Slipping Quotes

Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the skies. ~ Garth Brooks

Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth.

Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie.

Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. ~ Ian McDonald

The fears that the few good things that make you happy are slipping through your fingers, and the frustrations that the bad things you hate about yourself or your situation can't be changed - these fears and these frustrations are what Christmas came to destroy. ~ John Piper

My Dearest,

I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together. I can almost feel you beside me as I write this letter, and I can smell the scent of wildflowers that always reminds me of you. But at this moment, these things give me no pleasure. Your visits have been coming less often, and I feel sometimes as if the greatest part of who I am is slowly slipping away.

I am trying, though. At night when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a way to return to me. Last night, in my dreams, I saw you on the pier near Wrightsville Beach. The wind was blowing through your hair, and your eyes held the fading sunlight. I am struck as I see you leaning against the rail. You are beautiful, I think as I see you, a vision that I can never find in anyone else. I slowly begin to walk toward you, and when you finally turn to me, I notice that others have been watching you as well. "Do you know her?" they ask me in jealous whispers, and as you smile at me, I simply answer with the truth. "Better than my own heart."

I stop when I reach you and take you in my arms. I long for this moment more than any other. It is what I live for, and when you return my embrace, I give myself over to this moment, at peace once again.

I raise my hand and gently touch your cheek and you tilt your head and cl ~ Nicholas Sparks

None of us had been in love, not really, until now. Anything we had called love came back to us as mockery in the face of this sudden flight from reason. Andy had said he was in love with Missy, and it was a shame Missy was not in love with him. A daily lament rose from him like the steam of the heat from the pipes at school. Andy's mother hit the counter with her fist. "They're too young," she said, talking about Natalie and Dion, and we knew she was talking about their tongues running along the inside of each other's teeth and the suddenly anxious too-tight grip of her hand between his legs, and the taste of each other's skin, and the smell of each other's bodies, and the feel of him slipping inside her and her settling down over him, the shape of her mouth, the shape of his. She was talking about their bodies but thinking about the words they had used. Everyone knew. "Love," she finally growled, as if the creature itself had risen from her dreams to take over her kitchen. She gripped a package of spaghetti as if it was a club and stared at the wall, paralyzed by the idea of them out there. ~ Jason Brown

If life were a Star Trek episode - and how awesome would that be? - slipping would be the equivalent of beaming up, minus the cheesy sound effects and assistance from Scotty. ~ Bethany K. Lovell

Yeah. I was grinning. Running my tongue over my teeth, I felt the familiar jab of fangs. Shifting wasn't in my plans for the day, but it was hard to stop a little cat from slipping through when I was having such a good time listening to Angel eviscerate kids. ~ Lola Dodge

Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time - when pursued like a bandit - will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it won't. You have to admit that you can't catch it. That you're not supposed to catch it. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Without a sharp turnaround toward democracy and equality in the United States, Europe will be virtually alone in its commitment to social democracy. The pressures of low-wage immigrant labor, cheap imports from Eastern Europe and Asia, and free-market practices of governments are already threatening once secure areas of employment and causing right-wing populism to pop up in various Western European countries. Surprising numbers of middle-class and working-class voters have supported ultranationalist, neofascist parties throughout Europe because, like white male workers in the United States, they see their status slipping. ~ Steve Brouwer

Everything is moving, falling, slipping, vanishing... There is a vast upheaval of matter. ~ Virginia Woolf

for all I can really do is
stand here
in September's rain
savoring…
soaking it all in
slipping..
and simply
holding on to poetry
for dear life. ~ Sanober Khan

I watched out of the corner of my eye as he stepped into his shorts and pulled a T-shirt over his head. Slipping the razor into his pocket, he walked out the door. I almost called after him to ask if he wanted to meet me for dinner, but I didn't. My eyes, reflected in the mirror, knew the reason why the words stuck in my throat.
I was afraid he would say no.
I was even more afraid he would say yes. ~ Juliann Rich

Everyone just wasting time because they have so much of it to waste, minutes slipping by on who's with who and did you hear. ~ Lauren Oliver

When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause. ~ Samantha Power

But correspondents are a wily bunch. Having stashed their typewriters, crossed the border, changed their clothes, and counted to ten, they began slipping back into the country one by one. So in 1928, the Foreign Press Office was opened anew on the top floor of a six-story walk-up conveniently located halfway between the Kremlin and the offices of the secret police - a spot that just happened to be across the street from the Metropol. Thus, ~ Amor Towles

That is one of the tricks of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, and often it comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. Perhaps this is why so many fail to recognize opportunity. ~ Napoleon Hill

When I feel myself slipping to the darkness of my past, I'll close my eyes and remember this. Remember Jackson. ~ Stacey Trombley

And I was beginning to suspect that Andrea was slipping extra espresso into her magical mystery coffee potions because "caffeinated Jane" amused her. ~ Molly Harper

In the midst of her tears came the thought, "When people are in danger, they ask God to save them;" and, slipping down upon her knees, she said her prayer as she had never said it before, for when human help seems gone we turn to Him as naturally as lost children cry to their father, and feel sure that he will hear and answer them. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Losing is the bane and bugbear of every professional athlete's existence, but in baseball the monster seems to hang closer than in other sports, its chilly claws and foul breath palpable around the neck hairs of the infielder bending for his crosshand scoop or the reliever slipping his first two fingers off-center on the ball seams before delivering his two-and-two cut fastball. ~ Roger Angell

At the point where he, today's Ivan Ilyich, began to emerge, all the pleasures that had seemed so real melted away now before his eyes and turned into something trivial and often disgusting.
And the further he was from childhood, the nearer he got to the present day, the more trivial and dubious his pleasures appeared. It started with law school. That had retained a little something that was really good: there was fun, there was friendship, there was hope. But in the last years the good times had become more exceptional. Then, at the beginning of his service with the governor, some good times came again: memories of making love to a woman. Then it became all confused, and the good times were not so many. After that there were fewer still; the further he went the fewer there were.
Marriage. . .an accident and such a disappointment, and his wife's bad breath, and all that sensuality and hypocrisy! And the deadlines of his working life, and those money worries, going on for a year, two years, ten, twenty - always the same old story. And the longer it went on the deadlier it became.
'It's as if I had been going downhill when I thought I was going uphill. That's how it was. In society's opinion I was heading uphill, but in equal measure life was slipping away from me...And now it's all over. Nothing left but to die! ~ Leo Tolstoy

The green prehuman earth is the mystery we were chosen to solve, a guide to the birthplace of our spirit, but it is slipping away. The way back seems harder every year. If there is danger in the human trajectory, it is not so much in the survival of our own species as in the fulfillment of the ultimate irony of organic evolution: that in the instant of achieving self-understanding, through the mind of man, life has doomed its most beautiful creations. And thus humanity closes the door on its past. ~ E. O. Wilson

Youth is slipping, dripping, pearl on pearl, away. ~ Louise Imogen Guiney

It would not be fair to say that the fire stole my faith, since in truth it has been slipping away from me all my life, flipping between my fingers like a shiny little minnow
such a far cry from the trophy salmon that dangled from my father's fist. ~ Elissa Janine Hoole

When I'm with my kids, I definitely try and be in the moment and wait till the end unless the mess poses a real danger, like slipping. But when I am cooking by myself, I definitely clean as I go to simplify. ~ Sarah Michelle Gellar

It's just one future slipping away and being replaced by another. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

My Ailments appear treacherously; I never know when they're coming. And then something happens inside my body, my bones begin to ache. It's an unpleasant ache, sickening – that's the word I'd use. It continues incessantly, it doesn't stop for hours, sometimes days on end. There's no hiding from this pain, there are no pills or injections for it. It must hurt, just as a river must flow and fire must burn. It spitefully reminds me that I consist of physical particles, which are slipping away by the second. Perhaps one could get used to it? Learn to live with it, just as people live in the cities of Auschwitz or Hiroshima, without ever thinking about what happened there in the past. They simply live their lives. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

His vulnerability allowed me to let my guard down, and gently and methodically, he tore apart my well-constructed dam. Waves of tender feelings were lapping over the top and slipping through the cracks. The feelings flooded through and spilled into me. It was frightening opening myself up to feel love for someone again. My heart pounded hard and thudded audibly in my chest. I was sure he could hear it.
Ren's expression changed as he watched my face. His look of sadness was replaced by one of concern for me.
What was the next step? What should I do? What do I say? How do I share what I'm feeling?
I remembered watching romance movies with my mom, and our favorite saying was "shut up and kiss her already!" We'd both get frustrated when the hero or heroine wouldn't do what was so obvious to the two of us, and as soon as a tense, romantic moment occurred, we'd both repeat our mantra. I could hear my mom's humor-filled voice in my mind giving me the same advice: "Kells, shut up and kiss him already!"
So, I got a grip on myself, and before I changed my mind, I leaned over and kissed him.
He froze. He didn't kiss me back. He didn't push me away. He just stopped…moving. I pulled back, saw the shock on his face, and instantly regretted my boldness. I stood up and walked away, embarrassed. I wanted to put some distance between us as I frantically tried to rebuild the walls around my heart.
I heard him move. He slid his hand under my elbow and turned me arou ~ Colleen Houck

After all," Anne had said to Marilla once, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Seriously. Fifteen percent or I'm slipping garlic powder into your next Bloody Mary."
He fixed me with a scowl that could launch a thousand horror novels. I smiled. Muttering murderous things under his breath,he pulled out his wallet and handed over the money.
"Come back soon," I chirped, beaming as I went back to the cash register. I might not have Tasey on me regularly, but I could still best vamps. ~ Kiersten White

Fall was slipping quietly into winter ~ Robert Dugoni

Underwater madness slipping into a haze, drowning and choking in repugnant nostalgic thoughts. ~ Karen Quan

When you have a hard day or when I see you slipping backward, I'm desperate to stop it, to make you see how amazing you are, to help you know that you have so much to look forward to. The things that happened to you won't haunt you forever."
"But I'll remember them forever." I know there's no forgetting and I'm still not sure what to do with that.
He sucks in a breath. "But they'll hurt less."
I don't have to look at him to know there are tears on his face. ~ Jolene Perry

Piglet opened the letter box and climbed in. Then, having untied himself, he began to squeeze into the slit, through which in the old days when front doors were front doors, many an unexpected letter than WOL had written to himself, had come slipping. ~ A.A. Milne

I'm not known as a singer, but in life I like to do things that are a bit beyond my reach to keep myself from slipping. I find that technology has made it so that we don't need to have a memory system, and as I get older I want to do things that challenge me. What could be more challenging than doing this show with a knee that's been replaced, after tearing my Achilles heel with a baker's cyst on the back of my knee? And then I have to try and dance! ~ George Hamilton

They are trying to hold on to a world that no longer exists. They are blind and terrified because they feel it slipping away from them. They are gripping thin air but they keep trying desperately to hold on to it - hoping the air will turn into something familiar and solid. ~ Lillian E. Smith

I called, my voice false-sounding and hoarse, slipping the painting into an extra pillowcase and hiding it under the bed before hurrying out of the room. ~ Donna Tartt

The American Dream may be slipping away. We have overcome such challenges before. To recover the Dream requires knowing where it came from, how it lasted so long and why it matters so much. ~ Jon Meacham

With slide guitar, you're just hanging this piece of glass on your hand. It's a really beautiful instrument in that it's so responsive, you're just slipping your hand back and forth. ~ Bonnie Raitt

God will make the way clear when the choices you make are in accordance with His will and His purpose, when you listen to His desires for your life." Slipping ~ Hallee Bridgeman

When successful people fail, they rebound quickly. The breaking of a habit doesn't matter if the reclaiming of it is fast…Too often, we fall into an all or nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up - the problem is thinking that if you can't do something perfectly, then you shouldn't do it all. You don't realize how valuable it is to just show up on your bad or busy days. Lost days hurt you more than successful days help you. ~ James Clear

The Jardin Massey looked dismal today, rain lashed and deserted. She watched a bedraggled pigeon, feathers puffed out, sheltering beneath a branch.She'd never made a will, never considered whether she'd rather her body was buried or burnt to grey powder. And where would she want to be buried - in a French graveyard, gaudy with plastic flowers? If she made a will, could she state an aversion to plastic? ~ Jackie Ley

Wrath…"
"What," he murmured against her, working her with his nose. "You don't like?"
"Shut up and get back to doing - "
His tongue slipping under the panties cut her off…and made him have to slow himself down.
She was so slick and wet and soft and willing, it was all he could do to keep himself from hauling her on the rug and going at her deep and hard. And then they'd both miss out on the fun of anticipation.
Moving the cotton aside with his hand, he kissed her pink flesh, then delved in. She was oh, so ready for him, and he knew it because of the honey that he swallowed as he dragged upward in a long, slow lick.
But it wasn't enough, and holding the panties to the side was distracting. With his fang, he punctured them, then split them apart right up the middle, leaving the two halves to hang off her hips. His palms went up to her ass and squeezed hard as he quit fooling around and got busy working out his female with his mouth. He knew exactly what she liked best, the sucking and the licking and the going in with his tongue.
Closing his eyes, he took it all in, the scent and the taste and the feel of her shuddering against him as she peaked and came apart.
Behind the fly of his leathers, his cock was screaming for attention, the rasp of the buttons not nearly sufficient to satisfy what it was demanding, but tough shit.
His erection was going to have to chill for a while, because this was too sweet to stop anytime soon. < ~ J.R. Ward

Love is a fugacious word. Rounded and comfortable, it lifts the tongue and fills the back of the throat, before slipping beyond reach as the sound is exhaled from the mouth. Yet the word eludes meaning. Love teeters on the edge of the unknown beyond which it becomes almost impossible to speak. It moves us beyond words. We speak about love when we define our longing and desire and yet we fall into silence when we attempt to speak about it in the present. ~ Jonathan Rutherford

He had studied philosophy as a young man, but clay really spoke to him. I like mud, he explained. And then he went on to explain the Earth's magnetism, and why clay does stick together and it's about ions and stuff. And there are specific muds, or clays. For instance, this: red. Deep deep beautiful red. Albany slip. I stand there in awe, slipping around in worlds of specialization. The endless details, but the Earth is a big wad of it, mud. And that would be a huge start, to know that you liked it. There it is. ~ Eileen Myles

When you were twenty, you accepted yourself, flaws and all. Then disenchantment set in. By the time you were thirty your tolerance was wearing thin. You weren't entirely trustworthy, and you knew you were prone to compromise. Already the future was receding, the bright dreams were slipping below the horizon. By now you're a stage set, one push and the whole thing could collapse at your feet. At times you feel like you're living someone else's life, in a strange house you've rented by accident. The 'you' you've become isn't your real self. ~ J.G. Ballard

There is a moment in every relationship when you see the whole thing. The question is when does the moment come? Is it the first time you see the person and instinctively know that things between you are going to work out, or fail? Or is it a moment toward the end, however you get there, when you realize that there is something behind this persons eyes that you were never able to touch, no matter how hard you tried? ~ Laura Dave

I feel the ground slipping under my feet, and just as I am about to fall off the precipice, you draw out a rope and pull me into the safety net of your embrace. That's the thing - I can never trust you to rescue me, and yet you do. Unfailingly. ~ Rosalyn D'Mello

I'm the living dead. I feel no connection to any other human. I have no friends and I don't really care much about my family any longer. I feel no love for them.

I can feel no joy. I'm incapable of feeling physical pleasure. There's nothing to ever look forward to as a result. I don't miss anyone or anything. I eat because I feel hunger pangs, but no food tastes like anything I like.

I wear a mask when I'm with other people but it's been slipping lately. I can't find the energy to hide the heavy weight of survival and its effect on me. I'm exhausted all the time from the effort of just making it through the day.

This depression has made a mockery of my memory. It's in tatters. I have no good memories to sustain me. My past is gone. My present is horrid. My future looks like more of the same. In a way, I'm a man without time. Certainly, there's no meaning in my life. What meaning can there be without even a millisecond of joy? Ah, scratch that. Let's even put aside joy and shoot for lower. How about a moment of being content? Nope. Not a chance.

I see other people, normal people, who can enjoy themselves. I hear people laughing at something on TV. It makes me cock my head and wonder what that's like. I'm sure at sometime in my past, I had to have had a wonderful belly laugh. I must have laughed so hard once or twice that my face hurt. Those memories are gone though. Now, the whole concept of "funny" is dead. I stopped going to movies ~ Ahmed Abdelazeem

She was kind to dogs, faithful to friends, generosity itself to a dozen starving poets, had a passion for poetry. But love, as the male novelists defined it, had nothing whatever to do with kindness, fidelity, generosity, or poetry. Love is slipping off one's petticoat and
But we all know what love is. ~ Virginia Woolf

I love you, Terese. I always will." Something changed. I could see it in her body language. A stiffening of the spine maybe. The best friend was slipping away. An adversary was coming to the surface. ~ Harlan Coben

Charlie glared at the puppet. "I'm really mad."
"Sure you are. Super mad." Leo circled his head one way and then the other. "I've got an idea."
"What?"
"Tell him how mad you are. Then look really pitiful and ask him to take you Boogie-boarding. If you look pitiful enough, I bet he'll feel so bad that he'll take you."
Charlie wasn't born yesterday. He looked past Leo to the man holding him. "Really! Can we go right now?"
His father set Leo aside and shrugged. "The waves look good. Why not? Get your stuff."
Charlie jumped up, and raced toward the house. His legs pumping. But just as he got to the front step, he stopped and whipped around. "I get to drive!"
"No you don't!" his mother countered, slipping Scamp from her arm.
Charlie stomped inside, and his father laughed. "I love that kid. ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I was born, slipping on a symphony of broken melancholy; created of pencils and crayons; i was not supposed to be this way. i guess i am a "disappointment". i paint and draw. i like to write poetry. The things I excel at could fit inside my shoe." Excerpt from the poem,"Pain"written in 1995, by E.H. Cato(my maiden name) featured in Volume 2 of the Rantings & Ravings Series, 2013. ~ Emily H. Sturgill

Time is the only commodity that is irreplaceable: invest it, share it, spend it...but never waste it. ~ Tracy Sherwood

As hipster chicks age, and their skin starts to sag, tramp stamps sink below waistbands, like the sun slipping into the sea ... ~ Dana Gould

The only real thing was her phone, alive and moving in her pocket, where her friends' reassurances built up. Every so often she looked down at it, the corner of a glowing screen peeking out of her pocket, and felt herself slipping inside that digital place they had together, where the world was made out of words and everything was safe. ~ Riley Redgate

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues. ~ Anne Sexton

The first memory I have in the world is of death and tears. That is how I would mark the beginning of my life: the way people mark the end of one. My family had gathered at Papa Joe's house because Mam' Grace was slipping away, only I didn't register it that way. For some reason I thought that it was her birthday. ~ Charles M. Blow

She made one instinctive effort to resist and then yielded, slipping down on to the floor. Not a single word was exchanged. The act was silent and brutal ~ Emile Zola

We like slipping, but not falling; our real anxiety is to be tempted enough. ~ Augustus William Hare

My heart tells me to stop right here, to offer quiet benediction and call it the end. But the truth won't allow it. Because there is no end, happy or otherwise. Nothing is fixed, nothing solved. the facts, such as they are, finally spin off into the void of things missing, the inconclusiveness of us. Who are we? Where do we go? The ambiguity may be dissatisfying, even irritating, but this is a love story. There is no tidiness. Blame it on the human heart. One way or another, it seems, we all perform vanishing tricks, effacing history, locking up our lives and slipping day by day into the graying shadows. Our whereabouts are uncertain. All secrets lead to the dark, and beyond teh dark there is only maybe. ~ Tim O'Brien

Does it hurt here?" he asked, his fingers slipping over the swollen entrance of her sex.
"A little." She leaned back against his arm, her head lolling on the polished wooden rim of the huge porcelain bathtub.
Nick kneaded lightly with his fingertips, as if he could heal her with his touch. "I tried to be gentle."
"You were," she managed to say, her thighs floating apart.
Nick's thick lashes lowered as he stared at the shimmering blur of her body beneath the water. His handsome features were carved with such severity that his face could have been molded from bronze. The edge of his rolled-up sleeve dragged in the water, the velvet turning hot and sodden.
"I won't ever hurt you again," he said. "That's a promise. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Okay," Alec said, slipping off his backpack. "This is it. Let's get ourselves fed and watered up. Then we're going in hot and heavy. ~ James Dashner

He watches the shadows cast by her hands as she sorts through their clothes scattered across the floor. The shape of her arms as she reaches up, slipping his black T-shirt over her head -- like victory. He considers the triumph of this moment, the slick of sweat on his chest. A small clatter, then the sound of a striking match. Her face glows. he reaches for her. She blows the match out, darts across the room, lights another one, glows, blows it out. ~ Suzanne Alyssa Andrew

In the courtyard there was an angel of black stone, and its angel head rose above giant elephant leaves; the stark glass angel eyes, bright as the bleached blue of sailor eyes, stared upward. One observed the angel from an intricate green balcony - mine, this balcony, for I lived beyond in three old white rooms, rooms with elaborate wedding-cake ceilings, wide sliding doors, tall French windows. On warm evenings, with these windows open, conversation was pleasant there, tuneful, for wind rustled the interior like fan-breeze made by ancient ladies. And on such warm evenings this town is quiet. Only voices: family talk weaving on an ivy-curtained porch; a barefoot woman humming as she rocks a sidewalk chair, lulling to sleep a baby she nurses quite publicly; the complaining foreign tongue of an irritated lady who, sitting on her balcony, plucks a fryer, the loosened feathers floating from her hands, slipping into air, sliding lazily downward. ~ Truman Capote

She had acquired some of his gypsy ways, some of his nonchalance, his bohemian indiscipline. She had swung with him into the disorders of strewn clothes, spilled cigarette ashes, slipping into bed all dressed, falling asleep thus, indolence, timelessness ... A region of chaos and moonlight. She liked it there. ~ Anais Nin

For a moment nothing happens. The figure stands still and I stand cold and alive and-
He starts to run. I make my way down the rocks, slipping, sliding, trying to get to the plain. I wish, I think, my feet clumsy, moving too fast, not fast enough, I wish i could run, I wish I'd written a whole poem, I wish I kept the compass-
And then I reach the plain and wish for nothing but what I have. Ky. Running toward me. I have never seen him run like this, fast, free, strong, wild. He looks so beautiful, his body moves so right. He stops just close enough for me to see the blue of his eyes and forget the red on my hands and the green I wish I wore. "You're here," he says, breathing hard and hungry. sweat and dirt cover his face, and he looks at me as though I'm the only thing he ever needed to see. I open my mouth to say yes. But I only have time to breathe in before he closes the last of the distance. All I know is the kiss. ~ Ally Condie

The waiter smiled a polite little waiter's smile. He had almost exhausted his polite little waiter repertoire and would soon be slipping into his role of a rather tight-lipped and sarcastic little waiter. ~ Douglas Adams

analogue tape is notoriously forgiving on transient peaks, applying small amounts of tape saturation (or distortion) on the occasional stray hit, and thereby keeping the transient levels in some degree of order. Of course, in an entirely digital production chain, it's highly likely that these transient peaks have passed through the majority of recording and mixing without any of these pleasant 'non-linearities' slipping in, and therefore the average level is several decibels quieter than a comparable analogue recording. ~ Mark Cousins

If I'd realized how rabid he was to catch me slipping, I wouldn't have added more fuel to his fire by hitting him in the mouth.
Okay. I probably still would have hit him in the mouth. But I wouldn't have done it quite so hard. ~ Jim Butcher

Remember, constantly, that when you talk about 'tense of a subjunctive,' you're not talking about time. You're slipping through degrees of reality. ~ C.J. Cherryh

Magnus remembered a town in Peru whose Quechua name meant "quiet place." He recalled even more vividly being obscenely drunk and unhappy over his heartbreak of that time, and the maudlin thoughts that had recurred to him over the years, like an unwanted guest slipping in through his doors: that there was no peace for such as he, no quiet place, and there never would be.
Except he found himself remembering lying in bed with Alec - all of their clothes on, lounging on the bed on a lazy afternoon, Alec laughing, head thrown back, the marks Magnus had left on his throat very plain to see. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

Sometimes you don't realize how special a place - or a person - really is until until they're slipping away from you. ~ Natalie Lloyd

Dante watched Tess eat the thick, caramel-laced brownie, feeling her pleasure radiate across the small space that separated them on the river-walk bench. She'd offered him a bite, and although his kind could not consume crude human food in anything more than a mouthful, he accepted a small taste of the sticky chocolate confection if only to share in Tess's unabashed enjoyment. He swallowed the heavy, pretty much revolting bit of pasty sweetness with a tight smile.
"Good, huh?" Tess licked her chocolate-coated fingers, slipping one after the other into her mouth and sucking them clean.
"Delicious," Dante said, watching her with his own brand of hunger.
"You can have some more if you want it."
"No." He drew back, shaking his head. "No, it's all yours. Please. Enjoy it. ~ Lara Adrian

In general, when a novel manipulates its material to conform to the pieties of the day, or alternatively to attack those pieties for no other reason than the visibility such an attack will generate, when its literary tropes are all too familiar, its clever prose reminiscent of other clever prose, then the compass needle is slipping away from true north ... When, on the other hand, the author renounces some easy twist, some expected payoff, to take us into territory we didn't expect but that nevertheless fits with the drift of the story, then the novel gains force and conviction. And when he or she does it again, telling quite a different story that is nevertheless driven by the same urgent tensions, then we are likely moving into the zone of authenticity. ~ Tim Parks

She took a second look at him, at his fancy tailored suit. Dark gray with pinstripes. Oh please, like she'd really believe he was a dom at all? "Gabrielle Anderson. Are you sure you're Master Marcus?"
"Why would you think I'm not Master Marcus?" he asked. Well, good grief. She waved a hand at him and kept the duh from slipping out. Just in case he really was Master Marcus. Maybe he hadn't changed yet or something. "The suit? Where are your leathers or latex or ... biker jacket or vest? And black? Did you forget to wear black?"
He stared for a second, as if she'd turned into a drooling idiot, and then simply roared. Deep, full laughter - amazing coming from someone who looked like he should have a stick up his ass. ~ Cherise Sinclair

Do you remember a little phenom called step aerobics? If you do, then you know how crazy it was to take two ninety-minute classes in a row. It's incredible that I didn't die from a blunt injury to the back of my head from slipping on my own pool of sweat. ~ Kathy Griffin

The thing is to be brave and move the audience with you, instead of cater to the lowest common denominator, you know, slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass. You got to move the audience a little further ahead in terms of their appreciation of what is comedy. It's complicated. ~ Mel Brooks

When compared to the fact that he might very well be dead by this time tomorrow, whether he was courageous or not today was pointless, empty. When compared to the fact that he might be dead tomorrow, everything was pointless. It just didn't make any difference. It was pointless to the tree, it was pointless to every man in his outfit, pointless to everybody in the whole world. Who cared? It was not pointless only to him; and when he was dead, when he ceased to exist, it would be pointless to him too. More important: Not only would it be pointless, it would have been pointless all along.
This was an obscure and rather difficult point to grasp. Understanding of it kept slipping in and out on the edges of his mind. It flickered, changing its time sense and tenses. At those moments when he understood it, it left him with a very hollow feeling. ~ James Jones

The Fence or The Ambulance

'Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant:
But over its terrible edge there had slipped
A duke and many a peasant;
So the people said something would have to be done.
But their projects did not at all tally:
Some said, "Put a fence around the edge of the cliff"
Some, "An ambulance down in the valley."
But the cry for the ambulance carried the day.
For it spread to the neighboring city:
A fence may be useful or not, it is true,
But each heart became brimful of pity
For those who had slipped o'er that dangerous cliff,
And the dwellers in highway and alley
Gave pounds or gave pence, not to put up a fence,
But an ambulance down in the valley.
"For the cliff is alright if your careful," they said,
"and if folks even slip or are dropping,
it isn't the slipping that hurts them so much
as the shock down below-when they're stopping,"
So day after day when these mishaps occurred,
Quick forth would the rescuers sally
To pick up the victims who fell off the cliff,
With their ambulance down in the valley.
Then an old man remarked, "it's a marvel to me
that people give far more attention
to repairing results than to stopping the cause,
when they'd much better aim at prevention.
Let us stop at its source all this mischief, cried he.
"Come neighbors and frei ~ Joseph Malines

For our own part, we learned a great deal about the techniques of love, and because we didn't know the words to denote what we saw, we had to make up our own. That was why we spoke of "yodeling in the canyon" and "tying the tube," of "groaning in the pit," "slipping the turtle's head," and "chewing the stinkweed." Years later, when we lost our own virginities, we resorted in our panic to pantomiming Lux's gyrations on the roof so long ago; and even now, if we were to be honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that it is always that pale wraith we make love to, always her feet snagged in the gutter, always her single blooming hand steadying itself against the chimney, no matter what our present lovers' feet and hands are doing. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

You're giving up. You're slipping into being miserable and if you are being miserable, then it's all about you again. But it's not all about you. Love doesn't work that way. ~ David Levithan

The cultural infrastructure was buckling and society's veil of sanity was slipping away, exposing its uncharitable Id. ~ Bobby Adair

Among wolves, when the bitch leavers her pups to go hunting, the young ones try to follow her out of the den and down the path. She snarls at them, lunges at them, and scares the bejeezus out of them till they run slipping and sliding back to the den. Their mother knows that they do not yet know how to weight and assess other creatures. They do not know who is a predator and who is not. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I love you unconditionally, his mom had said, once or twice, when he was younger. That's how parents love. I love you no matter what. People said things like that, without thinking of potential nightmare scenarios or horrific conditions, the whole world changing and love slipping away. None of them ever dreamed love would be tested, and fail. ~ Cassandra Clare

I can't let her stand trial." Her head lolled; she snapped it back. "I have to find ... I need to go ... " She couldn't even lift her weighted arm to her head. "Damn it, Roarke, damn it, that was a tranq." "Go to sleep," he murmured and gently unhooked her weapon harness and set it aside. "Lie back." "Inducing chemicals on unknowing people is a violation of ... " She slipped deeper, barely felt him unbutton her shirt. "Arrest me in the morning," he suggested. He undressed her, then himself, before slipping into bed beside her. "Just sleep now." She slept, but even there, dreams chased her. ~ J.D. Robb

Even as I hold you
I think of you as someone gone
far, far away. Your eyes the color
of pennies in a bowl of dark honey
bringing sweet light to someone else
your black hair slipping through my fingers
is the flash of your head going
around a corner
your smile, breaking before me,
the flippant last turn
of a revolving door,
emptying you out, changed,
away from me.
Even as I hold you
I am letting go. ~ Alice Walker

If things are tough, remember that every flower had to go through a whole lot of dirt to get there. So do not grieve about a bitter experience. The present is slipping by while you are regretting the past and worrying about the future. Regret will not prevent tomorrow's sorrows; it will only rob today of its strength. ~ Barbara Johnson

The tension was slipping away from under his fingers as he touched her, and building everywhere else. A kind of gathering inside her, a concentration of heat. The pressure in her chest was so sudden and strong it made her breath short. The muscles in her stomach began to twist, tighten. Ache.
"My face doesn't have anything to do with what I am."
"Maybe not, but that doesn't take away the pure pleasure of looking at it. ~ Nora Roberts

He didn't know which was worse: that Newt seemed to be slipping already or that Minho - the one who should have been able to control himself - was acting like such a slinthead. ~ James Dashner

He said nothing; there was no expression on his face at all. His eyelids were hooded, and I could almost feel the way he was slipping back, away, into that place that was his alone. ~ Alexandra Bracken

But very quickly I discovered that passing didn't just mean slipping below the surface, it meant being buried alive. I was still me on the inside, trapped in there with all my wounds and fears. But I was no longer me on the outside. ~ Leslie Feinberg

I felt a strange tightness coming over me, and I reacted instinctively – for the first time in a long, long while – by slipping my notebook into my belt and reaching down to take off my watch. The first thing to go in a street fight is your watch, and once you've lost a few, you develop a certain instinct that lets you know when it's time to get the thing off your wrist and into a safe pocket. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Brenna's lorry wasn't parked in the street. The dog was nowhere to be seen. Apparently even Betty had deserted him in his hour of need. The only choice left was a quick and cowardly retreat. "What was I thinking?" he stopped short and clapped a hand to his forehead. "I'm supposed to be helping Aidan ... at the house. Slipped my mind."
As quickly as he could manage, he untangled his arm, gently nudging her hand away, as he might a puppy who was inclined to nip. Down, girl. "Things are always slipping my mind, so I don't suppose he'll be surprised that I'm late. ~ Nora Roberts

A set point is simply a bare-minimum threshold you establish for yourself that you promise you will not go below. A set point differs from a goal. Goals pull you forward, while set points help you maintain what you have. You need both. You can establish set points for anything important to you. And here's a secret: You can use set points not only to prevent or reverse slipping but also to improve over time. ~ Vishen Lakhiani

He believed in nothing. Which is why his departures and his pursuit of the most intense feelings and acts were so radical, so deep and honest. The truth of life was perfectly clear to him. Nothing was made, every new morning was clear. His only challenge was inward. He had not been disillusioned or had some bad experience that he could put it all down to. He had simply seen the world and that was that. And he understood how slippery every moment was and he liked the thrill of it. Slipping from the knowable to the unknown, walking from one street to the next, being different all the time. In one afternoon he could slip from one personality to another. Why not? ~ Dionne Brand

Books. They tumbled from the bleeding sky like wounded birds. The spines snapping open and the pages fanning white. Black letters slipping off the slanted pages and falling, falling to the ground where they ... Shatter. ~ Natasha Mostert

Shadows are where magic comes from. Your dark and dancing self, slipping behind and ahead and around, never quite looking at the sun. Fairyland-Below is the shadow of Fairyland, and this is where magic gets born and grows up and sows its oats before coming out into the world. The body does the living; the shadow does the dreaming. Before Halloween, we lived in the upper world, where the light makes us insubstantial, thin, scraps of thought and shade. We weren't unhappy - we made good magic for the world, sportsmanlike stuff. We reflected our bodies' deeds, and when our brothers and sisters went to sleep, we had our own pretty lives, our shadow loves, our shadow markets, our shadow races. But we had no idea, no idea how it could be under the world with our Hollow Queen. And now we shall never go back. ~ Catherynne M Valente

The night that seemed endless hours before is now slipping through your fingers, ticking by as it falls into the past and pushes you towards the future. ~ Erin Morgenstern