Meet Me At The River Quotes

Just because it won't last doesn't mean it isn't worth something. ~ Nina De Gramont

Hi, my name is Ashley, and I'll be your Harbinger today. I will be acting as an interim instructor for all your necromancy needs." She flashed her best stewardess smile and gave a little Vanna wave.
"Ashley, as delighted as I am to meet you, don't you think it might be hard to teach me? I'm in a cage that you can't get into. Oh, and - " I grabbed the bars with both hands, "I'm a little distracted right now by the fact that I'm being held by a psychotic killer."
Ashley cocked a single eyebrow, a look of mild amusement on her face. "Geez," she said, looking at Brid. "Is he always this big of a drama queen? ~ Lish McBride

When it comes to staying myself - my career isn't my life, it doesn't come home with me. So it's a piece of piss staying grounded and not being changed by it. The same things I've always liked still satisfy me. My team's the same and my group of friends are the same. Of course I'm bowled over by people's response to 21, and when I meet artists I love, it blows my mind. But it baffles me as well. I go home and my best friend laughs at me, rather than going to a celebrity-studded party to rub shoulders with people who know me but who I don't know. I'm Z-list when it comes to that sh**. ~ Adele

A rain of pebbles from overhead makes me glance up in time to see Ruthann step onto the lip of the cliff, another fifteen feet above me. Her body is wrapped tight in a pure white robe.

"Ruthann!" I shout, my voice caroming off the rock walls, an obscenity.

She looks down at me. Across the distance our eyes meet.

"Ruthann, don't," I whisper, but she shakes her head.

I'm sorry.

In that half-second, I think about Wilma and Derek and me, all the people who do not want to beleft behind, who think we know what is best for her. I think about the doctors and the medicines Ruthann lied about taking. I think about how I could talk her down from that ledge like I have talked down a dozen potential suicide victims. Yet the right thing to do, here, is subjective. Ruthann's family, who wants her alive, will not be the one to lose hair from drugs, to have surgery to remove her breast, to die by degrees. It is easy to say that Ruthann should come down from that cliff, unless you are Ruthann.

I know better than anyone what it feels like to have someone else make choices for you, when you deserve to be making them yourself.

I look at Ruthann, and very slowly, I not.

She smiles at me, and so I am her witness -- as she unwraps the wedding robe from her narrow shoulders and holds is across her back like the wide wings of a hawk. As she steps off the edge of the cliff and rises to the Spirit World. As t ~ Jodi Picoult

With Romeo and Juliet, you're talking about two people who meet one night, and get married the same night. I believe in love at first sight-but it hasn't happened to me yet. ~ Leonardo DiCaprio

I know what's wrong with Laura. What's wrong with Laura is that I'll never see her for the first or second or third time again. I'll never spend two or three days in a sweat trying to remember what she looks like, never again will I get to a pub half an hour early to meet her, staring at the same article in a magazine and looking at my watch every thirty seconds, never again will thinking about her set something off in me like 'Let's Get It On' sets something off in me. And sure, I love her and like her and have good conversations, nice sex and intense rows with her, and she looks after me and worries about me and arranges the Groucho for me, but what does all that count for, when someone with bare arms, a nice smile, and a pair of Doc Martens comes into the shop and says she wants to interview me? Nothing, that's what, but maybe it should count for a bit more. ~ Nick Hornby

But come on - tell me the proposal story, anyway."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really. Just keep in mind that I'm a guy, which means I'm genetically predisposed to think that whatever mushy romantic tale you're about to tell me is highly cheesy."

Rylann laughed. "I'll keep it simple, then." She rested her drink on the table. "Well, you already heard how Kyle picked me up at the courthouse after my trial. He said he wanted to surprise me with a vacation because I'd been working so hard, but that we needed to drive to Champaign first to meet with his former mentor, the head of the U of I Department of Computer Sciences, to discuss some project Kyle was working on for a client." She held up a sparkly hand, nearly blinding Cade and probably half of the other Starbucks patrons. "In hindsight, yes, that sounds a little fishy, but what do I know about all this network security stuff? He had his laptop out, there was some talk about malicious payloads and Trojan horse attacks - it all sounded legitimate enough at the time."

"Remind me, while I'm acting U.S. attorney, not to assign you to any cybercrime cases."

"Anyhow. . . we get to Champaign, which as it so happens, is where Kyle and I first met ten years ago. And the limo turns onto the street where I used to live while in law school, and Kyle asks the driver to pull over because he wants to see the place for old time's sake. So we get out of the limo, and he's making thi ~ Julie James

Are you okay, baby?
I don't know. She sounded dazed. Am I alive?
I'm not certain either of us are. Give me a minute and we'll go for round two.
He felt movement and managed to turn his head toward her and pry open one eye. She lifted her head and looked pointedly at his soft cock with a small smile.
"You're feeling optimistic, aren't you?" she said aloud, laughter in her voice.
His fingers found her hair, wrapping a length around his fist. He gave a gentle tug and made an effort to find his voice. "That's a challenge, woman, and all good soldiers find a way to meet a challenge."
He felt her laughter in his mind, that soft, melting molasses that just poured in and filled him with happiness. How had he ever managed without her?
"I wasn't challenging you, Sammy. I'm not certain I'll ever be able to walk again," she pointed out. "I think I have skid marks inside."
Alarm spread instantly. "Did I hurt you?"
"You know you didn't, but we were a little on the wild side. I'm definitely going to be a little sore, but I'm perfectly willing to give up walking. ~ Christine Feehan

Oh! my dearest love, why are our pleasures so short and so interrupted? How long is this to last?
Know you, my best Mary, that I feel myself, in your absence, almost degraded to the level of the vulgar and impure. I feel their vacant, stiff eyeballs fixed upon me, until I seem to have been infected with their loathsome meaning
to inhale a sickness that subdues me to languor. Oh! those redeeming eyes of Mary, that they might beam upon me before I sleep! Praise my forbearance
oh! beloved one
that I do not rashly fly to you, and at least secure a moment's bliss. Wherefore should I delay; do you not long to meet me? All that is exalted and buoyant in my nature urges me towards you, reproaches me with the cold delay, laughs at all fear and spurns to dream of prudence. Why am I not with you? ~ Michael Kelahan

I can't say what made me fall in love with Vietnam - that a woman's voice can drug you; that everything is so intense. The colors, the taste, even the rain. Nothing like the filthy rain in London. They say whatever you're looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived. The smell: that's the first thing that hits you, promising everything in exchange for your soul. And the heat. Your shirt is straightaway a rag. You can hardly remember your name, or what you came to escape from. But at night, there's a breeze. The river is beautiful. You could be forgiven for thinking there was no war; that the gunshots were fireworks; that only pleasure matters. A pipe of opium, or the touch of a girl who might tell you she loves you. And then, something happens, as you knew it would. And nothing can ever be the same again. ~ Graham Greene

So, who are they really, these hundred thousand white supremacists? They're every white guy who believed that this land was his land, made for you and me. They're every down-on-his-luck guy who just wanted to live a decent life but got stepped on, every character in a Bruce Springsteen or Merle Haggard song, every cop, soldier, auto mechanic, steelworker, and construction worker in America's small towns who can't make ends meet and wonders why everyone else is getting a break except him. But instead of becoming Tom Joad, a left-leaning populist, they take a hard right turn, ultimately supporting the very people who have dispossessed them.

They're America's Everymen, whose pain at downward mobility and whose anger at what they see as an indifferent government have become twisted by a hate that tells them they are better than others, disfigured by a resentment so deep that there are no more bridges to be built, no more ladders of upward mobility to be climbed, a howl of pain mangled into the scream of a warrior. Their rage is as sad as it is frightening, as impotent as it is shrill. ~ Michael S. Kimmel

How could something new and pure issue from this? It may be from the remotest regions of the spirit that words and figures will come, images and gestures, veiled and unveiled as in a dream. When they meet in their heady course, and the spark of the wonderful is born from the marriage of strange and most strange, then I will know I am facing the new radiance. It will give me a dubious look because, even though I have conjured it up, it exists beyond the concepts of my wakeful thinking; its light is not daylight; it is inhabited by figures which I do not recognize, but know at first sight. Its weight has a different heaviness; its colour speaks to the new eyes which my closed lids have given one another; my hearing has wandered into my fingertips and learns to see; my heart, now that it lives behind my forehead, tastes the laws of a new, unceasing, free motion. I follow my wandering senses into this new world of the spirit and come to know freedom. Here, where I am free, I can see what nasty lies the other side told me. ~ Paul Celan

I know that I've lost something now because this keeps happening, and I feel as if this is all I ever come to, to this place, this knife, this feeling, almost killing, and I wonder that I'm not drunk because I feel fucked up and cold and hot, and this man, the drunk man, he's backing away from me toward a parked car and he trips over the parking meter and stumbles and takes a few steps and there's a wall he can follow along and he's scuttling back into the doorway of the bar and his off-white shirt gets hazy like cottonwood down floating off the river back home but it's hot in the spring there, back home, when the cottonwoods are dropping, and nothing about this night is even warm at all except my fist around the handle of the knife that's still cold, and there's the smell of the river water, the water in the air, and water everywhere, over my eyes and the city and the night, and I wonder why the water's not frozen because it's cold, cold every night here, so fucking cold, and no amount of weed will warm me up because I'm a long way from home and my bed and my room and my house and my family and anything and everything and everyone that I have ever loved, and I can sleep on a dirty floor with gum and spiders and garbage and wrappers and ants and dust and spit and cum, and I can sleep here and wake up, and I can sleep here and wake up again, but no amount of sleeping and waking will ever make it right. ~ Peter Brown Hoffmeister

The Wind Will Carry Us

In my night, so brief, alas
The wind is about to meet the leaves.
My night so brief is filled with devastating anguish
Hark! Do you hear the whisper of the shadows?
This happiness feels foreign to me.
I am accustomed to despair.
Hark! Do you hear the whisper of the shadows?
There, in the night, something is happening
The moon is red and anxious.
And, clinging to this roof
That could collapse at any moment,
The clouds, like a crowd of mourning women,
Await the birth of the rain.
One second, and then nothing.
Behind this window,
The night trembles
And the earth stops spinning.
Behind this window, a stranger
Worries about me and you.
You in your greenery,
Lay your hands – those burning memories –
On my loving hands.
And entrust your lips, replete with life's warmth,
To the touch of my loving lips
The wind will carry us!
The wind will carry us! ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

Where I lived at Pencey, I lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new dorms. It was only for juniors and seniors. I was a junior. My roommate was a senior. It was named after this guy Ossenburger that went to Pencey. He made a pot of dough in the undertaking business after he got out of Pencey. What he did, he started these undertaking parlors all over the country that you could get members of your family buried for about five bucks apiece. You should see old Ossenburger. He probably just shoves them in a sack and dumps them in the river. Anyway, he gave Pencey a pile of dough, and they named our wing alter him. The first football game of the year, he came up to school in this big goddam Cadillac, and we all had to stand up in the grandstand and give him a locomotive - that's a cheer. Then, the next morning, in chapel, he made a speech that lasted about ten hours. He started off with about fifty corny jokes, just to show us what a regular guy he was. Very big deal. Then he started telling us how he was never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down his knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God - talk to Him and all - wherever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs. The only good part of ~ J.D. Salinger

Are you going to change yet again, shift your position according to the questions that are put to you, and say that the objections are not really directed at the place from which you are speaking? Are you going to declare yet again that you have never been what you have been reproached with being? Are you already preparing the way out that will enable you in your next book to spring up somewhere else and declare as you're now doing: no, no, I'm not where you are lying in wait for me, but over here, laughing at you?'
'What, do you imagine that I would take so much trouble and so much pleasure in writing, do you think that I would keep so persistently to my task, if I were not preparing – with a rather shaky hand – a labyrinth into which I can venture, into which I can move my discourse... in which I can lose myself and appear at last to eyes that I will never have to meet again. I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write. ~ Michel Foucault

Kay found six and a half acres of land just off the Ouachita River at the mouth of Cypress Creek outside of West Monroe, Louisiana. It was at the end of a dirt road in one of the most heavily forested areas on the river. The classified advertisement in the newspaper described it as a "Sportsman's Paraside." When we drove out to see the land, I knew it was perfect as soon as we crested the hill that leads down to the house where we still live today. The place was absolutely perfect.
The real estate lady sensed my excitement and told me, "Now, Mr. Robertson, I'm required by law to inform you that this home sits in a floodplain."
"Perfect," I told her. "I wouldn't want it if it didn't. ~ Phil Robertson

She was looking at him steadily; he however, found it difficult to look back at her; it was like gazing into a brilliant light.

Nice view, he said feebly, pointing toward with window.

She ignored this. He could not blame her.

I couldn't think what to get you, she said.

You didn't have to get me anything.

She disregarded this too.

I didn't know what would be useful. Nothing too big, because you wouldn't be able to take it with you.

He chanced a glance at her. She was not tearful; that was one of the many wonderful things about Ginny, she was rarely weepy. He had sometimes thought that having six brothers must have toughened her up.

She took a step closer to him.

So then I thought, I'd like you to have something to remember me by, you know, if you meet some Veela when you're off doing whatever you're doing.

I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be honest.

There's the silver lining I've been looking for, she whispered, and then she was kissing him as she had never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it was blissful oblivion better than firewhiskey; she was the only real thing in the world, Ginny, the feel of her, one hand at her back and one in her long, sweet-smelling hair-

The door banged open behind them and they jumped apart.

Oh, said Ron pointedly. Sorry.

Ron ~ J.K. Rowling

Meet me tonight, six o'clock sharp, at the gates of the municipal hospital. It is very important that you are precise. Not five minutes early, not five minutes late. In case I'm not there, you leave straight away. Got it?"

Ingrid aka 'Alis K'
The Informer ~ Steen Langstrup

Advice"

I must do as you do? Your way I own
Is a very good way, and still,
There are sometimes two straight roads to a town,
One over, one under the hill.
You are treading the safe and the well-worn way,
That the prudent choose each time;
And you think me reckless and rash to-day
Because I prefer to climb.
Your path is the right one, and so is mine.
We are not like peas in a pod,
Compelled to lie in a certain line,
Or else be scattered abroad.
'T were a dull old world, methinks, my friend,
If we all just went one way;
Yet our paths will meet no doubt at the end,
Though they lead apart today.
You like the shade, and I like the sun;
You like an even pace,
I like to mix with the crowd and run,
And then rest after the race.
I like danger, and storm, and strife,
You like a peaceful time;
I like the passion and surge of life,
You like its gentle rhyme.
You like buttercups, dewy sweet,
And crocuses, framed in snow;
I like roses, born of the heat,
And the red carnation's glow.
I must live my life, not yours, my friend,
For so it was written down;
We must follow our given paths to the end,
But I trust we shall meet--in town. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All right. Go and find them. I'll come in the morning - at first light. Meet me where I found you, all right?" "Awright," she whispered, and laid a small white hand on his chest, just over his heart. "Sank you, Wiyum. ~ Diana Gabaldon

...when I die I'll meet my characters in heaven. And they won't be made at me . . ." Nick Cole

Probably the coolest quote from an author I have ever heard! ~ Nick Cole

About what mainly constituted what you ask, it was something other. It was just a certain inclination to meet people. And as far as possible, to change something in the other, but also to let me be changed by him. At any event, I had no resistance, I put no resistance to it. I already began as a young man. I felt I have not the right to want to change another if I am not open to be changed by him as far as it is legitimate. ~ Martin Buber

I used to pursue the need for excitement and creativity excessively by sleeping around, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco and occasionally using drugs. I was in a rock and roll band and I thought I was a real bad boy. I even have the tattoos to prove it. After I told Yogi Hari my story at his ashram, he joked around when he was introducing me and said: He used to be Bad-John, but now he is Good-John. (It's a pun on the pronunciation of my name Gudjon – and if you ever meet me, I'll probably use it to get you to pronounce my name correctly). ~ Gudjon Bergmann

Racism, hate, and bigotry are EVIL and WICKED no matter how you try to rationalize it. I couldn't imagine living my life with this crap in my heart. I love building new relationships and I enjoy learning about different cultures! If people would change their thinking and open up their hearts, they'd be amazed at the beautiful relationships that they could have. And, for the record, I couldn't imagine ALL of my friends being black. There are too many amazing people from different backgrounds that I still have yet to meet. NO WAY would I limit my relationships based on race, absolutely not! I am free to like and love who I want to and I won't allow anybody to persuade me with their opinions. I have my own mind! I'm my own person! I refuse to dislike and/or hate another race 'just because!' I am Stephanie Lahart: BOLD. BRAVE. STRONG. ~ Stephanie Lahart

Song

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Thought at next door we might meet;
Though she were true when you met her,
And last till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three. ~ John Donne

Porthos: He thinks he can challenge the mighty Porthos with a sword ...
D'Artagnan: The mighty who?
Porthos: Don't tell me you've never heard of me.
D'Artagnan: The world's biggest windbag?
Porthos: Little pimple ... meet me behind the Luxembourg at 1 o'clock and bring a long wooden box.
D'Artagnan: Bring your own ...
Porthos: [laughs] ~ Alexandre Dumas

Why aren't you excited?' Nelly asked.
'No reasons. Balls just aren't my idea of fun.'
'Why, you don't want to meet your prince charming?'
Ginny looked up. 'Because though I may meet my prince charming, it won't matter. My prince charming has already been decided for me, whether my heart agrees or not.'
Nelly fell silent, pondering what Ginny had said. 'It's about Christian, is it not?'
'Yes Nelly, it is.'
'Well who cares about Christian? Tonight is the night to have fun, to be free!Tonight is about Ginny, not Christian. Don't let Christian ruin your evening! Dance with as many boys as possible, lose your heart more than once, why, so you have stories to tell! Christian, for tonight at least, doesn't exist. Remember that. It takes two to dance a waltz. ~ Darby Browne

When I come home from school, I take my Doc Martens off and put on fake satin mules with the marabou trim, slip into my dressing gown and my movie, and I feel serene. I hold a glass of Coke to my cheek and pretend it is a glass of bourbon and I am in New Orleans. My bedroom door is the doorway onto the street and at night I can't sleep because of the heat and the commotion in this town. So I go down to the river and dance as a man with scars on his face plays an accordion. People clap along and wolf-whistle and I whip my skirt around my thighs, which are long and lean because I barely get a chance to eat, what with all my bourbon and afternoon baths. I dance until my mules get muddy, then I tiptoe home, followed by sailors and men who have hundreds and thousands of dollars playing stud poker. Steve McQueen might be there. I can't remember. I get confused at this point. Too much drink. I'm sure Karl Malden is lurking in the background, gazing at me longingly. I am kind to him because his mother is dying. ~ Emma Forrest

I could use a nice bath down at the river tonight. Guess I'll just have to settle for a spit bath." She smiled good-naturedly and picked up the bucket. "Come on up to the house when you're finished and I'll show you to a room."
As she turned to leave, Rider nonchalantly stretched out his arm and grabbed her belt, pulling her up short. "I could walk you to the swimming hole and stand guard if you like." His grin was devilish.
Willow smiled and pried loose the long fingers on her waist. "I thank you for the offer, but I like my privacy."
"Are you suggesting that I would be like the fox guarding the henhouse?" he teased, wiggling his brows up and down. "Don't forget, we are supposed to be lovers."
"We're only playacting that we're lovers." She laughed and headed torward the door.
His chair tipped over as Rider beat her there and stretched an arm across the doorway to block her passage. "All good plays are well-rehearsed,Willow." His deep baritone was tantalizing in its implication.
Her cheeks pinked and she uttered a nervous little laugh. "Let me through, you big galoot."
Instead,he leaned closer. He smelled of leather,outdoors, and a familiar male scent she now realized was his alone. The heady combination aroused her desire to be closer, to be touched. Warning bells went off.
Willow tried stepping back, but his other arm came up behind her and cut off her retreat. Her hammering heart skipped a beat as his desire-laden eyes touched where ~ Charlotte McPherren

I knew it,' she says. 'I knew I had met you before. I knew it the first time I saw your photograph. It's as if we had to meet again at some point in this life. I talked to my friends about it, but they thought I was crazy, that thousands of people must say the same thing about thousands of other people every day. I thought they must be right, but life… life brought you to me. You came to find me, didn't you? ~ Paulo Coelho

Don't get me started on the whole Doctor-Amy-Rory thing. It's kind of like ... I dunno. Suppose you'd always fancied Ryan Reynolds. That's fine, yeah. You meet someone else, who is maybe not Ryan Reynolds, but perhaps he's got the same goofy smile. And you think, 'Yeah, that's it, I'm happy.' Then Ryan Reynolds himself roars up in a camper van and says 'Hey guys! Let's all go on a road trip. Bring the boyfriend! It'll be fun.' Only Ryan Reynolds doesn't save the universe. Well, not at weekends.
So I guess that's my life. Crammed in a camper van, sneaking the odd glance at Ryan, squeezing the hand of my lovely husband ... ~ James Goss

Did you really think I might have drawn that picture?" Emma swallowed a self-conscious lump in her throat, then lifted her chin. "I own the notion did cross my mind. But can you blame me? After all, you knew what the piece looked like and you gave me prodigious cause to suspect you in the past." He inhaled deeply. "I suppose you are right. But that was a long time ago. I have no interest in tricking you now. Nor in frightening you, nor any other dishonorable motive, I assure you." The warm tenor of his voice did odd things to Emma's stomach. She blinked, unable to meet his gaze. "Emma, look at me." She forced herself to meet his remarkable green eyes and saw the sincerity burning there. He said, "You have my word, Emma. I did not do this." He had called her Emma. She liked the sound of her name on his lips. Nodding, she said, "I believe you. ~ Julie Klassen

A window of opportunity might present itself in tomorrow's battle. The odds of that happening may be 0.1 percent, or even 0.01 percent, but if I could improve my combat skills even the slightest bit- if that window were to open even a crack- I'd find a way to force it open wide. If I could learn to jump every hurdle this little track meet of death threw at me, maybe someday I'll wake up in a world with a tomorrow. ~ Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Meet me inside the Edge of the Icepack penguin enclosure in at four fifteen she says, sounding just like Kim Possible. If Kim Possible ever asked people to meet her inside a penguin enclosures. ~ Meg Cabot

I had a dream once that Boughton and I were down at the river looking around in the shallows for something or other - when we were boys it would have been tadpoles - and my grandfather stalked out of the trees in that furious way he had, scooped his hat full of water, and threw it, so as sheet of water came sailing toward us, billowing in the air like a veil, and fell down over us. Then he put his hat back on his head and stalked off into the trees again and left us standing there in that glistening river, amazed at ourselves and shining like the apostles. I mention his because it seems to me transformations just that abrupt do occur in this life, and they occur unsought and unawaited, and they beggar your hopes and your deserving. This came to my mind as I was reflecting on the day I first say your mother, that blessed, rainy Pentecost ~ Marilynne Robinson

Swlmmlng After swallowing some water at Changsha I taste a Wuchang fish in the surf and swim across the Yangtze River that winds ten thousand li. I see the entire Chu sky. Wind batters me, waves hit me-I don't care. Better than walking lazily in the patio. Today I have a lot of time. Here on the river the Master said "Dying-dying into the past-is like a river flowing." ~ Mao Zedong

Most people look at cats and think what a life - all we do is lie around in the sun, never having to lift a finger. But cats' lives aren't that idyllic. Cats are powerless, weak little creatures that injure easily. We don't have shells like turtles, nor wings like birds. We can't burrow into the ground like moles or change colors like a chameleon. The world has no idea how many cats are injured every day, how many of us meet a miserable end. I happen to be lucky enough to live with the Tanabes in a warm and friendly family, the children treat me well, and I've got everything I need. But even my life isn't always easy. When it comes to strays, though, they have a very tough time of it. ~ Haruki Murakami

You're not the way everyone says you are," Kaye said, looking at him so fiercely that he couldn't meet her gaze. "I know you're not."
"You know nothing of me," he said. He wanted to punish her for the trust he saw on her face, to raze it from her now so that he would be spared the sight of her when that trust was betrayed.
He wanted to tell her he found her impossibly alluring, at least half enchanted, body bruised and scratched, utterly unaware she would not live past dawn. He wondered what she would say in the face of that. ~ Holly Black

Tell them I'm like you," Gavriel said as they began to slow down.
Aidan laughed. "I think they can see you're not like us anymore."
"No," he said. "Tell them you know me. That I'm like you, one of you. From the party. Tell them."
"Wait," said Winter. "Wait. Is he saying he wasn't at the party? Did you meet him by the side of the road? Did you pick up a hitchhiker who coincidentally turned out to be a vampire?"
Gavriel fixed his gaze on Winter. "You know me," he said, and a chill went up Tana's spine. "You've known me since outside the rest stop, when I turned and the light hit my face."
"What does he mean?" Midnight asked.
"I don't know," Winter said in an odd voice. "Nothing. ~ Holly Black

During the two months of our stay at Biarritz, my passion for Colette all but surpassed my passion for Cleopatra. Since my parents were not keen to meet hers, I saw her only on the beach; but I thought of her constantly. If I noticed she had been crying, I felt a surge of helpless anguish that brought tears to my own eyes. I could not destroy the mosquitoes that had left their bites on her frail neck, but I could, and did, have a successful fistfight with a red-haired boy who had been rude to her. She used to give me warm handfuls of hard candy. One day, as we were bending together over a starfish, and Colette's ringlets were tickling my ear, she suddenly turned toward me and kissed me on the cheek. So great was my emotion that all I could think of saying was, 'You little monkey. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

My wife told me she'd meet me at the mall, and I said, "Don't be silly. We've already met. What, do you think I'd marry a stranger? ~ Jarod Kintz

Sometimes people ask you: "When is your birthday?" But you might ask yourself a more interesting question: "Before that day which is called my birthday, where was I?"

Ask a cloud: "What is your date of birth? Before you were born, where were you?"

If you ask the cloud, "How old are you? Can you give me your date of birth?" you can listen deeply and you may hear a reply. You can imagine the cloud being born. Before being born it was the water on the ocean's surface. Or it was in the river and then it became vapor. It was also the sun because the sun makes the vapor. The wind is there too, helping the water to become a cloud. The cloud does not come from nothing; there has been only a change in form. It is not a birth of something out of nothing.

Sooner or later, the cloud will change into rain or snow or ice. If you look deeply into the rain, you can see the cloud. The cloud is not lost; it is transformed into rain, and the rain is transformed into grass and the grass into cows and then to milk and then into the ice cream you eat. Today if you eat an ice cream, give yourself time to look at the ice cream and say: "Hello, cloud! I recognize you. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Lorelei

It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,

The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,

The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float

Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous

With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear

Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening

Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony

Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,

Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge

Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source

Of your ice-hearted calling-
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting

Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there. ~ Sylvia Plath

Dear Lily
Don't think me silly,
but I forget what time you said.
Are we meeting at two thirty?
It's gone right from my head.
Did you say Monday or Thursday?
I have quite forgotten what day.
Was it late lunch, or afternoon tea?
Tell me, what did you say?
I think I would like to do Tuesday.
Let's go for a lovely lunch.
Or, if you prefer we could even
go early, and settle for brunch.
A lovely Bistro or Cafe Bar,
or maybe a country pub.
I don't really mind that much,
as long as we get some grub.

Dear Maisie,
Are you going crazy?
We didn't set a date.
You needed to check your diary.
I think you are losing it, mate.
But since you are free on Tuesday,
and that day suits me fine.
Could we meet, about twelve…ish?
Its early I like to dine.
You mentioned the pub, or Bistro,
or some fancy Cafe Bar.
Not sure I like the sound of that,
and I'm not coming in the car.
If the weather is bright and sunny,
we could always dine al fresco.
Failing that, we could just go
get a cake and a cuppa in Tesco. ~ Mrs A. Perry