Norwegian Wood Quotes

Letters are just pieces of paper," I said. "Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ~ Haruki Murakami

You want to know why you felt that way about me even though you didn't love me. ~ Haruki Murakami

I loved Midori. And I had probably known as much for a while. I had just been avoiding the conclusion for a very long time. ~ Haruki Murakami

When Reiko left, I stretched out on the sofa and closed my eyes. I lay there steeping myself into silence when, out of nowhere, I thought of the time Kizuki and I took a motorcycle trip. That had been autumn too, I realized. Autumn how many years ago? Yes, four years ago. I recalled the small of Kizuki's leather jacket and the racket made by that red Yamaha 125cc bike. We went to a spot far down the coast, and came back the same evening, exhausted. Nothing special happened on that trip, but I remembered it well. the sharp autumn wind moaned in my ears, and looking up at the sky, my hands clutching Kizuki's jacket, I felt as if I might be swept into outer space. ~ Haruki Murakami

Count your blessings ~ Haruki Murakami

Like my hairstyle?" she asked.
"It's great."
"How great?"
"Great enough to knock down all the trees in all the forests of the world. ~ Haruki Murakami

There is absolutely nothing to be gained from sleeping with one strange woman after another. It just tires you out and makes you disgusted with yourself. ~ Haruki Murakami

When it's raining like this," said Naoko, "it feels as if we're the only ones in the world. I wish it would just keep raining so the three of us could stay together. ~ Haruki Murakami

Maybe so, but I'm not just looking up at the sky and waiting for the fruit to drop. In my own way, I'm working hard. I'm working ten times harder than you are. ~ Haruki Murakami

Writing is the only way I know how to pray. ~ Helena Maria Viramontes

Not everybody is looking for a boyfriend with a sports car. ~ Haruki Murakami

Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know a soul? ~ Haruki Murakami

Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night. ~ Haruki Murakami

Something inside me had dropped away, and nothing came in to fill the cavern. ~ Haruki Murakami

April ended and May came along, but May was even worse than April. In the deepening spring of May, I had no choice but to recognize the trembling of my heart. It usually happened as the sun was going down. In the pale evening gloom, when the soft fragrance of magnolias hung in the air, my heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and lurch with a stab of pain. I would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and wait for it to pass. And it would pass....but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache behind.
At those times I would write to Naoko. In my letters to her, I would describe only things that were touching or pleasant or beautiful: the fragrance of grasses, the caress of a spring breeze, the light of the moon, a movie I'd seen, a song I liked, a book that had moved me. I myself would be comforted by letters like this when I would reread what I had written. And I would feel that the world I lived in was a wonderful one. I wrote any number of letters like this, but from Naoko or Reiko I heart nothing. ~ Haruki Murakami

I once had a girl, or should I say she once had me. ~ John Lennon

We couldn't bear to be apart. So if Kizuki had lived, I'm sure we would have been together, loving each other, and gradually growing unhappy."

Unhappy? Why's that?"

With her fingers, Naoko combed her hair back several times. She had taken her barrette off, which made the hair fall over her face when she dropped her head forward.

Because we would have had to pay the world back what we owed it," she said, raising her eyes to mine. "The pain of growing up. We didn't pay when we should have, so now the bills are due. Which is why Kizuki did what he did, and why I'm here. We were like kids who grew up naked on a desert island. If we got hungry, we'd just pick a banana; if we got lonely, we'd go to sleep in each other's arms. But that kind of thing doesn't last forever. We grew up fast and had to enter society. Which is why you were so important to us. You were the link connecting us with the outside world. We were struggling through you to fit in with the outside world as best we could. In the end, it didn't work, of course."

I nodded.

I wouldn't want you to think that we were using you, though. Kizuki really loved you. It just so happened that our connection with you was our first connection with anyone else. And it still is. Kizuki may be dead, but you are still my only link with the outside world. And just as Kizuki loved you, I love you. We never meant to hurt you, but we probably did; we probably ended up making a deep wo ~ Haruki Murakami

If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark ~ Haruki Murakami

I could never tell what was going on inside the pretty heads of the girls that Naoko brought along, and they probably couldn't understand me, either. ~ Haruki Murakami

It almost hurt to look at that far-off sky. ~ Haruki Murakami

Just remember, life is a box of cookies. You know how they've got these cookie assortments, and you like some but you don't like others? And you eat up all the ones you like, and the only ones left are the ones you don't like so much? I always think about that when something painful comes up. 'Now i just have to polish these off, and everything'll be O.K.' Life is a box of cookies. ~ Haruki Murakami

She repeated what her mother had told me, that she had been moved when she heard me playing as she passed the house. She had seen me on the street a few times, too, and begun to worship me. She actually used that word: worship. It made me turn bright red. I mean, to be 'worshiped' by such a beautiful little doll of a girl! I don't think it was an absolute lie, though. I was in my thirties already, of course, and I could never be as beautiful and bright as she was, and I had no special talent, but I must have had something that drew her to me, something that was missing in her, I would guess. Which must have been what got her interested in my to begin with. I believe that now, looking back. And I'm not boasting. ~ Haruki Murakami

I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me. ~ Haruki Murakami

I suddenly thought about my old girlfriend, the one I had first slept with in my third year of high school. Chills ran through me as I realized how badly I had treated her. I had hardly ever thought about her thoughts or feelings or the pain I had caused her. She was such a sweet and gentle thing, but at the time I had taken her sweetness for granted and later hardly gave her a second thought. What was she doing now? I wondered. And had she forgiven me? ~ Haruki Murakami

What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ~ Haruki Murakami

This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. ~ Haruki Murakami

That one of our problems was our inability to recognize and accept our own deformities ~ Haruki Murakami

My sickness is a lot worse than you think: it has far deeper roots. And that's why I want you to go on ahead of me if you can. Don't wait for me. Sleep with other girls if you want to. Don't let thoughts of me hold you back. Just do what you want to do. Otherwise, I might end up taking you with me, and that is the one thing I don't want to do. I don't want to interfere with your life. I don't want to interfere with anybody's life. Like I said before, I want you to come to see me every once in a while, and always remember me. That's all I want. ~ Haruki Murakami

I thought about Kizuki. "So you finally made Naoko yours," I heard myself telling him. Oh, well, she was yours to begin with. Now maybe, she's where she belongs. But in this world, in this imperfect world of the living, I did the best I could for Naoko. ~ Haruki Murakami

Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness? ~ Haruki Murakami

No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories. ~ Haruki Murakami

If you need me, use me. Don't you see? ~ Haruki Murakami

When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. That's what I think. It's just a form of sincerity. ~ Haruki Murakami

I read Naoko's letter again and again, and each time I read it I would be filled with the same unbearable sadness I used to feel whenever Naoko stared into my eyes. I had no way to deal with it, no place I could take it to or hide it away. Like the wind passing over my body, it had neither shape nor weight, nor could I wrap myself in it. ~ Haruki Murakami

So I'm not crazy after all! I thought it looked good myself once I cut it all off. Not one guy likes it, though. They all tell me I look like a first grader or a concentration camp survivor. What's this thing that guys have for girls with long hair? Fascists, the whole bunch of them! Why do guys all think girls with long hair are the classiest, the sweetest, the most feminine? I mean, I myself know at least two hundred and fifty unclassy girls with long hair. Really. ~ Haruki Murakami

Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven't answered me."
I probably still haven't completely adapted to the world," I said after giving it some thought. "I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me."
Midori rested an elbow on the bar and looked at me. "There was something like that in a Jim Morrison song, I'm pretty sure."
People are strange when you're a stranger. ~ Haruki Murakami

Something presses on a part of the brain and makes people say all kinds of nasty things. You know it's just part of the sickness, but still, it hurts. Wha do you expect? Here I am, working my fingers to the bone for them, and they're saying all this terrible stuff to me. ~ Haruki Murakami

It's a quiet place, so people talk quietly," said Naoko. She made a neat pile of fish bones at the edge of her plate and dabbed at her mouth with a handkerchief. "There's no need to raise your voice here. You don't have to convince anybody of anything, and you don't have to attract anyone's attention. ~ Haruki Murakami

She was a keen observer, a precise user of language, sharp-tongued and funny. She could stir your emotions. Yes, really, that's what she was so good at - stirring people's emotions, moving you. And she knew she had this power ... I only realized later. At the time, I had no idea what she was doing to me. ~ Haruki Murakami

As long as I kept my body moving I could forget about the emptiness inside. ~ Haruki Murakami

I could never get excited about games you play with other people. I can't get into them. I lose interest. ~ Haruki Murakami

No, it's not sick. I wish I could be the one to hold you, though, I said.
So hold me. Now. Right here. ~ Haruki Murakami

She was the kind of person who took care of things by herself. She'd never ask anybody for advice or help. It wasn't a matter of pride, I think. She just did what seemed natural to her. ~ Haruki Murakami

It's hard not being able to see you, but my life in Tokyo would be a lot worse if it weren't for you. ~ Haruki Murakami

The years 19 and 20 are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older. It's true. So think about it carefully. ~ Haruki Murakami

So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
Watanabe: Wow, and did your search pay off?
M: That's the hard part. I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough. ~ Haruki Murakami

(When asked "Was the model for Midori (a character in Norwegian Wood) modeled after your wife?")
I showed your message to my wife. She got mad and yelled: "What would make them think I was the model for Midori?!" She told me to fix the misunderstanding immediately, so that's why I'm writing this reply now. Please stop causing problems in my household. Thank you. ~ Haruki Murakami

I'd swallow some whiskey and listen to the waves while I thought about Naoko. It was too strange to think that she was dead and no longer part of this world. I couldn't absorb the truth of it. I couldn't believe it. I had heard the nails being driven into the lid of her coffin, but I still couldn't adjust to the fact that she had returned to nothingness. ~ Haruki Murakami

I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this? ~ Haruki Murakami

I was at that age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. ~ Haruki Murakami

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that has nothing to do with you, This storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones. ~ Haruki Murakami

I suppose it's all a matter of attitude. You could let a lot of things bother you if you wanted to - the rules, the idiots who think they're hot shit, ... ~ Haruki Murakami

Reiko set the ball on the ground and patted my knee. "Look," she said, "I'm not telling you to stop sleeping with girls. If you're O.K. with that, then it's OK. It's your life after all, it's something you have to decide. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't use yourself up in some unnatural form. Do you see what I'm getting at? It would be such a waste. The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older. It's true. So think carefully. If you want to take care of Naoko, take care of yourself too."
I said I would think about it. ~ Haruki Murakami

Let me just tell you this, Watanabe," said Midori, pressing her cheek against my neck. "I'm a real, live girl, with real, live blood gushing through my veins. You're holding me in your arms and I'm telling you that I love you. I'm ready to do anything you tell me to do. I may be a little bit mad, but I'm a good girl, and honest, and I work hard, I'm kind of cute, I have nice boobs, I'm a good cook, and my father left me a trust fund. I mean, I'm a real bargain, don't you think? If you don't take me, I'll end up going somewhere else. ~ Haruki Murakami

The truth is "#9dream" is a descendant of "Norwegian Wood". Both are ghost stories. "She" in "Norwegian Wood" curses you with loneliness. The "Two spirits dancing so strange" in "#9dream" bless you with harmony. But people prefer loneliness to harmony. ~ David Mitchell

I guess I don't really understand you yet,' I said. 'I'm not all that smart. It takes me a while to understand things. But if I do have time, I will come to understand you
better than anyone else in the world ever can. ~ Haruki Murakami

Everybody feels like that to some extent," I said. "They're trying to express themselves and it bothers them when they can't get it right. ~ Haruki Murakami

Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt. ~ Haruki Murakami

I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. ~ Haruki Murakami

So after he died, I didn't know how to relate to other people. I didn't know what it means to love another person. ~ Haruki Murakami

I don't give a damn about power and money per se. Really, I don't. I may be a selfish bastard, but I'm incredibly cool about shit like that. I could be a Zen saint. The one thing I do have, though, is curiosity. I want to see what I can do out there in the big, tough world. ~ Haruki Murakami

Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment. ~ Haruki Murakami

Girls have periods and boys jerk off. Everybody. ~ Haruki Murakami

Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star.
It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.
Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything. ~ Haruki Murakami

I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty five days a year, I was still in elementary school at the time - fifth or sixth grade - but I made up my mind once and for all."

"Wow," I said. "Did the search pay off?"

"That's the hard part," said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. "I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough."

"Waiting for the perfect love?"

"No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don't want it anymore and throw it out the window. That's what I'm looking for."

"I'm not sure that has anything to do with love," I said with some amazement.

"It does," she said. "You just don't know it. There are time in a girl's life when things like that are incredibly important."

"Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?"

"Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. "Now I see, Midori. What a fool I have been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To ~ Haruki Murakami

Too many memories of her were crammed inside of me, and as soon as one of them found the slightest opening, the rest would force their way out in an endless stream, an unstoppable flood. ~ Haruki Murakami

What do we talk about? Just ordinary things. What happened today, or books we've read, or tomorrow's weather, you know. Don't tell me you're wondering if people jump to their feet and shout stuff like 'It'll rain tomorrow if a polar bear eats the stars tonight! ~ Haruki Murakami

Once upon a time, you dragged a part of me into the world of the dead, and now Naoko has dragged another pat of me into that world. ~ Haruki Murakami

Here," he said, "get yourself some healthy food. You look awful." I said he had done more than enough for me and that I couldn't accept money on top of everything else, but he refused to take it back.
"It's not money," he said, "it's my feelings. Don't think about it too much, just take it."
All I could do was thank him and accept the money. ~ Haruki Murakami

One thing became crystal clear to me when I couldn't see you anymore. I realized that the only way I had been able to survive until then was having you in my life. When I lost you, the pain and loneliness really got to me. ~ Haruki Murakami

Maybe I was a fool to turn my back on him after his warnings, but the bad guys didn't warn you first. No, the truly wicked ones lured you in with kindness and then blindsided you with their mercilessness. ~ Heather Topham Wood

Beware. Beware. Beware of the big, green dragon that sits on your doorstep. He eats little boys, puppy dog tails and big, fat snails. Beware. Take care. Beware. ~ Ed Wood

The ship's boards were still sticky with new resin. We leaned over the railing to wave our last farewell, the sun-warm wood pressed against our bellies. The sailors heaved up the anchor, square and chalky with barnacles, and loosened the sails. Then they took their seats at the oars that fringed the boat like eyelashes, waiting for the count. The drums began to beat, and the oars lifted and fell, taking us to Troy. ~ Madeline Miller

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck chlamydia? ~ Sarah Mlynowski

There are many highly intelligent people who have no answer at all in them. A conversation or a correspondence with such persons is nothing but a double monologue--you may stroke them or strike them, you will get no more echo from them than from a block of wood. And how, then, can you yourself go on speaking? ~ Isak Dinesen

At any rate I'd better be getting out of the wood, for really its coming on very dark. Do you think it's going to rain?'
Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it.
'No, I don't think it is,' he said: 'at least - not under here. Nohow.'
'But it may rain outside?'
'It may - if it chooses,' said Tweedledee: 'we've got no objection. Contrariwise. ~ Lewis Carroll

The wood was silent, still and secret in the evening drizzle of rain, full of the mystery of eggs and half-open buds, half unsheathed flowers. In the dimness of it all trees glistened naked and dark as if they had unclothed themselves, and the green things on earth seemed to hum with greenness. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Yeah," said Ron, "and lucky Harry doesn't lose his head in a crisis - 'there's no wood,' honestly. ~ J.K. Rowling

I cut my bow from the wood of this tree of evil. Of this tree of good, I want a kiss from your lips. ~ Bruce Springsteen

People often get the wrong impression of Mick. The clever businessman is just one side of Mick. The other side is the same as the rest of us, a true rocker! ~ Ron Wood

Tree [10w]
The knots in wood are a trees protests
growing up. ~ Beryl Dov

Academics have given up trying to recover an honest picture of the past and have decided that their history-writing should be simply an instrument of moral hand-wringing. ~ Gordon S. Wood

When the uncarved wood is split, its parts are put to use. When the sage is put to use, he becomes the head. ~ Laozi

Will tossed his apple core into the air, at the same time drawing a knife from his belt and throwing it. The knife and the apple scaled across the room together, somehow managing to stick into the wall just beside Gabriel's head, the knife driven cleanly through the core and into the wood. "Say that again," said Will. "And i'll darken your daylights for you. ~ Cassandra Clare

Jay took out his guitar. He was decent at it, but the piano was his best talent. He couldn't get a certain riff right, so he handed the instrument to Kaidan, and my heart flipped.
I recalled him saying he played guitar, but I'd never actually seen or heard him play. Kaidan began to pick at each string, testing and tuning with his full attention. I watched the way his hands moved across the wood and strings, gently, reverently, his body seeming to curl around it as if it were a part of him. . . . I felt my hands getting sweaty, because watching Kaidan get lost in music did crazy things to me. My breathing became ragged and I couldn't take my eyes off him.
He looked up at that moment and caught me staring hard. He knew. He knew what it did to me! I could tell because his badge expanded.
He angled himself away from the others and signed to me, I want to be alone with you tonight.
Patti did have a lot of guests staying in the house. I signed back, I'll work on it.
"Excellent," he whispered, a hot grin sliding onto his face. ~ Wendy Higgins

To be frank with you, Melchior, I have almost the same feeling since I read your explanation. - - It fell at my feet during the first vacation days. I was startled. I fastened the door and flew through the flaming lines as a frightened owl flies through a burning wood - - I believe I read most of it with my eyes shut. ~ Frank Wedekind

No two people see things the same. ~ David Patneaude

Finally, slowly, drippingly, degrade the term Choice down to its most meager means: The red car not the black one. The 9:25 showing, not the 7:15. Ritz not Wheat Thins. ~ Geoffrey Wood

But even as they laid him low a great cry rang through the glade - "In the King's Name" and the stalwart knights of the Splendid Way burst upon them with clashing shields and flashing swords. In a breath the attackers were sent reeling back, and the prostrate knight was covered by the strong weapons of his comrades. Then it seemed that at the glory of the face of Sir Felix the evil spirits of the wood shrank back to their lair in deadly fear: and the Knight of the Clean Heart raised Sir Constant to his feet, and gave him back his fallen sword.
"Hearken, comrade," he cried mightily. "This is thy battle and the glorious end shall be thine. Strike hard and conquer! ~ W.E. Cule

I think what I came through is great, but my son can take it to another level, not having to fight racism. His mother's a Norwegian and I'm mixed up four or five times, so he can face the world. ~ James Brown

I love life. I think it's fantastic. Sometimes it deals hard things, and when it deals great things, you have to seize them. ~ Sam Taylor-Wood

I smelt him, smelt Johnny; for a second I thought - what? That he was there, was with me, that he wasn't...But I realised it was his perfume, the one I'd had made specially for him by an artisan perfumer in New York, his own custom-made one-off blend. It had been hideously expensive but I hadn't cared as long as it had pleased him. It was all intense essential oils, layer upon layer of labdanum, patchouli, vanilla, vetiver, ambrette, frankincense, myrrh, amber, Bulgarian rose absolute, Oud wood - the list was endless and beautiful, like a scented prayer. The woman had said some of the ingredients would keep their fragrance for a hundred years, would never die. Like me, he'd said, like us. I'd put some drops of the heavy dark oil on a couple of cotton wool pads and put them in the box when we got it, now the fragrance - strange, narcotic, archaic - filled the room like his ghost, embracing me in memories. ~ Joolz Denby

THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION of 1787 was designed in part to solve the problems created by the presence in the state legislatures of these middling men. In addition to correcting the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution was intended to restrain the excesses of democracy and protect minority rights from overbearing majorities in the state legislatures. But ~ Gordon S. Wood

Work"


I laid telephone line, then cable when it came along. I pulled T-shirts off a silk-screen press. I cleaned offices in buildings thirty-five floors high. I filed the metal edges of grease fryers hot off a welding line. I humped sod in townhouse complexes, and when it became grass I cut it. I sorted mail. I washed police cars, and then I changed their oil. I installed remotes on gas meters so a truck could simply drive down the street and get the readings. I set posts and put up fences, wood and chain link. Five a.m. at the racetrack, I walked hot horses after their exercise. I bathed them. I mopped and swept aisles in a grocery store. Eventually, I stocked shelves. I corrected errors on mortgage papers for a bank. I racked tables in a pool hall. There's more I'm not telling you.

All of this befell me as an adult. As a kid, I cut neighbors' lawns and delivered newspapers, and I watched after little kids while their parents worked. I painted houses. I collected frogs from ponds and sold them to pet stores. And so on.

At fifteen, I went for a busboy position at an all-night diner, but they told me to come back when I turned sixteen. I did.

Sometimes, on top of one, I took a second job. It gave me just enough time to sleep between the two. And eat.

My father worked, harder than I did, and then he died. Then I worked harder. My mother said, "You're the man of the house now." I was seventeen. She kept an eye on me, t ~ Michael Stigman

I love to go to Ireland just to relax. ~ Ron Wood

During the season, they saw each other and played together almost every day. At the aunt's request, seconded by Professor Valérius, Daaé consented to give the young viscount some violin lessons. In this way, Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed Christine's childhood. They also both had the same calm and dreamy little cast of mind. They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends; and their favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors, like beggars:
"Ma'am..." or, "Kind gentleman... have you a little story to tell us, please?"
And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them; for nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life, seen the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather.
But their great treat was, in the twilight, in the great silence of the evening, after the sun had set in the sea, when Daaé came and sat down by them on the roadside and in a low voice, as though fearing lest he should frighten the ghosts whom he loved, told them the legends of the land of the North. And, the moment he stopped, the children would ask for more.
There was one story that began:
"A king sat in a little boat on one of those deep still lakes that open like a bright eye in the midst of the Norwegian mountains..."
And another:
"Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was golden as the sun's rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes. She wheedled her mother, was kind to ~ Gaston Leroux

She kissed him but he didn't seem to recognize it. ~ Naomi Wood

She seemed exotic and strange, a mysterious siren with devilish companions and spell-caught whorls that gleamed alluringly all over her pearl skin. ~ Maggie L. Wood

Being scooped up by a huge, hairy, yellow hand was not as scary as Vieth might have imagined; being dumped on an unstable piece of wood held way high up, was. ~ Trevor Alan Foris

His father is out cutting wood, so he goes to his mother.

'Mother, I must away and see the world, or I shall go mad.'

Says his mother, 'If you must go, go you must, and God go with you! I will bake you a cake. Will you have a little cake with my blessing, or a big cake with my cursing?'

Says Jack, 'Make me a big cake, mother. It will last longer.'

His mother makes him a big cake, and he sets out. And she is standing on the roof of the house, calling curses after him as far as she can see him. ~ Ruth Manning-Sanders