell it before the roof is on. He will continually change paths "for fear of missing the shortest cut leading to happiness. ~ Darrin M. McMahon

Sometimes I think the biggest challenge in talking about the church is telling ourselves the truth about it - acknowledging the scars, staring down the ugly bits, marveling at its resiliency, and believing that this flawed and magnificent body is enough, for now, to carry us through the world and into the arms of Christ. ~ Rachel Held Evans

The idea that their paths might have easily not crossed leaves her breathless, like a near-miss accident on a highway, and she can't help marveling at the sheer randomness of it all. Like any survivor of chance, she feels a quick rush of thankfulness, part adrenaline and part hope. ~ Jennifer E. Smith

I have a son,' says JJ, marveling at the sound and truth of the words ...
'You know, I love you and Mom ... But I don't even know this baby and the love- ' JJ clears his throat and wipes his suddenly wet eyes with the back of his hand. 'It's bigger. I'd lie down in traffic for him right now. I didn't know it could get bigger.'
Joe nods. 'This is only the beginning. ~ Lisa Genova

She squeezed my hand, and I drew a shaky breath, marveling at the fact that while on an ordinary leave in an ordinary place, I'd somehow fallen in love with an extraordinary girl named Savannaah Lynn Curtis. ~ Nicholas Sparks

From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it. That the starry vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous marvelings, is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and superber trophies than all the stars in universal space. ~ Herman Melville

I first met Brother Booker at the House of Peace, while delivering donated Christmas trees and lights during the holidays.
I had no grasp of the depth of the man's character, or the quality of the individuals he surrounded himself with. But I remember walking away amazed by the man, and marveling at the chaos that swirled around him...having researched his life and talked with many of his nearest and dearest, I am even more amazed today. ~ Willy Thorn

When we were children, letters were like fun toys. We played with them through our building blocks. We colored them in books. We danced and sang along with TV puppets while learning C was for "cookie." Soon, letters turned into words. Words turned into sentences. Sentences turned into thoughts. And along the way, we stopped playing with them and stopped marveling at A through Z. ~ Ji Lee

All she could think of was how pure and unblemished, how soft and pink his baby skin had been. How his wonderful body, small and pristine, used to feel in her arms, how she'd kiss every inch of him, marveling at his beauty. When she was a new mom, she'd felt like she couldn't pull her eyes away. Now she cast her eyes back at her catalog quickly, not wanting to look at her own son, at what he'd seen fit to do to his beautiful body ... Not a big deal, Mom, he said reading her mind ... Lot's of people have tattoos. ~ Lisa Unger

It constantly amazes me that men and women wander the earth marveling at the highest mountains, the deepest ocean, the whitest sands, the most exotic islands, the most intriguing birds of the air and fish of the sea - and all the time never stop to marvel at themselves and realize their infinite potential as human beings. ~ Matthew Kelly

I dreamed my shoulders held up the sky for a thousand hawks that squawked and cawed and beat their feathered wings against the hotness of the day. I supported their flight, watching and marveling, until sweat dripped from my body, and groans crossed my lips over fatiguing muscles.
Choosing to let the sky fall, I awoke.
My eyes opened to a cast of hawks gripping me in their talons. They supported my weight, hauling me high above the clouds through a blue expanse of heaven. And though they struggled - squawking and flapping wearily - never once did a single bird release its hold. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

It's getting late. I should probably go in."
"C'mon, I'll walk you."
He holds out a hand to me. I take it, falling into step beside him--marveling at how right it feels. I glance up at him, his face illuminated by the moonlight. Something in his expression sparks a memory. Ryder at the beach, watching me when he thought I wasn't looking. Ryder at school, glancing at me from across the hall. Ryder at Magnolia Landing, sitting across the table from me at Sunday dinner, watching me eat. I always interpreted his expression as something bordering on contempt--disdain, maybe. But now…now he's looking at me with that exact same expression, and I realize that maybe I was wrong all along.
In so, so many ways. ~ Kristi Cook

Out of her mouth came a stream of discrete, miraculous gadgets - tiny but mobile creatures so intricately small that generations marveled and would go on marveling at how the inventor ever got the motors into them. ~ Richard Powers

I cannot take a subway without marveling at the lottery logic that brings together a random sampling of humanity for one minute or two, testing us for kindness and compatibility. Is that not what civility is? ~ Bill Hayes

Maisie was next, and stepped up to vote. She wondered how many hands had trembled already today, holding their pencils over the ballots, with all the little boxes. Did most women take to their new, belated right with aplomb, or did they take their time, marveling over the beauty of it all, the silent speech that would be heard?
Or did they think, like she did, that there was a long queue behind her and she had to get to work.
She wrote a thick X, drew over it twice, and dropped the paper in the ballot box.
That's how you spell a shout. With an X. ~ Sarah Jane Stratford

Marveling at the 180 degree swings of life in general. ~ Jojo Moyes

What were you thinking of just now?" he asked instead of answering my question. He walked over to the window, stood beside me and joined me looking out. We gazed across the Elbe River, marveling at the amazing and incredible beauty spread out before us in the glorious sunny early morning. Then he continued, "When we came and opened the door, your face was so intent on some sort of dream. Not a happy one I think," it was a very gentle tone, the loving nuances. I saw the look of longing in his eyes and my heart skipped a crazy beat.
I clasped my hand more firmly and gazed toward the view of the far line that marked the edge of the Elbe river of Hamburg Harbor. I was thinking about Hamburg," I told him. "Thinking about the escape they seem to offer."
"Escape?" he asked. "I would have said a prison, rather."
"That, too. It's a false escape of course. I was thinking about their dangers, too.
"Go on," he said.
Then I put my fancy into words. "I suppose I used to love the feeling of shutting out the world, of drawing a line of that water in the harbor around me and letting all the achingly familiar scenes stay outside the line. I started to cry. "It's been years, Adrian. I kept everything in my heart because that's what all was left; everything, absolutely everything. It's completely messed up and you have no idea, at all. I was left alone to mourn. ~ Bea C. Pilotin

It's not a war. It's an annihilation," he'd mumbled low for her ears only. She'd been unable to respond, only focusing on her own breath and marveling that she in fact was still breathing. ~ Jettie Necole

And then he's up up and away and I'm counting on one hand the number of men I've killed and marveling at how little it's done to help me hold it together in Warner's presence. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I was really young, just playing with puppets a lot and doing all the voices and acting it out - normal kid stuff. But then I'd hear my mother talking about it to her relatives, marveling at it as if it was something unique. And it made me realize, 'Oh, maybe I do have a talent for something.' ~ Steve Buscemi

There are many going afar to marvel at the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the long courses of great rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the movements of the stars, yet they leave themselves unnoticed! ~ Augustine Of Hippo

You used to be brave once, sir, you used to say 'Everything is permitted,' sir, and now you've got so frightened!" Smerdyakov murmured, marveling. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I wish I could have known Barbara Bodichon
and her whole vibrant circle of smart, fearless women friends. I'd like to gather them all around the dinner table, along with a few smart, fearless friends of my own. We'd open a bottle of wine and sit back to to hear their stories
marveling at all the things that have changed, and commiserating about all the things that haven't. And then we'd tell them thank you. We'd tell them that we never take for granted the rights they fought so hard for. And that we hope we, too, can make the world just a little better for the ones who follow after. ~ Terri Windling

Good. You're awake."
Annwyl gulped and prayed the gods were just playing a cruel joke on her. She raised herself on her elbows when that deep, dark voice spoke again, "Careful. You don't want to tear open those stitches."
With utter and almost heart-stopping dread, Annwyl looked over her shoulder and then couldn't turn away. There he was. An enormous black dragon, his wings pressed tight against his body. The light emanating from the pit fire causing his shiny black scales to glisten. His huge horned head rested in the center of one of his claws. He looked so casual. If she didn't know better, she'd swear he smirked at her, his black eyes searing her from across the gulf between them. A magnificent creature. But a creature
nonetheless. A monster.
"Dragons can speak, then?" Brilliant, Annwyl. But she really didn't know what else to say.
"Aye." Scales brushed against stone and she bit the inside of her mouth to stop herself from cringing. "My name is Fearghus."
Annwyl frowned. "Fearghus?" She thought for a moment. Then dread settled over her bones, dragging her down to the pits of despair. "Fearghus . . . the Destroyer?"
"That's what they call me."
"But you haven't been seen in years. I thought you were a myth." Right now, she silently prayed he was a myth.
"Do I look like a myth?"
Annwyl stared at the enormous beast, marveling at the length and breadth of him. Black scales covered the entire length of his body, two black horns ~ G.A. Aiken

Floating in the void free of gravity I made my way along the side of the ship. I listened to my own breaths. It was so dark and I was so weightless that I had to look for my bubbles to be sure which way was up. I swam backward a little away from the boat and into outer space and waved my arm through the water. Sure enough the phosphorescents appeared trailing my movement like the tail of a shooting star. I let myself tip upside down and floated there watching the gentle snowstorm marveling that a world of such strangeness existed here all the time just under the surface. ~ Elisabeth Eaves

Well, then, say you're staying." Derry blinked against the moist gleam in his eyes. "Did I not just say it's where you belong, you great damn fool - " He choked off the sentence as he smothered Ez in a fierce hug and kissed his cheek. Ezra hugged him back and wheezed out an agreement to stay put. I couldn't help marveling at the sight; it was something rare in my own time, fearless physical affection between guys. In trying to label each other and the whole world, we'd lost something precious. ~ Tamara Allen

The Actor, noticing a closed bookshop, dismounted from the horse which he tied to a street lamp. He woke up the bookseller and bought a Spanish grammar and dictionary. He set out again across town marveling at the way that the words of the foreign language were freshly gathered fruits and not old and dry. They touched the senses marvelously, new like young beggars who accost you, not yet words but the every things they designate, happily running naked before being clothed again in abstraction. ~ Georges Limbour

To this point, he could not really have said that he loved William. Feel the terror of responsibility for him, yes. Carry thought of him like a gem in his pocket, certainly, reaching now and then to touch it, marveling. But now he felt the perfection of the tiny bones of William's spine through his clothes, smooth as marbles under his fingers, smelled the scent of him, rich with the incense of innocence and the faint tang of shit and clean linen. And thought his heart would break with love. ~ Diana Gabaldon

[Bloodraven] fingered the cloth, marveling at the tightness of the weave. The things that the men of the lowlands were capable of never ceased to amaze him. Those few stolen items that trickled up to the northern tribes were bartered at high prices, for even the mountain humans who worked in fear of their lives for the tribes, did not create such clever things. But then again, perhaps they were capable, but chose not to share with the race that had hunted and oppressed them for generations. Understandable. If he were in the same position he'd have offered nothing more than the simplest tasks demanded of him. Not for the first time he considered the tribal chieftains of old fools for choosing to make war with the humans instead of ally with them. ~ P.L. Nunn

If you will cling to Nature, to the simple in Nature, to the little things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable things and seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you, not in your intellect, perhaps, which lags marveling behind, but in your inmost consciousness, waking and cognizance. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Will laughed and shook his head. "We're married, Hanna," he said, and it sounded like he was still marveling at it, too ...
"Say, I was wondering what you were doing in this tuxedo." I wrapped his tie around my fist and tugged on it, bringing him closer. "Unless you're just a really, really snappy dresser. But then, you have this ring on your finger, too ... "
"I want to be sweet with you," he said, palm curving over my shoulder and slipping down between my breasts. There was a weight there, a pressure to his touch I could feel even through the thin layers of fabric. Despite the softness in his voice, it screamed of possession, of lust. "I feel like I should be sweet tonight. ~ Christina Lauren

The sign says BLIND PEOPLE'S ARBORETUM. I stand, still out of breath, dripping sweat and marveling at such a beautiful concept - in China, of all places, where disabled people are still often considered flawed and superfluous. I have never seen anything like this, even in the United States or Europe, and yet here, hidden away on the edge of a noisy, bustling, modernizing Chinese city, someone has taken the effort and expense to plant this beautiful, tree-hugging garden - an island of stop-and-rest in a sea of smash-and-grab. 5. ~ Rob Gifford

The first thing I encountered on entering the museum was the earliest steam engine built in England. As I walked on, marveling at each successive mechanical wonder, I realized that I was witnessing the history of machinery, as if on parade, from its primitive beginnings to the present day, in all its complex and astounding elaborations.
Henry Ford's so-called "pile of scrap iron" was organized not only with scientific clarity but with impeccable, unpretentious good taste. Relics of the times associated with each machine were displayed beside it. To me, Greenfield Village, inside and out, was a visual feast. ~ Diego Rivera

I scanned the body head to toe, marveling at the thoroughness of the devastation, and the Passenger murmured its appreciation. Someone had spent a great deal of time and effort doing this, and although the results were certainly not up to my high artistic standards, they still showed a certain primitive vigor and abandon that were admirable, even infectious. The technique was clumsy, inefficient, even brutal, but it spoke of a wild experimental joy in the work that was a pleasure to see. After all, so very few of us seem to enjoy our jobs nowadays. Whoever did this clearly did enjoy it. Just as clearly - at least to me - the killer was exploring, seeking something he had not quite found, in spite of a very thorough search. ~ Jeff Lindsay

Years later, she would spend countless hours looking at all the photos from that time, marveling at how young she was, how slim, how unlined her face, how luxurious her hair. She thought, when you're older, looking at your younger self is like looking at a promise you couldn't keep. ~ Elizabeth J. Church

I was standing on the deck looking down at a gang of stevedores working on the dock thirty feet below. One of them recognized me, nudged his neighbor, and pointed. All at once the whole gang stopped working to yell, 'Booster! Booster Keaton!' They waved in wild excitement, and I waved back, marveling, because it was fifteen years of more since they could have seen my last M-G-M picture.
And if there is sweeter music this side of heaven I haven't heard it. Dr. Avedon said I could live to be a hundred years old. I intend to do it. For who would not wish to live a hundred years in a world where there are so many people who remember with gratitude and affection a little man with a frozen face who made them laugh a bit long years ago when they and I were both young? ~ Buster Keaton

Eleanor had followed Richard, marveling, as always, at the male inability to speak the language of the heart. "One day I hope to understand why men see sentiment as the ultimate enemy," she said dryly, "but I'll not be holding my breath until it happens. ~ Sharon Kay Penman

Dr. Gingrich, who was increasingly fascinated with the leaps of Mrs. Goodhall's mind, was still marveling over the confusing image of a nonpracticing homosexual; it struck him as a brilliant accusation to make of anyone who was slightly (or hugely) different. ~ John Irving

I just thought that a naked pregnant woman checking herself out would be so funny. I actually wish there was more of it. An actually, it was my idea to put it in, because I just remember being pregnant and just marveling at the hugeness of my body, like looking in the mirror from all angles. But that's something you do privately. ~ Jennifer Lopez

We shared a sympathetic look, mutually marveling that kids who commit grown-up crimes still have their little-boy sweet tooth. ~ Lionel Shriver

I am silent, marveling at the power we have to unlock a person. ~ Claire Bidwell Smith

Skylar: There was this Irish guy, walking down the beach one day. And he comes across a bottle, and this Genie pops out. The genie turns to the Irishman and says "You've released me from my prison, so I'll grant you three wishes." The Irish guy thinks for a minute and says "What I really want is a pint of Guiness that never empties." And POOF! A bottle appears. He slams it down, and lo and behold it fills back up again. Well, the Irish guy can't believe it. He drinks it again, and again BOOM! It fills back up. So, while the Irish guy is marveling at his good fortune, the Genie is getting impatient, because it's hot and he wants to get on with his freedom. He says "Let's go, you have two more wishes." The Irish guy slams his drink again, it fills back up, he's still amazed. The Genie can't take it anymore. He says "Buddy, I'm boiling out here. What are your other two wishes?" The Irish guy looks at his drink, looks at the Genie and says... "I guess I'll have two more of these. ~ Matt Damon

marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. ~ Khaled Hosseini

After a moment, he said, in almost marveling tones, 'Are you deranged? ~ Naomi Novik

As evolutionary time is measured, we have only just turned up and have hardly had time to catch breath, still marveling at our thumbs, still learning to use the brand-new gift of language. Being so young, we can be excused all sorts of folly and can permit ourselves the hope that someday, as a species, we will begin to grow up. ~ Lewis Thomas

I marvel at everything as if it were new. ~ Anna Akhmatova

Marveling at his own boldness, he said softly, I would enter your sleep if I could, and guard you there, and slay the thing that hounds you, as I would if it had the courage to face me in fair daylight. But I cannot come in unless you dream of me. ~ Peter S. Beagle

I took a cautious step inside, marveling at the sight before me. A vast conservatory awaited, or what 'once' was a conservatory. Sunlight beamed through the enormous glass roof. I realized that its position at the center of the house precluded its visibility from below. In awe, my heart beating wildly, I lingered in an arbor covered with bright pink bougainvillea, with a trunk so thick, it was larger than my waist. Most of it had died off, but a single healthy vine remained, and it burst with magenta blossoms. I could smell citrus warming in the sunlight, and I immediately noticed the source: an old potted lemon tree in the far corner. 'This must have been Lady Anna's.'
I walked along the leaf-strewn pathway to a table that had clearly once showcased dozens of orchids. Now it was an orchid graveyard. Only their brown, shriveled stems remained, but I could imagine how they'd looked in their prime. I smiled when I picked up a tag from one of the pots. 'Lady Fiona Bixby. She must have given them her own names.' Perhaps there hadn't been anything sinister going on in the orchard, after all. Lady Anna was clearly a creative spirit, and maybe that played out in her gardens and the names she gave to her flowers and trees. ~ Sarah Jio

In seconds an 'up' elevator came rushing toward them. The doors opened, revealing a mostly-empty interior.
"Sometimes," he said, "you have to go up to go down."
Liv followed him in, marveling at the scene below them. She could see the full scope of Dragon Con from her bird's eye vantage, the floor a living mass of bodies. Tiny toy-sized people in cosplay moved in bright splotches of color ten stories down. And it wasn't just one section. The atrium level was equally packed, the hallways leading to ballrooms around the hotel teaming with people. With an unsettling rush, the elevator sprang upward, the figures shrinking into specks. Liv's stomach contracted and she pulled back from the glass. They were incredibly high. ~ Danika Stone

I still can't stop marveling that this same boy chose me; and I'm glad that I can't, for we should rejoice in being seen, needed. Loved. ~ Melanie Benjamin

She was almost touching him, now. Looking up into his eyes. What she could feel in him was something she's only felt before when she gave him her life energy. Childlike, marveling joy. Trust and vulnerability. And such love ...
Then she was in his arms and they weren't separate beings any longer. Their minds were together, sharing thoughts, sharing a happiness beyond thought. Sharing everything. ~ L.J.Smith

In God's plan every life is long enough and every death is timely. And though you and I might wish for a longer life, God knows better. And - this is important - though you and I may wish a longer life for our loved ones, they don't. Ironically, the first to accept God's decision of death is the one who dies. While we are shaking heads in disbelief, they are lifting hands in worship. While we are mourning at a grave, they are marveling at heaven. While we are questioning God, they are praising God. ~ Max Lucado