Sand Chronicles Quotes

It may be no substitute ... and might just be an unwanted favor ... but it meant a lot to you, right? You shouldn't break something that's important to you. Don't ever try to erase your most precious feelings, okay? ~ Hinako Ashihara

Memories ... are always blinding. They cause you pain ... and sorrow. ~ Hinako Ashihara

Giving advice to a child is like flinging sand at an obsidian wall. Nothing sticks. The brutal truth is that we each suffer our own lessons - they can't be danced round. They can't be slipped past. You cannot gift a child with your scars - they arrive like webs, constricting, suffocating, and that child will struggle and strain until they break. No matter how noble your intent, the only scars that teach them anything are the ones they earn themselves. ~ Steven Erikson

Beneath a toilet water of punctilio and restraint ... a deep smell came off Kelly, a hint of a big foul cat, carnal as the meat on a butcher's block, and something else, some whiff of the icy rot and iodine in a piece of marine nerve left to bleach on the sand. With it all was that congregated odor of the wealthy, a mood within the nose of face powder, of perfumes which leave the turpentine of a witch's curse, the taste of pennies in the mouth, a whiff of the tomb. It was all of Deborah for me. ~ Norman Mailer

Eight o'clock, no later,
You light the lamps,
The big one by the large window,
The small one on your desk,
They are not to see by--
It is still twilight out over the sand,
The scrub oaks and cranberries.
Even the small birds have not settled
For sleep yet, out of the reach
Of prowling foxes. No,
You light the lamps because
You are alone in your small house
And the wicks sputtering gold
Are like two visitors with good stories
They will tell slowly, in soft voices,
While the air outside turns quietly
A grainy and luminous blue.
You wish it would never change--
But of course the darkness keeps
Its appointment. Each evening,
An inscrutable presence, it has the final word
Outside every door. ~ Mary Oliver Rotman

Children make prayers so thoughtlessly, building them up like sand castles - and they are always surprised when suddenly the castle becomes real, and the iron gate grinds shut. ~ Catherynne M Valente

I could either wait it out or pack my bags, but I could't force a confrontation with a man who refused to be confronted. So I did what a lot of women do: I kept my head in the sand. And I waited for winter to be over. ~ Christina Bartolomeo

But the Count hadn't the temperament for revenge; he hadn't the imagination for epics; and he certainly hadn't the fanciful ego to dram of empires restored. No. His model for mastering his circumstances would be a different sort of captive altogether: an Anglican washed ashore. Like Robinson Crusoe stranded on the Isle of Despair, the count would maintain his resolve by committing to the business of practicalities. Having dispensed with dreams of quick discovery, the world's Crusoes seek shelter and a source of fresh water; they teach themselves to make fire from flint; they study their island's topography, it's climate, its flora and fauna, all the while keeping their eyes trained for sails on the horizon and footprints in the sand. ~ Amor Towles

Jesus is calling the bluff of the religious. He says, why play this game? Why call me Lord as if you care who I am or what I want when you don't bother really knowing me or doing what I say? And then Jesus tells the story about the builders and their two houses. The homes they build represent their lives
their beliefs, convictions, aspirations, and choices.
Jesus is telling us that there are stable and unstable foundations on which to construct our lives. Regardless of our intentions, it's possible to base our confidence and trust
the very footing of our lives
on what is insecure and faulty. On shifting sand. ~ Joshua Harris

Don't call these the "wonders of Soviet heroism" when you write about it. Those wonders really did exist. But first there had to be incompetence, negligence, and only after those did you get wonders: covering the embrasure, throwing yourself in front of a machine gun. But that those orders should never have been given, that there shouldn't have been any need, no one writes about that. They flung us there, like sand onto the reactor. Every day they'd put out a new "Action Update": "men are working courageously and selflessly," "we will survive and triumph. ~ Svetlana Alexievich

You're a trigger finger dug into the starting gun,
the smack as it fires, the tense stroke of hooves
pressing into a fresh track. You're the curiosity
of a flashbulb nibbling air, tricky camera lens
grabbing a mane as it quivers back. I'm a rising
overture of thighs. I'm dirt exploding midair
- sand fireworks. I'm the impulse to grab hold:
the jockey's knees clenching as he rocks above
the heaving saddle. You're the bit I can't keep
from tasting, and I, the clench of jaws, willing
to split in two for the shiver of collision, tooth
on tooth. Darling, you're a wager: the whole wad
riding on one last leap, but then you're abrupt:
an ankle's vomity pop. And I'm the entire crowd
grunting to its feet. You're one blossoming
moment of unstoppable collapse: the bracing
limbs, the beveling slide, the shriek of submission
to gravity, a hard landing. From the stands, I'm
a hush: hand to mouth. I'm needles of heat, a gut
sinking over a lost life savings. You're someone
else's carnation wreath, red as a bitemark necklace. ~ Saara Myrene Raappana

When you draw a line in the sand, be careful it is not low tide. ~ Dixie Waters

I ignored your aura but it grabbed me by the hand, like the moon pulled the tide, and the tide pulled the sand. ~ Talib Kweli

For the devil has no power . . . except in the dark." - Madame Dorothea ~ Cassandra Clare

But while you were doing it, he looked at me, and the look on his face - I still cannot describe it, other than in that moment, I felt something crumble inside me, like a tower of damp sand built too high: for him, and for you, and for me as well. And in his face, I knew my own would be echoed. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Gentle swells had replaced the angry waves of yesterday. The gentle breakers made their way to shore glinting with green as they somersaulted to shore. The waves showed an edge of lacy foam that caressed the sand. It was peaceful. ~ Sharon Brubaker

When will your sun come - to make everything reborn?
-The burn of your fingers pressed against my being-
I would like to fall asleep in your body again
And make of your smiles an open source
When my life is like a desolate desert
I would like to fall asleep by the light sand of your skin.
Your voice - your voice alone knows how to put an end to my anger
As your lips faint on the pains of my yesterday
When will you come to drape me in your radiant sun?
So that I find life in its first taste
(-The glow of your hair is a roof of moonlight.) ~ Emmanuelle Soni-Dessaigne

Look, now, in the distance, a person, closer, it's two people, hand in hand, ankle deep in the froth. Sunrise in hair, blonde, green bikini, tall, shining. They kiss. Handsy things happening underneath hist trunks, her tongue.
Who wouldn't envy such youth, who wouldn't grieve what has been lost in watching. They come up the dune, she pushing him backward, up.
Study them from the balcony, holding your breath while the couple stops in a smooth bowl of sand, protected by the dunes. She pushes down his trunks, he takes off her bathing suit, top and bottom. Oh yes, you would return to your wife on hands and knees, crawl the distance of the eastern seaboard to feel her fingers once more in your hair.
You are unworthy of her. Yes. No.
Even as you think of flight, you're transfixed by the lovers, wouldn't dare move for fear of making them flap like birds into the blistered sky.
They step into each other, and it's hard to tell where one begins and one ends. Hands in hair and warmth on warmth, into the sand her red knees raised, his body moving.
It is time. Something odd happening though you are not ready for it. There is an overlap. You have seen this before, felt her breath on your nape, the heat of her beneath, and the cold damp of day on your back, the helpless overwhelm, a sense of crossing. The sex reaching it's culmination.
Come. Lip bitten to blood and finish with a roar and birds shoot up and crumbles in the pink folds of an ear. Serrat ~ Lauren Groff

I am a criminal mastermind, I am here to take down this regime. ~ Marissa Meyer

I miss the floral scent of her hair, the perfume that barely masked the underlying truth of what she was. She was lost time. She smelled of dusty libraries and unwound clocks, salted sand and rain riding on the first rays of dawn. And lilac. When she held me to her, lilac was what I smelled first. ~ Courtney M. Privett

Invocation"

The day hanging by its feet with a hole
In its voice
And the light running into the sand

Here I am once again with my dry mouth
At the fountain of thistles
Preparing to sing. ~ W.S. Merwin

Why?' says the boy.
'Why? Because staying alive is more important than anything else.'
'Why is staying alive more important than anything?'
He is about to answer, about to produce the correct, patient, educative words, when something wells up inside him. Anger? No. Irritation? No: more than that. Despair? Perhaps: despair in one of its minor forms. Why? Because he would like to believe he is guiding the child through the maze of the moral life when, correctly, patiently, he answers his unceasing 'Why' questions. But where is there any evidence that the child absorbs his guidance or even hears what he says?
He stops where he is on the busy sidewalk. Inés and the boy stop too, and stare at him in puzzlement. 'Think of it in this way,' he says. 'We are tramping through the desert, you and Inés and I. You tell me you are thirsty and I offer you a glass of water. Instead of drinking the water you pour it out in the sand. You say you thirst for answers: 'Why this? Why that?' I, because I am patient, because I love you, offer you an answer each time, which you pour away in the sand. Today, at last, I am tired of offering you water. 'Why is staying alive important?' If life does not seem important to you, so be it.'
Inés raises a hand to her mouth in dismay. As for the boy, his face sets in a frown. 'You say you love me but you don't love me,' he says. 'You just pretend. ~ J.M. Coetzee

Hulkamania is like a single grain of sand in the Sahara desert that is Macho Madness. ~ Randy Savage

It was the Kojagar full moon, and I was slowly pacing the riverside conversing with myself. It could hardly be called a conversation, as I was doing all the talking and my imaginary companion all the listening. The poor fellow had no chance of speaking up for himself, for was not mine the power to compel him helplessly to answer like a fool?

But what a night it was! How often have I tried to write of such, but never got it done! There was not a line of ripple on the river; and from away over there, where the farthest shore of the distant main stream is seen beyond the other edge of the midway belt of sand, right up to this shore, glimmers a broad band of moonlight. Not a human being, not a boat in sight; not a tree, nor blade of grass on the fresh-formed island sand-bank.

It seemed as though a desolate moon was rising upon a devastated earth; a random river wandering through a lifeless solitude; a long-drawn fairy-tale coming to a close over a deserted world, - all the kings and the princesses, their ministers and friends and their golden castles vanished, leaving the Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers and the Unending Moor, over which the adventurous princes fared forth, wanly gleaming in the pale moonlight. I was pacing up and down like the last pulse-beats of this dying world. Every one else seemed to be on the opposite shore - the shore of life - where the British Government and the Nineteenth Century hold sway, and tea and cigarettes. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

He holds her with the strength of a million-man army, but with all the tenderness of her heart lying naked in the palms of his hands. ~ Laura Kreitzer

I am sure that I am in possession of a soul that is at the very least, a thousand years old. And I say this not on a whim; I say this as someone who is sure of something, who is not thinking fancifully but who is thinking solidly and fully. So why is it that I am childlike and playful? There is only one answer to this, and that is, after existing for a very long time, one learns the skill of retaining childlikeness and the state of childlikeness, which is called playfulness. The immature are not childlike and they are not playful; rather, they are manipulative and insecure. Manipulation is the game of the immature and insecurity is their state of being. I'm saying this because I want to draw the great distinction in the sand very clearly. The older your soul becomes, the more childlike it will be in texture. But we only make playtime out of small and joyful things; there is no playtime when it comes to bravery, honesty, and trust. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Her mum is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, when Summer exits. "Gage left from here a few minutes ago," she says, tone neutral. "His hair was ruffled." She gestures with her hand above her head.
The haze Gage left Summer in vanishes. She frowns.
Her mum sighs and steps forward. Smooths her daughter's hair. "If he hurts you," she says in a mild tone, "I'll kill him. ~ Laura Kreitzer

I've always felt like I had to be strong and take care of everybody and it's a curse as much as it is a blessing. But strength doesn't always mean not needing help… sometimes you're the strongest when you know when to ask for it. I shouldn't have taken that choice away from all of you. So, I'm asking for your help. ~ A.J. Sand

Let each of us accept the truth of the following statement and try to make it our most fundamental principle: Christ's teaching will never let us down, while worldly wisdom always will. Christ Himself said that this sort of wisdom was like a house with nothing but sand as its foundation, while His own was like a building with solid rock as its foundation. ~ Vincent De Paul

Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in some obscure digital vault. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great chronicle of humanity out into the endless universe. ~ Henning Mankell

To forgive a fault in another is more sublime than to be faultless one's self. ~ George Sand

Who can calculate the trajectory of a molecule? How do we know the creation of worlds is not determined by the falling of grains of sand? Who, after all, knows the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely big and the infinitely small, the reverberation of causes in the chasms of a being, the avalanches of creation? A ~ Victor Hugo

I could run nearly naked on a hot, windy beach and plunge without care into a running diamond sea; roll on the sand and fling my arms wide to the sun and still be what I was ... young. ~ Anne Rivers Siddons

You can do one of two things. You can bury you head in the sand and believe what everyone tells you - that you will always be that young, that thin and that fabulous. Or you can use all the things you have - talent, contacts, knowledge - and do something different. ~ Cat Deeley

Those who consume animals not only harm those animals and endanger themselves, but they also threaten the well-being of other humans who currently or will later inhabit the planet ... It is time for humans to remove their heads from the sand and recognize the risk to themselves that can arise from their maltreatment of other species. ~ Michael Greger