Stung Quotes

Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought. ~ Robert Browning

The men in my life are always like the countries I visit: I fall in love briefly and then move on. I visit, regard the wonders, delve into the history, taste the cooking, peer into dark corners, feel a few moments of excitement and maybe ecstasy and bliss, and then, though I am often sad to leave - or stung that no one insists that I stay - I am on my way. ~ Laura Fraser

But looking at you was nothing like looking at those pictures. When I first saw," he said, looking down at her chest, then up again to meet her eyes, "it hurt, almost a physical pain. Since you finished chemo, you've gotten so strong again. Sometimes I almost forget what you've been through. But seeing your scars, they reminded me of your hurt. How you've been cut apart. What you gave up."

It was important, not keeping herself back from him, putting parts of herself off limits. But it stung when he sank down to brush his lips over the two biggest scars.

"But your scars are beautiful. I mean, I look at them, and I want to kiss, I want to touch, I feel this tenderness for them. You know how when you love someone, when you've been with them a long time and you know all the little lines and curves and planes of their body, how you look at little parts of them - the corner of their mouth, the back of their hand, the little crease where their earlobe meets their jaw - and you can feel like you're in love with that little piece of them? Maybe soon, I'll look at your scars like that. But right now, it's this feeling I've never had for a part of someone's body, before, because they promise me you're well. That you get to live. That we get to have a long life together."

Her love for him was swelling up in her chest, the way it did sometimes, an ache she wanted to hold on to. ~ Varian Krylov

It was the emotional equivalent of being stung in the pride by a jellyfish. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

They could be gone for years, healed over and laid to rest, and then out of nowhere the gun smoke stung my eyes, the wet jungle invaded my nose, and I had to bury them all over again. You could leave a war, but it never left you. ~ Mindy Mejia

A northerner, insensitive in some ways and full of self-righteousness could gravely offend a southerner in a second. The northerner would be giving his general opinion, more than likely unasked for, and all unknowing challenging the southerner's every deeply held belief, not to mention, with sundry looks and expressions, suggesting that the southerner was possessed of numerous flaws of character and person. The southerner was bound to see offense in every suggestion, insult in every difference of opinion, and to act upon his stung pride. ~ Jane Smiley

crystals that stung your ~ Emily Vogel

I don't know. How can you know? I…I'm a monster. When I'm hungry, I might do anything."
"Oh no, of course I couldn't possibly understand you." Violet's shadowed face seemed to be wearing a grim and serious smile. "I know, you woke up one day and found out that you couldn't be the person you remembered being, the little girl everybody expected you to be. You just weren't her any more, and there was nothing you could do about it. So your family decided you were a monster and turned on you." Violet sighed, staring out into the darkness.

"Believe me, I do understand that. And let me tell you - from one monster to another - that just because somebody tells you you're a monster, it doesn't mean you are.

"just now you told me what you did because you want me to stop you from eating Pen. If you were a real monster, you wouldn't have done that, would you?"

Trista's eyes stung, and she wiped strands of cobweb away with her sleeve.

"Idiot," added Violet, for good measure. ~ Frances Hardinge

Don't run away from the gains because it comes with pains. If you ever love to go for the sweet honey, be ready to be stung by a busy bee! Go for it anyway! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die. ~ Richard Hofstadter

You earned him fair and square. He's not mine to take back." He rose to get himself a drink. The peaty odour of scotch flickered up and stung my nose. "I'd like one of those." He looked at me, surprised. "You'll have to go for water." I shook my head. "All right," he said. "I guess you've earned that, too." He handed me the rounded heavy glass, and we sat in silence as the sun retreated. I'd had wine and champagne, but this was different. It made me feel older. ~ Paula McLain

My cousin just died. He was only 19. He got stung by a bee - the natural enemy of a tightrope walker. ~ Dan Rather

With bee-stung lips and bolt-on boobs, ~ Terry Hayes

Ye youths and virgins, when your generous blood Has drunk the warmth of fifteen summers, now The loves invite; now to new rapture wakes The finish'd sense: while stung with keen desire The madd'ning boy his bashful fetters bursts; And, urg'd with secret flames, the riper maid, Conscious and shy, betrays her smarting breast. ~ John Armstrong

Just reason it out. What are the pros and cons with her?"
"Reason! Always with your bloody reason. Do you know what I'm going to enjoy? When you meet your demoness and she shakes to tell your unflappable demeanor. I'm going to laugh when you turn enraged, horns flaring ramrod straight every time she saunters by."
"Noted. Now, begin with the pros."
"Verra well. She's clever, she's brave, and, by all the gods, she's graced in form. And I'm no' going to apologize for being a typical male - I do want the sexiest female I've ever laid eyes on to be mine. I'll admit that I want her on my arm and in my bed. And I want to be smug over having her desire me, too."
"The cons . . ."
"Right back to the witchery. Would you no' be a tad unnerved if your female could unleash the force of an atomic bomb whenever she got nettled with you?"
Rydstrom nodded in commiseration, then said, "Take away the fact that she's a witch - "
"I will be taking away that fact," Bowe interrupted. "Practicing witchcraft is voluntary. I could see to it that she never - "
Out of the blue, a bee stung him. "Damn it," he muttered, slapping it away, then continued, "If I snatched her away from her coven and immersed her with the Lykae - "
Another sting. "Son of a bitch!"
When the odd breeze blew once more, Bowe narrowed his eyes. "The witch." He gazed up at the sky and all around him. "Playing with me again! I'll turn her over my knee for this. ~ Kresley Cole

I'd pretend their words were water and let them roll off my back. Now, I'm nobody's duck, and their words stung a whole lot more than water. ~ Nikki Grimes

I used to have 30 different species of tarantulas, as well as two Australian scorpions that are considered the deadliest in the world. If stung by one, a person would die in 30 minutes. But when I had kids I had to get rid of them, of course. Those were intense! ~ Jonathan Davis

The matches also came into focus: a cheap, bright label, in French. I picked up the box, slid it open, my nose stung by the smell of sulphur. Four matches. I took one, scraped it into life, held it to the oil lamp. A spot of warmth entered the room. ~ Laurie R. King

He rode home with her to New Jersey and she took him into the backyard to look at her father's roses . . . to look at her childhood, to look at what pricked and stung and was difficult to forgive. He looked at the house and the yard and her family . . . And it seemed to her that everything changed. Was forgiven. The ~ Kathleen Collins

Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou, to break into this woman's mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own! ~ William Shakespeare

Home is a damaged word, bruisable as fruit, in the cruel glossaries of the language I choose to describe the long, fearful march of my childhood. Home was a word that caught in my throat, stung like a paper cut, drew blood in its passover of my life, and hurt me in all the soft places. My longing for home was as powerful as fire in my bloodstream. ~ Pat Conroy

I've kept alot of secrets from a lot of people that i never should have, but the ones I kept from myself stung a lot worse than any of those ~ Aric Davis

There was an old man of St. Bees,
Who was stung in the arm by a wasp;
When they asked, "Does it hurt?"
He replied, "No, it doesn't,
But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet. ~ W.S. Gilbert

Self-Exam

Dear audience, please stand if you were raised
By a terrible mother. Okay, okay,

Approximately half of you. So I'd say
That terrible mothers are commonplace.

Just like terrible fathers. So let's mourn
For the children who never knew childhood.

Our grief is justified. Our anger is good.
I won't blame children for childish scorn.

But there comes a day when a broken child
Becomes an adult. On that day, you'll need

To choose between the domestic and wild.
You'll need to escalate war or declare peace.

I tell you this because I'm the kid, mother-stung,
Who became a terrible adult son.

And I'm to blame for that. I made that mess.
Because I am the Amateur of Forgiveness. ~ Sherman Alexie

Standing at the window overlooking the lawn, Jordan and Alexandra Townsende watched the couple heading toward them. "If you'd asked me to name the last man on earth I would have expected to fall head over heels for a slip of a girl, it would have been Ian Thornton," he told her.
His wife heard that with a sidewise look of extreme amusement. "If I'd been asked, I rather think I would have named you."
"I'm sure you would have," he said, grinning. He saw her smile fade, and he put his arm around her waist, instantly concerned that her pregnancy was causing her discomfort. "Is it the babe, darling?"
She burst out laughing and shook her head, but she sobered again almost instantly. "Do you think," she asked pensively, "he can be trusted not to hurt her? He's done so much damage that I-I just cannot like him, Jordan. He's handsome, I'll grant you that, extraordinarily handsome-"
"Not that handsome," Jordan said, stung. And this time Alexandra dissolved in mirth. Turning, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly. "Actually, he rather reminds me of you," she said, "in his coloring and height and build."
"I hope that hasn't anything to do with why you can't like him," her husband teased.
"Jordan, do stop. I'm worried, really I am. He's-well, he almost frightens me. Even though he seems very civilized on the surface, there's a forcefulness, maybe even a ruthlessness beneath his polished manners. And he stops at nothing when he wants something ~ Judith McNaught

Focus on the roses: 'A person who gathers honey will not escape being stung by bees. A person who gathers roses will not escape being scratched by thorns.' The positive things in life also have negative aspects. Keep your focus on the beautiful roses of the world, and the thorns will seem trivial and inconsequential. ~ Zelig Pliskin

Hours later there came a change. It began to grow light in the bus. The greyness outside the
windows turned from mud-colour to mother of pearl, then to faintest blue, then to a bright blueness that stung the eyes. We seemed to be floating in a pure vacancy. There were no lands, no sun, no stars in sight: only the radiant abyss. ~ C.S. Lewis

Talking to her now was like flailing his hands at a storm of hornets. It did nothing, and it stung, and yet he couldn't stop himself. ~ Joe Hill

Crash took a long drag off his cigarette and gave me a smug little smile. He always looked smug. His hair was dyed Kool-Aid green. Maybe that's what he was looking smug about today, despite the fact that it clashed with his olive drab army duster. Or maybe he knew my ass stung with every step I took- either because he was an empath who hot "feelings" about what everyone was experiencing, or because he'd taken it up the ass from Jacob himself. Crash's smirk widened and I looked away. One day I'd probably slap him. And then I'd regret it, because he was probably into stuff like that. ~ Jordan Castillo Price

When the present stung her, she sought her antidote in the future, which was as sure to hold achievement as the dying flower to hold the fruit when its petals wither. ~ Elspeth Huxley

On a day like today I am stung by the splendor of a sudden thought. ~ Robert Browning

All my life they had made choices for me, and I had resented it. Now the choice was mine, and once it was made, I would have no right to blame anyone else for the consequences. Loss of that privilege, to blame others, unexpectedly stung. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

Did you see me disarm Hermione, Harry?"
"Only once" said Hermione stung. "I got you loads more then you got me - "
"I did not only get you once, I got you at least three times - "
"Well if you're counting the one where you tripped over your own feet and knocked the wand out of my hand - ~ J.K. Rowling

Snow. I wondered what it felt like. Aunt Bernette said it could be both soft and hard, cold and hot. It stung and burned when the wind pelted it through the air, and it was a gentle cold feather when it drifted down in lazy circles from the sky. I couldn't imagine it being so many things, and I wondered if she had taken license with her story as Father always claimed. I couldn't stop thinking of it.
Snow. ~ Mary E. Pearson

He held out his hand. As soon as we touched, an electric spark stung my fingertips. I pulled away, shaking my hand. "What was that?" Dastien looked at his hand as if it were a stranger. "I don't know." "I'd say static electricity, but that doesn't quite cover it." I'd felt it in my soul. "No. That was something else. Something more." He ~ Aileen Erin

I have been both praised and criticized. The criticism stung, but the praise sometimes bothered me even more. To have received such praise and honors has always been puzzling to me. ~ Billy Joel

What did she say?" Lauren breathed.
"She told me to check the oil," Nick replied imperturbably.
Despite his outward attitude of total indifference, Lauren couldn't believe that as a younger man he'd been so vulnerable. Surely having his own mother treat him as if he didn't exist must have hurt him terribly. "Is that all she said?" she asked tightly.
Unaware that Lauren was not sharing his ironic humor in the story,he said, "No-I think she asked me to check the air in her tires too."
Lauren had kept her voice neutral, but inwardly she felt ill. Tears stung her eyes, and she turned her face up to the purpling sky to hide them,pretending to watch the lacy clouds drifting over the moon.
"Lauren?" His voice sounded curt.
"Hmmmm?" she asked,staring steadfastly at the moon.
Leaning forward,he caught her chin and turned her face toward his. He looked at her brimming eyes in stunned disbelief. "You're crying!" he said incredulously.
Lauren waved a dismissing hand at him. "Don't pay any attention to that-I cry at movies too. ~ Judith McNaught

One who has been stung by a spider should not go out and kill bees. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I had my fingers buried inside of her, my head rested between her thighs for over an hour and I could still taste her on my tongue. Phina could pretend all she wanted to, but I wasn't about to put up with that shit. I am man enough to admit that it stung a little when it was all over and she ushered me out of her house like I was a vacuum salesman and she had no use for what I was selling. ~ Tara Sivec

Her eyes stung from crying for so long and having some tears dry on them. Her body was weak from the exercise but she did not feel better. While she was crying she had wanted someone, anyone to come and hold her. She had crawled into her closet, hoisted herself up onto the shelf that had duvets and bedsheets and curled herself among those. Now she knew that no hug could erase her pain, no sort of embrace could bind up her heart. She needed a new heart it seemed, her old heart was beyond repair. ~ Roxanna Aliba Kazibwe

The effects of her words stung me, and after she stole away I stood a long while before her looking glass, studying my profile, the line I cut in this world of men and ladies. ~ Patrick DeWitt

You know, my sister and I can't understand what Dawson sees in you. You're just a silly little human." His arm shot out so fast it was a blur, picked up a strand of her hair. "And you're really not even that pretty."
Oh ... oh, that stung more than it should have. Tears burned her eyes as she fought to keep her voice level. "I guess it's a good thing, then. A relationship between us would never work."
His eyes narrowed. "And why is that?"
"Because I'm allergic to assholes. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Some people get easily turned aside from the grandeur of their life-work by pursuing their own grievances and enemies, until their life gets turned into one little petty whirl of warfare. It is like a nest of hornets. You may disperse the hornets, but you will probably get terribly stung, and get nothing for your pains, for even their honey is not worth a search. ~ A.B. Simpson

But, oh, how precious those things were! To look at the sky, breathe the cold wind, have fingers nipped by chill and skin stung red and heart stirred to life, gods, he had been dead until Tristen arrived and asked him the first vexing question, and posed him the first insoluble puzzle, and marveled at hailstones and mourned over falling leaves. What miracles there were all around ... ~ C.J. Cherryh

I'll just be your brother from now on."
he said, looking at her with a hopeful expectation that she would be pleased, which made her want to scream that he was smashing her heart into pieces and he had to stop. "That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
It took her a long time to answer, and when she did, her own voice sounded like an echo, coming from very far away.
"Yes," she said, and she heard the rush of waves in her ears and her eyes stung as if from sand or salt spray. "That's what I wanted. ~ Cassandra Clare

I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart. ~ Mary Oliver

Those who have not been stung will hardly fear a bee the same as those who have. ~ Sara Sheridan

I like big men," she said.
Her voice was raspy, like she had a cold. She came up to me and grabbed my arm. Her fingers hurt the muscles. I could smell her perfume. She came close to me. I thought I knew what she wanted. I tried to kiss her. She jerked away.
"No."
"I'm sorry."
She slapped me. She was strong, my cheek stung. She moved in, swinging both arms. Now she had her fists closed. She hit my arms and my chest. I tried to hold her.
"Hit me!" she said.
It was goddam queer. I held her arms, but she got loose.
She struck my chest.
She said: "Hit me."
I hit her easy on the ribs.
"That's right! That's right!" She hit me a couple of hard blows. Her eyes were wild. She hit me a hard punch on the neck. I hit her in the belly. I heard the breath go out: ouf! It didn't stop her. She kept coming in, punching hard.
I gave her one over the kidneys. She grunted and clinched with me. She bit my arm until the blood came. I slapped her. She put her knee in my groin. It hurt. I lost my balance, grabbed for her, and we both went down. We rolled around on the dirty floor of the shack, both panting. She was hard to hold, and every time she got loose she'd hit or kick or bite me. I got over her, holding her down on the floor. She looked beautiful and wild. She bit my arm again and I slugged her in the ribs. She moaned, and then struggled free. My hand caught in the scarlet shirt. The silk tore to her navel.
"Yes," she said.
I got ~ Jonathan Latimer

It takes strong ears indeed to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship. For it is a healthy love that will risk wounding or offending in order to profer a benefit. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Even the bees I'd swear were sent to protect us in the delicate business of hives and honey are stung to silence by the news that something winged has lost its flight. ~ Kristen Henderson

The sting shot pain all the way to my elbow, causing me to marvel at how much punishment a minuscule creature can inflict. I'm prideful enough to say I didn't complain. After you get stung, you can't get unstung no matter how much you whine about it. I just dived back into the riptide of saving bees. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

On the way out to the car, Philip turns to me. "How could you be so stupid? I shrug, stung in spite of myself. "I thought I grew out of it." Philip pulls out his key fob and presses the remote to unlock his Mercedes. I slide into the passenger side, brushing coffee cups off the seat and onto the floor mat, where crumpled printouts from MapQuest soak up any spilled liquid. "I hope you mean sleepwalking," Philip says, "since you obviously didn't grow out of stupid. ~ Holly Black

You took to the trenches and said: war is more beautiful,
you shall never see my feet again.
I will seek the roads and taverns,
I am the blind poet.
The frowning autumn gives music for colors –
sunset gives me the opulence of roses
and I ask about you. I ask about you
but as a stung man does after something has afflicted his blood.
Peace be . . .
– I do not want your reply. ~ Saadi Youssef

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Where, indeed. Many a badly stung survivor, faced with the aftermath of some relative's funeral, has ruefully concluded that the victory has been won hands down by a funeral establishment - in disastrously unequal battle. ~ Jessica Mitford

It stung this new rejection, but it was also a relief to put an end to the ambiguity and incertitude. I had been deceiving myself the day I decided I could master the art of detachment, or maybe the mistake was to allow things to go on in that vein for as long as they had. ~ Catherine Sanderson

He buried his face in my throat. "Love you." Tears stung my eyes. He said the words so rarely. "Tell me again," I begged, holding on to him. His mouth found mine. "I love you . . . ~ Sylvia Day

I'm loyal to my Clan, Lionpaw told himself. I shouldn't have to prove it. But still, the bitter taste of his lie stung in his throat. ~ Erin Hunter

The butterfly's attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign. ~ Primo Levi

Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so. ~ Laurence Sterne

They returned to the gallery and circled its rim, then went down a short hall. Scrap's tail twitched angrily when they reached Tristan's door: it was shut. Daine grabbed the knob. It stung her hand, making her yelp. "Kit? This ones magicked. Can you do anything?"
Kitten stood on her hind feet and peered into the lock, then whistled two cheerful notes. Nothing happened. She scowled and whistled again, less cheerfully, more as a demand. Nothing happened.
Daine was trying to decide what to do now when the dragon moved back and croaked. The lock popped from the wood to land at Daine's feet, smoking, and the door swung open. Kitten muttered darkly and kicked the lock mechanism aside as she went in. Daine followed, trying not to laugh. ~ Tamora Pierce

He ever offer to walk you home?"
"I've never asked," Cath said quickly. "I've never asked you either."
"That's true," Levi said.
More quiet. More cold.
The air stung Cath's throat when she finally spoke again. "So maybe you shouldn't."
"Don't be ridiculous," Levi said. "That wasn't my point. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Is it because in my soul I'm just as much a murderer? he asked himself. Something remote, but burning, stung his soul. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Frankie had used one (reverently) to wipe his eyes.This specimen was old and soft,monogrammed with a J in the corner. "Makes it interesting," he told me once, after finding a box monogrammed with M for fifty cents at a sidewalk sale. "Was it Max or Michael? Maybe Marco..."
"Here," he said now. "You have lipstick halfway down to your chin."
Humiliated, I scrubbed at my face.
Frankie held out his hand, palm up. "Okay,let's have it." I pulled the tube out of my pocket. "Not really my thing, madam, but since I've seen what happens when you don't use a mirror..." I'm sure it helped that he was holding my face, but he read it like a pro. "You had a mirror."
"I did.I'm hopeless."
"Maybe.Open." He squinted as he filled in my upper lip. "I don't like this."
"The color? I knew it was too pink-"
"Quiet.You'll smear it.The color is fine. Better for Sienna, I'm sure..." He surveyed his handiwork. "I don't like that you're doing this for him."
"Don't start. I told you how nice he was."
"In excruciating detail."
Given, the post-Bainbridge family dinner e-mail to Frankie and Sadie had been long. But excrutiating stung, especially from the boy who'd used every possible synonym for hot in describing his Friday-night bookstore acquisition. No name, just detailed hotness and the play-by-play of their flirtation over the fantasy section. ~ Melissa Jensen

Other kids get white rice, but the food you give us makes it look like we're living a subsistence life."

"I buy white rice for the New Year's Festival," I said, stung. Then, defensively, "I often put barley in your lunch –"

"Which is even more embarrassing, because that means we're really poor."

"What a lucky child you are to say that. You don't know what poor means – ~ Lisa See

You could be stung, but you could also sting back. He believed that sincerely. ~ Stephen King

I'd chosen this spot. We'd tried to get out in the water once, but it was summer and people were everywhere. Even at night, there were bonfire parties and midnight surfers. We'd all snuck out and come here at three in the morning a few weeks ago, but nothing had worked right. It was too hard to concentrate and work to stay afloat offshore. Plus, there were jellyfish everywhere, and once Eli got stung, he refused to go back in. ~ Elizabeth Norris

Shock stung her into a quivering mass of pleasure when he captured one of her hands and fed it down to the velvet-smooth thickness of his penis, then urged her to stroke it between her legs. ~ Michelle Reid

As a child, I once suffered a bad fall that resulted in scratched palms and scraped knees. I remember how badly it stung, the cold air hitting my bleeding wounds; I felt that I couldn't stand up for the pain. Through a veil of tears, I recall a kind hand reaching for me and helping me to my feet. My knees and palms were washed clean, and I remember thinking that for the rest of my life, I wanted to help people stand back up. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The man drew his foot back and kicked Mark in the ribs. Pain exploded in his side and he cried out, unable to help himself. The man kicked him again, this time in the back, right in the kidney. A deep ache washed through Mark, and tears stung his eyes as he cried out even louder. Alec protested. "Stop it, you sorry son of a - " His words were cut off when one of his captors reached down and punched him in the face. "Why are you doing this?" Mark yelled. "We're not demons! You people have lost your minds!" Another kick pierced him in the ribs, the pain unbearable. He balled up, wrapped his arms around himself. Prepared for the continued onslaught, knowing he had no chance of escape. "Stop." The word rumbled through the air from the other side of the fire, the deep, bellowing voice of a man. The men beating Mark and Alec immediately jumped back from them and knelt down, their faces lowered. ~ James Dashner

Give your thanks to the needle that stuck in your finger, to wooden beam that you hit your head, to bee that stung you on your hand, because they taught you something! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Don't trust in
anything that has life, else you'll
lose your life and dive into a bee
hive, and get stung.. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Mammy was soon asleep, leaving Laila with dueling emotions: reassured that Mammy meant to live on, stung that she was not the reason. She would never leave her mark on Mammy's heart the way her brothers had, because Mammy's heart was like a pallid beach where Laila's footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed, swelled and crashed. ~ Khaled Hosseini

I am very scared of wasps; my cousin was stung in the eye once. ~ Missy Elliott

She saw none of them in their natural state. She asserts that though there may be women distinguished as writers in England, there are no ladies who have any great conversational and political influence in society, of that kind which, during the old regime, was obtained in France by what they would call their femmes marquantes2, such as Madame de Tencin, Madame de Deffand, Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse. This remark stung me to the quick, for my country and for myself, and raised in me a foolish, vainglorious emulation, an ambition false in its objects, and unsuited to the manners, domestic habits, and public virtue of our country. I ~ Maria Edgeworth

Then it occurred to her (Elizabeth Keckley) that if Tad (Lincoln's son) had been a colored boy rather than the son of a president, and a teacher had found him so difficult to instruct, he would have been ridiculed as a dunce and held up as evidence of the inferiority of the entire race. Tad was bright; Elizabeth knew that well, and she was sure that with proper instruction and hard work, a glimmer of his father's genius would show in him too. But Elizabeth knew many black boys Tad's age who could read and write beautifully, and yet the myth of inferiority persisted. The unfairness of the assumptions stung. If a white child appeared dull, the entire race was deemed unintelligent. It seemed to Elizabeth that if one race should not judged by a single example, then neither should any other. ~ Jennifer Chiaverini

The air was alive with yellow wasps. We must have stepped on a wasps' nest in a rotten branch as we walked. And while I was running up the hill, my dad stayed and got stung, to give me time to run away. ~ Neil Gaiman

She didn't know how she would survive when every breath stung, every tear burned, and every step took her further from the only man she'd ever loved. ~ Janell Rhiannon

Where are you sleeping?"
A wicked black brow rose. "Why? Are you inviting me into your bed?"
The words stung with their rudeness. Penelope stiffened as though she had received a physical blow. She waited a beat, sure he would apologize.
Silence.
"You've changed."
"Perhaps you should remember that the next time you decide to go on a midnight adventure."
He was nothing like the Michael she had once known.
She spun on her heel, heading into the blackness, toward the place where Needham Manor stood. She'd gone only a few feet before she turned back to face him. He had not moved.
"I really was happy to see you." She turned and headed away, back to her home, the cold seeping deep into her bones before she turned back, unable to resist a final barb. Something to hurt him as he'd hurt her. "And Michael?"
She couldn't see his eyes, but she knew undeniably that he was watching her, listening.
"You're on my land. ~ Sarah MacLean

By maturity, he meant that he learned to control those more youthful impulses, not that he was no longer stung or hurt or angry. It is not that you always know what to do or how to do it, it is that you are able to tamp down the emotions and anxieties that get in the way of seeing the world as it is. You can see through them, and that will see you through. ~ Richard Stengel

What am I going to do?"
"What?"
"I don't have anything else to daydream about. Now what am I going to do?
Hawk felt his gut get tight, his chest swell and something stung his throat.
"I'll find a way to keep you occupied, baby. ~ Kristen Ashley

You don't fucking get it, do you, Sparks?" Out of sheer frustration, Ben thwacked the wall with his hand. Hard. So hard his palm stung. "I love you. I am so goddamned, madly in love with you, I can't see straight." Ben's voice resonated through the offices, echoed in his own ears. "You're the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I imagine before I fall asleep. I dream about you. Every single night. I live to see you, at the office, at home, anywhere. I just need to see your face. Hold your body. Touch your skin. I need you, Mel. More than I need air. You can't walk away from me. You can't love someone else." He gulped in a breath and almost choked on the emotion clogging his throat, so when he spoke again his voice was scratchy, and much, much softer. "I screwed up. I made you choose. And I'm sorry. So desperately, pathetically sorry for that. But I can't let you go. I can't let him have you, because you're mine. You were made for me, like I was made for you. We're two peas in a pod, sweetness. We're the same, you and I. We're meant to be together. ~ Jess Dee

Tallkit shivered. This was only his second sunrise outside the nursery, and his paws pricked with excitement. A light dusting of snow had turned the camp white, frosting the tussocky grass and thick heather walls. The freezing air stung his nose. He fluffed up his fur. ~ Erin Hunter

Negativity is like being stung constantly by a thousand bees. At first it's really annoying, but after a few more stings it becomes toxic. ~ James Jean-Pierre

He was rowed down from the north in a leather skiff manned by a crew of trolls. His fur cape was caked with candle wax, his brow stained blue by wine - though the latter was seldom noticed due to the fox mask he wore at-all times. A quill in his teeth, a solitary teardrop a-squirm in his palm, he was the young poet prince of Montreal, handsome, immaculate, searching for sturdier doors to nail his poignant verses on.
In Manhattan, grit drifted into his ink bottle. In Vienna, his spice box exploded. On the Greek island of Hydra, Orpheus came to him at dawn astride a transparent donkey and restrung his cheap guitar. From that moment on, he shamelessly and willingly exposed himself to the contagion of music. To the secretly religious curiosity of the traveler was added the openly foolhardy dignity of the troubadour. By the time he returned to America, songs were working in him like bees in an attic. Connoisseurs developed cravings for his nocturnal honey, despite the fact that hearts were occasionally stung.

Now, thirty years later, as society staggers towards the millennium - nailing and screeching at the while, like an orangutan with a steak knife in its side - Leonard Cohen, his vision, his gift, his perseverance, are finally getting their due. It may be because he speaks to this wounded zeitgeist with particular eloquence and accuracy, it may be merely cultural time-lag, another example of the slow-to-catch-on many opening their ears belatedly to what the fe ~ Tom Robbins

Tears stung her eyes. She sank her knees next to the sleeping bench and gently raked strands of golden hair from him forehead.
"Don't you die. don't you dare. I forbid it." As if Han Alister had ever listened to anything she said. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

What a nice thing to say," Mom said, standing up a little straighter, as if she'd been watered. Marlena's manners were unpracticed, but she was what Dad would call winning. She was abrupt in a way that I always associate with rude people, but bestowed a kind of brightness on whatever caught her interest---if it happened to be you, nothing felt more sublime. Though when the beam of her attention drifted away, a searchlight scanning the next bit of horizon, it stung. She would have done well in New York, where so many people cultivate that air of intensity cut with indifference. ~ Julie Buntin

Hugo attacked me." Clary tried not to wince as the astringent liquid stung her wounds.
Hugo?" Luke blinked.
Hodge's bird. I think it was his bird, anyway. Maybe it was Valentine's."
Hugin," Luke said softly. "Hugin and Munin were Valentine's pet birds. Their names mean 'Thought' and 'Memory.'"
Well they should mean 'Attack' and 'Kill,'" said Clary. "Hugo almost tore my eyes out. ~ Cassandra Clare

Iain MacGregor," she whispered longingly, looking up. The woods were quiet. Strips of moonlight shone through tree limbs that reached like surreal black fingertips across her vision. A single tear slid down her cheek. She touched her mouth, imagining his kiss.
Taking a small pocket knife out of her cargo pants, she looked about. A mystic had once told her that if she left pieces of herself around while she lived, it would expand her haunting territory when she died. Jane wasn't sure she believed in sideshow magic tricks - or the Old Magick as the mystic had spelled it on her sign. She had no idea what had possessed her to talk to the palm reader and ask about ghosts. Still, just in case, she was leaving her stamp all over the woods.
She cut her palm and pressed it to a nearby tree under a branch. Holding the wound to the rough bark stung at first, but then it made her feel better. This forest wouldn't be a bad eternity.
The sound of running feet erupted behind her and she stiffened. No one ever came out here at night. She'd walked the woods hundreds of times. Her mind instantly went to the creepy girl ghosts chanting by the stream.
"Whoohoo!"
Jane whipped around, startled as a streak of naked flesh sprinted past her. The Scottish voice was met with loud cheers from those who followed him. "Water's this way, lads, or my name isn't Raibeart MacGregor, King of the Highlands!"
Another naked man dashed through the forest after him. "It smells of freed ~ Michelle M. Pillow

Can I be honest with you?" he asked.
"Aren't you always? And brutally so?"
"I never realized you were a woman."
She choked on a laugh of surprise. "Excuse me?"
"Inside my head ... " he pointed, just in case she didn't know what a head looked like. "Inside my memories? You were always a little girl, like Izzy. Just a girl, skipping around, getting into trouble, and mouthing off. I never noticed you'd turned into a woman."
Though the comprehension of the way he viewed her stung like the burn on her hand, she gave his broad chest beneath that worn-out gray Marines T-shirt an understanding pat with her unburned hand. "I know. It happens to the best of us female types."
His big hand came up and captured hers against his chest.
"Annie?"
"yeah?"
His gaze slowly traveled over her face, down to her lips, then back to her eyes. "I'm noticing now. ~ Candis Terry

I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. Beside me, my husband's pulse beats at his throat; in their beds, my children's skin shows every faintest scratch. A breeze would blow them over, and the world is filled with more than breezes: diseases and disasters, monsters and pain in a thousand variations. I do not forget either my father and his kind hanging over us, bright and sharp as swords, aimed at our tearing flesh. If they do not fall on us in spite and malice, then they will fall by accident or whim. My breath fights in my throat. How can I live on beneath such a burden of doom? I rise then and go to my herbs. I create something, I transform something. My witchcraft is as strong as ever, stronger. This too is good fortune. How many have such power and leisure and defense as I do? Telemachus comes from our bed to find me. He sits with me in the greensmelling darkness, holding my hand. Our faces are both lined now, marked with our years. Circe, he says, it will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. They are words you might speak to a child. I have heard him say them to our daughters, when he rocked them back to sleep from a nightmare, when he dressed their small cuts, soothed whatever stung. His skin is familiar as my own beneath my fingers. I listen to his breath, warm upon the night air, and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean it does not hurt. He does not mean we are not frightened. Only that: we ~ Madeline Miller

But you must admit,it's taking up an inordinate amount of your time. Why it's taken us six months to have dinner together."
"Is that all?"
He misinterpreted the quiet response, and the gleam in her eyes.And leaned toward her.
She slapped a hand on his chest. "Don't even think about it.Let me tell you something,pal.I do more in one day with my school than you do in a week of pushing papers in that office your grandfather gave you between your manicures and amaretto lattes and soirees. Men like you hold no interest for me whatsoever,which is why it's taken six months for this tedious little date.And the next time I have dinner with you,we'll be slurping Popsicles in hell.So take your French tie and your Italian shoes and stuff them."
Utter shock had him speechless as she shoved open her door.As insult trickled in,his lips thinned. "Obviously spending so much time in the stables has eroded your manners, and your outlook."
"That's right, Chad." She leaned back in the door. "You're too good for me. I'm about to go up and weep into my pillow over it."
"Rumor is you're cold," he said in a quiet, stabbing voice. "But I had to find out for myself."
It stung,but she wasn't about to let it show. "Rumor is you're a moron. Now we've both confirmed the local gossip."
He gunned the engine once,and she would have sworn she saw him vibrate. "And it's a British tie."
She slammed the car door, then watched narrow-eyed as he drove away. "A British tie ~ Nora Roberts

It occurs to me, lass, that I saved you from a much worse fate than I knew by rescuing you from Dumbarton and from Dougal. He would have made you a terrible husband."
"No worse than most, I expect," she said, still eyeing the crags.
"Nonsense, even I would make a better husband than Dougal, had I any wish yet to marry. You might at least admit that much."
She stiffened, thrusting her plump bosom out enticingly. "I have no desire to marry Dougal, as you ken fine," she said. "Nor do I want to marry you. You are both, albeit in different ways, equally objectionable to me as husbands."
"Now I am stung," he declared, affecting great indignation. "You have made your disapproval of me clear since you were eight years old. But, other than a too-frequent accusation of recklessness, which I dispute, what fault do you find in me?"

So sorely tempted was Lina to list his faults for him that she had to bite her tongue to keep the words from flying off it. ~ Amanda Scott

She faced Chaol. The wind ripped a few strands of hair from her braid, and she tucked them behind her ears.
"No matter what happens," she said quietly, "I want to thank you."
Chaol tilted his head to the side. "For what?" Her eyes stung, but she blamed it on the fierce wind and blinked away the dampness.
"For making my freedom mean something." He didn't say anything; he just took the fingers of her right hand and held them in his, his thumb brushing the ring she wore.
"Let the second duel commence," the king boomed, waving a hand toward the veranda. Chaol squeezed her hand, his skin warm in the frigid air.
"Give him hell," he said. ~ Sarah J. Maas

The jump did not go as planned. My father gashed his head and tore his parachute on the tail of the plane. He hit the water hard and submerged. When he surfaced, his head was bleeding, he was vomiting from swallowing seawater, and he had been stung by a Portuguese man-of-war. ~ George W. Bush

Annabelle's eyes stung as she stared at him, while need and inexhaustible tenderness gathered like an ache in her body. "I realized something," she said huskily, "when I was standing outside the foundry, watching it burn and knowing you were inside." She swallowed hard against the thickness in her throat. "I would rather have died in your arms, Simon, than face a lifetime without you. All those endless years ... all those winters, summers ... a hundred seasons of wanting you and never having you. Growing old, while you stayed eternally young in my memories." She bit her lip and shook her head, while her eyes flooded. "I was wrong when I told you that I didn't know where I belonged. I do. With you, Simon. Nothing matters except being with you. You're stuck with me forever, and I'll never listen when you tell me to go." She managed a tremulous smile. "So you may as well stop complaining and resign yourself to it. ~ Lisa Kleypas

But we were friends all our childhood, a voice said inside her; and that other voice answered coldly, Friends are whom you choose, not the people forced on you by circumstances. And yet she was nearly crying with misery and humiliation and friendlessness, in the hot back seat of the car, while grains of sunlight danced through the fractured roof, and stung her flesh like needles. ~ Doris Lessing

Unwearied, and with springing steps elate, I had conveyed my wealth along the road. The empty sack proved now a heavier load: I was borne down beneath its worthless weight. I stumbled on, and knocked at Death's dark gate. There was no answer. Stung by sorrow's goad I forced my way into that grim abode, And laughed, and flung Life's empty sack to Fate ... ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It's all right, I got off the ship okay. I'm alive," he said again. But his voice sounded different now. "I said I'm alive, Camille. Open your eyes and look at me."
Camille's heart shriveled as her eyelids fluttered open and she saw the ceiling of Monty's shack.
"Camille?" Oscar leaned over her, his calloused hand on her cheek. "Thank God. You've been delirious for nearly an hour."
Tears slipped down her cheeks as the truth stung her with renewed vigor. Her father wasn't alive. He was truly gone. It had been nothing but a hallucination.
"Why are you crying? Does something hurt?" Oscar asked, lightly prodding her arms and then checking her head. She was lying on a cot in front of the blazing stove, blankets covering her. They were scratchy and too heavy. She tried to push them away.
"No." Oscar blocked her arms. "Don't do that."
"Why?" she asked, her throat dry and sore.
Oscar looked apprehensive as he tucked the blankets tightly around her arms and neck. "Your clothes were soaked. You were shivering and flush with fever."
"Had to take 'em off, love," Ira said, coming to the foot of the cot. "You gave us quite a scare. That lump on the back of your head worked you over something nasty."
Camille stared at Ira, then Oscar. The crushed hope of her father being alive withered under the heat of embarrassment.
"You…you removed my dress?" she whispered. Oscar backed away from her, as if he'd just slid his hand over an open flame.
Angie Frazier

In the height of the gusts, in my high position, where the seas did not break, I found myself compelled to cling tightly to the rail to escape being blown away. My face was stung to severe pain by the high-driving spindrift, and I had a feeling that the wind was blowing the cobwebs out of my sleep-starved brain. ~ Jack London

I know you didn't feel them, and when you spoke them they stung you. I know because I know you. I forgive because my heart has not the room to deface you. ~ Coco J. Ginger