Stained Quotes

What shall I say of the gallantry with which these Marines have fought! Of the slopes of Hill 142; of the Mares Farm; of the Bois de Belleau and the Village of Bouresches stained with their blood, and not only taken away from the Germans in the full tide of their advance against the French, but held by my boys against counter attacks day after day and night after night. I cannot write of their splendid gallantry without tears coming to my eyes. ~ James Harbord

The foster home they were leaving was no place to be. The mother, Mrs. Boone, slapped Paris around every time her real daughter did something that called for punishment....After each beating, the daughter, Lisa, would swear she had no clue how her mama got the mistaken notion that Paris was the one who'd smashed a favorite vase, or stained the kitchen tablecloth, or whatever. My name is Paris, not Stupid, Paris would say to herself. ~ Nikki Grimes

My chest clenched as I looked down at the oil-stained asphalt. Here but not. Existing but not living. I knew that feeling. Lived it for several years. Some days it felt like I was still wearing that feeling like a heavy jacket buttoned up too tightly. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

The very falsehood that stained her, was a proof how blindly she loved another
this dark, slight, elegant, handsome man
while he himself was rough, and stern, and strongly made. He lashed himself into an agony of fierce jealousy. He thought of that look, that attitude!
how he would have laid his life at her feet for such tender glances, such fond detention! He mocked at himself, for having valued the mechanical way in which she had protected him from the fury of the mob; now he had seen how soft and bewitching she looked when with a man she really loved. He remembered, point by point, the sharpness of her words
'There was not a man in all that crowd for whom she would not have done as much, far more readily than for him.' He shared with the mob, in her desire of averting bloodshed from them; but this man, this hidden lover, shared with nobody; he had looks, words, hand-cleavings, lies, concealment, all to himself. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Dumbledore reached across to Professor McGonagall's desk, picked up the blood-stained silver sword, and handed it to Harry. Dully, Harry turned it over, the rubies blazing in the firelight. And then he saw the name engraved just below the hilt. Godric Gryffindor. "Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat, Harry," said Dumbledore simply. ~ J.K. Rowling

It is ill to offer God one duty stained with the blood of another. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Just her, just him. Just as it should be; no loss of life beyond their own, no soul stained but hers. It would take a monster to destroy a monster. If ~ Sarah J. Maas

A sunset, almost formidable in its splendor, would be lingering in the fully exposed sky. Among its imperceptibly changing amassments, one could pick out brightly stained structural details of celestial organisms, or glowing slits in dark banks, or flat, ethereal beaches that looked like mirages of desert islands. I did not know then (as I know perfectly well now) what to do with such things - how to get rid of them, how to transform them into something that can be turned over to the reader in printed characters to have him cope with the blessed shiver - and this inability enhanced my oppression. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Once more Jane sat staring at the telephone. This time she was filled with a confidence that was new to her. Stan Crandall. Stanley Crandall. He liked her! He had seen her once, and even though had been rumpled and grass-stained and having a terrible time with Sandra, he liked her well enough to go to the trouble of finding out her name and calling to ask her to go to the movies. Jane smiled at the telephone and gave a sigh of happiness ~ Beverly Cleary

Nathan's mother is thinking about the body of Christ and the wings of angels. Her spirit lightens in the safety, the sanctity, of the church. Dark hair surrounds her pretty oval face. Light from the stained-glass window tints her skin. Nathan thinks about the body of the son of the farmer who owns the house Nathan's parents rented three weeks ago. ~ Jim Grimsley

Suddenly William loomed over him, scowling, snarling and bloody, his suit dirt-stained and ripped. "Do you know. How many strands. Of hair I lost. On my way down?"
Whatever. "Math was never my thing, but I'm gonna say you lost…a lot."
Electric-blues glittered with menace. "You are a cruel, sadistic bastard. My hair needs TLC and you…you… Damn you! I've gutted men for less."
"I know. I've watched you." Paris lumbered to his feet and scanned the rocky bank they stood upon, the crimson ocean lapping and bubbling in every direction. The drawbridge was only a fifty-yard dash away. "Don't kill the messenger, but I'm thinking you should change your dating profile to balding."
Masculine cheeks went scarlet as the big bad warrior struggled for a comeback.
…
"One of these days you're going to wake up," William finally said, "and I will have shaved you. Everywhere."
"Won't make a difference. Women will still want me. But you know what else? What I did to you wasn't cruel, Willy." He offered the warrior a white-flag grin. A trick. A lie. "This, however, is."
He grabbed William by the wrist, swung the man around and around before at last releasing him and hurling his body directly onto the bridge. ~ Gena Showalter

Mother's tenderness toward my younger sisters caused more tears to pool in my eyes. I felt too old to be hugged and caressed by her, yet my body yearned for her touch; at least this once. I couldn't recall the last time she had shared the same warmth with me. The countless months of hardship had created an ocean of distance between us. It would be too awkward to hug her now. I sat across from her with tear-stained cheeks, wondering if she could feel my sadness and if she knew I loved her unconditionally. ~ Jennifer H. Lau

Watchful are the Gods of all Hands with slaughter stained. The black Furies wait, and when a man Has grown by luck, not justice, great, With sudden overturn of chance They wear him to a shade, and, cast Down to perdition, who shall save him? ~ Aeschylus

PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution. ~ Ambrose Bierce

He was generally aware that he had been blessed in her beauty; even in her usual homespun, knee-deep in mud from her garden, or stained and fierce with the blood of her calling, the curve of her bones spoke to his own marrow, and those whisky eyes could make him drunk with a glance. Besides, the mad collieshangie of her hair made him laugh. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Each of us is carving a stone, erecting a column, or cutting a piece of stained glass in the construction of something much bigger than ourselves. ~ Adrienne Clarkson

In fact, since the accident, Mom doesn't love anyone. She is marble. Beautiful. Frigid. Easily stained by her family. What's left of us anyway. We are corpses.
At first, we sought rebirth. But resurrection devoid of her love has made us zombies. We get up every morning, skip breakfast, hurry off to work or school. For in those other places, we are more at home.
And sometimes we stagger beneath the weight of grief, the immensity of aloneness. ~ Ellen Hopkins

If she were Catholic, she could kneel, kneel and bow her head inside a church with brilliant stained-glass windows and streaks of golden light falling over her. Yes, oh yes, she would kneel and stretch out her arms, holding to her Amy and Dottie and Bev. ~ Elizabeth Strout

But nobody writes fairy tales
about the ugly and poems
are not there for the broken
and I will never find myself
in the words of a hymn
nor will any whispered prayer
ever say my name
(which name, which me
am I looking for?)
because I am shouting
at a cross splintered into pieces
by my angry fists, and crying
at the stained glass falling
like killing rain around me. ~ Miriam Joy

Once a heart breaks ... it doesn't just grow back. It's not a lizard's tail. It's more like a huge stained glass that shattered into a million pieces, and it's not going back together. Least not the way it was. You can mush it all into one piece, but that doesn't make it a window. That makes it a pile of broken colored glass. Shattered hearts don't mend and they don't heal. They just don't work that way. ~ Charles Martin

Grace studied her hands as they moved across the meat. They looked much like any others the same age - veined, lined, the backs stained with tea-coloured spots. But they'd felt their way through the past seventy years in unique ways. Much of their work had been to the benefit of others, some not. She'd known them as still, listening hands, but also as hands that moved with urgency and madness. For a while they'd been careful nurse's hands. Then hands that cradled three babies and clapped, tickled and taught in turn. She'd bruised, burnt and cut them; some scars suggested badly. They'd dismissed, beckoned, pleaded over the years, and not always successfully. Their goodbyes were too many to recall. ~ Sally Piper

All dressed up with nowhere to go," said Iko from the doorway.
Cinder spit out the flashlight with a laugh and glanced down at her oil-stained cargo pants. "Yeah, right. All I need is a tiara."
"I was talking about me. ~ Marissa Meyer

She jumped. "You walk like a cat!"
"I am a cat, sweetheart." He wanted to tease her again, so he let a low growl rumble up from his chest. "See?"
Streaks of vibrant color stained her cheeks once more. But she didn't back down. "Are you planning to move?"
"No." He drew in a deep breath, fighting the urge to nuzzle at her throat. "You smell good. Can I taste you?" It was a half-serious question. "Just a little?"
"Mr. Quinn!" She took a step around him and headed off.
But he'd already caught the tart bite of arousal in her scent. Satisfied, he followed, on his best behavior now. It wouldn't do to scare Annie away. Not when he planned to keep her. ~ Nalini Singh

And when wine has soaked Cupid's drunken wings,
he's stayed, weighed down, a captive of the place.
...
Wine rouses courage and is fit for passion:
care flies, and deep drinking dilutes it.
...
Don't trust the treacherous lamplight overmuch:
night and wine can harm your view of beauty.
Paris saw the goddesses in the light, a cloudless heaven,
when he said to Venus: 'Venus, you win, over them both.'
Faults are hidden at night: every blemish is forgiven,
and the hour makes whichever girl you like beautiful.
Judge jewellery, and fabric stained with purple,
judge a face, or a figure, in the light. ~ Ovid

She watched the moon, whose radiance stained with primrose the purple of the surrounding sky. In England the moon had seemed dead and alien; here she was caught in the shawl of night together with earth and all the other stars. ~ E. M. Forster

I hate my body Hate what it remembers. Hate what it let him do. ~ Cheryl Rainfield

The Church cannot be content to live in its stained-glass house and throw stones through the picture window of modern culture. ~ Robert McAfee Brown

The child, who is decked with prince's robes and who has jewelled chains round his neck loses all pleasure in his play; his dress hampers him at every step. In fear that it may be frayed, or stained with dust he keeps himself from the world, and is afraid even to move. Mother, it is no gain, thy bondage of finery, if it keep one shut off from the healthful dust of the earth, if it rob one of the right of entrance to the great fair of common human life. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

The next day, when I came home from the library, there was a small, used red record player in my room. I found my mother in the kitchen and spotted a bandage taped to her arm.
"Ma," I asked. "Where did you get the money for the record player?"
"I had it saved," she lied.
My father lived well, had a large house and an expensive imported car, wanted for little, and gave nothing. My mother lived on welfare in a slum and sold her blood to the Red Cross to get me a record player.
"Education is everything, Johnny," she said, as she headed for the refrigerator to get me food. "You get smart like regular people and you don't have to live like this no more."
She and I were not hugging types, but I put my hand on her shoulder as she washed the dishes with her back to me and she said, in best Brooklynese, "So go and enjoy, already." My father always said I was my mother's son and I was proud of that. On her good days, she was a good and noble thing to be a part of.
That evening, I plugged in the red record player and placed it by the window. My mother and I took the kitchen chairs out to the porch and listened to Beethoven's Sixth Symphony from beginning to end, as we watched the oil-stained waters of the Mad River roll by. It was a good night, another good night, one of many that have blessed my life. ~ John William Tuohy

He watched as Finnikin swung onto the horse, his sleeve stained with blood. Froi liked the way Finnikin reached behind him and took Evanjalin's hand, placing it around his waist. It made everything seem normal because Finnikin always wanted to touch her. ~ Melina Marchetta

Abhinavagupta does not prescribe a hermit's life for that Shiva yogin, who is free to live without restrictions, to remain in the household, and to participate in pleasures of the senses and the mind within the limits of the currently acceptable social standards. In other words, one is free to live a normal life and at the same time to pursue some method of Trika yoga. As soon as the seeker's practice in yoga yields the experience of Self-bliss, worldly enjoyments automatically lose their power and fascination, and one's senses develop a spontaneous indifference, known as anadaravirakti, to former pleasures. Once seekers have become expert practitioners in the experience of Self-bliss, they are able to move freely through worldly enjoyments without any fear of spiritual pollution. Such enjoyments can actually serve to further illumine the extraordinary experience of Self-bliss. As Abhinavagupta explains:

The mind (of a Shiva yogin) does not become wet (or stained) from within, just like the rind of a dried gourd which has no opening, even if it dives deep into the water of sensual pleasures. ~ Balajinnatha Pandita

The white hands of the tenebrous belle deal the hand of destiny. Her fingernails are longer than those of the mandarins of ancient China and each is pared to a fine point. These and teeth as fine and white as spikes of spun sugar are the visible signs of the destiny she wistfully attempts to evade via the arcana; her claws and teeth have been sharpened on centuries of corpses, she is the last bud of the poison tree that sprang from the loins of Vlad the Impaler who picnicked on corpses in the forests of Transylvania.
The walls of her bedroom are hung with black satin, embroidered with tears of pearl. At the rooms four corners are funerary urns and bowls which emit slumbrous, pungent fumes of incense. In the centre is an elaborate catafalque, in ebony, surrounded by long candles in enormous silver candlesticks. In a white lace negligee stained a little with blood, the Countess climbs up on her catafalque at dawn each morning and lies down in an open coffin. ~ Angela Carter

They didn't want to take the crew-cab back to town, because they didn't want to sit where those guys had sat, so they rode the backhoe, as before, Westwood driving, Reacher and Chang face to face above his head, but this time on the dirt road. Which was slow, but more comfortable. They parked in the dealer's lot. The salesman came out. The backhoe was examined. It was a little stained by crushed wheat, and a little scratched on the sides. There was a little dirt caked on. And the front bucket had a dimple, where the bullet had struck. Not new anymore. Not exactly. Reacher gave the guy five grand from their leftover money. Easy come, easy go. Then ~ Lee Child

Bear in mind that the children of life are the children of joy; that the lower animals are only unhappy when made so by man; that man alone of all the creatures, has "found out many inventions", the chief of which appears to be the art of making himself miserable, and of seeing all Nature stained with that dark and hateful colour. ~ William Henry Hudson

i am dead but i know the dead are not like this."

the dead can sleep
they don't get up and rage
they don't have a wife.

her white face
like a flower in a closed window lifts up and
looks at me.

the curtain smokes a cigarette
and a moth dies in a
freeway cash
as I examine the shadows of my
hands.

an owl, the size of a baby clock
rings for me, come on come on
it says as Jerusalem is hustled
down crotch-stained halls.

the 5 a.m. grass is nasal now
in hums of battleships and valleys
in the raped light that brings on
the fascist birds.

I put out the lamp and get in bed
beside her, she thinks I'm there
mumbles a rosy gratitude
as I stretch my legs
to coffin length
get in and swim away
from frogs and fortunes. ~ Charles Bukowski

The carpet would be stained ... so what ? It happens. Shit happens.
And yet, why was it necessary for shit to happen all over the apartment I'd just cleaned? Why couldn't they have shit outside ? ~ Penny Reid

Splatters of mud stained Rothbury's fine lawn shirt, which clung slickly to the broad expanse of his back like a second skin. Having rolled up his sleeves at the onset of his task, his muscled arms were now streaked with mud and rain as were the tall boots and tight black breeches that hugged the sinewy muscles of his long, undoubtedly strong legs.
Her admiring gaze alighted upon his golden-brown hair, which now looked more brown than golden as it was wet with perspiration and mist. A few locks lay plastered to his neck in wispy whorls.
Charlotte suddenly felt overly warm. Seeing him... wet... somehow embarrassed her. It felt dark, intimate. Truly, if it weren't for the mud- and clothes- she rather thought this would be what he looked like after a bath.
A shiver ran down her arms as her eyes drifted to the dewy trails of rain droplets that ran over his slightly bristled jaw and neck, disappearing in the nest of his loosely tied cravat.
And then her hungry gaze raised... and connected with Rothbury's. All thoughts flew straight out of her head.
Looking at her from over his shoulder, he straightened, his smile twisting with arrogance.
Despite the chill in the air, her cheeks felt as if they were on fire. How long had he been watching her in-depth perusal? Long enough, she supposed, if the heated gleam in his eyes was any indication at all.
She blinked, shaking her head hurriedly, hoping by that action she was silently telling him, "No, I defi ~ Olivia Parker

When he mentioned family, I could only think of my father, my real father, the Long Island janitor with the impenetrable accent and true-to-life smells. My mind returned away from what Joshie was saying and I pondered my father's humiliation. The humiliation of growing up a Jew in the Soviet Union, of cleaning piss-stained bathrooms in the States, of worshipping a country that would collapse as simply and inelegantly as the one he had abandoned. ~ Gary Shteyngart

Stained glass, engraved glass, frosted glass; give me plain glass. ~ John Fowles

After every battle, he ritually dips his hood into the blood of his enemies. I've seen the hood, kept under glass in the armory. The fabric is stiff and stained a brown so deep it's almost black, except for a few smears of green.
Sometimes I go down and stare at it, trying to see my parents in the tide lines of dried blood. I want to feel something, something besides a vague queasiness. I want to feel more, but every time I look at it, I feel less. ~ Holly Black

her magenta lips a wolf's stained smile. ~ Janet Fitch

The child inside me wouldn't stop crying. Every time it loses something so important to it. A person or a thing it loves the most, I pretend like nothing happened. But I hear it sobbing helplessly inside me. And the pathetic part of all this is, It neither grows up nor dies. Every time I stand in front of a mirror, it stares at me through my eyes. With its tear-stained face and that intense eyes that rip my ribs apart and the cry of it echoes through every room of my soul. ~ Akshay Vasu

The skull sat on top of an old Stop sign. Someone had painted the surface of the octagon white and written KEEP OUT across it in large jagged letters. A reddish-brown splatter stained the bottom edge, looking suspiciously like dried blood. I leaned closer. Yep, blood. Some hair, too. Human hair.
Curran frowned at the sign. "Do you think he's trying to tell us something?"
"I don't know. He's being so subtle about it. ~ Ilona Andrews

As he observed her in musing silence, a novel thought occurred to him. It slipped through his mind so subtly that it seemed to mingle like smoke with his physical perceptions, with the way the dim light through the stained-glass window fell across her hair in little iridescent rainbows, and the scent of old tobacco and dust lingered in the room. He wondered - absurdly - if this was what she had come for - simply to sit in the stillness and be alive and share it with him.
Something inside, something tiny he hadn't even known was there, seemed to unfold, to spread tentative petals open like a desert flower sensing rain.
She turned and looked up at him, her great unblinking eyes full of forest wisdom. He thought foolishly: Let me stay here. I need this. ~ Laura Kinsale

I nod, trying not to look too hard at the food on his dish. The flakiness of the sugared crust, which reminds me of crystals on an edge of snow. The red-stained berries smeared across the plate, ripe and surely ful of taste. The words I've said cling to my mind like the pastry does to the heavy silver fork. ~ Ally Condie

They got how many trillions of dollars in gold and silver and jewelry and art and real estate and stained glass and they're passing the basket on Sunday so they can get the tomato farmers' donation? ~ Ted Nugent

Waterlilies always come in Buddhist sculpture. The Buddhas all stand on lotus pedestals, because the lotus is grown from the mud. The mud represents the stained world, a dirty world, but growing from the dirt is such a beautiful, pure thing. This is the way the spirit should be. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto

We will be judged according to our ability. The retired couple who count the offering every Sunday, never divulging the amount anyone in the congregation contributes, will not be tested in the same way as the millionaire who wants an inscription on the stained glass window, so everyone will know who donated it. Some of the most severe tests will be given to the [preachers] for the way in which they handled the Word of God. There will be no reward for leading others astray in lifestyle or in doctrine through false teaching. ~ Billy Graham

I'm afraid it will never be perfect again. I am indelibly stained. Forever redefined, but blurred around the edges. ~ Ellen Hopkins

A tear cringed off his cheek and stained her writing on the paper. He didn't wipe it, men must be honest and transparent, they should never wipe their tears. ~ Bruce Crown

Professing to believe has, sadly, played a large role in the practice of religion. It has profoundly stained our understanding of what religion is. Some people seem to profess belief in God "just in case" there is a God. But they neither are committed to nor believe in the idea that God exists. ~ Dallas Willard

Her feet were bare, her mouth stained damson. Her pockets were all full of plums. She was young and lovely and surprised and dead.
She was also blue. ~ Laini Taylor

Her pen had a heart inside, and the nib was a wound in a vein. She stained the page with herself. ~ Amal El-Mohtar

A long hallway, hung profusely with dark, water-stained sporting prints, served as a lobby, in which centuries of sacrificed kippers had left the smell of their smoky souls clinging to the wallpaper. Only the patch of sunshine visible through the open front door relieved the gloom ~ Alan Bradley

Another revolution around the sun and I was still no closer to getting home. Laying on my lumpy mattress in my blood-stained shirt and dusty jeans with my arm over my eyes, I tried to imagine I was lying on Violet's couch. Clara paced in her cell and I let myself believe it was Violet, padding around the kitchen. My memory kicked up the image of her in tiny cotton shorts and a baggy Beatles t-shirt making coffee. My chest swelled and more than ever I wished I could see her face again, hear her voice. ~ Allison Sipe

There is probably no way of explaining Project Koschei, or XK-PLUTO, or MK-NIGHTMARE, or the gates, without watering them down into just another weapons system -- which they are not. Weapons may have deadly or hideous effects, but they acquire moral character from the actions of those who use them. Whereas these projects are indelibly stained by a patina of ancient evil ... ~ Charles Stross

Converts have it soft," said Mary. "They come to it late, without ever having had the Devil under the bed. They sail in and admire the stained-glass windows. All the dirty work has been done. ~ Mavis Gallant

In Dostoevsky illness and death were almost always dirty, impoverished affairs. Crushed beneath wagon wheels, mud, typhus, blood-stained handkerchiefs. And so on. But damned if that weren't preferable to this. Slow disintegration in a polished machine. ~ LINDQVIST JOHN AJVIDE

Raindrops misted the Ridderzal's immense rosette window. Water dripped from the architectural tracery that turned the window into a stained glass cog. It streaked the colored panes of oculi and quatrefoils depicting the empire's arms: a rosy cross surrounded by the arms of the great families all girded by the teeth of the universal cog. ~ Ian Tregillis

Christopher throws dandelion head after dandelion head into his bag. It's getting heavy now and his fingers are stained from the work but there are still so many left to kill. His biggest mistake is giving them names. ~ Brian Martinez

Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one that their parents belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained glass, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity. This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in their religion, often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who follow a different one. ~ Richard Dawkins

And I made a rural pen, And I stained the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every Child may joy to hear. ~ William Blake

January?
The month is dumb.
It is fraudulent.
It does not cleanse itself.
The hens lay blood-stained eggs.
Do not lend your bread to anyone
lest it nevermore rise.
Do not eat lentils or your hair will fall out.

Do not rely on February
except when your cat has kittens,
throbbing into the snow.
Do not use knives and forks
unless there is a thaw,
like the yawn of a baby.
The sun in this month
begets a headache
like an angel slapping you in the face.

Earthquakes mean March.
The dragon will move,
and the earth will open like a wound.
There will be great rain or snow
so save some coal for your uncle.
The sun of this month cures all.
Therefore, old women say:
Let the sun of March shine on my daughter,
but let the sun of February shine on my daughter-in-law.
However, if you go to a party
dressed as the anti-Christ
you will be frozen to death by morning.

During the rainstorms of April
the oyster rises from the sea
and opens its shell -
rain enters it -
when it sinks the raindrops
become the pearl.
So take a picnic,
open your body,
and give birth to pearls.

June and July?
These are the months
we call Boiling Water.
There is sweat on the cat but the grape
marries herself to the sun.

Hesitate in August.
Be shy.
Let your toes tremble ~ Anne Sexton THE SERMON OF THE TWELVE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sometimes I get lonesome for a storm. A full blown storm where everything changes. The sky goes through four days in an hour, the trees wail, little animals skitter in the mud and everything gets dark and goes completely wild. But it is really God - playing music in his favourite cathedral in heaven - shattering stained glass - playing a gigantic organ - thundering on the keys - perfect harmony - perfect joy. ~ Joan Baez

He'd spent the night in the boat. Next to the spaghetti queen.

William glanced at the hobo girl. She sat across from him, huddled in a clump. Her stench had gotten worse overnight, probably from the dampness. Another night like the last one, and he might snap and dunk her into that river just to clear the air.

She saw him looking. Dark eyes regarded him with slight scorn.

William leaned forward and pointed at the river. "I don't know why you rolled in spaghetti sauce," he said in a confidential voice. "I don't really care. But that water over there won't hurt you. Try washing it off."

She stuck her tongue out.

"Maybe after you're clean," he said.

Her eyes widened. She stared at him for a long moment. A little crazy spark lit up in her dark irises. She raised her finger, licked it, and rubbed some dirt off her forehead.

Now what?

The girl showed him her stained finger and reached toward him slowly, aiming for his face.

"No," William said. "Bad hobo."

The finger kept coming closer. ~ Ilona Andrews

I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday School associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could. ~ C.S. Lewis

You're going to start drinking already?" said Nim, her tear-stained face bleak.
"No," said Theo. "I'm going to *continue* drinking. ~ Leigh Bardugo

It's stained and frayed in such distinctive ways, but it's very definitely made out of wool. And now...now it's polyester, which means that I'm not lying on my carpet in my apartment. You have lived up to your reputation Mr Cobb. I'm still dreaming! ~ Saito

Why is patience a virtue?" Spencer shouted over the din of activity as he slid out from beneath the rig with another technician. Their coveralls were stained with oil and grime. "Why can't 'hurry the fuck up' be a virtue? ~ Stephen Knight

The late afternoon sun, trapped beneath a wall of pewter, stained the clouds a yellowish gray, making the sky unusually bright. It felt surreal, as if the horizon had disappeared beyond the hills. She was stranded in a world of glass. ~ Sarah J. Maas

These were the dreams that had carried me from the edge of the daylight world, but they were scorched with humiliation, shackled with thorny vines, stained with the gratuitous blood of gangling youths. I'd beaten them down so many times, throttling them and denying them, smothering them with rules even as I begged them to obey me. ~ Lyra Selene

Go ahead," Apollo said to Luke. "Tell them what it is, since it's obviously hugging material."
Crimson stained Luke's cheeks. "Legend goes that one of the gates to hell is in Stull Cemetery in Kansas."
"Oh, gods," I muttered, remembering where I'd heard this before. "Wasn't that a season finale on Supernatural?" When the boys nodded, my eyes rolled. "Seriously? Are Sam and Dean going to be there? ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Peel your heart like a pomegranate.
Offer it to him, palms outwards.
Say "eat." Watch him come away
stained red by you.
You're in his teeth. He'll kiss you with that mouth. ~ Azra T.

Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every page of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for violation of what Government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our Government the power of defining the divine law. ~ Richard Mentor Johnson

Thank you." A bright blush stained her cheeks. "For last night. For chasing the monsters away…"

"Anytime. It's kind of my job to protect you."

"A job sounds like you're forced."

"Nah," I argued. "Saying it's my job just means it's my identity in a way. You know how people go, 'Hey, I'm Rick. I'm a janitor.'" I smiled. "Now I can say, hey I'm Weston, and I kill monsters on behalf of my very sexy girlfriend so she can sleep at night. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

It is six A.M., and I am working. I am absentminded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. ~ Mary Oliver

This sin-stained planet would have ripped apart at the seams long ago were it not for the restraining hand of God. ~ Joni Eareckson Tada

It's an old church and smells like a museum - in a good way, a survived-lots-of-shit-and-still-standing kind of way. Something about the stained-glass windows works for me too. If I were to get all deep on you, I could say the idea of all those broken pieces being made into something so damn pretty appeals to me. Good thing I'm not that profound. (54) ~ Chevy Stevens

Mestre. Say the word without hissing the conurbated villain, and pitying its citizens. As quickly as they can, two million tourists pass through, or by, Mestre each year, and each one will be struck by the same thought as they wonder at the aesthetic opposition that it represents. Mestre is an ugly town but ugly only in the same way that Michael Jackson might be desccribed as eccentric or a Tabasco Vindaloo flambéed in rocket fuel might be described as warm. Mestre is almost excremental in its hideousness: a fetid, fly-blown, festering, industrial urbanization, scarred with varicose motorways, flyovers, rusting railway sidings and the rubbish of a billion holidaymakers gradually burning, spewing thick black clouds into the Mediterranean sky. A town with apparently no centre, a utilitarian ever-expandable wasteland adapted to house the displaced poor, the shorebound, outpriced, domicile-deprived exiles from its neighbouring city. For, just beyond the condom- and polystyrene-washed, black-stained, mud shores of Marghera, Mestre's very own oil refinery, less than a mile away across the waters of the lagoon in full sight of its own dispossessed citizens, is the Jewel of Adriatic. Close enough for all to feel the magnetism, there stands the most beautiful icon of Renaissance glory and, like so much that can attract tourism, a place too lovely to be left in the hands of its natives, the Serenissima itself, Venice. ~ Marius Brill

I am convinced that poets are toddlers in a cathedral, slobbering on wooden blocks and piling them up in the light of the stained glass. We can hardly make anything beautiful that wasn't beautiful in the first place. We aren't writers, but gleeful rearrangers of words whose meanings we can't begin to know. When we manage to make something pretty, it's only so because we are ourselves a flourish on a greater canvas. That means there's no end to the discovery. We may crawl around the cathedral floor for ages before we grow up enough to reach the doorknob and walk outside into a garden of delights. Beyond that, the city, then the rolling hills, then the sea. And when the world of every cell has been limned and painted and sung, we lie back on the grass, satisfied that our work is done. Then, of course, the sun sets and we see above us the dark dome of glittering stars.

On and on it goes, all the way to the lightless borderlands of time and space, which we come to discover in some future age are but the beginnings or endings of a single word spoken from the mouth of God. Some nights, while I traipse down the hill, I imagine that word isn't a word at all, but a burst of laughter. ~ Andrew Peterson

And the good, good people of the small town of Golgotha, many of them, when they saw the Stained, saw what they did to those they caught up to; they forgot to love their neighbor, forgot to lend a helping hand, forgot to do unto others as they would have them do unto themselves. They ran, ran like animals frightened by the storm. Pushing, shoving, the weak, the innocent, the frail, all falling under their feet. Many of the souls Golgotha called, called to across the desert, across the plains and the oceans and the night sky, many of them were not good people. ~ R.S. Belcher

Paradoxically, the people and state of Japan living on such moral props were not innocent but had been stained by their own past history of invading other Asian countries. ~ Kenzaburo Oe

You'd be surprised just how fast you can close the door on your past. Learn needlepoint. Make a stained-glass lamp. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!
Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever.
Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I wanted very much not to be where I was. In fact part of the trouble seemed to be that where I was wasn't anywhere at all. My life felt empty and unreal and I was embarassed about its thinness, the way one might be embarassed about wearing a stained or threadbare piece of clothing. I felt like I was in danger of vanishing, though at the same time the feelings I had were so raw and overwhleming that I often wished I could find a way of losing myself altogether, perhaps for a few months, until the intensity diminished. ~ Olivia Laing

Shinji slowly fell forward onto his face. Debris bounced up on impact. It took less than thirty seconds for the rest of his body to die. The memento of his beloved uncle
the earring worn by the woman he loved
was now stained with the blood running down Shinji's left ear, reflecting the glow from the red flames of the farm building.
And so the boy known as the Third Man, Shinji Mimura, was dead. ~ Koushun Takami

On this material plane, each living being is like a street lantern lamp with a dirty lampshade.

The inside flame burns evenly and is of the same quality as all the rest - hence all of us are equal in the absolute sense, the essence, in the quality of our energy.

However, some of the lamps are "turned down" and having less light in them, burn fainter, (the beings have a less defined individuality, are less in tune with the universal All which is the same as the Will) - hence all of us are unequal in a relative sense, some of us being more aware (human beings), and others being less aware (animal beings), with small wills and small flames.

The lampshades of all are stained with the clutter of the material reality or the physical world.

As a result, it is difficult for the light of each lamp to shine through to the outside and it is also difficult to see what is on the other side of the lampshade that represents the external world (a great thick muddy ocean of fog), and hence to "feel" a connection with the other lantern lamps (other beings).

The lampshade is the physical body immersed in the ocean of the material world, and the limiting host of senses that it comes with.

The dirt of the lampshade results from the cluttering bulk of life experience accumulated without a specific goal or purpose.

The dirtier the lampshade, the less connection each soul has to the rest of the universe - and this includes ~ Vera Nazarian

Every achievement worth remembering is stained with the blood of diligence and scarred by the wounds of disappointment ~ Charles Swindoll

We can today open wide the history of their administrations and point with pride to every act, and challenge the world to point out a single act stained with injustice to the North, or with partiality to their own section. ~ Robert Toombs

absence
looks like a lake bed flooded with sky
sounds like cotton howling
tastes like tear-stained pillows
smells like churning bile and burnt hair
feels like screaming agony, my heart dying and dying ~ Beth Morey

He swung around. His body, bathed in the first rays of the sun, was stippled
with color like a stained glass saint. ~ Cameron Dane

The lobby of the Nelson Hotel always smells of the river
it's in the pores of the place
but this evening the smell is heavier than usual. It's a smell that makes us think of bad ideas, blown investments, forged checks, deteriorating health, stolen office supplies, unpaid alimony, empty promises, skin tumors, lost ambition, abandoned sample cases filled with cheap novelties, dead hope, dead skin, and fallen arches.
This is the kind of place you don't come to unless you've been here before and all your other options are pretty much foreclosed. It's a place where men who left their families two decades before now lie on narrow beds with pee-stained mattresses, coughing and smoking cigarettes. ~ Stephen King

Even when your heart is blue, I'll safely hold it. I really don't mind these indigo-stained hands. ~ John Mark Green

So it went. Bob was increasingly cynical, leery, uneasy; Jesse was increasingly cavalier, merry, moody, fey, unpredictable. If his gross anatomy suggested a strong smith in his twenties, his actual physical constitution was that of a man who was incrementally dying. He was sick with rheums and aches and lung congestions, he tilted against chairs and counters and walls, in cold weather he limped with a cane. He coughed incessantly when lying down, his clever mind was often in conflict, insomnia stained his eye sockets like soot, he seemed in a state of mourning. He counteracted the smell of neglected teeth with licorice and candies, he browned his graying hair with dye, he camouflaged his depressions and derangements with masquerades of extreme cordiality, courtesy, and good will toward others. ~ Ron Hansen

Tear-stained flops are necessary. They're the gift you give yourself when you're willing to fly. ~ Sara Genn

In the trunk of her car, my mother used to keep a collapsible easel, a clutch of brushes, a little wooden case stocked with tubes of paint, and, tucked into the spare-tire well, one of my father's old, tobacco-stained shirts, for a smock. ~ Jill Lepore

I felt as though the temple curtain had been drawn aside without warning and I, a goggle-eyed stranger somehow mistaken for an initiate, had been ushered into the sanctuary to witness the mystery of mysteries. I saw a phantasmagoria, a living tapestry of forms jeweled in minute detail. They danced together like guests at a rowdy wedding. They changed their shapes. Within themselves they juggled geometrical shards like the fragments in a kaleidoscope. They sent forth extensions of themselves like the flares of suns. Yet all their activity was obviously interrelated; each being's actions were in step with its neighbors'. They were like bees swarming: They obviously recognised each other and were communicating avidly, but it was impossible to know what they were saying. They enacted a pageant whose beauty awed me.

As the lights came back on, the auditorium seemed dull and unreal.I'd been watching various kinds of ordinary cells going about their daily business, as seen through a microscope and recorded by the latest time-lapse movie techniques. The filmmaker frankly admitted that neither he nor anyone else knew just what the cells were doing, or how and why they were doing it. We biologists, especially during our formative years in school, spent most of our time dissecting dead animals and studying preparations of dead cells stained to make their structures more easily visible - "painted tombstones," as someone once called them. Of course, we all knew that life was m ~ Robert O. Becker

I'm sorry,' said Jerott, his eyes elsewhere. What was the attraction here, in God's name? Not the little woman in the stained gown, surely? Or the plain fourteen-year-old who had been so courageous the night Trotty died? ~ Dorothy Dunnett

High overhead, in the reflected glare of arc lamps, one of the unfinished Fuller domes shut out two thirds of the salmon-pink evening sky, its ragged edge like broken gray honeycomb. The Sprawl's patchwork of domes tended to generate inadvertent microclimates; there were areas of a few city blocks where a fine drizzle of condensation fell continually from the soot-stained geodesics, and sections of high dome famous for displays of static-discharge, a peculiarly urban variety of lightning. ~ William Gibson

I loved so many things about him: that his fingers were always stained with paint or charcoal; his casual sense of humor and that he was loyal, to the end - even when I had lied so many times. He pursed his lips, highlighting his high and prominent cheekbones. ~ Rebecca Maizel