Sky At Dusk Quotes

In the Library"

for Octavio


There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered

The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.

Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.

She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does. ~ Charles Simic

There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books. ~ Charles Simic

It's a sketch of clouds moving across the sky at dusk in the form of a woman. The woman appears to be leaping or running as the sun sets in the background. Below is the sea that stirs with her movement; and the hills and mountains that fade behind her. Margot studies it, her face opening up all kinds of ways. ~ Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn

Wyatt squeezed my hand, and it was light enough now that I could see his free hand pointing to a tree silhouetted against the pale morning sky, one tiny star barely visible above it. I blinked and it was gone. The others dissolved into the morning almost as quickly and were replaced by a cloudless swath of pale sky, tinged blue around the edges. Above the surface, it might have been a moment where I glanced over at Wyatt and he understood. He would've maybe even leaned in and kissed it softly into my memory. It might have made me feel less lonely and lost. But beneath the water, we didn't move and we didn't speak, and my moment of peace faded slowly into the blue around us. ~ Jessi Kirby

Did you stand there in shock at the sight of that black smoke rising against that blue sky? Did you shout out in anger, in fear of your neighbor, or did you just sit down and cry? ~ Alan Jackson

Thus unto winter's chill embrace I turn
Who once the summer's sun did blithely bide
'Neath solemn visage cold and fair and stern
In her cool breast my hot heart to confide.
Denied the warmth and wit of summer's sun
Or springtime's strength, and bright, melodious song
I dreamed not to complete what I'd begun
Nor dared to haste the laggard hours along.
But now with spring and summer sun at rest
Laid bare before bright winter's pale charms
I would for love of her lay down my quest
And take my ease in Winter-Lady's arms.
Before her beauty fair 'neath snow-swept sky
All other seasons blanch and fade, and die.
- The Lost Knight's Lament, "Winter's Lady" (Forthcoming) ~ D. Alexander Neill

They hung over the town, muted red, dark-pink, surrounded by every conceivable nuance of gray. The setting was wild and beautiful. Actually everyone should be in the streets, I thought, cars should be stopping, doors should be opened and drivers and passengers emerging with heads raised and eyes sparkling with curiosity and a craving for beauty, for what was it that was going on above our heads? However, a few glances at most were cast upward, perhaps followed by isolated comments about how beautiful the evening was, for sights like this were not exceptional, on the contrary, hardly a day passed without the sky being filled with fantastic cloud formations, each and every one illuminated in unique, never-to-be-repeated ways, and since what you see every day is what you never see, we lived our lives under the constantly changing sky without sparing it a glance or a thought. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

She wove golden rays of sunshine,
Into a long and flowing dress,
That left the scent on everything she touched,
Of nature's sweet caress,
Everywhere the girl did go,
The flowers would all bloom,
And she could chase the lonely feeling,
Out of every room,
She could drive out all your sadness,
And cause a frozen heart to thaw,
She's paint the sky pink every morning,
But nobody ever saw,
No one thought to thank her,
For the warmth upon their skin,
Or for chasing all their demons,
From where the night-time's breath had been,
So she thought she wasn't needed,
She could leave and they'd not care,
But they'd taken her for granted,
Since her light was always there,
Because you never thank the ground,
Until you know how it feels to fall,
Or just how much you need the sun,
Until it doesn't rise at all. ~ E.H

I was on South Bank one day by the Royal Festival Hall. It was a sunny day with a bright blue sky. I was looking up at a train crossing the Hungerford Bridge. Through the train I could see the sky successively framed by each window as the carriage passed. Each window moving quickly forward and away held briefly a rectangle of blue. The windows passing, the blue remained. ~ Russell Hoban

Dr. R scratches out a note on his pad.
"Losing you both was only the practice pain, wasn't it? For my mum and dad ... "
He puts his finger on his lips, his elbow at his chest, not racked with cancer. "Yes."
"And when that happens, this will seem like nothing."
He nods.
"When it happens," he asks me, "what will get you through?"
"Friends who love me."
"And if your friends weren't there?"
"Music through headphones."
"And if the music stopped?"
"A sermon by Rabbi Wolpe."
"If there was no religion?"
"The mountains and the sky."
"If you leave California?"
"Numbered streets to keep me walking."
"If New York falls into the ocean?"
Your voice in my head. ~ Emma Forrest

My 'thing' is that I just lie in my immense bed and look out the window at the skyline over Virginia and the sky and the airplanes coming into Reagan. I really love doing that. ~ Ben Stein

Unless you make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand God: for the like is not intelligible save to the like. Make yourself grow to a greatness beyond measure, by a bound free yourself from the body; raise yourself above all time, become Eternity; then you will understand God. Believe that nothing is impossible for you, think yourself immortal and capable of understanding all, all arts, all sciences, the nature of every living being. Mount higher than the highest height; descend lower than the lowest depth. Draw into yourself all sensations of everything created, fire and water, dry and moist, imagining that you are everywhere, on earth, in the sea, in the sky, that you are not yet born, in the maternal womb, adolescent, old, dead, beyond death. If you embrace in your thought all things at once, times, places, substances, qualities, quantities, you may understand God. ~ Giordano Bruno

When you are feeling down, look at the skies. You are not always alone. ~ EunB

First of all, I want you to think of the city as a collection of people. That's easy, right? You think of Minneapolis or Chicago or Milwaukee, you think of hundreds of thousands of people. Millions of people. That's what you think of right away. Maybe you think of sky-scrapers too, I don't know. But I think of people. The next thing you should think about is ideas. Think of each of those millions of people as a set of ideas. Like, That woman is a ballerina, she thinks about ballet. Or, that man is an architect, he thinks about buildings. If you begin thinking about it that way, a city is the greatest place in the world. It's millions of people, brushing up against one another, exchanging ideas, all the time, at every hour of the day. ~ Nickolas Butler

The supreme contemporary example of such an inability to feel evil is of course Walt Whitman. "His favorite occupation," writes his disciple, Dr. Bucke "seemed to be strolling or sauntering about outdoors by himself, looking at the grass, the trees, the flowers, the vistas of light, the varying aspects of the sky, and listening to the birds, the crickets, the tree frogs, and all the hundreds of natural sounds. ~ William James

I looked at my three friends, the lights exploding in the sky and illuminating their beautiful faces. They all represented a different part of my life, had all come to me at different times; why they'd all stuck with me, I was constantly tying to work out. ~ Candice Carty-Williams

Why is the world full of color anyway? Sunlight is white, and when it is reflected, it is still white. And so we should be surrounded by a clinical looking, optically pure landscape. That this is not what we see is because every material absorbs light differently or converts it into other kinds of radiation. Only the wavelengths that remain are refracted and reach our eyes. Therefore, the color of organisms and objects is dictated by the color of the reflected light. And in the case of leaves on trees, this color is green.

But why don't we see leaves as black? Why don't they absorb all light? Chlorophyll helps leaves process light. If trees processed light super-efficiently, there would be hardly any left over-and the forest would then look as dark during the day as it does at night. Chlorophyll, however, has one disadvantage. It has a so-called green gap, and because it cannot use this part of the color spectrum, it has to reflect it back unused. This weak spot means that we can see this photosynthetic leftover, and that's why almost all plants look deep green to us. What we are really seeing is waste light, the rejected part that trees cannot use. Beautiful for us; useless for the trees. Nature that we find pleasing because it reflects trash? Whether trees feel the same way about this I don't know, but one thing is for certain: hungry beeches and spruce are as happy to see blue sky as I am. ~ Peter Wohlleben

A final reminder. Whenever you are in Paris at twilight in the early summer, return to the Seine and watch the evening sky close slowly on a last strand of daylight fading quietly, like a sigh. ~ Kate Simon

Coming?" Dennis held his arm out for her, a patient smile in his voice. She peered up at him, but he was just a tall, blurry shadow. There was talk and laughter and music coming from inside the house. Above it the stars were in a black sky. That black, black sky.
"You all right?"
All those stars so far apart. None of them close. From far away they just looked it. ~ Andre Dubus III

Love, we must part now: do not let it be
Calamitous and bitter. In the past
There has been too much moonlight and self-pity:
Let us have done with it: for now at last
Never has sun more boldly paced the sky,
Never were hearts more eager to be free,
To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I
No longer hold them; we are husks, that see
The grain going forward to a different use.

There is regret. Always, there is regret.
But it is better that our lives unloose,
As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,
Break from an estuary with their courses set,
And waving part, and waving drop from sight.

- Love We Must Part ~ Philip Larkin

WHAT vain weathercocks we are! I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable - I, weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk. ~ Emily Bronte

Saying Goodbye to Very Young Children
They will not be the same next time. The sayings
so cute, just slightly off, will be corrected.
Their eyes will be more skeptical, plugged in
the more securely to the worldly buzz
of television, alphabet, and street talk,
culture polluting their gazes' dawn blue.
It makes you see at last the value of
those boring aunts and neighbors (their smells
of summer sweat and cigarettes, their faces
like shapes of sky between shade-giving leaves)
who knew you from the start, when you were zero,
cooing their nothings before you could be bored
or knew a name, not even you own, or how
this world brave with hellos turns all goodbye. ~ John Updike

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky ~ Gautama Buddha

Rolling flat onto his back, Drake shuddered. Then he inhaled deeply. He stared up at the night sky. "We're going to win," he said, his voice calmer, less strained. "This is nothing. Keep going. They can't stop us. Jason, give Rachel the necklace. Tell her ... tell her I'm sorry. Tell her ... I wanted ... to show her ... my little valley. Tell her I tried."
His voice was growing weak. Farfalee smoothed a hand over his brow. "Shhh," she whispered. "Be still, Drake. You can rest now. You did it. Rest. We'll take it from here."
"Failie," he whispered, his hand twitching toward the back of his neck with little jerks. "Where's my seed?" His head tipped sideways. The breath went out of him. ~ Brandon Mull

I'll admit that writing doesn't always come, but I'm totally against walking around looking at the sky when you're experiencing a block, waiting for inspiration to strike you. Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov didn't like each other and agreed on very few things, but they were of one opinion on this: you had to write constantly. If you can't write a major work, write minor trifles. If you can't write at all, orchestrate something. ~ Dmitri Shostakovich

A poor old Widow in her weeds
Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;
Not too shallow, and not too deep,
And down came April -- drip -- drip -- drip.
Up shone May, like gold, and soon
Green as an arbour grew leafy June.
And now all summer she sits and sews
Where willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,
Teasle and pansy, meadowsweet,
Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit;
Brown bee orchis, and Peals of Bells;
Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells;
Like Oberon's meadows her garden is
Drowsy from dawn to dusk with bees.
Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,
And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes;
And all she has is all she needs --
A poor Old Widow in her weeds. ~ Walter De La Mare

I'm really excited to be a part of it and sharing the legacy, any documentary I look up at the sky and Kevin Burns did and Bryan did and showed me again you know the history that's in this character and you know. ~ Brandon Routh

Hunting Song

THE dusky night rides down the sky,
And ushers in the morn;
The hounds all join in glorious cry,
The huntsman winds his horn:
And a hunting we will go.

The wife around her husband throws
Her arms, and begs his stay;
My dear, it rains, and hails, and snows,
You will not hunt to-day.
But a hunting we will go.

A brushing fox in yonder wood,
Secure to find we seek;
For why, I carry'd sound and good
A cartload there last week.
And a hunting we will go.

Away he goes, he flies the rout,
Their steeds all spur and switch;
Some are thrown in, and some thrown out,
And some thrown in the ditch:
But a hunting we will go.

At length is strength to faintness worn,
Poor Reynard ceases flight;
Then hungry, homeward we return,
To feast away the night:
Then a drinking we will go. ~ Henry Fielding

She gathered up a few thoughts of the lovelier parts of the afternoon and stowed them away in the back of her mind, where they might remind her at some future date that lovely afternoons do not survive the chill of dusk. ~ Helen Simonson

The world comes to life. Wisps of green steal across the fields, rich with the promise of spring. Tiny shoots push through the soil. Virgin buds uncoil at the tips of branches. Soft, fresh grass sweeps and swells across the meadows. Thornbushes blossom on the hillsides. The walnut tress have survived the winter, though their antlered crowns still stand bare. Fresh leaves reach longingly for rain from the sky. ~ Miklos Vamos

Pale as a candle flame in the dusk, tallow-pale, he stalked along, holding her hand, and Louie looked up and beyond him at the enfeebled stars. Thus, for many years, she had seen her father's head, a ghostly earth flame against the heavens, from her little height. Sam looked down on the moon of her face; the dayshine was enough still to light the eyeballs swimming up to him. ~ Christina Stead

All I wanted to do was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already. Now, looking out the tunnel of trees over the ravine at the sky with white clouds moving across in the wind, I loved the country so that I was happy as you are after you have been with a woman that you really love, when, empty, you feel it welling up again and there it is and you can never have it all and yet what there is, now, you can have, and you want more and more, to have, and be, and live in, to possess now again for always, for that long sudden-ended always; making time stand still, sometimes so very still that afterwards you wait to hear it move, and it is slow in starting. But you are not alone because if you have every really loved her happy and untragic, she loves you always; no matter whom she loves nor where she goes she loves you more. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

But the moan this time is not simply a moan of will and pain but a call into the emptiness: Is anyone there? There is a blackness spreading into her vision and she feels herself spinning in an unlit sky. Empty, empty, her moan cries. The moan goes on, spiraling deeper into space, and at the end of it Lore falls directly into sleep, with no sense of transition, into a dream of gray waters, of swimming with weary arms and trying to spy the shore. ~ Pamela Erens

I'll tell you what I miss.
I miss that throbbing heart telling me to take a leap when the sky looks too dark.
I miss the walk that I took in the narrow cobblestoned pathways that fumed of history and undying stories of love and loss.
I miss the coffee that scented like mist in a frozen dream in a land of strange beauty.
I miss the afternoon tea that followed my pen to hours of happy melancholy.
I miss the muse I saw dance in a foreign land of near heart.
I miss the stranger smiling at me from a corner and teaching me his language to smile at my twinkled happiness.
I miss that symphony of mad evenings ending in a sky full of stars to fill my soul with an unknown ecstasy.
I miss that hand of an old woman trying to tell me her story.
I miss that child running up to me in a crowd of unknown faces to hand me her candy.
I miss that night where I lay back on a distant balcony gazing at the solitary moon for hours knowing that it is shining at my homeland just as bright.
I miss that stranger listening to my heart and telling me how beautiful it is.
I miss a wandering soul, who went on filling her breath with life of eternal love in the wings of Life.
And I'll tell you now when I look back I see how wonderful Time has treated me and how grateful I am to have lived in moments that roar of a beautiful Life lived with a heart throbbing to take a leap once again in that ocean of Life's beguiling journey. ~ Debatrayee Banerjee

So you used to know everything?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Everybody did. I told you. It's nothing special, knowing how things work. And you really do have to give it all up if you want to play."
"To play what?"
"This," she said. She waved at the house and the sky and the impossible full moon and the skeins and the shawls and clusters of bright stars. ~ Neil Gaiman

At times, my confidence is rock bottom, although I try for it to be sky high, thanks to the people that are always there with me and support me. ~ Javier Hernandez

And then he saw her burning eyes. They gazed at him calmly and he saw in them benediction.
He fell to his knees before her, pressing his face to her purple-velvet-clad-belly. "Séraphine, Séraphine, Séraphine. O most beloved of women, most fiery of saints, never leave me, please. I'll erect columns of white marble to you, build gardens of delight for you, cause ships to sail and warriors to rise for you, if you'll only remain by my side."
She smiled down at him and cupped his cheeks. "Valentine, do you love me?"
Ah, God, it was like a shot to the gut.
He squeezed tight his eyes. To come so close and lose her because of this. "If I were able I would love you as no man has ever loved a woman since the beginning of time."
She knelt then to face him and whispered, "But you are able."
He clutched her. He wouldn't let her go, no, not even when she realized... "Séraphine, my darling, burning one, do you not remember? I told you, so long ago now, that I lacked that part. I cannot-"
"But you can, Valentine." She touched a finger to his cheek and then showed it to him.
He blinked.
Her finger was wet. His eyes were wet.
She smiled at him, his burning Séraphine, and it was as if the night sky were ablaze. "You love me."
"I love you," he said in wonder, and felt his chest fill with warmth. "I love you."
"And I love you," she whispered, her hands cupping his face.
So he kissed her until she was limp and pliable and so very hot ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

Two Bodies"

Two bodies face to face
are at times two waves
and night is an ocean.

Two bodies face to face
are at times two stones
and night a desert.

Two bodies face to face
are at times two roots
laced into night.

Two bodies face to face
are at times two knives
and night strikes sparks.

Two bodies face to face
are two stars falling
in an empty sky. ~ Octavio Paz

She walked down the lawn and surveyed the world as they'd both seen it--the wild limbs of the leaning apple tree, the golden-brown evening sky, the black silhouettes of the mountains. The trunk and the branches of the tree had bent over the years, under the weight of the heavy fruit. One of the biggest branches had grown down from the canopy of the leaves, all the way to the ground and straight along the grass...the end of that same branch had begun growing up again, at a right angle, the wood bending toward the sky. ~ Jonathan Corcoran

the disguise. Back in the main hall, Mr. Dart helped Stanley climb up into the empty picture frame. Stanley was able to stay in place because Mr. Dart had cleverly put four small spikes in the wall, one for each hand and foot. The frame was a perfect fit. Against the wall, Stanley looked just like a picture. "Except for one thing," Mr. Dart said. "Shepherdesses are supposed to look happy. They smile at their sheep and at the sky. You look fierce, not happy, Stanley. ~ Jeff Brown